Mystery surrounds the kid, not least of which is--why did he put on the necklace?

I live in Fullerton, that's in California not too far from Disneyland. I've been there a few times, to Disneyland. It costs a lot to get in though but sometimes when I have a bunch of money I go there and have some fun like other kids.

It kinda hurts a little when I see them with their parents, though. I don't know why I don't have parents, I guess I can't remember. But I've got friends. Even more since I found the necklace.

Well, I didn't exactly find it, it wasn't lost. But I was hanging around the fanstore in Fullerton, they were having a signing and one of the supers was actually going to be there. One of the Protectors, the one named Mandragonne. He's a fat, old guy but he can turn into a dragon and breathe fire and fly.

I wanted to see him, I think supers are just the coolest thing in the world and I would like to meet some. There's a super in Fullerton who hangs around the college but I've never seen him. He's not a super-super anyway, he doesn't fly or throw lightning or nothing, he just runs around at night and catches thieves and stuff. They call him Hoodwink.

But Mandragonne is like president of the Protectors and he lives in the big blue tower in L.A. and he even knew the Protector once upon a time, I guess. That's like way before I was born and I don't know so much about it. I buy the fanbooks when I can find the money, or sometimes, well, sometimes I steal them.

Yeah, I don't like to steal but if I didn't then I wouldn't like have any money and I'd get caught or starve or something. I don't want to get locked up like happened once. I'm not very big but I'm quick and I'm smart even if I don't go to school and I've got a skateboard I ride and so far no one has never caught me cause they don't know I took anything.

I walked into the store, it's called Twenty-First Century Fan and Gary was there, he's like real nice and I really hate to take stuff from him so I try to have money but just then I was pretty broke. There were like thirty fans already there including some of those creeps from the Church of the Starbirth. I think like they think Mandragonne is one of their gods or something but I read he used to be a history professor or something like that.

Gary saw me and said, "Hi, kid, watch out and don't get stepped on." And he grinned at me. Gary is sort of short, too, though he's a grown-up and has like gray hair even if he doesn't look that old. I mean, old but not like grandpa old, except for the gray hair.

Anyway, I looked around and there were a lot of the fans I kind of knew from hanging around the store. They mostly think I'm like just another kid from the neighborhood and don't know I live by myself and don't have parents. Only, Cara said "Hi," and I said hi back and her cat meowed at me. She always has that cat with her. Cara's older than me but she thinks she likes me and the cat is pretty cool.

Well, I figured we would have to wait a long time. 'Cause Mandragonne is like really busy and what if there was like a fire or a riot or one of the supervillains attacked and he had to go fight them--then he would be really late. They might even cancel the signing. I picked up the book he had written, it was called "The Blue and Gold: A History of the Protectors" and like it was fifty dollars which was way more than I could afford for a book that didn't even have that many pictures in it.

I was looking at some of the glossy pictures in the book and really wondering if I could steal it but it was too big to fit under my shirt and it was a hardcover so it would show. There was a girl standing next to me--she was dressed really nice, kind of expensive. And she smelled good. I watched her for a bit 'cause like she seemed nervous. She kept fingering this necklace she had on.

Yeah, that necklace. It was like a lacy gold chain that was tight around her neck almost and with a locket that hung right at that hollow spot in her neck. She was a skinny girl and she might have been a grown-up but she sort of looked like maybe a college girl.

I like college girls 'cause when I don't have any money I can go to the college and hang around and sooner or later some college girl will buy me something to eat if I look real hungry. Or make her boyfriend buy it. It's kind of embarrassing though so I don't do that too often. But a college is also a good place to go to find a book on something you are interested in. This girl was pretty but looked a bit more like the kind who yell at you for being too young to go to college.

Gary had the big doors open on the side of the store where the barbershop used to be. I wasn't there when that happened--one of the outlaw supers tried to set the fanstore on fire--I think it was Butane or Conflagration or one of the ones with a really dumb name like that. I guess he was mad about something that was in one of the books.

Anyway, Gary had a big hole in the side of his store and the barbershop was gone so he put in big doors there and now they were open to the parking lot and all of the fans were like milling around there. Some inside and some outside and some in their cars still, watching the sky.

