BALLERINA IN BLACK BURGLES BANK!

“Ten out of ten for alliteration, but I’d only give you a five for accurate reporting,” I muttered to myself, eyes glued to the front page of the Toronto Star. I was celebrating my success last night with an early morning piece of pie and a stack of newspapers, as many as I could find.

In my eagerness to splash my name all over the news, I hadn’t even stopped to consider how I was going to introduce myself. I wasn’t sure if the Rubes would accept my fame if it was garnered under the wrong name. Either way, letting the press pick a name for me invalidated all those months and years of thought that I had put into choosing just the right moniker. My next scheme would have to involve a public announcement of my identity.

I flattened out the newspaper, grimacing at the fuzzy photo of myself diving into the bank. I was thrilled they had given me the full front page, but didn’t those idiots at the Star know how to take a decent photo? Perhaps a proper photo shoot could be arranged. I grinned, imagining what their reaction would be if a supervillain showed up at their offices in full costume and requested a photo shoot. I would probably have to be a bit subtler than that if I wanted them to take me seriously.

Taking a bite of delicious apple pie, I returned to my reading, savouring the words and the sweet, cinnamony filling equally.

Last night, a new and vicious villain appeared in our city, wreaking havoc on the RUBE Central Bank. After blasting a hole straight through the bank, this dastardly dancer darted away with bags of cash. Rough estimates from bank officials calculate that she made off with over three hundred thousand dollars. The best efforts of the police, aided by the fearsome Fireball, were not enough to halt this pirouetting pilferer.

“Shocking, isn’t it?”

My head jerked up, as though pulled by an invisible puppeteer. I had been so absorbed in my reading I had entirely forgotten to pay attention to the world around me. Stupid, stupid, stupid. That kind of inattentiveness could get a villain killed in a hurry.

Luckily it was only Abe, who slid into the seat across from me with his own piece of pie. He looked disgustingly wide-awake for this early in the morning, especially since I knew he had been helping count our stolen cash until at least 3am.

“That’s the bank we robbed last night,” Abe said, nodding towards the newspaper before taking a large bit of pie.

“What?!”

A couple at a nearby table halted their conversation to look at me curiously, and I ducked my head, shamming embarrassment at my outburst. In truth, it had been carefully calculated to properly convey surprise and horror while not drawing undue attention to our little table. The couple turned back to their conversation and I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at their smartly-dressed backs.

“Yup,” Abe replied. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

Not this again, I thought to myself, staring at the newspaper as I folded into a careful square. Why couldn’t I have chosen stupid minions? Or at least ones that weren’t quite so observant? I tucked the newspaper into my backpack, simultaneously using one foot to nudge my large pile of newspapers underneath my chair. There was no way I would be able to explain those away easily.

Still avoiding Abe’s gaze, I took another bite of pie. The gooey apple filling didn’t taste quite as sweet as it had before though, and I had to force myself to swallow.

“Why are you still hanging around here?” Abe’s voice had dropped to a whisper, and I looked up to find myself staring into his eyes, just six inches away. “You’ve delivered your message. Why don’t you leave?”

“I’m helping out Bea,” I said, placing another forkful of pie in my mouth and chewing furiously. Bea’s accusations still rang in my ears. She’d barely said a word to me since that argument two days ago, and I hadn’t realized how much her friendly banter had meant to me until it was suddenly missing. Her unabashed friendliness had filled a hole in me that I hadn’t even known was there, and now it ached with emptiness.

You’re a supervillain, I reminded myself furiously. Friendships were for people who went for a quiet piece of pie at ten in the morning without a stack of newspapers. Friendships were for people who spent their nights watching cheesy movies, not robbing banks. Having my, admittedly fuzzy, image splashed across the front pages of a half dozen newspapers was well worth the loss of a friendship or two. My heart gave a painful squeeze at this thought, but I ignored it. I was fed up with my minions thinking that they could just poke around my business, asking questions and ruining everything I had worked to build.

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“Are you going to make me leave then, is that it?” I speared the crust of my pie with my fork, sending flaky crumbs of pastry flying across the table.

“No, not at all,” Abe said absentmindedly, unaware how close he came to dying for daring to order me around, as useless as that order would have been. “I just find it...odd...your coming here just before that supervillain.”

“How should I know why the supervillain does what she does?” I pressed my fork into my remaining pie, watching with satisfaction as the apple filling oozed out the sides.

“I don’t know; how should you know?” Abe repeated back to me. I shot him a sharp look, which he met impassively.

