AUGUST 6TH, 2001
THE MAGIC MERMAID MOTEL
MALIBU, CALIFORNIA

"Good morning Malibu! We are coming in live to you with breaking information regarding, that's right Suzie, the weather! Or rather the unforgivable heat wave that is currently taking down tourists like a bowling ball would with pins!"

The radio crackled to life, its tinny voice competing with the splashes of water emanating from the heart-shaped pool and the ecstatic screeches of children that seemed to be making even the pigeons in search of respite from the scorching sun fly away from the surroundings of the Magic Mermaid Motel's pool.

The sources of these screams and screeches disrupting the silence that had befallen the motel as every occupant had retreated to the shade in search of cool — four young children of varying ages from around five to eight — had been previously gathered in a close-knit circle around Aunt Aisha's weathered radio, their youthful countenances already aglow with perspiration beneath the unyielding embrace of the California sun. They were all crouched around the woman and her portable radio like a football team huddled around their coach, helmets bumping together as the final pep talk before the big game was given.

"Get ready, folks, 'cause it's gonna be a scorcher out there!"

Lanky umber arms had grabbed the faded blue radio like they would with a phone. "You don't say, big man!" One of them, a boy of around seven who called himself Lucky Luke (named Lukas) had proclaimed into the speaker, much to Aunt Aisha's anger, who'd tried swatting him like she would a fly. But he effortlessly avoided her hands — lined with the testament of a hard life's work — by taking one leap that propelled him into the awaiting embrace of the piscina, whose water had warmed up exponentially thanks to the sweltering sun.

To the three who remained — a boy and two girls — she proclaimed, raising an imposing finger adorned with a golden signet ring many believed was stolen or fake, "Mark my words kids, this is how it starts!" The boy, DJ his name was ( in reality, it was Douglas James, but he'd never be caught dead going by Douglas ), poked one of the girls' ( Moonee ) ribs at Aunt Aisha's words, the universal sign for Are you hearing this?, "First it's the heatwaves, then it's the famines, and soon enough it's anarchy! By the end of the summer, we're all going to be lining up for bread rations! No more radio, no more pool, only chaos."

Aunt Aisha was famed around the motel for her conspiracy theories she would willingly unload onto any passerby that had the ill misfortune of spending more than five minutes alone in her presence.

The youngest of them, Piper, her name was, with choppy blond hair that tickled the crook of her neck and big molten brown eyes, frowned at Aunt Aisha's words. "But Aunt Aisha, isn't it more likely just a normal heat wave caused by climate change? The scientific consensus is pretty clear on that."

"Don't start with me little smartass—,"Aunt Aisha's voice crackled with irritation, a daily soundtrack for the group whenever she was around. If there was one thing Aunt Aisha detested more than the government, it was probably Piper Potts, the precocious four-year-old who never ceased to question, analyse, and dig deeper into the claims Aunt Aisha often made for shock value.

That almost five-year-old child had once quoted Machiavelli to her, leaving Aunt Aisha both impressed and infuriated by the sheer audacity.

Before she could summon an adequate retort, one that the child would undoubtedly find a way to dissect and tear apart, something—or rather, someone—interrupted her endeavour. "Aisha!" The voice sliced through the tension, halting Aunt Aisha's verbal onslaught midstream.

Five heads turned to the pool's gate to find Reggie, the motel's manager, staring at the odd little array of children huddled around the woman like they were a group of followers kneeling at their prophet's feet. He, as always, had a cigarette pinched between his index and middle finger and was wearing a salmon T-shirt with a faded badge pinned to it which was adorned with the Magic Mermaid Motel's logo along with his name printed in black.

( Though the color of it had long faded and was now difficult to read. )

( 'Reggie 一 Manager' )

Reggie was the only constant for Piper in a motel where friends and people came and went. He was a slim, quite skinny, man with salt and pepper hair, no beard and of medium height. His voice was always raspy because of the amount of cigarettes he consumed on a daily basis, but it didn't matter to the kids, so long as he let them hang out in his office and in the reception area during the day when their parents were off doing God-knows-what.

