Journey to Superhero School

by Gracie Dix

  Jessica was shocked by his aggression. “Dad's just trying to protect us. There still might be hope, Ollie . . . ”

  “Just shut up!” he whispered harshly. Oliver took out his iPad and turned it to the news.

  “There are still some employees up on the fifth floor of Blossom Inc. and there seems to be little hope of getting them out safely!” the news anchor announced.

  “Way to jinx it, Jessica!” Oliver shouted. Oliver punched the wall once more. “Years of feeling trapped in this stupid role—being Super-Powered freaks! I mean think about it, Jess! We’ve never done anything with these stupid Powers! The only thing they’ve done is make us different than everyone else.”

  “I think you’re being a little dramatic, Oliver,” Jessica said sternly. “Besides, we don’t need to be like everyone else to make a difference.”

  Oliver shouted and kicked the wall. “That doesn’t matter! We don’t have any friends, Jess!” He sat on the bottom bunk and put his head in hands. “We need to do something!”

  “Oliver! I’ve never seen you act like this before! Please stop!” Jessica exclaimed, tears now dripping from her eyes.

  “SHUT UP, JESS!” he shouted, his voice filled with a different mix of emotions. Jessica shrieked and backed up. Oliver, in a haze of anger, picked up his alarm clock and threw it toward Jessica as hard as he could.

  “Oliver!” she screamed. In a panic, she closed her eyes, threw her arms out in front of her, and braced for the alarm clock to hit her, but it didn’t. “What?” She opened her eyes and saw a bright blue Force Field blocking her from harm. She could feel her Power flowing through her. “I did that! That’s my Force Field!” she yelled happily, completely forgetting about Oliver’s anger.

  “Then let’s go and do something with it,” Oliver mumbled, his anger depleting.

  “You know what? You’re right! Let’s go!” she exclaimed, suddenly determined to save her mother.

  “Yeah! There’s my sister!” Oliver cheered excitedly. “Sorry about the clock, by the way. I don't know what came over me.” With that, he opened the window and turned to face Jessica. “Jump,” he stated, pointing to the window.

  Jessica had spent years trusting her brother with even the most important of things. Even though he had just thrown an alarm clock toward her, she trusted him with her life. “Whatever you say . . . ” she mumbled. Jessica walked to the window and jumped out. For a split second, she free-fell until Oliver flew out the window and caught her. She and Oliver flew toward their mother’s work building.

  Oliver and Jessica landed on the top of the building next to Blossom Inc. and he began to formulate a plan. “Jess, I’m going to Fly you to a fifth-floor window. You’ll be holding onto my hands like you used to do on the monkey bars. When I get in front of the window, you’re going to kick it as hard as you can and then swing inside.”

  “Right, swing inside the BURNING building,” Jessica muttered sarcastically.

  “You’re going to use your new Force Field Power to shield yourself from the flame and smoke,” he continued as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “If you need to, then block your nose with your shirt. Look for any survivors and bring them toward the window you originally came in from.”

  “What about concealing our Powers?” Jessica asked, biting her nail nervously.

  “Did Superman ever conceal his Powers?” Oliver said, already knowing the answer.

  Jessica began to think then said, “Well . . . at a time . . . ”

  “Yes! At a time! WE are Superman now, Jess!” Oliver stated firmly with a smile. “Now, as I was saying, you bring the trapped employees to the window and wait. I kind of agree with what you were saying to a certain extent. We don’t want EVERYONE to know about our Powers so . . .” Oliver thought. "We will just make sure the rescued employees become sworn to secrecy. Now, I'll will be at the window. Once you bring everyone over, I’ll Fly you down. Then you’ll run through the crowd and cause some HUGE distraction facing away from the building so that I can quickly Fly the rescued employees to the front, and no one will see what happened. Hopefully, Mom will be one of those rescued employees. You need to keep distracting the crowd for AS LONG AS POSSIBLE! Because then I'm going to try to Fly around the building as fast as I can to create a wind funnel to put the fire out. Granted, someone might see me, but no one would believe that all that wind was created by a person anyway, so it’s fine.”

  “Okay . . . okay,” Jessica mumbled as she was still processing the plan. “What do we do after everything happens?”