I broke the staring contest first, looking over his shoulder at the television hanging in the corner of the room. All thoughts of Abe’s accusations flew from my head, because there I was, on television, looking pretty fantastic in my red-and-black costume. The volume was turned off, but a shaky video showed me ascending from the depths of the bank, grinning and waving at the camera.

My hair was escaping from its tight ballet bun and one of my elbow-length red gloves had slid down my arm. Overall, I looked like an utterly deranged and wildly successful supervillain. Not bad for my first big crime.

“What’re you looking at?” Abe asked, and I turned back to see him watching my face very closely. I realized I was grinning, and carefully wiped the smile away.

“I was just watching the TV,” I said, shrugging. The news story had already cut to an advertisement for deodorant.

“A bit of friendly advice? That supervillain is bad news. Smart thing would be to get out of town while you still can and never look back.” He leaned across the table, staring at me intently from within his halo of curly brown hair. Shivers ran down my spine. I wanted to laugh at the absurdity of one of my minions warning me to steer clear of myself, but something in his voice made me pause. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was an important message in his words, one that I was missing entirely.

“Hi there! Mind if I join you?”

The two of us looked up like guilty children caught with our hands in the cookie jar. There, grinning cheerfully down at us and holding a freshly cut piece of pie, was Sera. How long had she been standing there?

Abe, retreating into his customary recalcitrance, merely shrugged. That was enough of an invitation for Sera, who immediately set her plate on the table and dragged over a third chair.

“Thanks!” Sera said, grinning at both of us and sticking a forkful of pie in her mouth. She chewed, swallowed, and let out a small moan of delight. “This really is the best pie I’ve ever had, Bea was right. I was planning to come here with her, but she’s been moping around for the past few days and said she couldn’t leave the store unattended. So I figured I’d just come on my own. I hope I’m not interrupting your date.”

“Date?!” The word popped out of me. My last piece of pie, which I had been in the middle of raising to my mouth, tumbled from my fork. I automatically reached out with my mind, asking the air molecules beneath the falling pie to solidify. The pie paused, hanging in the air for the briefest of moments before I realized what I was doing and released my control on the air molecules. I carefully set my fork down on my plate before anyone noticed how much my hands were shaking. Usually I had no problems remembering to only use my powers when I was safely hidden behind the mask of Death’s Dancer. The shock of Sera’s unexpected comment had momentarily cut through my self-control, and I could only hope no one had noticed my floating pie.

“Well yes, isn’t that what you’re doing here?” Sera said, oblivious to my brief moment of panic.

“No,” Abe grunted, stuffing his last bite of pie in his mouth and chewing loudly. I had to look away, as crumbs escaped his mouth only to become caught in his bushy beard.

“Definitely not,” I added.

Abe stood up abruptly, his chair screeching against the concrete floor. Without a word to either of us, he walked straight out the front door. In silence, we watched him stroll down the street towards Bea’s shop.

“Strange man,” Sera said.

I only nodded my agreement, still trying to get over the fact that Sera had thought I was dating Abe. Chasing the last piece of pie around my plate, I finally scooped it up and popped it in my mouth. Delicious. But somehow the flaky pie crust and sweet filling weren’t quite as delicious as they had been a few minutes before.

“I need to talk to you,” Sera said.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing now?” I glanced sharply at her, and was surprised to find her eyes darting all over the pie shop, as though afraid someone would leap out from beneath a nearby table and attack us.

“No, not here. I need to talk to you somewhere private.”

“Well that’s very mysterious,” I said, stalling for time as I tried to figure out what her angle was. I still didn’t trust this strange sister of Bea’s, but so far she’d done nothing more sinister than pair up mismatched sock at the used clothing store.

Nevertheless, my mind began working overtime, churning out conspiracy theories. Was she a reporter, and undercover cop, a spy for Fireball?

“Meet me outside the backyard of the shop at midnight.” Sera must have seen the refusal already forming in my mouth, because she grabbed my arm tightly. It took all my self-control not to stand and throw her halfway across the room, just as we had been taught in school. “I promise you will want to hear what I’ve got to say.”

Without another word, she pushed her chair back and walked out of the store as abruptly as Abe had just a few minutes prior. She left behind her piece of pie, untouched but for a single forkful. That was the last straw. Even if I hadn’t already been suspicious of her, what person in their right mind left this store without finishing their pie?

I had plenty of time to think about this as I ate Sera’s pie, not wanting it to go to waste. Then I gathered up my newspapers and headed down the street to Bea’s store.

A black car with tinted windows pulled up next to me as I walked. I kept walking, lost in my own thoughts, until the door opened and someone inside called out “Death’s Dancer!”

I whirled around, and found myself staring into the soulless eyes of Principal Sicarius.