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Mary Marvel Makes a Wish	By : tooshoes Category: DC Verse Comics > Marvel Family Views: 5386 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own the Shazam family of characters, nor any other comic book characters in this story. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
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Although Mary was a continuing disappointment to her father, he remained the dominant figure in her life. He tracked her cell phone, interrogated her at breakfast and dinner time, and controlled her social life. He wasn't tech savvy, though, so she found some freedom in social media. He had no idea that Billy and Freddy even existed. If he had, he would never have approved them as her friends.
Mary knew that meeting up with them today was asking for trouble, but she was taking more chances lately. When Mary had first appeared on the WhizBoy show, Daddy never found out. That gave her the courage to try bigger things. And then bigger things. She remained timid and ashamed at home, but with her friends, she was becoming a risk taker.
Today was her most dangerous gambit yet.
She dressed up, looking as nice as she could, and snuck out of her house when Daddy was in the bathroom. She left her cell phone behind. He would no doubt discover that she was missing, but he wouldn't be able to track her.
***
At noon on Saturday, Mary was waiting on the platform at the subway station for the train bound to Beckville.
Five minutes later, Billy and Freddy stepped through the turnstile, and the trio were together again.
Billy and Freddy were behaving oddly, and Mary was sure it had something to do with the super-cool sunglasses Freddy was wearing, so Mary greeted him with, "Hi Freddy, those shades are sweet!"
Freddy blushed, so Mary wondered if he was meeting her eyes or was looking somewhere else.
Again, the boys stared knowingly at each other, and Mary bore into them with a stare. "Alright, what's going on?"
"Those aren't just sunglasses," Billy said. "It's a video camera."
"What?" Mary asked, instinctively covering her chest. She was showing more cleavage than normal, though frankly, there wasn't much to see. She leaned closer to Freddy and squinted. "But they just look like regular sunglasses."
"They'd better. I traded everything I had for them! They are Bluetooth, so the video goes right to my phone, and then right to the cloud. They are going to make my channel much more fun!" Billy said.
"Are we ... live?" Mary asked nervously.
"Not yet. The battery only lasts about two hours, but I want to record everything. It will be our biggest adventure! Won't that be amazing?" Billy said, super excited.
"Yeah," Mary replied hesitantly. "Just let me know when you turn it on. And Freddy ... be nice, okay?"
"Hey, I'm always nice to you," Freddy replied playfully.
Mary gave him a serious look, and Freddy stopped smiling.
But it was just a game.
Everyone was silent for a moment, and the faint rumble of an approaching train resonated through the tunnel.
Apparently, that was the moment Billy was waiting for, because he pulled out his phone and tapped on it a few times with his finger. Then he stepped in front of Freddy, looked right into his eyes, and instantly Billy fell into his online persona.
"Hey fellow losers! Here we are, live! If you missed us live, shame on you for not getting alerts! Today we are going back to the beginning," the WhizBoy said. "I have goosebumps! How about you, Freddy? Excited?"
"Just chilling," Freddy replied, sounding as cool as he looked with his sunglasses.
Mary giggled at his act. Too bad the camera couldn't see Freddy's performance.
"And how do you feel, Mary?" Billy asked. Freddy stepped back to get Mary and Billy on camera at the same time. "Are you ready to learn where you came from?"
"Not really," Mary said awkwardly, not sure whether to talk to Billy or to Freddy's glasses. She giggled and covered her mouth. "I'm afraid my past is as fucked up as my present."
"Oops! Language Mary!" Billy warned, reminding Mary that he can't edit the broadcast. "But, yeah, it's scary, but I hate having this big hole in our lives." Then Billy looked right at the camera and said, "So join us everyone while we learn a little more about where we came from and why we are here - live on the WhizBoy show!"
Billy seemed more excited about how his gimmick was enhancing his show than about finding out about his past.
But Mary knew him better than that. This is just how he dealt with anxiety – by sharing it with everyone. He thought that Mary and Freddy dealt with their problems the same way, but really they just went along with whatever Billy planned. He made them feel good about themselves. He was the only one who could, so he could get them to do anything.