  “We . . . we just . . . get out of there I guess,” Oliver finished. “If Mom isn’t hurt, then we’ll take her home with us.”

  “There are many factors to this, Oliver. What if you can’t carry all the trapped people out in time? What if you drop someone? The big question is: What if my distraction doesn’t work?” Jessica wondered, pacing the rooftop.

  “Just trust me, Jess. I trust you. You’ll think of one grand distraction! I know it.” Oliver exclaimed. “I love you, sis. It’s time we get this plan moving, don’t you think?”

  “Definitely!” She agreed, smiling wide. “Let’s do it!” Jessica ran and jumped off the side of the 100-story building.

  Oliver gasped and then smiled to himself. As he Flew off the building to pick up Jessica, he rolled his eyes. When he could hear Jessica laughing, he knew this is what freedom felt like. He let her enjoy free-falling for a second more and then picked her up before she got too close to the ground.

  “Let’s do this,” he whispered into the wind. Oliver brought his sister to one of the fifth-story windows, and she kicked it so hard, you’d think she was kicking the fire itself. As oxygen from the now-broken window poured inside, the flames suddenly jumped, singeing their hair.

  “Yikes!” she yelled as the heat rushed forward.

  “Time to go in there, Jess. Please be careful,” Oliver said as she swung inside.

  “You bet!” she replied quickly.

  At first, the Force Field wouldn't work. Oh, no! She was overwhelmed by heat. She had to think of Oliver throwing the clock to get her Force Field to come up. She realized that this particular Power was fueled by fear and an instinct for self-protection, and she had plenty of both at this particular moment. Jessica thought about sprinting into the fire and shivered despite the intense heat. She looked at the shimmering blue Force Field and found that it now engulfed her entire body. She couldn’t feel the heat anymore. It was as if everything were normal.

  “Hello!” she called loudly. “Anyone there?”

  “Help!” a woman screamed. “Please, someone help me!”

  Jessica could hear people coughing violently further away and she followed that sound. As she went along, the fire cleared a bit, but the smoke still filled the room, limiting visibility.

  The first woman she saw was Mrs. Fletcher. “Mom!” she gasped.

  “My sweet Jessi! What are you doing here?” she yelled in a hoarse tone. Mrs. Fletcher nearly collapsed as she experienced a horrible coughing fit.

  “We’re saving you!” Jessica answered, letting her Force Field die for a second. The rush of heat almost knocked Jessica over, but she held strong as she helped her mother stand. “Stay as close to me as you can, Mom! Where are the others?”

  “The others are contemplating different ways of escaping just in case no one comes to help. I'm afraid they're going to try and jump out the window. They are at the north end of this floor,” Mrs. Fletcher said grimly.

  “Oh, no! That’s horrible! Do you know exactly where they are?” Jessica questioned, horrified.

  “Follow me!” Mrs. Fletcher commanded.

  3.3

  Oliver Flew around the outside of the building attempting to “Fly off” his anxiety. He was so worried about his sister.

  “Maybe this was a mistake,” he said to himself. “But . . . mom and the others.”

  He began to Fly faster until he realized he was going too fast and needed to conserve energy. He stopped
and waited on the roof of a neighboring building. He got bored and decided to Fly around the building one more time. When he got to the other side of the building, he saw a window shatter.

  “Jess!” he thought. But, no. It was multiple employees standing and peering at the ground through the broken window. Oliver was still quite a distance away from these employees, but he could recognize Debbie, his mom’s friend, pushing her way to the front of the them. She gave a mighty shout and then jumped.

  “What the . . . !” Oliver yelled. He dove toward Debbie, silently thankful that that she decided to do this at the back of the building where he had been Flying and not the front. He swooped down and caught a very distraught Debbie under her arms. She was so heavy, both Oliver and Debbie free-fell for a second before he was able to control himself again. He Flew her down to the ground and went back to get the other employees. One by one, he transported everyone at the window. When everyone was safely on the ground, he Flew back down to see if they were all alright.

  “Thank you so much, young man!” one woman exclaimed when he landed.

  “Yes, thank you, boy,” an old man with tears in his eyes said, giving Oliver an unexpected hug.

  “Uh, yeah. No problem,” Oliver responded awkwardly. “I know this is a lot to ask, but if you have any respect for me and what I just did, do you think you could keep my secret between us and just say that you already had gotten out?”

