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Hana’s room resounded with a clunk of wood against concrete.
Her hand flew to the weapon that lay beside her bed, a plain-looking NERF blaster that Elliot had modified to shoot significantly harder and faster. The novel idea to insert needles into each of the foam NERF bullets had been her own. It was a pity that the school didn’t allow students any real firearms in their dorms, but Hana had learned to make do. Her compromise was the Glock 43 that was tucked into the breast pocket of her ACU blouse. Which, as luck had it, was across the small room in her camo wardrobe.
She slid out of bed with all the grace a mildly hungover liberal arts major can muster. The cheap rug tickled her feet through her threadbare socks, but she ignored it. She moved like a panther. Or more like a wet cat, as Rebecca might point out. She flicked wet hair out of her face, almost in response to the imagined insult. Her eyes scanned the room for the source of the disturbance.
The door to her room was shut firmly and bolted as had been her practice for the past two and a half semesters. To the right of it, the head of her bed, strategically placed to let her cut off any intruders and also to collapse into after a hard night’s work of waterboarding her liver. Her damp towel was still draped over her pillow. She chanced a look over to the window, which was currently the only source of light. Still sealed tight.
Three hulking closets guarded the north wall of her room. The first housed her civilian wear. The second was an overflowing boutique of denims and khakis. The third…
The third wardrobe leaned forward as if in slow motion before rocking back to bang into the wall again. Hana’s grip on her gun tightened. The wardrobe repeated the motion, and this time Hana could hear muffled thumps and cursing. Very familiar cursing, in fact.
Without lowering her gun, Hana delivered a light kick to the wooden door. "Rebecca? Is that you?"
The closet burst open like a floodgate, pouring out a deluge of frogskin camo, a small arsenal of expensive firearm accessories, and a flailing mess of limbs that could only be Rebecca. This wasn’t the most surprising part of Hana’s relatively short day so far. What was unusual, however, was what her friend was wearing: a deep green lizard onesie, complete with scales and spines in all the anatomically correct places.
"What in ectothermoregulation?" Hana exclaimed. The NERF gun in her hand clattered to the ground, spitting out a bullet into the morass of tactical gear. She placed her now-unencumbered hands on her hips. "Why? "
Rebecca didn’t respond at first, apparently content to lie amidst the carnage she’d wreaked. After a moment, she blinked, the first sign of life she’d given. "I don’t think that’s actually a word. The morphographs aren’t compatible with each other."
"What?"
"It’s like a trolley problem - the more of those suckers you have lined up, the more likely it is you’re on the wrong track." Rebecca mimed just what would ensue in such a morbid scenario. "It’s just a mess, you know? Except, like, grammatically."
"Ignoring that prime example of irony," Hana said, "It’s nothing like the trolley problem because it’s actually a relevant response to a real issue. What is going on here?" She pointed at the wardrobe, then at Rebecca’s scaled belly, then at Rebecca in rapid succession. "Why? Why? Why?"
"I wanted to see if my natural camouflage was on par with the man-made equivalent," Rebecca said, somehow making the most sense she had thus far. She tugged at the loose fabric of her onesie. "What good are these flimsy scales if they don’t let me survive in the real world?"
Hana entertained that thought for longer than it deserved. "Okay, that explains why you’re in my closet. What it doesn’t answer is why you made the sudden conversion to being a scalie. I thought llamas were your one true love."
"First of all, I adore all camelids! I’m not racist. Alpacas and camels deserve love too." Rebecca wilted a little at Hana’s unimpressed expression, but she barreled on anyway. "And also, I’m not the scalie, okay?!"
Hana’s disapproving eyebrow remained cocked. "I hope you’re not implying that that’s me. Raptors and I remain firmly at odds, and I’m okay with that."
Rebecca took a long moment to struggle to her hands and knees, and then another to rise to her feet. She huffed out a breath, like she’d just run a long distance rather than fumble around in a closet and stand up. "Look, Hana, we all know about your blood feud with birds. And American values. And I wasn’t saying you’re a scalie. I just…"
She sank back to rest against the now empty wardrobe. Something seemed to drain out of her, an energy that Hana had recognized since the fateful first day that they met. Finally, Rebecca mumbled, "I was doing it for Contessa."
"Contessa’s a scalie?" were the first words that came to Hana’s mind. They were also, unfortunately, the first words out of her lips. Before she could course-correct, Rebecca was already speaking.