The trio remained silent as the train to Beckville arrived, screeching to a halt.
And they squeezed onboard.
***
This trip was a long time coming. Billy and Freddy were planning it before they befriended Mary a year ago.
They knew of each other for much longer, since they had been in the same school system since grade school, usually sitting on opposite sides of classrooms. Mary was a quiet girl who always sat in the front, near the teachers, while Billy and Freddy preferred causing trouble in the back. Billy was a bit of a clown, often getting in trouble, while Freddy cheered him on.
Back then, Mary was torn between disapproval and admiration, because the two bad boys disrupted the classes regularly. They were exactly the sort of boys her parents warned her about. But she had to admit - they made school a lot more fun!
Mary had thought she was invisible to them, but then, unexpectedly, they introduced themselves.
That's when she learned how much the three of them had in common.
The boys were orphans for as long as they could remember.
They went from one abusive foster home to another until tragedy struck.
That day, one of the drunken, abusive foster fathers took the boys out fishing and lost his temper with Freddy, pushing him off a pier into the shallow water below, breaking one of Freddy's legs in several places. Billy rescued him, and a witness reported the event to the news, giving Billy five minutes of fame as a hero, and Freddy the nickname of the three-legged cripple.
It was a defining moment in both of their lives.
Victor and Rosa Vasquez were inspired by the news report, and they accepted Billy and Freddy into their already overcrowded foster home. For the first time, the boys felt valued and loved.
Shortly after that, the boys were transferred into Mary's school, where Billy and Freddy split their time between being a class clowns and digging into their past. The only education they were interested in was learning about their pasts and where they came from, and as a result, their grades suffered.
Despite constant resistance along the way, they traced their lives back to when they were four years old at the Beckville Home for Little Wanderers, which functioned as a short-term orphanage where children lived until they could be placed into foster homes.
But it seemed the more they learned, the more questions surfaced.
Not only was there no public record of their parents or what became of them, but at least a dozen other orphans entered the system at exactly the same time, all the same age, and the fate of those children's parents were equally mysterious.
Most of the children had since moved into foster homes far away, but they discovered one other child who remained in the Fawcett City area – and it was a girl they had seen almost every day at school: Mary Bromfield.
And did they ever have a tale to tell her!
Mary personally couldn't remember anything from before when Daddy and his first wife had adopted her. As far as she was concerned, that was the beginning of her life, and she never had an interest in tracking down her birth parents until Billy and Freddy came along. A therapist had told her that it was a defense mechanism and that she should probably not look into it any deeper. Moving on was important for an orphan's emotional well-being, she said.
But since Billy and Freddy came into her life, fragments of memories kept coming back to her. Before last night, she wondered if she was not better off forgetting and focusing instead on her current family. Her relationship with her father had been improving, and digging up old skeletons seem to threaten that.
But after the way her father treated her yesterday, she was completely on board.
***
The train ride to Beckville lasted about twenty minutes. Passengers packed onto the train like sardines, so the teens couldn't talk with any privacy.
But Billy wasn't about to stop his live show for anything.
And Mary was his unwitting star.
Freddy was able to secure a seat, because he was disabled, but Billy was given a seat beside him, while Mary stood three feet away.
The two boys whispered among themselves, making Mary feel lonely and confused and embarrassed.
She thought that Billy should have given up his seat to her, just to be gentlemanly, but she was ashamed to even think that way. After all, Freddy was his best friend, so of course the boys should sit together.
But she couldn't shake the feeling that she was isolated. She didn't like feeling needy, so she tried to turn off her mind. She stared out the train window.
The boring city landscape rushed by the windows hypnotically.
Her imagination ran wild.
When the train briefly passed through a tunnel, she felt hypnotized by the tunnel walls as they rushed by the windows of the train.
She was suddenly alert again after seeing creatures on the tunnel walls that looked exactly like the statues in Shazam's cave.
Did she just imagine that? It seemed so real.
She hugged herself, cold from the creepy feeling that eyes were watching her.
That's when she realized that she wasn't paranoid. Billy and Freddy were both staring at her and whispering and giggling.
