Chum

“Again.”

I pull myself up from the ground. I get into my boxing stance, aim a jab squarely for Puppeteer’s jaw, and she flips me, like she had been doing for the past twenty minutes. I land on the floor, sending my arm out to hit the ground with me, and spraying my legs out so that all points of my body hit the mat at the same time. Air exits my lungs along with a loud, barked kiai. “Again,” Puppeteer orders, and I get up, dust myself off, and get back in my boxing stance.

“Again.”

“Again.”

The feeling of the mat against my back and my belly has become familiar, and I pant, looking at the ceiling, trying to catch some air. Puppeteer reaches down with her hand and pulls me up to my feet. “I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that you’re some sort of combat prodigy, but you’re getting better. Good job.”

“Ahoy there, girlies!” comes a low, booming shout from the other end of the gym before I can say anything in response to Puppeteer. Liberty Belle – who I’ve seen in passing maybe once in the past two weeks outside of our initial meeting – strides into the gymnasium, fully armored and dressed for patrol. “How goes our newest recruit?”

I stiffen up and salute like an army recruit, which makes her laugh, and that makes me feel like I’m getting a good grade in this social interaction. “At ease, soldier,” she says, reaching across and patting me on the head twice.

“Everything’s fine!” I shout, forgetting for a moment to regulate my voice. “I mean. We’re good. All good, Miss Liberty Belle, sir. Ma’am.”

I hear Puppeteer giggling to my right and shoot her a dagger-like, scornful look that’s only about 90% in jest. “She’s doing perfectly fine. Hard worker, extremely stubborn. Honestly, I’m getting more worn out of throwing her than I think she is of getting thrown.”

I fold my arms over my chest and try to look proud of myself. “It’s getting easier. Just a little bit. I did think I’d be training more with you, ma’am, but I totally understand if you’re busy.”

Liberty Belle gives me a little thump on the chest and I go stumbling back three paces. “You know, normally, I would. I personally trained Pup here and got a couple licks in with everyone else, but it’s, you know,” she says, sharing a knowing glance with me. In the corner of my eye, I see Puppeteer looking left and right, trying to decipher the unspoken communication happening between the two of us.

I don’t need to be told twice, though. She’s dying, and has to make her preparations. I get it. The fact that Puppeteer doesn’t seem to know, though, concerns me. Is it really that much of a well-kept secret that even Liberty Belle’s direct proteges don’t know? Oh, that means like… your best student. The person you’re specifically grooming to succeed you. “It’s been busy.”

I politely bow a little bit at the waist. “I understand, Miss Liberty Belle.”

She laughs a little bit and gives me another playful shove, sending me back another three and a half steps. “Keep it up, champ,” she says, walking out past us, whistling quietly to nobody in particular.

Once she leaves out the opposite door of the headquarters, Puppeteer wraps some strings around my wrists and hauls me close. A little dangerously close, our noses inches from each other. I try to look anywhere but her eyes, because it hurts to do that, but the only other places available are her lips (ew) and her nose, which makes me go cross-eyed, so I just try to unfocus my gaze and stare past her instead.

“What was that all about?” she asks, clearly a little suspicious.

“What was what all about?”

Puppeteer squeezes my wrist, not enough to hurt, but enough to let me know that she could make it hurt if she wanted to. “There was a look.”

I pull away, yank, and tug hard enough that Puppeteer lets me go and I can finally go back to not looking directly at her face. “You’re imagining things,” I lied, getting back in my boxing stance. “Don’t get distracted now.”

Puppeteer’s laughter seems tinted with an emotion I don’t know how to describe. “Alright, then, pooch. Are you ready to learn how to really take a fall?”

“Hit me,” I bark back, and her strings coil around my shoulders.

“Do you solemnly swear that you will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, under pains and penalty of perjury?”

I’ve never been in a real courtroom before, and it’s honestly more intimidating than all the practice fights I’ve been in. It’s more intimidating than the monkey bars that I’ve still yet to clear successfully. My costume feels exceptionally sweaty under the lights, and the fact that almost everyone else here is in a suit and tie makes me feel woefully silly and underdressed. “I do, sir,” I say after coughing twice, remembering the advice Playback gave me on how to lower my voice half an octave or so while speaking. It strains, but, you know, it’s better than being easily recognizable.

