“If you’re trying to convince me you’re switching sides,” said Lizard Brain, “I don’t believe it. I’m not giving you a job, so don’t even try.”
“Don’t you think so, though?” said Ana Sofía. “That Hydra rocks?”
“I already said I did!” said Lizard Brain.
“Then why don’t you say it?” asked Ana Sofía.
“Yeah, boss,” said an agent. “Why don’t you say it?”
“Yeah, Hydra rocks!” said another, holding up his pointer finger and pinky. “Say it, boss!”
Lizard Brain shifted in his leather suit. “Fine. Hydra rocks.”
Tik-tik fffshhhhhh…Sprinklers on the ceiling shifted on and began spraying water droplets on their heads. Squirrel Girl had seen no fire, smelled no smoke that would have set them off—
“Ohhhhh,” said Squirrel Girl to Ana Sofía. “Earlier you must have hacked into their security system in the awesome way that you do that seems like a legit super power, and set a voice-activated phrase to turn on the fire sprinklers. You chose ‘Hydra rocks’ because it seemed like something these jerks would be likely to say, but it didn’t work when you said it because there must have been a voice-recognition component, so Bry here had to be the one to say it and oh my heck that’s so clever!” Squirrel Girl realized she’d been talking really fast, and with the water and all, Ana Sofía likely hadn’t been able to read her lips. So she tried to sum up: “You’re amazing. I’m really glad you’re my friend.”
Ana Sofía smiled. It was pretty stellar having a best friend to fight alongside you a hundred feet belowground in a secret evil lair.
“Wait, what’s happening?” asked Lizard Brain, pulling his hood forward in a vain attempt to keep his face dry.
“My best friend just cracked your shell,” said Squirrel Girl. “And now I’m gonna eat the pistachio.”82
“Sprinklers off!” Lizard Brain shouted at the ceiling. Nothing happened.
Squirrel Girl turned to her right wrist shackle and started to gnaw.
“Don’t even try to get loose,” said Lizard Brain. “Those shackles are squirrel-proof.”
The squirrels flicked tails and chittered. The water must have washed away the musk effects for them, too.
“They’re laughing,” said Squirrel Girl, her mouth full of metal. “There’s. No. Such. Thing. As—squirrel-proof!”
The shackle snapped under her teeth, and she immediately bent to the one on her other wrist.
“Stop!” said Lizard Brain. “Cease!”
Squirrel Girl pretty much didn’t stop or cease.
“I’m warning you!” he said. He pointed his wrists at her and valiantly pumped the bellows under his arms. If his musk was shooting out through the spouts on his wrists, it went nowhere but down in the rain-filled room.
The second shackle broke under her teeth. She bent and pulled open her ankle shackles.
“STOP!” said Lizard Brain.
“Nope,” said Squirrel Girl.
And she sprang.
First she grabbed her phone from his hand and stuck it back in her utility belt.83 Then after dodging a couple of plasma blasts she thought maybe getting her phone shouldn’t have been step one. But still. It was her phone.
“Rethink your villainous ways!” she said, grabbing a plasma shooter from one agent.
“Find some real friends!” she said, yanking a shooter from the other.
“Contribute in a positive manner to the society in which you live!” she said, opening the side of the cage, releasing the squirrels, and stuffing the two agents into it.
“You can’t stop Hydra!” said Lizard Brain. “If you cut one of us down—”
She punched him in the face. He fell down. She watched him for a second, looked around, and shrugged.
“Weird,” she said. “I thought two others were supposed to take your place.”
He clambered back to his feet and looked at her with great intensity, as if willing his musk to overwhelm her. But the downpour continued to neutralize it, pulling the gas particles into the droplets and down to the puddles on the floor.
She ran a claw down the back of Lizard Brain’s battle suit, ripping the leather open, and then tore it off him so he couldn’t gather and spray musk with it anymore. Underneath, he was naked but for tight black swim briefs.
“Gross,” she said.
“Shows what you know,” he said, his soaked hair dripping water into his eyes. “All the coolest guys are going to be wearing these at the beach this summer. Just you wait!”