Her face contorted to a comedy of anger and embarrassment and excitement when she realized that Billy had never stopped broadcasting, and Freddy's eyes became the eyes of hundreds of voyeurs, while Billy added color commentary of all of Mary's quirks.
A moment later, the train arrived at Beckville, and the trio exited.
Mary punched both boys in the arm and confronted them, knowing that even her rebuke was live.
"What were you doing in there?" she demanded. "What were you saying? What were you looking at Freddy?"
The boys laughed again.
"I was looking at your butt!" Freddy said, knowing that would get to her. Then he cowered when Mary's fist pounded on his arm again.
"Zip it, Freddy!" Billy said, still laughing. "We were joking around, trying to make you look at us, but your eyes were ... elsewhere. What were you thinking?"
Mary calmed down. "I was just thinking about that stupid dream I told you about last night."
"What dream?" Freddy asked.
Mary waved him off, embarrassed to talk about it.
But Billy pushed her hard. "You have to talk about it now, Mary! That dream is fire! All my subscribers can't wait!"
"Wow, you are thirsty!" Mary shot back, rolling her eyes, but she obliged with increasing flourish, recounting the dream in great detail while the trio embarked on their half-hour walk to the child services agency.
She usually forgot her dreams right after waking up, but the details of this dream were sharper in her mind now than when she told Billy about it last night.
Billy and Freddy were so entranced by Mary's performance that she let her guard down and admitted that she had asked the wizard to change her powers.
In retrospect, it was an embarrassing part of the dream, so she immediately clammed up.
"The wizard let you choose your own powers?" Billy asked, amazed. "You didn't mention that last night."
"No, it wasn't like that," Mary replied, trying to remember. Then she laughed dismissively, not wanting to say anymore. "I was just kind of bitching about my life, so he tried to make me feel better or something.."
"That doesn't sound like you," Billy probes. "You never bitch about anything."
"Well, I was feeling bummed out because of Daddy, so I asked the wizard to make me into someone he could love," Mary confesses, but her chest tightens when she remembers that this entire conversation was being broadcast live.
"Jeez, Mary," Billy started, disappointed. "I keep telling you to stand up to your father, but you can't even stand up to him in your dreams. If that's what having a dad is like, then I'm glad nobody adopted Freddy and me. At least our foster parents are always supportive."
Mary sneered at Billy, wanting to be upset with him for forcing her to talk about her messed up relationship with Daddy, but the truth was he didn't force her to do anything. Maybe she wanted to talk about it and get it off her chest.
Freddy was kinder. "What's wrong with making her dad happy? I think it's a great dream, whatever powers you got. Hell, I wish I had actual parents and even normal human powers!"
Mary startled Freddy and herself by giving him a big hug. She whispered in his ear. "You are the best, Freddy! You may not have superpowers, but you are a super friend."
Mary could feel Freddy tensing up. She knew his feelings for her weren't always appropriate, but she didn't care. She meant everything she had said. Out of the three of them, Freddy had it the worst. He was abused the most, crippled, and was stuck with a stutter, but despite everything, nobody was more loyal, and she knew that if it weren't for Freddy, Billy would have withered alone in the foster care system. As much as Mary ruthlessly ripped on Freddy for being a hostage to his hormones, she liked how he looked at her. He made her feel special.
"Whatever," Billy said while looking through the camera right at his fans. "It was a silly dream with a lot of wishful thinking. But in a few minutes, a very real dream of ours might come true, where we find out where we came from. Maybe we'll find out if our parents are dead or alive. Are we really orphans or are we abandoned? What about you Mary? Freddy and I talk about this all the time, but what are you looking for?"
Mary swallows. "I just want to know why my birth parents gave me up. Was I a bad girl? Was I ugly? Did I cry too much?"
"I'm sure you were an amazing little girl," Freddy adds unconvincingly. "Maybe your parents were sick or too immature to handle a baby. That's what I'm afraid of. If my parents are dead, then I can just move on. If they were assholes, then fuck 'em. But if they gave me up in desperation ... I don't know what I'll do."
