Brad's eyes strayed to his framed DC comic. He wondered how his life
would have been different if Robin was a boy. His hand absently
clicked a key. The F in Robin's gender box became an M.
He muttered, "Yeah, if I was only Bruce Wayne and Robin was Dick
Grayson - secretly the crime fighter Robin. Hey, why not?" He started
typing in earnest.
Robin suddenly felt uncomfortable. She slammed her legs together.
"You okay, Robin," asked Sally at her friend's sudden quiet state of
consternation.
"Uh, yeah, uh?" Robin's hand went to her throat and she had spoken in
a tenor voice, she was an alto soprano. She cleared her throat, "Maybe
I'm coming down with something?"
She stood up and her smock rose with an unsightly tenting.
Sally's jaw dropped.
Then another keystroke. Sally's jaw closed. Robin's clothing changed.
The room shifted. It was suddenly much larger and much plusher.
"Oh, Dick, I do hope you're not coming down with anything," Sally said
with a suppressed snicker.
Dick stared down at his tented dungarees, and then turned swiftly
adjusting himself as he spun. Dick's fist pounded his palm. Why
couldn't he be more like Bruce. Bruce never popped a woody around
women. Dick just didn't have the self control.
A balding man appeared with a tray of refreshments.
"Oh, Alfred, you brought Sally and me a snack? That was kind of you,"
Dick said.
He blushed as he grabbed a watercress sandwich. Alfred's eyes were
affixed on Dickie's bulging dungarees. He said pointedly, "There's a
call for you in the study, Master Dickie, the phone by the Shakespeare
bust. Don't worry, I'll entertain Miss Sally in your absence."
"If you'll excuse me, won't you, Sally?" Dick said as he looked over
his shoulder and climbed the steps back toward the foyer.
"Not at all," said Sally.
Sally laughed after Dick had left the room. She shook her head, and
said to no one in particular, "Men?"
"Sandwich, Miss Sally?" asked Alfred offering the tray.
"Ew, those have fish heads sticking out of them!"
"These are watercress, these are salmon, the ones with fishheads as
you put it are kippers, and these are p b and j."
"I'll stick with watercress. Girl's gotta watch her figure," she said
munching on the sandwich, "You know that was cute how you got Dick out
of the room. I could tell he was deathly embarrassed, but to be honest
it was kind of flattering. I mean, well, never mind."
"Indeed, Miss Sally, I have no idea what you're talking about?"
"Yeah, right. My mom says you and Mr. Wayne are a couple. That's
okay, we're very broad minded," Sally said.
"I would say small minded. Mr. Wayne's father and mother hired me
before Master Bruce was born. To suggest the relationship you're
suggesting is insultingly incestuous. If you must know, I am a
widower, and Mr. Wayne, well, he's a bit of a fickle playboy or don't
you read the tabloids."
"You're very talkative for a supposedly reticent butler. How long have
you been doing this butling thing?"
"What - now that's odd? I can swear I've been in the Wayne family's
employ for nigh on 4 decades, but I feel as though I just arrived. I
think I was here to deliver a package to a Brad something or other,
and then I was the butler and had been forever. Most peculiar?" said
Alfred suddenly much more reticent.
Reality was sorting out nicely. Brad looked up from his computer in
his now two story study. He glanced at the bust of Shakespeare that
stood where his third place bowling trophy had stood earlier. The
door opened as his boy Robin - Dick - dashed in.
"What nefarious villain is wreaking havoc in Gotham today?" Dick
asked.
Two more keystrokes and old Mrs.Perkins the neighbor lady with the 37
cats was suddenly not so old, and her name was now Selena Kyle.
"I'm afraid, chum, that a cat does have nine lives," Bruce said
reaching for the bust's head and tilting it back.
"Cat-catwoman? But she fell off the Gotham State Building into the
East River. No one could've survived that fall," Dick blurted out.
"Like I said that cat has at least nine lives, but she's not our only
problem. Mr. Cobblepot is back in town too, and there seems to be
something odd going on at one of Wayne Corp's research companies. A
Jervis Tesch has been mucking about with some sort of electronic
looking glass that can change reality to correspond with its
reflection. At least that's what my research head said before he
jumped out the window of his 30 story office to escape the giant
rabbit in a waistcoat carrying a pocket watch," Bruce said.
"What? Penguin, Catwoman and some refuge from Alice in Wonderland?"
Dick asked then he slammed his fist into his palm, "We can take them,
Batman."
Bruce pushed the red button.
"To the bat poles..."