Captain Superlative

by J. S. Puller

  The bruise on Dagmar’s wrist was turning yellowy by the end of the week. But I noticed there was another, a little bit higher up on her arm. It looked like a centipede, a misshapen, short centipede made of small circles. I saw it as she was walking through the hall before homeroom Thursday morning, when her sleeve shifted for a second or two. She was pinning up a sign on one of the bulletin boards, part of her campaign for Valentine’s Day queen. Only Dagmar would start campaigning a month early for a vote that meant nothing and would already go to her anyway.

  DAGMAR HAGEN TAKES THE BACON!

  The slogan was a stretch, but I guess she couldn’t think of anything else that rhymed with Hagen.

  Shaken? I thought. Or taken or awaken or mistaken?

  She stepped back from the sign, furtively glancing from side to side, before sneaking her cell phone out to snap a picture of the bulletin board. My guess was that the precaution was more for show. She wanted to draw attention to the fact that she was flouting the rules. And it worked. It worked deliciously well. Other kids passing by nodded their heads toward her, exchanged winks back and forth, all suppressing giggles and smirks.

  “Posting that?” someone asked her.

  “You bet,” she replied. She held up two fingers, drawing the lines of an invisible hashtag in the air. “#QueenDagmar.”

  “Nice!”

  Dagmar hid her phone just as Ms. Hinton came passing through with a stack of three-ring binders. “Cute sign, Dagmar.”

  “Thanks, Ms. Hinton!” Dagmar said pleasantly, giving her a smile. “Oh! And my mom says hi.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  “Great!”

  “Tell her to come back and visit sometime. Everyone in the teachers’ lounge is dying to see her.”

  “I will.”

  “Thank you, Dagmar. I’ll see you in class.”

  How anyone could go from being sugary-sweet one moment to dangerous the next without being exhausted all the time was beyond me. But experience in dodging Dagmar’s wrath had taught me to spot signs of the change. In this case, the transformation came silently, in the form of Paige with her bundle of books and her soft-soled sneakers. She turned a corner, passed Ms. Hinton, and froze.

  Was it Dagmar’s perfume or her shining curls that alerted Paige? No way to know for sure. I could see Paige’s dark eyes dart from point to point, looking for a possible escape. But before she could make up her mind on the best course of action, Dagmar saw her.

  In a blink, Dagmar swept in beside her, one palm planted firmly on the wall, subtly blocking her from going forward. “Hey, Paige.”

  No one would have taken that for a kind greeting. And Paige didn’t. “Dagmar,” she said, her voice tired, her neck and shoulders hunching, like she was trying to hide behind her hair.

  Dagmar’s lovely green eyes flicked down to Paige’s shoes, then back up. Target acquired. She had a perfectly feigned expression of surprise. “So where are your Blue Shoes, anyway?” she asked sweetly, as though she didn’t know Paige never wore them.

  “I don’t have any.”

  “Oh yeah. That’s right. I forgot.” She wound up and struck. “Your dad hasn’t had a job in, like, two years.” The corners of her lips twitched. “He’s a hobo or something, right?”

  Emotion flickered across Paige’s face, from surprise to pain to exhaustion. Shoulders slumping, head drooping, she sighed an exasperated, little sigh. “Can I go?” she asked. “Please?”

  “I forgot!” Dagmar bounced the heel of her palm against the side of her head. “He’s in the circus!”

  “What?”

  “Yeah! I found a picture of him online.” She whipped the phone out, punching in a few commands I couldn’t see. “It was under the hashtag ‘loser.’”

  She turned the phone so Paige could see. Trotting along on the screen was a cartoon vagrant clown, with green curls, heavy, gray bags beneath his eyes, and oversize overalls that sagged beneath his flabby arms, with mismatched sleeves. On top of his head, he wore a too-small hat, with a single wilting daisy drooping over one side. With every bouncy step, his long red shoes wobbled like diving boards.

  Paige bit her lips together, taking a sharp breath that she let out in an audible exhale. “That’s not. My dad.” Her tone was crisp. Nearly trembling.

