Avalon, Chapter Two

Flashshadow’s talent for going quietly unseen was put under rather more of a strain at a well-lit outdoor rumbustification, but it helped that Petunia subsequent to her opening number had daintily descended the stage and taken things down a notch. Most of the guests were dancing to her pre-recorded backing-tracks, their attention safely on each other, while Petunia herself held court among just a small proportion of the party’s complement. Flashshadow, though keeping a discreet distance, looked on curiously.

The music rambled through pleasant realms of the wistful and bittersweet. Petunia was finishing off her latest song, the tale of a lonely beach-girl who was so heartbroken she suspected she’d die. There followed a round of applause and then one of the circle, a large lilac-hued hovering head with two stubby arms, remarked: “Ourostriaarlrah jib restip ti, Petumbia bluth-bluth-bluth!”

“You’re right, Pumpus, it was a sad song,” Petunia agreed very seriously. “Try to remember it was only a work of fiction and it’ll be less upsetting for you. Nevertheless, there are all sorts of truths about The Four Heroes’ cause we can learn from lyrics like these. Let’s imagine for a minute that the beach-girl really did die, and afterwards everyone was sorry and wished they hadn’t been so beastly to her while she was still alive. That’s why we need the cause, which teaches us girls are ever so nice and deserve forgiveness, especially in the event of certain minor outbursts that weren’t really their fault anyway. And there you will find the meaning to my memoir, the reason we go on,” concluded Petunia, though not without a tearful little choke as she remembered who it was she was trying her best to sound like.

“Petunia, babe,” spoke up a kind of empathetic groan from somewhere by her feet. “Everything you just said, that’s...wow. I mean...the cause. Babe,” added the interpellator meaningfully, then lost for words beyond these few opted instead to smite his bare chest with his fist.

This was Dean, who as his Earthling nomenclature suggested was native to stars distant from these. Sitting cross-legged, he wore his long white hair in several extravagant bunches which could not have called greater attention to the premature baldness they were designed to conceal. Dean was otherwise sporting Bermuda shorts and a cloak he had made for himself in deference to local fashion-tastes. That it had started life as a tablecloth would have been apparent no matter the galaxy.

“Babe,” Dean ventured again, slowly shaking the entangled herbage of his head from side to side. “The cause. I mean...wow. It’s all just so...so...”

“Flashshadow?” said Petunia.

The girl of that name blinked, taken aback to hear herself unexpectedly referred to.

“Oh, babe!” cried Dean, beating his breast again. “Stay out of my mind! If there’s one thing I was just about to say it was, then I was going to say it was – ”

“Flashshadow!” Petunia squealed in transports, on her toes within the same breath and bumping Dean flat on his back that he wheezed aloud. Next second Flashshadow was subject to what may have been the most heartfelt hug ever imparted on theoretically intangible matter, which left the Mini-Flash in such an uncharacteristic fluster as to falteringly profess her astonishment.

Petunia beamed back through glittering tears of gladness. “Don’t be silly, Flashshadow!” she exclaimed. “Of course I could see you. I always can! You’re my friend!”

It was news to Flashshadow that she worked that way, but her truest fondness shone gently back on Petunia despite any bewilderment which might have accompanied it. Meanwhile, maintaining covert surveillance was starting to look a little reductive to Flashtease, Contamination and Mini-Flash Splitsville, so standing and picking their way through the underbrush they made their presence known. Petunia’s joy at this seemed all but complete, and with endless wails of “Guys!” and “Oh!” she happily lavished kisses upon them.

This done, there followed a silence. The radiant smile on Petunia’s pretty features was no less bright than before, but her violet eyes roamed, as if in expectation or at least a longing hope. Loud seemed the sizzling noise of the lipstick-smear she’d left on Contamination as it gradually evaporated. Her friends understood, and the pity they felt made the fleeting interval all the more awkward. Not that anything could have compelled Petunia to trot out Lesley Gore’s excuse, for the truth was that all five of Joe’s faction were nothing but ecstatic to be together again.