But this big blue limo pulls up and I saw that it had gold windows and gold headlights and gold chrome and I knew it was one of the Protectors' autocars. Everybody starts cheering and jumping up and down and trying to see.

I can't see much 'cause I'm short but I'm standing next to the girl with the necklace and she starts shoving people away. I mean she isn't being polite at all. Just "Out of my way, asshole!" and she shoves one of the fans into a display of books. She started getting closer to the parking lot where Mandragonne was probably getting out of the autocar and I was following her because she was making it easy to get through the crowd, her being so mean and shoving people and stuff.

Then I saw him, Dr. Joseph Wiesnowski, that's the Mandragonne's real name. He's bald and like he's fifty or sixty or something and he's smoking a cigar. It's a stinky thing to do. He's just wearing blue jeans and a yellow t-shirt and he had those stupid sandals like people wear in the shower. He never dresses up nice 'cause his clothes burn up when he changes to Mandragonne, I read that.

The girl I was following said something nasty--a bad word, so I looked at her, surprised. I mean, girls, even mean ones, don't usually say stuff like that. By this time she had pushed herself to the front of the crowd and I was standing beside her instead of behind. That's why I saw what she did, she put her hand on the necklace and said something.

A golden light seemed to come out of her, like all over, a hard light. I mean hard like something solid, not like light at all and it knocked me down and several other people. It got confusing then and some people stepped on me trying to get away.

That's cause Dr. Joe caught fire and burned up his clothes and then Mandragonne stood there--like seven feet tall with spines on his head and wings that stood up even taller. His skin had turned to green scales and his face had grown a big snout like a bird beak except he had huge nasty-looking yellow teeth. Even his shoes had burned up and he had claws on his feet.

He still had his cigar though and he held it in one of his big claws that he had instead of hands now. "Golden Girl? You're still alive?" he said.

And the girl, it had to be her even though now she was taller and all golden, cursed at him. She called him stuff like I'd only heard from the men who load trucks down at the railyard and it sounded all nasty and mean even though she had this beautiful, musical voice.

She looked really neat, tall and beautiful and her skin all golden-like. Her hair too, and even her eyes. Not just the colored part but what ought to be the whites of her eyes, too. Even her lips and tongue were golden and she wore a tight thing like a leotard with a short skirt. She had boots, too, with heels on them. How could anyone so pretty talk so mean and nasty?

People ran away in all directions but I just laid there and watched, afraid to try to get up and maybe a bit dazed from getting knocked down and stepped on.

"You better just give youself up, G.G." said Mandragonne. His voice sounded really deep and growly, like a bear talking or something. But he moved toward the parking lot, a little away from the store and me.

She called him a filthy name--why did she have to talk like that? "You ruined everything!" she screamed at him and then she jumped into the air and came down on him and they started fighting.

It looked sort of stupid. I mean, she had gotten a lot bigger but Mandragonne must have outweighed her five or ten times. It looked like he didn't want to fight, he kept backing away from her and grabbing instead of punching, trying to get her out to the alley, I guess.

She kept jumping in and hitting him though and it looked like it hurt and once he roared--and I saw fire back in his throat--and he sort of slapped her off of him. She went spinning into a parked car and left a huge old dent but she bounced back up and looked like it didn't hurt her at all.

They yelled and screamed at each other and even Mandragonne used a bad word and called her a name. He's supposed to be a hero; he shouldn't talk like that but I guess he got excited. I thought he must be trying not to cause any damage to Gary's store and keep her just punching him while he got her away from people and stuff that could break.

I got up then and I should have been smart and ran away like almost everyone else but I sneaked between the cars in the parking lot and got to the alley to see them fight some more. That's when the stupidest thing ever happened. Those crazy cultists, the ones from the Church of the Starbirth, drove up in a van and tried to get between the Golden Girl and Mandragonne. Really stupid.