"Stop filling these kids' heads with your stories, you know the parents are always on my ass when they can't sleep because they have nightmares!"

"I'll tell you what is a nightmare Reggie boy一"

"Not today Aisha, I'm not in the mood for the whole shabam一"

"一Living in this capitalist hell-hole of a society! Where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, where corporations control our every move and politicians are just puppets dancing on their strings!" Aunt Aisha continued, undeterred by Reggie's interruption.

DJ rolled his eyes, used to Aunt Aisha's tirades against society. None of them really understood what she meant, with her big fancy words, her wild gestures and her angry rants. They were only of the ages of five to eight after all. None of them understood except for Piper.

( Because Piper was smarter than everyone, even the adults. )

Ignoring Reggie's exasperated sigh, Aunt Aisha turned back to the children, her voice lowering to a conspiratorial whisper. "But fear not, my young friends. Knowledge is power, and I will not rest until I've opened your eyes to the truth of this world."

The two girls exchanged amused glances while DJ stifled a chuckle.

"Alright Aisha!" Reggie called out as he got nearer to them, finally opening the gate and venturing into dangerous territory 一 kids' territory 一 where more often than not he'd been the unsuspecting victim of a loose water balloon or Nerf gun. "Enough with all the politics."

He turned towards the three of the remaining children, DJ, Moonee and Piper, pointing to where Lukas was in the pool 一 pretending to drown just so he could get Reggie to get his jeans wet and rescue him for the millionth time. "Kids go play!"

"And you," He then turned towards the woman, who'd been neatly re-arranging her box braids while he spoke. "Crazy lady, light this cigarette would you? Or I'll write you up for smoking by the pool." Aunt Aisha gave Reggie a playful smirk before obliging, pulling out a lighter from the pocket of her flowy, brightly colored dress. As she flicked the flame to life and held it out to Reggie, she couldn't resist one final jab.

"Remember, Reggie, ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power," she said with a wink, her eyes twinkling mischievously.

Reggie rolled his eyes as he walked away but couldn't help but chuckle at Aunt Aisha's words. He took the lighter from her and lit his cigarette, inhaling deeply as he watched the children scatter off to play in the heart shaped pool.

"They don't pay me enough for this shit." He muttered to himself as he heard the pool's gate close behind him and narrowly avoided a burst of water fired by Lukas' water pistol he'd retrieved as soon as he finished playing dead in the pool and Reggie had his back turned once again.

Yet he was smiling as he said this.

Meanwhile, under the hazy glow of the Magic Mermaid Motel's neon sign of varying hues of pink, with the scent of chlorine lingering in the air and the faint hum of traffic in the distance, Piper leaned against the edge of the heart-shaped pool, her gaze fixed on the rippling water as she listened to Lukas boast about his latest superhero comic find.

(..."And yesterday, Reggie gave me a bunch of Captain America comics that the man from room six left behind when he moved out! And although Captain America isn't my favorite, he said they're collector and一")

The girl of five smiled and nodded, trying hard to pay attention despite the aggressive sun beating its boiling rays down on her head like a relentless game of 'Wac-A-Mole' they occasionally played when DJ's mom gave them passes to the arcade she'd managed to sneak into her pockets at the front desk. The sun was slowly setting, casting an orange and purple hue in the sky over the pink Mermaid-themed motel, yet it had not been getting cooler.

It was almost night time by the time the pool finally got cooler, once the sun was no longer there to heat it up, yet none of the kids had made a single move that would indicate their readiness to leave this moment just yet.

Though, just as Lukas launched into another round of superhero comic talk, a voice called out from the pool gate, drawing everyone's attention. It was DJ's mom, Mrs. Martínez, a tired but friendly woman with a smile that could light up the room when she rarely did smile, and who always smelled of popcorn because of working day in and out at the arcade's popcorn stand. She approached the pool with purpose, her eyes scanning the water until they landed on her son, splashing around with Moonee, Lukas and Piper.

