groovygamers.com

Donnie goes to pick up Sylvia

Donnie adjusts his tie for the thirtieth time and scubs his clammy hands against the smooth black of his tux pants. His mother keeps glancing over at him, a small smile on her face.

Finally Donnie asks. "What? You keep looking at me me. Is something wrong?"

Her smile fades. "No, honey. It's just.. I never thought I'd be driving you to a homecoming dance is all. You just look so old."

Donnie feels heat creep up his face. "Sorry mom. I'm just nervous."

His mother's face doesn't light up again. "I still don't like this about riding Althea to the dance. I feel like I am lying to Sylvia's parents by driving the two of you to the park to fly off on the back of a big blue lizard with the brain of a hen."

"Althea isn't stupid, mom, and you've met her. She is so excited about this whole dance thing. She will probably fly like and old man, creeping along and saying things like 'Those birds are flying way to fast.' and 'Are you sure you two are okay back there?'

"I just wish your father could have been home to see you off. Damn meetings."

Donnie shared his mother's sentiment. "Me too."

They pulled up in front of the Avery-Vaughn house and Donnie blew a noisy sigh, wiping his hands against his pant leg again. Taking the plastic container with Sylvia's corsaige (sp?), he says. "Here we go!" and steps out of the car heading up to the front of the house. He hesitates st the front door, then rings the doorbell.

Sylvia has always taken a passive attitude toward her wardrobe.  She wears what she's given.  She dresses as she's told.  Were it not for Mitzi and Ethel's fussing with yards of silk chiffon and Ginny's sheer delight in the transformative power of make-up and hairspray, Sylvia would probably have worn something simple.  She would have enjoyed the invisibility of it.

But like a good Barbie, she stands in the living room so as to avoid wrinkles until the doorbell rings, and then she takes those charm-school, heel-toe steps on her borrowed sandals and smiles as she opens the door.

The dress (http://www.voguepatterns.com/item/V2880.htm?tab=evening_bridal_includes_designer&page=3)--and really, at any homecoming, the corsage, the punch, and the boy are just accessories to the dress--is a wash of sapphire translucence, ruched by Ethel the seamstress's limber hands onto the emerging hourglass of Sylvia's figure.  It may not be something Sylvia would have chosen for herself, but all she wanted, really, was a dress.  A blue dress.  A vibrant cerulean blue dress to match the jewel-like scales of Donnie's dragon, Althea.

She almost hugs him, then remembers their obligation to stay unmussed until picture-taking time.  "You look great," she says.  But he always looks great to her.  "Let me get my--"

And then Mitzi swoops in with her camera, clicking away like it's Oscar night.  "Oh, you look terrific, Donnie.  Just adorable."  That might not be the best word with which to coddle a fourteen-year-old's ego, but Mitzi means it.  Adorable.  She takes more pictures.  "Does your mom want to come in for a while?  Are you in a rush to get there?"  Mitzi would be happy to keep them there all night.

Carolyn's there, too, wearing a football jersey.  "Donnie," she says by way of greeting and then gives him a look, a placid smile under a steely gaze.  She's not at all caught up in the froufrou excitement, and having grown up with four brothers, she knows how boys are.

Donnie is speechless at the sight of Sylvia in her stunning dress. "hughaaa-Hi! You look, uh. Wow. Just..wow."

He thrusts out the corsage as if warding off vampires, eyes round. When Mitzi descends on them, he actually relaxes a bit, the electric moment broken. He dutifully smiles and poses for the barrage of photo taking, solemnly shakes Carolyn's hand and promises to have Sylvia back home before she turns back into a pumpkin.

He tells Mitzi that his mom is happy to play chauffeur and would love copies of the pictures, since all she has is Donnie himself.

He carefully applies the bunch of flowers, mixing white, blue and a hint of purple, to her dress. Sylvia notices his hands shake a little bit, and they share a smile at it.

They hold hands as they leave the Avery-Vaughn residence, and with the lights twinkling through the mullioned windows behind them and the old oak tree casting lacy shadows on the front lawn, they'd be picture-perfect if Sylvia weren't carrying a little knapsack with her off hand.  "Change of clothes," she tells Donnie.  "Just in case killer bees attack or someone goes all Carrie on us."

Donnie grins at her. "Man, I wish I had thought of that.."