The van got wrecked, of course, with the cultists yelling, "Do not fight, holy ones, we are your servants, let us worship you." Oh brother. The girl smashed in the side and ripped off the door and pulled the driver out of the van and tossed him into a trash bin and screamed more nasty stuff. That's when Mandragonne jumped into the air and spread his wings, like thirty feet wide and grabbed her before she could react and he flew off with her.

I cheered and so did a lot of the other people. We all thought he would take her to the Tower and lock her in the Vault or something. But it didn't end there.

She kept fighting. It looked almost funny, like he tried to juggle her from one claw to another while she tried to climb up him. He roared a few times and even spit fire on her but I guess he didn't want to cause fires in the city so he didn't really turn loose. I think he planned to get her out over the lake and drop her, maybe, 'cause he started heading south toward the lakes and not west toward the Tower.

By this time, I had got on my skateboard and followed the fight, down on the ground, that is. I don't know why I did it except I guess excitement and stupidity. I heard the sirens going, police sirens and then that WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP noise I hadn't heard before except on TV and I knew somewhere there were bright blue and gold searchlights going off. The Protector alarm. Well, Mandragonne was already here but if more Protectors showed up to help him it could get really exciting.

I couldn't believe that this Golden Girl wasn't getting the snot beat out of her. I mean, Mandragonne is tough! He fought Archimedes once and took a hit from the Lever that must have knocked him half a mile. But he flew back in and kept fighting and almost toasted Old Archie. At least, that's what the book I had said. There were drawings and everything; The New Olympians and The Protectors had like a war. Yeah, I know they are both supposed to be good guys; I guess being super can get complicated.

Maybe that's what this fight was about, but I figured the girl must really be an outlaw. I mean, the good guys don't talk like that, all cussing and bad names.

I must have followed them across half of Fullerton, I crossed the railroad tracks and lost sight of them for a bit then saw them again up over all the used car lots on Harbor. They weren't going in a straight line at all and no wonder!

I couldn't believe it. That stupid Golden Girl had her legs around Dr. Joe's neck! He had such a thick neck, she couldn't have got her arms around it but she had really strong legs I guess. She tried to choke him and she was beating on his face with her fists and he tried to get her off of him and they must have been a couple hundred feet up!

And then they crashed! Down they went, I don't know what happened, maybe she choked him unconscious but I saw where they went down, in the junkyard next to the railroad and I headed that direction, as fast as I could go on my skateboard. Why? I don't know, I guess I'm just stupid that way.

Somebody as big as Mandragonne falling that far would make a big dent in anything he hit. I didn't think it would kill him--if I believed the book I read, he fell harder than that when Archie smacked him. But he might be hurt and besides, the excitement had filled my brain and I didn't have any thought about being scared for myself. A real superhero-supervillain fight like in the fanbooks and I had actually seen it!

I got to the junkyard probably before anyone 'cause it is mostly downhill and I can go really fast on my skateboard. I went through a gate on a side street that is like almost never used and it's forgotten but I just crouched down on my board and went under the chain. It's not like a car junkyard where people might come in to steal a hubcap or an alternator--it's really just the big trashpile for the guys who work on loading the freightcars. Once in a while they bring in a dumptruck and haul a big load off somewhere to a real trashdump, I guess.

I started looking and I found her first. I almost didn't see her, 'cause she wasn't the six-foot-tall Golden Girl anymore. She had turned back into the girl I had seen in the fanstore, just ordinary size with brown hair and regular clothes, slacks and a tank top.

And that golden necklace. I had seen it before and seen her touch it and say a word and the golden light knocked me down. So I knew she must be Golden Girl even though she just looked like a college kid again.

I thought she must be dead or something. I got really scared but I skated up, then had to carry my board over some of the junk piled around. She had fallen on top of some boxes full of I don't know what, it looked like insulation foam or something. She didn't move at all as I climbed right up beside her.

I put my hand on her throat and could feel her heart beating and she breathed so she hadn't been killed. She wasn't even bleeding and her clothes weren't torn. I said, "Miss?" but she didn't hear me. Out cold.

I reached behind her head and found the catch to the necklace and it came right off and I put it in my pocket real quick. Then I stood there for a moment. Somewhere off in the junkyard, Mandragonne must have landed and he might be hurt. But I didn't think of that right away.

