Growing Pains

Meet the Dangers, a family of superheroes living in Rockly Parish, just an ordinary hero-laden metropolis on the continent of Dismisia.

Magnifica Danger was everything every mother and wife ever strives to be and then some. And she had no qualms admitting that to anyone who might bother to take notice. She took pride in her motherly duties, from raising extraordinary children to keeping an immaculate household. In fact, if Magnifica Danger ever left you wondering how in great Bessii she was able to keep it all together without going mad, she hadn’t done her job right. As far as she was concerned, any mother could keep it together. And Magnifica Bwenisimo Hillio-Danger was not just any mother. If you weren’t left feeling inspired to do better in your own life, your family’s life, the life of your neighbors, your pets, your neighbor’s pets, the mailman who only delivers on weekdays, and the mailman’s neighbors pets, well…then you weren’t drawing inspiration from Magnifica Danger, were you?

Every morning, Mags awoke well before the three suns. She’d putter through the house at a steady pace, picking up this, wiping down that, brewing up coffee, grabbing the newspaper off the porch, letting out the beloved family dog, letting him back in after his morning constitutional, and so on. She did it all with a smile on her face and a gentle hum tickling her throat, waking up slowly with the day as she decided what to do with it. What does Mags want to do today, she’d think. What does Mags want to accomplish? 

This morning was no different. Mags brewed herself a pot of her favorite roast beans while flipping through the paper, her fuzzy slippers tapping against the aged hardwood floor of her pristine, and very expensive, home while she took in the day’s news clips. 

- A man jumped off of the south jetty into the Grunting Ocean after ingesting too much Vandypop juice. No one knows if he survived, but his wife, when questioned, said he’d be home for dinner.

- A driver from DownUmbria reported seeing signs of a Hipchick Mountain spider migration heading out of New Moxi. Residents are to remain alert. The spiders are believed to be poisonous. 

- A gang of children have begun robbing jewelry stores up and down the coast of the Mopoke Divide. They have successfully robbed fifteen shoppe’s. Authorities wonder: What is going on? Why can’t we seem to catch these kids?!

Mags sighed and set the paper down onto the kitchen table. Parents these days, she thought with disappointment. Couldn’t raise a kid if it weighed as much as a pillow. 

As a mother of five grown boys now serving as active superheroes in greater Dismisia and a young daughter who, for all intents and purposes, was expected to be no less extraordinary, Mags held resentment against anyone with poor parenting skills. Kids were simple, if you asked her. Give them love, tell them they’re incredible, watch them flourish. Simple as that. Of course, Mags also struggled to realize her own privilege as a result of her upbringing and heroic reputation. For that lack of awareness, she had been promptly kicked out of the PTA back when her oldest son attended preliminary school over twenty years ago. She couldn’t understand the big deal with politely scolding a mother for putting far too much sugar in her brownies, along with sprinkles, gummies, and a whopping spoonful of whipped cream atop each one. To date, even with her youngest child still in preliminary school, Mags remains unwelcome at the PTA. 

“Better leave it to the…normal moms and our…limited expectations,” they’d said with a bit too much satisfaction as they escorted her out of the gymnasium.

The rays of the first sun swept through the hallway and into the kitchen counter, kissing Mags’ rosy cheeks and warming up her chilly ankles. The next two sun’s would follow suit shortly thereafter, lighting up the entire house and waking the life out of her sleeping husband and precious daughter. And Dashing was precious. Mags and Charming had tried for years to have a girl. And they’d almost given up. Until one day, the news came back: they were pregnant, by surprise, with their first daughter. Mags and Charming were thrilled to the moons and back. And ever since her birth, Dashing had become the family jewel, as is natural in a family filled with boys who always hoped for a baby girl.

Mags took a deep breath, counted to twenty, exhaled with a smile on her face, and began her day with the same amount of ignorant, enthusiastic intent that all of us do when we don’t realize fate has something else in store for the day.

Hours later, an uncontrolled squeal rang out through the house as two feet came slapping down the staircase. Mags grinned the grin of a proud mother who’s daughter’s slappity slapping she absolutely adored. 

