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Maddie is a smart know-it-all. Worse, Maddie is a smart, know-it-all goody two shoes. Worse still, she’s Vida’s sister. It’s not easy, being Maddie’s sister. Vida is the Big Sister, but Maddie is the Responsible One according to their parents. Vida, Vida gets frowned upon and told to behave.
But, Maddie is also Maddie; if nobody is allowed to touch her, it’s not just because she’s Vida’s first. If Vida doesn’t chase Maddie away from her friends and her games, it’s because after Maddie says that they were together, and so their parents do not ask and do not tell Vida off for playing with the boys. It’s because when Vida finds a sparkly stone, Maddie nods solemnly and keeps it safe, and not a word needs to be said. It’s because when Vida runs away it’s Maddie who finds her. Maddie always comes after her, and at those times Vida is grateful that Maddie isn’t one to say much.
“I will run away to the forest and you will never find me!” is what Briarwood kids say; “You can’t go, not without me,” is what Maddie says, and then she puts her small arms around her sister and doesn’t let go.
She’s not sure when Chip and she became friends, but she knows when it started to matter. They were friends by the end of first grade. Well, mostly friends: she couldn’t be friends both with Chip and with the other boys, not at the same time. It’s worth the effort, though, because Chip is fun. Chip always thinks up the best games for them to play.
Chip also wears his Robin costume to school one early day in October in second grade. It’s just him being Chip, just like he’s fun; Vida understand that, even at age seven. The other kids don’t know Chip like that and they don’t care. They laugh as they gang up on him in the playground, throwing him in the mud.
They don’t expect Vida, and they certainly don’t expect her to come barreling in on Chip’s side. That’s what Vida does, though: she bursts into the small circle all punches and kicks and teeth as she hauls Chip up to his feet, glaring at the other boys as she does so.
“He’s my friend,” she spits at them. “You want him, you’re gonna have to go through me.”
And that’s going to matter, always.
“What?” Vida asks.
Maddie and Chip just look at her.
Several tables over, the new kid is eating alone. It sucks to move in the middle of the school year. It sucks worse when no one can understand a word you’re saying because you’ve got a funny accent.
“What’s his name, anyway?” Vida asks between bites.
“Xander, like in Buffy,” Chip supplies.
Maddie eyerolls fondly. She and Chip had always gotten along; made life interesting for a while there when Maddie jumped a grade, catching up with her big sister, but nowadays Vida hangs out with her best friend and her sister, and she’ll rearrange the limbs of anyone who’s got a problem with that.
She says: “He doesn’t look like a flesh-eating troll to me.”
Chip and Maddie are still looking at her.
“Seriously?” she asks, but she stands up.
Chip trails after her.
New Kid startles when she puts her palms down on the table.
“Wanna come join us?” she asks.
She knows that suspicious look and she has bullies to kill.
“She’s Vida; I’m Chip,” Chip supplies. “She’s Maddie.”
New Kid’s eyes flick over to where Maddie’s sitting. He nods. “Name’s Xander.”
“Well, come on over, Xander.”
When Vida points out that it’s a good thing that Maddie and Nick don’t fight, Maddie laughs and says: “I could always blame him on you.”
“Oh, no. He’s definitely yours, sister.”
“You’re the one who went to the forest with him. And dragged Chip, too.”
Vida protests, but there’s a truth to Maddie’s words and it makes them stick. Nick is Vida’s other best friend, nowadays, everything she didn’t have since she walked away from the boys she used to hang out with as a child, because Chip and Maddie meant more. She and Nick argue and compete and get in trouble together. Nick fits. Vida doesn’t want to think about how Udonna would say that Nick was always meant to be one of them. She thinks Nick would’ve fit, anyway.
What Maddie pointed out and Vida is uncomfortable thinking about is that it’s not Maddie Nick would’ve stayed for. It’s all of them that Nick came back for, that first day, but Maddie is right: Vida chose to go into the forest, and Chip, Xander and Maddie followed her.
Maybe it’s about being Rangers; maybe it’s about something else. Vida doesn’t know, and it doesn’t leave her be.
They defeat the Master in March. The Dinos come in July. The Dinos have a Black, but not a Green or a Pink. Trent introduces them to Blake. Vida’s team likes the ninjas better anyway, and also they have a Green. Doctor O tells Vida that before the Ninjas was Wild Force, and before them Time Force. He gives Vida Jen Scotts’ number, and Vida knows it costs him something but doesn’t ask after that.
Jen is 30, married, and has adopted a kid. She also takes Vida paintballing and kicks her ass.
Vida is still not getting a beer out of this, but Jen is still pretty fucking cool. She’s also a willing exile, gone back in time against orders twice: the first with her team, the second with her team following knowing there is no way back.
“Because Wes was your leader?”
Jen shakes her head. “I am the leader. But he’s still the Red, the one we chose.” She hesitates, and adds: “But I was the one the other three followed.”
“Because you’re the leader.”
Jen shakes her head. “Because I’m the Pink.”
Vida thinks about her team - her team - strikes her pose, and grins.