13. Just Your Typical Sunday Morning...
In my opinion, there's absolutely nothing worse than waking up early in the morning and finding someone standing over you as you sleep. The only thing even more slightly worse is if said person is also shaking you awake and you also can tell by the angle of the light streaming through the gap in the curtains that the day has yet to progress into double digits. Too early!
"Gah," I mumble into my bed sheets, giving the offender a not-so-friendly shove and burying my face into the pillow. I hear several loud banging sounds, a few loud curses and have to resist the impulse to smirk into my pillow.
"Ah! Ow! Tim! What did you do that for?" I hear Josh's voice and give into the impulse to smirk, before flipping around in the bed and lying on my back.
"What, are you doing here?" I ask, yawning up at the ceiling, "and you better have a good reason for waking me up on a Sunday morning."
"It's nine o'clock," he calmly explains, like those three syllables are the answers to all our troubles.
"Too, early," I mumble, grabbing my pillow and lightly biffing it at him. It smacks Josh right in the face and he cries in outrage, rubbing his nose.
"What was that for?"
"Waking me up." I sigh and slowly sit up, letting the bed sheets fall to my waist. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Julia said I had to come get you, for whatever reason she had. I tried flicking you a text, but, naturally," he rolls his eyes, "you were sleeping."
"Of course I was! It's a Sunday morning, for crying out loud! But what was Julia's reason for dragging me over to your place so early?"
"She wouldn't tell me, because she said that if she told me, I would tell you, and if you knew, you wouldn't come, or something like that."
I groan and rub the sleep from my eyes. "You know, I really don't like the sound of that. Sounds really suspicious, actually."
Josh smirks at me. "Well, according to Julia, you don't really have a choice in the matter, so..."
I chuckle. "What are you gonna do? Throw me over your shoulder and haul me back to your place? Because I really doubt you could do that, no offense. But, I'm pretty sure that I could haul you over there myself, without even breaking a sweat."
His face lights up like the fourth of July. "Can you?"
"No." I answer, groaning again. "Okay, whatever. I'll come. Just get outta here, so I can get dressed, okay?"
After getting dressed, splashing some water over my face and feeling a little less plagued by the its-too-early-in-the-morning' disease, I walk with Josh down into the shop and call out to my mother.
"Yo, mum! I was just gonna head over to Josh's."
"Didn't you only just wake up a few minutes ago? Don't you think you should have something to eat first?" she calls, from out the back.
I shrug. "Nah, it's cool."
"Are you going to be gone all day? And what are you even doing there, anyway?"
"Probably to the first question, and to the second question," I shoot a sideways glance at Josh, "I actually have no idea what we're gonna be doing."
"Oh, okay. Because I wanted you to do a shift in the shop for me for a couple of hours in the later afternoon."
I groan. "Can't you get Amy to do it?"
"She's thirteen. Plus, don't tell her I said this, but the way that she calls everybody 'mortals' tends to scare off the customers."
I chuckle to myself at the thought of this, before sighing. "Okay. I'll be back at..."
"Four."
---
"What do you mean you have to be back at four?" Julia cries in frustration. She bites her lip in annoyance and I take a mental picture, blushing at how cute she looks.
"I mean what I said," I say, taking a quick glance around their lounge. Josh and Julia's parents are out on some business meeting or something, so we have the whole house to practice our unholy scheme or whatever else it is that we are doing, instead of just having Josh's room and the roof. "I have to be home by four, because my mother wants me to work a shift at the shop or something like that." She growls and I hold my hands up in the universal 'mercy' sign. "Relax. That's a few hours away, I'm sure it's plenty of time for whatever you are planning."
She huffs at me, and Josh shrugs apologetically, giving me an 'I-have-no-idea-why-she-is-like-this' stare. "Fine. Hurry up and get your suit on, then."
"What? You mean that costume we brought?" I give her a confused look.
"Yes, you moron! What else would I mean?"
"Ha." I laugh nervously. "No."
"What!" she cries and I resist the impulse to laugh as Josh runs his fingers along his neck in the cliché 'she's-totally-gonna-kill-you-now' motion. "Did you just say..."
"Yep." I grin defiantly at her, and she growls again.
"Tim, we don't have time for this. Get the suit on," she says, throwing me the shopping bag from yesterday.
"Why?"
"I'll tell you after. Just put it on."
"No." I fold my arms over chest. "Not until you tell me why."
"Fine. You are going to go save some people. Now put it on."
"Do I have to wear the costume?" I grumble. "It's..." I struggle to think of the best word. Ugly, lame, annoying, way too tight, irritating, annoying... I sigh and settle on annoying as my final answer. "Annoying."
She sighs. "Honestly? Tim, just put it on."
I shake my head and she gives me a death stare. Josh just sighs.
"Tim, it's not that bad. Just put it on. I can help, if you want. I could scare you into putting it on." Josh raises his eyebrows and grins at me as I pull the costume out and throw the bag at his face.
"Fine." I mumble, lugging the bundle of clothes into the bathroom.
Julia looks me over and nods as I remerge. "Josh," she says grinning and glancing from me to him, "you really need to tell me whatever it is that scares Tim so much."
"No he doesn't." I say, nervously staring at the wall.
Julia chuckles. "Surely it can't be that bad."
"It is, actually." I assure her. "In fact, knowing it would deeply traumatise you."
"Scar you for life." Josh promises, laughing.
I groan under my breath and look down at the bright orange spandex on my arm, flicking at it with my fingers. Julia sighs, sensing my discomfort.
