Saving the World

by Katrina Kahler

  LIA>Got it.

  JASON>So ur cool with Tanya and Me?

  My first response was going to be, No, No, No times 1000. Of course, I am not cool. Sure, I should be, but I’m not. Just because bullets don’t hurt me doesn’t mean my feelings can’t be crushed. But that was selfish of me. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. It occurred to me that with Tanya’s time control powers she could have her cake and eat it too, over and over if she wanted. For some reason that made me smile.

  LIA>I’m cool

  JASON>Phew

  JASON>You’ll always be my BFF!

  LIA>Ditto 

  JASON>Need help with any homework?

  LIA>I’m good. C U in the morning

  JASON>Night BFF!

  LIA>Night BFF!!!

  Dear Diary: Short entry. Wow! So one of the biggest teen movie stars in the world, Kara Star is my super powered third cousin. That’s neat and freaky at the same time. I am also slowly coming to terms with the idea of Jason being with Tanya. I am!!

  More Surprises

  When I arrived at school, Wendi and Patti met me at the door.

  “So how bad did you fail with the school board?” Wendi mocked.

  Patti just giggled then added. “Yeah!”

  Wendi’s boyfriend, the super cute Brandon actually stuck up for me. “Come on Wendi, I’m sure Lia did her best. That school board is so old and set in their ways, I don’t think anybody can get them to change.”

  “Actually, Lia did,” Jason said proudly.

  “What?” Wendi and Patti gulped, mouths wide open. I kind of hoped a fly would fly in. No such luck though.

  “Lia got them to offer more green and healthy choices!” Jason said.

  Tanya, Marie, and Lori overheard our conversation and joined in. “Really?” Lori asked.

  I nodded. “Yes. I can be very persuasive at times!”

  Wendi put her hands on her hips and leaned into me. “I’ll believe it when I get proof.”

  On cue, VP Macadoo made an announcement to the school. “Great news, kids. Starting today, there will be new fresh, green and healthy choices available in the cafeteria. In other news, whoever ran their underwear up the flagpole, please take it down. It’s quite gross. Class starts in three minutes. Have a great day!”

  I smiled. It felt good to be me. I had done it. I had used my brain (and my powers) to get the board of education to make a change. A change that would help the entire school. My body tingled with a mix of pride and excitement. For once, I couldn’t wait for lunch.

  When lunch rolled around, I entered the cafeteria twitching with anticipation. Man, I had to give Tina More credit. She did move fast. The middle of the cafeteria was now dominated by a brand new shining salad bar. The salad bar featured three kinds of lettuce. As well, every color vegetable or fruit you could think of was there…tomatoes, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, blueberries, celery, four kinds of peppers, watermelon, and corn. Pretty much, if it was plant-based it was on this salad bar. There were over eight salad dressings available, one of them fat-free, another gluten-free. There were even some mixed salads prepared in bowls ready to be served.

  The end of the bar also had fresh bread and a variety of cheeses. Finally, there was a spot for fresh soup of the day.

  “This is so nice!” Krista said.

  “I might even eat more salads!” Tim offered.

  The fresh food didn’t stop with the salad bar. There were also more hot veggies available in the lunch line. Plus, there was a veggie option main course. Even the pizza now came with pepperoni and veggies.

  I watched Patti and Wendi and Brandon eying the salad bar. Wendi, Brandon, and Patti pranced up to me.

  Brandon gave me a high-five. “Wow, excellent job, Lia!”

  “I gotta admit this does look good,” Patti told me.

  “I think we could use a couple more veggie choices,” Wendi moaned.

  Brandon rolled his eyes. “Come on, Wendi, what more could you possibly want on this salad bar?” he asked.

  “Ah, kale,” she said defiantly.

  “You hate kale!” Patti and Brandon both said.

  “I know, but I still want to give other people choices,” Wendi said.

  Before I could counter Wendi’s remark, everybody in the room stopped moving. I looked over at Tanya. “Why’d you do that?”

  “I’m getting a really bad vibe from BMS labs, we’d better get there pronto!” she said, sweat beading up on her forehead.