“Happy birthday my precious angel,” called Mags above the slaps still clapping down the staircase. 

Out of the corner of her eye, Mags caught the reflection of her husband off the refrigerator, lurking behind the kitchen door, waiting to pounce. He held a finger against his lips, urging Mags not to reveal his hiding spot. Mags rolled her eyes and smiled. She dropped her gaze and looked down at another leaf from the newspaper. Funnies, it read in bold print.

The feet finally clapped down on the main floor as Dashing slammed into the front door and shoved off it hard, barreling down the hall toward the kitchen. 

“Morning mom!” she yelled as she burst through the kitchen doorway. 

Mags looked up. “Good morning, my sweet angel.” She stared at her daughter with a calm smile on her face, waiting expectantly for what was to come.

“What?” asked Dashing.

Just then, two arms reached out and snagged the youngest Danger right off the ground and another squeal rang out through the house.

“Happy birthday my sweet baby Danger!” bellowed Charming. “Let me see. How old are you again?” Charming tickled his daughter incessantly until she finally wriggled free from his mighty grip. The grip of a superhero. 

“I’m eight, dad, EIGHT!” Dashing hit the floor and ran for the kitchen table.

“Eight it is then,” bellowed Charming. “And what does my sweet baby Danger want for her eighth birthday?”

Charming walked around the counter to Mags and hugged his wife close. Magnifica couldn’t help the beaming smile that took hold of her. She looked at her husband’s chiseled features and her daughter’s sweet smile. Her family was perfect, from head to toe. 

“A new set of neighborhood kids,” said Dashing with a grumpy look on her face, her little arms crossed across her little chest. Charming and Mags both laughed at their daughter’s silly request.

“And what would I do with the current neighborhood kids?” asked Charming.

“Does it matter?” said Dashing, rolling her eyes.

Charming frowned a sarcastic frown.

“Of course it does, Dash. You wouldn’t want to leave those smelly Darling’s out on the streets, would you?” He grinned as he skulked toward his daughter very much like the way Mr. Darling was often seen skulking down the street. Brooding. Determined. Almost destined, if you will, never to be broken from, or rushed toward, his final endpoint. 

Dashing giggled at her father’s slunk over appearance and pushed him as hard as she could until he stood back upright.

“You could find them another home.”

“And what about Teera and her family?”

Dashing just shrugged.

“You want me to find them a new home too?!”

“Can you?” asked Dashing excitedly. Charming laughed.

“No, sweetness, I can’t. Besides, you like Teera, and her family. And I hear they got you a really special gift this year,” Charming teased. He tousled his daughters bouncy blonde curls and looked over at his wife with an excited grin, but Mags just rolled her eyes. She’d heard of the gift and wasn’t at all thrilled about it.

  

Dashing’s eyes narrowed as she pondered this new appeal. Special gift. Mom doesn’t seem to like it. Interesting… Then she nodded her head with approval.

“Ok, the Braats can stay.”

“Well that’s a relief!” laughed Charming. 

“But you should still find a new home for the Darling’s.”

“Nonsense,” said Mags finally. 

She gave Charming and Dashing a stern look and the two of them hushed up immediately. 

“The Darling’s are our new neighbor’s and after moving in a few months ago, not one person has tried to get to know them,” she said. She cleared her throat lightly and then looked back to her paper. “So I invited them to your party"”

“But I don’t want them at my party!” protested Dashing. But Mags ignored her daughter’s protest and continued.

“I expect you,” she said looking at Dashing, “and you,” she said, pushing a finger into her husband’s chest, “to be on your best behavior. They’re our neighbors now, so play nice.” 

“But mom!” cried Dashing. “Those kids are creepy! I don’t want them at my party.” She pouted, leaning her back against her father’s leg.

“Too bad. They’re new in town and we will not shun them like everyone else has. Especially not your father. Will you, Charming?”

“Hmm? Oh. Right. Yea. No shunning. No. Definitely not.” He looked down at Dashing and gave her a wink.

