Flashtease

Aloysius Moynihan and Gussy Green had had a mildly trying morning showing Flashtease the sights of Nottingham. From the outset their small companion had confounded them by politely declining any offers to lend him some ordinary human clothes to wear and insisting on going to town in his customary Flash Club uniform instead, which consisted of a short-skirted grey tunic with a yellow lightning-bolt on the front and very little else. This alone had resulted in the three boys receiving more than a few funny looks from the public, but it wasn’t all. Though Flashtease physically resembled a boy of Aloysius and Gussy’s age, he had given both Earthlings reason to doubt that that was what he was from his truly awe-inspiring appetite for snack foods, takeaways, soft drinks and anything else that was dangerously high in sugar or fat. This constant energy intake was apparently necessary to fuel his overexcited fidgeting and dancing about, for it seemed impossible for him to stay still, so much so that Gussy and Aloysius were exhausted after just an hour of trying to keep up with him. To top it all, Flashtease was abjectly incapable of controlling himself in the presence of girls, and as it was rather too much to hope that there wouldn’t be any in a crowded city centre on a sunny Saturday, his enthusiasm for his subject had embarrassed the trio on several dozen occasions. Understandably then, the pair of human boys were beginning to regret telling their friend Neetra they’d look after Flashtease for the day, and to question the wisdom of ever agreeing to do anything for her again.

“So there’s Lightning, he’s the leader of the Flash Club, so obviously he’s older than me and not a Mini-Flash,” Flashtease chattered on happily. He was explaining all about the organisation to which he belonged, in between slurping from the extra-large fizzy drink he carried, scratching his bottom and hopping back and forth across the street in front of his two new friends. “Out of the Mini-Flashes there’s Flashthunder and Flashlight, they’re my friends – actually they remind me a bit of you two – and then there’s Flashshadow who’s a girl…”

“Do most of your names start with ‘Flash,’ then?” asked Gussy.

“And was the name ‘Flash-Pain-in-the-Pants’ taken by the time you came along?” Aloysius added in a mutter.

Their walk had brought them to the edge of one of the derelict districts left over from Dimension Borg’s invasion, and where the street ended to their left was a yawning empty shell of a ground-floor office bordered by three crumbling half-gone walls. “Ah! Our tour continues with Nottingham’s unrestored sectors!” Gussy laughed. “Some fine handiwork by the one responsible for your being here enjoying this trip in the first place! Maybe not the most scenic part of the city, but – ”

Flashtease’s freckly face, however, was positively aglow. “What a great place for Flashball!” he breathed.

“Flashball? What’s that?” Aloysius inquired, as Flashtease bounded into the ruinous lot and he and Gussy followed him warily.

“Only the best game ever invented in my galaxy ever!” was the reply. “You’ll love it! Let me show you!”

Flashtease held out his hand with the palm upward, and a large yellow ball blinked into existence upon it. Gussy and Aloysius stared as the boy pointed to the tumbledown wall ahead of him.

“Let’s say that nail’s the target – it’s too big, of course, but it’ll do,” said Flashtease. Neither of his companions could so much as see the nail in question. “Now, the object of this game is to hit the target with the ball, without you or it ever touching the ground. Just watch this!”

Grasping the Flashball in both hands and holding it above his head, Flashtease arched his small body fully upright to take aim then folded over double as he flung the sphere with all his might at one of the side-walls. A split-second later he was off and running at the wall opposite, brilliant sparks starting to fly from the soles of his futuristic white footwear as if an electrical storm were breaking inside his shoes. Before the eyes of his two human friends Flashtease raced up the vertical surface without checking his stride, then bobbed down into a perpendicular crouch and boosted himself into the arena’s airspace as the ball rebounded and flew back at him.

Sparkling all over by now, Flashtease looked like a little shooting-star as he hurtled towards the smooth-coated meteor that was the ball. On the brink of their collision directly above centre-court, the boy threw himself into somersaults so rapid he became a furious firecracker, and the ball struck him glancingly before screaming off at an angle in the direction of the far wall. Flashtease sank out of his spin, his aura of light dissipating, and made a picture-perfect landing on one foot while the ball slammed into the nail dead-on. A second passed, and the wall to which it was affixed collapsed into rubble.

Aloysius had taken off his glasses to gawp at the devastation, while Gussy, who didn’t wear glasses, was just gawping. “That was incredible!” warbled the latter.

“Thanks! Lightning says it’s my one and only appreciable talent!” Flashtease beamed in enormous pride. “So, which of you wants to go one-on-one first?”

“Um, we can’t do absolutely everything you just did,” Gussy pointed out in a meek voice.

“How come?” Flashtease demanded indignantly, parking his fists on his mini-skirted hips. “What are you, a pair of Grindoes?”

“What are you?” Aloysius burst out, flapping an exasperated hand at the demolished wall.

“We’re human beings,” Gussy explained patiently, “which most of the time means no super-strength, no super-speed, no crazy energy-fields and not really any knocking solid walls down with objects we’ve pulled out of thin air!”

“Oh,” Flashtease said, momentarily glum. Then almost immediately he was his old self again.

“In that case, let’s make it two-against-one!” said he.