by C. D. Lee
And so stands he calm and childlike,
High in the wind the tempests wild;
O, were I like him exalted,
I would be like him, a child!
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Whenever Gus and Evie start chowing down on hamburgers in a fast-food restaurant it always seems like a matinee showing of The Monster that Devoured Cleveland. I can never understand how the two of them are able to pack it away without inflating like the Hindenburg zeppelin. Gus Sr. is always kicking about his child-support payments, but he shouldn't worry that his ex is getting rich off the sweat of his brow; the grocery bill in our little broken home alone exceeds the yearly expenditures of some of the smaller nations.
"Another cheeseburger?" I wryly asked Gus Junior.
"Yeah, Mom!"
With a shake of my head I passed him another dollar and let him traipse back to the counter for a refill. This summer I expected to spend more time than ever with the kids. I'd gotten through last summer, my first in the body of Eden Blake, by being away whenever possible and largely ignoring the young'uns when at home. What a difference a year makes! I've let myself in for one bad guilt trip, and the excursion down Shame Lane will probably last until they're both old enough to draw pensions. I've vowed to do things differently from now on, just so I can hold my head up high.
That's why my Memorial Day resolution this year was to be a real mom for the entire summer, no matter how much hell my pair of rambunctious pre-teens put me through!
But I have to give credit where credit is due. For two naive kids to survive a year of elementary education without falling victim to a schoolyard shooter or a pusher seems to call for a celebration. Consequently, we had trooped down to the Canoga Park Burger King, where we now sat wolfing down our respective meals with varying degrees of relish.
Gus, having returned and sat down, asked, between noisy swallows: "Mom, how come you and Evie only buy Mantra glasses when we eat at Burger King?"
Before I could open my mouth, his sister jumped in: "I don't either! It's just that I only want glasses with the ultras I've met on them. I've got one of Starburst, and one of Prime, but besides them I don't know any other ultras, and so I only want Mantra glasses. That's because I love her so much!"
The little darling. By last count she already had five Mantra glasses!
"Huh?" said her brother. "When did you meet Prime?"
The little girl suddenly realized that she had misspoken herself and searched my face for a way out. Although Evie had met Prime briefly when he came by our house last winter, we'd kept the visit secret from Gus because we couldn't explain it without also telling him that his mother was the super-heroine Mantra. Fortunately, Prime had showed up after dark and so avoided the neighbors' snoopy stares. I simply couldn't afford to have people asking questions about what goes on in the Blake home. Under that mountain of muscle Prime tends to be about as careless as most kids his age.
I smiled across the table at Evie. She calmed down enough to reply determinedly to Gus's question.
"I didn't actually meet him," she explained. "I only saw him fly by."
Gus's eyes narrowed. "You're lying! You never said you saw Prime before!"
"Gus," I put in, "please, don't call people liars, not unless you know for sure that they are. If you don't believe something someone says it's all right to tell them so politely, but don't go out of your way to hurt people's feelings."
"Well, she didn't see Prime!" the little boy persisted.
"I did so!"
"When?"
"Last February."
"Then why didn't you say something back then?! If I'd seen Prime I'd have told you first thing!"
"I know you would!" his sister jeered. "You'd've bragged about it for a week! But I knew you'd only get mad if I told you and start acting mean to me!"
"I know you're lying! Prime never comes around Canoga Park anymore!"
That was true. Prime's civilian identity was Kevin Green, a fifteen-year-old boy, and his mom had taken him away to New York -- to keep him away from bad influences such as Prime! Now Prime was the talk of the Big Apple -- just about the only notable ultra to settle in that part of the country. That didn't surprise me one bit. I've experienced New York off and on for three hundred years and no sane super-hero would want to live there -- not unless his mother insisted.
"I did so see him!" Evie reiterated. "He must have forgot something and had to come back to get it last February."
"Mom!" Gus bleated with exasperation: "Make Evie stop lying!"
