Sidekick

I'm the sidekick. She's the hero.

You’d never guess it from the way she looks. She’s an ordinary beauty, with a messy brown braid and bright blue eyes that always sparkle like she’s up to something.

I was only eleven years old when I met Flynn at a town fair. As usual, I had no interest in spinning rides or sticky sweets, so I’d escaped beneath the branches of a shady tree. I was tired, bored, and under the impression that no one would bother me if I kept my eyes on my book.

Flynn proved me wrong. She came bounding through the grass, so full of energy and life that my first instinct was to keep my distance, as if she might explode at any second.

“Hi-I’m-Flynn-do-you-want-to-race-up-the-hill?” Words spewed out of her mouth like sparks from a firecracker, and she grinned at me with one tooth missing.

I spared her a polite smile over the top of my book. “No, thank you.”

Flynn’s voice snapped through the silence again. “What’s your name?”

I didn’t bother looking up this time. “Maxwell.”

I was about to turn another page when Flynn’s taunting voice lisped over the breeze.

“Bet you just don’t wanna lose, Maxwell.”

I sighed and snapped my book shut. “Shouldn’t you be with your parents?”

“I outran them,” said Flynn, grinning wider. “And I bet I could outrun you.”

I set my book down on the grass. “If I race you, will you leave me alone?”

Mischief danced across Flynn’s elfish features. “If you win, I’ll leave you alone. If I win, you owe me.”

I stood up, dwarfing her instantly. I was three years older and at least six inches taller. “Deal.”

The word was scarcely out of my mouth before Flynn took off like a bullet.

“Little twit,” I muttered under my breath, and broke into a run.

But it was too late. Flynn was quicker than I’d expected, darting ahead of me like a dragonfly. My legs covered more distance than hers, but somehow she reached the top of the hill just a split second before I did.

I skidded in the dirt and faced her with weary resignation. “Alright, you win. What do I have to do?”

That might have been the moment when Flynn’s mischievous smile nudged its way into my heart.

“Be my friend.”

***

Eight Years Later

Flynn was the type of person who was always meant for something bigger.

I saw that long before anyone else did. The longing look that sometimes drifted into her eyes, the way she stuck out her chin when she saw someone being mistreated. She could never mind her own business, like I did.

When the schoolyard bullies singled out a nervous newcomer, she stood between them. When a snide customer shot a disparaging comment at an employee, she always had a fiery retort.

She was the hero, always ready to run toward trouble at full speed. I was the loyal sidekick, trying to keep up like the eleven-year-old in the hillside race all those years ago. No matter how much I protested or complained or told her she was being absolutely ridiculous, somehow I always found myself right there at her side.

We clashed sometimes, because we never quite saw things the same way. She saw life in terms like right and wrong and fair. I saw things like gain and loss and success and failure.

So naturally, we didn’t always see eye to eye. When I tried to scrape together my college tuition by taking exams for lazy rich kids, it was Flynn who shut me down.

“If you get caught, you’ll never get into Oxford,” she said firmly. “And besides, it’s not right.”

When I wanted to lie on my resume— just enough to make me look more experienced than the other guy who wanted the job— it was Flynn who made me tell the truth.

“Think of how guilty you’ll feel if you do it,” she pleaded. “You’ll never get it off your chest.”

Flynn was the kind of person who did what she believed was right, no matter what. The kind of person who was made to be a hero.

So when a villain threatened her city, she rose to the challenge.

It all started early one morning in September. Every computer screen in the city froze, giving way to a single video clip.

“Let’s play a game,” droned the grainy outline of the villain. His voice was distorted, his face hidden by a crimson hood. “You have three days to solve my riddle, or I wipe every last device in the city limits. If you get stuck, I’ve generously provided a link below, where you can buy more time at the bargain price of ten thousand dollars per twenty-four hours.” The crimson hood rippled as if the person beneath it were chuckling silently. “Good luck!”

The video vanished, and this time, words flickered across every computer screen in the city.

Light turns to dark when I lower my head

Kingdoms have fallen from knowledge I bled

People panicked. The best minds in cybersecurity were assigned to the task, but no one could identify the hacker. Ransom was the nickname that started to circulate around the city, a city that was descending into frantic desperation as the sun set on Day One.

Flynn found me immediately.

“We’re going to catch him,” was the first thing she said when I opened the door of my college dorm. She stood there like a cat about to spring, a notebook in her hand and battle in her eyes.

