Denise had walked this route home from work for years. It was only a few blocks, but this neighborhood always made her nervous. Her route brought her right to the edge of one of the worst areas in town, and she always kept her guard up here. She kept one hand on her purse and the other on her apartment keys, prepared to use them to gouge a criminal’s face if need be.
Denise got past the bad stretch and relaxed slightly. Soon she was within a block of home. She’d be safe again for another night.
Then the scraggly man stepped from the shadows. He was gaunt, unbathed and unshaven, and looked to have a bad case of meth mouth going. He held a large knife in his hand.
Denise turned to run, and found a large man with a baseball bat when she ran into him. Denise was tiny, and she’d relaxed enough that she’d et the keys go back into her purse. Terrified, and with no weapons on hand, she screamed for help.
The big man spun Denise around, leaving the scraggly man approaching her with the knife. “The purse, baby,” he said. “Shut up, and give us the --”
Then the scraggly man looked behind Denise and up. Terror filled his face. “Shorty! Run!” he screeched, pivoting and running away so fast he got clumsy, dropping the knife.
Before “Shorty” could turn or run, he felt himself hoisted into the air by his hoodie. Then he was placed on an enormous gloved hand, and realized his intended victim was on another, the mate to the one holding him.
A colossal masked face gazed at Denise. “Are you all right, ma’am?” the giantess asked.
Denise was catching her breath. “Yes, Elevator Girl,” the woman said, “No thanks to ‘Shorty’ and his friend.”
“Yeah, “ said Elevator Girl. “Speaking of his friend, let me put you down and pick him up.”
“Shorty” was terrified. On the one hand, he’d had fantasies about being held by a leather-clad giantess, and Elasti-Girl in her current outfit definitely fit the part. But this wasn’t going to end in anything pleasant for him, he knew.
Elevator Girl; had taken exactly two steps, one forward and one to the right, to reach the scraggly man. She picked him up from the street, where he had fallen down in terror. He was struggling, but she was gentle to him. She could afford to be; he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Shorty” tried striking the hand that held him, the left, with his bat. As Elevator Girl put his scraggly partner into her grip with “Shorty,” she said, “Sorry, Short Stuff. The leather glove’s armor means you aren’t doing anything but wearing yourself out.”
With a firm grip on the men, Elevator Girl turned back to their intended victim. “Ma’am, I’ll need to drop these two off at the police station, and for you to file a report there. Can I give you a lift?” She lowered her right hand, flat open, in front of Denise.
Denise smiled. “It’ll be the safest trip I have tonight,” she said and climbed on.
Elevator Girl was glad Denise had agreed to come. It was hard for her to file any report that would hold up in court because she was a masked vigilante in the eyes of the law. To really shut these bad guys down, she needed someone to file the report.
At the station, Elevator Girl let Denise go in first and tell them who was outside while the giantess held onto the two perps. Once officer came out, she turned the would-be crooks over to them, then waved, hit the elevator control to grow even larger and strode away into the night.
“Thank you!” Denise yelled after Elevator Girl. She turned to one of the officers. “Well, I’ll have a story to tell them at work tomorrow night, won’t I?”
Elevator Girl glanced at the tower clock and realized her patrol time was about over. She headed back toward the residential neighborhood where she lived, dialing down her size to be less distracting if anyone saw her striding along. Soon she was near her home and dropped down into the brush behind her house, dropping through the old coal chute to get into the house.
Coming up the stairs, Elevator Girl was met by her mother, Gemma Ross. “Hi, Honey,” Gemma said. “How was patrol?”
“Good,” said Elevator Girl. Taking off her mask to reveal the face of Kellie Ross, she added, “I caught two muggers in the act. “They’re in custody, and the victim’s unhurt and filing charges.”
“Good job,” said Gemma. “Well, it’s almost time for me to leave for the nursing home.”
Kellie nodded. She knew her mom worked the night shift at the nursing home as a certified nursing aide and would sleep during the day while she was at school after watching the morning news.