“Oh, yeah...lost and found,” issued meaningfully from Dean, who had resumed his meditative lotus-position and his running commentary. “Vintage Joe. I mean, if he were here, what he’d have to say about that, it’d just be...wow.”

Flashtease couldn’t help plonking his hands on his hips. “And you are…?” he inquired. “Besides someone who doesn’t know Joe from Oomagooli the Secret Mushroom, and a kidnapper?”

“Kidnapper?” repeated Petunia, puzzled. “Snigglybobbles, why would you think that about Dean?”

“All very well for a chap to crash our party and make horrid accusations with just his yellow pants on,” added one of the boys from Petunia’s circle, who was himself wearing what looked like inch-thick rubber pants.

Ignoring him, Flashtease struggled on: “Well, aren’t they all kidnappers? They’re sort of supposed to be. You were kidnapped, Petunia. Flashthunder said,” he finished feebly.

“Not Dean as in Louise-Claudia?” interjected Contamination, thinking back to his old regiment. “The halfwitted human she fled her homeworld to get away from?”

Flashtease untucked his underwear in the way he did when his patience with either it or external irritants was exhausted.

“We came here in good faith because we’d been led to believe this was an honest unambiguous trap for Joe,” declared the Mini-Flash, rapidly turning a prim shade of pink beneath his freckles. “And for your information, Petunia, we were doing quite well at it under those terms and I do think it’s altogether too much like a girl to suddenly turn round and change things on us without warning!”

“I was kidnapped, Flashtease – a little bit, at first,” Petunia explained solemnly. “And part of the reason we’ve been doing this is we were hoping you’d hear about it, which I guess you must have done. But snigglybobbles, it’s no trap! Everyone on this island’s loyal to Joe. We’re all here by choice to celebrate the cause and share what it means to us, just like we used to do back home with him.”

“I’m inclined to believe her, Mini-Flash,” said Contamination. “To my admittedly inexperienced eye this debacle seems to tick every beach-party box well enough. As a kidnapping however, it’s obvious such a mismatched collection of incompetents would be too pathetic to make of it anything but a lamentable farce.”

Flashtease sighed. He had to concede that everything he’d seen thus far supported Petunia’s assertion. Dean, Pumpus and the boy in the rubber pants didn’t seem to him particularly desperate, though Flashtease wasn’t sure he could say the same of the swimsuit-clad blonde who remained conspicuous by her absence. Perhaps because of her, he felt a need to tell Petunia mulishly: “Well, I still don’t see how this can be a proper gathering like Joe’s. Like I said before, no-one in your new fan club’s ever even met him!”

“Ease back on the throttle, Boy-Scout,” put in Mini-Flash Splitsville. “Cats who’ve been digging Joe’s jazz might recollect his piece of the universe used to be square, and I’m talking cubed. If we get hip to the history that means human space-travel was one big no-go pre-creation of Nottingham. So our freaky far-out father-figure Dean here isn’t breezing it. Must have had a front-row seat at the strip when The Four Heroes were revving their engines.”

With that Splitsville strode over to where there was a pair of bongos, and seating herself on the sand delivered an introductory tattoo. The crowd’s ambient conjecture and perplexity dropped to a hush on the first tap.

“You got the right name, too-fast-to-live,” Mini-Flash Splitsville told Dean, for she really had listened to Joe’s stories of Earth. “So lay it on me.”

Someone was trimming the lamps. Dean, who was already fonder of this uninvited guest than he was ever going to be of Contamination, took up Petunia’s microphone and rose to his feet at once, creaking somewhat. With the torches extinguished the night-time glade was left to the fairy-lights, whose soft hues threw a different tint over every surface and corner. Maybe a mist was starting to rise from the sea, or maybe the heavy moisture which characterised Nereynis’s atmosphere was more apparent out of the fire-glare, but now the luminous filaments hinted at polychromatic dewdrop constellations bejewelling the darkened vale. All this seemed to have worked a change in Dean. Unconvincing as he might have appeared to certain of the clientele before, even Flashtease had to admit there were mysteries surrounding him. Wild and white-haired he stood, a wizardlike figure wrapped in his tablecloth cloak.