Billy and Mary both nod in agreement, and then they walk the last five minutes in silence
The microphone was recording dead air, and the camera followed Freddy's eyes the rest of the way to the Home for Little Wanderers. For first-time viewers of Billy's show, these five minutes must have been horribly boring. Fans of the show, however, could sense the growing anxiety as they followed along with Mary, Billy and Freddy to a place sabotaged with emotional traps and treasures laced with poison.
When they finally stood at the door in front of the building, they took deep breaths and entered. They were delayed by a second door where they needed to ring a bell to move further, but a guard quickly opened the door from the other side, letting them in.
"Can I help you?" a smiling receptionist immediately greeted from behind a desk.
Billy and Mary stepped in front so Freddy could frame them with the receptionist in his sight.
Billy approached the receptionist with a convincing smile, saying, "Yes, thank you. My name is Billy Batson. Doctor Minerva agreed to meet with us."
Mary glanced at Billy. "Minerva?" That name sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it, and that bothered her.
"Do you have an appointment?" the doctor asked.
Billy tensed, knowing if he screwed this up, the entire trip was for nothing. "Not exactly," he admitted.
Fortunately, the receptionist kept on smiling as she picked up the phone and pressed a few buttons.
Several seconds later, she was talking to Dr. Minerva on the phone. "Hello, I have a Mr. Batson and his friends here to see you. He says that ... oh ... yes ... yes... No, there are just three of them, two boys and a girl. I'd say they are in their early teens... oh, I see. Right away." Then she hung up the phone and pointed down the hallway behind her. "The doctor will see you now. Her office is the second door on the right. You can't miss it."
The trio looked at each other excitedly, then Billy looked at Freddy, saying, "I can't believe we are almost there! We've been waiting for this moment for all of our lives."
Mary smiled. Billy was exaggerating, but it made for a good video.
Dr. Minerva stepped outside of her office door and ushered them inside.
She was a gray-haired lady in her sixties with thick glasses and a crooked but friendly smile. She greeted her visitors with a warm handshake. "You are a persistent young man, Billy! Here, please sit down."
Freddy sat opposite Billy, Mary and the doctor so he could frame them all in the phone's camera.
She didn't suspect a thing.
Dr. Minerva looked the teens over warmly, like a proud grandmother. "It's so good to see our wards growing up into such fine young men and women! I'm so very proud of you! But I have to say ... I don't remember scheduling a meeting."
Mary and Freddy both look anxiously at Billy, but Billy smiles with determination if not confidence. "Thank you for seeing us on such short notice. We weren't getting anywhere talking on the phone, so I wasn't sure you understood our problem. I thought maybe if you saw us, met with us, you'd understand how important it is that we understand what had happened. We aren't complaining about our lives. We don't have it worse than other kids. But my foster dad told me something that sticks with me. He said it's hard to move on when you don't know where you are coming from. That's all we want. We want to move on, but we are stuck."
Dr. Minerva's face hardens a moment before the smile returns. "Unfortunately, Mr. Batson, it's not so simple. As I've told you on the phone, giving up children is a difficult decision for young parents, and they often tie our hands, forcing us to keep their secrets. They want to make a clean separation for their own good and for yours."
Mary frowns. "But ... my birth parents died."
Dr. Minerva nods solemnly. "Perhaps, young lady. I don't know who told you that, and it may well be true, but sometimes that is just what young parents want their children to believe. It's easier for you and for them. There are a hundred reasons why a child might enter our system, and all of them are tragic, and it's in everyone's best interest to put the past behind them. The truth is that all of our pasts are clouded in mystery. All of our lives are riddled with pain and insecurities. If you can't remember that trauma, isn't it better that way?"
Mary and Freddy looked at the ground, discouraged.
But Billy was not ready to give up. "We have heard that answer our whole lives, but we don't know what we need to know. We have to face our demons to overcome them. Our wounds won't heal if we are afraid to tear off the Band-Aid."
Dr. Minerva looks at Billy thoughtfully. "I hadn't heard that one before. It sounds like my organization is the Band-Aid, protecting your wound. Looking at a wound won't help it heal, Billy. Just consider – whatever you learn, you cannot unlearn. When infants are brought to us, it is not to fix things. They are brought to us to start their lives over. That is our gift to your birth parents – and to you. A fresh start."
