Velveteen vs. the Junior Super Patriots Read Online Free Page A

deployment.
    One of the shop’s other patrons glanced over toward the table in the room’s darkest corner. The table where no one was willing to sit, since the air conditioning never seemed to reach into that corner—something about the air currents and the way the vents were configured—and the wireless didn’t really work. The table where cups would just spill for no reason anyone could see, where newspapers tore, where sugar packets disappeared at an unrealistic rate. Some of the coffee shop’s patrons said that the table was haunted, possibly by the spirit of the coffee shop’s missing owner, Andy. Andrew Patterson, who disappeared under mysterious circumstances immediately following the receipt of a rare new type of coffee bean from somewhere in Central America.
    Unseen, the two dark figures at the darkest of the shop’s tables cast longing looks toward the brighter tables around them, their eyes lingering on the coffee cups they were unable to reach.
    “Tonight,” they whispered, with a single voice consumed by longing.
    *
    After six minutes, fourteen seconds in Cyndi’s presence, Velma was starting to forget exactly why she had decided to quit the superhero business. Sure, the hours were crap, no amount of medical insurance would help you out after aliens from the seventh dimension removed your spine, and bulimia was such a part of the status quo that most superheroines were essentially supermodels in capes, but the pay was great. Merchandising alone could make a hero or heroine with a salable power a multimillionaire. Assuming they lived that long.
    They certainly didn’t work minimum wage jobs for chirpy-voiced Barbie dolls who believed that Valley Girl culture was the ultimate expression of mankind’s development as a species.
    “And I just want to, like, say how totally and like awesomely delighted we are to have you working here at Andy’s Coffee Palace, where we, like, revere the sacred bean in all its totally bitchin’ forms.”
    And I don’t believe you just said “bitchin’,” thought Velma, resisting the urge to puncture her eardrums with straws. “Well, I’m really grateful for the job,” she said carefully. “Although I didn’t realize this was a church. I’m not really a church-going kind of person.”
    “Oh, like, don’t worry about it,” twinkled Cyndi. “We don’t require that you keep the faith before you’ve tasted your first cup of midnight coffee.”
    Velma blinked. “I was kidding.”
    “That’s okay. I’m not.”
    The crazy just kept upping the ante in this town. Forcing her smile to stay in place, Velma said, “Midnight? I thought we closed at eleven.”
    “Well, like, technically we do.” Velma breathed a silent sigh of relief, only to catch Cyndi’s next words and wish that she hadn’t dared to drop her guard that far: “It’s just that the local branch of the Midnight Bean Society rents the place every Wednesday, and they, like, really pay well, so it means we can keep offering free wireless access.” She gave Velma a pleading, doe-eyed look. “You can stay tonight, can’t you?”
    “Well, I don’t think that I can—”
    “You’ll be making double-overtime plus tips after you’ve been on the clock for eight hours.”
    Velma nodded so firmly she was afraid her head might fall off. “I’m absolutely staying.”
    *
    Velma had worked in coffee shops before, and knew the basic routines the job required. Sure, the details changed from place to place, but except for that one New Age vegan coffee shop in Berkeley (which only served coffee brewed from cruelty-free beans), the big picture remained essentially the same. After an hour on the floor at Andy’s Coffee Palace, she could probably have done the job in her sleep. She tuned Cyndi out—as much as it was possible to tune out someone whose voice could probably have been used to cut glass—and just served coffee, cleared tables, and wished that she hadn’t broken her iPod a week before leaving