Nine o’clock rolled around, and Extraordinaire walked to the front of the stage to address the people who were milling about in the field already.

“Welcome,” she said. “And an ongoing welcome to the residents of Brandy, or anyone making the commute, who will be stopping by later in the day. This is a silent auction in support of the local school district, which has just begun its Spring Break for the year. You’ll see that each item’s bid sheet has a label specifying what department or program the sale price will be contributed to.”

I took in the crowd. It was good few dozen people, despite the early hour. On a weekend. In Brandy. Not that we were even close to the smallest town in Washington, and we were actually kind of on a growth kick lately, but… well, let’s just say the people who named this place weren’t being sarcastic.

“If you skipped breakfast to be here, then I’ve got great news. We’ll be offering refreshments throughout the day at that table, right over there.”

Extraordinaire pointed my way. I took the cue, looked at the ground, and let my power take shape. The dome of light engulfed the right-hand side of the table, which snapped into focus in my mind’s eye.

The crowd broke out into quiet conversation, a bit of nervous energy sweeping through the park at the use of an unknown superpower.

“It’s not a strict menu,” Extraordinaire said, catching everyone’s attention again. “I’ll take a moment now to thank the people and organizations who made donations to this event, whether that’s an item to bid on or the time out of their day to assist.”

I’d already asked to be excluded from that list, when Extraordinaire mentioned it would be part of her opening speech. I made eye contact with a few random people in the audience who were also tuning out the words of appreciation. I shifted my stance a bit, uncomfortable with how many of those people were staring my way, even if it was definitely because of the sphere of pure light and not anything to do with me.

Eventually, the sound of polite applause filled the park, and I watched a man with a tripod-mounted camera pack up his equipment and consult with some of the event organizers. A recording of the opening speech was going to be looped throughout the day on monitors at the major traffic points of the park — the bridges, the staircases up to the stage.

It felt like twenty whole minutes before someone worked up the courage to come to my table. The perks of shapeshifting included having the physical stamina to stand around for an all-day charity auction, but I couldn’t pull mental stamina out of the bubble. I did make a signboard that said “Concessions” and position it on the visible half of the table, though. Under the bold title, there was a two-column menu, but the only entry was “Anything” with a price of “Free” listed.

A boy about my age stood across the table from me, stared at the menu with his eyebrows knitted together, and asked, “What does this mean?”

“You want food?” I asked.

“From where?”

“What do you want?”

He looked at me like I was stupid.

“You don’t want to hold up the front of the line trying to decide,” I advised him.

“There’s no line,” he said, confirming with a quick turn. “Um. Can I get, like. A cinnamon roll?”

“Do you want a cinnamon roll, or do you want something that’s like a cinnamon roll?” I asked.

“Whatever, a cinnamon roll,” he confirmed.

“What kind?” I asked, conjuring a paper plate on the side of the table that my power covered.

“There are kinds?”

“Normal, then.” I imagined the most generic cinnamon roll I could come up with, and then I reached into the light and pushed the plate out of the dome, onto the side of the table that he could actually see.

“What the- where’d…?”

“Is that all?” I asked, injecting fake cheer into the still slightly-unfamiliar voice of my new body.

He picked up the plate with the cinnamon roll on it, redoubled his puzzled expression, and slowly wandered back into the field. He briefly spoke with one of the many people who were standing back and observing my table, and eventually, a short line of people did form for me to deal with.

“Do you have the Halloween cereals?” the fifth or sixth person to order asked.

“Halloween… cereal?” I asked.

“Yeah, like, the chocolate one,” he said.

“Oh! Right, that. Yeah, sure.” I summoned a disposable bowl and filled it with out-of-season festive cereal.

The next two girls in line caught me off guard, even though I’d known they would be here.

“Who are you?” Jade asked. “Are you new? Making food is a weird power.”

“Jade, she’s busy,” Clara chided, nodding her head backward to indicate the line behind them. “Caffeine, please. Dealer’s choice.”

“Alright. Sure,” I said.

“I want a chocolate donut,” Jade said. “And is that a portal, to drag things in from a kitchen or something, or does your power just make food out of thin air?”

“It’s not a power,” I lied, panicking. “There’s just, uh. There’s a gizmo under the table. Here you go, Clara.” I handed her a frappé in a lidded paper cup.

“A gizmo?” Jade asked.

“Yeah, like a gadget, you know? Extraordinaire made it. It’s like the flind- uh. The. The flah… The thing from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.”

Both of them looked at me with their respective confused faces: Clara with the one raised eyebrow and one lowered, Jade with the wide eyes that her glasses made look even wider.

“The thing that turns water into food?” Jade asked.

“Sure, yeah. It’s uh, sitting on a sprinkler valve.”

“You’re doing nuclear fusion in a public park?” she asked.

“Oh.” I laughed. Couldn’t help it. Nervous. “And look at all the waste light it’s generating,” I said, gesturing to the dome. “Lot of energy. That’s why you can’t see the machine, ha.”

I grabbed Jade’s donut out of the light.

“Shouldn’t that, like, incinerate the park?”

