Kay sat at his puter and messed around with his game for an hour or more, but all the talk he had with Philly about superpowers and his water form abilities got him excited. It was time to get out, so he shut his mae and headed out of his apartment. He met his mom at the door and she was surprised to see him leaving so close to supper.

  “I’m going to see a movie,” said Kay, which wasn’t a lie. “With a friend,” he added, which was.

  It had bee routine for him to not be around for supper, only to eat whe home. Hanging out with friends was the excuse Kay gave his mother, but in truth, he was out about town in his water elemental form. It was something he had been doing a lot.

  Leaving his apartment and ving his mother he was just out with friends was ohing. Making the shift was another matter. Kay had developed a strong sense of caution on where he could transform. Walking down the sidewalk and shifting into his water form in front of the public library was not ideal. Even if the streets seemed clear, who kneas peaking from an open window?

  No, the ideal pces for transf were discrete, had multiple exits, and allowed Kay to– in his water elemental form– slip into the (sometimes literal) cracks of the city. One spot that was close to home was a cemetery that shared an edge with a series of garages that Kay never saw in use and wouldn’t harbour many eyes. This line of garages pointed into a line of shops, the bakery being a two floor building. From there, Kay could hop to other buildings around the district, high above the people below. Two storeys above– where he wao be.

  But the first step was transformation. Kay ehe cemetery, and made sure that no one was around. The cemetery was quiet as cemeteries should have been. There ot he garages enclosed by a spattering of trees. In case someone walked down the cemetery’s road and looked over at Kay as he transformed, the buckeyes mystified the se that pusible deniability was still a factor.

  Transf was weird, but easy. Once a strange sensation that Kay couldn’t uand, it had bee sed nature. It was like Kay flexing a muscle that wasn’t there. It was like unleashing an energy from the tre of his body and delivering it to every limb. Heck, that could have been what he was doing whenever he willed a transformation.

  “Is it clear?” asked Kay, taking one final look to make sure no one was around.

  He hung his arms out and trated that energy from his core out to the tips of his being. His body glowed, light gleaming off his skin like he was ready to explode. Except he didn’t. Instead his body became liquid; hair, skin, and everything underh being a kind of living water. Kay was water. His human clothes disied and were repced with a sleeveless shirt and a pair of pants– both pieces made of the same magical water as his body, but taking the texture of fabrics. The clothes, too, were purple.

  Kay was in his water form– the water elemental. He looked up at the top of the garages and pressed his body into a ball– shirt and pants dissolving into the living water they were made out of– so that he could spring up there. Aiming himself in that form was sed nature. He bounced up and ran across the garages unto the rooftops and then did a spring-jump up to the top of the bakery. High above on two-storey rooftops and the sidewalks below, he felt safe to jump across streets and alleyways without aig.

  Up ahead was a street, a gap of ptform that would require a leap of at least eight metres. Kay dashed towards the edge and just whe to it, he pressed down into a ball and using that forward momentum, he sprung out like a spray of water and fired across to the roof oher side. He would have screamed with joy but being discrete was utmost important. And also because in that form that resembled an o spray, he cked a mouth to scream with.

  Maybe some of the people below would see a sparkle in the sky for a half sed and turn their heads up only to just miss Kay flying above, and maybe some would get a bit of spritz on their faces and wonder where it came from, but if Kay moved quickly and moved right, he remained ued.

  Landing oher side, Kay took his humanoid form and got back to running across rooftops. If he stuck to the tre of the structure, it was unlikely people would see or hear him from below.

  That’s all it o be, Kay and his powers: running, jumping across rooftops. He would challenge himself to jump up to an apartment building and sneak across the patios, staying out of sight of anyone i was October and the weather was getting colder so not a soul was using the patios at the moment. He transformed himself to a puddle to keep low and even hopped in that form between patios, a snake of purple liquid bridging over the gap from oform to another.

  It was wonderful. He had do a thousand times before but jumping off the apartment building, leaping high through the air, the wind bsting against his aquatic body; it was a thrill he adored. He had been at it for months and it hadn’t dulled the experience.

  It was a bit chilly but the pains of colder temperature didn’t hit as hard in his water form.

  Running atop rooftops provided new perspectives, too. What was it like to run where people weren’t meant to run? Up above the city streets, the acoustics were vengeful.

  Atop one particur business district where clothing shops and dining pces lihe street, the musig up into the roofs– from multiple sources. There ot above a clothing store where the musieered out of of the ventition i. It was that song “Get Low” that Kay had heard a huimes over the summer. The teo bleeps and growling vocals were going to haunt them until he was an old man. If that wasn’t enough, there was a restaurant with a speaker aimed right up at where Kay was standing, bring that new Christina Aguilera. Two auras of sound in a skirmish.

  Kay didn’t have ears in that form, but he worried for them anyway.

  Iime that Kay had gotten used of his watery body, he had seen more of Toronto than he ever did his eime living there as a normal huma to know the streets and the districts. He saw more ndmarks than ever before. He had feasted on the culture of Toronto every night he could.

  And it was easy to partake in so much culture when your superpowers made the entry fee to pces like the SkyDome or the Royal Ontario Museum an easy zero dolrs adian.

  If there were vents, Kay could turn into a puddle and slip inside and even if ventition ducts were a no-go, Kay’s transfiguring toolset made it easy to sneak in and out of various establishments. Movie theatres were easy mode in themselves, something he could attempt even without powers.

