by Lee Bacon
Milton set down his lunch tray beside me. All the focus fizzled away. I wasn’t even sure that I’d felt anything at all.
“Hey, Milton,” I said.
With his mouth half full of macaroni and cheese, Milton launched into a detailed replay of the fight between my parents and Captain Justice. “And the way Captain Justice destroyed the remote device with his Spear of Freedom!” Milton heaved a forkful of macaroni like it was a holographic spear. “Did you see Dr. Dread’s face when the weather suddenly got better? He looked like such an idiot!”
I didn’t know how much more of this I could take. It was bad enough I had to listen to my parents get insulted on the evening news and in the hallway of my school. Now I was hearing it from my best friend too.
But what was I supposed to do? I couldn’t exactly go around defending the Dread Duo.
Suddenly Milton stopped talking. Looking up, I realized what had caught his attention. The Cafeteria Girls had just sat down at the other end of our table.
There were four of them. Seventh graders. Pretty in a too-much-makeup kind of way. They’d been sharing a table with us for the past two months (not that they’d ever noticed us), and somewhere along the way Milton and I had begun calling them the Cafeteria Girls (not that we ever told them that). They immediately launched into their usual activity—criticizing everyone in sight.
“Check out Jenny Allen’s haircut!”
“Is that a pimple, or is James Wendler growing a second head?”
“Look at Maria Rodriguez’s shoes! What did she do? Steal them from a homeless astronaut?”
They went on like this for the next ten minutes or so, commenting on the clothing, appearance, and grooming habits of everyone who passed through the cafeteria. Sitting so close to them gave Milton and me access to all the gossip and trash talk Sheepsdale Middle School had to offer.
“Who’s the new girl?” One of the girls pointed across the cafeteria at someone I’d never seen before.
“Sophie Smith. Sixth grader.”
“Did you hear what Daniel Clark said about her?”
The rest of the Cafeteria Girls shook their heads.
“Daniel’s older brother works for a moving company that helped Sophie Smith and her dad move into this, like, castle outside town. She doesn’t have a mom. No brothers or sisters either. Just the two of them in this enormous house. And the stuff they were moving. He’d never seen anything like it before.”
“What kind of stuff?”
Lowering her voice, the girl telling the story leaned across the table. The others did the same. Milton and I craned our necks to listen.
“Weird stuff,” she whispered. “They had three entire moving vans full of flat-screen TVs. At least two hundred of them. And there were other things too. One truck was full of boxes that were completely empty. I mean, who brings an entire truck full of empty boxes?”
Taking a bite of my sandwich, I couldn’t help wondering if any of this was actually true. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Milton sipping his chocolate milk and trying to listen without seeming conspicuous.
“Wanna know the craziest thing, though?” The girl paused long enough to snap her gum. “Outside the house, there were guard towers. With machine guns.”
The entire table gasped. Milton spit out his milk. Luckily the Cafeteria Girls were too immersed in the story to notice.
“Machine guns? Why?”
“That’s the point. Nobody knows. So I’m thinking that Sophie Smith is the daughter of, like, some mob boss who really likes TV or maybe a superwealthy guy who collects weird stuff for no reason and worries a lot about security, or maybe—”
“Shhh. Here she comes.”
The table went silent. I snuck a glance at Sophie as she passed our table. Light swam in her blue-gray eyes. Holding her food tray with one hand, she pushed a strand of blond hair out of her face with the other.
She scanned the room, looking for a place to sit. For a second I felt sorry for her. First day in a new school without any friends. I’d been there before.
I was about to offer Sophie a seat at our table—it would have been worth it just to see the looks on the Cafeteria Girls’ faces. But before I could say anything, she turned and walked outside.
Rumors spread about Sophie Smith like a bad case of acne. People said that her dad was a celebrity in hiding. That she’d spent the last several years in an exclusive private school for the children of powerful parents. That she was an antisocial weirdo. That she only talked to the kids of other famous people. That her dad moved to Sheepsdale to get away from the paparazzi …
But in the end, they were just rumors. Sophie and her father were a mystery. A mystery everyone in school seemed to know about.
When I got to seventh period, I took a seat at the back of the room. Joey and Brick were at their usual desks in the middle of the class (the most beneficial spot for cheating purposes). As soon as I sat down, they turned around in their desks and stared at me. I tried to block them out, but that wasn’t so easy.
“I think Joey and Brick are trying to get your attention,” Milton said, poking me on the shoulder.
“I know that, Milton.” I focused on my desk. “I’m ignoring them.”
“Brick just rolled up his sleeves, and now he’s staring at you as he pounds his fist against the table.”
“Thanks for the commentary.”
“And Joey’s superangry about something. Looks like he’s writing a note. Hmm. I wonder what it says. Okay, he’s folding the note and passing it to Jade Watkins. Now she’s passing it over to Sam Berthold, and he’s passing it to … Oh— Hold on a second.”
Sam handed the note to Milton, who took one look at it, then tapped me on the shoulder.