Mags rolled her eyes and grabbed her paper. She kissed her daughter on the forehead and her husband on the cheek before walking down the hall toward the staircase.

 

“Wink all you want,” she said, “but if I find either of you being rude to the Darling’s, EITHER OF YOU, you’ll rue the day!”

Charming mocked his wife behind her back, one hand implying she talks to much while the other dismissed her threat. Dashing giggled. And then jumped in the air as Magnifica shot back into the kitchen. She did it so fast, so quietly, that Charming too was thrown off guard.

“Rue the day,” she said menacingly, quietly, a fist gently shaking toward her kin.

 

She turned and walked back down the hallway, disappearing up the stairs. Charming and Dashing exhaled with relief.

“Hey dad,” whispered Dashing. “Can I go to the swings before my party?”

Charming pretended to about this and then crossed his arms, a serious face resting atop his chisled features.

“Will you be back in a few hours, as clean as you are now, without raising any suspicion from your mother?”

Dashing nodded her head, looking just as serious as her father. Charming stared at her for a moment, basking in her soft blue eyes. Just like Mags, he thought. Then he tousled his daughters hair once more and gave her a wide smile.

“Well then there’s your answer, kiddo!”

Dashing bolted for the front door and was halfway down the driveway before Charming could say another word. She shot out of the house all curls and grins, her sneakers smacking against the concrete with a steady rhythm as she ran down the sidewalk to beat her friend Teera to the swings.  

But as usual, Teera hadn’t taken their bet of firstie’s seriously. Dashing arrived at the playground to find that her friend was nowhere in sight. She rounded the corner to the swing set, expecting to be alone, and stopped frozen in her tracks when she suddenly realized she wasn’t. 

Sitting on her favorite swing, the one in the middle with the longer chains, was the Darling boy. And in the sandbox behind him was his little sister, just as creepy as her older brother, building an intricate sand castle the likes of which no six-year old should be able to produce. 

“Ugh, what are you two doing here?” scoffed Dashing, kicking up dirt as she walked towards the swings.

The boy said nothing. His sister, likewise, said nothing. The two of them stared Dashing down with unyielding eyes, the boy’s swing swaying in the wind, the girl’s sand castle quietly losing a few of its particles in the same breeze. But it was the little girl that put Dashing on edge. Instead of her brother’s uninterested gaze, she eyed Dashing up and down as a sadistic grin began to slowly spread across her face.

Dashing chose to ignore her and instead focus on the boy her own age.

“Well?! Can you at least move? It’s my birthday you know! And that’s my favorite swing.” Dashing stood with her arms crossed, staring the boy down. His long, straight, stringy black hair hung low in front of his beady black eyes. His clothing matched his demeanor perfectly: black, with slightly lighter shades of black accentuating all the black. 

But the boy continued to stare in silence. Slowly, his stare wandered toward the ground. Dashing looked over and his sister had already gone back to building her sand castle. Dashing was getting zero attention whatsoever.

“Excuse you!” she proclaimed. She did not care for being ignored.

But the boy said nothing. His sister’s sand castle now stood taller than the girl herself. 

Dashing huffed and puffed and finally stomped her feet and sat down directly in the boys line of vision, roughly five feet and a few inches in front of him, to the right, on the ground, right before the ant hill, just between the large rock and the sand pit for the swing set. He blinked a few times when he realized her new tactic, then narrowed his eyes and gave Dashing his most determined glare. 

Dashing crossed her arms and narrowed her own eyes even more, doing her best to outdo his level of angst. But it was no use.

She was a Danger and he was a Darling. A notorious hero family versus a notorious villain family. And a villain would always bring more hate to the game than a hero. Always. 

Dashing sighed with defeat and leaned back on her hands.

“So what? You two are coming to my party today, hmm? Do you even want to be there?”

The boy continued to stare at her. Is he even breathing, she thought. She looked at his torso and couldn’t decide. Tough to say. 

“So why are you guys even coming to my party then?”

The boy said nothing. The little girl appeared not to have heard a thing.

“I mean, it’s not like it’s even something you’d like. I bet you don’t even like parties. Do villains even have parties?”

