Wednesday 15 June 2011

Superheroine

Geraldinium Holmes hummed quietly to herself. She was past her kitten phase, as she now liked to think of it, and the hate mail was dying down to just one or two sacks a week. On her desk, next to a stack of hate-mail she was replying to, was a cup of herbal tea that she had the orphan-girl make for her hourly. It was a simple tisane with an herbal extract added; Geraldinium made the extract herself using ethanol and window-box-grown herbs. It was both delicious and refreshing, but she found that she wasn't get a whole lot of work done after mid-afternoon and was considering going back to coffee. She rubbed the inside of her elbow absently as she thought that.
She picked up a strip of synthetic cat fur, dipped it in the bloody juices from a slice of freshly-cut liver and put it in an envelope to send to the next hate-mailer in the pile. Then she put a slip of paper in there with it, on which she'd neatly written "Adolphus, aged 3. Bled out." She had plans for making a collage of any replies she got.
"Miss Holmes?" The orphan-girl behind her sounded sad and plaintive. Geraldinium sighed.
"Orphan-girl," she said firmly without looking round. "What have I told you about speaking?"
"Er, there's been a couple of things actually," said the orphan-girl. "You've told me only to speak when you've said something interesting that needs acknowledging, not to speak unless the pan's about to boil dry and ruin a new artwork, and if I have to speak then always to sound so happy that people want to kill me."
"The last one," said Geraldinium licking the envelope and sealing it. She licked her lips and made a moue, liver juice had dripped on the glue-strip.
"Miss Holmes!" The orphan-girl sounded bright and lively, the kind of person who's enthusiastic at stupid-o'clock and trying to be helpful to people who are just feeling murderous.
"Yes... oh, my." Geraldinium turned round this time, and her words died on her lips. The orphan-girl had found some leather and plastic from somewhere and put together what she could only hope was supposed to be a super-hero costume. It didn't fit well, and generally covered those parts that super-heros traditionally exposed while not covering those parts that any decent person would want covered up.
"Oh... my." said Geraldinium again, wondering if English actually had any words suitable for this occasion.
"I'm Batman," said the orphan-girl. "I'm going to be a superheroine."
"Bats...," said Geraldinium slowly. "How? I mean... how?"
"Well, Batman's parents were killed when he was young," said the orphan girl, a leather strip uncoiling around her leg and falling around her ankle. "And he lived a strange life alone except for the help and was incredibly clever, and when I thought about it, that's just like me."
"You thought?" murmured Geraldinium who had killed the orphan-girl's parents in order to acquire an orphaned servant girl.
"I've put together the costume, and now I'm going to go around saving animals and avenging them!"
"And who am I in all of this?" said Geraldinium.
"The help, silly! You're Alfred, Alfred."
"I think you should go and check on the animal cages in case there are any trapped animals," said Geraldinium, still mesmerized by seeing all the wrong bits of her servant girl.
"Oh!" The orphan girl turned and tried to run, tripping over the loose leather strap, getting tangled up in the rest of her mess of a costume, and banging her head on the floor.
"Some Batman," said Geraldinium, not unkindly. Then, remembering that she was supposed to be Alfred, she got up and kicked the girl in the kidneys.

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