by Chad Morris
“It was a huge disappointment,” Grandpa said. “We should have won. We made a few bad plays and the refs didn’t help us.”
“Okay.” I put a few more marshmallows in my cocoa. With the kind of day I’d had, I needed them.
“And the season was over. You.” He pointed at me. “You were dead tired. You’d taken a few really hard hits.”
“Okay.” I sighed. I felt like I’d just taken a few hard hits again. My head was hurting, my heart was hurting, my eye was hurting, and I really didn’t care about this memory right now.
“Do you remember what you wanted to do when we got home?” Grandpa asked.
I rested my elbows on the table and put my head in my hands. “Nope.”
“You wanted to play catch,” Grandpa said. “You wanted to do what you could to get better. You wanted to practice.” He said the last line like it was the great moral to the story.
“I’m trying to get your point,” I said.
Grandpa gave a tight-lipped grin. “I know this news is hard, but I think there’s only one thing you can do.”
“Lose my eyesight and quit playing?” I asked, thinking about what I’d done with football the next year.
“There was nothing you could do about your eyes,” Grandpa said, wagging his finger. He pushed himself up from the table and went to the sink to wash his mug. “You would have kept playing if you could. But there is something you can do with your comic. Now.”
“Grandpa’s right,” Grandma said. “I know you don’t feel like it, but you have to finish that comic. It’s due tomorrow.”
My insides felt like they were going to explode like the planet Krypton had when it built up too much pressure in its uranium core. “I don’t want to,” I said. Nothing had worked right. And my comic wasn’t good enough anyway.
“Flint, no more excuses,” Grandma said. “I know it’s hard, but—”
“No,” I repeated. “It won’t work anyway. I’m not going to win.”
“That’s not the right attitude,” Grandma said.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Why—” Grandpa started.
“No,” I shook my head. “No, no, no—”
“Just tell us why?” Grandma asked, her eyebrows dipping.
“Because everything I try always fails,” I said, thumping my fist against the table. I stood up. “I can’t do anything. I can’t play football without my eyes freaking out. I can’t draw right. I can’t keep friends. I can’t even keep a new eye. Everything I try just—”
“Now, wait,” Grandpa said. “Did you know that—”
“I don’t care about football.” I threw my hands in the air. “I can’t play it. Every time I hear about it, it hurts.”
“Now, listen—” Grandma said standing up and putting her hands on her hips.
“No,” I said, the veins in my head beating against my skull. “I’m done. I’m not trying anymore.” I looked at Grandma because she was pestering me the most. “Quit trying to make me.”
“I’m only—” she started.
“Just quit,” I said.
My vision was still a little blurry, but I could tell Grandma’s eyes were open larger than I’d ever seen. She sniffled and her mouth moved, not really trying to talk. More like it didn’t know what it wanted to do.
“I just want you to leave me alone,” I told her.
And Grandma stormed out of the room.
Grandpa turned to me.
“Don’t lecture me,” I blurted out. I definitely wasn’t in the mood. “It was you who—”
“Stop,” Grandpa said, raising his palm.
“I—”
“Stop right there,” he said, his voice stern. Extremely stern. Trying not to lose his cool. I’d heard him use that voice before. He gritted his teeth like he was about to go after a ref who’d made a terrible call, and he pointed at my chair. “Sit down and listen.”
I never wanted to be one of those refs.
I sat.
“Listen carefully,” Grandpa said, his voice still filled with intensity. “You need to know something.”
“I don’t want to finish—” I said, gathering my wits again. I didn’t want to be pushed into anything.
“I said listen,” Grandpa said, his voice rising.
“I’m not the one who—” I said.
“Your grandmother hasn’t eaten lunch in months,” he said, cutting me off.
“And how’s that supposed to—” I started, then what he’d said sank in. “What?”
“Your grandmother hasn’t eaten lunch in months,” he repeated slowly and deliberately. “Do you remember how she loved going out to eat with her friends?” I nodded. He stood up and started pacing the room. “Well, she used to go every Tuesday and Thursday with those ladies from work. It was her favorite thing. But I noticed months ago that she had missed a few times. She told me she was just trying to save a little money.” He looked at me for a moment, almost daring me to interrupt. “Then after a few more times,” he continued, “she used the excuse that she was tired of doing the same thing. Then I noticed that she was spending more time online. Just yesterday I found out that she’s got a second job, typing out doctors’ notes. They send her pictures of the notes and she types them in to some computer program when I’m on the night shift or I’m watching TV.”
“Okay,” I said, still trying to figure out what this had to do with me.
“She fixes all of our clothes by hand,” Grandpa added.
“I know,” I said.
“Not your clothes. You get new clothes. She fixes her clothes and sometimes my clothes,” he said. “She uses coupons at the grocery store. She uses a box kit to dye her hair. She hasn’t seen her hairstylist in I don’t know how long. She saves change that she finds in the machines at work. But it was only when I noticed that she wasn’t eating lunch at all that I called her on it.”
“So?” I asked.