The boy said nothing. 

“I bet it sucks to be you guys. I mean, no offense or anything, but being a villain must be the worst. I mean, nobody likes you, everybody hates you, you don’t have any friends, and the ones you do have might be using you for their own gain, right? And even if they’re not, can you even really call them friends? What with them being villains and all?”

The Darling girl suddenly looked up at Dashing and her face said it all. She dusted the sand off her knees and calmly strutted over to Dashing.

“I bet it sucks to be a hero. I mean, no offense or anything, but being a hero must be the worst. I mean, everybody assumes you’re awesome, meanwhile, everybody knows you aren’t. You have all the friends you can stomach and yet none of them really like you. They just use you to be close to a “hero”.” The little girl raised her hands for air-quotes. “And even if they are you’re “real friends,” can you really even call them friends? What with them being hero-sucking, fake Bessii, wannabe you’s and all?”

Dashing stepped back, appalled. For starters, no one in the neighborhood had ever heard either of the Darling children speak and no one expected it would be the little girl to do so first. And second, who did this little girl think she was?!

“I’ll have you know that being a hero is the best. Everyone knows it,” replied Dashing, on edge.

The girl coughed into her hand and crossed her arms.

“You want to know who’s the best?” she asked Dashing, not waiting for her response. “Those who don’t typecast those around them,” she took a step toward Dashing who took a step back. “Those who aren’t rude to people they haven’t bothered to get to know,” she took another step. “Those who aren’t bullies.”

Dashing tripped on the large rock behind her and fell to the ground.

“And for the record,” continued the Darling girl without pausing for air. “Neither one of us wants to go to your ridiculous birthday party. Eight years old? Seriously?! Celebrate an actual accomplishment for once! What is it with heroes and their celebrations of inferiority?!” 

Dashing grappled with something witty to say and came up short. Instead, she got up, ignored the little girl, and walked straight for the boy.

“I want my swing,” she said.  

She glared at the boy with all the courage she could muster. Be the hero and put these villains in their place, she told herself. She put her hands on her hips and let her hair flick behind her and catch in the wind, doing her best to mimic her mother whenever she presented herself as a hero. 

But the Darling girl would not be ignored. She stepped between Dashing and her brother and pushed Dashing back, hard.

“How dare you?!” she screamed with a weak six-year old squeal. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Who do you think you are, hero scum?!”

Dashing didn’t know what to do. She’d never been in a fight and she’d never been confronted by anyone quite like this. The girl was almost half her size and the boy sat rigid, aloof, on the swing set. He didn’t seem invested in this fight, but his sister sure did.

“Fine,” said Dashing. “I’ll wait.”

But the boy stood up, freeing the swing, and began to walk out of the playground. 

“You better stay away from my brother, hero scum,” shouted the girl as she followed her big brother down the sidewalk back toward their house. “If I ever hear you bully him again, you’ll pay for it. YOU’LL ALL PAY FOR IT!” Her little arms extended fully into the air in a scheming, nefarious shake. 

Dashing sat down on her swing, confused, and watched the Darling’s walk down the street. Who is that girl, she thought as she watched the six-year old skip away.

In the distance, Dashing noticed Teera now skipping down the sidewalk towards the boy and his sister, completely unawares of their looming towards her. A few feet out, she finally noticed their presence as they too noticed hers. The Darling girl viciously hissed and raised her hands like she’d sooner pounce on Teera than hug her. Teera screamed and leapt into the street, her shrill scream echoing across the neighborhood. A car swerved just in time to avoid hitting her and came to a screeching halt on a neighbor’s front lawn. But the driver, much like Teerah, had eyes only for the creepy boy and his little sister, both dressed all in black, coasting down the sidewalk, neither one showing any concern for the screams, honks, or screeching tires all caused by their presence in the neighborhood. 

Dashing watched as the Darling girl laughed maniacally and raised a small fist in the air.

“To the Shoppe!” she declared as her and her brother continued slowly on their path. 

Moments later, a shaken Teera sat down in the swing beside Dashing.

