are they?”
“Karate.”
“Ahhh,” the man leaned back with a sly smile. “I guess you would be… a black belt?”
“Eighth degree,” she added a little threateningly.
The man didn’t take the hint. “You know,” he said, leaning on his elbow and giving her a sideways glance, “I practice a little martial artistry myself.”
“Interesting,” she muttered.
“I don’t mean to brag, but I’m pretty mean with a nun-chuck.” He suddenly whipped around imaginary nun-chucks and screamed nonsense, finishing with one hand over his shoulder and the palm of his other hand facing the karate woman.
“I’ll bet you are.”
“If you want, we could have a sparring session later. Give each other a few pointers.”
“I would certainly love that.”
He grinned goofily at her. She tapped her fingers against the desktop impatiently.
“Oh right.” The man snapped out of his enchantment and tapped the building on the map. “Yeah, this might be a good place to hold your classes. Just allow me to get you the forms so that we can lease it to you…”
He was interrupted by screaming outside.
“What the…” She turned around and saw people running past the doors and screaming. “What’s going on?”
“Must be another monster,” the man answered suavely as he ducked under his desk.
She blinked in disbelief and muttered, “Another… monster?” She ran outside and turned toward the source of the people’s fear.
“I’m cold-blooded!” the monster declared as it skittered through the streets. “And I’ll have you all for dinner!” It laughed, which sounded like an old geezer wheezing.
“A giant lizard… that talks?” she wondered to herself. “Where did it come from?”
That giant lizard swung its head, yelling, “Boo!” at terrified citizens and wheezing amusedly to itself. Then it spotted Jennifer, noticing that unlike the rest of the citizens she wasn’t running away. So it skittered to her and lowered its bulbous eyes to her.
“Ello there, ma’am,” it chuckled. “I’m a cold-blooded monster and I’m going to eat you.”
“Is that so?” she responded coolly. “You’re really that cold-blooded?”
The giant lizard rolled its eyes awkwardly. “Well, it’s more of a joke, see. I’m a reptile, which is classified as cold-blooded.”
“Oh, now I get it.” She wasn’t smiling though. “You’re a lizard so you’re cold-blooded, but you also eat people, which is a cold-blooded thing to do.”
The lizard beamed. “Yeah, exactly!”
“I hope you can fight better than you can joke!” yelled a voice.
The lizard rolled its eyes to locate the source of the voice. And it located the source all right. The source, in fact, threw itself right into the reptile’s eye!
“Aaaack!” the colossal reptile scrambled backwards and then shook its head furiously, flicking its tongue over its eye, trying to deliver relief.
Jennifer watched the action dumbfounded. She didn’t believe what she had just seen! You know it couldn’t have been the giant, talking lizard that fazed her. She had rebuffed its attempt to deliver a good joke, after all. But what had fazed her was that she had seen what had gone into the monster’s eye. And what had gone into the monster’s eye was some kid! A kid in an orange and yellow costume—with a cape! What did he think he was—a superhero? He wasn’t even tall enough to ride the good rides at the amusement park! He could get himself killed!
But before she could move to save his hide (and then whip it), the kid was flung from the lizard’s eye. He hit the ground in a somersault and then sprang up onto his feet.
“Ta da!” he said, spreading his arms out.
She grabbed his shoulders and moved him to safety behind her. “Are you okay?”
“Never better!” the youthful vigilante cried. “As a matter of fact, I was feeling a little stiff without any evildoers to whup.”
Jennifer frowned sternly. “I don’t think you realize the danger you had put yourself in.”
Our hero looked at her curiously. “You wouldn’t happen to be new in town, would you?”
Before Jennifer could answer, the scaly monster hissed, “You will pay for that.” It had finally calmed itself down enough to glare down at the two humans, licking its sore eye.
Superkid spun to face it. “How much is it going to cost? I’ve only got ten bucks and ninety-eight cents.”
“Oh ha ha,” grumbled the reptilian fiend, “and you said my joke was lame.”
Jennifer turned to our hero and hissed, “What are you doing?”
Superkid ignored her and said to the scaly monster, “Actually, I said, ‘I hope you can fight better than you can joke.’ And you know, I don’t think you can.”
The lizard sucked in a wheezy breath. “Are you insulting me?”