"DJ, it's time to come in for dinner, your dad's home." she called out, her tone gentle but firm. DJ's dad wasn't in often, maybe once a week, as he drove trucks across the country for a living. Whenever he did come in though, usually on Monday evenings before he left again the next day, he'd sometimes let them have sleepovers in his truck and would bring donuts back with him so they could eat until they puked in the bushes at sunrise and he drove off for another week.

DJ groaned in protest, but he knew better than to argue with his mom. "Moonee, you too." She spoke to the girl who lived in the room right besides theirs with her mom. With a final splash, he reluctantly made his way out of the pool, dragging his feet as he followed his mom towards the motel rooms.

As they passed by Piper, DJ's mom paused and knelt down to her level, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Piper, honey, your mom just got back. She's waiting for you in your room," she said with a warm smile. Piper nodded in understanding, her big brown eyes lighting up with anticipation. She quickly followed Moonee and DJ, climbing out of the pool and scurrying towards the towels they'd left hanging on the pool chairs by the gate when they'd arrived this morning.

Mrs. Martínez patiently waited, flicking her keys and checking her phone as the kids dried up, scrubbing each other with their towels and huddling together for warmth amidst scattered chuckles and giggles. Three minutes later, she was conversing with Lukas' dad, Eric, who'd come to retrieve his son and bring him in for dinner while the kids did everything in their power to take all the time in the world to put their shoes and slippers on. Some of them had pulled their shirts over their heads, with not a care in the world that they were getting wet above their damp swimsuits, while others did not bother trying, flinging their shirts and shorts over their shoulders to trek home with.

Finally, after a few loose threats of no dinner that never meant anything, all four of them 一 Lukas, Moonee, DJ and Piper 一 finally filed out of the pool in a single line, flip flops either in hand, on feet, or one of each, knowing they would be back in the exact same spot the next morning, leaving only Aunt Aisha in the dark by the pool, with only the light of her cigarette casting a weak orange glow in the night.

Silence once again befell the Motel after the doors of room twelve, thirteen and thirty two slammed shut, only the muffled voices confined by the doors of lined up pink motel rooms being heard.

With a sigh, Aunt Aisha flicked her cigarette butt into the pool and stood up, stretching her arms above her head. She glanced around at the fading light and the sounds of laughter and chatter from the other motel guests emanating from the rows upon rows of lit up windows stacked on top of each other, a sense of contentment washing over her despite the sweltering heat of the day.

"These fucking kids, man."

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The sound of the curtains shifting and the feel of something light yet determined landing on the bed in one jump followed by a child's tired but satisfied grunt barely startled her anymore. This was their routine. Piper sneaking in through the half open window, pulling open the curtain so her jump from the windowsill to her side of the bed would be unencumbered. She also did the same thing to get out in the morning, only one extra small jump was added when she hopped the thirty centimetres from the window to the motel's terrace-like walkway.

"You know, you could just knock instead of sneaking in through the window, Pipes."

"But it's more fun that way!" Soon enough, the smell of fried oil and chicken was noticed by the almost five year old who, as soon as she'd inhaled a whiff of what often amounted to dinner, cried out, "Burgers!" before hastily taking a seat at the table pressed up against a pink wall to the TV screen's left.

'Table' was a strong word for it. It was an old poker table only in possession of three of its intended four legs, the fourth one having been replaced by all of Pepper's former college textbooks stacked on top of each other in a cheap attempt to get the table to not fall over. Despite this endeavour, it remained dangerously lopsided and relied immensely on a combination of the support provided by the wall and the TV stand it was crammed in between. Still, it never seemed to deter Piper, who always insisted the both of them eat at the table through sunshine or hail.

While Piper tore through the rolled up paper bag in which their dinner was stuffed and reached for her plain cheeseburger and fries, Pepper had now moved from her side of the bed to the leftover chair at the table. "I need to talk to you." She took a while to sit down, hovering over her seat while waiting for her daughter's attention. "Piper." The girl was present, her little body practically jumping up and down on its chair, but her ears and mind had run off the minute that cheeseburger had been grabbed by those grubby little hands of hers she had not bothered to wash before dinner. "Can you sit still for me?"

