Exodus, Chapter Five

The staring gawping tableau included Mini-Flash Pseudangelos, who looked as if she’d been just about to leave.

Gladness flooded Joe’s weary frame. He didn’t wait to catch his breath, but launched at once into what was not destined to be his finest speech. When he had at length mistreated his overtaxed lungs into giving out, not even our hero was sure anymore whether the explanation had had to do with a published apology for responses sent in error, or some sort of mix-up in the mail. All Joe hoped was that his fabrications had convinced Pseudangelos the letter Presh was holding aloft was not the same one as before, for all that the resemblance was striking.

A silence fell, and Joe guessed more because of that than anything he’d said, Presh solemnly passed the message to its addressee.

That one’s wide chocolate eyes told Joe only that she’d been hurt before.

Of course it was asking too much of her to open the thing again now. Joe should have seen. It wasn’t as if he’d even had a chance to check all was well beforehand.

He was doing this purely on faith.

After everything, our hero wouldn’t have blamed Mini-Flash Pseudangelos if his faith wasn’t enough. She needed more. As did Joe.

So his eyes sought the five behind her, each of them still dumbstruck, light-years from comprehending what this was. Nor did Joe demand they do so. That wasn’t what his wordless gaze beseeched them and implored. He could not make the nature of this wild endeavour known. What Joe asked of these followers was what he’d once asked of three others, back in the Boston which had been real. Not to know, but merely to trust, and to stand with him.

Faithful Mini-Flash Robin was first.

“You should totes open it, Mini-Flash Pseudangelos,” he told her firmly. “You know what the postal service is like.”

Flashshadow then came forward, and although nobody heard what she said, it presumably ran along similar lines. Mini-Flash Splitsville was right behind her, with some wisdom on where your top-end landed up and the importance of putting something down.

“Do, Pseudangelos,” pleaded Mini-Flash Juniper, stepping over with her hand in Robin’s that he too might be part of their Special Program throng.

Still the envelope trembled in Mini-Flash Pseudangelos’s hands. Joe was waiting for Presh, as he had waited for her that morning when they were on the launch-site.

She’d let the side down then.

This time in the medical bay, Presh made up her mind.

“I agree with Juniper,” said she, and walked to complete the huddle.

Somehow, that did it. With one and all assembled about her in unanimous earnestness, Mini-Flash Pseudangelos drew herself up and threw the letter open.

Universes held their breath.

Her face lit up, and then did another, and then another, as each Mini-Flash in turn read the news. Next was laughter and exclamations and joy.

“Oh, Pseudangelos, a runner-up prize!” cried Mini-Flash Juniper, hugging her. “I knew there had to be some mistake the first time, I just knew it!”

“Talented kid like this?” grinned Mini-Flash Splitsville. “You better believe it, sister!”

Flashshadow was commencing something long and involved on the Special Program’s proudest hour, while the celebrations and embraces continued and everyone wanted to see again the letter and the wondrous autographed photo. Mini-Flash Robin clapped Pseudangelos heartily on the back, then next second was beaming not just at Juniper but also Presh, and both girls were returning smiles almost as wide as his. They were sharing in it. It had brought them together.

Joe, all strength long since spent, allowed himself at last to close his eyes. Now he could rest.

When envelope and letter and ballet dancer print were at great length restored to their rightful owner, that one looked on them with shining eyes then clasped the assortment to her bosom. In the motion and her radiant gaze were sure intimations of parting. These Joe recognised, and others did too, for on her three classmates were all the signs of a Special Program farewell.

“It is not for me,” Mini-Flash Pseudangelos finally confided. “Goodbye, my friends. I shall never forget you…!”

A phenomenon Joe had witnessed once before, akin to chocolate cake baking in reverse, saw a girl unlike any other safely on her way. Our hero watched with more than mere acceptance. True, he had pictured a place for Pseudangelos in Nottingham alongside his trio, but that was before she had shown him the good that keeping to her present course might do. So Joe, without even knowing the designation Flashlab Central, wished Mini-Flash Pseudangelos a happy journey there and a joyous reunion with her own company of Special Program peers. Then that night would she present to 4-H-N her token, knowing it was a thing she’d love, just as Mini-Flash Pseudangelos had known it was right to venture so far and so courageously in the name of bringing it back for her.

That Pseudangelos had made Joe a part of it might mean everything.

Our hero quested after a metaphor to serve. What strands of forgotten friendship had she undertaken to twine anew. What bridges might this selfless act ultimately build.

She might even be the one to reunite their divided kingdom.

Joe knew how much that was to ask. But when the fate of galaxies tilted on a glossy eight-by-ten, who was to say what might be?

Below the hulls a planet rolled, bringing our heroes ever nearer their original orbit, its position marked by the stationary smaller craft in which Flashshadow and Mini-Flash Juniper had arrived. Gaining this starting-point, Joe looked his last on that world where for a time he had seemed to relive his. Yet he was older now than he had ever truly been in Boston, and by his side was a generation not thought of then. Mini-Flash Robin, Presh, his three Special Program girls.

Planets would always roll. Nevertheless, it wasn’t just subconsciously he and his companions endured. That which they were, they were.

In the direction of the future Joe pointed the spaceship’s prow.

THE END