“Can you believe those kids?!” she exclaimed. “I mean, hello!? It’s called a haircut, maybe you’ve heard of it?” Teera snorted a laugh to herself. “Happy birthday, by the way,” she said. 

But Dashing wasn’t paying attention. She was still watching the Darling’s make their way down the sidewalk.

“She called me hero scum,” she said, finally breaking her stare and looking over at Teera.

“Hero scum?”

“Yea. The sister. She spoke to me.”

“Whoa,” muttered Teera. “What did she say?”

“I just told you!”

“I know, but I mean. What else did she say?”

Dashing rambled off everything she could remember.

“Well she’s delusional then,” said Teera convinced. “Everyone knows heroes are amazing and villains are the worst.”

“Right,” said Dashing. But suddenly, she wasn’t convinced anymore. The girl had spoken with such courage, such conviction. Dashing shook her head.

“You’re right,” she told Teera. “Heroes are the best!”

“That’s the spirit,” said Teera.

Teera Braats had moved in five houses down from the Dangers over three years ago. And while the Braats weren’t a hero family, they were great accountants; the best according to her parents. For three years, Teera had enviously swooned over Dashing and her family and for three years she had made it quite clear that she wanted so badly to be from a hero family herself.

 

“Anyways,” chimed Teera. “When I become a hero, I’ll make sure the Darling’s are put away for good.” Teerah gave Dashing a resolute look. And Dashing nodded in return.

It was agreed then. The Darling’s were the worst, not the Dangers.

“Do you think I’ll ever really become a superhero?” asked Teera suddenly. 

The odds of becoming a hero in Dismisia when you weren’t born into a hero family were slim to none, but they weren’t nonexistent. Everyone in Dismisia knew two things were certain: 1) everyone had a spark, and 2) those who didn’t were simply those who didn’t believe in themselves.

“Of course you will!” encouraged Dashing. “Anyone can do it,” she squeezed her friends hand. “Anyone.”

“Easy for you to say,” said Teera, a hint of jealousy tainting her tone.

Dashing shrugged. She knew better than to get in this argument with Teera. If her friend didn’t believe in her own abilities, there was nothing Dashing could do about that.

Dashing pushed off her swing, landed in the sand, and skipped off across the playground.

 

“I’ll see you at my party today, right?” she said as she crossed the street back towards her house.

“Yup,” said Teera as she caught up. “I’m not supposed to tell you, because it’s a surprise, but my parents got you tickets to ride a unicorpse on the beach.”

“WHAT?!” screamed Dashing. She stood rooted in place, unable to move, squealing with delight.

“SHHHHH! I told them I wouldn’t tell you!”

Dashing covered her mouth as her face turned red with excitement.

“Gosh. What is it with you and creepy stuff?” Teera shook as if she got chills. “You do remember you’re a hero, right?”

“There’s nothing wrong with a hero liking interesting things.”

“Unicorps are NOT interesting things,” hollared Teera as she walked backward toward her house. “They’re creepy things!”

“Says you!” replied Dashing.

Author's Note

Are you entertained? Intrigued to know more? Do you have any creative thoughts? This is a first draft and is being heavily revised in the next few days.

Reviews

[Vic]

Wow, I really enjoyed this. I want to see how it progresses. I have a feeling Dashing is going to get to know the Darlings a lot better than she expected.

This was well written as well. The arrogance and confidence of the mother was reflected in the daughter in a most believable way. I can't wait for more!

[tamaro]

Thank you Vic! I'll have to post up more when I get the chance. I'm going through a massive overhaul of an editing session this weekend, so possibly after that.

You absolutely are correct in her getting to know the Darlings better than she could possibly foresee!

I'm glad I was able to capture her mother's influence on her attitude. But now that you've mentioned that, I can definitely incorporate that more throughout the early chapters.

Thanks for the insight and the encouragement!

[wordman]

the makings of a great book,maybe a t v series

[tamaro]

Thanks wordman! I would love to get it published when I'm finished with it. Thanks for the encouragement :)

[wordman]

my pleasure