Piper froze mid-bounce, her interest piqued when her big brown eyes were met by her mother's solemn green ones. "Whaaaat?" she inquired, dragging out the word like her dinner depended on it. Her voice was laced with curious anticipation as she dragged a greasy french fry through the sea of ketchup she'd decorated her plastic plate with.

"There's this job opening that just came up," Pepper began, her words measured as she broached the topic that weighed heavily on her mind. She kept poking at her burger, her hunger not spiked despite removing the slice of steak and sliding it over on Piper's plate so the girl would eat more. One chicken burger was cheaper than two, and Pepper had grown used to giving most of her food over to her growing girl anyways.

"You keep saying that!" Piper interjected, her impatience evident in the way she struggled to contain her excitement by flicking french fries into her plate of ketchup sending drops of the red sauce flying across to her mother's plate, who was far too nervous to reproach her behaviour.

Pepper winced as she ducked another stray french fry which strayed from its intended trajectory, attempting to remain serious all while using her napkin as a makeshift shield. "I know Pipes. But I think this could be a big opportunity." She ducked another loose fry. "A real big girl job that isn't just photoshoots in creepy guys' basements."

At the mention of her mother's current job, which was less than ideal but kept the room paid for, Piper finally stilled completely, her french fries growing soft in her pool of ketchup that was at last beginning to be forgotten.

"Big how?" She inquired, and Pepper had to resist pausing her train of thought to marvel at her six year old's mind. She could practically see the gears in Piper's smarter-than-the-average-child's brain turning and turning as she weighed every aspect of the conversation in her brain, picking apart any flicker of the eyes or shift in the tone of her voice.

Pepper tore off a piece of bread on her burger, though she did not eat it. "Big enough so we don't have to keep living here anymore."

She immediately regretted the way she'd broached the topic, knowing how important this place was to the girl, as she watched her thick brows furrow at her mother's words. "But I like it here!" She whined. Piper rarely whined, but whenever she did, Pepper had the tendency to listen, because whatever it was, it was surely important.

However her patience was wearing thin tonight, and the smell of grease from their take-out food and the lack of ventilation in this stuffy motel room was grating her nerves as if they were a rusty cheese grater that had been used time and time again. "I know Pipes but-"

"No." Piper interrupted, crossing her arms as she pushed herself further back into her chair, the french fries and ketchup now long forgotten. "You don't understand, I like it here!" She gestured to the walls which Pepper suspected were growing black mould and the pink bathroom in which the shower hadn't been running hot water since April. "All my friends are here! Lukas, and Marisol, and Moonee and DJ-"

"Piper." Pepper tried to reach out to the girl, only to have her yank her hand away as she turned to face the door. "This was never meant to be forever."

She tried to be gentle, she really did. But the broken air conditioning and smell of cigarettes that seemed to be impregnated into the carpet was not helping.

Piper didn't seem to care for any of those things. "But there's everything here! Ice cream across, the pool right there, the playground!" She gestured to the heart shaped pink pool below them which was never clean, the ice cream shop shaped like an ice cream whose delicacies melted within five seconds of being handed over the counter, and the playground which had been taped off by the motel's team for not respecting security norms that the kids used anyways.

"Piper一"

"No! And there's the helicopters Maria tells me I can flip off," Pepper made a mental note to have a chat with the girl, Moonee's mother, who occasionally kept an eye on Piper while she was gone during the day, about teaching her six year old how to flip off the helicopters. "and the milkshakes-"

"Piper!"

She usually never yelled. In fact, during all her almost five years as Piper's mother, Pepper had never yelled a single time. She had never even raised her voice. And the Lord knew she had reasons to. But she never did. Piper was not an easy child to raise ; early on deemed as having an exponentially higher IQ than the average human could garner in their lives, while also being written down for dyslexia and most likely ADHD by some nurses and psychology professors at Pepper's college a few years later, her daughter was just as fascinating as she was complicated.

