by Dustin Brady
After the arrests, after the paramedics, after the news crews, after Vice Principal Fuqua’s unsuccessful fifth attempt to get the cousins hauled off in handcuffs, Jared and Lenny found themselves alone in the back of Jared’s mom’s minivan.
“I’m told this belongs to you?” A police officer stuck his head into the window and held out the iPod Jared had given to Kodey.
“Yes! Thank you!” Jared grabbed the iPod and smiled.
Lenny squinched his eyes at the iPod. “But didn’t… I thought… OK, what just happened?”
“Kodey Kline and Mr. Fuqua just saved our lives.”
“I don’t get it.”
“I was real nervous about not having a plan this afternoon. But when Kodey showed up, I realized that he could be the perfect emergency backup in case we couldn’t help Bre on our own.”
“But how?”
“This.” Jared held out the iPod. “As I was handing it to him, I set an alarm to go off right around the time that the magic eight ball would run out. That also happened to be the same time Kodey would be serving his after-school detention for our little scuffle this morning. Since electronics aren’t supposed to be in detention, I figured the teacher would confiscate the iPod once it started beeping. I left a little message in the alarm description for her. Look.”
JARED AND LENNY AT 14346 LAKEVIEW DRIVE. BRING POLICE AND AMBULANCE.
“Wow!” Lenny said. “You really are a superhero!”
“A superhero? You think you’re a superhero now?” Jared’s mom stepped into the car, red-faced. “Is that why you felt like you could lie about the library last night?”
Uh oh.
“Is that why you got in a fight today? Is that why you faked a teacher’s note?” She was just warming up. “Is that why you ran away from school? Is that why you vandalized the vice principal’s office? You will buy that man a new poster, by the way. Is that why you…”
Jared slumped in his seat.
After telling his parents the whole story, Jared negotiated his grounding down to a month. They understood that he was helping a friend (even though they still didn’t quite buy the whole magic eight ball thing), and he understood that he’d made a whole lot of mistakes along the way.
In addition to the grounding at home, Jared also had to serve a month of after-school detentions. Jared knew that, although a month of after-school detentions is no fun, his punishment was a lot less severe than Grandma Murray’s. She cooperated with police to put Dr. Plotke and his gang away for a long time, but helping someone mess with kids’ food is still a serious crime.
As Jared walked to his locker before his final after-school detention, he heard a psst in the hallway. It was Breanna Burris grinning a giant grin. Bre had been released from the hospital two weeks ago. The doctor who treated her said that he’d never seen someone get an allergic reaction that bad, for that long and survive to tell about it. He estimated that if she went just a few more minutes without help, she wouldn’t have made it. Of course she had to be extra careful now, because she was more allergic to wheat than ever (much to Dr. Plotke’s surprise).
Jared walked over. “Need some help getting rid of those cookies?”
Over the last month, Bre had become a star at school. People were still giving her cards and stuffed animals and plates of gluten-free cookies. She was holding such a plate right now.
“Oh uh, no, but you can have one!”
Jared took one. It tasted like cardboard stuffed with chocolate chips. He tried to smile as he chewed.
Bre pulled him aside, shoved something in his face and lowered her voice. “Look!”
It was a note written with perfect handwriting on a single sheet of notebook paper.
TOMORROW. 8 A.M. ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PLAYGROUND. GET READY TO BE SUPER.
Jared’s eyes got wide. “Wait, you’re not doing it are you? After everything that happened?”
“You shouldn’t talk with your mouth full,” Bre said.
Jared swallowed the last of the crumbly cookie. “I mean, you just…”
“Relax,” Bre said. “It’s what I do.” She winked and practically skipped away.
Jared shook his head and walked to his own locker. When he opened it, a single sheet of notebook paper fluttered to the ground. He picked it up. The note contained only two words written in perfect handwriting.
YOU TOO.
Thank You
Hey! Thanks for taking the time to read Superhero for a Day: The Magic Magic Eight Ball. I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. If you liked it, please consider telling your friends or posting a short review on Amazon here. Word of mouth is an author’s best friend and much appreciated.
If you want to get in touch with me for any reason, I’d love to hear from you! You can email me at [email protected], and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Thanks again for reading my book!
