The Ups and Downs of Being Super

by Katrina Kahler

  “Hey, Lia! Happy Birthday!” Brandon smiled. I swear his teeth glistened.

  “Ah, thanks,” I said as calmly as possible. At the same time, my insides were saying, “HOLY COW!!! BRANDON GOLD KNOWS WHO I AM!! HE KNOWS IT’S MY BIRTHDAY! HE SPOKE TO ME!”

  “Hey, how do you know it’s her birthday?” Wendi demanded.

  “It’s on Facebook!” Brandon told her.

  “And you’re friends with Lia?” Wendi asked as if she were talking about the king greeting a peasant.

  “Yeah,” Brandon answered as if it was no big deal.

  Wendi pulled Brandon away. “Come on; we’ll be late for class!” She frowned at him and grabbed his arm.

  “Bye guys!” Brandon waved as Wendi dragged him down the hall.

  “What does a guy like Brandon see in Wendi anyhow?” I asked, louder than I intended to.

  “Maybe because she’s so good-looking,” Jason replied. “Oh, plus she’s rich!” he added.

  “Okay, I get the point. I just think Brandon can do better.”

  Jason grinned. “You may be a bit biased. After all, you and Wendi have been rivals for a while now.”

  I shook my head. “Not sure how we’re rivals, she wins all the time.”

  Jason patted me on the shoulder. "Nah, you're too hard on yourself.” He stopped talking. “Oh no, speaking of rivals, here comes Tony Wall.”

  I turned to see Tony walking steadily towards us. Tony had just finished “borrowing” lunch money from some younger kids. Now he had his sights set on Jason. Tony was a classic bully. He wasn’t smart, but when you’re bigger than everybody else, there’s not a lot of need for brains. I might have had to deal with Wendi, but no way was I going to let Tony bully my best friend. We only had a minute until the morning bell, so I just needed to delay him.

  I inhaled and then softly exhaled in Tony’s direction. He went staggering back and hit the lockers behind him. A couple of the smaller kids also blew backward, but they were too amused by Tony smacking into the lockers to really care. A bunch of kids (including the smaller ones) began to laugh.

  “Quit laughing!” Tony ordered, his fists curled.

  “Hey, Tony? What happened?” Brandon called to him. Brandon happened to be one of the few kids in the school Tony didn’t try to bully.

  Tony shook his head. “I don’t know…some sort of crazy draft in the school today.”

  “I felt it too!” Wendi said.

  I had to confess, a part of me enjoyed using super breath on Tony. Yeah, I pushed back a few innocent kids too, but it was all for the greater good. Now I knew Mom wasn’t joking when she said no onions or garlic. That could have been dangerous. Well, fun for me, but hazardous for everybody else. I didn't need that. Right? I had to use this power for good. I mean, that had to be the reason I had this power…to help the world! Of course, there’s nothing wrong with having fun too. Is there? Before I could think too long, the morning bell rang. I snapped back to reality. Of course, my reality was different now. It was going to be challenging on all sorts of levels, but I knew I could handle it.

  I had to!

  Class Time…

  My morning classes were three of my most challenging: Science, Math, and English. But the good news is, I really enjoy a challenge. The bad news is, Mr. Ohm, our Science (and math due to budget cuts) teacher was handing back our science quizzes from yesterday. Mr. Ohm handed me my test. I like Mr. Ohm. I believe he’s a good guy. Sometimes, since he’s single and decent looking (for a teacher), I think he could be a good match for my mom.

  Other times, I think having a teacher around all the time would not be good at all. Mr. Ohm looked directly at me when he gave me my paper. It had a score of 85 on it.

  “Not bad,” he told me. “It was a hard quiz…”

  “I didn’t think it was THAT hard,” Wendi said.

  “Oh man, I thought it was way hard!” Krista replied.

  I knew from the tone of his voice, Mr. Ohm was disappointed in me. But not nearly as disappointed as I was in myself. I had studied so hard. When I glanced through the test, I saw where I’d gone wrong. Somehow, I thought Pan and Narvi were moons of Jupiter, and Thebe was a Saturn moon. I was so annoyed with myself for getting those three wrong.