“She does all of that for you,” Grandpa said. “To save money. For that eye of yours. Both of them, really. And she knows we don’t have the money to help you in all the ways other people could. She went without her favorite thing for months. She’s been sacrificing. She’s been working.”
“I didn’t—”
“We still don’t know how we’re going to pay for the rest of your surgery,” he interrupted, his hands in the air. “But she’s trying. I’m trying.” His voice was excited again.
I had no idea. I mean, I knew she didn’t make sandwiches with me. I hadn’t heard about her visits with her friends for a while. And I knew she spent a lot of time on the computer. I just didn’t know why. And I hadn’t stopped to think about how we were going to pay for the surgery . . . or the new clothes I had to get because of the surgery . . . or the new ink pens we picked up last month when my old ones ran dry . . . I just . . .
“And she thought that maybe if you could submit something to the contest . . . ” Grandpa said, waving his arms again. “I mean, you talked about nothing else for months. And if you won something, then maybe you would forgive us, and . . .” He stopped to swallow. “And it might help you to be happy.”
“Forgive you?” I asked.
“For not being your real parents,” he said. “For being old and poor, and not being able to give you everything.”
I stared at him.
“She’s terrified of losing you like we lost your mom,” he said. He turned away and slowly walked to the sink. He leaned against it, folded his arms, and looked at the ceiling. I didn’t know all of the story between my grandparents and my mom. I knew my mom and Grandma had fought a lot. And I knew my mom ran away from home when she was a teenager and had made some terrible decisions with a lot of bad consequences. A lot. Like she couldn’t take care of me anymore. But I never once thought that Grandma would be scared of the same thing happening to
me.
When I really let it all sink in, I realized that I hadn’t thought much about Grandma at all. She was like a side character in a comic that didn’t have a well-thought-out backstory. And I’d never tried to learn it.
“Your grandmother can be a brash woman,” Grandpa said. “She says what she thinks. But she loves you.” He looked right at me. “She loves you,” he repeated. He let out a huge sigh and stood. “I do too. We aren’t young. We know we can’t give you what others give their kids. But we do love you.”
And then Grandpa turned and left me alone in the kitchen.
I lay in my bed for a long time. I hadn’t seen it. I had no idea. I had a new eye and I had started to see everything differently. I saw the flaws in my art. I saw a girl who needed a friend. I’d started to be able to read people’s faces a little. I saw a boy for the amazing way he made those around him better, in spite of his disability. But I hadn’t seen my own grandparents working so hard for me.
I hadn’t seen it.
I ate every day. Never really suffered. All the while my grandma was skipping lunch to try to save money for me. For my new eye.
My own grandma.
And I treated her like a side character.
It must have broken her heart when I wouldn’t draw after all she sacrificed.
I rolled over.
What else wasn’t I seeing?
Like McKell couldn’t see that having a mom in pajamas was just fine. Like I was embarrassed about my grandparents all of the time, but I didn’t need to be.
Mom.
My mom was another story. Grandma and Grandpa tried so hard to help me, but my mom hadn’t done hardly anything. When she actually visited, it was okay, it was nice enough. But it had been months. Months. A lot of texted promises, but she hadn’t come through.
I had completely stopped answering her texts. She didn’t deserve it.
Unless there was something else I hadn’t seen.
I tried really hard to think about my mom and what I was missing. There was a saying in comics that every character, big or small, is the hero in their own story—even the villains. Commissioner Gordon puts his life on the line for the citizens of Gotham City. Magneto wants the best for the mutants. What would the story look like if my mom was the hero?
I didn’t know.
But Grandma. She really was a hero, and I hadn’t seen it. Completely missed it. Something inside me was glad that she wanted me to draw, to try. I hated it, but I loved it too. She somehow thought that I might win something. That I was good enough. She believed in me more than I did.
So did Grandpa.
They believed in me more than I believed in myself.
More.
And I needed that.
McKell was the same way. I thought of her insisting that I draw. I thought of her reaction when she’d read my comic. She believed in me too.
Danny was that same way for McKell. He thought her songs were fantastic.
I was that way for McKell. But she couldn’t see it. She was the one with vision problems there. She couldn’t see her own talent, how seriously cool she was just being herself. Danny and I could see it, but she couldn’t.
I still felt terrible that her audition had gone so bad. She was so talented. And she tried so hard. Just being in that room and getting up on the stage was more than she’d ever done before. But she was so nervous, so anxious, she couldn’t do it.
I wished there was a way I could . . .
All of a sudden, I had an idea.
Maybe everyone needed someone who believed in them more than they did. I couldn’t wait to talk to McKell.
But first, I moved over to my desk and pulled out a page. I clenched my eyes shut for a moment.
No one expected a thirteen-year-old to win this contest. I didn’t expect it anymore either. And maybe I wouldn’t shatter anyone’s expectations, but I could at least finish what I’d started.
“I’m not going to try out again,” McKell said. “Even if I wanted to, the auditions are over.” Thankfully, she had agreed to meet me at the plant cave after school.