  “Really?” Dagmar glanced at the phone again. “Because I can see the resemblance. And look. He’s even got a little backpack. Just like your hobo dad.” She shook her head, putting the phone away. “It must really hurt,” she said. “Not having the money for shoes because your dad is a hobo loser. You must feel awful. So lost. So hopelessly out of place.”

  “We have money for shoes,” Paige said.

  Obviously. She was wearing them.

  Dagmar snorted. “Yeah, sure. Just not good ones.”

  Not the best comeback.

  Paige was unfazed. Just tired. “Are we done here?”

  “When I say so,” Dagmar replied.

  “Sometime before that bruise heals up?” Paige said, just under her breath.

  I felt a cringe, starting in my forehead and going all the way down to my toes. Briefly, I considered crawling into my locker and praying that there was a secret portal behind it that would whisk me away to a beautiful magical world. Or, really, anywhere that wasn’t here.

  I doubted I had such luck, of course.

  Behind me, Dagmar said, “What was that?”

  Paige looked up at her from under her hair. “I said, ‘That bruise sure matches your eye shadow.’”

  She had rattled Dagmar. Maybe because Paige dared to speak back, or maybe because Paige had managed to strike a blow aimed right at Dagmar’s pretty and perfect skin. No one ever made fun of the bruises. If anything, most kids secretly admired them. She was the best soccer player in the history of the school. And she had the marks to prove it. Like badges of honor, pinned to a soldier. Each one was a sign of yet another terrific save or daring offensive play. But Dagmar bristled, the tips of her ears turning a little pink. And then her voice went down into a low hiss, like steam escaping from a kettle.

  “You’re nothing. I mean, I don’t know how I’d be able to come to school every day if I were you,” she said. “I’d just want to curl up and die.” Dagmar looked especially pleased with that one.

  It was brutal. I felt my jaw drop a little bit. I had to wrap my fingers around the star of my necklace to steady myself, like I’d been dealt a physical blow. It was one thing to make fun of someone’s shoes. But to suggest that she’d want to die?

  Where had that come from?

  “Please,” Paige said.

  “You can go,” Dagmar told her.

  Dagmar started to move, pulling herself away from the wall, gesturing for Paige to pass. Paige took a step, then Dagmar slammed her hand back into place, blocking Paige again with a vicious sneer. The DAGMAR HAGEN TAKES THE BACON! poster fell off the board, floating down to earth under the rattle of thumbtacks.

  “Not yet.”

  “But you said—”

  “You can go…after you look up at me and say, ‘I’m a pathetic loser.’”

  “What?”

  “Do it.” Out came the phone once more, a little light flashing at the top. “Say, ‘I’m a pathetic loser.’ Right into the camera.”

  Paige looked straight up, into the recording light. “You’re a pathetic loser.”

  “How dare you!”

  Dagmar’s entire body shook. I didn’t know that people were actually capable of shaking with rage. She seemed more like a cartoon character than a person. But Paige couldn’t forget that Dagmar was a person. A person with furious heat radiating off of her skin.

  Paige looked away, at a couple of kids who were passing down the hall. Both of them turned their heads, pretending to read one of the Valentine’s Day dance posters. Her eyes briefly caught mine. She was pleading with me, but I didn’t know what to do. What could I do? It’s not like I could change Dagmar. Dagmar would always be Dagmar. I could only shrug.

/>   With that, Paige sighed and looked back to Dagmar, staring into the camera. “I’m a—”

  “Captain Superlative is here to make all troubles disappear!”

  The call came from behind me, at the end of the hall. Paige, Dagmar, and I whipped around to see her. She was standing with her hands on her hips, chin raised at a dramatic angle. The same costume as every day that week, the same tangible confidence that wrapped around her like the cape. Her arms went up and she came zooming down the hall, everyone clearing the way for her. Her cape brushed against me as she ran past, skidding to a stop behind Dagmar’s shoulder, putting her palm between Paige and the camera lens.

  Dagmar flinched, like she’d just been shocked. Uncomfortably, she stepped away from Paige and the wall, getting out of Captain Superlative’s reach. “Not this again,” she said with a snarl.