I sighed patiently. "I can't do that, Gus. I saw Prime the same time Evie did, so your sister isn't lying. I wish you could have been there, too, because he's your favorite ultra, but you were late for supper that evening," I explained. Then, recognizing the opportunity for a parental object lesson, I added, "See what happens when little boys stay out after dark instead of coming indoors with their sisters? They miss all the exciting things that happen at home." I immediately received the sour glower that I'd anticipated.
As a tyro parent I had been letting Gus run a little wild. More recently I've tried to hold a tighter rein on him. Los Angeles is a lot more dangerous place to live than where I grew up, which was Dark-Age Gaul. Back then, all people had to worry with were barbarian invaders, a government crumbling under its own waste, corruption, and inefficiency, and rampant banditry. Come to think of it, it was a lot like L.A today!
The boy had begun pouting in earnest. We'd all gone silent all of a sudden, and so I offered a change of subject: "Why don't you have a Mantra glass of your own yet, Gus?"
"I don't want one," he muttered, his scowl unrelieved.
"Why not? Mantra is a very famous ultra, isn't she? In fact, you were in the theater when Mantra made her first public appearance," I reminded him. "It's like you belong to a special Mantra club." I won't say I'm vain, but it always seemed strange that Gus never showed any interest in my flashy alter-ego.
"She's okay, I guess," the gloomy boy replied. "It's just that she's a girl, and so she's not interesting."
I managed not to frown, a useful discipline only acquired with parenthood. Mantra may have a lot going against her, but being uninteresting isn't one of them. Even so, I couldn't get too peeved with Gus; being a little boy myself once, I had gone through my own I-don't-like-girls phase.
"I think you'll be sorry if you don't buy the all ultra glasses, because Burger King won't be selling them forever. When you ask me to, I'll give you one of my Mantra glasses for your collection. But you'll have to get the rest of the super-heroines yourself out of your allowance."
The boy let out the low, throaty noise which I've learned is kid-language for, "Aw, Mom, you're going on about nothing again."
I came at him one more time from another angle: "Gus, I bet that a complete set of Burger King ultra glasses will be worth at least a hundred dollars by the time you're ready for college."
Only now did the lad's frown transmogrify into what looked like thoughtful contemplation. Though this was what I'd been hoping for, I wasn't completely sure I liked it. What do they teach in school these days, to make kids so materialistic and greedy?
He didn't reply, and so I let the conversation hang long enough to drain my glass of Diet Pepsi down to the ice cubes, whereupon I dabbed my lips dry with a Warstrike napkin.
"Mommy," said Evie, touching my arm.
"Yes, darling?"
"Do the ultras earn a lot of money when Burger King sells their glasses for them?"
I shook my head. "Ultras who don't have secret identities -- like Hardcase and Prototype -- get a royalty, I suppose. But the courts say that if an ultra wants to keep his legal identity secret his name and image belong to the public and anybody can merchandize them."
"What does 'merchandize' mean?"
"Merchandizing is when factories put people's names or pictures on lunch pails, note books, glasses, napkins, party plates, backpacks, overnight sleeping mats, and things like that."
"Ohhhh," she murmured, contemplating with new interest the image of Mantra on her wet glass.
What I had told Evie was the law as far as I understand it. In a way it was a pity that I wasn't collecting a royalty, but it was better to remain anonymous in deep cover than to have a fatter bank account; my privacy isn't for sale at any price. Mantra makes just too many enemies to sleep easily at night; even the lesser fry, if they didn't dare nail me directly, could burn down the house in vengeance, or even target the kids, or Eden's mom. It's bad enough that Necromantra knows where I live. Hopefully, I'd killed her when last we met, but I wasn't sure.
"I heard that Hardcase got his powers when he was hit by a bolt of lightning," interjected Gus, running his thumb over the glazed-on hero-figures of the Strangers upon his vessel.
Suddenly there flashed before my eyes an image of Gus standing outside in a thunderstorm holding an aluminum pipe aloft, hoping that a 100,000 amp blast would make a super hero out of him!