“Yeah,” Dean proceeded. “I saw it. Saw that drizzly evening explode into a sunset that never seemed to end. Saw the missiles turned back. Saw a blood-red sky raining robots. I was there, living it, long before your galaxy even knew. While you were still fighting interstellar wars.”

Mini-Flash Splitsville punctuated with a volley on her tom-toms.

“But L.C. jumped planets and someone had to go after the kiddo, save her from herself,” continued Dean, for this was the way he preferred to remember it. “Travel,” he added significantly to his wide-eyed attendees. “Did our stint in the mystic caverns. Saw the plains of Plomonoog. We were off our heads half the time, but I’ll tell you the one thing I learned.”

Flashshadow was beside Mini-Flash Splitsville and had produced her lyre, though as usual no-one was quite able to say when she had assumed that position or indeed where in her pastel-pink bikini she had been keeping the instrument. As Flashshadow whanged out a riff on her strings however it was real enough to the audience, especially with her friend’s live percussion as counterpoint.

“The power The Four Heroes showed to my world that day...it’s everywhere,” Dean imparted unto the dark. “You can find it in your galaxy, because it’s here alright, if anything is. But it’s not the kind of power that conquers worlds or enslaves enemies. It’s there waiting for you, if you’re only ready for it. Respect for everything Dylan did in the old days, but he and the Alliance are forgetting that now. Chill not with Vernderernders, lest ye. But Joe’s not sold out. That’s why we’re here tonight. Joe’s always known real power’s like the Nereynis tides that roll never-ending round our isle. So shoot the curl, guys. Ride it out.”

Flashshadow was building a baseline on the drumroll beaten out by Mini-Flash Splitsville, as both girls read in Dean’s incantatory tone the impending climax of this poetry-slam.

“Now sleeps the crimson Petunia,” breathed he. “Now comes the once and future party-king.”

On that cue one Mini-Flash musician skidded down the scales while the other with pounding palms matched her rhythm for rhythm. Together the twain began to work their way through the intricacies of a deep-twanging pulsating instrumental wholly different in character to Petunia’s chaste melodies, and within a bar or two of this dangerous beat every reveller had taken to the sandy floor. Bikini-bottoms shook, long hair described spirals, and the guest who was just one giant oblong of flesh bobbed his upper half from side to side with no less vigour. Then Flashshadow hit an anticipatory chord and held silent, allowing Splitsville to pummel out rapid-fire rallentandos interspersed with short jangles to shape the solo. Four such movements and they harmonized again, the lyre this time wailing out the highs while partygoers rocked themselves into a frenzy. Pumpus was tipping about in mid-air with an expression of intensity on his huge face.

Flashtease and Petunia watched this Bacchanal from the boundary. He by now was ashamed of how quick he’d been to dismiss what she had so evidently accomplished here. Petunia took his hand.

“Come on, snigglybobbles,” said the girl with a smile. “I can see I’ve got some explaining to do.”

Petunia grabbed a king-sized soft drink from the table, and carrying it in both hands led Flashtease away from the noise and dancing. Together they proceeded into the forest, sharing Petunia’s straw and taking it in turns to slurp like they used to do at the drive-in. Underneath the overhanging trees, starlight picked out tiny water-fireflies darting delicately about the pools and freshets. All else was soothing shade dappled with summer-night blue.

“So I was kidnapped,” began Petunia. “I think you might know her? It was Phoenix Prime.”

“It’s more that I know of her,” Flashtease admitted. “Which is to say, I fought her army of rock-men once. I do know her sisters. They’re nice.”