  “Of course, dear,” a middle-aged woman assured him. The group of employees began to agree all at once. Oliver couldn’t understand what everyone was saying, but he knew they’d keep his secret.

  “Thank you so much, guys. I've got to go back and make sure no one else is in danger,” Oliver stated as he began to Fly toward the window where he needed to pick up Jessica. She wasn’t there. “Oh gosh. She should be here by now . . . with Mom. I’m surprised the building hasn’t begun to collapse by now.”

  He Flew up to the broken window and landed, surprised and relieved to see his mother. But where was Jessica?

  “Jessica is still in there!” his mother screamed. He figured that with her new Force Field, Jessica could take care of herself, so he grabbed Mrs. Fletcher and Flew her down. As soon as her feet touched the safety of the ground, they felt the heat intensify. A split second later, there was an explosion on the fifth floor.

  3.4

  Jessica and Mrs. Fletcher had arrived at the other smashed window but didn’t see any fellow employees. “Ollie must have saved them!” Jessica exclaimed happily.

  “I can’t believe you kids would do something like this!” Mrs. Fletcher scolded, still not accepting her children would be so “irrational.” She was so proud of them for using their Powers to help, but also terrified that they would put themselves in harm's way.

  “Your co-workers would be dead without Ollie, and you would be dead without me, and you are not helping right now, Mom,” Jessica said. Mrs. Fletcher stayed quiet. “We need to go back to where Oliver dropped me off. That’s where he’ll be.”

  “Okay,” Mrs. Fletcher stated quietly.

  “I’m sorry if I was harsh, Mom. It’s just . . . we finally wanted to do something with the Powers we have instead of sitting around and barely living. Plus, we were really worried about you. We thought, ‘Hey, we have Powers,” so we decided to come help. Even though this is the worst situation we could be in right now, I’ve never felt so free to be me,” Jessica explained. “It would be really helpful if we had your support, Mom.”

  “You’re right. I’m just worried about you kids,” Mrs. Fletcher said. “I don’t want you two to get hurt. You have such a long and beautiful life ahead of you!”

  “Well . . . thanks mom, but we will always be here for you just as much as you’ll be here for us. We’ll be okay. Hey, Mom, I have a Force Field to help me out. The window is just straight ahead of you. Go on. I’m growing weak from my Force Field, so I’m slowing you down,” Jessica said.

  “No! I’m not leaving my daughter!” Mrs. Fletcher yelled, wishing she could help Jessica.

  “Mom! Go, now!” Jessica commanded. Her Force Field blinked out for a split second, then reappeared.

  “Okay, sweetie. I do trust you. Be safe. I'll wait for Oliver and let him know where you are,” she called, worriedly rushing forward.

  Jessica kept on moving forward, now at a snail’s pace as she realized how exhausted she was. “Oh, no,” she muttered. Suddenly, there was an explosion and her Force Field sputtered out. She stood up and took a breath. She ended up inhaling smoke and started coughing. Jessica looked up and heard a cracking sound. She screamed in terror. She felt ash fall on her head.

  “Oh, geez!” Jessica noticed the wooden beam above her head cracking . . . and then it fell toward her. “NO!” she screamed, too weak to raise her Force Field.

  3.5

  As soon as Oliver heard the explosion, he jumped in the air and soared into the building to the fifth-floor window. He coughed and sputtered as he inhaled smoke. He looked left and right for his sister and Sensed that she was in mortal danger. He heard her scream.

  “Oh, no,” he mumbled worriedly.

  Suddenly, he saw her figure through the smoke, but she didn’t see him. She screamed again as a wooden beam began to break from the ceiling. Oliver knew at that moment, he had to do something.

  “INCOMING!” he screamed. He leapt forward and Flew like a bullet train toward his sister. He grabbed her right before the beam would have crushed her. He had saved Jess! But now he found that he was going too fast to stop. Oliver could see a burning column of wood coming up too quickly directly in front of them and he quickly dropped Jessica.

  “Ollie!” she yelled, coughing and sputtering.

