The New Normal

by Katrina Kahler

  Krista nodded. “Yes, my girl, Lia has been extra hot.”

  Jason just smiled at me.

  Speaking of lacrosse, it seemed to be progressing well for my new normal. Sure, Wendi gave me hard times about it and said that I needed to lose a pound or two. She also said my wrist shot needed work. But even so, it was nothing I couldn’t handle. Every once in a while Lori would put her stick in my face to try to get into my head. I was half tempted to run by her and drop her with a silent fart. But that wouldn’t be right. Plus, I didn’t have too much control of that particular power. I’d probably drop the whole team. So I decided that would not be cool. Instead, I dealt with it like any normal girl. I pretty much ignored it.

  After each practice, Coach Blue would come over to me and let me know I was playing very well. She wanted to put me on the first line with Wendi. I could feel Wendi’s eyes on mine whenever the coach talked to me. I let the coach know that for now, I’d be more comfortable staying on the second line. I told her my knee was sore and thought extra playing time would make it worse.

  Truthfully, not only did I not want to play on Wendi’s line, I wasn’t sure if using my powers was cheating. Technically I guess it wasn’t, it was just me being me. I also worked really hard not to use my powers during practice or games. The problem was, it was an unfair advantage over the others and I still didn’t know how to deal with that. But I figured I’d figure it out.

  I walked home with Jason after practice, and we chatted the way we usually do. The talk started off all normal. Like how Jason didn’t love lacrosse but he enjoyed the running and the friendships he’d made on the team. Plus, with him playing on the team, it allowed us to continue the tradition we’d had since grade school of walking home together. I talked about how I still needed to find a way to balance my powers with my playing. While I had to admit I loved showing up Wendi and rushing through Lori, I didn’t want to win games that way. I just didn’t know how to go about it all. Jason said he had faith in me. He knew I’d figure out the proper course of action. Yes, those were the exact words he used. He could be such a geek sometimes.

  Which brought us to this weird conversation we had.

  “So, I’ve been thinking about ways for you to maximize the use of your powers!” Jason told me.

  “Okay, I’m always open to ideas.”

  He hesitated, walking slower. “I thought you could use another long distance weapon. Something more controllable and less devastating than your farts or foot sweat.”

  “I’m a lady,” I said pretending to act all dignified. “I don’t fart, I have wind. I don’t sweat, I glow.”

  “Yeah, well, your wind and glow can drop an army,” Jason said.

  “Sadly, that’s true,” I laughed.

  “You told me that when your dad made a drone attack you, you destroyed it with a fa- I mean wind…”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “But your wind also clobbered your dad and killed all the plants?”

  “What are you getting at, Jason?”

  He stopped walking, his eyes open wide. “What if instead of farting, you pulled a booger from your nose and flicked it at the drone?”

  “Oh gross!” I said sticking my tongue out. “Girls don’t have boogers!”

  “I think it would work and be way less lethal,” Jason insisted.

  I stopped walking. All of a sudden, I understood exactly what he was attempting to do. It made perfect sense in a really gross way. But I was still unsure because it was so disgusting.

  “I’m not sure I like the image of me picking my nose and firing what I find at a target,” I told him. “Not ladylike at all. Plus, if you really must know, I don’t have any boogers!” I insisted.

  Jason rubbed his chin. “Hmm, that could be true. You might process air and dust differently to regular people.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” I said.

  “Toe jam?” Jason asked.

  I stuck my tongue out. “If I did have toe jam I’d have to take my shoes off to collect it, which would defeat the entire purpose of finding a long-range weapon for me that wouldn’t clobber everything around me. Plus my toe jam might end up being a weapon of mass destruction!”

  Jason nodded. “Very good point.” He rubbed his head. His eyes flashed wide open. “Your spit!”

  “Excuse me!”

  Jason rubbed his hands together. “Your spit. You could use that as a controlled weapon.”

  I shook my head. “Girls don’t spit!”

  He held up a finger. “But they could, they just don’t. And I bet your spit could take down a fighter jet. If you needed it to.”