  “Ah, we can’t just all leave school in the middle of the day!” Jason told her. “That would be noticed and draw attention to us!”

  “Then let’s fix that,” Tanya said, flicking her hands in the air like she was flipping through an iPad book. But instead of changing pages she flipped forward in time.

  We all stood there, our mouths popped open watching time pass in front of us…lunch ended with a wave of Tanya’s hand. People and events moved in front of us as if they were in fast-forward mode, which they were. Only none of them knew that. No one noticed the hands of the clock in the cafeteria shooting from 12 to 1, to 2 to 3.

  “Okay, day over, let’s get there!” Tanya said. “Hopefully, Kayla didn’t figure out what was going on and cause even more damage when I sped up time!” She looked at me. “You’re the fastest, get there now! Try to keep her distracted. I’ll drive the others there.”

  “Wait, do you have a license yet? Where will you get a car?” I asked.

  “Look, we’re dealing with my time controlling berserk little sister, I think me bending a law or two isn’t really the problem!” Tanya said.

  “Right,” I agreed. I shot out of the school at super speed. I jumped into the air towards BMS Labs. I didn’t even bother trying to have MAC activate my costume because when I looked at his interface, all I saw was a big . That wasn’t good!

  As BMS labs came into sight, I felt the world around me grow heavy; like I was floating through thick jello. I’d experienced this before when Kayla stopped time, except my super speed kept me going, just not quite at super speed.

  The good news was that all the buildings were still there this time. The weird news was, there were no people to be found. The freaky news was, a little wind-up toy creaked its way towards me. The super-duper weird news was that I realized the wind-up toy was Hana.

  “Go back, go back! You cannot defeat Kayla,” the toy said mechanically. Then it wound down and fell to the ground.

  “Oh, so creepy,” I said.

  A slick red car pulled up and raced through the gates.

  The car came to a stop. Tanya rolled out. She pointed towards the quad. “Come on, everybody is there. She has them all gathered together…”

  “Whose car?” I asked.

  “Janitor Jan’s,” Tanya said. “She let me borrow it the second before she froze in time.”

  We walked slowly towards the quad. I didn’t really want to walk slowly but I didn’t have much choice. It felt as though my entire body had a 10,000-ton weight on it.

  “It’s taking a lot of energy for me to move,” I told Tanya.

  She nodded. “Yeah, and if Kayla concentrates on you that will take even more of your energy. Or she could revert you into a baby. Or worse…”

  “What’s worse?”

  “Ah, nothing….” Tanya said.

  “So, nothing is worse than her reverting me into a baby?”

  “No, I mean she could revert you into nothing. Make you not exist.”

  I suppressed a gulp. “Yeah, that would be worse.” I looked at her. “So, what’s the plan? I mean, she is your sister!”

  “Reverse of last time, you distract her while I freeze her in time. We keep her that way until your dad’s team can find a way to control her powers. She’s so young it’s hard to control.” Then Tanya pointed up. “You get to the air, you have a better chance up there.”

  “Right!” I said, leaping up. It was slow going and felt like I was pushing my way through deep water. The pressure kept growin
g. I knew we needed to stop Kayla soon. From the air, I could see the quad’s well-groomed courtyard. Kayla stood in the middle, surrounded by about a hundred babies in white lab coats. They actually looked adorable.

  “Kayla,” I called. “Please turn those people back. Now!”

  Kayla tickled one of the babies. “I like them like this, they’re nice and quiet. And don’t tell me what to do.” Kayla looked at me and grinned. “I think I’d like you better like this too!” Her eyes were locked on me. My body felt as though it was stuck in quicksand.

  I concentrated on heat and focused next to her feet. Beams of heat ray fired from my eyes. The grass next to Kayla’s feet caught fire. “Hey!” she screamed as she darted back.

  My body became free. I dove down at her, hitting her with my last bursts of heat vision.

  “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” she shouted.

  Darting behind her at super speed, I hit her in the behind with a couple of quick heat bursts.

