Nikki Powergloves- A Hero is Born

by David Estes

  Chapter Five: Gloves: Just a cheesy, fashion accessory, or a source of magical power?

  Disappointment, anger, frustration. Those were just a few of the emotions that Nikki felt when she saw what the treasure chest contained. In her mind she was expecting gold, silver, maybe even diamonds, but instead all she got was a pile of gloves. Of all things, gloves! There were about a dozen different varieties in various colors, each with a drawing on them, similar to the ones on the outside of the box.

  Nikki picked up one pair. They were white with gold trim and felt rubbery to the touch. Printed on the glove was a single snowflake. How boring, Nikki thought. They almost looked like the type of gloves her mother used to clean with to prevent chemicals from touching her skin.

  The gloves were hers now so she figured that she should at least try them on to see if they even fit. They looked way too big for her, like they were meant for an adult. She slipped the first white glove onto her left hand and to her amazement, it fit perfectly! She held the other white glove next to her right hand and could tell that it was much bigger. Whoever made these gloves really screwed up, she thought, they aren’t even the same size!

  Just to see what it would look like to wear two different-sized gloves, Nikki slipped her right hand into the second glove. Her eyes widened when the glove hugged her hand and wrist as if it had been custom-made to fit her hand exactly. The glove had magically shrunk without her even noticing. She pressed her thumb onto the drawing of the snowflake and could feel that the picture was created with raised bumps, like the braille books that the blind boy at her school had shown her.

  Curious to see if the other gloves would fit her too, Nikki reached into the chest to find another pair. As she leaned over the large box, Mr. Miyagi ran underneath her feet and startled her, causing her to fall to the ground. Nikki reached one hand down to catch her fall, and as she did, there was a sudden flash of white and then she was sliding across the ground out of control. She finally stopped when she crashed into a bush on the edge of the clearing.

  Nikki looked for Mr. Miyagi and found that he had also slid across the clearing, but to the other side. “What was that?” she wondered aloud. And why were her legs so cold? Mr. Miyagi barked once and tried to run toward her, his little legs sliding backwards with each step. Eventually he was able to get enough traction to move forward, but after three steps he had lost control completely, so he sat down and allowed his forward motion to propel him to where Nikki was sitting.

  “Mr. Miyagi, look out!” Nikki yelled, already knowing it was too late for him to change his trajectory. Nikki let out an “Oommff!” as she caught her dog just as he smashed into her stomach. He licked her face happily, oblivious to the strange events that had just transpired.

  Nikki sat up and looked around the clearing. The ground had a glossy shimmer to it and shined brightly, reflecting the sun’s rays. She touched the ground. It was cold and hard, like ice. Wait a minute, she thought, it is ice! But how was that possible? It was a warm summer day outside and yet, here she was, sitting on the icy ground, like it was the middle of winter and a pond had frozen over.

  It hit her. The gloves! She looked at the white gloves with the snowflake prints. When she fell, the gloves must have somehow caused the ice to appear. Questions poured through her mind: Were they magic gloves? Did she cause the ice to appear or did the gloves do it themselves? What about the other gloves, could they do special things, too?

  Excited now, Nikki stood up slowly, being careful not to slip, and shuffled her way over to the chest. After pulling the snowflake gloves off, she lay them gently back in the box and pulled out another pair—these ones were bright red and had flames printed on them. If a snowflake means ice, surely a flame means fire, she thought.

  She put on each of the fire gloves and not surprisingly, they fit exactly to the size of her hands. Not knowing how they worked, Nikki tried pointing them at the ground and yelling, “Fire power!” “Abracadabra!” and “Burn, baby, burn!” but with each command nothing happened.

  She even tried pretending to fall to the ground in hopes that they would react like the ice gloves had. But all she gained was a bruised rear end after slamming onto the ice. Perplexed, she stopped to think. What had she done differently the first time? She had taken the white gloves out, looked at them, put them on, and then fallen. Something was missing. Like a light bulb turning on in her head, she realized that she had done something else with the white gloves. She had touched the snowflake picture.

  Nikki turned her hand palm-side up and just like before, she pressed her thumb to the picture printed on the glove—in this case, the flames. Angling her arm toward the ground, she extended her fingers. Rather than commanding the glove as she had before, she simply thought about fire spewing from the glove. Instantly, her hand was engulfed in fire, and bright red and yellow flames shot from the glove, licking the icy ground below.

  In seconds, the ice began to melt into a puddle and a circle of burnt grass appeared. Unsure of how to turn off the gloves, Nikki closed her eyes and tried to picture the glove without the flames coming out of it. When she opened her eyes, the fire had stopped and there was a single wisp of smoke rising from the tip of her pointer finger. Awesome! she thought. Spence was never going to believe this! Mr. Miyagi trotted happily over to the small circle of brown grass and lay down. He seemed glad to be off of the cold, slippery ice.

  Anxious to see what other powers the remaining gloves would give her, Nikki slipped the red ones off and returned them to the chest, while scooping up the next pair and shoving her hands into them. Again, they were a perfect fit.

  These gloves were light blue with a picture of a bird on them. She jammed her thumb onto the bird symbol, closed her eyes, and thought about what it would be like to be a bird. In her mind, she flew high above the trees, the fields, and the houses. She didn’t feel anything change and when she opened her eyes, she fully expected to be standing in the same spot, her feet planted firmly on the ground.

