Friday, April 19, 2019

#9: The Dean’s List, Again

“You lost your virginity to Yarn Man?” My sister Avril was both horrified and fascinated. “Now I know you’re making it all up—about living in a house with Megaheroes and the whole bit. I don’t believe that Trent Phloog ever was Megaton Man or any other Megahero, either…and Stella, well…she’s pretty and all, but she’s hardly ravishing enough to have been the See-Thru Girl.”

Friday, April 12, 2019

#8: A Night at the Hospital, a Day in the Funny Papers

It was late when the doctor finally spoke to me and Pammy in the waiting room. She told us what Stella had experienced were known as false contractions; she hadn’t gone into labor yet; her membrane hadn’t even ruptured. In other words, her water hadn’t broken. It might still be another seventy-two hours before she went into real labor. The way Stella had been overdoing things lately, this came as no surprise. The stress and strain she’d put herself under to get ahead before she’d have to take time off from school had brought this on, I guessed. Not to mention Trent Phloog reverting to Megaton Man—the father of her child—again, thanks to Secret Agent Preston Percy’s booster shot. Still, the doctor said they wanted to keep her overnight, just in case.

Friday, April 5, 2019

#7: The Mysterious Preston Percy

It was the last Saturday in March, just a few days before Stella was to go into the hospital—to give birth to the love child of Megaton Man—when again Daddy’s pickup rolled into the driveway. I heard the honk from upstairs. Only this time it wasn’t carrying a load of gravel, or Daddy; when I got to the front porch, Avril was letting down the tailgate. There was something big and boxy under the blanket.