by Tess Sharpe
“I can help!” she chirped.
Karen jumped. The test tubes rattled in her hands. “Oh! Harleen! You scared me!”
“Let me take these.” Harleen whisked the test tubes out of Karen’s hands. She wasn’t tall enough to reach the top shelf, either. But no worries—she knew a way. She’d just climb it.
Harleen grabbed the top shelf of the cabinet and swung her legs up. The shelves rattled. The bottles on the shelves slid. Karen, who was standing below, gasped, “Eep!”
The cabinet began to fall forward. Harleen shrieked. She was going to fall on Karen! Then the cabinet would squash them both flatter than a couple of pancakes!
Kara dashed forward as the science cabinet began to fall. Harleen had scrambled up it like a squirrel before Kara could shout to stop her! Bottles and jugs of chemicals tipped off the shelves and crashed onto the ground in front of them. A puddle of pink foam bubbled up from the accidental concoction and spread across Karen’s shoes. Yikes!
Luckily, Kara was able to push the cabinet back up before it crashed onto Karen’s head. Super-strength and super-speed came in handy in just about any situation.
Harleen let go of the shelf as soon as Kara steadied the cabinet. She tumbled out of the way with acrobatic grace as Zee’s pumpkin crashed down to the floor. Splat! It smashed into hundreds of pieces, splattering the pink foam. Kara winced as a piece of pumpkin hit her in the face. Karen was covered with pumpkin and bubbling pink foam.
“My slushie!” Harleen wailed, having already forgotten the trouble she had caused. “It’s ruined!”
“You almost squished us!” Karen protested angrily. “And you’re worried about a slushie?!”
“It’s okay,” Kara said quietly. “Harleen was just trying to help.” She took a deep breath. She felt funny. Wobbly. In fact, that was what her lip was doing. Wobbling, like she was about to cry. This day had been terrible! First she got detention for standing up for her friend. Now she was covered in slimy pumpkin and pink foam…and…and…
Kara gave her head a quick shake. Wait a second. Why was she feeling so upset? She should be mad, like Karen, not sad!
The door to the science lab burst open. Mr. Kincaid stood there, staring at the giant mess. Everyone froze guiltily in place.
Kara and Karen were dripping with gunk. Diana was shielding the shark tank from falling pumpkin bits, while Jessica crouched near the window with her research books.
Harleen was still clutching her ruined slushie and pouting. As usual, Doris just glared at everyone. Zee stared at the ruined pumpkin—and then up at their teacher. And Babs looked like she was trying to fade into the wall as she realized what a fine mess they’d all gotten themselves into. They were in so much trouble now.
“What in the world is going on here?” Mr. Kincaid asked.
“It was an accident!” Karen said.
“We can explain,” Kara said at the same time.
“This is the biggest mess I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Kincaid said. “And I teach freshman biology!”
“Thank you?” Babs suggested.
“He did not mean it as a compliment,” Diana whispered loudly.
The girls grouped together, away from the mess. Having your teacher mad at you was no fun. Especially when you kind of deserved it. He had told them to clean up the lab. But now it was much, much worse.
“We are in so much trouble,” Jessica groaned.
“You’d need superpowers to clean this place up,” their teacher said, and shook his head, bewildered. “I am disappointed in you girls. I thought that one day of detention would be enough to teach you the power of getting along. But it looks like you’ll need more. A whole week’s worth.”
The girls gasped. An entire week of detention?
Doris growled under her breath in the corner. This was so unfair. She had nothing to do with the mess the goody-goodies had just caused. She hadn’t even brought the pumpkin into the lab. More detention meant she was going to miss her after-school workout for a whole week. She had been practicing how to throw the shot put, an ancient sport of strength that she wanted to master. Being strong and powerful was what she did best.
Doris smiled at the thought of her secret identity, Giganta. She loved putting one over on an entire city of adults! Almost as much as she loved roaming through Metropolis and causing trouble. Though those pesky super hero girls always seemed to show up at the exact right time to ruin her plans.
Now she’d have no time to train. Not with all this detention! Doris glared at Kara. This was all her fault. If she’d just kept quiet about the test, Doris would be hurling heavy stuff across the school’s track field to her heart’s content. But no, Kara had to stick her nose into Doris’s business.
Mr. Kincaid sent Kara and Karen to go clean up. They were dripping pumpkin bits and pink foam all over the floor. There was even pumpkin in Karen’s sneakers! It squished with each step as she marched purposefully toward the locker room.
The other girls headed to the janitor’s closet. They were going to need a much bigger mop to get this mess cleaned up!
After cleaning the pink foam and pumpkin off themselves in the locker room, Kara and Karen changed into their gym clothes.
“I can’t believe I have to wear this home,” Kara said. She tugged at the neck of her T-shirt. “Everyone will stare at me!”
Karen rolled her eyes. “You really need to chill out,” she said. Her jaw dropped. “I don’t know why I just said that!”
Kara’s stomach sank. It was like before, when she’d gotten sad instead of mad. Karen was the one who worried about people staring. Kara was usually the one who told her to chill out!
