Part Two
The Williams’ BBQ party went on for three whole hours.
Their guest of honor, Miss Kara Curtsinger, was the life of the party. She told
corny jokes that made Duane (Craig’s father) laugh his head off by the BBQ
grill, she performed magic tricks that astounded Jessica, she traded fashion
tips with Nicole, and even Bernard couldn’t stop feeding her attention –
clearly crushing over her.
Meanwhile, Craig couldn’t get past how similar all these
traits were to Neas (except for Bernard’s goofy crush) when he last visited the
Williams family. He was like the uncle and brother none of them knew they ever
had, and none of Craig’s family questioned where he came from. They only knew
he was new to the block, which was the story he and Craig fabricated as a
cover-up, and that he was in town to visit family.
That family, of course, turned out to be the Williams
themselves the entire time.
As he looked on Kara, who was bathed in the late
afternoon sun at the Williams’ backyard, Craig’s curiosity got the best of him.
While Kara and Nicole were talking, Craig rushed up to them and blurted out,
“Mom, can I show Miss Curtsinger my room?!”
“Now, Craig,” his mother disciplined, “what do we say
when adults are talking?”
Remembering his manners, Craig corrected himself
accordingly. “Oops. Sorry. What I meant was…Excuse me, Mom. Can I please show Miss Curtsinger my room?”
“Why you wanna show her your room?” Nicole questioned.
“Because…” Craig struggled to think up a reasonable
excuse.
Thankfully, Kara – seeming to catch on with what Craig
was doing – told Nicole, “It’s O.K. In all the excitement over the last few
hours, I barely had the chance to get a tour of your lovely home.”
The excuse she made up for Craig was so believable even he bought into it.
“Alright,” Nicole approved. “I guess Craig’s room is the more interesting place to start,
seeing how big of a mess he always leaves it in.” Kara shared a giggle with her
at Craig’s expense. “Ya’ll have fun. We’ll be hanging back here ‘til Duane has
the meats all grilled up.”
Immediately, Craig took Kara by the hand and led her back
into the house, not saying a single word along the short journey to his
bedroom. Once they were there, Craig shut the door and briefly paced back and
forth from his desk to the window. With his back towards Kara, he took a deep
breath and finally asked, “Man, this is gonna feel so weird if it turns out you’re not him. But every hint I spotted
tells me that you are. So, if it really
is you, could you just—?”
When Craig turned to face Kara, he was suddenly enveloped
in another one of her hugs. This one, however, felt much bigger, tighter, and
warmer than the hug she gave him earlier by the front door. “It’s me, lil’
bro,” she told him. “I’m back.”
Tears welled up in Craig’s eyes as he returned her hug.
After nearly five minutes of embracing, they disengaged
from each other, both of them cleaning the tears from their faces with their
sleeves. “When did you figure out it was me?” Kara asked him.
“When I got a whiff of your hoodie,” Craig replied.
His answer provoked Kara to sniff the inside of her
hoodie, suspecting that it might’ve carried a bad odor. She couldn’t exactly
remember the last time she washed it.
“Not that it smells bad
in any way,” Craig punctually clarified for her. “It just still smells the
same, you know? From the last time I met you?” He then thought about what he
just said and elaborated, “Or I guess that’d be the last time before you were Maureen?”
Kara frowned. “Before I was who?”
“Maureen,” Craig repeated the name. “That girl who talked
like that magical nanny from that one movie? J.P., Kelsey, and I met her…I
mean, we met you on that alien world
that was like one big desert. Your friend Rick was there – and so was your
dad.”
Kara couldn’t recall any of what he described to her.
“Sorry, lil’ bro,” she shrugged. “It must’ve been with a regeneration of me
that I haven’t yet become.”
“Oh, no!” Craig gasped. “Did I spoil it all for you? I’m
so sorry!”
“Not at all,” she reassured him. “It just means that I
have a lot to look forward to!”
Craig was relieved to hear her say that.
“In the meantime, what do you say we go on some
adventures right here and now?” Kara invited him. “I regret not having taken
you on a proper adventure in the TARDIS before. I was just playing it safe back
then. But now, I think you’re finally ready.” She offered her hand to Craig
with a welcoming smile. “So…what do you say?”
Craig had literally dreamt of this moment for the last
several months. “Y-Yes!” he exclaimed with twinkling eyes. “Yes, I’m definitely ready to go on an adventure
with you in your TARDIS!”
“Sweet!” Kara gleefully cheered. “Meet at my house next
door tomorrow at nine in the morning. I’ll tell your folks that you’ll be
helping me tidy around while I’m settling in. Go down to the basement and
you’ll see me and my TARDIS there, waiting for you.”
“Gotcha,” Craig joyfully acknowledged.
Sealing the arrangement with a nod, she then instructed,
“Now, let’s get back to that BBQ. Your dad whips up the best chicken and ribs I’ve had since the dad of another Craig I once knew fed them to
me.”
As she headed for the door, Craig stopped her to express
some personal feelings that he had: “Hey, I’m glad you still remember me. These
past couple of days, it’s been bugging me that you’d forgotten all about me.
You’ve lived for so long and meet so many people across the multiverse…I just
figured…”
“Craig,” Kara interjected, walking back to him and
putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “From what you told me about this
‘Maureen’ girl and the adventure you had with her, and the fact that I’m
standing here in front of you now, I think it’s safe to say that I won’t ever forget you.”
Her words were as comforting as her hand on his shoulder.
And yet there was a part of Craig that remained
unconvinced.