“It’s a good thing this foolproof containment shield is here,” I said, patting the dome.

“…Containment shield,” Jade repeated, deadpan. “For safety.”

“Yep.”

“And you keep reaching into it.”

“Yep.” I held eye contact.

“And getting completely un-incinerated food out.”

“Wow, you got me. There’s not a gizmo. Really thought I had you, there,” I said, losing the stare-down.

“How do you know my name?” Clara asked, after taking a sip of her coffee.

“What?”

“Oh, shit, you’re right!” Jade clapped her hands together. She pitched her voice up to repeat my slip-up from earlier in the conversation. “‘Here you go, Clara.’”

Not that my new voice was that much higher than hers.

“It’s me, Cry-” Crap. Don’t say that. “Mm. Er, uh.”

You’re losing it. Losing. Loosey?

“Kramer?” Clara formed my stuttering into something I could use.

“Yeah, Lucy Kramer. Remember?”

“I’m not good with faces, sorry,” Clara responded.

“Well, mystery solved,” Jade said, patting Clara on the shoulder. “Wait, no, not at all. One of your old friends is a superhero now?”

“I’m trying to wrack my brain for how we met,” Clara said, dragging Jade by the wrist out of the line for the concessions table. “Lucy from… Lucy Kramer, from… no, no.”

“Can I get uhhhhh,” the next person in line tore my attention away from further eavesdropping.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I had a new face on, and it was explicitly for keeping a secret identity. Coming up with some stupid lie to avoid admitting to having powers was obviously going to make them more suspicious than just answering Jade’s stream of questions. Which, frankly, I should have spent time preparing for, because they were basically inevitable once I’d found out what Extraordinaire wanted me to spend the day doing.

I guess I just… forgot. I didn’t feel like I was wearing a disguise.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I waited for a break in the line and checked it.

I didn’t get to finish typing and sending the last message, because someone knocked on the table to catch my attention and I had to take a few more orders.

I conjured a bag of cotton candy and pushed it across the table to a girl who looked like she should definitely be more supervised than she currently was.

I put my phone away and returned my full attention to managing the line. The hesitancy to accept food pulled out of a glowing orb had been quite thoroughly dispelled over the last half hour or so, it seemed.

“Hi, Lucy,” Clara said, upon reaching the front of the line.

“More coffee?” I asked.

“You’re being spied on,” she said.

“What?”

“By me. Since I left. The timing lined up.” Clara held her phone up, tilting it back and forth.

“The- what timing?”

“Hi, Crystal,” Clara said.

I blinked.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” she said.

“Who’s Crystal?”

“Yeah, thought so. You’ve never been very good at keeping secrets, have you?”

I looked away. “Shut up.”

“I have a lot of questions,” Clara said. I could hear her smiling. She’d always loved being right, and even if she tried to be polite about it, I could tell when she was feeling smug.

“For real, keep this to yourself,” I said, re-establishing eye contact. I felt a wave of relief when I noticed nobody was waiting behind her to get to the food table.

“Yeah, yeah, secret identity, whatever.” Clara waved her hand dismissively.

“Not whatever, Clara. How did you even figure it out? I need to know what to work on, in terms of, y’know. Keeping my double life straight.”

“Okay, um. I promise not to blab about it. Hope that sets you at ease, Lucy.”

“Thanks,” I said, rolling my eyes a tiny bit.

“Anyway, you’re definitely still you. I don’t think Jade picked up on it, but I have to catch the little things every day, so. I knew you met Extraordinaire, I thought it was weird you weren’t really talking about it, and then you said you wouldn’t be here today and… the whole conversation we had earlier was just, uh.”

“Dead giveaway?”

“Yeah,” Clara confirmed. “I used the text test to get better evidence and talk myself into it, but mostly… you didn’t fool me.”

I nodded.

“Wait. Was that a-“

“Hey, someone’s in line behind you,” I pointed out.

“Oh. Sorry. Sorry,” Clara said, addressing the second one to the man in the baseball cap. “Talk to you later, Lucy.”

“Bye,” I said. “Alright, what’ll be, sir?”

Welp. That’s one friend in on the secret. Whoops.

I also made a mental note to tell Extraordinaire what fake name I’d given myself to differentiate this look from the other name I’d picked to replace my “real” name. I wondered, briefly, if this was too much to keep track of and I was on track to spin myself into an identity crisis, again, but I took a deep breath and let the concern leave with it. At least I didn’t have to keep track of four names.

When another break in the line gave me the chance, I checked my phone again. It was only nine forty? This was going to be a long day.

Maybe I overestimated my physical stamina after all. I made a chair with my power and pulled it out of the dome.

While I was at it, I decided to create a small conveyor belt on the half of the table that my power covered, right up to the edge of my area of influence. It wasn’t hooked up to any power source, but I could turn it on and off with a thought. The next person to order wanted a maple donut, so I had the plate appear on the belt and sent it to the other side of the table without getting out of my seat.

“Ta-da,” I said.

And that’ll make a long day easier, I thought, feeling rather clever for once.

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