I have black makeup around my eyes and the visible areas of my face, and Gossamer helped me put in some temporary black dye in my hair so I’m a little less recognizable, too. Gale is sitting in the benches, nodding at me, as the man with the suit approaches the part of the court where I’m at – the bench?

“So, Miss Bloodhound – can you please recall where you were on the afternoon of August 13th, 2023?” he asks. I try not to look at the other desk, where the unmasked Mudslide is sitting, staring bullets into me. His eyes are dark and shrunken in his sockets, with deep bags beneath them, and he’s wearing clothes that are a bit nicer than what he had on while robbing the Walgreens. Plaid, at least. I realize I’ve been staring at him, and look away back towards the man asking for my testimony.

“Yes, sir. Well, um, I was out on patrol in Northern Liberties with my team-mate Gale, when I smelled that someone was bleeding quite seriously and it wasn’t, like, within a domestic setting. We went to investigate and came upon Mudslide… um, the gentleman there, holding up a Walgreens. The blood scent was from a hostage of his who had a nosebleed,” I answer, trying to remember the notecards I had been practicing with all morning.

“Can you elaborate on what you mean by ‘smelling someone bleed’? Is that your legally registered metahuman ability?” He asks. The other lawyer, the one that I think is on Mudslide’s team, doesn’t exactly seem thrilled to be here. He’s a little old, with salt and pepper gray hair and jowls that flap around a bit like a dog when he moves, whereas the lawyer that’s interviewing me is a lot younger and nicer looking. Not my type, but he’s pretty nice looking.

“Yes, that’s correct. Um, do I need to prove it for the court?”

He flashes me a reassuring smile. “If there’s a convenient way to do so, it would indeed be beneficial. Can you demonstrate this for us?”

I look around nervously. “There’s, um… Hmm,” I think for a second before calling out every person in the courtroom that’s currently on their period, since I don’t think that would make the judge like me. “There’s a security guard, or what they’re called in a court, back there. Yeah, um, you, sir, with the black hair. Did you have a nosebleed today?”

As all eyes turn, the attorney’s smile widens, his eyes still squarely on me. “Let the record show that Miss Bloodhound identified Mr. Byrd, one of our bailiffs, who has nodded in affirmation.”

“I can also point out every person in the seats who’s on their period, if that helps,” I blurt out. Gale muffles herself while a wave of small chuckles, mostly nervous, works its way through the viewers of the proceedings. The lawyer waves his hand about.

“That won’t be necessary, Miss Bloodhound. Now, with your permission, could you please recount your encounter with, and subsequent apprehension of, Mr. Evan Williams, also known by the nom-de-crime of “Mudslide”, for the court?”

“Man, it kinda sucks that we’re not gonna go to school together anymore.” Kate says, sinking a basketball easily into the rim at our usual cages. She catches it on the second bounce and passes it to me. I kick it up into the air and it awkwardly sails towards the rim, rolling along it before passing in past the net.

“Hey, Northeast isn’t that bad. And we’re still neighbors, ain’t we?” I reply, catching the ball as it gets passed to me again. I kick it, bounce it a little on my knees, and then head it into the net. For a moment, I allow myself the sweet satisfaction of having successfully headed the ball even remotely close to the net, even as it bounces off the backboard and directly at Kate. “It’s not like you suddenly are going to stop hanging out with me, yeah?”

“I guess,” Kate sighs, catching the ball, dribbling it twice, and then passing it over her shoulder. It bounces off the rim, getting it surprisingly close, and bonks her on the head. “Ow.”

“You’re fine,” I laugh, grabbing it before it bounces all the way to the edge of the cages. “Hey, look, we’re still in chatrooms, you still live like three houses down from me. I’m still gonna be your friend if you’re still gonna be my friend. Nothing’s different now except that I’ve got shark teeth, and I’m sure you’ll meet plenty of cool people at Northeast.”

“Yeah, I know!” she grumbles, bouncing the ball twice and then spiking it at me. I catch it and spike it back. She catches it and swishes it into the net without a problem. Then, she gets the ball as it comes down and does it again. “What’s your grandpa say again? I’m just kuh-fetching.”

