Zommunist Invasion by Picott, Camille (ebook reader ink TXT) 📗

been his favorite. Stephenson secretly liked how the imaginary princess could draw a sword and magically transform into a fierce warrior.

If only it was so easy to transform into an apocalyptic badass.

“I need a magic sword,” he muttered.

He thought of the perfect pair of pink Converse back at the house. It was terrible that he wanted to wear them. He knew that. He could only imagine what all the jocks would say if they came home and saw the skinny nerd in pink Converse.

A bullet flew from the barrel of his gun. Nonna jumped up from her stump, grinning at him.

“You did it! I knew you had it in you.”

“I did?” Stephenson gaped at the tree trunk. “Are you sure?” He’d been distracted, thinking about those stupid hot-pink Converse.

“Come look,” Nonna said.

Stephenson followed her across the clearing. A rush of pride went through him when she showed him the bullet buried in the rotted wood of the tree stump.

“I did it.” He could hardly believe it.

“Whatever you were doing, do it again,” Nonna ordered. “Keep practicing until you can hit the tree every time.”

Do it again? He’d been too busy thinking about She-Ra, his sister, and the pink Converse. Between all that, he hadn’t been paying attention to what he was doing with the gun.

He returned to his shooting position. Four more shots and he missed the log every single time. Nonna frowned at him, clearly disapproving.

Be She-Ra, he told himself. Draw your magic sword.

Once again, he thought of the pink shoes. Imagining them on his feet in place of his ugly sneakers was a visceral experience. He could practically feel the way they would hug his feet.

His next shot hit the log.

Nonna jumped to her feet, clapping her hands. “Now you’re getting the hang of it. Keep going.”

Oh, God.

It was the pink Converse. They were his magic sword. His ticket to being She-Ra.

Before She-Ra had become the Princess of Power, her name had been Aurora. Aurora had been kidnapped and raised by Hordak—the very enemy she later fought to defeat. But as the child Aurora, she’d been brainwashed to think she was a part of Hordak’s evil Horde.

A shiver traveled down his spine.

A very deep part of him had always felt like Aurora. Like he didn’t belong in the Horde he had been born into. There was a warrior princess within him, but letting her out was scarier than dying.

It was a secret he buried so deep it practically suffocated him. He’d carried it for as long as he could remember.

In the secret space of his heart, he’d often wondered if his true body had been hijacked before he’d been born. Most days, it felt like Jeff Stephenson’s body should have belonged to someone else. There was another body out there that should have been his—a girl’s body.

“We’re burning daylight,” Nonna said. “Keep practicing.”

Screw it. No one had to know. He just had to shoot well enough to satisfy Nonna. Then they could go home.

He imagined burning his God-awful ugly tennis shoes and slipping on those pink Converse. He imagined tying the white laces into perfect bows. They would fit his feet perfectly. Like Cinderella slipping on her glass slippers.

Another shiver traveled down his spine. He clung to that feeling as he fired again.

The bullet hit.

He set his jaw, hanging onto the imagined embrace of those pink shoes.

The next ten bullets sank into the tree.

Nonna applauded him. It felt so good to see her beaming.

What would it be like if he really wore those shoes? Maybe he could be a real Sniper if he was ever brave enough to wear them in real life.

“Now,” Nonna said, “I want you to practice hitting the inside of the target.”

“Can we go home if I hit it?”

“If you can hit it twenty times, yes, we can go home.”

Twenty times? She really was trying to make him in a Rambo.

He mentally burned his ugly green polo shirt and put on the hot-pink spaghetti-strap tank. Holding that image of himself—holding how those clothes made him feel—he fired.

Seven out of the next ten bullets hit Nonna’s target.

By the time the sun was high in the sky, Stephenson could honestly say he didn’t completely suck at shooting things.

After Nonna was confident he could hit a target standing still, she made him practice shooting while walking in wide arcs around the target. Once she was confident he could do that, she made him do it at a jog.

Nonna let him take a short break for lunch. Unbeknownst to him, she had packed little baggies with food. One had dried apple chips. The other had dried venison. He wolfed it all down, barely tasting any of it.

He looked around for something to drink, wondering if she would make him drink out of the spring on the edge of the clearing. Then he wondered what it would be like if he got dysentery, or some other horrible waterborne bacteria.

Like a magician, Nonna pulled a wide, flat canteen out of her apron pocket. Wordlessly, she passed it to Stephenson.

He decided Nonna’s apron was better than Santa Claus’s magic sack of presents. He was parched. Taking the preferred canteen, he tossed back his head.

What hit his tongue wasn’t water. It was something else. Something that burned the inside of his throat like lava.

Stephenson gagged, trying to spit it out. Beside him, Nonna wheezed with laughter.

“What the heck was that?” he demanded.

“Whiskey.” Nonna gave him a sly smile. “The boys don’t know it, but I keep a bottle stashed under the sink behind the garbage bags. Figured it was high time you learned how to take a little fire in your belly.”

“What—why?” he sputtered.

She patted him on the shoulder. “Sometimes in life, you have to swallow a little fire.”

“That sounds painful.”

“Well, was it?”

“Yeah.” Stephenson coughed a few more times to emphasize the point.

She patted him on the back. Her smile was kind, but she followed it up by saying, “Lunch break is over. Time to get back to practice. Unless