  Captain Superlative ignored the venom in her voice, looking instead to Paige. “What seems to be the problem here, citizens?”

  “Nothing,” Paige replied mildly. “There’s no problem.”

  “She’s just in my way,” Dagmar said.

  Captain Superlative glanced between the two of them. I was sure, even without seeing her face, that she knew just as well as I did that they were both lying. That was what Dagmar and Paige did. “Maybe if you apologized for trying to take a video of her calling herself a pathetic loser, she’d step to one side and let you pass.”

  “It’s okay,” Paige said. “I was—”

  “You aren’t a pathetic loser,” Captain Superlative said.

  Paige smiled sadly, glancing down over her stack of books at her feet. “According to popular opinion, I am. I don’t have Blue Shoes.”

  “No, but you do write the most beautiful songs for the school choir! And you are a straight-A student!”

  How did Captain Superlative know any of that about Paige?

  “She wishes,” Dagmar said, looking offended at the very notion of Paige getting good grades.

  Captain Superlative ignored her. “And you’ve been babysitting the Garcia triplets to help your family pay the bills while your dad is looking for a job!”

  “Her loser dad,” Dagmar cut in.

  In one sweeping movement, Captain Superlative set herself between Paige and Dagmar, her back to Dagmar, blocking her out. “Your dad is not a loser, Paige,” she said firmly. “And neither are you. You’re a wonderful person.”

  The bell rang.

  Paige gave a little sigh and turned around, folding her books against her chest as she took off up the hall. I knew I was supposed to do the same. I was going to be late for homeroom, which would mean a warning. Three warnings and it was detention. But I’d never been late before and I couldn’t bring myself to look away. There was practically smoke coming out of Dagmar’s ears and, as I knew she would, Captain Superlative turned to look at her.

  “What is your problem?” Dagmar asked in a low hiss.

  “That wasn’t very nice,” Captain Superlative said. “Is something wrong, Dagmar?”

  The question came out of nowhere. What could be wrong if you were Dagmar Hagen? Pretty. Popular. A soccer star. Top of the class. Destined to be the Valentine’s Day queen. She was what we all wanted to be. And, barring that, who we all wanted to be with, assuming we were warmed by her flame and not burned by it. Everything was right if you were Dagmar Hagen.

  “Wrong?” Dagmar repeated, very softly.

  “There has to be a reason you pick on Paige so much,” Captain Superlative said.

  “Because she’s a pathetic loser.”

  Captain Superlative shook her head. “Only someone who’s feeling down would pick on another person. Other wise, they’d just be evil. And I don’t think you’re evil, Dagmar.”

  “I think you’re a pain.”

  “Are you jealous of her?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Maybe you just need a hug.”

  “Shut up, weirdo.”

  Much to my surprise—and Dagmar’s, I’m sure—Captain Superlative didn’t even blink. She spread her arms out, taking a step in, as if to offer Dagmar that hug.

  “Stop!” Dagmar held a hand up, and a part of me—clearly the part that spent too much time with my dad’s comic books—half expected a fireball to explode out of her palm.

  “I just want to be your friend,” Captain Superlative said, although she seemed to withdraw.

  “Well, I don’t want to be your friend,” Dagmar replied.

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re…”

  “What?”

  “You’re just too…”

  “Nice?”

  “Freaky!” Dagmar practically screamed the word. “You’re a freak!”

  It was the curse again. The one I’d heard outside of the auditorium. A freak. Someone who just didn’t belong, someone who had no place in the greater scheme of things. Dagmar had said it to her, not to me, but I shrank back, as if stung.

  Captain Superlative did not.

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends,” she replied.

  I didn’t know what to make of that. Neither did Dagmar. She let out an exhausted huff and started down the hall, going out of her way to knock into Captain Superlative’s shoulder and throw her off-balance. I could hear her muttering as she went, and decided it was probably a good thing that I couldn’t tell what she was saying. Nothing generous, nothing kind.