  To her shock, her body had lifted completely off the ground and was rising through the air, already nearly above the trees. Mr. Miyagi was barking at her from below, but his bark was becoming softer and softer as she rose higher and higher.

  Nikki gasped for breath, afraid that she might go up and up forever, until she reached outer space, where she would float off to the moon, the Milky Way, or even further. She closed her eyes and tried to think of herself back on the ground and as soon as she did, her stomach dropped rapidly, like she was on a rollercoaster, her body hurtling down toward the earth below.

  She shrieked and began flapping her arms in the hopes that, like a bird, she would be able to propel herself upwards again. But it didn’t work and the ground came nearer and nearer. Frantically, Nikki remembered how she had flown in the first place and began to picture herself rising up again.

  Her body jerked to a stop and her head snapped forwards, like she was in a car and the driver had just slammed on the brakes. Like before, her body began to rise. Gaining confidence, Nikki extended her arms like she had seen Superman do in the movies, and imagined herself flying through the air. Right on cue, her body stopped rising and shot forward rapidly, her legs thrown behind her.

  It didn’t take long for Nikki to get the hang of flying; it was as easy as thinking about the next turn or dip or dive that she wanted to make, and her body would react instantly. Time was meaningless as she learned how to do loops, to stop and turn on a ninety-degree angle, and even how to hover in place like a hummingbird.

  Flying was every child’s dream and Nikki loved every minute of it. She hoped it would never end. She loved the feel of the wind through her hair, the anticipation of the next loop she would perform and the thrill of diving toward the earth at amazing speeds.

  Nikki careened over the forest with reckless abandon. At one point she flew close to the edge of the forest and momentarily crossed over one of the surrounding farms. Oops, she thought. She had to be careful not to be se
en. As she corrected her flight path and turned back toward the forest, she noticed a flash of light from the corner of her eye. She twisted her head in the direction of the flash, and saw a farmer aiming a camera at her. Flash! Another burst of light. Zooming back to the safety of the forest, she tried to calm herself down.

  It was okay. Just a photograph. And it was taken from far away, so surely no one would be able to tell who she was. If the farmer tried to tell a story about seeing a flying girl, people would probably think he was crazy. They would take one look at his photo and say it was a bird of some kind. She was safe.

  As she reasoned to herself, Nikki noticed that the sun had moved well past its peak. She looked at her watch and was dismayed when she realized how long she had been flying. It was almost five o’clock in the afternoon; she had been in the air for hours!

  She needed to get back to the clearing as soon as possible to pick up Mr. Miyagi and walk home. Her mom usually had dinner ready by six o’clock and she would be mad if Nikki was late.

  Nikki flew over the forest, in search of the lone clearing amongst the tall trees. Minutes later, she spotted the circle of empty space. Skillfully, she guided her body over the clearing using only her mind, and lowered herself straight down, like a helicopter.

  Baking all day in the hot sun, the ice had melted and the ground was soggy. To her relief, Mr. Miyagi was still curled up on the patch of grass that Nikki had burned earlier that day. She bent down and gently stroked his hair and he groggily opened his eyes and licked her face.

  “Hee hee, Mr. Miyagi, that tickles,” Nikki said, giggling. “It’s time to go home, buddy.” Her dog scrambled to his feet and followed Nikki back down the path they had taken earlier that day. It seemed like years since they had started their adventure.

  A few feet down the trail, Nikki glanced at the light blue gloves she was still wearing and remembered that she was forgetting something. “Oh no, I forgot about the chest!” she exclaimed. “We have to go back.”

  They returned to where the chest stood wide open, ready for its owner to claim it. “Hmm,” Nikki murmured. “How are we going to get this home?” she asked her dog. He just looked at her with his tongue hanging out. Having Spencer here would be helpful, Nikki thought.

  She tried to lift the chest, but it was very heavy and she couldn’t even raise it an inch. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to take the gloves and leave the chest,” she said, reaching in the box to grab a handful of the multi-colored gloves. When she attempted to pull her hand back out though, it was as if her fingers were stuck in cement; they just wouldn’t budge. Nikki tried lifting her arm at different angles and with different amounts of force, but no matter what she tried, her hand was as stuck as a pin cushion.

  She released the other gloves and let them drop back into the container and magically, she was able to pull her hand back out. It seemed that only one pair of gloves could be taken from the chest at a time. I might have to leave them here and return whenever I want to use them, she thought.

  Now, where was the lid? She remembered that it had popped off when the chest first opened, but she never looked to see where it had landed. Nikki walked around the clearing two times, but there was no sign of the lid. Just when she was about to give up, Nikki noticed a gleam of gold out of the corner of her eye. A corner of the lid was peeking out from behind a large tree.

  Unable to easily lift it, Nikki half-carried, half-dragged the lid back over to the chest and was barely able to hoist it high enough to slide it back into place. It snapped shut, triggering one more tiny bit of magic. Once closed, the chest bubbled on all sides, like there were creatures trying to push their way through its frame. After five seconds of the strange bubbling, the chest began to shrink right before Nikki’s eyes, until it was about the size of the kind of dice that you would use to play Monopoly.

  Nikki picked up the tiny chest. “I wonder how I will make you big again. Oh well, I’m sure I will find a way when the time comes.” She stuck it into her pocket and then removed the powder blue gloves she was still wearing and shoved them in her backpack for safe keeping. Grabbing Mr. Miyagi’s leash, she ran off down the path, hoping she would still make it home in time for dinner.