“Remember, Kellie, you’ve got you martial arts class tomorrow,” Gemma said.
Kellie winced. “Mom, about that,” she said, “I was thinking of dropping the class.”
“What?” Gemma said. “But you’ve always loved the bujinkan.”
:I do, and Sensei’s great,” Kellie said. “But it’s an expense when money’s tight, like it is now, and my heroing is adding a little to that expense.”
“Kellie, you’ve wanted your black belt as long as I can remember,” Gemma said. “and Sensei says you’re one of his best students.”
“Mom, I have superpowers now,” Kellie said. “I took out those two muggers without breaking a sweat. The classes are an unnecessary expense.”
“Not the first time Kellie needs them instead of Elevator Girl, at a time when someone who knows you but doesn’t know your secret is with you,” Gemma countered. “Besides, you said yourself your training helped you defeat your first supervillain, Betty the Brick.
Kellie sighed. “You’re right,” she said.
“And you never know when you’ll need a Plan B, like using martial arts skills,” Gemma said.
“OK, Mom, I’ll stay with the classes,” Kellie said. “I was just trying to help out with the finances, you know.”
Gemma hugged her daughter, flinching slightly at the feel of the leather costume. “I appreciate it, Honey,” she said.
“Oh!” said Kellie. “Speaking of back-up plans, there’s something I need to give you.” She headed into her bedroom, where she kept the instructions for care of the elevator bracelet her late grandpa had given her. From the back of the book she took out a slip of paper. “Put this somewhere safe, she said, handing it to her mother, who had followed her into the room.
“What’s this?” Gemma asked, looking at the paper.
“It’s instructions from Grandpa for a way to call for more super help in the event I need it,” Kellie said. “I figure that, if I need the help that badly, I probably can’t get it myself, and you’re the only one who knows my secret. For those situations, you’re my Plan B.”
Reading the instructions, Gemma looked doubtfully to her daughter. “This will bring help?” she said.
Kellie shrugged. “I don’t get it either, but Grandpa kn ew what he was doing on the rest of this, so it’s worth a try.”
Gemma nodded. She took the paper to the desk in the den and put it in the top center drawer. “Now we both know where it is if we need it,” she said.
“Good,” Kellie yawned. “I really need to get to sleep.”
“And I need to get to work. G’night, Kellie,” Gemma said, kissing her daughter on the cheek and hugging her. “Love you.”
“Love you, too, Mom,” Kellie said. “G’night.”
When it came time for gym class, Kellie got to the locker room as quickly as she could. Ignoring a call of “Hey, Kellie,” from his friend, Jenna, she trotted behind a barrier between Jenna and the girl’s shower.
Once there, Kellie pulled out her gym clothes, laid them out on a bench and, making sure no one was looking, pushed the down button on the elevator bracelet as she stood between the shirt and shorts. Now the size of a bug, she got under the shirt and took off her street clothes, then returned to normal, filling out the gym uniform in the process. She dropped her shrunken street clothes and the bracelet into the bag.
The reason for this process was that, under those clothes, Kellie was wearing the top part of her pink quick-change tights uniform. There was no way to wear the leggings without exposing them during a gym class, but the torso covering, in this case sans sleeves, she could still hide under the gym clothes. But that did no good if anyone actually saw her in the costume. The bracelet needed to be left behind; the PE teacher, Mrs. Schoaff, wouldn’t allow it on during class.
When Kellie came back around the corner, Jenna said, “Wow! That was fast.”
Kellie shrugged. “I didn’t want to take too long. I’m kind of embarrassed with chan ging in front of people these days.”
“Since when?” Jenna said. “You’ve always had a love of showing off how hot your body was, as long as you were decent at the time.”
Kellie shrugged again. “I dunno.”
“That’s all you do any more,” Jenna said. “All I ever get from you is a shrug whenever I ask a question. What’s going on, Kellie? You’re my best friend, and I thought I was yours. We’ve never kept secrets from each other.”