  Oliver had to drop his sister because he knew he was going too fast to stop. He crashed through the burning wood beam, and felt heat engulf him, but he wasn’t on fire. It turns out he had skid past the wooded beam once he crashed through it and was now on the floor. The world around him blurred. All he could feel was blazing heat. He was lying on the floor with his eyes closed. Oliver felt a hand on his shoulder and opened his eyes ever so slightly.

  “Jess,” he said, a small grin forming on his face.

  “Ollie, you’re covered in burns!” She cried, about to go into a full-blown panic.

  “Deep breaths, Jess, and lie on the floor. The smoke rises,” he whispered, coughing violently. The coughing fit caused him to flinch. He groaned in pain and hovered his hand over his ribcage.

  “Man,” he sighed sadly. "Let's rest here a minute and then we’ll try to use our Powers again. I'm out of energy."

  “Ollie . . .” Jessica gasped, breathing deeply. She heard voices coming from the stairwell leading to the fourth floor.

  “Fan the area!” one of them said in a loud and deep voice.

  “Ollie! We’re going to be okay!" Jessica croaked, her voice cracking.

  Jessica cleared her throat. "HELP!” she called desperately, as loud and clearly as she could. “PLEASE HELP! MY BROTHER IS HURT!”

  “We hear you and are on our way! Stay calm!” another deep voice exclaimed.

  Oliver attempted to sit up to see what was going on, but gasped as pain shot up his body, starting at his ribcage.

  “Ah!” he yelled. The pain, smoke, exhaustion and stress became too much. He coughed once more and then passed out.

  Chapter 4

  Two days later . . .

  Oliver woke up staring at a white ceiling with blinding yellow lights. He felt sore all over and yet, somewhat pain-free. His throat burned and his ribs hurt the most, but it wasn’t unbearable. He slowly twisted his head to look around. He saw now that he was in a hospital room that seemed to be in love with the color white. As he looked to his left, he saw three chairs. One of the chairs was empty. The other two contained his sister and his mother. Jessica had her headphones on and was reading a book while Mrs. Fletcher was asleep. He tried to talk, but his throat felt dry. The lights were starting to make his head hurt. Oliver wiggle
d his fingers under the white blanket, feeling returning to them and slowly, and pushed himself into a sitting-up position. Despite going slowly, he still yelped, but managed to sit up.

  A doctor rushed into the room and Jessica took her headphones off. “Oliver!” she whispered excitedly. She began to talk very quickly, “You’re finally awake. Good news! The surgery was successful and . . . ”

  “Jess, stop,” he rasped, blinking hard. The doctor stood at the end of his hospital bed while a nurse came in with a cup of water.

  “Thanks,” Oliver said. “What surgery? Last I remember, I was in a burning building. I remember . . . Jess . . .”

  “Your ribs were cracked and split down the center to put it in terms you would understand,” the doctor informed him sincerely.

  “I . . . I’m smarter than you think,” Oliver mentioned quietly.

  “I’m suuuure you are,” the doctor said, rolling her eyes.

  “Was the break oblique, transverse, segmental, or comminuted?” Oliver asked, raising his eyebrow.

  The doctor grumbled, but smiled and said in a sarcastic tone, “I guess you’re not hurt too badly since you think you’re such a smart . . . ”

  “Soooooooo, Ollie! How do you feel?” Jessica interrupted quickly.

  “I don’t really know. I’m sore all over and for some reason I smell like smoke. Oh, WAIT! I WAS IN A FIRE!” he growled, glaring at the doctor. “So, excuse me if I’m a little cranky!”

  “Oliver, calm down,” Mrs. Fletcher said sleepily. “Oliver . . . oh! Oliver, you’re awake! Oh, my sweet baby! How do you feel? How could you be so stupid! Why would you do that? Oh, my heavens, I love you, baby!” Mrs. Fletcher rambled, coming over and hugging her son.

  “Ow! Mom! The ribs!” Oliver yelled.

  “Oh, my! Sorry sweetheart!” she exclaimed, putting her hands over her mouth.

  “Mrs. Fletcher. I'm going to ask that you step away from the patient, please, so I can examine him now that he is awake,” the doctor said sternly. She gently pulled Mrs. Fletcher away from Oliver and sat her back in the chair. Mrs. Fletcher, not accepting “defeat,” stood up abruptly and began to rush to Oliver, but then stumbled and fell over.