“It’s for you.” Milton dropped the note on my desk.
I unfolded the sheet of paper and glanced down at Joey’s sloppy handwriting.
Dear Dorkface,
You = Dead Meat.
From,
Joey and Brick
P.S. Tell Milton to shut up.
I looked up from the note when I heard a wave of whispers sweep across the classroom. Sophie Smith had entered through the doorway. The entire class watched as she crossed the room. Even Joey and Brick.
Sophie passed between the rows of desks toward the back of the room, where Milton and I were sitting.
“Is this seat taken?” She pointed to an empty seat beside me.
I stared back at her, thinking about all the things I’d heard. The trucks full of TVs and empty boxes, the machine guns—
“No,” I blurted out. “I mean—yes.”
Sophie tilted her head.
“What I mean is that, no, this seat isn’t taken, and yes, you can sit down,” I finally got out.
“Thanks.”
And then she did.
Seventh period was American history. Our teacher was Ms. McGirt, who was somewhere between seventy and seven hundred years old. She had a fluff of white hair and a pair of eyes that were magnified behind thick glasses.
Ms. McGirt was half blind and three-fourths deaf. She misunderstood whenever students asked questions, she didn’t notice us raising our hands, and she never caught Joey and Brick cheating off the students around them. All of this made class interesting for reasons that had nothing to do with American history.
As the bell rang, Ms. McGirt rose from her desk, wobbled across the room, and began to describe our class project.
“It will have a specific emphasis on DNLS—Date, Name, Location, Significance.” She spoke in a high, shaky voice, blinking at the class in front of her as if she weren’t sure we were even there. “If you can adequately recite the DNLS of a historic event, then you will come away with a superb comprehension of American history. Is that understood?”
“No,” Joey said.
“Very good. Let’s continue.”
Brick laughed. Ms. McGirt, oblivious, went on.
“Students will organize themselves into groups of three,” s
he said. “Each group will prepare a ten-minute presentation.”
The class let out a collective groan. Ms. McGirt ignored this (probably because she didn’t hear it).
“Your assignment is to choose a specific historic event and focus on DNLS,” she said. “Who can tell me what these letters stand for again?”
“Dumb Nut Loser School?” Joey said.
“That is correct. Date, Name, Location, Significance. Now, please select your groups.”
I already knew Milton and I would be in a group together. Turning in my desk, I looked around for a third person. Sophie’s eyes caught mine.
“Would you—” I stopped myself. The gossip was swirling around in my head again. She was some rich celebrity’s daughter; she lived in a giant house surrounded by machine guns; she only hung out with other kids of famous people. Why would someone like that want to partner up with a kid who goes by the name Dorkface?
“Sure! I’ll work with you guys.” Sophie smiled at me. “By the way, I’m Sophie. Sophie—Smith.”
I gripped my desk a little tighter. Maybe it was just my imagination, but there was something strange about the way she’d said her first and last names. As if she couldn’t quite remember how they fit together. After years of hiding my identity, I could recognize when someone was doing the same thing.
5
Sometimes it’s best to turn to your parents
for advice. They might know more about
your situation than you think.
“Everything okay?” Dad asked. “You’ve been staring at your textbook for the past two minutes like it’s written in binary.”
He was holding a pair of his silver goggles in one hand and a tiny screwdriver in the other. Thanks to his superpowered eyesight, he could examine atomic particles without a microscope, and read fine print from a mile away. The goggles he’d invented allowed him to regulate his vision. They also looked intimidating and masked his identity. Perfect for the supervillain who wanted to be terrifying and practical.
“What’s going on?” Dad asked, sitting on the couch beside me.
“Just something that happened at school today,” I began. “These bullies—”
“Bullies?”
I stared at the floor. “Yeah.”
“That’s the problem with this world.” Dad let out an angry sigh. “The big and powerful think they can push around the little guy. It’s a vicious cycle. The bullies exploit the weak, and it makes them even stronger. Unless someone stands up to them. Unless someone fights back. Like your mom and I do.”
“Um … okay, but—”
“See, that’s the thing people don’t understand about your mom and me,” Dad went on. “Sure, we put on uniforms, and, yes, we threaten the government with total annihilation. But we’re not out to destroy the world just for the sake of destroying it.”
I wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with my problem, but I nodded anyway.
“Our goal is to start the world over again. Reboot. Do it right the next time. Shake up the power structure. Of course, we need money for all that. Which is why it’s necessary for us to make our little requests.”
“You call a private jet full of hundred-dollar bills a little request?”
Dad shrugged. He gave the goggles a twist. The goggles let out a squeak.
“So did you stand up to these bullies?” he asked. “Did you show them that just because they’re big and powerful, they can’t get away with pushing around the little guy?”
“Not exactly. They tried to shove me into a locker.”
“Hmm. Never gonna change the power structure that way.”
“But something happened while they were trying to get me into the locker. This weird feeling came over me. And that’s what I wanted to ask you about. It was like—”
“I have an idea.”
“Huh?”