  The problem was sneaking in as a puddle of water, ref as a humanoid elemental, and then turning baan was not easy to go about ued if the theatre acked as most pood movies teo be. He had heard good things about School of Rock (apparently the movie had a Led Zeppelin song), but it was fillis so that was out of the question.

  Kay had to settle for the less popur movies, which usually meant the bad ones or ohat were old and on their way out of theatres. He snuto the plex around the er from his apartment, finding his way into the air-ditioning ducts.

  Now to choose a theatre. He thought.

  Even in his slime puddle form, he could still see and hear. Not optimally though. Without a proper pair of eyes materialized, his visual senses were blurry and the colours were dark. His hearing was like he was uer, appropriately. He peeked out the grilles of one duct after ao see whi was empty. He saw a sing of School of Rod it acked so he thought about watg it through the grille, peeking at the s through bdes of steel, but then decided no. Down the ventition duct there was another room pying a vampire/werewolf movie with only half of its seats filled, but Kay peaked into the pd there were too many people he vent so he didn’t think he could sneak in.

  Moving down the vework, he found anate and gnced ihe theatre to see that the seats were mostly empty. The opening spool was still going on so that spot was the ticket. He double checked to see that there was no one around where he was going to seep out, and then he pushed himself into and through the grille.

  Quietly did the sapient puddle leak into the theatre, sliding down the walls. Still in his puddle form, he slithered underh seats, being very careful not to rub up against any garbage or stains. He found ay spot way in the ba the middle of the row. If he seated himself far away from the aisles, the ushers were less likely to bother him. He regrew into his humanoid form and then– trating the same way he did to turn into the living water– let his human form return, his clothes returning with him. A human again, he could enjoy the movie.

  Tonight's viewing pleasure was Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. Kay hoped for a hidden gem or a nice surprise but unfortuhe movie was a mistake, both Kay choosing to watch it and the movie being made. Oh well. He went through trouble of sneaking in and the ushers weren’t b him so he took advantage of the evening and watched a free (new) movie.

  The movie started, the movie went, and then the movie cluded. Kay got some looks on his way out with ushers and ticket takers suspicious that the teenage boy with shades and a leather coat wasn’t seen walking in. Before they could ask any questions, Kay walked out into the cold night. While Kay was watg a movie, the su and evening arrived. He wao watch the su but it wasn’t going to be tonight. He zipped up his jacket as far as it would go and hurried home before he caught a cold.

  Whe home, his sister Aubrey on the couch was watg TV and his mom, Stevie, was at the diable reading a book although Kay didn’t care enough to read the title. Urban was lying down in the bedroom. The show Aubrey was watg bring loud with quippy character dialogue and a promi ugh track.

  Supper. Kay might have had the ability to turn into a living water being but that didn’t meaning he didn’t need food. He went to the fridge and found the leftovers in a cooking pan– he lifted the tinfoil to see a spread of pastitsio.

  Living with Urban had some advahought Kay.

  He brought out the pan, cut out a piece to put on a pte, then put the leftovers back.

  While Kay heated up the pte in the microwave, his mom asked how the was the movie was. “Okay,” said Kay. His mom showed a mild amount of i until he uttered the name: “Dickie Roberts: Child Star.”

  “That sounds ridiculous,” said Stevie.

  And she was right.

  Stevie went quiet but Kay, leaning by the microwave, had a curiosity. “Mom,” he said, “what was that song that came out in the eighties where all the stars came together to make a charity… whatever?”

  His mom looked up from her book, cog an eyebrow. “’We Are the World’?”

  “That’s the one,” said Kay.

  After walking over to Aubrey to see what she was watg– “The Smarty Party,” said Aubrey– Kay took his dinner into his room and turned his puter on. While the mae loaded up, he sat down on his bed and picked at his dinner. He took a bite and scorched the top of his mouth, it was too hot to eat.

  He put the pte down on his mattress to cool but saw a couple strands of hair on his sheets. They were a dark greyish kind of brown, so Kay khey were not from him but a gift from his vulpine friend.

  Kay picked them up and brought them to the garbage bucket by his door– “You better not have fleas, Philly!”– theuro his bed to look out the window into the dark night, windows shining through the darkness on a quiet Tuesday evening.

  Could I fight crime? Kay asked himself. Could I beat bad guys?

  The very idea of violence, pung people aing punched, got Kay to shiver. The thought of Shanda and everything Kay did to protect her, all the criminals he tried to fight and fail– the thought of that i still made him ge and twitch with embarrassment.

  Deep down, though, Kay khat he was thrown into the deep end with that i. What would crime fightiail around Toronto? Would he thwart bank robbers or knouckles with mobsters? Would it be him sniffing out muggers and putting them in their pce? Pung out bullies?

  That didn’t sound like anything he wao do but it didn’t sound bad either. Was Toronto really in the need for superheroes? The teenager didn’t know much about crime statistid his reference for superheroes was what he heard about Lady Beat thwarting some crooks or some thugs, but he didn’t get the impression that Toronto had a crime problem that no other city had.

  Kay took another bite of his dinner. Still too hot. That sauce was good, though.

  Philly had good judgment. If he saw something in Kay, the chatty vulpine robably right.

  Kay sighed and put the pte down on the bed. Maybe tomorrow he would give being a hero a test.