What Jenna said was true. She and Jenna had become close friends when they were in first grade and had remained so ever since. But there were so many things connected to Elevator Girl, whose identity had to remain a secret to protect the ordinary people like Jenna in Kellie’s life, that Kellie just couldn’t tell her friend. It ate the young heroine up inside, but she couldn’t let Jenna know that.
“You know I’ve been dealing with a lot of stuff since my grandpa died,” Kellie said.
What stuff?” Jenna demanded. “Talk to me, Kellie!”
Kellie decided to tell Jenna at least part of the truth. “Look, Jenna, there’s a family secret here that I’m not supposed to tell anyone outside the family, not even you. I hate that, but that’s just how it is.”
Jenna put a hand on Kellie’s shoulder. “OK,” she said, sounding reluctant.
Kellie decided to change the topic. “Have you heard anything about how Kota is doing?”
Jenna’s expression got darker, if that was possible. “He’s having chemo today. He’ll probably be out for at least another day.”
Jenna’s voice sounded very small as she said, “Oh.”
“Doesn’t Dakota have the same kind of cancer your dad had?” Jenna asked.
“No,” said Kellie, a little too quickly. “Kota’s got non-Hodgkins lymphoma. That’s bad, because any lymphoma is bad, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as the brain cancer that took my dad.” Kellie had stopped walking.
“You OK?” Jenna asked.
Kellie nodded. “It still blind-sides me sometimes,” she said. “Dad’s cancer was so aggressive. He was well, and then he went to the doctor because something was wrong, and then he was diagnosed and in five weeks, he was gone. Just like that. So much was undone, incomplete. I’m sorry Kota’s so sick, but at least it’s not like that.”
Kellie still wasn’t walking, and now a tear was running down her right cheek. “Hey,” Jenna said.
“It’s just that, so much has happened in the last five weeks,” Kellie said. “The stuff I’ve found out about my family, the stuff I wish I could share with Daddy. He’d be so proud if he knew the truth about … a family member that I learned, and I hope he’d be proud of me.”
Jenna’s compassion seemed to fade a bit. “That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about, with how weird you are with me lately,” she said. “What kind of dark family secret you can’t tell me about is something your dad would have been proud of?” She walked out of the locker room, leaving Kellie standing there as other students began to mill past her.
Kellie swallowed hard, then walked out of the locker room and almost bumped into Jenna. “I’m sorry,” Jenna said. “You’re still my friend, and I acted like a jerk. If it’s a family secret, it’s a family secret.”
“Forgotten and forgiven,” Kellie said. “I’m not sure I blame you, anyway.”
“Yeah, but piling on after the news about Dakota was really rotten,” Jenna said. “You two used to be really close.”
Kellie smiled slightly, remembering when she and Dakota had been friends in early elementary school. He had become Kota to her, and she was Kel to him. His fraternal twin sister, Lakota, had joined them in what the twins’ mom jokingly called “the Trio of Terror.”
But, in middle school, Dakota and Kellie had drifted apart. Lakota had taken to hanging out with a different crowd than either of them. Now, Kellie and Kota were barely acquaintances, but there was still a special place for him and his friendship in Kellie’s heart.
Mrs. Schoaff had the students go outside. It was a warm day for early autumn, and a great day for the girls to play some softball.
The game was in the third inning when an ungodly noise arose from the opposite side of the school building. Kellie, like everyone else who wasn’t already facing it, turned in the direction of the sound.
Rising a hundred feet in the air was a giant creature made entirely of ice. The noise was coming from its movements, as ice broke and reformed with each action it took.
Mrs. Schoaff was calling for the students to back away from the building, but Kellie knew that what the school needed now was inside. She bolted for the door, hearing the protests of the teacher and fellow students behind her. Right now she wished she’d been able to activate the bracelet’s remote use feature, so she didn’t need to go back after it, but that would take time for her to bond with the bracelet, and enough time hadn’t passed yet.