“An idea. For dealing with these jerks.”
“That’s okay. I actually was more curious about this other thing. The weird feeling.”
“You can’t run away, Joshua. You have to stand up for yourself.”
I took a deep breath. There was no point in trying to explain myself to him. Not when he was swept up in his big idea.
“Fine,” I said, crossing my arms. “What’s your idea?”
“The next time you see these bullies, go up to the biggest guy and punch him in the nose. Then run as fast as you can. By the time they realize what happened, you’ll be long gone.”
Dad nodded once, as if he’d just handed down a piece of great wisdom.
“Uh, okay,” I said. “But, Dad? When Brick grabbed my arm, I felt this—I don’t know how to describe it—this powerful surge of—”
“Joshua!” My mom was standing in the doorway. “You can’t allow yourself to be intimidated by bullies. Whether it’s kids in school or governmental agencies.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ll definitely keep that in mind. But I wanted to tell you that—”
“I’m sorry, but it’ll have to wait,” Mom interrupted. “I just came up to get some food for the zombies. And you know how zombies get when they haven’t been fed. You can tell us all about your problem over dinner. Okay, honey?”
I was on my way into the dining room when a green arm reached out to grab me.
“Agh!” I screamed, jumping backward. It wasn’t an arm at all. It was a branch.
Micus.
“What’s he still doing here?” I yelled.
“Where else would he be?” Mom asked innocently. “We’re in the house, and Micus is a houseplant.”
“A houseplant that tried to kill me this morning!”
“Micus didn’t try to kill you. Did you, Micus?”
I couldn’t be sure, but it looked to me like the tree shrugged.
“Can’t we at least put him in another room?” I asked. “Your lab or something?”
“There’s no direct sunlight in the lab.”
“I’m sure he can handle that.”
“Joshua! I spent months developing Micus. He’s a biological breakthrough.”
I noticed Micus nodding proudly in the background while she said this.
Dropping down into the seat at the table that was farthest from Micus, I shook my head in disbelief. First I got attacked by a potted tree. Then my mom took his side.
During dinner, I finally got a chance to tell my parents what had happened at school. While Dad served spaghetti, I described the tingling in my fingertips, the feeling of electricity that pulsed through my body.
“I think I might’ve shocked this kid so bad that he flew into a locker,” I said.
My parents stared at me. A noodle slipped off the spoon my dad was holding. It landed on the table next to my plate.
“And that’s not all,” I said. “Other weird things have happened lately.”
“What kinds of things?” Mom asked.
I took a deep breath. “Lately I’ve been accidentally causing stuff to … explode.”
Another noodle landed on the table with a wet splat.
“Explode?”
I nodded.
“How long has this been going on?” Dad asked.
“Just the last few months.”
Dad scratched his head. “Well, you are at the age when—”
He stopped speaking when Mom cleared her throat loudly.
“Perhaps it’s best if we discuss this some other time,” she said.
I pushed my plate aside. “What are you hiding from me?” My voice came out louder than I’d intended. “I know there’s something going on. I heard you talking about it last night.”
“You heard us?” Mom asked.
“You said there was something you needed to tell me. Something I deserve to know.”
Mom sighed. “We wanted to tell you, but we also wanted to wait for the right time.”
“It’s perfectly understandable that you’re curious,” Dad said. “Anyone in your situation would be. And it’s probably best that you find out the
truth before your ability becomes too powerful for you to control it.”
A long pause settled over the table. My parents glanced at each other, as if trying to decide who would go next. My dad’s words stuck in my mind like a splinter. Before your ability becomes too powerful for you to control it. What was that supposed to mean?
“The truth is,” Mom said, “you’re different from other kids—other people.”
I felt my shoulders tighten. I didn’t like the way this was going.
“You’re Gyfted,” Dad said, and he spelled the word out for me. “G-y-f-t-e-d. It stands for Genetic Youth Fluctuation, Triggering Extraordinary Development.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means …,” Mom began. “Well … it means that you have a …”
“A what?”
Mom took a deep breath. “A superpower.”
6
Learning that you have a superpower is
a significant moment in the life of any
Gyfted youngster. Some will be thrilled
by the news. Others, not so much.
I looked across the table at my parents. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?” I asked.
There’d been a time in my life when I’d almost expected something like this to happen. I mean, both my parents had powers, right? But whenever I’d brought it up, they’d always changed the subject. I’d started to think I wasn’t like them after all, that I was a normal kid. Or maybe I’d just wished to be normal so much, I thought it would eventually come true.
“We wanted to tell you,” Dad said. “We really did. But your mother and I … we—”
Plots to destroy the world, mutant houseplants, life-threatening inventions—these are the things you deal with when your parents are two of the most fearsome supervillains on earth.
“We wanted you to have a normal childhood,” Mom said.
“Normal? In case you forgot, you tried to destroy the world yesterday. You call that normal?”
“It’s true that our situation is a little … unconventional. Which is exactly why we wanted to wait until the right moment before telling you about your Gyft.”