  “Ouch!” she shouted, turning and rubbing her butt at the same time. A bit of smoke rose from her behind. I noticed I had burnt a hole in the back of her pants. Looking down over her shoulder at her smoldering butt, Kayla cried, “These are my favorite pants!”

  I hovered above her and shrugged. “Sorry. But I did give you a chance to turn those people back!” I thought, “Come on Tanya! I can’t keep this up much longer!” Sooner rather than later I was bound to get hit by Kayla’s time power.

  Kayla started spinning her hands quickly. “Time for a time tornado!” she screamed.

  Little pieces of time twisted and popped open with each movement of her hand. The world around her became a cracked puzzle, with each separate piece holding a moment in time and space, spinning and spinning. It looked awesome and weird and scary all at once.

  The pieces of time spun towards me in a cyclone shape, bigger pieces on top, and smaller pieces on the bottom.

  Not knowing what else to do, I focused my freeze breath on the approaching time cyclone. Each fragment of time and space became covered with ice, but they kept spinning towards me except at a slower rate. I could easily dodge them.

  Kayla stomped her foot. “I want you to stand sti—“

  Kayla stood frozen in mid-sentence.

  “No, you’re the one who will be standing still, little sister,” Tanya said. She looked up at me. “Good job, holding her off.”

  All the scientists and staff popped back to full grown size. We had done it. We had stopped Kayla!

  Dear Diary: Amazing!! We did it. We stopped Kayla. Wow! OMG! OMG! Her powers really are awesome. Watching pieces of time crack and come towards me like that was both awe-inspiring and totally freaky. Man! And the kid isn’t even ten. Imagine what she’ll be capable of when she’s older and has full control of her powers. Yikes! Oh wait, I don’t have to imagine. I can see that already with Tanya.

  Great! My BFF’s GF has cool awesome powers. I mean, come on, she can control time and turn people into babies. Or turn them into younger than babies which is like way scary. The good news about Tanya is, she is older and has far better control of her powers than Kayla. Which, if I think about it, means my BFF’s GF can turn me into a baby (or worse) if she gets angry with me.

  The very good news is, Tanya is pretty sane and we get along great. Plus, I have some awesome power myself. I could drop her in her tracks with a fart! But I have to remember, this really isn’t a contest. I feel a bit bad that I have to remind myself of that.

  On a more down to earth but just as frustrating in its own way note, man, that Wendi is never ever happy. I did a great thing and got the school to give kids way more choices with our foods. Yet, Wendi still isn’t happy. I guess you just can’t ever please some people. I really shouldn’t worry about her, then. She will most likely never change!

  The Plan

  After a couple of minutes to collect themselves, my dad, Hana and the rest of the staff at BMS Labs began to take charge of the situation.

  “That was certainly an interesting experience,” Dad said. “Though truthfully, my baby brain didn’t remember much of it. I can’t wait to see the security video.”

  That’s my dad, always the scientist eager to learn from any experience. Jason, Lori, and Marie stood by in amazement. Jason, like dad, was in awe of what had gone on.

  Jason looked at Tanya, “Wow, what amazing power you and your sister have!”

  Tanya grinned. She pointed at her sister, now frozen in time. “The problem is, at her age this power is almost impossible to control.”

  Dad stepped forward and nodded. “True. We’ll figure out some way to inhibit her powers.” He looked at Tanya, “How long can you hold her like this?”

  Tanya shrugged. “Maybe forever. Maybe until tomorrow? No idea.”

  Dad turned to his team. “Well then people, we’d better get cracking.”

  “Right!” they all said. I’m surprised they didn't salute.

  I had to admit, Dad’s team was dedicated. I wasn’t sure what they could do. But if anybody could help Kayla, it had to be Dad’s team. They were good people who wanted to make the world better for supers and non-supers alike. They put Kayla on a drone stretcher and moved her into one of the research buildings.

  One of Dad’s red-shirted security people came up and whispered something into Dad’s ear. I assumed it was something about Kayla. I heard Dad say, “Oh that’s not right, not right at all.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked Dad.

  “It can’t be my sister. Can it?” Tanya frowned.