By the age of two she'd started skimming through her mother's accounting and finance textbooks to the point that Pepper had started borrowing books from her college's library in astrophysics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, philosophy, that she had no intention of ever reading just for her daughter to skim through to keep her quiet while she was in class with Pepper. When her two year old started speaking fully fluently and would spit out sentences such as "Jean Jacques Rousseau's central doctrine in politics is that a state can be legitimate only if it is guided by the general will of its members." Right before her second birthday, Pepper started to question if perhaps she knew what she was doing, and she had not stopped doubting herself since.

Which was why when Piper immediately stilled after hearing her mother raise her voice, looking at her with wide, shocked, brown eyes, Pepper immediately felt guilt crushing her chest like a brick of cement. The words bad mother and failure instantly jumped to her mind in the form of her parents' voice, berating her over and over again as she looked at the toddler she had just snapped, guilt and regret crippling her heart and mind as Evangeline and Leonard Potts' voices confirmed her worst doubts.

She tried to be softer. "The Magic Mermaid Motel is not home, okay?" She tried. "It was always meant to be temporary, and you and I cannot keep living here. It's not sustainable."

Piper's brows furrowed and Pepper internally wanted to smack herself. It was easy for her, or anyone who crossed her path, to forget that Piper was only six, especially given how intelligent she was. Occasionally, the mother felt more like she was talking to one of her peers or a professor from college when she talked to Piper than she felt like a mother talking to her five year old daughter.

She'd had Piper at the age of nineteen, in her second year of her bachelor's degree in accounting and finance. It was a stupid mistake : a frat party she'd been convinced to attend by her roommate to blow off the pressure of midterms, and when she'd seen the two little pink lines on the pregnancy test she'd taken in the cafeteria three weeks later, she had regretted it more than she would have if she'd simply missed out on the frat party. So much for blowing off the pressure of midterms...

Still, she'd persevered, graduating a year early with honours and raising a baby through college without dropping out, despite Piper's father, the 'frat fella' she had dubbed him, being scarcely engaged, occasionally showing his daughter off at frat parties after his frat had dubbed her their mascot and using her for bragging purposes whenever he had a potential new girlfriend in mind.

Pepper had never once complained. She'd never asked anything from him and had always kept the door into Piper's life open for him to walk in and even out whenever he wanted to. She never wanted to hold him to a single promise or word, or ask for any money from him.

Maybe if she had, they wouldn't have been living in the Magic Mermaid Motel for the last four years.

She backtracked, trying to find a suitable word to replace 'sustainable' with. "I meant it's not一"

"I know what sustainable means." Piper stared at her mother with those big brown eyes she'd gotten from her father and her arms crossed while the only sound that would be heard was the sound of the mystery bug that they never managed to kill, and always seemed to reappear at the most inconvenient times, buzzing around the room.

She felt embarrassment burn at her cheek like the sweltering heat of the sun had today. "Right." For a moment, they returned to silence ; Pepper prodding at her burger she'd practically picked apart like a surgeon with someone's intestines, making no move to eat any of it while her four-almost five year old seemed content with slathering even more ketchup on her plate while making no move to use any of it to eat as she maintained a defiantly petulant eye contact with her mother.

At least five whole minutes of uninterrupted silence had passed before the little hostile silence they had going on was broken. Pepper was the one who broke the silent stare off between mother and daughter, biting her lower lip harshly before she spoke, "Listen, you're gonna have to come with me tomorrow." She looked down at her plate upon speaking the words, unknowing of how her child was going to react, but almost certain that it was not going to be positively.

"But I always stay here when you shoot..." Piper pointed out, already annoyed and growing increasingly more so as she got ready to kiss her day at the pool with her friends tomorrow goodbye in favor of sitting in a boiling hot office with her mother while she auditioned for their future.