I reached into my portfolio case and handed her some pages. “I scanned it and sent it in this morning,” I said. I’d hardly slept the night before getting it done.
“You did? Even with your eye problems?” I had told her about the corneal rejection and the drops. Grandma said my eye was looking better, but I wasn’t sure. It was still really irritated.
I nodded. She looked up at me then down at the papers.
“It’s not good enough,” I said, “but I finished.”
She knew what I was doing, trying to persuade her, but she looked at them anyway.
Squint stepped out into the open. Alone.
He knew what he was going to face. He knew his chances were next to nothing, but he had to try.
He had spent all night tracking down Gunn and the others. They hadn’t stayed in the metallic castle. That place had been compromised. Thankfully Diamond had a few hints as to where they might have gone.
And he found them here, on a small island in the Northern Sea. Waves dashed against the bottom of the cliffs, but the top rose to a fairly barren plateau the size of a small town. A building chiseled into the cliffside must be where they were keeping the Empress.
But Squint wasn’t going in. He had a plan.
“Centurions,” Squint screamed, “wherever you go, I will find you!” He pulled out his daggers and sliced the edges of the cliffs into the water below. “Come and face me.”
And then he waited in the center of the plateau, the waves crashing so high they nearly met the cliff tops.
Until . . .
Four people floated above him, riding on their capes: blue, yellow, green, and white. Gunn, the large boy with the blue cape, landed first on one corner of the plateau. “You shouldn’t have come here, Squint,” he yelled over the waves. “You couldn’t handle two of us, what makes you think you’ll be able to handle all four?” He raised his fire bazooka.
Traz leapt off his green cape and punched a boulder into the ground. “I like the patch,” Traz said. “Were you hoping we would take out the other eye too?”
Lash, with her yellow cape and red hair, glided to the ground. She pulled out her laser whips, slinging them over her head in wide arcs and curls. “Sorry I missed you last time, Squint. I won’t miss you today.” She whipped a branch off a nearby tree with surprising accuracy.
And Madame Cool leapt off her white cape, landing nimbly on the ground in the other corner. “I hope you weren’t looking for a warm welcome.” She unsheathed two long blades of ice and swung them, a barrage of icicles shooting out at Squint.
Squint dove to the ground, letting the attack pass over him. He couldn’t see it yet, but he had a theory that both Lash and Madame Cool would have dark scales growing on the backs of their necks as well. Squint had found an old scroll that mentioned an ancient magic that brought darkness into people. And scales showed the darkness’s growth. Not only were these trained supernatural soldiers, but likely supernatural soldiers heightened by darkness.
“Where’s your cape?” Gunn asked. “Or did you not care about being bulletproof when you came?” He fired, Squint leaping to the side.
“I must have forgotten it,” Squint said, flipping back onto his feet. He moved his head from side to side, trying to make sure no one could get too far to his right where he couldn’t see.
They were all there. Gunn with his fireball bazooka, Traz with his boulder gloves, Lash with her laser whips, and Madame Cool with her icy blasts.
Comic Rule: Endings have to be epic.
With a synchronized attack, Squint’s old friends blasted at him. He shot with his light-daggers, jumped, and weaved, trying to stay alive. He curled over a fireball and ducked under icicles while slicing a boulder in half.
Comic Rule: Comic-book heroes can do things that would be impossible to do in real life. But we all love them and want them to, so it’s fine.
“Give up, Squint,” Gunn shouted, ready to fire again. “You don’t belong with us.”
Squint didn’t answer.
“Watch out for his dog,” Traz said. “Unless we lucked out and he’s dead, he’ll be around here somewhere.”
A swish of red and Traz was hurled to the side. “I think you should look out for more than his dog.”
It was Diamond, flying in on Squint’s cape.
Squint smiled. It felt so good not to be alone.
Diamond’s attack split the group.
Gunn and Madame Cool turned on her while Lash and a recovering Traz went after Squint. Thankfully his cape came to him. Diamond already had her impenetrable casing.
More blazes and shouts.
“Just hold out,” Squint told himself. “For the plan to work, we just have to hold out.”
But eventually the other Centurions were too much. When dodging a whip, Traz caught Squint with a boulder again. Before he could recover, Lash stole a dagger with her whip. Squint saw the scales on her neck, but knowing his theory might be confirmed couldn’t help him now.
Diamond fought hard, but eventually took a blast of icicles on the left side of her body, and when a fireball hit her, the unthinkable happened.
CRACK!
Her hard diamond exterior fractured and a huge section of it fell to the ground. There she was, her light brown face exposed and nearly half of her body in a white suit, no longer protected. She wasn’t as invincible as she thought.
“With enough force,” Gunn said, “even diamonds can be broken.” He raised his fire bazooka.
Squint raced to save Diamond, but took a boulder to the back, sending his last dagger flying. Another boulder pinned his cape to the ground.
No bulletproof cape. No daggers. Four enemies. And a friend in terrible danger.
“Aaahh!” Squint took a whip across his side and back.
Gunn leveled his bazooka at the half-broken Diamond.
“Noooooo!” Squint screamed.