The door to the locker room banged open. Zee came running toward them as fast as her fashionable shoes could carry her.
“Zee, you seem upset,” Kara said.
The magician’s assistant was out of breath. She must have run all the way from the janitor’s closet. “Are you two feeling anything other than sticky?”
The two girls stared at her. Karen did not like the guilty look on Zee’s face.
“Because the pumpkin might have been just a little bit magic,” Zee explained.
“What kind of magic?” Kara asked in alarm.
“Oh, great—a magic pumpkin.” Karen rolled her eyes. “Does this make you our fairy godmother?”
Zee’s eyes widened. Karen was never snarky like that! “The spell was technically inside the pumpkin. But the pieces mixed with the chemicals in the lab cabinet. I think we’re dealing with a mix of magic, squash, and science!”
“What does that mean?” Kara asked. She twisted her hands worriedly.
“The pumpkin had a switching spell cast on it,” Zee explained. “Pumpkins are very good for spells. That’s why they’re in all the fairy tales. But my spell was just supposed to switch a rabbit into a dove. I don’t know what it’ll do to humans.”
“Oh no!” Kara said, her lip started trembling again. “I’m not human. What’s it going to do to me?”
Zee frowned. Kara was acting worried. And Karen was cracking jokes that sounded like Kara. Was it possible that her spell had switched their personalities?
Zee had no idea what that weird foam was other than a nice shade of pink. The chemical mix could have changed the spell in all sorts of ways.
“Kara, can you yank this locker door off?” Zee asked. She needed to make sure that it was only her friends’ personalities that were switched.
“And damage school property?” Kara asked. She was scandalized that Zee would even think she’d do such a thing. But wait…she had totally done that before. Why was she feeling so worried about it now?
“I’ll magic it back,” Zee promised.
Kara yanked at the door with one hand. Normally, her super-strength would make the job easy. But the door wouldn’t budg
e. She pulled with both hands…and still nothing! Tucking her tongue between her teeth, Kara really put her back—and two feet—into it. Nada!
“I don’t understand,” she told Zee.
“I think that the spell might have switched your personalities…and your powers,” Zee said.
“What?!” Kara and Karen shrieked together.
“I can’t have Kara’s powers!” Karen said. “She’s super-strong and fast and all sorts of things that come with super, super responsibilities! I haven’t prepared! I need to study or take a class or something!”
“Sorry, I don’t think there’s any Kryptonian 101 at Metropolis High,” Kara said gloomily. “Is this why my face keeps getting so hot?” She held her hands against her red cheeks. “Am I blushing?!”
Zee felt terrible that her magic pumpkin had helped cause this chaos. She had to find a way to fix it. First, she needed to make sure her theory was correct—that Karen had Kara’s powers as well as her rock and roll personality.
“Karen, can you try to pull the locker door off the hinges?”
Karen rolled her eyes at Zee but did as her friend asked. She gave the door what she thought was a light yank. The entire row of lockers came crashing down!
“I guess that answers our question,” Zee said. The magician waved her hands and said, “Pu dna ta me.” Creaking and rattling, the lockers rose back into place.
“Let me just try something,” Kara said. She could still fly, right? Zee’s spell couldn’t have taken all of her powers…could it? She jumped into the air. But instead of soaring off, she hovered awkwardly for a few moments and dropped back down.
Kara’s face burned with frustration as she realized that Zee and Karen were staring at her. This was so embarrassing! She loved to fly. Not being able to do so felt terrible. Almost as terrible as getting stared at. Her lip trembled again. “Stop that!” she thought.
“You try,” Kara told Karen.
“I don’t know how without my Bumblebee suit,” Karen said. But she jumped up at Kara’s encouragement…and floated off the ground. She was used to flying in her suit. She loved her suit and what she had designed it to do—and how it could protect her. But this kind of flying was different. She could feel the air on her face. She wondered if Kara got bugs in her teeth when she flew across Metropolis. “That would be gross!” she thought.
Without thinking, Karen lifted her arms and shot straight up. In fact, she flew up so fast that Kara had to grab her leg to keep her from crashing right through the ceiling.
“Careful!” Kara and Zee pulled Karen down to the ground.
“Whew. Thanks. That’s way more liftoff than my suit has,” Karen said. “I’m not sure I like it!”
“Zee, how do we fix this?” Kara asked.
“I’ll figure it out,” Zee said, biting her lip. “I swear by all the tricks up my sleeve. But I need to do some research first. And you two need to act normal tomorrow at school.”
“Like that’s possible,” Karen muttered grumpily. She gasped and pressed her hand against her mouth. Then she winced. Super-strength was no joke. “This is the worst!” she wailed. “I have attitude! My parents will kill me if I come home with attitude. I’ll be grounded for life.”
“How do you think I feel?” Kara asked glumly. “I was going to go to a concert at the Lazarus Pit tonight. But now I feel this strange feeling in my stomach. Like…I shouldn’t break curfew?”