"Trust me." She says, placing a hand on my arm. "The costume isn't that bad. You suit it." She smiles reassuringly at me. "It looks good on you." I grin and she chucks a simple orange and red mask at me, the type that only covers the bridge of the nose and around the eyes, just covering the eyebrows and the upper cheeks. "Now put this mask on."
I shrug and pull it over my face. "Happy?" I ask.
"Very." She grins at me.
"So how do you plan on saving people? And what from?" I ask, hoping her idea isn't anything too ridiculous.
"Basically, you're gonna hang out on the roof of a shopping mall, while me and Josh survey the shops below, waiting for some villain to turn up and starting robbing people and holding them hostage and whatnot-"
"So," I interrupt. "We're just gonna hang around and wait for a crime to happen? But what if... nothing happens?"
"Then we can try again another day."
"You're shitting me. That's the most boring thing I've ever heard of."
"It won't be that boring. I'm pretty sure someone will try and rob something. It's a Sunday and there's several banks in the mall."
I groan at her. "How does that increase the chances?"
"Do you have a better idea?" she dauntingly asks.
"Well, no," I say, nervously looking at the ceiling.
"Exactly. Now can I finish explaining my plan? So you're hanging on the roof-"
"-bored shitless-" I interrupt, and she sighs, before continuing.
"-bored shitless and myself and Josh are down in the mall, basically looking for anyone that needs a good saving, ass kicking or both. Then if we see someone, we'll text you, and then you come down and save the day."
"That's not a bad plan," Josh comments, "apart from the waiting bit."
"Why do I have to hang on the roof?" I ask.
"Because," answers Julia, sighing, "it's gonna look pretty suspicious if there's a guy wandering around in a superhero costume, waiting for crime to happen."
"How about this," Josh suggests. How about Tim just flies around the city by himself, looking for crime?"
Julia is about to answer when I interrupt her. "Because although I can fly, I can't fly very well, and certainly not to that extent. In fact, I'm not even sure if I can remember how to do it from yesterday..."
Julia groans at me. "You can't remember? You must be kidding me..."
I grin at her and levitate about a foot in the air and she sighs in relief, while Josh and I laugh. "Had you fooled," I chuckle, before returning to the ground.
She sighs and rolls her eyes at us. "Whatever. We've wasted enough time already. Let's go help Tim save some people..."
"...or die of boredom." I mutter.
"...and death by boredom it is." I mumble to myself, sighing and running my fingers through my hair. I'm leaning on a shaded section of roof above the mall, staring absent-mindedly at my phone. A drip of sweat rolls from my forehead and I watch it as it runs down the roof into the sun, where it instantly sizzles and evaporates in the sun. It's way too hot up here to be wearing full body spandex. And to think it's only 11am! Imagine how hot it will be by lunchtime! If only I had ice powers or something...
The sound of police sirens catches my attention and I watch as they zoom past the mall and deeper into the heart of the city. For a moment I think nothing of it, and then grin as I wonder what they're doing and where they're going. Hmmm... I quickly flick Julia a text and stand up on the roof, wondering how much faith I can afford to place in my flying ability...
I rise off the roof and try not to gulp as my stomach clenches together from the height. Feeling giddy from the weightless feeling of floating in the air, I turn on my back and do a quick somersault. Right. I regain my focus before I fall and look around. What was I doing again?
Oh, that's right. I was gonna go follow those police cars and see what's gonna on... I rise a little bit higher before stopping and considering what I am about to do. I'm not seriously thinking I can fly there, am I? It can't be that hard, can it?
Okay. After some immense willpower, I manage to move to the right a little bit. After some even more immensely intense willing, I manage to get myself moving forward in that direction at a steady speed, which I'm pretty sure is actually walking speed. I sigh and grumble to myself, as I consider the fact that I will probably have to move a little bit faster than this. Damn.
After a solid 15 seconds of thought-power, self-encouragement and self-threatening, I speed up to what I hope is (and knowing me, probably isn't) a reasonable speed. I cross the car park in seconds and swoop in-between two buildings, feeling the rush of air. Whoa.
I catch up to the police cars in record timing (it takes me a few minutes) and fly at a vertigo friendly rooftop height above them until they reach the location of whatever caught their attention in the first place. I look down at the modern looking building below me with a dollar sign on the roof...
Surprise, surprise. It's a bank. Which I suppose, means only one thing. It's a bank robbing. Damn these villains love their clichés. Well, whoever it is, you can't blame them for choosing a bank to rob. Where else are you supposed to get a large sum of money from?
I decide that staying up here and watching the scene from a bird's eye view is probably the easiest way to find out what's going on and decide how to act, without being spotted before I want to be. Assuming nobody looks up, of course.
But luckily everybody is far too interested in the bank for that. The cops surround the place pretty quickly and order the guy out. I wonder if this is even a supervillian robbing this bank. Because if it was, right about now would be the time when they come out and...
"Hey!" yells a voice from inside, before stepping outside into the range of about a dozen police guns. Naturally, the guy doesn't even give them a second glance. Never mind, it's a villain. He's costumed, too. In all black. Cliché number two, check. "Oh, it's you guys again. Can't I have at least five more minutes? I need to bundle all the cash first."
"Put your hands up," threatens one of the armed police, not even bothering to consider his request, "or we'll shoot."
"You are no fun," pouts the villain, before raising his arms and producing what looks like a giant shock wave that throws everything in his near proximity, including the police, up into the air. There's an unearthly silence for about half a second, before everything lands again with an almighty boom. That was cool. Damn it that was an awesome superpower. Definitely...
I feel the air rushing around me and swear, realising that I had forgotten to remember to keep myself airborne. Damn it! I concentrate and attempt to stop my fall, but it's no use because I'm falling way too fast...
ns 15.158.61.20da2