  Mr. O must have noticed the look of disappointment on my face. “Cheer up!” he encouraged. “You can do a paper for extra credit if you want.” He looked up at the class. “You all can if you wish.”

  Some of the kids sighed in relief, others groaned, others sat there still trying to wake up. I had to say that I felt better.

  Next was math class, once again with Mr. Ohm. I normally enjoy math. It can be tricky, but it always makes sense. It follows a pattern. Patterns are comforting. That day though, in fact, all week, we were studying units of measure. Practicing converting metric to non-metric and Celsius to Fahrenheit.

  I mumbled under my breath, “Why can’t the whole world just use the same systems! After all, it’s just different ways of labeling the same stuff!”

  Apparently, I said it louder than I had intended because several kids stared in my direction. Mr. Ohm looked at me and nodded. "Good point, Lia. Maybe when you're older, you can work on uniting the world.”

  I heard somebody laugh. I knew it was Wendi.

  “Maybe I will,” I said. “Maybe I will!”

  My final morning class was English with Ms. Bliss. The name really doesn't describe her well at all. Ms. Bliss is OLD. I mean she taught my mom English. She always wears her glowing hair up in a bun. I also believe she thinks of her English class as the most important class in the school, if not the country, if not the world, if not the Universe. She gives so much homework that it’s unbelievable. She likes to say, “Kids today have it too easy. It’s my job to toughen them up for the real world….”

  For homework yesterday, she told us to read the first three chapters of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Fair enough. I guess she is the teacher. But she gave us a pop quiz on it this morning. The quiz covered the first four chapters, and it was going to be added to our final grade!! Ms. Bliss said she did it because a good student will do more than what they are told!

  I didn’t know how I went. I just knew that I only read the first three chapters. And of course, it was an essay test. I couldn’t have been happier when the bell rang for lunch so I could get out of there.

  Lunch Break…

  Lunchtime was my favorite part of the day, the part where I could hang out with my friends. Plus, while the cafeteria was painted the most disgusting shade of green, the food was surprisingly tasty. Jason, Tim, Krista and I were sitting at a table together, talking about nothing and everything all at once.

  “Emily looks so pretty with her hair like that,” Krista commented.

  I chewed on my mouthful of pasta. It wasn’t quite as good as my mom's, but it came close. I nodded to Krista. “Yeah, I love it short on her as well. It suits her so much!”

  Jason and Tim talked about action movies. Funny to see Jason get so excited by disagreeing about the most excellent movie ever.

  “Diehard, man,” Tim said.

  “Nope, Princess Bride!” Jason insisted.

  Lunch wouldn’t be complete without Wendi strolling by our table; Brandon on one side and her best friend, Lori, on the other. Lori plays defense on our team, and she may be the toughest girl in the world.

  Wendi looked down at my plate. “Good to see you chose the veggie salad with your pasta. You’ll need the energy for our game this afternoon.”

  “Right!” Lori grunted.

  “Nice to see you guys again,” Brandon said with his usual perfect smile before Wendi pulled him along to their cool kids’ table.

  I then noticed Tony was challenging kids to arm wrestling for a dollar. After dominating one table, he set his sights on us. “Hey, either of you loser dudes feeling strong and lucky today?”

  Tim took a deep breath. I knew he was getting ready to stand, but I spoke up, “Tony, Jason will take you on.”
<
br />   “He will?”

  “I will?” Jason replied.

  I nodded to Jason. “You can do this; you’ve been studying judo under Sensei Joe.”

  “Yes, but Judo isn’t arm wrestling,” Jason argued.

  “Plus, you play lacrosse every day!” I insisted.

  “Yeah, but it’s not arm wrestling!”

  I shrugged. “It’s all about leverage.”

  I stood up and gave Tony my seat across from Jason. Tony plopped into my chair, put down his elbow and opened up a meaty hand.

  Jason shot me a look that said, are you crazy?

  I gave him my look that said, you can do this!