“Um, okay,” said Squirrel Girl, already feeling a little bad for him, all wet like a lost puppy and sniveling in defeat. He looked about as scary as a wilted carrot.
But still. Take no chances with bad dudes! She hauled him to the wall and snapped his ankles into the unbroken shackles.
“Game over!” said Squirrel Girl. “Final boss defeated. New high score: USGAA!”
“USGAA?” asked Lizard Brain.
“Unbeatable Squirrel Girl,” she said.
Two hundred sloppy wet squirrels gathered at her feet, climbed onto her legs, shoulders, head. She smiled.
“And army.”
“Did we win?” asked Ana Sofía, standing up. Even her socks were soaked, and they squished unpleasantly inside her boots. She’d taken off her hearing aids to protect them from the water, and they were dry and safe tucked into a plastic baggie she kept in her jacket pocket for just-in-case-of-rain, and now also for just-in-case-of-heroic-fire-sprinklers-in-Hydra-bases.
Squirrel Girl said something that Ana Sofía didn’t catch, so she lifted her wet hair to show her she wasn’t wearing her hearing aids.
“Yes!” Squirrel Girl signed. “We saved the day! There is no more day-saving to be done!”
They stood smiling at each other, drops of water plopping off the tips of their noses. Ana Sofía had enacted more smiles since becoming friends with Squirrel Girl than probably the rest of her life combined. Her cheek muscles didn’t even hurt anymore.
“Honestly I wasn’t too hopeful for a bit there, but WAHOO!” she said in a very un–Ana Sofía way, her fist punching the air.
Squirrel Girl laughed. “You are the best BHFF a Super Hero ever had.”
“True. But my cheering was not an invitation to get sentimental, please.”
“Right,” Squirrel Girl signed. “Sorry. I just love the stuffing out of you, is all.”
“Enough.”
“Got it. No problem. You awesome, amazing person.”
“Aaa!”
Lizard Brain said something, and Squirrel Girl laughed. Ana Sofía didn’t hear, but Squirrel Girl told her later he’d asked to be set free, and she’d said, Nice try, Bry. You’re staying here till we figure out what happens after the end of the final boss battle in real life. In video games, this is the part when the game turns off. Ooh, this is exciting!
Ana Sofía led them all away from the indoor rainstorm, down the corridor they’d come, and into the open shaft room. At last away from the water, the girls squeezed water from their hair and clothes. Ana Sofía replaced her hearing aids.
“Is everybody here?” said Squirrel Girl. “Anyone hurt? I feel like we’re shy a few squirrel friends.”
Tippy-Toe chittered something, shaking her fur till it started to dry.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right, Tip. Wet squirrels take up half the usual space. You all look travel-size. Adorbs! So…now what?” Squirrel Girl looked up the shaft and signed, “I don’t see a ladder.”
Ana Sofía investigated an elevator.
“It appears we did such a good job of destruction that we cut off electricity to the elevators.”
“Oh.” Squirrel Girl and the squirrels looked around. “Huh. Well, that was some good smashing, squirrels.”
And then the roof above the hundred-foot shaft broke, and through it fell Thor. He landed on his feet.84 Ana Sofía didn’t even blink. This was her life now, she guessed. And she liked it.
“And thus I come to sav
e the day!” he said, his hammer held aloft in his mighty arm. “Where are the villainous vermin? They will feel the sting of Mjölnir!”
“Hey! Hi! Great!” said Ana Sofía, suddenly feeling super-embarrassed. “Well…this is awkward. We already saved the day.”
Thor lowered his hammer. He looked around. “Thou didst?”
“Yep!” said Squirrel Girl. “Like, just now. Literally two minutes ago I said ‘The day is saved!’ and then you dropped in.”
“Oh,” he said.
“Sorry,” said Ana Sofía. “I didn’t mean to make you come all the way from space. I would have texted you not to bother but I didn’t think you were planning on it.”
Thor’s shoulders stooped.
“’Tis okay,” he said. “The son of Odin had every confidence in thy day-saving abilities. I just wanted to help.”
Tippy-Toe leaped onto Squirrel Girl’s shoulder and chittered in her ear.
