Three Cheers

‘Mazing Girl had made a mistake.

Well, other then getting the wrong calibre blank bullets the other day - that could be expensive but she could use them in a later episode.

And the fact that she had ordered a really bad sandwich at Pantera Bakery - but that could be educational, and the muffin she had ordered for desert was pretty good. Not great, but pretty good.


No, her big mistake had been stoping.

‘Mazing Girl had just rescued three people from a burning car, and one person on a cellphone from a non-burning car. In a real nasty accident.  No one was dead, but yeah. people were going to be spending time in the hospital. At least one broken leg a lot of burns - yeah.

The irony was abstractly that from a legal standpoint, as ‘Mazing Girl understood, the cellphone guy was not responsible (the non-cellphone car had hit him), despite the fact that driving with a cellphone was illegal. Ahh, she didn’t want to think too much about that.

But afterwards, as ambulances and police arrived at the busy Westwood intersection, well...people came.

They were cheering...screaming.

And she was covered in blood.

Groups of college students and their allies were coming at her.

Well, ‘Mazing wasn’t covered in blood, but she was quite bloody. Humans contain only so much blood, but its more then you think though less then in a Tarantino film. She suspected that if you were to go to a blood bank and gave this amount of blood, you would walk out pale...

She shook her head.

"’Mazing Girl," an awestruck man gawked.

She smiled.

"Great."

She could have been clear of the scene in, like. 2 seconds. But didn't. That would be rude. Instead, she gave a wave.

"Wow that was....well, not amazing...but fantastic!"

Waving was not her strong suit.

"You’re the greatest."

There was an ambulance there. "Can you get me a towel?" she said to the crowd.

"You’re the best!"

"Wonderful!”

"You save this town!"

Sarah eventually got a towel and started wiping herself off.

A fan came right up to her. "Hey! Can I have your towel?"

Sarah looked at the towel in her hand, there was now a fair amount of blood on it. "It belongs to the fire department," seemed a better more diplomatic response then "No, you ghoulish little fuck". Sarah knew what diplomacy was.

"Can I have your autograph?"

This woman at least had taken the time to get a pen and pad.

Sarah took it, though she slightly regretted it. She liked that people loved her. This was good. The girl was cute, in the way 20 year olds were cute who had reached the specific age when cute - not pretty, not sexy, not gorgeous - but cute was what they were looking for...this girl had found it. And she got ‘Mazing Girl’s autograph.

Then Sarah saw that there were more of them. Lots more.

A fire-fighter came over, hopefully...to...stop...it...but he dashed Sarah’s hopes with seven words: "Let’s form a single file line here."

Sarah sighed. That was very thoughtful and the crowd, to its credit, quickly complied. It was a good scene, abstractly. People in LA could be pushy and mean just like anywhere - but well, they could also be friendly and nice.

Just, well, her costume had blood on it. She moved away from the accident. Someone gave her a pen and let her keep it. Thoughtful...then pieces of paper, college notebooks, all came up as a line of about 50 formed in front of her...and kept growing as she went through.

"Your the greatest, I want to be like you when I grow up," a 12 year old told her. Sarah had been 12 when she first did her first official act, but thanked her for her work.

Sarah sighed. People loved her. She abstractly knew this. She was a paragon, the cities champion, it’s god. Well okay not a god...well maybe. It was, however, easy for her to ignore it. She was a prop designer on an anonymous show, that she knew personally few people watched. She had friends who liked her fine as Sarah, either as a nerd, as a prop master, or both. As ‘Mazing Girl she dealt with the police who treated her okay, sometimes criminals who didn't, but that was real, that was honest and she didn't begrudge the criminals for throwing their guns at her in frustration after shooting her. Yeah, occasionally reporters - but this...just this.

Just the people.

She posed for photographs. Great thing about iphones. Great for taking photos.

Sarah smiled.

"Hey! Can I take a photograph?"

Sarah turned. It was Jamey. Knife Girl. Except instead of a Zorro costume she wore a surprisingly small tank-top and jeans. And a hat. And abs...

Sarah smiled through clenched teeth. Jamey handed her phone to a guy who had taken the role of crowd photographer.

"So, what you doing here?" asked Janey.

"Stuff" said Sarah.

"Want to get dinner?" said Janey.

"Nope," said Sarah. "I hate you."

She smiled.

And then the guy with the iphones ran off. Sarah realized he had about three of them from a other people ib the line.

Sarah shook her head.

"Give me a minute."

Sarah watched his pattern down the Westwood Street...then she leaned down and jumped.

100, 150...175 feet. Time slowed.

She landed in front of him. And a Pinkberries. That was one of those chains she had always wanted to try out but..

"Give ‘em back to me," Sarah offered, "and I'll let you go."

The guy looked at her, foolishly turned and ran down an alley.

She ran after him - if this was a movie this would take a while, but he barely got 10 feet before she grabbed him. I mean, he was running at human speed. She wasn't.

"Same offer; last time."

The guy sighed...and handed the phones over.

She let him go and jumped back.

This created another shock, another wave in the crowd.

"Okay. Who had the iphone 4g?"

And a loud cheer went over the crowd.


***

Sarah sat in her apartment that evening. she was lucky to have a built in washer dryer-which was good as you want to wash a super suit individually and you didn't want to do in a pile in public laundry.

She sighed. She was feeling sulky. Just sulky.  She lay on bed in the mood of a snit.

However, she had no-one really to snit was the annoying people in Westwood going to see her in her crappy little two bedroom in El Segundo.

she looked out the window. She could see a small garden outside. She looked it over. She had never really been in it as it wasn't hers, but every couple of months she did look at it through the window. It was for some people with a rich house. It had a large pond with water lilies a large vegetable bed, and several gorgeous strands of trees. There was a beautiful stone bench next to the pond that looked as if it was from Europe. When Sarah first moved in she looked at with envy - she wanted that garden - but as she matured she realized things were fine the way they were - she was enjoying the garden as much as she would have if it was hers, and gardens were a bitch to maintain.

So she just watched.

And as she did, she saw the cute girl from earlier sitting there wearing a cute tee, cute jeans, cute ahir, and cute glasses. You may be picking up on a theme here...

She was just sitting there next to the pond, looking lost in thought.

Sarah watched her. Was the girl thinking about ‘Mazing Girl? Thinking of their encounter, their chance meeting where she gave her an autograph. Or was that egotistical? Maybe she was thinking of her boyfriend, or school, or any number of things. LA had a huge number of celebrities, it wasn't hard to find them, get your picture. Was she that special? That...amazing?

(Sarah had considered, but never installed. a swear jar where she would put money every time she used the word amazing)

The girl had told Sarah her name, but Sarah forgot it - which was a shame as she really wanted to know it right now. She didn't know anything about the owners of the garden, despite living right next to them. She looked. Yeah, a UCLA student in college, seemed about right for this place.

Sarah fantasized.

She got in her costume, jumped out her other window and landed in the garden. "Hey!" she would say. "I saw you earlier...and I was wondering...can I have you autograph?"

They would laugh and they would talk, and they would go to a semi-fancy Korean barbeque restaurant and become best friends. Sarah would be maid of honor at her wedding, and have children together playing, and go on long vacations together to the Poconos (Sarah had been to the Poconos - surprisingly nice place). It was a beautiful life together, full of adventure and excitement...and amazing (-25 cents) things.

Sarah smiled and looked out the window, and didn't do any of it.

But somehow felt better for all of it...as she looked down at her like a god - or from a second storey window of a shitty condo. Sometimes it was nice just to want things, to dream of things.

The girl looked up at the sky.