by David Estes
Chapter Nineteen: The t-shirt genius
Nikki had agreed to meet Spencer at his house the next morning, so at eight o’clock sharp she rang his doorbell. The door opened and Spencer bounded out yelling, “Bye, Mom, see you tonight.”
As usual, Spencer was organized. He had a checklist of the tasks they needed to complete that day. Having him as a sidekick was paying off already. The checklist showed:
1. Finish costume
2. Regrow other damaged crops
3. Remove large trees from yards
4. Get Nikki seen doing something heroic
Nikki frowned when she saw the last item on the list. “Why do we have to do number 4? I thought the whole point was to keep my identity a secret,” Nikki said.
“We will. That’s what the mask and costume are for. But we do want you to get noticed so that people know who is causing all of the amazing things to happen around town. We want to make sure you are recognized as a hero right away, rather than as a villain or a menace to society. Some of the greatest superheroes were tagged as villains by the media, which made things very hard for them. We want people to like you.”
Nikki was reminded of Batman, a superhero who was often treated like a bad guy by the very people he was trying to protect. Nikki did want people to like her so she was glad she had Spencer to help her with this.
“Okay, sounds good. But I want to do numbers 2 and 3 before number 1. I want to fix the damage I have caused before I worry about my costume.”
“That’s fine,” Spencer agreed. “You’re the Big-Boss-Man! Bling bling!”
“I guess our first stop will be the farms. We should go by each one of them and see if they have any need for our help.”
Now that their plan was agreed, the pair took off down the road. As they stopped at each farm, they assessed the damage, made a team decision on whether they needed to do anything, and then Nikki used her green gloves to regrow the damaged crops. Spencer’s eyes widened each time he saw Nikki use the power of the green gloves. They were careful to stay out of sight at each farm, especially because Nikki did not have a full costume yet.
By noon, they had finished with the farms and were exhausted from romping around the rural area, where farms were sometimes separated by miles. They stopped in town for some lemonade and a bite to eat before setting their sights on the houses with the fallen trees that Mr. Nickerson had told them about.
They easily located the two houses, as Chambers Street was only two blocks long and came to a dead end. Worried they would get caught, they rang the doorbells of each house to see if anyone was home. After two rings with no answer, they crept between the houses to the backyard. A massive tree had fallen across both backyards and smashed some patio furniture and the fence in between the houses.
“Do you think you can carry that with your super-strength?” Spencer asked, seeming doubtful.
“I’m not sure, but I think the bigger problem will be where to go with it. There’s another street behind this one and houses on all sides. I can’t exactly run down the street with a tree trunk on my back—at least not until I find a place to put it.” Nikki scratched her head.
“Why don’t you just fly it out, Chicken-Little?” Spencer suggested.
“Because I don’t have my super-strength when I fly. I wouldn’t be able to lift it.”
Spencer began to hum as he thought about the problem from all angles, much like he did when he was in the middle of a chess match. A thought popped into his head. “Are you sure you can’t combine the powergloves?”
Nikki’s eyebrows raised and she said, “Uh, I’ve never really tried it.”
“Let’s give it a shot. Either try wearing the gloves on top of each other or a different one on each hand and see what happens.”
Seeing the merits of this idea, Nikki started to pull out two pairs of gloves, but realized she wouldn’t be able to wear them on top of each other; the treasure chest only allowed her to use one pair at the same time. However, she hadn’t tried removing a mixed pair. She grabbed one light blue glove for flying and attempted to take out a purple one for strength.
To her delight, she was able to take both colors out. “I think this might work, Spence,” she said. She put each of the mismatched gloves on. Next she tried to hover and found she was easily able to escape the pull of gravity and levitate above the ground. She grabbed Spencer and slung him above her head, demonstrating that the strength was there, too.
When she set him back on his feet, he asked, “Do you always have to use me to test that one?”
“Yes,” Nikki replied, “and you said I’m the Big-Boss-Man so you have to listen to me.” She grinned at him and walked over to the giant tree trunk. She easily picked it up with one hand and curled it a few times to show off for Spencer.
“It seems lifting it won’t be a problem,” she said. “But not getting caught could be difficult because there are so many houses around here. Who knows who’s looking out their window right now and might see a nine-year-old girl fly off with a fifty-foot tall tree?”
Spencer said, “I think it’s a risk we have to take. Maybe you should use your ponytail mask to make it harder to identify you. I will leave on foot and walk back to town and meet you at Pete’s Diner.”
Nikki agreed and Spencer helped her tie her braid into a mask. She gave him a ten-minute head start so that he would be well away from the house before she did her superhero thing. Once she felt it was safe, Nikki grabbed the tree and zoomed off into the sky. She flew as high and as fast as she could, so no one could see her from the ground. Once she was above the clouds, she soared for the center of the forest. She dipped below the clouds and then, flying low, dropped the tree and watched as it crashed amongst the trees, just another fallen tree in the woods.
She met Spencer ten minutes later and said, “The eagle has landed.”
He laughed at her cheesy code and congratulated her on a job well done. He looked at the list. “Time to finish your costume,” he said.
“I’ve already drawn up how I want it to look,” she replied. Her illustration was simple: a skinny girl with her eyes covered by her own ponytail, wearing a t-shirt, shorts and sneakers. The t-shirt was yellow with a light blue glove on it and “NP” written with the “N” slightly higher than the “P”.