  He reluctantly put his elbow on the table and locked hands with Tony. Tony’s hand engulfed Jason’s.

  I bent over. “I’ll start you guys on three…. One, Two…” I reached down and gently pushed on Tony’s arm right behind his bicep, between the elbow and shoulder. I'd taken enough martial arts in my day to know there was a pressure point there. If I gave that spot the right amount of super pressure, it should totally weaken Tony's arm. "Three!" I said quickly.

  Tony gritted his teeth and tried pushing Jason’s arm down. To pretty much everybody’s surprise (most of all Jason’s), Jason’s arm didn’t move back at all. Instead, his arm pushed forward, driving the arm of a very shocked Tony to the table.

  “I win!” Jason shouted, tossing his arms up in the air.

  Tony sat there, his mouth wide open.

  “Careful Tony, you don’t want to swallow a fly,” Tim joked.

  We'd caught the attention of almost the entire café, and just about everyone laughed.

  Tony got up, an irritated smirk on his face. “Oh, whatever!” He ducked his head and hurriedly scurried away.

  I almost felt sorry for Tony. Almost. But I felt so good about myself that I chomped hungrily on my veggie salad. “Man this salad is great!” I beamed.

  “Yeah, it really is good,” Krista said. “Only I have to avoid it because the raw cabbage and broccoli can give me gas,” she whispered in my ear.

  Oh, I had forgotten about that. Still, maybe raw cabbage and broccoli wouldn’t affect me. We talked for a few more minutes. And then suddenly I felt an all too familiar urge in my stomach. Uh oh, I knew I needed to get out of that room, and outside. Fast.

  The Fart…

  I rushed up to the supervising teacher, Mr. Khrone, who sat at a table next to the double doors leading in and out of the cafeteria. Mr. K was a big bald man with a softly spoken voice.

  “Mr. K, I have to get to the bathroom fast!” I said in a rush. “Personal lady problems,” I added blushing.

  Mr. K turned redder than my face felt. He handed me the hall slip. “That’s okay, take your time,” he replied.

  I knew if I went directly outside that would cause suspicion. I took the slip and headed toward the girls’ bathroom. There were two things that I’d always noticed when I went to that bathroom. It was painted a pretty shade of light blue, which was so much better than the ugly green that the rest of the school was coated with. Also, and more importantly, each of the stalls had a little window cut into the wall. I assume it was for ventilation, but today, those windows would most likely save the school.

  I raced inside, my heart pumping furiously in my chest. Breathing a quick sigh of relief, I realized I was lucky (for once) as the place was empty. I decided on the middle stall and locked the door behind me. Turning towards the wall, I looked at the window just above the toilet. It wasn’t a big window, but it would work. I leaped up onto the toilet and reached for the handle. It happened to be one of those windows that pull open just to let some air in or out. I pulled the window, and it dropped open about a quarter of the way. But I was definitely not going to fit through that space. The window may have been built to only open part way, but it wasn't made to stand up to super strength. I grabbed the handle and yanked down. The window's metal framework fought me for a second and then gave in. I pulled the window completely out of the frame and fell to the floor with the window in my hand. It could have been worse; I could have fallen into the toilet. Or I could have let my gas out right then and there, and somehow, I didn't think that would be a good idea at all. It was just lucky that so far I'd managed to hold it in.

  I jumped back up on the toilet, held my breath, and my stomach, and slid out the window; once again being careful to hold back my gas. Being outside was good, but I knew I needed to get as far away from the school as possible. Glancing urgently around the school’s backyard, I noticed the lacrosse practice field was empty. That would have to do. I jumped up in the air and leaped a good hundred feet with that jump.

  “Wow!” I exclaimed loudly to myself. “That was pretty cool!”

  A couple more super jumps and I found myself in the middle of the empty field. Time for my release. I turned away from the school just to be safe. That was when I noticed a herd of cows maybe 100 yards away. They looked at me and began to moo. “Sorry cows!” I said. “I have no choice.”