Mary and Freddy glance at each other, disappointed by Minerva's response, but surprisingly, Billy seems okay with it.
"I never thought of it that way," Billy said with the same fake smile he used when playing a prank on their teachers at school. "You can't blame us for looking, but what is it older people say? Don't look a gift horse in the mouth?"
"Exactly," the doctor replied. "We must all count our blessings. And no, it's a sign of intelligence to be curious. But a wise man knows when to be grateful. Now if I've answered all of your questions, I really should get back to work. A civil servant's work is never done."
Billy raised his palm slightly towards Mary and Freddy, telling them to stay calm.
The doctor rose from her seat, and the trio followed her lead. She opened her door and gestured for them to leave.
Billy didn't hesitate. Mary and Freddy followed him. When the teens had walked about twenty feet down the hall, Dr. Minerva retreated to her office.
Billy heard the door click shut, and, looking ahead, he saw that the receptionist was away from her desk.
Immediately, he opened the door beside him and hurried his friends into a dark room, silently closing the door behind him.
The room had no windows or lights. Billy held his phone up for illumination. The teens could see only that they were in a supply room with barely enough space to hold all three of them.
The image captured by Freddy's glasses would be creepy, like a scene out of "The Blair Witch Project."
"Thank God!" Mary whispered. "I thought you believed all of that crap she said! Why didn't you ask her about all of those kids being adopted at the same time, or ..."
"We would have just seemed like conspiracy nuts," Billy replied. "And conspiracy nuts never give up. That's the last thing we want them to think, because they would never lower their guards. I didn't want to talk to her at all, but we had to get into the building somehow."
"Makes sense," Freddy said simply.
"I wish you had let me in on the plan at the start," Mary complained.
"Sorry, but it wasn't exactly a plan," Billy replied. "I had to think on the fly. I knew they wouldn't tell us anything we didn't already know, so we'd have to be sneaky."
"So, what's the plan now?" Mary asked.
"The building closes at 4. That's like 90 minutes away. We should wait here until 4:30, so people can clean up and leave, and then we sneak out and find some files or something. I just hope they didn't put everything on their computers with passwords. But I don't think so. I saw a lot of file cabinets."
"Me, too," Freddy agreed.
"Apparently, they still work the old-fashioned way," Billy says hopefully.
"What if someone stays really late or if someone needs something in here and opens the door?" Mary asked anxiously.
As usual, Billy oozed confidence. "What are they going to do, arrest us?"
"Maybe," Freddy answered, sounding more bored than serious.
It seemed like these two are used to living dangerously, Mary thought, which oddly made her feel relieved.
She smiled. "It's cozy in here!"
"Yeah," Billy smiled, too.
Freddy looked at Mary and said, "You smell nice."
The three of them fell silent, and Mary blushed.
"Thanks," Billy replied, making them all laugh, cutting the tension.
Mary wished that Billy would turn off the camera, but she didn't want to ask him. This was exactly the kind of situation Billy believed his audience wanted to see on his channel: the more personal and awkward, the better.
Freddy's wandering eyes didn't help Mary relax. She acting appropriately offended, but she knew that Freddy didn't have anywhere else to look. If he stared at her face, that would be even more awkward.
So she talked to him, because it's natural for people to look at each other while they talked. So she asked Freddy, "How does your leg feel?"
"Actually, it feels pretty bad," Freddy admitted. "It wasn't so bad walking all the way here, but standing still hurts more."
That's when Mary realized that her leg was pinned against Freddy's damaged leg, and that couldn't have felt good. Mary suddenly felt terrible. "I'm sorry, Freddy!"
"Me, too, Freddy!" Billy added. "Here, let's make a place for you to sit."
Mary and Billy moved a few boxes around on the floor, creating a makeshift chair and, at the same time, opening up enough space for Billy and Mary to stand comfortably.
When Freddy sat down, Mary asked softly, "How does your leg feel now?"
"It feels okay," Freddy said, looking embarrassed. "But I think there is something wrong with my eyes."