“You and your imaginary friend?” I said. “Lovely. Let me know how it goes.”

Flynn ignored me. “I’m going to catch Ransom, and you’re going to help me.”

“Absolutely not.” I started to shut the door. “I have to study for—”

“Maxwell!”

I heaved a sigh. Flynn’s arms were crossed, her face ablaze. I knew that look too well— the same look she’d given me when she’d dared me to race her eight years ago. It meant I’d never be left in peace until I gave in.

“Fine.” I grabbed my computer and trudged out into the hallway. “But I’m warning you now— we’re never going to catch Ransom.”

“Oh yes, we are.” Flynn’s stride was as swift and energetic as when she was small, even though she’d turned sixteen the month before. Her braid bounced up and down on her back as she wove down the halls.

I followed her out the door and into the glaring sun. Flynn settled down in the shade of a crooked oak, and I dropped down beside her.

“It’s just a riddle. That’s all,” she muttered, flipping open her notebook and plucking a pen from behind her ear. Her gaze snapped to me. “You’re great at this kind of thing. What have you got?”

I leaned back against the tree trunk. “Light turns to dark when I lower my head. That sounds like something alive. But then we get to the second line– kingdoms are built of the knowledge I bled– and it sounds more like a concept.”

“Keep going,” said Flynn, scribbling fiercely.

I blew out my breath. “You think I haven’t already recited this in my head a million times now? If I knew the answer, I’d tell you.”

But Flynn wasn’t so quick to give up. For hours we stayed there, throwing ideas back and forth under the tree. Afternoon faded into evening, then to night, and still we grappled with the riddle. Nothing seemed to make sense.

“What turns light to dark…” A yawn split open my sentence, and I closed my eyes, trying not to drift off. “...when it lowers its head…”

“Maxwell!” All at once Flynn’s small hands were grabbing my shoulders, snapping me awake. “I’ve got it!”

I sat up so fast I knocked the notebook right out of her hand. “What?”

Eyes wild, Flynn held her pen up to the last dying rays of sunset as if it were some sacred prize. “What bleeds knowledge?” She snatched up the notebook and scratched a long black line across the white page. “Turns light to dark when it lowers its head–”

Without waiting for me to respond, she pounced on my open computer, clicked Ransom’s link, and viciously typed out the word pen.

For one breathless moment, we waited.

Then a single word blazed across the screen in painfully bright green letters.

CORRECT.

The world seemed to spin. My eyes locked on Flynn as if I’d never seen her before. “You solved it.” A raspy laugh escaped my throat. “I don’t believe it.”

Flynn was practically jumping up and down. “We solved it! We did it, Maxwell! We won!”

***

And for a moment, it did seem like we’d won.

The computer screens awoke. The phone lines buzzed to life again. The news the next day blared victoriously about the anonymous hero who had solved the riddle and vanquished the villain. Hooray! Happy ending!

But Ransom wasn’t finished yet.

The next week, the electricity failed. Every window went black. Every streetlight flickered out. The city plunged into darkness.

Ransom’s riddle appeared on the computer screens, just like before. But this time, the time limit had been reduced to two days.

Luckily, the hero was ready to come to the rescue.

Flynn solved the next riddle in the nick of time. Then she solved the next. And the next. Ransom struck again and again– holding hostage our phone lines, internet, radio signal– but Flynn solved his riddle faster every time.

“It’s like I know him,” she explained to me, as we pored over Ransom’s latest puzzle. “The way his mind works— I understand it. I don’t know why, but I can.”

“Maybe that’s what makes a good hero.” I met her sharp blue eyes over the top of my computer. “Knowing the villain.”

And so the days ticked by, one after the other. Flynn and I spent more time together than ever before, staying up late into the night to wrestle with Ransom’s riddles.

“I couldn’t do it without you,” she told me one night as we lounged in an empty classroom, long after the rest of the city had gone quiet. Our neighbors could sleep again, thanks to Flynn. They felt safe. Heroes had that effect on people.

I put down my book, just like I had on the first day we met, and looked her in the face.

“I’m not the hero,” I said softly. “You are. You were made to be.”

“I couldn’t do it without you,” she insisted. Suddenly, quick as lightning, she threw her arms tightly around me. Just for a moment.

Then she was gone, darting out the door, as light and quick as the eight-year-old who had challenged me to a race at the town fair.

I waited until Flynn’s familiar outline had disappeared down the dark hallway. Then, with a sigh, I stood up and pulled on my crimson hood.