  “You look very pretty in your uniform today!” Captain Superlative called after her, going up on her tiptoes.

  “Leave me alone!” Dagmar roared as she turned the corner.

  “Good-bye!”

  “Shut up!”

  “See you later!”

  After that, we just listened to the obnoxious squeaking of her Blue Shoes until it faded.

  We listened.

  It was when I could no longer hear Dagmar that I realized the hallway was deserted. It was just the two of us, Captain Superlative and me.

  She turned to me. I’d never noticed the fact that the eyeholes of her mask were a little lopsided. Not until they consumed me. She wasn’t just looking at me, she was positively staring at me. Reading me. Assessing me. Measuring me.

  After a moment that was both the longest and the shortest of my life, she leaned over and picked up Dagmar’s campaign poster and pinned it back on the board. She raised her arms up over her head. There was no audience to speak of, but she still shouted, “Captain Superlative is here to make all troubles disappear!”

  The rest of that afternoon, Dagmar was smoldering. All of us, even April, went out of our way to avoid her. Everyone was sure that getting too close would be like throwing gasoline on the fire. And what made it ten times worse was the reports we got about Captain Superlative’s antics. The rest of the day, in addition to her cry of “Captain Superlative is here to make all troubles disappear!” she said, “And don’t forget to vote for Dagmar for Valentine’s Day queen!”

  The incident vibrated through the school and it vibrated through me. But it wasn’t Paige’s resignation or Dagmar’s wrath. It was Captain Superlative. It was how she’d known so much about Paige. It was her questions to Dagmar. How she was rallying support for Dagmar’s cause in spite of it all. And it was the way she’d looked at me, like she was seeing something there.

  Who did that?

  Who was she?

  Something unexpected happened that afternoon, after the final bell. Something I couldn’t really recall ever happening before. It was me. I jumped out of my seat and shot into the hallway, as if I had somewhere to go or somewhere to be. I was still vibrating from what happened with Dagmar, Paige, and Captain Superlative. Reeling uncontrollably like a dilapidated wagon rolling down a hill. I guess that energy needed to go somewhere. The only trouble was, I wasn’t sure which direction it was taking me.

  Forward?

  I couldn’t really tell.

  Make no mistake. I wasn’t thinking. I was just…going. Doing. I was letting that feeling take control of me.


  I guess—although I never would have admitted it to myself—I knew deep down that I was looking for her. That some instinct was pushing me, driving me toward her and toward—I hoped—the answers to the questions that were bubbling up inside of me.

  But, of course, when I finally found her by the front entrance to the school, I panicked. I didn’t know why, but as I rounded the corner and spotted the cape, the wig, and the shining swimsuit, my breath caught in my throat and I turned back again, pressing against the wall like I was hiding from the law. Very, very slowly, very, very tentatively, I turned my head to the side, leaning forward to see around to the atrium. It was a small area, watched over by the main office. There were two sets of double doors in front, surrounded by wide windows, decorated with snowflakes and figure skates.

  Captain Superlative was holding one of the doors open as Kevin Marks rolled out. “This way, my lord!” she called, with a gloriously awful English accent. She closed it once he was gone, opening it again to let that new girl (Nicole?) pass. “Have a great afternoon, citizen!” Open. Close. Open. Close. When someone came to the door holding a box of supplies, she opened the door. “Wait, wait, wait, I’ll get it!” When someone came to the door carrying nothing at all, she opened the door. “There seems to be something blocking your way. Let me take care of that, citizen!” Students. “Bam!” Teachers. “Kapow!” Even the office clerk and the part-time school nurse. “Thwack!” I watched the door and felt the bursts of cool air on my face as she accommodated everyone with an over-the-top greeting and a ridiculously exaggerated effort to open the door.

  Soon the school felt abandoned. Everyone who was going home, it seemed, had left. I wondered if Captain Superlative would hang around for a few hours to hold the door open for the soccer team too, once they’d finished their practice. One could only imagine what Dagmar would have to say to that. But as I hid from view, I watched her give the atrium a quick glance; then she ducked out the door herself.

  And I followed her.