*****

Althea was, of course, in heaven, and chattered to Sylvia continuously about her dress and how beautiful she looked. Donnie just smiled the whole time and concentrated on maintaining the magical bubble around them to keep the wind from mussing up their clothes and Sylvia's hair

Dinner was posh. The maitre'de led them to a cloth wrapped table that had a beautiful bouquet of flowers as a center piece and napkins folded in the shape of swans. The man smiled serenely and held Sylvia's chair for her and bowed before he left the table. Sylvia suspected that Donnie had either borrowed against future allowance or his mom had slid him some cash, because the menu did not have a single main course dish under $29.95.

At her raised eyebrows at the menu costs, Donnie gave one of his famous shrugs. "I have good memories of this place. It was where Dad took us when he first got the job in Chicago, and again when he got the big promotion. I think he takes mom here occassionally, so it just makes me feel like we have a normal happy family for once."

Dinner was excellent, and Donnie ordered things in a passable french accent, much to the amusement of their server. Afterwards they were contemplating sharing something decadent and perversely chocolate when a particularly loud laugh from the landing below where heir table was made Donnie's eyes go wide. He paled, and Sylvia immediately started looking around for threats. "What's wrong?"

Woodenly, Donnie stood up and walked past a couple of tables to the railing and looked down. Sylvia hurried to follow him and was as surprised as Donnie.

Donald Douglas II was laughing at some witticism of an attractive brunette whom he had his arm around. An open bottle of wine stood on the table, and the remains of their meal was being whisked away. Sylvia looked over at her boyfriend and felt the waves of shock, misery, betrayal and hurt coming off of him. She reached out a hesitant hand to him as she read his intentions. "Donnie maybe we should-"

But the blonde teen shook his head, face flushed with emotion. "No. He needs to know."

Donnie walked back to the table and counted out bills for the check, then took Sylvia's hand and descended to the lower gallery. She hung back, put Donnie pulled her inexorably towards the tble. She saw Don Douglas look up, and his face drains of all humor. He stands immediatelly, dropping his arm from where it had rested around the brunette. He is fit, with the sandy blonde hair that Donnie possessed and the strong masculine face Donnie would some day hopefully achieve. Right now, it was flushed with alcohol or shame.

Donnie, his face closed, says "Dad, this is Sylvia, my girlfriend. You've not met her because you were always working late."  He says the last with heavy emphasis and stares at the brunette net to him, who was looking abck at Donnie with a calculating look. "Sylvia, this is Nadine, Dad's... secretary."

They stood there for a moment in silence, and Sylvia could see Don Douglas trying to formulate something to say.

Donnie took a step forward and said very quietly. "You're a fucking asshole."

Don's face became angry. "Young man-" Donnie interrupted. "No, dad. You don't get to say anything. You don't have the right."

With that, he turns and leaves, clutching Sylvia's hand almost painfully tight. When they get outside, she sees twin tears trickling down his face, and he says "I'm sorry for that."

She uses the corner of her silk stole to blot away the tears.  "It's not your fault," she says, then looks back into the lights of the restaurant.  "Not even your dad thinks it's your fault, probably.  He probably feels like crap.  Or, you know, he could."  She gives up on the wrinkle-free plan and loops her arms over his shoulders, squeezing Donnie as if she could wring the sorrow out of him.

He clutches her, accepting her offer of comfort and compassion.

Sylvia hears faintly the croon of Pip, and almost smells the little dragon's warm leathery scent.

Catching Donnie's father in his infidelity takes some of the giddy edge off homecoming night, but as Donnie and Sylvia leave the South Loop restaurant and head toward Grant Park, the seeming privacy of the after-hours business district lets them recover in a silence that breaks only when they begin to talk not about criminals or school or the anguish of Donnie's home life, but about role-playing games.  Sylvia listens with the pert acuity of a good journalist.  She has a notion that the reason Donnie's room is full of posters and drawings and books of other worlds is because it was his only escape from this one, and while that might not be true anymore, he seems to find talking about these familiar, better-than-real friends comforting.

They walk a few city blocks to the edge of the park, and he seems to catch himself geeking out.  He changes the subject.  "You wanna know something neat about this park?  This whole thing is built on a landfill."

She makes a face.  "You mean, like, dirty needles and oil barrels?"

"No.  After the Great Fire of 1871--"  He seems to take some pride in pulling that number out of his memory.  "--they pushed all the rubble to the lakeshore and just kind of covered it later with grass and stuff.  Althea can fly us along the shore.  You can see the broken chunks of concrete along the water's edge.  I always kind of thought of them as Cadmus's teeth."

She blinks.  "Who is that again?"

"Cadmus, the guy who sowed dragon's teeth and raised an army."

"Oh," she says, feigning erudition.  "See, if you'd said Cadmus's dragon's teeth. . . ."