"Really?" Mary asked, annoyed that she couldn't see his eyes behind the sunglasses.
"Yeah," Freddy replied with a mischievous grin. "I can't take my eyes off of you."
Billy cracked up.
Mary looked away, embarrassed, but she couldn't resist a smile. It was a corny pickup line, and she decided to try one of her own. "Are you a camera?" she asked Freddy. "Because every time I look at you, I smile."
Freddy's jaw dropped. Mary never nibbled on his bait before.
Freddy and Mary shared a moment.
Billy, who always had something to say, fell silent. He felt adrift while Mary's and Freddy's orbits suddenly locked into place.
Billy was fascinated, and he was sure the WhizBoy audience was as well.
This moment was a long time coming. The tension between Mary and Freddy was well documented in the comments on the YouTube channel, but now it was evolving before everyone's eyes.
This was sure to increase subscribers, but Billy would never interfere even if the channel was hurt by their blossoming relationship. Mary and Freddy had struggled with depression for years. You would never know it by how they acted together. Mary had been the missing ingredient for years. Mary and Freddy were each other's best medicine.
The attraction between them blossomed live on his channel, which could only boost viewership.
Still, Billy had to slow their fun down, because his friends were laughing and talking too loudly.
"Keep it down," he shushed. "I hear people walking down the hallway."
Mary covered her mouth and giggled silently into the camera.
They spent the next half hour playing the same game, with Freddy and Mary sharing playful banter. Billy kept the conversation light and innocent while he knew his audience wanted escalation. A slow burn would keep them in suspense. Normally, a video shot mostly in the dark and in whispered dialog would be the kiss of death, but in this case, the restraint only heightened the drama.
The time passed quickly, and by 4:30 the trio had almost forgotten why they were in the supply room.
Billy opened the door a crack with the deliberation of a safe-cracker. The light outside the room appeared bright, since their eyes became accustomed to the darkness, but Billy quickly determined that the hall was lit only by nightlights. They listened in complete silence, even holding their breaths, but the only sound they could hear was traffic from outside the building.
They snuck out of the room on their tip-toes, though it was clear nobody was watching.
"What about WhizBoy?" Mary whispered, then looked at Freddy's glasses.
Billy knew what she meant. They were sneaking around yet broadcasting their every move online.
But Billy smiled at the camera and joked, "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
The trio laughed. They stopped sneaking around and talking in whispers, deciding that if they were caught, so be it.
They walked back to Dr. Minerva's office. Given the security they encountered when entering the building, they expected the door to be locked, but the door didn't even have a lock.
Two file cabinets were side-by-side on the far wall. They were disappointed to find that one of the file cabinets was locked, but the other one was not closed properly and opened easily. Billy pulled the top drawer out and was thrilled to find that it was jam packed with folders.
The teens never thought they would get this far, so they didn't even know what to look for, but the organization of the folders made their search easy. The top drawer was divided into months and years, spanning almost a decade. The second drawer might have covered from five years ago until the present, but the time period they were interested in was all contained in the top drawer.
Billy, Mary and Freddy had handled by the Home for Little Wanderers within a two month period, so Billy pulled out the nineteen folders covering that period and spread them out on the doctor's desk.
Mary grabbed one folder and opened it up. Inside was the photo of a baby and the baby's name. Mary didn't recognize either, but she was surprised by the wealth of information available about the baby: the name of the child's parents, where the baby was born, and the baby's birthdate. The folder also included a hand print and a foot print, medical information, and that the baby was housed in the system for one month before being placed in a foster home. The most curious bit of information, though, was under "Reason for wardship," where the document stated, "CONFIDENTIAL."
Mary looked in three other folders. Two of these also mentioned "CONFIDENTIAL", while the third said, "Abandonment."
So the folders were secretive about most but not all of the children.
Mary and Billy looked up when Freddy gasped. He looked like he saw a ghost. Freddy put the folder on the table for his friends to see. The sheet looked like all the others with an unfamiliar baby photo. But the name on top clearly read "Frederick Christopher Freeman." Again, the cause of wardship was listed as "CONFIDENTIAL."
