(no subject)

13.

“He’s coming too!” David said, still a little giddy from being recently superpowerful.

He had been breaking small items around the room until it wore off, something that relieved Mickey a little. But, he could certainly understand the intoxicating effect of the power.

Mickey took a seat on the end of his bed, and was on a level with the man in black’s eyes.

“Who sent you?” He threatened as the man’s eyes scanned the room.

The man said nothing.

“You had better tell us,” David chimed in.

The man huffed distainfully.

“Hey, fella,” Mickey said, “I’ve got a hamster I could shoot right clean through your chest!”

This was not something the man expected to hear. Mickey turned to his brother and said, “Get Harold!”

David smiled and started out of the room.

“’mere” the man said, in a way that showed that he meant “Come here.”

David moved to his brother’s side, “Careful.”

“He couldn’t get out of the knots?” Mickey asked.

“My knots?” David asked disbelievingly.

Mickey smiled and moved to the man.

“Take off my glasses.” The man whispered.

Mickey removed the spectacles with a slight hitch, since they also had an earpiece that had to be removed. There was some kind of earphone that connected with the glasses.

“Put them on.”

For the first time Mickey saw a tiny throbbing light on the front of one of the frames, it was a dark blue and couldn’t be seen across the room.

He looked at David, who was no more ahead of the game than was he.

Mickey put on the glasses, and immediately the right glass fogged over and then what appeared to be a television like screen lit up. There, sitting at a desk was James Vane. Vane was speaking, but Mickey
heard nothing.

Exasperated Vane pointed to his own ear, and Mickey understood. He put the ear phone in his ear.

Vane began to speak again.

“Mr. McCauley, my name is Vane.”

“Who are you?” Mickey said.

“I’d like to meet with you.”

“Is that why you tried to kidnap me?”

“We can be of a great deal of use to each other.”

“You threatened my family!”

“That was not my idea.”

“Did you kidnap Chance?”

The face on the screen was lost. Someone out of shot said, “The dog.”

“Oh, yes.”

“Is he alright?”

“The dog, Chance, is doing fine. Right now he is resting in the best kennel that money can buy. Once we found that he had nothing to do with the incidents, we had no wish to harm him. He’s a lovely dog.”

“What do you want?” and irritated young hero asked.

“Why, I want for us, both of us, to make the most of your abilities,” the smiling man beamed, “And, in the process, make you very wealthy.”

“Oh, my gosh,” Mickey thought, “You’re my Lex Luthor!”

“What do you say young man?” Vane pushed.

“I’ll trader your man here for Chance.”

“The dog is on his way back to you as we speak,” Vane said as he made hand gestures to someone Mickey couldn’t see. “And as for that man, he no longer works for me. If you want I’ll send someone to turn him
over to the Police to answer charges of Breaking and Entering and Assault.”

The man in black’s expression did not change.

“This guy is lying” Mickey thought.

He took off the glasses and tossed them to David.

“One more thing to smash, Dave”

Using only his own human power, Dave smashed.

The boys left to go make sandwiches.

The man in black sat in the room alone.

A hand reached back into the room and turned off the light, and then closed the room.

The man in black sat in the dark.

He hated children.

(c) 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

(no subject)

14.

Within an hour the Police (at least they said they were the Police) came and took the Man away in cuffs, muttering about “Little swine” as he went.

The boys’ mom was still in her room not talking. She seemed fine, she at least smiled at them. She just didn’t want to deal with this right now.

So the boys got their own dinner.

They felt like celebrating so they made B.P.B.J & F’s. These were not sandwiches that mothers would like their kids to eat, but they were on their own so it was break out time.

The Banana, Peanut Butter, Strawberry Preserves (not jelly, but hey) and Chocolate Frosting conglomeration was the thing of major over indulgence. Thank Pillsbury for those frosting cans!

With the sugar buzz still clanging around in their heads the boys sat down to talk some serious planning.

“Who can we tell?” David asked.

“We ought to tell Dad, but I don’t know if he’ll listen.”

At that moment there was a knock at the door and two men were returning Chance.

The dog was happy to see Mickey and the two brothers took the dog to his home just minutes before the Galvans got back early.

The dog had been groomed so meticulously that no one would ever believe he had flown, crashed in the mud, been hit by a car and been kidnapped all within 48 hours.

Mickey was assured that he could visit the dog anytime he wanted to, and for that he was happy.

The sun was resting on the horizon like a sparrow on a clothesline. Bright but tentative, waiting for the eventual exit.

Half the neighborhood was putting on the heavy cloak of dusk.

As the boys drew near their house they saw their father standing on the porch with his arms crossed and the look on his face was no where near smiling.

“He talked to Mom,” Mickey said.

“Ohhh yeah,” came from David, followed by a whistle of dread.

Mickey wondered if Dad might like to fly, but thought better of it.

(c) 2005 by C. Wayne Owens

Here's one you ought to try.

If I Won The Lottery!
One of those big ones. $100 million or the like.
The first 10 things I would do.
1. Pay off our and the kids houses.
2. Put a million toward filming "5 Minutes To Say Goodbye"
3. Put a million in trust for both grandbabies. It should double by their maturity.
4. Create college funds for all the little folks we know.
5. Help any friends with financial problems.
6. Buy our own Video store and Movie house, and show what should be seen.
7. Spend a mil financing research into the bouancy generator.
8. Buy controling interest in a TV station and program it myself.
9. Buy Pam every cookbook on earth.
10. Have a sandwich.