“Well, it was Phoenix Prime’s idea for me to start holding these meetings here on Nereynis, so that word would reach Joe while he was still in this star-system,” Petunia continued. “It turns out Phoenix Prime’s assembled a whole team of heroes, Flashtease, who all support Joe’s interpretation of the cause! I couldn’t believe it, but no sooner had I shown Phoenix Prime my loyalties than she told me the good news. Such a lucky coincidence that of all the girls she could have kidnapped, she happened to choose me!”

I’ll say, were the words Flashtease had to fight back. He was aware that Phoenix Prime at the end of the war supposedly underwent some kind of conversion to The Four Heroes’ cause, and Flashtease had been there the day she abruptly abandoned her newfound family and struck off on some mysterious crusade of her own. However, throughout most of the Mini-Flash’s time on Earth Phoenix Prime had been universally regarded a deadly foe. It wasn’t easy for Flashtease to trust her under the present circumstances, and that went double for her so-called heroic band.

“Are you sure there isn’t more to it, which they haven’t told you about?” he ventured at last, not wanting to hurt his friend’s feelings. “It sounds that way to me, Petunia.”

She let out her breath, and drank long from the paper cup before answering. Flashtease saw that even Petunia wasn’t so naïve as to have never considered his point.

“If it’s that way, then it is,” was her simple reply. “But if there’s even a chance Phoenix Prime’s telling the truth, and she and Joe could unite in the name of the cause, isn’t that worth all of this? Isn’t that what Joe would say? And even if there’s no chance. You still heard Dean. You still saw Pumpus and Oblong and Dacks. It means something to them. They deserve to find out whether the cause can change their lives like it changed yours and mine. I’m not clever at it like Joe. I’ve not been to Earth like you have. But I’m trying, Flashtease. Just with the parties and the songs and telling people what the cause means to me, I’m trying.”

Flashtease looked at her, and sat down slowly on a nearby rock as he did so. He’d always played the mature and sensible adult around Petunia, though he guessed their sudden role-reversal had at least a little to do with her being fully-clothed. The smile he gave her was lopsided, because she was making him feel almost shy.

“Please don’t be mad at me for telling you this,” said he. “But at Joe’s very first meeting, all I saw was a little girl with a big crush. I didn’t even think you’d be back the next week. It’s not that that little girl’s grown up. It’s that she always was. I just couldn’t see it until now.”

Petunia returned the smile, and not without a teary glistening of her eyes. Any girl would adore him. She did herself. It was such a bother sometimes that you couldn’t choose who you fell in love with. That stupid, stupid jacket had so much to answer for.

“Let’s not talk about the complicated things, snigglybobbles,” said she. “Let’s just go for a walk. It feels like ever so long since I last saw you.”

They set off. Soon however it became apparent Flashtease was the better dressed to negotiate densely wooded and mostly dark terrain, for Petunia’s fluttering hemlines soon had her hopelessly snagged, and with hands full of paper cup there was nothing she could do to extricate herself.

“Rottlebottles,” murmured the girl. “Flashtease, be a sweetie.”

Carefully with his fingertips the Mini-Flash went about unhooking Petunia’s gossamer lace trim from the thorns. His cheeks were pink by the time he completed this ticklish task, and he was likewise glad Flashthunder and Flashlight weren’t watching when he had to lift everything up high so Petunia could step free. Typical, Flashtease thought, how she herself wasn’t the least bit embarrassed about showing off either her allegiance or her needlework.

Petunia looked tenderly on him, understanding his blushes and reflecting he might be right about how grown-up she was. “Always there to take care of me,” were her fond words.

If Flashtease had known the Earth-idiom however, he would have questioned which of them was more the knight in shining armour. Petunia’s flip-up tips and tinned-peaches perfume were perhaps incongruous for the part, but not so her purity in her errand as she went ahead through heather and fern bearing her chalice before her, sure-footed so as not to spill a single drop.

END OF CHAPTER TWO