Usually, when her mother would go on her sporadic modelling jobs, she had no problem with leaving Piper at the motel to fend for herself. She'd hang out with the kids all day, sometimes Moonee's mom would watch over them to give the other mothers peace of mind while they worked throughout the week to be able to slap down this week's room payment in the form of crumpled green dollar bills on Reggie's front desk at reception.

Pepper's eyes did not meet her daughter's as she continued poking at her bread with a plastic fork. By now, the bread was nothing but small-scale pieces of bread and breadcrumbs. "I know sweetie but, people notice when a kid spends the day alone."

"You mean CPS?" Piper bit back, her words practically having the power to make her twenty four year old mother curl in on herself like a wilting flower.

Child Protection Services had been called quite a few times in the last three years to the Magic Mermaid Motel, and one kid had even been taken away, leaving a lot of parents on edge about leaving their kids alone during the day, despite having no other options in order to make ends meet. Often times, it was the tourists who would stay the one night that would be curious to see all these children running around the motel, with no one supervising them but the occasional reproach of Reggie when he ventured out into the sun to keep an eye on them, that would call CPS, alarmed by something that was practically considered the norm around here.

"Look, it doesn't matter." Pepper said quickly, finally looking up at her daughter. "You're coming with me to the interview tomorrow, I can't leave you here and I don't have the kind of money for a babysitter. End of story."

"You've never had that kind of money, Mom." Piper should have regretted the words as soon as they escaped her lips. But she was a four year old, and regret was still a slightly foreign and distant word, no matter how high her IQ was.

The words felt like a series of gratuitous slaps to her mother, who could not look her in the eyes as she lowered her voice to speak the following words. "Go to your room."

"This is a motel, there's only one room." Piper gestured to the one bedroom they were currently occupying with a defiant arm, as if to prove her point.

"Then go to the bathroom!" Pepper retorted, using her foot to push Piper's chair away from the table so the girl was now facing the dimly lit bathroom with the pink bathtub and mermaids painted around the mirror.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

They usually slept in the same double bed, with Piper's side facing the window and door and Pepper's side facing the wall and bathroom. But Piper seemed to have stubbornly taken 'Go to the bathroom' to the letter, moving her plushies and pillows to the dimly lit room and plopping everything down in the bathtub. Pepper had stopped resisting when she'd come back at two in the morning to pull the comforter off the bed and into the tub with her, slamming the door behind her to indicate she was still mad.

At six, Pepper had gotten up, gotten dressed in the same outfit she'd worn for her college interviews when she was seventeen going on eighteen, slipping on high heels she'd nicked from one of the many modelling jobs gone wrong that had left her so angry she'd resorted to felony ( taking a pair of shoes back from the set, if you could even call it that ). She hadn't knocked on the bathroom door until she absolutely had to, opting to do her hair in front of the television, combing back her strawberry blond strands with nimble fingers while she leant an attentive ear in order to keep track of Piper's movements in the bathroom.

Ten minutes before they had to leave was when Pepper had finally knocked on the bathroom door, receiving no response but a kick in the door. She had expected as much.

"Are you going to give me the silent treatment all day?"

No response.

She could not resist rolling her eyes. "That's great." She said, sarcasm tinging her every syllable. Two could play at this game. "Get your shoes on and meet me at the reception in ten, we're taking the bus."

She did not await a response as she slammed the door behind her.

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Two hundred and forty five dollars were laid on the counter by the time Reggie appeared behind it, emerging from the backroom at precisely nine thirty. "Here's this week's room payment, Reggie." Pepper proclaimed, sliding the stack of bills over to him so he could count it.

No matter how bad it had gotten, she'd never failed to pay. Ever.

Her parents' education still ran clear in her mind, despite the fact that they had practically shunned her from their lives upon finding out she was not getting an abortion almost five years ago, driving her like a rigorous compass she could not get rid of.

"Thank you, kiddo," The motel's manager replied, counting the money with practiced ease, though he knew she never failed to pay.

Eyeing Pepper's attire while counting the cash, Reggie raised an eyebrow. "Why the fancy dress-up?"