“Kvetching. The first bit’s one syllable.”

“Yeah, whatever, nerd,” Kate laughs, grabbing the basketball and slamming it against the ground so hard that it goes sailing nearly straight up above our heads. “Wanna play horse?”

It’s not particularly hard for Rampart to lift me, but I am starting to get a little baffled at just how many cats in trees there could possibly be in West Philly. I scramble up into the branches, where a particularly fluffy cat with all the features of an old man stares at me like I’m the second coming of Christ. “You got it, Bee?” he asks, leaning against the tree, fully prepared to catch me on the way down.

As we’ve discovered, Rampart and I make a surprisingly good team in terms of “putting people up high ledges or trees”. Rampart is the tallest of the Young Defenders by a significant amount, and probably the physically strongest, too, while I’m the lightest, albeit not the shortest. Plus, my cleats don’t bother his hands, so it’s no problem for him to boost me all the way up into the branches.

“Ps ps ps ps ps…” I call out to the cat, waving a small piece of ham with one hand while my nails dig into the tree bark with the other. Cleats, as it turns out, are pretty useful for anchoring into trees, which has made me the unofficial Young Defenders specialist at cat rescue (and, on one occasion, hedgehog rescue – I don’t even know how it happened). I glance down at Rampart, looking at him, and he looks back at me before flashing me as supportive of a thumbs up as he can manage. His mask is minimal – a domino mask and a little bit of spray dye to make his hair lighter before going out.

The cat meows at me. It slowly stretches out its limber little limbs onto the nearest branch, extremely tempted by the slice of ham that we borrowed from the nearby Wawa. I click my tongue a couple of times, and it gets close enough that I could, theoretically, reach out and just grab it. Instead, I just put the ham down on the branch in front of me, and it goes for the delicious meat treat, tiny little fangs gnashing holes in the edges. I balance myself on my cleats while the cat quietly nyam-nyam-nyam-nyams away.

I lunge out like a snake and snatch the kitty before it has a chance to back away, scooping it up into my arms and squeezing tightly. “Got you,” I mumble to myself before turning downwards and looking past the leaves towards Rampart, as well as the college student requesting our help. “Got him!”

“Her!” The college student shouts back up at me as I hold the cat just tight enough to prevent her from wiggling out of my grasp. I fully intended to leave the ham there for the Philadelphia squirrels, but the cat has it one hundred percent within her mouth and she refuses to give it up. I don’t force the issue. She can have her treatsies.

“Alright, passing her down now…” I say loud enough to be heard, hooking my legs and elbow around a branch and slowly bringing the cat down for Rampart to grab. He reaches up, takes her out of my hand, and deposits her into the awaiting arms of her owner, who immediately begins peppering her with squeezes and kisses.

“Thanks so much, you two!” they say, beaming at me from underneath their beanie. I shoot them a thumbs up as Rampart helps me down from the tree, digging my cleats into the bark to skid down so I don’t fall and bust my ass on the concrete.

“It’s not a problem. You have a good day!” I say, getting back to my feet and waving them off.

“You know, your Mom-Mom Leah was a lot like you, darling,” Pop-Pop Moe says, standing with me on a surprisingly chilly, overcast day, two days before school starts. It’s not every day I get to go on a trip to New York with Pop-Pop Moe, but given the circumstances, my parents allowed it. They were too busy with their jobs, but I’ve got nothing going on in my life besides superhero training right now, so here we are.

“Really?” I ask, staring over the acres and acres of gravestones. Each one, it seems, has a small pile of stones, or in some cases a very large pile, over top of it. Sometimes, it’s just a couple of pebbles. In Mom-Mom Leah’s case, it’s almost nothing. Pop-Pop Moe reaches into his pocket and pulls out two smooth, polished rocks, each with flat bottoms, handing one to me. He kisses his own and puts it down on top of the flat grave marker that my grandmother is laying beneath, quietly, silently resting. The rest of Mount Zion Cemetery looms over me, an endless sea of headstones in grey and brown and dark, drab colors. “How?”