I suddenly didn't want to get caught so I ran. Back out to the street where I got on my skateboard and skated away. I wanted to get home and look at the necklace. I didn't want to get caught and have someone take it away from me. I saw another van full of those crazy Starborn cultists and I changed direction and went through alleys.

I lived in a building like a toolshed behind this old lady's house in the oldest part of town, so I had to go uphill from the railroad tracks and carry my board a lot of the way. The crazy old lady didn't know I lived in that building, she was half-blind and talked to her cats and I don't think she had been in her backyard in a long time. Sometimes I ran errands for her and she must have thought I lived in the neighborhood. Well, I did, I had lived right there on her property for several months and no one knew a thing about me.

One reason I liked having fanbooks and other kinds of books is I stayed in the shed most days during the week, not going out during school hours. You can only watch so much TV and I didn't have cable or nothing for my little Sony--just rabbit ears--so books were good. It got boring in there but someone might notice me and I'd get caught and locked up or something bad.

I didn't want anyone to know where I lived either, so I had several ways to get to the shed where no one would likely see me. The trickiest way was to go up this culvert that came out in the alley behind the old lady's property and I would be practically home, just a few yards from the tool shed.

I got there without anyone seeing me, and went in through the smaller door and hung my board up on one of the tool racks. I had boxes I used like a chest of drawers and a closet and several old couch cushions I used for a bed. The shed had water and electricy; there was even a toilet and a sink. I had a toaster oven for making things hot and a Koolcase for keeping ice in to keep things cold. I'd made it pretty comfy and actually kept it clean inside, getting rid of spider webs and dust and stuff.

So when I came in I felt safe. I mean, I lived here, the only place I called home that I could remember for the longest time. I sat on a wooden stool and took the

It was sure a beautiful thing. Fine gold chains were worked together like lace about half an inch wide--it really was a neck lace. A heavy piece of gold that I had thought was a locket now looked to be solid with a symbol on it like...a funny kind of star. It looked like a star with vines growing around the pointy parts sticking out. The star had seven points.

The symbol thing had been in front and the clasp in back was really simple, just three hooks that went into three opening in the lace. I held it up to my neck for a moment. I thought it must look pretty girly but if I was right, this is what that rude girl had used to turn herself into a super.

I heard what she said, I knew the word. I whispered it but nothing happened. I probably had to put the necklace on and that seemed pretty odd to me. I went to the sink and stood on a box and looked at myself in the mirror. I'm short and skinny and my hair hadn't been cut in ages but I look like a boy which I am.

But the necklace didn't look like something a boy would wear. If I put it on and anyone saw me, they might think I was a girl. I made a face but I sighed and closed the clasp behind my neck. I didn't expect anything to happen till I said the magic word but it surprised me. I felt different. I'm not sure how to describe it, like I had suddenly got really healthy. Not that I had been sick or anything but I probably don't eat right and maybe I had had a cold. Not anymore.

I felt really good, like I felt stronger and quicker and smarter, too. Wow, no wonder that girl could shove people out of the way in the fanstore, I thought. Even without the magic word the necklace could give you superpowers? Well, maybe not superpowers but I sure felt different. I wanted to try it out, see if I really could run faster or jump higher or what--but I knew the magic word.

And right there in my little house, the tool shed, no one would see me or hear me. I didn't think more about it, I said it out loud this time--"Gildenora!"--not sure what to expect. Maybe it wouldn't work.

But it did. I felt the hard golden light shine through me and felt and heard it knock some things off shelves and push against the sink, even. It seemed to come from the gold symbol on the necklace and it filled me inside and covered and surrounded me with light. It felt like nothing else in the world. Just putting the necklace on had felt good but this was better, a hundred times better.

I knew things suddenly; I knew that the golden light would protect me and make me strong and quick and beautiful. Beautiful? I looked in the mirror and I realized I had to look down--standing on the box, my head almost touched the ceiling now.

And in the mirror I saw the face of Golden Girl. I looked down and I had the body of Golden Girl too. My chest had two big titties on it and I made stupid squeaking noises in surprise. I reached up and touched them and that felt so weird that I stepped back and almost fell 'cause I stepped off of the box.