“That’s guilt,” Karen told her. “Because you shouldn’t break curfew! Or…maybe you should. A concert sounds fun. Wait. No! I don’t go to loud concerts. I don’t know! I’m confused!”
“Both of you should go home,” Zee said. “And try to act as much like you—the real yous—as possible.”
“You better figure out how to fix this, Zee,” Karen demanded. Then she made a face. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”
Zee reached out and gave her friend a hug. Karen hugged her back. And then Kara joined in. Sometimes you just needed a hug. This was one of those times. Instantly, all three girls felt better. Together with the rest of their friends, they would find a way to fix this. Even if Zee had to…shudder…do science to solve the power switcheroo.
Acting normal when you felt the exact opposite was like putting on a sweater three sizes too small. When Karen arrived at school the next morning, she had a scowl on her face. She could hear everything. Her vision was sharper. With every step she took, she felt a mix of worried and excited, thinking she’d just lift off into the air. Or she might stomp too hard on the ground and break something. Who knew what could happen? She’d woken up this morning floating three feet above her bed instead of in it!
“How do you handle all this?” she asked Kara as they walked the crowded halls of Metropolis High. Every few seconds, she would twitch, whipping her head around to look down the hall. Super-hearing was so annoying! She didn’t want to overhear people’s conversations! She felt super-nosy, not superpowered! But now she couldn’t avoid it. “Is there a way to turn the super-hearing off?”
Kara shot her a sympathetic look. “You just get used to it,” she confessed. “I could barely sleep last night. Everything was too quiet!”
“You think that’s bad? I woke up this morning hovering above the bed!”
Kara reddened. “Sorry. I should’ve warned you that sleep-flying might happen. It’s like sleepwalking, except you know…not.”
“I’m just glad my mom didn’t come into my room to wake me up. I’m not going to fly out the window or something, am I?” Karen looked alarmed at the thought.
Kara shook her head. “It’s just a hovering thing. No flying out the window involved. Just set your alarm early so your mom doesn’t catch you.”
Karen reached for the doorknob of the door to their first class, not thinking as she yanked it hard. Normally, the door was heavy and hard to pull open. But now, with her borrowed girl-of-steel strength, the knob came right off in her hand!
“Oh no!” Kara said. “I hate damaging school property!”
“No, I hate it,” Karen hissed. “Or I used to.”
The two girls scrambled to hide the doorknob behind their backs as a group of teachers walked by talking about Hal Jordan's latest victory on the basketball court. Hal was known to be a little full of himself, and he liked to be the star of anything athletic. So it was no wonder that he was the school’s star basketball player.
Luckily, they were so busy talking about Hal's perfectly executed three-pointer that no one noticed the damaged door. As soon as the teachers passed, the girls spun around and tried to fix the door before their English teacher arrived.
“You’re going to need to use your heat vision to fuse it,” Kara whispered, looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was around.
“I don’t know how,” Karen protested.
Kara tried to think of a good way to describe what it felt like to melt things with your eyes. Mostly, it felt awesome. Because it was awesome. It was one of her most awesome powers, if you asked her. She could melt metal and toast marshmallows for s’mores.
“Just look at the doorknob and think…hot things,” Kara said.
Karen narrowed her eyes. Her mouth twisted in concentration. Her eyes narrowed more. And then, zzzap! Her eyes sparked up just enough to melt the doorknob back on the door.
“I did it!”
Before the girls could rejoice, their English teacher arrived. She seemed a little confused that the doorknob was so warm as she led them into class. Soon, the rest of their friends joined them.
“How’s the power switcheroo going?” Zee asked from her desk behind Karen’s.
“My mom almost caught me sleep-flying!” Karen whispered back. “Please tell me you’ve found a way to fix this!”
“Jessica and I are on it,” Zee said. “She knows plants, so I need her expertis
e when it comes to the squash side of our problem.”
Karen felt a little better knowing Jessica and Zee were working hard to solve the problem. If she talked back to her mom like she had wanted to at dinner or got caught floating, she was going to be in so much trouble.
The girls had gym class next. Normally, this was one of Kara’s favorite classes. She loved showing her strength and agility, but now she found herself feeling unsure and kind of small as everyone lined up in teams for volleyball.
Kara wasn’t used to feeling unsure about anything. Even when she didn’t have a plan—which was most of the time—she was always confident in the moves she made up on the spot. Being indestructible was a real confidence booster.
As the teams volleyed the ball back and forth across the net, Kara missed the ball twice. Then she got hit in the face because she hadn’t dodged fast enough! Her cheeks burned in embarrassment. Being human was Tough with a capital T.
In front of her, Karen was right up at the volleyball net with Diana. Diana’s Amazon warrior training served her well in gym class. She leaped and ran and dived for the volleyball like the fate of a battle depended on it. But Karen was struggling as much as Kara was—for different reasons. She was scared that if she hit the volleyball too hard, she would make it explode or something! Kara’s super-strength wasn’t easy to control. So when the ball came flying toward Karen, she tapped it with the tips of her fingers. The ball flew into the net.
