ID# 26130
"Well, good day, poppet," Eggie said to me as I opened the door of her Volkswagen bug. "Are we ready to be off to your latest BADGE event?"
I slid into the passenger seat, buckled myself in, and made myself as comfortable as I could be before speaking. "I am."
Dressed in her typical Electric Grandmother/Mrs. Doubtfire garb of a gray wool sweater, white blouse with a amethyst broach at her neck, and brown diabetic shoes, Eggie fought with the gear shift until it finally submitted and let us get under way. "Here we go dearie. Off to the Focus vs Fury Tug of War event. My, my, my, it sounds rightly dreadful. Are you sure you wouldn't rather stay home and have a nice cup of English Tea?"
"Just drive please," I said. "I don't want to be late."
"Oh!" she exclaimed with a tittering laugh. "We shan't be late, my little darling. We're just using this ride to keep your identity protected. Once we're out of your neighborhood, away from nosy housewives and curious Georges, we'll engage a more suitable mode of transport."
"Good," I said. Eggie was sort of alright, but I wasn't ready to make nice with her yet. As far as I knew, she was still meant to be a obstructive babysitter that was meant to keep me sidelined when real action took place.
"If you'd like, I have a bag of yarn and a pair of knitting needles tucked away in the glove compartments," Eggie said as we slowly pulled up to a stop sign. She waved politely at a woman waiting with her dog at the corner. "No reason you can't learn a new hobby while we travel. I'll have you making scarves like a master by the time we get there. They make wonderful gifts for the holidays."
Yep. Definitely an agent in my mom's employee. I opened the glove box and three skeins of yarn waited with a pair of silver knitting needles.
MM MM MM MM
After fifteen minutes of driving, she pulled onto a side road and drove up into the waiting hatch of a BADGE shuttle. She had verbally gave me instructions on how to begin to knit. Wrapping the yarn around one needle, looping, swooping, and other descriptive words which made the motions fairly easy to understand. I'd completed a couple of rows while we traveled. "Oops. I think I did something wrong."
"What's the matter dear?" Eggie asked as the hatch to the shuttle closed and the car was secured in place before taking off.
"This doesn't look right," I said as I help up my work.
She examined my progress. "Oh, I see dearie. Look here. You've made an extra loop here. You'll need to rip it out and start over."
"Rip it out? Can't I just fix it?" I asked.
"No, no, no, dearie." She took the yarn and needles out of my hands. Taking out the needle, she grabbed the yarn in one hand and pulled, causing loop after loop after loop of my effort to pull apart.
"Hey, what are you doing?!" I snapped at her. "I did those just fine."
"Yes, they were quite lovely," she said. "But to fix the mistake, you need to go back to where it happened and-," she pulled at the duplicate loop I had unintentionally made, making it disappear,"-redo what you have done. This time, don't lose focus and make the same mistake again."
She held the needles and yarn out to me.
"Keep them," I said as I crossed my arms. "I don't want to knit anymore."
"You're going to give up after doing so well because you made one mistake?" She shook her head and tutted. "Tis a shame. Tis a terrible shame for you to give up so easily."
She kept the knitting and worked the yarn as I sat as we flew in silence to the Tug of War tournament.
MM MM MM MM
The shuttle landed with a firm thud. Eggie and I got out of the car and waited at the back of the shuttle for the ramp to lower. She brought the knitting with her in a large, loose bag and the small scarf I had started was nearly a foot long. "Well, good luck, dearie."
"Thanks," I said curtly as I morphed into my Madam Marvelous form.
The ramp revealed a large, ornate field separated by a raging stream. Curved wooden bridges painted red provided crossing from one side to the other, and heroes from around the world meandered around the peaceful landscape. The air was warm, but a cool, crisp breeze brushed at the long branches of willow trees near the water's edge. I could smell notes of cherry blossoms in the wind. For the scene of a Tug of War challenge, the entire setting was oddly serene.
"It's nice here." I said aloud, not to anyone in particular, and especially not to Eggie, although nobody else was in earshot.
"Mmmm," was her only reply.
We walked down the ramp and up to a BADGE coordination agent. "Madam Marvelous, reporting for the event."
"Madam Marvelous. Madam Marvelous," she said as she checked over names on a tablet. "Oh. Here you are. Welcome. You're on Team Fury. Division 6."
"That is very appropriate for her," Eggie said. "Which way should be off on to meet her mates?"
"Fury is on this side of the six bridges. If you walk over that way, toward the last bridge, you'll find them," the agent said as she pointed.
"Thank you, dearie," Eggie reached into her bag and retrieved a plastic baggie of homemade cookies. "You must need a little pick me up after being here and putting all of this together."
"Why, thank you. That's so sweet," the agent said with a smile as she grabbed the bag, opened the seal, and took a sniff of the contents.
"Ohhh, the cookies are the sweet ones, dearie," Eggie said with a punctuating laugh. "Must be off now. Ta-ta."
Eggie and I walked away, leaving the agent free to break of a piece of cookie and pop it in her mouth.
"What did you mean, that Team Fury was appropriate for me?" I asked.
"You've got plenty of fire in your belly, Kitt'n. Don't let that stop you from trying new things when things don't go your way," she said. "I think it would have been beneficial for you to be on Team Focus. Rome wasn't built in a day, dearie. I should know. I must sometimes look like I was there when Nero played his fiddle, don't I?"
"You're mad because I didn't want to learn you stupid knitting." I rolled my eyes
She frowned at me. "It's your choice, dearie. If you want to learn to knit or not...oh my, knit or knot! How amusing?" Eggie started to chuckle to herself.
"Do you have a point?" I huffed.
Eggie straightened her sweater as she stopped laughing. "I'm sorry. I'm a sucker for an impromptu pun. Humor is so funny, don't you think? But as I was saying, if you do not want to learn to knit, that's fine. But you stopped trying because you made a mistake and let your anger, your fury, control you. You made the mistake because you lost focus and would have to work a little bit harder to repair it."
I thought on her comments, realizing she was right. I didn't give up because I didn't enjoy knitting, but because I got mad at myself for making a mistake and not wanting to do the work over to fix what I had done wrong.
"Madam Marvelous?" Another BADGE agent stepped up to me and Eggie. "We're getting ready to start orientation for the event."
"Yes," I said. "I'm Madam Marvelous. I'll be right there."
He nodded and headed over to a group of assembled heroes, several of whom I recognized from my time with the Lothlorien league.
"Good luck, dearie," Eggie said as she sat down on the grass and continued to knit. Her glasses glinted white with the sunlight striking them. "I'll be here when your ready for a snack or if you need anything at all. I've brought my first aid kit, and of course, am fully trained in the Heimlich Maneuver should you need anything popped out."
I smiled at her before I headed off. The training event for fighting Legion should they ever appear again might be useful in more circumstances than just the battlefield. Understanding both Focus and Fury, and how they effected us in everyday situations, even minor ones, could be useful in the future.
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