((Not Canon, but thought it was fun))
“Got into another scrape again?” asked Knight, as he put his arm around his son. He turned and helped his daughter out of the limo, thanked the driver and started into the apartment complex.
Roland’s hair was dishevelled, his jacket ripped at the shoulder.
“It’s nothing, dad,” he said.
“You gotta start fighting back.”
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt them.”
“Hm, yeah, there’s tha’. but tha’s wha’ you’re learnin’ from your dad.”
Roland sighed. “The Beast…I’m afraid it’ll take control, and then we’d get kicked out of school.”
“You ain’ gonna get kicked outta school.” He smiled at them both. “I mean it. They’ll haveta deal wi’ me an’ your father an’ your uncles.” He let them into the elevator. “Now, ice cream before ‘r after homework?”
As they ate ice cream, Roland turned to his sister Seph and tilted his head quickly. She responded with the same gesture. Knight folded his arms. As litter-mates, they both seemed to share a sort of telepathic bond. Knight knew what the gesture meant after these seven years. “So who’s gonna tell me?”
Seph stuffed her mouth with ice cream. Roland glared at her. Seph mumbled and Knight said instinctively, “Not wi’ your mouth full. What is it?”
Roland said, “There’s a variety show at school. We want to try out for it.”
“That’s great! What’re you gonna do?”
“I was going to play the piano.”
Knight looked to Seph, who had swallowed her ice cream.
“I’m going to do magic.”
Knight laughed, “Oh, honey, these people wan’ the ‘rabbit outta th’ hat’ routine, not real magic.”
“I can pull a rabbit out of a hat,” she pouted. “And a hellbeast, too. Uncle Mike showed me.”
“Yeah, tha’s somethin’ Mike’d do. No hellbeasts, and you can do magic.”
She smiled.
The next day was the try-outs, so they said they were going to be late coming home. The limo driver was told to wait until they finished.
That morning, Roland was walking Seph to her room as he normally did when a boy tripped him. Seph turned, glaring, and started muttering under her breath.
“Seph, no, don’t–”
She stopped, and the spell fizzled. Roland got up, brushing his knees, and turned to the boy. He let the Beast come to his eyes, and he advanced slowly. The boy backed up. Then the boy ran. Roland, breathing heavy, glanced back at Seph. “I’m okay.”
Seph put her hand on Roland’s arm, waiting for him to calm. Then the teachers came out and separated them.
~~~~~~~~~~
Knight came home late, and Babs (as he called Mrs. Volkov, short for Babuchka) had gotten the children ready for bed. Roland would not go to sleep unless one of the fathers was present in the house, and Seph would usually not sleep until Knight got home.
Babs was an older woman, with thick brown and gray hair cut short. She had bright blue eyes like Mal, and looked like the type of woman that brokered no shit from anyone. She was just gathering her things when Knight walked in. “[The] deti are in bed,” she said. “Your husband just came home.”
“Spasibo,” he replied.
“Eto nichego. Svidaniya!”
“Bye,” called Knight, as Babs left.
He went into the living room to see Mal sitting on the coffee table, listening to Seph tell him about her day. “…and I cut off my own finger with scissors, but they said not to use that one because it might scare people.”
Mal chuckled.
“Another Uncle Mike trick?” asked Knight coming into the room.
“Daddy!” they both cried, and got up from the couch, hugging him.
Mal looked put out. “I didn’t get a hug.”
“Go hug daddy and your uncle or he’ll pout all night.”
They laughed, and gave him a tight hug. Mal squeezed them both, grunting with the effort. “They were just telling me about the variety show.”
Roland smiled. “It’s going to be great.”
“When is it?”
“Friday night.”
“I think we’ll all be there. How much are the tickets?”
“Five dollars, and a non-perishable food item.”
“I don’t think Scott would want to miss Seph in her break-out role,” Mal said to Knight.
“Or Mike. Yeah, I’ll call ‘em both.”
~~~~~~~~~~
The tux was especially made for him. Roland, like his father, loved to dress in fine fabrics and even finer clothes. The dress for Seph was a beautiful sleeveless sea blue with sequins and ruffles on the bottom, and she wore ballerina flats. It was, of course, designed by her father, Scott.
“You suck, you know that?”
Roland turned to the boy who said that, the same boy who had tripped him. “Who me? You’re the one who’s going to suck.” He eyed the boy’s electric guitar, contemplating using it as a real axe.
“Ha, I’m gonna play ‘If I Saw You In Heaven’ an’ everyone’s gonna bawl. What’re you gonna play?”
“You’ll see,” he said.
“Nobody’s gonna do nothin’ with yours, because it’s gonna suck.”
“It’s not going to suck,” said Seph.
“Oh, shut up.”
“Don’t tell my sister to shut up,” snapped Roland.
“Boys, shhh!” ordered one of the teachers. “Tonya’s going to recite the Gettysburg address.”
After that, the boy went out on stage. Three rows back, two men stood up and cheered, Seph noticed. They were dressed like her father dresses when he goes out on the bike – in leather and long hair hanging down. Their hair was greasy though and they were covered in tattoos.
Seph took note of the people in that row, how they cheered when he finished, and glanced around the auditorium. She saw her father in the second row; her uncle Mal next to him; her other father, Scott, and Uncle Mike next to him at the end of the row. She ducked back behind the curtain, her heart beating wildly.
“You’re up, Roland,” said the teacher.
“And introducing, Roland King, with a rendition of Beethoven.”
Roland stepped out onto the stage. He paused in the middle to graciously accept the applause. He noticed his father Knight was being held down by his other father. He smiled at them and headed to the orchestra pit to the piano.
He flipped the tails back, sat down, and played “Chopsticks”. The audience laughed, which was what he wanted, and then he played the first verse of Beethoven’s [ ] symphony, something famous. He mixed it with a jazz tune, alternating back and forth between the symphony and the jazz chord, and then went into a toe-tapping jazz tune that got everyone clapping in rhythm. He ended on a high note, again, Beethoven’s symphony, and he got up to a round of standing applause.
He strode backstage and got a few back-slaps and high-fives. He saw the boy with the guitar, who was steaming angry. “Beat that, mother fucker,” Roland said to him as he walked by.
Seph looked out at the audience. They all sat down and settled down, and then the teacher said to her, “You okay, Seph?”
She swallowed.
“Introducing our stage magician, Persephone Angrier-King.”
She stumbled, wide-eyed into the light. She froze.
Roland saw her from backstage. “Oh, no.”
Someone coughed out in the audience, and she looked out, picking out her uncle Mike, who smiled at her and made a gesture. She snapped out of it, and held out her hand. “Nothing up my sleeve,” she said, her voice a little shaky. She shook her arm, making a gesture with her hand, and a hat appeared in it.
She pulled out scarves, set the hat on the floor and pulled out a dove that flew into the air and exploded into confetti that never seemed to reach the floor, pulled out a rabbit that bounced along on the floor (one of the teachers came out and caught it, but it disappeared in her hands). She shook out money that made the people in the front row scramble for illusionary coins. Then she made the hat disappear.
“For my finale,” she said, and turned to look at the group that had cheered so much for the boy who hurt her brother. They were looking right at her. She looked up, and pointed above their heads.
They looked up.
A storm cloud formed, inside the auditorium. Lightning flashed inside the cloud, and someone screamed.
Then the downpour happened, covering just those four people in the row. It was swift, heavy, and real.
Scott shook his head but Knight only smiled. “Tha’s my girl.”