“Oh, hey, Thor! You could be really useful still, though,” said Squirrel Girl. “Tippy says when we were…um, smashing up the Hydra base, we kind of disabled all the escape routes. The elevators. Even the stairs. You know squirrels,” said Squirrel Girl with a shrug.
Ana Sofía didn’t quite catch that exchange the first time and asked Squirrel Girl to repeat it.
“Oh! Yeah!” said Ana Sofía. “Elevators and stairs! We’re, like, stuck down here! And since you can fly…or sort of fly—hammer-fly—can you give us a lift?”
Thor straightened up. He smiled.
They decided to do it all in one trip. Thor held on to Ana Sofía with one arm. She felt like a little kid again, as light as a toddler lifted up by her father—if her father was wearing full-body leather and metal armor. She couldn’t help giggling and hoped nobody noticed. Squirrel Girl rode piggyback, batting his long red cape out of her face. And two hundred squirrels attached themselves like tree frogs all over his bulky frame. Amazingly, he had enough surface area to support them all.
With his free hand, Thor whipped his hammer around in circles, shot it straight up, and suddenly they were all shooting straight up.85
“Uhhhh…” Ana Sofía said before the rush of air stole her breath completely and her stomach seemed to stay behind. The fall up felt faster than the fall down. Thor shot through the hole he’d made and then alighted on the mall roof. Squirrel Girl and squirrels leaped off him, but Ana Sofía still clung on. She looked firmly at the firm ground, and very firmly ordered her hands to let go. They weren’t in midair anymore. They were safe. But still her hands gripped Thor’s cape and a buckle on his breastplate. She could feel his chest rumble with a laugh.
“I fell,” Ana Sofía said. “Earlier, I fell. A long way. Squirrel Girl caught me. But it was—”
SCARY! It’d been really, really scary, and frankly after a fright like that, not to mention fighting all those Hydra agents with their sploidy plasma guns and the horrible, bone-deep, gnawing primal terror she’d felt with the musk, she couldn’t convince her desperate, trembling hands that clinging to a large, very strong Super Hero wasn’t the best place and only safe space in the entire world, and that once you were there, the wisest course wasn’t just to STAY FOREVER.86
Ana Sofía felt Thor pat her gently on her head.
Tippy-Toe climbed onto her shoulder. She wiped her already-dried tail over Ana Sofía’s brow. It should have tickled, but instead it was soothing. The squirrel chittered something at her and pointed.
On the ground at Thor’s feet, all the squirrels had gathered into a tight red, orange, gray, and black mass. Their tails were fluffed up invitingly.
Ana Sofía glared at her gripping hands until they were ready to obey her. She took a deep breath, and she let go. Two hundred squirrels caught her. It was like jumping into a pile of freshly washed socks, all cozy and soft and surprisingly good-smelling. They slowly released her till she was sitting on the solid roof.
“Someone always catches me,” said Ana Sofía.
Squirrel Girl was typing on her phone.
“Black Widow is in space fighting Thanos,” said Squirrel Girl, “but I think someone from S.H.I.E.L.D. will be—”
She was cut off by a loud clacking noise that messed up Ana Sofía’s hearing aids so much she just switched them off. A sleek black helicopter landed on the roof, and a tall, broad black man wearing an eye patch hopped out.
Whoa, that’s Nick Fury, Ana Sofía thought, frankly shocked that after all she’d seen and done with Squirrel Girl anything could still shock her.
The S.H.I.E.L.D. commander was followed out of the helicopter by a half dozen men and women in black outfits who immediately rappelled down into the hole Thor had made. One agent carried a long pole with an electric loop on the end, like a high-tech dog catcher. She seemed to know Squirrel Girl, and they exchanged a few words.
“Look out for a guy in swim briefs shackled to a wall—he’s surprisingly dangerous!” Ana Sofía called out in case no one else had warned them. “Keep your gas masks on around him!”
There was conversation between Nick Fury, Thor, and Squirrel Girl, which Ana Sofía completely missed until the helicopter blades stopped.
“Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. will clean up the Hydra stuff,” said Squirrel Girl, catching Ana Sofía up when she had switched her hearing aids back on.