I couldn't see all of me in the mirror but I looked exactly like Golden Girl had. A grown up woman, or at least a tall girl and all golden. Long golden hair on my shoulders, golden lips and golden eyes, and golden fingernails on my golden hands.

Even the clothes I was wearing were golden. I said a bad word--I was wearing a dress! A really short skirt like a cheerleader wears came half-way to my golden knees. I said another bad word and stuck out my leg so I could get a look at it. Long and really a pretty looking leg, a girl's leg, all golden and I had on high-heeled, pointy-toed boots that came up just past my ankles and had kind of a loose cuff there. They felt soft and they fit real well, and I wondered if I could take them off.

And the dress? Could I take it off? And if I did, what would happen to them when I changed back?

And then it hit me. How did I change back?

"Gildenora!" I said out loud again, but that didn't work. I didn't panic but I got worried. "Stupid," I told myself. I tried saying it backward. "Aronedlig!" but that didn't work either.

"Really stupid, you dope," I said. "Now I've changed into a supervillain and I'm a girl and I don't know how to change back!" I started giggling, because well it was sort of funny and I felt good and even though I was worried, I knew that it was possible to change back. The girl I had seen had evidently managed it--though maybe not on purpose.

It occured to me to just take off the necklace but when I reached up and looked in the mirror I saw that the necklace had disappeared! It wasn't there at all! I guess it disappeared when I changed.

Was I going to have to get Mandragonne to beat me up to change back? I sure hoped not but that set me to giggling again. I mean I felt really, really good. I wondered if this was how people who get drunk feel? 'Cause they always say they feel really good and then they do stupid stuff.

Like what I did next. I decided I needed to go out and...I wasn't sure what but it sounded like fun. "I'm Golden Girl!" I said and giggled some more. I really did feel silly.

I went out my back door, out into the alley and I climbed into the culvert and down it and out the other end that came out in a small park where a concrete channel would take rain water to another culvert on the other side of the park. The culvert was tall enough that normally I could just walk through it but now I had to crouch and bend over.

It felt weird to be so tall and walk in high heels and feel my new boobies bounce. Maybe the golden light was just making an illusion around me but it felt very real. My butt even felt like it must be three feet across which I worried about a little. I mean, how was I supposed to know where it was, so big and wide? And that was a silly thing to think so I laughed out loud.

I walked through the park kind of enjoying myself. No one saw me at first, but there were some kids and a family having a picnic on the other side of the park. They would see me in a little bit. "I'm Golden Girl," I said to myself and I giggled again.

I remembered how the girl had jumped around in the fight with Mandragonne. She could really jump, so I tried it. I just jumped up as hard as I could. For a moment there, I could look out across the city, from above the trees--I must have jumped fifty feet straight up! It felt glorious!

Then I came down and landed in one of the trees and broke some branches and sort of got tangled up and fell onto the ground ker-flump! It scared me a bit but I wasn't hurt at all! It didn't feel any worse than if I had jumped onto the sofa cushions back in my little tool shed house. So, I lay there on my back in the grass and kicked my feet in the air and laughed.

But I'd seen something else while I had my head above the trees. Protector Tower, almost 800 feet tall, isn't really visible from most of Fullerton--thirty miles away with some hills inbetween. But when I had jumped up, the sun must have been at just the right angle 'cause I caught a glimpse of blue and gold light reflecting of the top of the tower.

That reminded me about Mandragonne and the fight. I wondered if he was okay, and if any other Protectors had shown up. Were they looking for me? For Golden Girl? One person I was sure would be looking for me. The girl whose necklace I had stolen, the Golden Girl who had fought Mandragonne, if she was still alive.

And she might be the only person who knew how to change back. At least, the only person I had even an idea of how to find. Or let her find me.

I mean, I'm really a boy and this had gotten just too weird, turning into a grown-up woman with superpowers. Maybe I should find that girl or Mandragonne or go to Protector Tower and get some help. 'Cause, I didn't want to stay Golden Girl forever. Did I?

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