"It wasn't ordinary lightning that hit Hardcase!" I informed him very sternly. "If it had been real lightning it would have sent him to the hospital, or even killed him. It was some special kind of energy, one of those strange ultra-things that no one understands, except maybe the ultras themselves."
Sometimes they understand, sometimes they don't. I was put into Eden Blake's body by Archimage because he knew it possessed magical powers, powers potentially greater than his own. These powers seem to operate through the force of my directed will, but I don't know how or why they do, or why Eden's bloodline has been blessed with them. Sometimes I've wondered whether the same "Entity energy" that had empowered Hardcase and the Strangers hadn't also super-charged some forgotten ancestor of Eden's.
"I'd like to be hit by lightning and get super powers," the boy continued to daydream, as if he had heard nothing that I'd said.
I reached out and squeezed his catsoupy fingers. "Just remember, Sluggo, your family loves you just the way you are. Being an ultra doesn't mean that a person is going to be happy all the time. I've read that lots of ultras are actually sad and miserable."
Read about it? I could write my own book on the subject!
"Ahhhh, Mom," he moaned, "you never let me do anything."
"I'm sure not going to let you get hit by lightning, if that's what you mean!"
Putting his lower lip under his incisors, he went moody again. Every boy wants to be a super hero -- or villain. That was normal. How ironic that Gus was descended from Mantra's own bloodline, and yet didn't seem to carry the magical gene -- or at least Necromantra didn't think he did. She was so sure about it, in fact, that she hadn't even tried to murder him the way she'd attempted to murder Evie and Eden.
Anyway, Gus might have been blessed to be the way he was. Most persons who gain ultra powers tend to go bad, opting for careers in robbery or terrorism. Only recently I'd learned how a small twist of fate might have turned me into a greedy, homicidal son-of-a-bitch with black magic for my stock in trade!
"Mom" Gus suddenly whispered with the same intonation he'd used last winter to announce that he'd spilled chocolate syrup on the living room sofa. I met his wheedling gaze suspiciously.
"Yes, honey?" I replied. At first, it had felt a little awkward using those cutesy "motherisms" -- like darling, sugar, sweetie, pumpkin, and gum drop -- without gritting my teeth in embarrassment, but I've been getting the hang of them lately.
For reply, the boy wriggled around to dig into his book-pack, which he'd hung on the chair behind him. While excavating its unplumbed depths, he quickly explained: "Mr. Storch gave me this letter to give you." Now that he'd extracted a bent envelope, he placed in front of me atop a gooey spot of relish.
"Who's Mr. Storch?" I asked, wiping the paper clean with Warstrike's image.
Gus squirmed as he spoke. "He's the vice-principal."
"What's it about?"
"I don't know."
"It can't be a report card," I conjectured. "If it were, you'd never have shown it to me at all!"
"Yes, I would have! I only hid my report card once!"
"That's true," I conceded, "but that 'once' was only two months ago! If someone wants to be trusted, Gus, he has to be honest all the time. Even if a person robs only one armored car people are going to start thinking of him as a criminal. George Washington knew what he was doing when he chopped down that cherry tree and told his father all about it."
Gus leaned forward, protesting, "My teacher said that George Washington never really chopped down a cherry tree, but he did own slaves and got rich by cheating army veterans."
I nodded. "Yes, he did, Dumpling, and that's because nobody's perfect. What you have to remember is that Washington became a very good man later on, and once a person has made up for past mistakes it's not nice to keep harping on them. Don't be so quick to throw stones if you can't be perfect yourself."
Interestingly enough, I'd met General George during the Revolution and had liked him. On the other hand, it irked me that kids in school these days were being taught that America's greatest heroes were all scoundrels. I wasn't born an American, of course, but I'd always respected the U.S.A. -- though it's gotten progressively harder to do so since the 1960's. Lately I'd been a little more protective than ever about America's dignity, seeing as how I'd suddenly become an American myself -- and being the citizen of a country was a totally new experience for me.