“Oh, good,” she said. “Just FYI, if there’s a way you can do that without blowing up the mall, that’d be great. I mean, everyone was really looking forward to having a mall in the neighborhood. Also for the jobs it would create.”
Nick Fury nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks,” said Ana Sofía. “Even Vin was excited about the mall. He’d mentioned maybe coming here together sometime…not that he ever follows through or anything….”
“Who be this Vin?” asked Thor.
Ana Sofía shrugged and wished she hadn’t brought it up. Was there a Super Hero who could travel back in time and erase awkward conversations? Because that was a power she longed for.
“Vin Tang is this guy who is sort of friends with us,” said Squirrel Girl. “And he—”
Ana Sofía slugged her in the shoulder, but Squirrel Girl kept talking.
“—he kind of asked Ana Sofía out but then he never set a date and never brought it up again, so it’s weird, right? I mean, you guys are guys—do you get guys when they do stuff like that?”
Nick Fury’s cheeks darkened, and he said something like “…I don’t have daughters for a reason…” before turning away and becoming suddenly very busy with a tablet computer.
“Vin. Tang.” Thor scowled. “I will have a word with this Vin Tang.”
Thor had certainly jumped right into his tío role, as overprotective of Ana Sofía as her mom’s brothers were. Honestly, she’d almost think he was Mexican American instead of Asgardian.
“Don’t you dare, Thor,” said Ana Sofía. “I mean it. It’s seriously not a big deal.”
He scowled at her. She glared back. He was a pretty good scowler, but honestly no match for her glare. He broke first, looking away.87
“Fine, then. I will probably not visit this Vin Tang and speak to him most sternly.”
Ana Sofía sighed really, really hard.
“Well,” said Thor, “I suppose I should go back to space now. To fight Thanos.”
“If you’ve defeated Thanos by next Saturday, we’re having Marquito’s birthday party, and Mom wanted me to tell you she’s making a lot of empanadas and also pastel de tres leches.”88
Thor’s brow furrowed thoughtfully. “Saturday. Well, then, I must save the universe by Saturday. I will inform the Avengers of our updated timeline.”
With a crack of thunder, he was gone.
“He’s such a show-off,” said Ana Sofía.
“We should get home,” Squirrel Girl said to Nick Fury. “Parents. You know how they are.”
“I can offer you a lift,” he said, gesturing to the helicopter.
“No thanks!” said Ana Sofía. She climbed down a
ladder attached to the roof, her legs trembling until she reached the firm ground below. She began to run toward home as soon as her feet touched asphalt. A squirrel army escorted her all the way.
Ana Sofía Arcos Romero was not a person who collected phobias. She preferred to believe she chose what she did and did not do based on cool-headed reason with no other influences. But maybe, she admitted to herself, just maybe, she had a thing about heights.
The Monday after the failed mall opening, Doreen woke up to her phone alarm declaring in Hulk’s voice, “WAKE UP OR HULK WILL WAKE YOU UP.” She immediately regretted downloading that Hulk alarm app. She turned it off and tried to get up, but her tail had other ideas, lying over her head like the coziest blanket in the entire universe. Doreen started to drift back to sleep—
No! She had to get to school early. Squirrel Girl was victorious, but Doreen had an outstanding problem.
She threw on normal clothes, speed-ate three bowls of cereal, stuffed her tail into her pants, and ran to school only slightly faster than humanly possible—at least when anyone was looking.
She arrived just as the doors unlocked, and she bolted up to her homeroom. She was in luck. Her teacher was already there, and the other students were not.
She stared at Ms. Schweinbein’s back as the teacher erased the chalkboard.
She’s kind of a Todd, Doreen thought. Laser Lady would totally get me right now.
Doreen took a big breath and tried to remember what she’d planned to say. Her mind was blank. That talk with her parents on Friday had felt helpful, but to be honest, most of what they’d said she couldn’t even remember anymore. She just knew that she had told them everything, and that they’d listened to her. And that she’d felt pretty good about it all—hopeful even. Also the cake. She remembered the cake.
So maybe the most important part of talking it out was not the talking but the listening.89 She stretched, readied her listening muscles and “I” messages, and then cleared her throat.