If you liked this book, you’ll also enjoy these other books by Dustin Brady:
Trapped in a Video Game: Book One
Trapped in a Video Game: Book Two
Sneak Peek
Continue the story in Superhero for a Day Book Two, coming in 2017. To find out how you can get the first chapter for free before anyone else, visit dustinbradybooks.com. In the meantime, check out the first chapter of Dustin Brady’s other series — Trapped in a Video Game — available now on Amazon.com. You can buy it here!
Jesse. Come over. Now. You're not going to believe this.
That was the text that ruined my life.
I know I know, that doesn’t sound like a life ruiner. Especially because the text’s sender, my friend Eric, says “you’re not going to believe this” about the world’s most believable things. Just in the last month, he’s told me that I wouldn’t believe a piece of toast that looked “exactly like Darth Vader” (it looked exactly like a burnt piece of toast), a sweet trick he learned on his bike (riding for literally one half of one second without holding onto the handlebars) and a really big booger (that one actually was pretty impressive).
I ignored the text for a little bit, because nothing makes Eric talk faster than silence. When he didn’t write back after five minutes, I finally replied.
What is it?
No response.
You gonna tell me or what?
Nothing.
This better not be another booger.
Nope.
Five more minutes went by. I sighed. Fine, Eric was going to win this one. But only because looking at his dumb booger would be more fun than this math homework. I closed my book, put on my jacket and walked across the street to Eric’s house.
The door was open, so I let myself in and walked down to the basement. “All right, let’s see it,” I said as I reached the bottom of the stairs.
No booger. Also no Eric.
“Come on,” I called out. I wandered into the laundry room (where the dirty clothes should be). I walked upstairs into Eric’s room (where the dirty clothes actually were). I checked behind all the doors, inside all the closets and under all the beds. No booger. No Eric.
I couldn’t believe it.
Ever since Eric’s family moved into the house across the street from mine in first grade, his favorite activity has been playing practical jokes on me. I appreciate a good practical joke as much as the next guy; unfortunately, none of Eric’s practical jokes are good. Because he’s so impatient, he ruins every joke before it even begins. I don’t know how many sleepovers I’ve been to where Eric has attempted to dip a sleeping friend’s finger in warm water, only to have the water dumped over his head by the “victim” who’d had his eyes closed for less than 30 seconds.
So on one hand, I had to admire Eric’s commitment to this particular joke. On the other, it may have been his dumbest yet.
Back in the basement, I decided that I’d had enough. “OK!” I yelled to an empty house. “I’m going back home now! I have to finish the math homework due Monday! Maybe you should do the same!�
��
More silence. I looked around. The only sign of life anywhere was a video game paused on the TV in the corner. Eric loved his video games. Especially the one on the screen right now — Full Blast. Never heard of Full Blast? That’s because it’s not out yet. Eric got it two weeks ago from Charlie, the coolest kid in our class. To clarify — Charlie isn’t the coolest kid in sixth grade because he’s actually a cool kid. He’s the coolest because his dad works for a video game company and sometimes gives Charlie’s friends early copies of games to test.
For the last two weeks, Eric’s mouth has been going full blast about Full Blast.
“Jesse, I’m telling you. It is the greatest video game ever made!”
“I don’t care.”
“All these aliens are trying to take over the world, and you’re the only person alive who can save everyone, because…”
“I don’t care.”
“Because you found one of their blasters, and once you charge it to FULL BLAST you can…”
“I DON’T CARE!”
“You can start shooting…”
Eric never stopped trying to get me to watch him play his new game. I never went because I would rather get sprayed in the face with a fire hose full blast than watch someone else play video games. I don’t hate video games — I’m sure they’re fine. I’ve just never really had time to sit down and play them.
I walked toward the TV. I’d never heard Eric rant about a game like he ranted about this one. Maybe I should give it a chance. At the very least, it would probably beat math homework. I picked up the controller and looked at the screen.
ARE YOU SURE?
- YES
- NO
I paused for a second. Should I? What if I erased Eric’s saved game? Nah, he wouldn’t mind. He’d just be happy I was trying a video game. I clicked YES.
The instant I did everything went black. Not everything on the screen. Everything in the room.
Find out what happens next in Trapped in a Video Game: Book One, available now.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dustin Brady lives in Cleveland, Ohio with his wife, Deserae, and puppy, Nugget. Every day he wakes up thinking that maybe today will finally be the day that he gets bitten by a radioactive spider.
ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR
Jesse Brady is a professional illustrator and animator in Pensacola, Florida. His superpower is the ability to burp the Spider-Man theme song all the way through.