Kara opened the door to his bedroom, expecting to have
walked out freely into the hallway, but her exit was barred by a precocious
six-year-old girl whose small body had been leaning against the door before
Kara opened it. She tumbled right in, obviously eavesdropping into their
conversation.
Craig was visibly annoyed with his little sister’s
prying. “Jessica! Really?!”
“Lil’ Queen,” Kara knowingly addressed her. “How much did
you hear?”
“Enough to tell Mommy and Daddy…unless you take me with
you,” Jessica bartered.
Kara smirked at the hard bargain that the six-year-old
drove.
Craig, on the other hand, was not at all amused.
The next morning, Craig and
Jessica went next door to Kara’s house, just as Kara herself directed. Craig
still couldn’t believe Jessica was going on the journey with them, having only
just discovered the secret that Neas was a face-changing alien from another
dimension – whereas Craig had known for months. Regardless, he was thrilled to
finally go on his first real TARDIS adventure.
Kara’s house, or the one that she purchased next to the
Williams residence, was virtually empty inside. No furniture, no pictures on
the wall, no cars in the garage, and no food in the refrigerator (if there was
one). The only purpose the house served was to keep up the illusion of someone
living there, at least from the outside.
In truth, the homeowner lived within the flat,
rectangular black solid that stood in the basement. Its door had been left open
to invite the two Williams siblings into a much larger, wider interior.
Jessica instantly flipped out. “Oh, my gosh! This magic
domino is so amazing!!!”
Seeing how overwhelmed she was from the whole thing, Kara
asked, “Jessica, honey? Are you gonna be okay?”
“She’ll be fine,” Craig answered on his sister’s behalf,
letting out an annoyed sigh. “It’s just a lot for her to process.”
“I recall it being a lot for you to process when you first walked in,” Kara said. “If I remember
correctly, didn’t you say that you peed a little?”
Jessica giggled at the reference.
Blushing with embarrassment, Craig quickly changed the
subject. “So…where are we going?”
“I was just about to ask you guys that.” Kara hopped over
to the control console. “Where do you guys wanna go?”
“Somewhere with princesses!” Jessica suggested.
“Somewhere with superheroes!” Craig recommended.
Both sounded like excellent ideas to Kara, so she met in
the middle. “How about a place where you guys can meet an old friend of mine
who’s a superhero and a princess? Her
name’s Diana, and she’s a warrior princess from the land of Themyscira!”
Craig and Jessica were starry-eyed from the prospect.
“Hey, I remember you telling me about Themyscira,” Craig
recollected. “That’s where you battled your evil twin – and even yourself!”
“Good memory,” Kara told him. “I look forward to going
back under better circumstances.”
Kara inputted the destination into the TARDIS computer,
and they dematerialized straightaway from Craig and Jessica’s world, vanishing
from the basement of Kara’s empty suburban residence. The takeoff was easy at
first, but then they hit some bizarre turbulence that created a massive quake
over Kara’s TARDIS. Kara, Craig, and Jessica were knocked off their feet and
tossed all about the console room.
Struggling against the chaos, Kara positioned herself
back over the console and initiated an emergency landing. She didn’t know what
dimension she brought them to nor did she care. All that mattered to her was
making sure Jessica and Craig were safe.
“Lil’ Queen?” she called out to the former. “You O.K.?”
“Uh-huh,” Jessica timidly replied, sniffling as she sat
curled up in a ball on the floor. “That was really scary.”
“I know, honey, and I’m so sorry,” Kara said. “I promise that it’s all over.” Looking away from Jessica, Kara’s aquamarine eyes searched for Craig, only to discover that he was nowhere to be found in the console room. “Craig? Lil’ bro? Where did ya go?” She didn’t receive a response, which only made her and Jessica that much more worried.
It probably wasn’t such a
bright idea to cruise around the streets of Gotham while there were two variants of the Joker threatening
the city, but Elvira needed the fresh air. She got it with the top down from
her “Macabre Mobile” – the wind blowing in her pale white face and bouffant
hairdo. It wasn’t exactly the freshest
air, but it did take Elvira’s mind off of that super-creepy video from the
deadlier of the two Jokers.
In her cruising, she caught sight of something skyward
that captivated enough of her attention to remove her sunshade-clad eyes from
the road.
It looked like a bird.
Or it could have been a plane.
No…it was…
“Superman?!” she verbally identified the flying object.
But it couldn’t have been the Man of Steel. Unlike most
other versions of Gotham she had been to within the infinite D.C., Superman
didn’t exist in this one. For that matter, there wasn’t even a Metropolis!
So how could there be a Superman flying above Gotham City
of Earth-89?
Elvira was so lost in the mystery that she almost failed
to see the little boy in the middle of the road that she nearly ran down. Her
black pumps slammed on the brake, bringing her Macabre Mobile to a screeching
halt. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of her hearts, both of which
continued to beat like crazy.
“Are ya nuts,
kid?!” she bellowed as she got out of her car and confronted the child.
“There’s a reason they put those PSAs at the end of every G.I. Joe episode, ya know!” Her tone suddenly changed when she recognized
the boy she almost killed. “Oh, my gosh…Craig?!”
Hearing his name spoken by the woman he didn’t recognize
made Craig more confused than he already was. One moment, he was aboard Kara’s
TARDIS, caught up in that weird turbulence. And now, he was standing in the
middle of the street of some unknown city with a freaky Goth lady smiling at
him.
“Who are you?” Craig asked her.
“Craig, it’s me,” Elvira said. “It’s Neas!”
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