Mary put an arm around Freddy with a smile, saying, "I didn't know your middle name was Christopher."
"Neither did I," Freddy responded, feeling overwhelmed.
Then Billy looked like he saw a ghost, too.
Mary was taken aback by how he was staring at her. "What is it, Billy?" she asked.
"I'm not sure," Billy replied. "But ... well, see for yourself."
He emptied the contents of a folder on top of the desk, showing Mary the top two pages.
Mary leaned over and blinked when she saw the names on each page: "William Joseph Batson" and "Mary Willow Batson."
She put her hand over her heart, understanding the significance. "Wow! But maybe it's a coincidence. I mean, Mary is a common name, and I don't have a middle name."
Billy pointed at the bottom of the page, and Mary read the words aloud. "Adopted by Nicholas and Sarah Bromfield."
"I think you're my sister," Billy said, caught between hope, fear and love.
"Billy?" Mary asked with a tear forming in her eye. "Is this true?"
"It has to be," he replied then looked back at the folder. "But what are our parents' names? It doesn't say anything."
"What about these names?" Mary said, pointing to two names at the bottom of each page in small print. "Here, yours says 'Thrasus' and mine says 'Peitharchías.' Could those be our parent's names?"
Billy shook his head. "What kinds of names are those? Besides, shouldn't we have the same parents?"
"Oh yeah," Mary agreed. They looked through the papers, and Mary sighed. "I didn't see the names of parents in the other folders, either. Just more weird names. But it says 'CONFIDENTIAL' on every sheet. What does it mean?"
"I don't know, but I don't like it," Billy replied. He grabbed some folders from later in the year and quickly glanced through them. "None of these say 'CONFIDENTIAL.' Only our folders."
"And other babies from that month," Mary added.
Just then, they heard several cars pull up outside the building, skidding to a stop.
Billy peeked outside the door and saw several men hurrying towards the front door of the building. Concern turned to alarm when one of the men pulled a gun from his holster.
Billy closed the door.
"I think we are in trouble," he said. "There are some guys with guns out there, and I don't think they are policemen."
"What's going on here?" Mary asked, feeling panicked.
Billy nodded. "I don't think we can give up to them. These guys look serious."
"Find someplace to hide," Freddy suggested the obvious.
Billy crawled under the desk.
Freddy hid in a closet.
Mary opened a tall, thin door and squeezed into a tiny closet containing a circuit breaker panel. She could barely squeeze inside. She crouched under the switches and stayed as quiet as she could.
She heard footsteps running up and down the hall outside of Dr. Minerva's office.
Then she heard someone slam open the door to the office with excessive force.
She covered her mouth with her hands, terrified.
They started throwing stuff around, and then she heard a man yell "Stand up! Raise your hands!"
They caught Billy! Her brother!
"Where are they?" the men demanded of Billy.
Mary closed her eyes. They were going to catch them all!
She didn't know what to do. She was out of options.
Except...
It was stupid. It was crazy. But she was desperate.
If only she could remember the wizard's name.
"You! Get out of there!" they yelled.
They had caught Freddy!
"Mazham!" she whispered, guessing wildly.
Nothing happened.
"Where is the girl?" The men yelled.
Thank God the closet was very thin. Mary had barely noticed it herself. But her hiding place wouldn't last for long.
"Hamshaz!" Mary tried again.
Nothing.
Billy and Freddy didn't give Mary up.
And she wouldn't give up on them.
She tried to remember how the wizard described the goddesses. He talked about Selene and Hippolyta first.
"Shamhaz?" she tried again.
Nothing.
The wizard mentioned too many goddesses. She couldn't remember them all. One in particular eluded her, blocking her memory.
Then, in an instant, it came to her. The goddess's name was Minerva -- the same as the doctor! Was that a coincidence?
The puzzle pieces shifted into place in her mind.
Suddenly, the door opened in front of her. A man shined a gun mounted light in her eyes, blinding her.
"Here she is!" he yelled and grabbed her arm, yanking her from the closet.
She struggled against him and tried one last time.
She yelled, "Shazam!"
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Mary Marvel Makes a Wish