Mrs. Schoaff was torn between wanting to rescue Kellie from her own fooloshness and protect the students already outside. Ultimately, she chose the latter, if only because she had more students there to protect.
Kellie dashed to the locker room as she heard the creature pounding on the roof of the building. The impact sent her to the floor. She heard the PA system come on, and calls for an orderly evacuation to the back exits of the building. “This is not a drill,” the voice said between blows to the roof.
Kellie grabbed the bracelet and threw off her gym clothes. She pulled the mask from her bag and ran to a door. Growing as she exited, she stepped out into the sunlight and shot up to about 150 feet tall.
The ice monster turned to her and roared, lunging in her direction over the top of the school. Kellie winced as its icy talons penetrated the skin of her arms.
Pulling back, she swung at the monster, and was surprised when her hand passed right through it. It had melted as she touched it and immediately reformed on the other side of her. It could hurt her, but she couldn’t touch it.
Then she realized that her hand was wet. She had touched it, and this might be the way to defeat it.
Kellie took a deep breath. For this plan to work, she’d have to get bigger than she ever had before. But there were lives in danger, and she had to end that danger as quickly as possible.
Hitting the up button, Kellie skyrocketed to about a half-mile tall. She had to be careful to keep from stepping on any people as she grew, but this monster had to be stopped.
With such a rapid change to such a large size, Kellie experienced a moment of vertigo. Fortunately, she kept her footing.
Kellie scooped up the ice monster in her two hands. As big and warm as they were, it immediately melted, but she knew that would only solve the problem for the moment. As soon as she let it go, it would re-form.
Getting all the water in one hand, Kellie popped the ice monster into her mouth. But even that was only one more step in the process. She didn’t want to take any chance of it finding a way to harm her from her internal organs. She swished the creature around in her mouth, mixing in her saliva, and spit it out into a nearby retention pond.
As Kellie hoped, that had done the trick. She watched for nearly a minute, reassuring herself that the creature, now mixed with saliva, wasn’t reforming. Then she hiot the down button, reducing at the front of the school, where no one was. Once she could fit inside and run, Kellie bolted for the locker room, staying a giantess for the moment.
Mrs. Schoaff raced in ahead of the students, calling for Kellie. She found the girl exiting the locker room, with wounds to her arms and wearing a bracelet.
“Kellie!” Mrs. Schoaff said. “Are you all right?”
“I’m a little banged up, but otherwise OK,” she said.
“What the … heck were you thinking?” Mrs. Schoaff said, remembering to clean up her language since she was dealing with a student. “Why di you run back in here like that?”
Kellie held up the elevator bracelet, its controls invisible in the mode she’d set it to. “My grandpa gave me this the day he died,” she said. “I couldn’t let it be destroyed.”
Mrs. Schoaff got down in Kellie’s face. “He wouldn’t want you destroyed over the bracelet, either,” she said. “Remember that, OK? Running back in here was a very foolish thing to do.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Kellie said. “I’ll remember.”
Meanwhile, the young heroine was puzzling about what had happened. Why would a giant ice monster attack a high school?
At home, Kellie watched the 5 O’Clock News to see if there was a story about bwhat had happened at the school. What she saw surprised her.
“Eleven area middle and high schools were attacked by 100-foot-tall ice monsters today, all at the same time,” a pretty young reporter said. “All but one of the attacks stopped simultaneously, when Elevator Girl appeared at Jackson High School and defeated the monster there.”
A cold chill ran down Kellie’s spine. The attack on the school hadn’t been random. Someone had figured out about how young Elevator Girl really was, and had been trying to find out where she went to school. And, while Elevator Girl’s action may have saved lives at every one of the school’s attacked, it had also given whoever was behind the monsters the information they sought. Whoever was responsible now knew that Elevator Girl attended Jackson High.
But who was responsible? Kellie had no idea, and realized she had no way to find out for now. Like it or not, that would be a problem to be solved another day.