  Dad shook his head. “Not directly,” he replied. “But, she may indirectly be the cause…”

  “Dad, I’m so confused,” I said.

  “Me too!” Jason said.

  “I’m like always confused when it comes to this stuff!” Marie said.

  “It’s the K-9 comet,” Dad said, looking up to the sky.

  “What about it,” Jason asked. “It’s going to swing close to Earth but miss.”

  Dad stood there in silence.

  “Dad? Say something!” I said.

  Hana spoke up. “Somehow, the comet has changed its trajectory. It is now on a collision course with Earth. In fact, it is on course to crash into Starlight City.”

  “Oh, that’s so bad…” Lori said.

  “Oh, that’s such an understatement,” Jason said.

  “Has the government figured this out yet?” Dad asked.

  Hana pulled a tablet out of her side. “Here’s a local broadcast.”

  We all saw Oscar Oranga appear on the screen. “Greetings. I have some fairly terrible news. For some strange reason, the K-9 comet has changed course. The comet is now on a collision course with Earth; Starlight City to be exact. No use trying to run, because if this comet hits, it will destroy a good portion of the Earth. We now need a miracle.”

  Dad looked at Lori, Marie, Jason, Tanya and me. “Luckily, I’m looking at a whole bunch of miracles!” he said. He pointed. “To our satellite command center room.”

  “So cool!” Jason said.

  The satellite command center room was filled with way cool high-tech scanning devices covering many big screens. There was a map of the earth, a map of satellite paths, and a complete outer space view.

  “How the heck are you getting the view from space?” Jason asked.

  Dad stood at one of the many control panels that lined the room. “We’ve launched a couple of our satellites and we have hooked into all the high powered telescopes on Earth.” Dad turned to a technician looking at one of the screens. “How long until the comet strikes Earth?” he asked.

  The technician pointed to the screen. A countdown appeared in big numbers: 2:20:59, 2:20:58, 2:20:57…

  “I don’t suppose that’s two months and twenty days,” I said.

  “Two hours and twenty minutes,” the technician said.

  I looked at the screen. I looked up at the see-through ceiling that I had just noticed. I can leap up into space and smash it!” I said.

  Hana
shook her head. “No, you can’t.”

  “I’m pretty strong!” I insisted.

  Jason stepped in. “True, but the problem with smashing a comet the size of a city block is that Earth and Starlight city will get hit with a bunch of comet pieces instead of one big one. The damage to the area will be pretty much the same…”

  Dad looked at Tanya. “Can you slow that thing down?”

  Now Tanya looked up to the sky. “I’ve never tried stopping time from a distance before…. I have no idea…”

  Marie put her hand on Tanya’s shoulder. “You can do it, I know you can!”

  Lori shook her head. “Yeah, come on T-girl. This could help a lot.”

  I gazed at Tanya. For the first time since I have known her, she seemed unsure of herself. She stood there for a couple of moments in silence. I actually have to admit that made me feel kind of good. Not the fact that Tanya was worried, but the fact that Tanya wasn’t totally perfect.

  I stepped forward. “Tanya, come on. You have awesome power and constant coolness, you can do this.” I nodded towards Jason. “Come on, if this guy likes you, you have to be pretty great.”

  Tanya smiled at me. She let out a little sigh. “My sister did this, I have to help stop this.” She shuddered. “It’s just that I’m worried I can’t.

  Now Jason stepped up. He put both of his hands on Tanya’s shoulders and locked eyes with her. “You can do this! You are one of the four most amazing people I know! Not because of your powers, but because of your personality and how you use those powers.”

  “Four people?” Tanya said with a grin.

  “You, Lia and my mom and dad,” he said.

  “Good enough for me,” Tanya grinned. Tanya looked at me.

  I found it good enough for me too.

  “Gee, what are we?” Lori asked. “Artichokes?”

  “I like artichokes!” Jason said. “You guys are amazing, too. He looked at everybody around the room. “You all do great jobs!”

  “Okay, speaking of which,” Dad said. “We need to get back to the business of saving the world.”