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ahhing over the car’s features.) Still, I was happy to take on this particular chore.
    I spun around in a slow circle, looking over the garage’s inventory. There wasn’t a car in sight that cost less than half a million dollars. They were all posh, luxury vehicles, so it was difficult to pick one over the other. However, after a few minutes (and some ardent urging from Alpha Prime) I narrowed my options down to two: a sporty little silver import with butterfly doors and a monstrous, black SUV that looked like it had been built to withstand a missile attack. In the end, I settled on the SUV.
    “Good choice,” my father said when I finally announced my decision, “even if it did take you forever. Now you’re going to have to step on it to get us there by tip-off.”
    “What?” I asked incredulously.
    “Didn’t I tell you? You’re driving,” he said with a wink.

Chapter 4
    As massive as the SUV was, it was extraordinarily easily to handle and provided an amazingly smooth ride. Thus, I was able to get us to the game on time and without incident. Even parking wasn’t a problem; although the SUV had a wider-than-normal wheel base, my father — along with a bunch of other bluebloods — had paid out a hefty fee to have an oversized parking spot at all the sporting venues. (Apparently this was intended to keep other cars from getting too close to his own luxury vehicles, but it worked out well when he drove large autos like the SUV.)
    The game itself was fantastic. My father had gotten courtside seats, and even though it was preseason, it’s just a different game when you’re that close to the action. You get sucked into everything that’s going on.
    As my mother predicted, I gorged myself on junk food: hot dogs, popcorn, pretzels, soda, etc. A normal kid probably would have gotten sick eating the same volume, but I have a high metabolism.
    During the game, I couldn’t help expressing amazement at my father’s uncanny ability to blend in. Despite his height, he stood and moved in such a way that he never drew unwarranted attention to himself.
    “It’s the costume,” he said when I asked him about it later as we were driving home. “Just like a police officer automatically gets a certain amount of respect and deference when he’s in uniform as opposed to out of it, people automatically switch to a certain mode when there are capes around in costume. It’s actually less about me and more about the general public’s perception and reaction when I’m not in the black-and-gold.”
    “So it’s not really you they love and respect,” I said. “It’s the outfit.”
    “More like what the outfit represents,” he said, laughing. “People act in certain ways in response to specific stimuli. For instance, if I told you that the car immediately behind us was a police car, you’d immediately slow down and stop going twenty miles over the posted speed limit.”
    “What?” I asked, totally caught off-guard. And he was right, of course; I had turned into a lead-foot without even noticing, going far faster than the law allowed.
    “Sorry,” I said as I immediately began braking.
    “Not a problem. Besides, it’s not really you; it’s the SUV. It’s such a smooth ride that it’s easy to lose track of how fast you’re going. However, speaking of cars, it’s odd that your choice of which one to take tonight came down to the SUV here and the sports car with the butterfly doors.”
    “Why’s that?”
    “Because that’s the car I’d planned to give you. I had — Whoa!!!”
    The exclamatory part of Alpha Prime’s statement came as the SUV began drifting across lanes, accompanied by a cacophony of blaring horns. Needless to say, his remarks had caught me a little unprepared; I’d snapped to attention, staring at him in shock rather than watching the road. Fortunately, my lapse only lasted a second or two as I quickly regained control of the vehicle. Then I sat there stone-faced as a car that I’d cut off