  I considered what Jason had said. It made sense in a weird sort of gross way. It would be handy to have some sort of long-range stealth attack that I could control. One that wasn’t potentially lethal to everybody around me.

  “Okay, say I wanted to test this super spit out. How could I do it without hurting anybody or destroying anything useful?” I asked.

  Jason smirked. I could tell he’d been thinking about this. “The old abandoned quarry. Lots of rocks you could blow up with nobody around. We could go home, get our bikes and ride there in like 10 minutes.” He was shaking with excitement.

  For a brief moment, I considered jumping us there. But then I figured that might be noticed by some people. Plus I had never jumped while holding another person. That might really hurt Jason. Instead, I nodded in agreement and we raced home to get our bikes.

  When we reached the quarry, we found that a large metal fence with sharp edges on the top surrounded it.

  Jason looked at the fence and commented, “It’s obvious they don’t want anybody in there. But you could jump over that fence easily. I won’t be able to get over it though.” His eyes popped open again. “Unless you carried me over it?”

  “It might not be safe,” I warned.

  He waved a hand at me. “I trust you.”

  Okay, this would take a little planning on the best way to jump a metal fence while carrying another person. Apparently, though, Jason had been thinking about this since learning about my powers.

  “You can just give me a piggyback jump!” he told me.

  I turned and let him grab onto my back. He lifted his legs up and I grabbed hold of them, then gave him a piggyback ride to the fence. Once there, I bent down. “Are you sure about this?” I asked over my shoulder.

  “Yeppers!” he said.

  I leaped upwards and forward. We easily cleared the fence. I landed face first in the dirt. Jason bounced off me the second my face made contact with the ground. He went rolling forward maybe ten feet, maybe more. I pushed myself up, spat dirt out of my mouth and rushed over to him. He was on the ground face first. He got to his feet, laughing. Breathing a sigh of relief, I watched as my sigh knocked him back down.

  “Sorry,” I grinned, extending him my hand.

  He took it, and I pulled him to a standing position. After dusting himself off, he grinned back. “That’s the price I have to pay for having a super best friend!”

  We headed over to the quarry, a big massive hole of hard rock. Standing on the edge and looking down, all we could see was brown rock. Across the pit were a few big boulders lining the edge of the crater.

  Jason pointed at one of them. “Okay, that’s your target!”

  I had to admit, collecting a bunch of spit in my mouth felt weird. I rolled my tongue around my cheek until I thought I had a decent amount of spit collected. I puffed my lips and blew the spit out. It went flying across the quarry but didn’t come close to where I had aimed. Instead, it hit a spot much lower on the opposite side. But the force left a large hole in the wall. Debris from that hole crumbled down deeper into the quarry.

  “Wow!” Jason said leaping up and down. “That’s got more firepower than a cannon!”

  “Yeah, but my aim is terrible,” I complained.

  He patted me on the shoulder. “We’ll work on that!”

  I spent the next thirty minutes or so practicing aiming
my spit. Now, that’s something I never thought I’d say. Jason worked with me to get my super eyesight to lock on the target. Finally, after I don’t know how many shots and even more destruction, I hit the boulder I had aimed at. My spit shattered the boulder into dust.

  Jason patted me on the back. “I knew you could do it!”

  “Glad one of us did,” I laughed.

  Jason and I stayed at the quarry practicing until we both got hungry. When my rumbling stomach began to shake the walls of the quarry, we headed back home. But instead of leaping the fence this time, I used my hands to break it apart. Once Jason had walked through, I tied it back together.

  When I finally arrived home, Mom asked me where I’d been.

  “Destroying rocks with my spit,” I explained.

  She laughed.

  Yeah, my new normal was certainly not all that normal.

  Dear Diary: I’m not sure what to make of this Jessie girl. She’s so perfect looking, yet strange acting. Yeah, she might just be shy but a strange feeling in my gut tells me there’s something else going on with her. The way Jason and Tim (and the other boys and some of the girls) look at her doesn’t seem natural. Maybe I’m being silly, but just because I’m super, doesn’t mean I can’t be jealous.