"Isn’t she? I mean, all the evidence points toward yes! The ‘sick’ lizards, the sexy snake-in-a-crate, what else would they be for? And then I thought, yeah, that makes sense. I always thought she was kind of like a pine marten, but a lizard or something fits too. And then you said she’s definitely cold-blooded, and now I’m pretty sure she can walk on walls, and…" Rebecca trailed off. She continued, more defensively, "it makes sense, okay?"
Hana joined her, leaning against Wardrobe #2 with far more care than Rebecca had displayed. "What’s up, Rebecca? I haven’t seen you this out of sorts since the failed coup in twelfth grade, and we both know that doesn’t count. I thought things were going well with you and your roommate."
"My roommate," Rebecca said. She frowned. "You know, I haven’t seen her in two days. Not much of a roommate, huh?"
"She’s always been a bit transient, though," Hana insisted.
"Yeah. Transient as in, ‘gone for a day or so and back to restock on cologne.’ Not ‘left my psycho roommate to run into my boyfriend’s toned, 90-degree arms.’"
"90-degree?" Hana said, letting her mouth run off without her again.
Rebecca buried her face in her reptilian mitts. "Because he’s hot and he’s Mr. Right," she groaned, her voice muffled by the fabric.
"Look, Rebecca," Hana started. She laid a hand on her friend’s shoulder as comfortingly as she could. Rebecca peeked at her over the top of her lizard hands. "I’m pretty sure Contessa is really, very gay for you."
Rebecca did not appear mollified.
"But, even if she is not currently looking for a partner," Hana continued, "don’t give up all hope just yet."
"But shouldn’t I," Rebecca said. "Did you see her at the carnival! She was clearly so happy to be with Philip. You could see it in their eyes."
"I didn’t notice that. I was...preoccupied," Hana said, uncomfortable. She sighed. "Look. When I was still living in Iraq, my teacher wanted to collect a live quail for a lesson he had. He was going to choose one of us kids to go and find one for him. All the kids waved their hands and shouted out how qualified they were. I didn't say a word. But still, my teacher noticed me at the back of the crowd and selected me for the task. He knew my work was the most meticulous, that my hands were the steadiest."
Hana took Rebecca’s gloved hands in her own. "Our eyes are drawn to the brightest colors and the flashiest movements. But when we need something done, we revert to what's reliable. To what we know and can trust."
"You're saying that I'm the flashy kids, and Philip is the reliable one that she knows," Rebecca said mournfully. "Aren't you?"
"It’s an imperfect analogy, I guess," Hana replied. "I'm saying you should stick around. Don't give up on your friendship, or on the possibility of anything more. Just be there for her. And, if the opportunity arises, perhaps you could show off some of your assets again.”
“Like my affinity for reptiles,” Rebecca said, with confidence. Hana elected not to respond. Rebecca pondered Hana’s advice for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. “Was that quail the first casualty of your anti-bird campaign?”
"No, actually," Hana replied. She put her hands on her hips indignantly. "I didn't catch the damn thing at all. Finally, my teacher sent another kid after me to help. He’s the one who caught it in the end."
“You know, that would have made for a much more comforting analogy,” Rebecca told her.
“I'm your friend, Rebecca,” Hana said with mock sternness. “I'm not here to comfort you, I'm here to talk real shit.”
Rebecca threw her arms around Hana in a hug. After a second of surprise, and another second to glare at the lizard onesie over Rebecca’s shoulder, Hana returned the gesture. Rebecca scrunched her face into Hana’s shoulder. “Any other real-shit advice then, friend-to-friend?” she asked.
“Just one thing,” Hana replied. “Lose the costume. Please.”
Rebecca pulled back, offering an apologetic wince. “That actually brings me to the other reason I came here,” she said. “My zipper is jammed again.”
“‘Again’?”
"Contessa helped me with it last time," Rebecca admitted. Hana wasn't sure what the expression on her own face looked like, but Rebecca flushed in response. "The last few times."
Hana sighed again and led her friend out the door. “The common room has better light. Let’s get you out of this horrible thing.”
“Wait a second, don’t go there!” Rebecca gasped. She somehow managed to look even more embarrassed as she explained, “your NERF bullet is stuck to my cloaca, and I can’t reach.”
Hana managed to retain her composure as she turned them toward the bathrooms instead.