LEAH SMALL

BELOVED WIFE

MOTHER, AUNT

GRANDMOTHER

JANUARY 3RD, 1945

AUGUST 26TH, 2016

I try extremely hard to feel some sort of emotional attachment to someone whose existence in my memories is minimal at best. I vaguely recall a face, a presence, a warmth, and curly dark hair, but it exists in a haze of nothingness, the childhood void that all early memories go to die in. Still, I take the offered stone, kiss it myself, and gently place it next to the one that Pop-Pop Moe set down.

“She was very much interested in public service… and very much a fighter. Stubbornest woman I’ve ever met. That’s why I married her, I liked my ladies with a little bite to them. I think you’ve got her stubbornness, and her eyes,” he answered, a little twinkle in his smile as he squished me down with his hand on my head. I wince away and he pulls his hand away with a hearty chuckle. “Did you know that you’re named after my grandmother and my father, Samantha, darling?”

“Am I?” I ask in response, folding my arms over my chest to defend from the uncharacteristic august chill. “How so?”

He wraps an arm around my shoulders and I let my head rest on his vest. “Well, my father was named Elijah, which is where your middle name, Elisabeth, comes from. And his mother was named Sofia, from which we get Samantha. They say when you name someone after the departed, you get a little bit of their soul in you, their presence and memory.”

“Why wasn’t I named after Mom-Mom?” I ask, looking down at the stone embedded so thoroughly in the ground.

“I’m glad you asked, sweetie! You see, Mom-Mom Leah was still alive when you were born, so we couldn’t name you after her, because in our tradition, if you’re naming someone after a living person, that’s like saying… hope you die, soon!” he explains, letting out another deep, belly-full laugh, albeit one that has a little bit of bitterness at the end. I’m not so socially inept that I can’t detect it. “But, you know, if you have a little one of your own one day, G-d willing that I live to see the day, I think you should name them after Leah. And if I’m not, maybe you’ll want to name them after me!”

“I don’t think I want you to die soon,” I say, matter-of-factly.

He squeezes me even closer. “Aw, that’s real sweet of you, darling. Believe it or not, I’m very attached to the world of the living. I think I’ll be with you all a while yet.”

The air is thick with silence and cold wind. I hold my necklace with one hand, inhaling air through my nose and exhaling it through my mouth. I try to focus myself, to see if there’s any leaking blood inside my grandfather that I might need to worry about, but I see nothing. The air is free of injuries and the bodies in the ground don’t smell in a way I can detect. I feel a little better and lean into my Pop-Pop a little more while he rummages around in the pocket of his vest.

He pulls out a Tootsie Pop. “These were her favorite, Samantha, darling. If you ever want to come here on your own, you can bring a rock or one of these. Ideally, both,” he explains, leaving it wrapped but gently hammering it down into the soft dirt directly above her gravesite. “Maybe it’ll be a treat more for the birds than for her, but it’s the thought that counts.”

“I’ll try to remember to do that,” I say, squinting my face up to commit it to memory. “What does the Hebrew on her grave marker say, Pop-Pop?”

“Oh, it’s just the same thing as the English, just in Hebrew. What, don’t tell me what you forgot your Hebrew School lessons already, did you, darling?” he replies, slipping into faux-angry Yiddishisms as he speaks, the odd sentence construction a familiar and understandable pattern to me.

“Maybe a little bit. Am I in trouble?”

He laughs the hardest I’ve heard him laugh today, getting my hairband from my wrist and helping to pull my hair into a ponytail. “Are you in trouble, och, Leah, forgive me… What are we gonna do with this ittle meshuggenah?” he lectures me, giving one of my cheeks a loose pinch. I frown and squeeze my arms in front of my chest. “Hey, I’m kidding, kiddo. You wanna go get some pizza? The place I got it from as a kid is still open, and they’re still the best.”

“Mmhmm. That’d be nice.”

“Samantha Small! Do we have a Samantha Small in the classroom?” the teacher asks, waving her pencil around like it’s a baton, or a magic wand, attempting to summon the attention of a class of freshly-minted high school freshmen. I raise my hand, body aching from yesterday’s training, and try not to open my mouth too wide.

Don’t need to freak out any of my new high school desk neighbors… yet. “Present!”