  When I checked out what was being posted on my social media pages, I saw that everybody in the school was talking about Jessie. The amazing thing seemed to be that she didn’t seem to have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat. Well, there were no accounts that anyone could find. Wendi thought that was weird. Wendi also couldn’t believe that Jessie would choose not to sit at her table.

  In the end, Wendi decided that Jessie had to be a freak, a sort of pretty freak. For once I kind of agreed with Wendi (though not publicly….) Jessie was different. But that’s really something coming from ME. The girl whose spit can knock holes in the sides of mountains. Surely, there could be no one as different as that!

  Elephant on the run….

  Ah, how l love my Saturday mornings. I just get to lay in bed and sleep and take it easy. It so good to relax after a long school week. This week had not only seemed extra-long but it was mega crazy. Laying in bed gave me a chance to recharge.

  My phone started vibrating and beeping from the nightstand next to my bed.

  I knew that beep to mean an incoming social media post. Then I got another and another and another. Yeah, that was way too much action for so early on a Saturday morning. Most of my friends should still be sleeping right then. Even Jason liked to sleep until at least 9 on Saturdays.

  Another beep. This was a different sound and I knew it meant a text from Jason. I picked up my phone. It was 9:15.

  JASON> Turn on TV – Channel 13…Zoo again!

  I grabbed the remote, which I also kept on my nightstand. Clicking the TV, I scrolled impatiently through the channels to number 13, looking for the local news segment. When I finally found it, I saw a man in a suit reporting into the camera, “This is Oscar Oranga for Channel 13, Live Witness News. We bring you the news faster and better than the others! We are reporting from the zoo for the second time in a week! This time one of the elephants, a 10-year-old male named Bumbo, has broken free of its home. Bumbo is now running amok in the zoo! We can only hope Super Teen is awake and watching!”

  Well, Super Teen wasn’t quite awake but she was certainly watching. Surely the zoo staff could handle this? Another text popped onto my phone.

  JASON>You’re going to help, right?

  LIA>OMW

  I hopped out of bed, picking up a shirt laying on the floor beside my laundry basket. It was one I’d worn recently at the gym so I sniffed the underarm area just to be sure. OMG! That had some kick to it. I needed a different outfit with more style and less odor. I pulled out a cute pink top with long sleeves and the face of a teddy bear stitched onto the front. It was one I’d never worn but thought it would be a great disguise. At least it was something that no one had ever seen me wear before. Then I grabbed a pair of green skinny jeans covered in a cool star pattern. They were new ones that Mom had recently bought for me. I pulled the tags off and threaded a pink studded belt through the loops to complete the outfit. Taking a quick check in the mirror, I grinned, pleased with the result. It actually looked quite good. If I was going to be in the media, at least I could look reasonably decent. Grabbing my mask, I pushed it firmly onto my head and pulled up the window. Within seconds, I was roof-hopping to the zoo.

  Having done this before, helped to make my journey to the zoo grounds fairly quick. I was kind of proud of how smoothly it all went. As I headed in the direction that people were fleeing from, I saw that the elephant had left a long trail of destruction.

  I didn’t need my super-vision to spot the large animal running down the zoo concourse. The poor thing seemed scared. I knew it didn’t want to hurt anybody and I certainly didn’t want to hurt it. I ran towards it, not quite sure how I would handle the issue, but figured I’d work it out when I got there.

  However, standing right in front of the charging elephant, I spotted a very familiar little blond boy, my neighbor, Felipe.

  “Calm down, Bumbo, calm down!” Felipe coaxed, trying to stay calm himself.

  Of course, the Channel 13 film crew stood there filming and not doing much else.

  I leaped between Felipe and Bumbo.

  Facing Felipe, I told him, “Don’t worry, everything is going to be okay!”

  Not even a second later, I was run over by the elephant. He must have hit me with his head and then trampled over me with his legs. The only thing it hurt though, was my ego. Yeah, not a bright move turning my back on a charging elephant.

