Growing Up Rainbow

Part 3: A Troublesome Flower

Awana came back from a weekend obstacles class and found Beagán uncharacteristically still. Beagán was lounging on a cushion engrossed in her data pad. Awana put some of her new silent movement skills to use and moved where she could see what the other girl was reading.

There was a picture of a flower and a whole lot of very small text with very long words.

"What you looking at, Beagán?" asked Awana.

The other girl startled. "Woah, you surprised me. That something you learn at your Space Girl class?"

"You were pretty engrossed, Beg," Awana said, still trying to decipher the document. "I don't need special skills to sneak up on you."

"Oh, this? It's a flower," said Beagán. "And I normally would have sensed you climbing the tree, much less moving across the room."

Awana just shrugged but was actually excited she'd managed to infiltrate the tree house without her Way of the Forest friend noticing. "I can see that. I know you love flowers...and trees...and worms. But I've never seen you just sitting there reading. Normally when you study, you pace."

"Do I? I never noticed. No, this is for Orea. You know she's got those burns."

"Kind of hard to miss."

"Really? Because you can completely miss them if you only see her from one side. She's really very pretty."

Awana thought about it for a minute and guessed that would be right, though she'd never done it. "What's the flower got to do with her?"

"Well, yesterday, Sophia beat up the jackals to protect Tomoe and came here," began Beagán.

"Sophia beat up the Jackals? By herself? And came here." Awana tried to reconcile the girl who'd got her into Obstacles with taking on the whole pack of wanna-be forest girls. "What does the flower have to do with Orea?"

"If you'd let me finish," said Beagán, "You know her mother is Space Woman Black, right? Her flying saucer came to get her when her mother found out she'd been in a fight. Don't know how it knew where to find her."

Having spent time around Black, Awana had no doubt she could find anyone anytime. "What does that have to do with her beating up the jackals? And your flower and Orea?"

"I figured her mom taught her how to fight." Beagán thought for a moment. "Though I heard the Jackals weren't really that hurt. Physically. They've been pretty jumpy last couple of days."

Another thought occurred to her, "Hey, did you know some people think the Space Girls are assassins?"

"Light, I hope not," said Awana. Then she tried to remember all the threads of this discussion. "When I met Sophia she said she was a lover not a fighter, whatever that means. But if her mom taught her even a tiny bit of what she knows.... As for the Jackals, I'm starting to think most of their power is because other people don't stand up to them. They just push it as far as they can. Guess they pushed Sophia too far. What does that have to do with Orea's burns?"

"What do you mean, 'I hope not'?" Beagán seemed to have lost all interest in her flower.

Awana plopped down onto a different lounge cushion. "Because Space Girls are crazy good at whatever they do. The second year Space Cadets run circles around me and Annabelle." She almost said Annabelle wasn't half bad either, but caught herself before complimenting her frenimy. "And Black just seems to appear out of no where any time she wants. If she wanted to kill someone..."

"But she doesn't right?" Beagán bit her lip, and swallowed hard. "I mean you haven't seen them teaching the Cadets how to kill people, have you?"

"Well," said Awana, thinking about how they did obstacles. "Not directly, but they are very sneaky. I'd think the actual killing part of being an assassin is preceded by a lot of sneaking." Then she looked at her friend's face, and could see her eyes filling with tears. "What's wrong, Beg?"