  Then I let out my fart. It felt good. The fart made just a little pfft sound. If I’d stayed in the cafeteria, most people probably wouldn’t have even noticed. Sniffing the air, I noticed it didn’t seem that bad at all. Maybe Mom was exaggerating. Then I realized I could no longer hear the cows behind me. When I turned around, I saw the entire herd laying on the ground, legs up in the air. Using my supervision (which I just found out I had), I saw they were still breathing. But man, I had clobbered them. “Oops!” I said. “Yeah, people would definitely have noticed that!”

  I leaped back to the school and climbed through the space where the bathroom window had been. I returned the window back into the frame. Next would come the hard part, going back out and interacting with my classmates knowing one fart and I could drop them all. It was a weird feeling of power tinged with total embarrassment.

  Just as I left the bathroom, I ran into Krista.

  “Phew, you’re okay!” Krista said. “We were starting to worry. Usually, you don’t take that long!”

  “Oh, I’m fine!” I assured her. “That broccoli and cabbage just got to me…”

  She put her arm around me, and we headed back to the cafeteria. “See, Lia, I told you that’s a dangerous combination!”

  “You have no idea!” I replied.

  The second half of the school day...

  After the craziest lunch period in the history of lunch periods, I had a history class with Mr. Paradise. Mr. Paradise was one of those teachers who loved to talk and talk and talk. He would practically glow when lecturing about history, always telling us, "You need to know history, so history doesn't repeat itself."

  He went on and on about the people in history who abuse power. He told us how “power could corrupt….” It was the kind of talk that hit home, especially now that I knew I could fart and be the only one left standing in the classroom. Mr. Paradise must have seen me staring off into space, thinking about how I can’t let this power get to me.

  “Lia, you look like you’re giving this a lot of thought,” Mr. Paradise commented.

  I snapped back to the moment. “Ah, yes, actually I am.”

  Mr. Paradise smiled. “Good, you should. You all should. You all have your own power and skills. At this age, you are just coming to learn what your powers and gifts are. After all, you need to understand your own unique powers before you can use them wisely in the world!” Mr. Paradise tended to get a bit poetic. A lot of kids thought it was weird to talk that way. Usually, I did too, but today his words really made sense.

  Art with Mrs. Brown went smoothly. It was a day for oil paintings on canvas. Mrs. Brown put an apple and an orange on a table in front of the class.

  Our assignment was…paint the fruit and have fun. My artwork looked like a red blob alongside an orange blob. The two kind of smudged together and created a reddish orange blob. There are some things that superpowers just don’t help with. When I looked over at Jason’s work, I saw that his painting looked like a real-life ap
ple and a real-life orange.

  “You have incredible talent,” I told him.

  He smiled. “Thanks.”

  Mrs. Brown appeared and looked over our shoulders. She took in Jason’s near masterpiece and said, “Miss Strong is correct, you do have talent!”

  Jason beamed.

  Mrs. Brown turned her attention to my painting. “Art is about enjoyment,” she said. “Did you enjoy this?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I kind of did.”

  Mrs. Brown grinned. “Then good job.”

  Computer class with Mr. Swimmer happened to be another class that Jason really stood out in. I swear he could make a computer sing – literally! He wrote a program where you could type in a phrase, and the computer would sing it. Mr. Swimmer was amazed. In fact, even Tony Wall walked over, put his hand on Jason’s shoulder and said, “Good job, dude!” I smiled at that.

  Apparently, Tony, like most bullies, respected strength. I felt a little better about using Jason to humiliate him during lunch. As Mr. Paradise would say in history, “Throughout history people have believed the end justifies the means.” In this case, it just might have.

  My school day ended with yet another humbling experience, French class with Madame Broch. I have no idea why, but whenever I attempt to speak French, my tongue seems to get tied up in knots. I thought maybe having a super tongue, and super coordination would help. But no such luck!

  “Bonjour, comment allez-vous?” Madame Broch asked me as I entered the room.

  “Be end Mercy,” I answered, my tongue twisting over the easiest words.

  Madame Broch rolled her eyes just a bit. “Nice try, dear,” she replied in English and sighed.