Sixth Form Song, Chapter One

Mini-Flash Robin was alone in the kitchen, a gloomy box whose one door admitted distant hints of bright sunlit laughter and wide skies.

It was a Special Program reunion. Mini-Flash Splitsville and Mini-Flash Pseudangelos had both requested one, so invitations were transmitted to Nottingham for two guests who had duly arrived at Joe’s old house in Boston. This by now would have been well beyond its statutory overcrowding limit had such regulations existed here. Out in the garden right now, thought Mini-Flash Robin to himself, was no less a personage than Flashshadow.

And so too, of course, was Mini-Flash Juniper.

It would have been hard for Robin to forget she was there. He was doing fine, though. Nothing wrong with being in the kitchen, even if no-one else happened to be.

Presh came in. “Step it up, little waitress!” she sang. “How long can it take you to mix some more orange juice? I’m rushed off my feet out there!”

“I’d totes appreciate it if you didn’t call me that,” replied Robin, rather shortly.

“Well, I do apologise,” Presh pouted back. “I’m only using the Earth-expression.”

Robin knew she was. He also tried to tell himself it wasn’t fair of him to expect Presh to understand how he was feeling right now. Chap couldn’t quite make it out himself, if truth be told. Most of the time Robin was no different to the rest of the beige-and-boots set, positively proud to do duty at occasions where there were seniors and dignitaries. It wasn’t that he’d forgotten his Flash Club training. Just today though, the one and only male tunic on Planet Earth could have wished to be something other than a waitress.

“It wasn’t quite the right expression, Presh,” he informed her. “Some of the terms they use here aren’t for boys. Sorry to have to tell you you’re not the Earth-expert you think you are.”

Presh banged her bowl down on the breakfast-bar.

“So that’s what you’ve been doing,” she flung. “Fantasizing about swanning round the party wearing – I don’t even know – a pair of trousers or something, and leaving me on my own to bring nibbles for…for her! Like her massive bum even needs it! Boys like you are exactly why the first gender shouldn’t be allowed ideas about themselves!”

So saying she popped a bag of Mini-Cheddars with brutal force, and decanted the contents until they overflowed.

“She’ll like these,” pronounced Presh viciously. “You just…never see it, do you, Robin?”

Her voice quavering as she choked the last words, Presh swept up her bowl and whirled from Robin that one thing he did see was her pants, a full-fitting glimpse of silken red which made him weak. Then she strode splendidly off for the garden-party, spilling crackers on either side and leaving a trail behind her.

Chap couldn’t do a thing right today when it came to the second gender. Robin heaved a long slow sigh unto the empty kitchen.

There was Flashshadow. So soon after Robin had been thinking of her, all at once she was stepping to him from outdoors, that misty mysterious Mini-Flash who was quite someone in the galaxy these days. Slender and slight, she walked without a sound, her twilight hues already so merging with the shade that it was trickier for Robin to see her than when she’d been etched against the conservatory’s sunshine. In her way, Flashshadow was the least sudden and least noisy person you could meet, but she still put Robin in a flurry to remember his formalities.

This gave Flashshadow ample time to beg him not to curtsey. It was a party, after all. Robin was grateful for the kindness, since his skirt had lately become such a sensitive subject.

“Better warn you now though, chap’s being the worst sort of ass today,” he told Flashshadow. “Not totes sure I deserve you being so nice.”

Guessing at her reason for being here, Robin reached at once for the fresh jugful of juice. Flashshadow however managed to stop him before he’d slopped more than half of it over the kitchen surface.

As a matter of fact, she eventually murmured, it wasn’t a drink she was after.

But she had been wondering, would it be possible for Robin to drive her somewhere?

“Erm, I’m given to understand there are mushroom-monsters,” said Mini-Flash Robin, as he and Flashshadow climbed into Joe’s crimson space-racer. It was something he felt he ought to mention. The response that came back however, as far as he could tell, was that Flashshadow knew all about the mushroom-monsters and considered herself their equal.

Never had Robin imagined what a talker his companion could be once she was started. Soon he knew all about what Neetra had been up to, and how things had gone on Sports Day, and that Mini-Flash Pseudangelos had apparently picked up a taste for altogether livelier parties than the one she was at. As the miles went by and the sun dipped ever lower, Robin began to suspect more and more that Flashshadow was anxious about something. His instincts somehow kept saying to him, stage-fright.

Which brought Robin back to the reasonably good question of where it was they were going.

At dusk the space-racer dropped in on a little red-roofed town. Timeless sort of Earth-place, Robin thought to himself, although that shouldn’t have come as any surprise. He knew at once they were there, and this had little to do with Flashshadow’s vague infrequent directions. These at length brought him slewing to a gentle halt in the car-park of a curious sort of building.

It was as if some painter, with whorls of rosy brickwork russet and dabs of glowing copper green, had imparted unto the sunmost cupolas lingering hints of the now-disappeared day. All the remainder, hollows and anterior domes and those planes of wall turned away from the west, were so tinted as to mingle with evening hues and leave no stark dividing-line as might be expected of architecture. Along these darkling expanses trailed warm oil-lamp brush-strokes, suggesting lit windows. All was framed by boughs of terran vegetation which spread leafy and almost black against the settling sky.

Robin had to admit, the place suited his companion. They weren’t alone in the car-park, but just as Flashshadow was by now difficult to see, it took concentration to be certain of this.

The more he began to perceive however, the more awed Robin became.

First he saw glimmers moving like moths, which on closer inspection showed themselves the curve of a cheek demurely lowered, or a spotless white collar buttoned to the neck, or the sheen of what light there was on fulsome hair as fine and sleek as silk. Once these points had resolved themselves, it became possible to determine a fluttering figure for each, though the soft folds and undulations thereof might have blended smoothly with the eventide but for a pastel touch of blue on their upturned contours. Even the legs shimmered thus, from round sweet curvature of thigh all the way to tiny ankle.

Through what still seemed an ink-and-canvas illusion Robin gazed on these shapes, gradually accustoming his vision to them, though the four-wheeled vehicles from which they disembarked remained indistinct bulks delineated only by a highlighting line or two. Joe’s bright red space-racer was garishly incongruous upon that parking-lot, but Flashshadow had only to slip from its seat to make herself one with the scene. A very dainty and dignified hubbub appeared to be going on, for Robin could now hear murmurous conversation issuing from limpid glossy lips, and the numerous forms danced in and out of those luminescent panels the tall windows cast, noiseless motion stirring currents in the night’s perfume.

After this fashion, the beings greeted Flashshadow at once. They’d been expecting her.

For they were other Flashshadows.

Robin acknowledged that as explanations went it left one or two questions unanswered, but there was nothing else they could be.

END OF CHAPTER ONE