“Well, I’m not inviting you to a tea party.”
The lizard growled and said, “That’s it! Time to teach you respect!” and with that it shot out its tongue and smacked our hero in the forehead.
He blinked in surprise. He reached up and wiped the saliva onto his hand, which he studied. Then he burst into laughter. “Are you serious?”
At that moment, the lizard realized how pathetic that attack was and it rolled its eyes in embarrassment. Trying to save face, it responded in as menacing a voice as it could manage, “That was a warning.”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” cried the fearless kid and burst into laughter again. Even Jennifer--a woman who made a nun look giddy--started to smile.
The lizard growled, “Don’t laugh at me. Or I will make you pay.”
But Superkid continued to laugh, doubled over and stumbling around. Jennifer watched him somewhat concerned. The lizard may not have seemed much of a threat, but it was a lot bigger than this kid was. She wondered if she needed to bring him under control before things got out of hand.
But then things got out of hand. The lizard’s growl had gotten louder and louder until it finally roared, “YOU WILL PAY FOR LAUGHING AT ME!” and it charged toward Superkid. Jennifer gasped and then threw herself at Superkid, pushing him out of the raging reptile’s path just in time.
But then it twisted itself back toward the two and snapped its jaws. Jennifer raised her arm to fend it off and gasped in pain when she found it clamped in the lizard’s teeth. The gargantuan reptile flipped her away, sending her tumbling down the street. The monster then turned to Superkid who had rolled backwards and was now on his feet.
“That’s no way to treat a lady!” Superkid yelled, his face deadly serious.
The giant reptile turned back in surprise. “That was a lady?”
Our hero took this opportunity to charge at the scaly fiend. But he had forgotten about lizards’ amazing reflexes so he was batted away like a baseball when the lizard turned back to him.
“I swear I didn’t…” the lizard was saying. Then it turned to where Superkid had tumbled onto someone’s yard and yelled, “Hey! You were trying to cheat!”
“You hit a lady!” Superkid yelled as he stumbled to his feet.
“I didn’t know! You all look the same to me.” It skittered toward our hero. “I swear if I’d known that was a lady, I wouldn’t have hurt her.”
“You mean a monster like you has standards?” Superkid asked in surprise.
“That’s right, you pesky little human,” it hissed. “Maybe you think I’m a joke, but there are things that even I would never stoop to do, including hurt a woman.”
Just then from behind the scaly monster, there was an indignant voice, “You would never stoop to do what?”
The lizard wheeled around to find the woman hissing through clenched teeth, her face red, her hair disheveled, and her arm bleeding.
It rolled its eyes awkwardly. “Are you the woman?”
She hissed back, “Do you have a problem with the woman?”
The lizard gulped. “It was an honest mi
stake. I was trying to go for him.” It jerked its head to indicate Superkid, who was sneaking toward its tail. “Really, I would never try to hurt an innocent wo…”
It never got the chance to finish its apology. Jennifer was all over that scaly behemoth like flies in vinegar (whoever said you couldn’t catch flies with vinegar has never even seen that stuff before!)
“You think you’ve got a problem with the woman?” she screeched as she jabbed the lizard in every tender spot it had. “I’ll give you a real problem with the woman!”
The lizard thrashed in pain as it cried desperately, “Wait—ow!—I didn’t mean—ow!—it like that—ow! Just—ow!—let me—ow!—explain—ow!”
“When I’m through with you,” the irate woman snarled as she leaped onto its back and began jabbing, “you won’t be able to have a problem with women ever again!” She finished this threat with a final jab to its spine and then jumped off. She stepped back to survey her work and bumped into Superkid. She turned and spotted him.
His mouth was open and his eyes were wide.
“What are you staring at?” she demanded.
Superkid shook his head. “Wow… that was amazing. I’ve never seen anyone fight like that before.”
“It’s called karate,” she said.
“Would you teach me?” he asked.
She raised her eyebrows at him. “Teach you?”
“Yeah. See, lately this town has been under attack a lot. As its sole defender, it would really help if I could fight better.”
“You, this town’s sole defender?” she said incredulously. “You mean to say you actually are a superhero?”
Superkid thrust out his chest. “Yup. And believe it or not, I’ve actually got a few battles under my