She straightened her shoulders, a determined glint in her eyes. "Job interview."

Reggie's expression softened, his voice filled with unmasked weariness. "Is it another modelling thing? You know what I think of you doing those with these weird guys." He said, referring to Pepper's on and off modelling gigs she'd been doing part time since before Piper was even born. Every single one of them was a sketchy experience with weird men employing her, but the pay was decent so she never complained. Hopefully, she'd never have to take up another single offer ever again.

Pepper shook her head. "No, this is a real thing. I mean, it could turn into something real. Stark Industries, assistant post."

Reggie's eyes widened in surprise as soon as he heard the name of the eccentric billionaire who'd been making a name for himself from Miami to the rest of the world ever since his father passed away some ten years ago, leaving him his company and all the accompanying junk. "Wow, look at you, taking on the big dogs!" But then, he paused, room payment still in hand, placing a free hand on Pepper's shoulder. "Seriously, kid, proud of ya. You deserve this."

Pepper almost melted right then and there at the manager's words. "Thank you, Reggie." She said, her voice significantly more choked up than it was two sentences ago upon receiving reassurance from at least one person, even better that it was the man she'd practically considered a father since she'd moved into Magic Mermaid Motel some four years ago, that she was doing okay.

"You're gonna be fine, I promise you. There's only so much bad that God can make you face before he has to relent some good," Reggie said, his voice filled with conviction.

Just then, the doorbell of the reception tinged open as Piper entered the reception area, grumbling and stomping her feet.

"Good morning, grumble-face. You look chipper this morning," Reggie teased, earning a huff from Piper as she splayed her body across the couch that surely had not been cleaned in decades, almost knocking over the grandmother lamp in the process.

Pepper rolled her eyes, shooting Reggie a knowing look. "I take it she's giving you the silent treatment?"

"Oh yeah, biggest one this month," Pepper replied with a wry smile.

The motel manager chuckled at the two girls' antics, finishing up counting the money before sticking the folded up dollar bills into the rusty cash register that he said he was going to change at least two years before Piper was born. It creaked when opened and took him slamming his entire body weight against it for it to close again, and the 'ding!' that usually accompanied its closing now sounded like a broken bicycle bell. "All good on my end." He declared once he managed to get the machine closed, five minutes later.

"Thanks a ton, Reggie, we'll see you in a couple of hours," Pepper said, giving Reggie a grateful nod.

"Bye, girls! Behave, Piper!" Reggie called after them as they headed out the door.

The little gremlin of a four year old turned towards him as she followed her mother to the bus stop, walking backwards while throwing a grimace at him. "I won't!" She cried pulling the corners of her mouth towards her ears as much as she could before sticking her tongue out at him, though he knew she didn't mean any malice by it.

He shook his head fondly as he began to retreat to the office.

Kids....

First part of the prologue is out!

Took me quite a while to write this because I didn't want to have the exact same prologue as the first version of this book, yet I did want to keep the idea of it being centered around the job interview! This ended up being quite long for a prologue because I wanted to cover a bit of Piper and Pepper's life at the motel (heavily inspired by the Florida Project by the way! There's even a Moonee cameo ;) ) because the Magic Mermaid Motel will be quite a recurring location throughout Piper's story because it is a 'safe space' for her!

I love writing through kids' perspective, I just am a sucker for the kids seeing everything in a better light than adults trope and I thought it'd be a fun way to start of the book before delving into the really Marvel-y superhero stuff ! It also sets the scene for a lot of fun recurring characters in the series like Aunt Aisha (we should all listen to Aunt Aisha our lives would be easier), Reggie, Luke, etc.

For those of you who are familiar with the first version of Piper's book I published in 2018, you will recognize the second part of the prologue because it is the famous job interview featuring Tony that I wrote back then! Some things will be slightly changed but the gist of it remains the same because again, I really enjoyed the first version of the prologue!

After the prologue, I'll jump right into Iron Man 1 and I can finally get started on Piper's story once again :)

Hope you enjoyed, let me know what you think!