They walk past the bubble and flash of Buckingham Fountain and meet up with Althea where Petrillo Music Shell and the Art Institute offer some cover.  The cool air, and the Keds Sylvia pulled from her bag, made the walk pleasant.  Sauntering across the grass in formal wear seems like a enchanting prelude to the real magic of climbing to Althea's spine and launching into the sky.

Donnie takes them down the lakeshore, pointing out the jumble of concrete that moonlight whitens to hewn marble, but as they're about to turn inland toward Oak Park, Althea lets out a soft, bassoon-like croon.  "There's a man stuck in the dragon's teeth," she says in her baby voice.

They circle to get a better look.  A man does indeed stand unsteadily at the water's edge, his hands on his head as he faces the water.  Another man stands a few feet away, pistol held in front of him with the casual grip of someone who's familiar with the mechanics of shooting people in the back, and a third man stands on the grass above them, keeping a look-out.  He's not imaginative enough to look to the sky.

Donnie looks over at his shoulder at Sylvia. There is a sudden spurt of adrenaline and a hint of fear, before quickly coalescing into determination. "Well, we sure as hell can't let that happen. I'll have Althea dive and send this field around the guy on his knees. You wanna get into the other two guys' heads?"

Pip materializes on Donnie's shoulder, chiruping at the pair.

Pip peels off of Donnie's shoulder as Althea banks down for a run at the trio. Donnie feels excitement building as the speed towards the tableu. A fierce predetory grin spreads across his face, and his emotions are mirrored by his dragons: the joy of the hunt, the anticipatory relish just prior to pouncing upon one's prey. Sylvia can't help but join in their pleasure of the hunt.

She blinks, remembering her role as they speed near. As quick as thought, trees spring up in a circle around the man on his knees and just as the man on the lookout begins to shout, he is surrounded by a thick, swirling fog. His confused yelling makes the final man spin from the eruption of foliage, and that's when Donnie strikes, sliding off of Althea's dipped head in a rush, Sword of the BorderLord flickering to life in his hand.

It felt like a John Woo movie, action slowed down between heartbeats, bullet time. Donnie, incongruous in his tux and bowtie wielding a ruddy glowing sword, seems to float through the air as he whips the sword upwards, knocking the gun out of the man's hand and slicing off the first joint of his index finger in the process. The gun bucks as he reflexively fires, and the bullet SPANGs! off of the suddenly visible golden bubble of protection. The man screams in pain and terror as Althea roars mightily, hunting cry knocking the man from his feet.

When he comes to seconds later, Donnie is standing over him, sword at his throat, eyes filled with green fire. Near him, looking gorgeous in her deep blue dress and again, completely out of place, stands Sylvia. The second criminal stands near her, staring into the night sky and drooling "Hggklgh.."

Their once victim is standing between them, shaking and wiping the sweat from his brow and beaten face. Sylvia hands him a cell phone, purloined from the lookout (who is utterly lost in a nightmare world, courtesy of the slender, attractive girl standing next to him).

Donnie grins (and in the light, his teeth look pointed). "Evening. We've decided to make a citizen's arrest. I'm thinking kidnapping and attempted murder. I don't want to point fingers (the grin widens) but you might want to wrap up that bleeder until the authorities get here." On his shoulder, Pip tears off the barrel of the silencer from the man's gun and starts chewing noisily.

The man sputters, eyes showing whites in fear. "You-you-You're just kids!"

Donnie pulls the sword back from the man's throat. "Yeah, but we've got responsibilities. Tonight kicking your ass was one of them."

The man next to Sylvia convulses and drops to his knees. Donnie tips an eyebrow back at Sylvia, who shrugs her shoulders.

Minutes later, the sound of sirens fill the night air and red flashing lights can be seen in the distance. The rescued man, dabbing at a split lip and looking quite relieved, offers his hand to Donnie and Sylvia. "Thank you, Thank you so very much. If there's anything I can do.."

Sylvia smiles at him. "Nope, just part of our job, sir. Fighting crime, stopping attempted murders, rescuing kittnes from trees. All in a day's work."

He nods. "Well, you kids better get off to your dance before the cops get here. They'd want to ask questions."

The teenagers wave to him as they clamber on the back of Althea, who was humming contently to herself. She takes a running jump and after the second try, she is airborn.

Sylvia snugs her arms around Donnie, and they both laugh with the giddyness of adrenaline and the feeling of satisfaction from using their powers to stop a horrible crime. They don't talk much on the remainder of the ride, but they are in a sparkling mood by the time they walk into the dance (though they are more than twenty minutes late).