“Hmmm,” Spencer mused. “I’m not sure if this really does you justice. I’ve never seen a superhero outfit that is so….well, so boring.”
“Good, that’s exactly what I’m going for,” Nikki said. “I don’t want to be all flash and dash. I want to be known as the hero who always does good and helps people. Nothing more and nothing less.”
“It’s your choice, Nikki, but I think you should get some snazzy tights and make it a little more colorful.”
“Maybe later. For now, I’m going to stick with my design.” With the matter settled they walked down the street to Flanagan’s. Flanagan’s was a t-shirt shop. In a small town, people wore a lot of t-shirts and Flanagan’s offered them in every color, style, and design you could imagine. They could also do a custom design, which is what Nikki was after.
Nikki stopped outside the store and turned to Spencer, “Okay, when I am spotted flying with this t-shirt on, Mr. Flanagan is obviously going to realize it’s the t-shirt that he custom-made and he will likely be interviewed by the newspaper. So, to avoid linking the shirt to me, you are going to have to buy it, and later you can say that a strange girl asked you to buy it for her. You can say that you couldn’t see her face, because she was wearing a dark hood or something.”
Spencer liked the idea of being interviewed for the news. “Sounds great, I’ll do it!” He snatched the drawing from Nikki’s hand and ran into the store.
While he was gone, Nikki amused herself by using her shiny powerbracelet to catch the sunlight and reflect it onto various objects—a fire hydrant, a mailbox, her shoes, a passing dog. Just when she was getting really bored of the reflecting sunlight game, Spencer exited the store
with a small bag in his hand.
“And?” Nikki asked.
Spencer paused for dramatic effect. “I got it! And it looks much better than I expected it would. Flanagan is a t-shirt genius!” Worried that someone would see them looking at the shirt in such a public place, the pair walked around the corner and behind the Lamplighter Hotel. The parking lot was deserted.
With a grand gesture, Spencer whipped out the shirt. “Ta daaaaa!” he proclaimed.
Nikki frowned. She knew she shouldn’t have trusted him with her design. “Go back and fix it,” she ordered.
“Aw, c’mon, Fashion-Police. It’s much better this way, don’t you think?”
“No.”
“At least give it a chance, it might grow on you.”
Nikki stretched the shirt out wide so she could see the whole thing, and tried to take it all in. Spencer had included her original design, a basic yellow shirt with the light blue glove and “NP” logo, but he had littered the front of the shirt with each of the twelve symbols that were on the powergloves. There was the muscly arm and the lightning bolt and the snowflake and so on. Each symbol was printed in the correct color of the glove that it represented. It is kinda cool, she thought.
Not wanting Spencer to know that she was starting to like his design, Nikki said grumpily, “Okay, fine. I’ll use it for now, but just on a trial basis.”
Spencer grinned, seeing right through her act. “I knew you would like it!”
“I do NOT like it!” Nikki snapped.
“Sure you don’t,” he replied sarcastically. “But that doesn’t matter now. What do we do next?”
Trying to breathe to calm down, Nikki replied, “I need new pairs of shorts and shoes, ones my parents have not seen.”
They left the parking lot and walked down the street, window-shopping the handful of stores. When they arrived at the biggest store in town, a discount retailer called Big-Mart, Nikki said, “I should be able to find something in here.”
In the huge warehouse it took them almost ten minutes just to locate the shoes. She found a pair of simple white sneakers in her size, and headed to the girls’ clothing section. She grabbed a pair of white-rimmed, light blue shorts that matched the light blue glove on her new t-shirt. They were her size, and so she made her way to the checkout with Spencer following behind her like a pet.
Back outside again, Spencer asked, “Where are you going to keep your stuff? You could just wear it under your regular clothes I guess.”
“Nah, that will be too hot and bulky in the summer and besides, I can’t wear my new sneakers around either. I’ll just keep them in my treasure chest with the gloves. That way I can shrink them and have them in my pocket at all times.”
“Excellent,” Spencer said.
Spencer pulled out his list and crossed off the three items they had done so far, “Okay, we’ve helped the farmers, disposed of the fallen trees, and finished your superhero outfit. All that’s left is for you to do something heroic and make sure that someone sees it.”
Nikki was about to comment that there weren’t many people she would be able to help in such a small town, when they heard someone yell, “Help! Please help!” At that very moment her bracelet let out a burst of light and she saw the image of the light blue gloves appear in the crystal.
Spencer said, “Great timing, Hamburger-Helper. Now’s your chance to show what you can do! You go back in Big-Mart and change into your outfit, and I’ll go see what the problem is.” Before Nikki could respond, he was running off toward the sound.
Nikki’s heart fluttered as she struggled to get changed in the small bathroom stall. Eventually she was ready; she was even able to tie her ponytail mask without Spencer’s help. She was glad that no one had come into the bathroom while she was in there.
Once finished, she ran out of the store with her clothes in her hand and then snuck into an alley. Hiding behind a large dumpster, she opened the chest and swapped her clothes for the light blue gloves. Pressing her thumb to the bird symbol she said, “Here goes nothing,” and without thinking too much about it, rocketed into the air, ready to meet her destiny.