"Okay, Gus, let's see what your Mr. Storch has on his mind," I remarked, pulling the folded sheet from the rumpled envelop. Suddenly, out of the blue, an idea struck me: "Better yet, you read it to me, Gus."
I placed the letter in front of him; Gus, shifting uneasily, picked it up, and commenced a slow read: "Dear Mrs. Blake, On behalf of the Can-Can --"
The can-can? Even upside down I could read Mr. Storch's letter better than that. "Canoga Park," I coaxed.
"Canoga Park Teachers' Asso -- Asso --"
"Association."
"Association," he parroted and struggled on. It was tough sledding for him! Any word in he discovered with more than four letters in it seemed come at him like a sumo wrestler.
To tell the truth, I had expected Gus to have a bit of difficulty. I'd noticed him struggling with bottle labels and game instructions from time to time, but I didn't pay much attention, considering all that had been going on in my life over the last year and a half. Also, every time things seemed to be settling down I'd suddenly find myself fighting for my life as Mantra, or for some other person's life. But the deeper I got into this parenting business, the more the little commonplace things showed up on the radar screen as serious problems. This situation is all new to me.
How ironic. Most ultras, like my friends the Strangers, start out as ordinary people immersed in routine, and when they gain super powers they're suddenly thrust into a kaleidoscopic world of battle and danger that makes their heads spin. It was just the opposite with me. I lived a life of battle and rapid change for over fifteen hundred years. Then I gained magical abilities and had to learn to work a day job, try keep a couple kids well-fed and happy, had to deal with the bother and expense of home maintenance and, hardest of all, find a way to live on a sparse budget. I'm not sure I like the change.
But, then again, I'm not sure I don't.
"Gus," I said, trying to brooch the subject gently, "you really sound like you're having a hard time reading that letter. Why is that? You got a 'C' in English last winter. Do all the C-students struggle the way you do?"
He shook his head. "No, Mom! Most of the kids in my class can't read at all!"
I scowled, but not at Gus. Instead, I was remembering what some of the other mothers at work had said about the terrible education that their kids were receiving in public schools.
How widespread was the problem? I looked concernedly at Evie, wondering whether she was also getting short-changed. What could be wrong with their schools? California certainly spends enough money on public education!
When I was growing up, only youths studying for the Church bothered about literacy. Those were days of desperate war and continual danger to our tribe. I wanted to be a warrior, just like the father I hardly knew, not a priest -- and warriors didn't need to read or write. I learned a lot about weapons and wielded them well, but because I didn't shy away from the thick of combat, I had died young and unlettered. That would have been my epitaph, except that Archimage, the wizard to whom I'd lately sworn allegiance, returned my spirit to Earth in the body of another man -- one equally ignorant, alas.
Eventually, though, between sporadic battles with Archimage's enemies, I learned my letters, getting help wherever I could find it, until I had a facility in Latin and Greek, the only important written languages in the Dark-Age West. Unfortunately, that didn't end my need for study. I also had to become literate in some of the new languages encountered in the midst of my subsequent reincarnations. But each language came easier than the last and I gained a lasting appreciation for education, simple soldier though I was. Now, having become responsible for the well-being of a little boy, I didn't want him to be cheated of any opportunity that his single short life might afford him.
I couldn't sit on my hands. I owned it to Eden to act. Besides, it burned me up that Gus's teachers hadn't reported anything about his problem. Probably they hadn't told Eden either, and the last two years of her life had been rough for both mother and son. With young Gus moody and withdrawn because of the divorce and with Eden trying to adjust to single parenthood, little things could easily have been missed. It hadn't been the fault of either one. In fact, as far as I was concerned, the Canoga Park school faculty had purposely deceived me with their "grade inflation" -- as other parents I knew named the prevailing report-card fraud.
What I called it was "lying."
Well, they'd better watch out -- Mantra was going to do something about it!