  Pushing up off the ground, I leaped onto Bumbo’s back. I knew that trying to reason with a frightened charging elephant wouldn’t work. No use even trying. Instead, I tightened my legs around Bumbo’s back and squeezed. I certainly didn’t want to hurt the big guy but I really had to put him down before he ran over Felipe.

  The elephant staggered forward a few more steps. By his hesitant movements, I could tell that he felt some pain. I squeezed my legs a little harder. I didn’t want to kill him, but I knew he must be stopped. Weird, how I had to worry about being so strong I could accidentally squish an elephant.

  The second squeeze worked. Bumbo crumbled to the ground. Listening with super hearing, I picked up the sound of his heart still beating. Breathing a sigh of relief, I realized I’d just squeezed the wind out of him. Pulling my leg out from underneath, I stood up, my clothes covered with dirt. I could only guess that my hair looked a mess as well. So, of course, that was when Oscar Oranga stuck a microphone in my face.

  “Super Teen! Do you have anything to say about saving the day?” he asked with far more excitement in his voice than was normal.

  “Just helping,” I said, trying to sound as grown up and adult-like as possible.

  Felipe ran over and hugged me.

  “Wow, this is golden for the camera!” Oscar said, almost giddy with delight.

  “Thanks for saving me again!” Felipe said.

  “You certainly spend a lot of time at the zoo!” I told him.

  “My dad is a veterinarian here!” Felipe announced proudly. “He works with the big cats.” Taking a step back from me, he smiled, his eyes alight with excitement.

  Felipe’s dad ran up to him and hugged him. “Son, that was brave of you to try to calm Bumbo, but you could have been badly hurt!”

  “Don’t worry, Dad. I knew Super Teen would come and save us both!” Felipe replied with a grin.

  Another zoo doctor appeared and placed a stethoscope on Bumbo to check him out.

  “Thank you,” Felipe’s dad turned to me, gratefully. “I’m so glad you arrived in time!”

  The other vet looked up, smiled and gave us a thumb up. “Bumbo is fine. Strangely enough, he seems to be sleeping.”

  The huge crowd of onlookers began to clap.

  “Do you want me to put him back where he belongs?” I asked.

  “
If you could manage it that would be great!” Felipe’s dad replied.

  I gently picked Bumbo up and hoisted him over my shoulder. Then I walked him back to the elephant area like a regular person would carry a loaf of bread. As I walked, the doctors and the camera crew followed my every step. I felt good and weird at the same time. Reaching the elephant area, I laid Bumbo down gently on a grassy spot near the water and patted him. When I felt assured he was okay, I leaped up into the air and bounded away!

  Dear Diary: OMG! That was soo fun!! I love using my strength to help people like that. It’s such a good feeling! Plus it’s so great to know I can knock out an elephant by just loosely tightening my legs around its belly. I mean it was crazy. I actually had to concentrate and be careful when dealing with a fully-grown massive elephant so I wouldn’t cause any serious injuries. I also have to admit it was pretty cool to be able to carry an elephant on my shoulder like a peanut. All the while, the TV cameras filmed it for the world and my friends to see. That sure felt good getting some nice positive press. Woot!

  When I checked my social media pages, I found they were blowing up with people saying how amazing Super Teen was. A few, actually more than a few, commented on how much they liked my outfit. I think that felt as good as being known for carrying around an elephant. Of course, Wendi insisted that Super Teen had to be some sort of trick or publicity stunt for a TV show or something. No matter what, Wendi said she knew for a fact, Super Teen wasn’t that super. One thing that was always consistent in my life was Wendi being Wendi.

  Oh, side note, the way Felipe looked at me after I saved him…I got the feeling that he knew who I was. But nah, no way a seven-year-old boy could figure that out. None of the media or my classmates had come close. Even Krista and Tim were wondering yesterday who the heck this mystery girl was. Could she go to our school? Was she homeschooled? Haha! I guess Felipe just looked at everybody like he knew them. He was just a friendly outspoken little kid. Nothing wrong with that.