“You’re a government agent?” I stared at my guidance counselor in shock.
“I was a pretty high-ranking one,” she said, “until your father started filing complaints against me. Then I became one of the most laughed-at agents in the bureau. A conspiracy nut.”
“So you came back to prove you were right?” I sidestepped my mom. “You knew I had superpowers all along?”
“Yes,” Ms. Watson said. “Another McGowan in the middle of suspicious activity certainly caught my eye.”
“What now?” I asked. “You’re going to turn me in? Save your reputation?”
“Well, I just got fired, so now I’m a full-time guidance counselor and nothing else,” Ms. Watson said.
“Being an agent was your other job?” I asked.
Mom stepped up. “Not to worry, former Agent Hendriks. I’m going to turn Veronica in.”
“What?” I shouted, backing away.
“You’re going to get help, Veronica,” Mom said.
“Help?” I asked. “What does that mean?”
Ms. Watson answered, “‘Help’ is an interesting way of putting it. From what I know, you’d go to a place where they wouldn’t help you—but you’d help them. You have a lot of power, Veronica. Power certain people want to tap into.”
This was bad. This was really, really bad.
I looked at Mom. “What? You’d let people experiment on me?”
“It’s all for the greater good,” Mom said.
“No. You’re supposed to protect me!” I tried to run away, but Ms. Watson blocked my path.
“Watch out, she’s hot to the touch,” Mom warned Ms. Watson, waving her burned hand.
Now both my arms were heating up, right out here in front of everyone. I was grasping at straws, looking for a hero. “Ms. Watson, or whatever your name is, you have to help me,” I pleaded.
My mom smirked.
“There comes a time,” Ms. Watson said, “when we have to be brave. No matter what will come of it.”
“But … you’re my guidance counselor!”
Ms. Watson stepped between Mom and me. She took a moment to really think while she looked back and forth between us. I was sure doom was near.
“You’re right,” Ms. Watson said. “I am your guidance counselor now, and it’s my job to help you.”
Did I just hear her right?
“Veronica, go inside while I deal with your mother.”
Holy baloney, I did! The look on my mom’s face was priceless. At least for a second, before thoughts started rushing back into my brain. This lady was my mom. My mom. The person I’d been pining for all these years. And she was nothing like I thought she’d be. I wanted to say something else. Something mean, but nothing came to mind.
“Go!” Ms. Watson swatted at me.
I ran. Looking over my shoulder, I saw Ms. Watson try to look nonchalant as she ushered Mom into a car.
Once I was in the school, my first inclination was to call Charlie.
“This is Charles Weathers, Esquire. I accept small bills, money orders, and voice mails.” BEEP!
“Charlie, it’s, uh, me. Something really weird just happened and … I don’t know. I need to talk to someone, and you were the first person I thought of who would, you know, listen. Um, my mom was here and Ms. Watson is totally a government agent. Soooo, yeah. Call me. Please.”
I hung up and took a few breaths. My arms had cooled down. I had to get myself together before I went into that gym. If I tried my best to be positive, there really wasn’t anything worse that could happen tonight, right? Having your crappy mom decide to send you in for vivisection pretty much tops the crappy list. Add to it that your crush is crushing on someone else, and your dad and your best friend hate your guts. So, things couldn’t get worse. The rest of the night could still be magical.
I found the Ests and Blake behind the band’s stage, waiting to make their grand entrance and, I dunno, maybe give a speech or something.
To be fair, Blake and Hun Su looked cute together. I should tell them that, I thought. I smiled, but they were all giving me funny looks. Kate had covered her mouth with her hands while Keesha comforted her.
Titan, looking worried, approached me. “You should really see a doctor, Veronica.”
Before I could ask him what he meant, Jenny linked arms with me and whispered, “I admit, I was kinda worried you’d be hard to take down, since everyone seems to really like you, but it turns out you are lot weirder than I could ever have hoped for.”
With that she opened my hand and dropped my locker’s padlock in my palm. It had been cut open!
“Your public awaits,” she snickered before she shoved me through the curtain and onto the stage.
The Goth band stopped playing and someone swung a spotlight on me, causing everyone to turn and look. Some were wide-eyed. Some laughed; some looked downright terrified. What was happening? My eyes adjusted to the lights and I looked behind me. I gasped. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. The projector wasn’t rotating through photos of Victorian England like it was supposed to; it was rotating through photos of me with all my stupidpowers! There I was: green with envy, on the porch with a rain cloud over my head, being thrown backward by an invisible punch, and others, each more embarrassing than the last.
The Ests had gone into my locker and found the memory card with all of Betsy’s photos. Photos of me. Photos of my powers.
Then the chanting started:
“Weirdest! Weirdest! Weirdest!”
I wanted to run off the stage, but I couldn’t. It was like my legs were stuck to the floorboards. I had no choice but to take the abuse because, well, I believed it. I was Weirdest. Every single dream I’d ever had was shattered. Every single person I wanted to be, all my new friends thought I was a freak. What’s worse is that they were right.
Seeing all the pictures sealed the deal.
Nothing could change it now.
It was time to let it all out.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
IT’S MY PARTY AND I’LL DESTROY IT IF I WANT TO
All the emotions I had been keeping in? They were about to burst. There were so many, I couldn’t settle on one. The changes from anger to sadness to relief were happening so quickly that the room began to spin. I closed my eyes, feeling my stupidpowers rise up, each fighting the other to be dominant. I didn’t have any strength or will left in me to fight them. I was a lost cause and I knew it.
I felt a whoosh of wind and opened my eyes. My powers had manifested in a swirling, colorful tornado that seemed to contain all my feelings. There was fire, thunder, lightning, and rain all mixed together. The tornado whipped through the room, destroying everything in its path. Guacamole splattered against the wall; the decorations I had worked so hard on were catching on fire and flipping violently through the air. Tables and chairs flipped over and everyone ran for cover.
Blake and Hun Su made it all the way to the door. I couldn’t believe that just minutes ago I thought they looked cute together. They weren’t my friends. They probably knew this was happening and did nothing. At the very least, they didn’t try to help me.
Something that I can only call laser beams shot out of my eyes, sealing the gym door shut. Blake and Hun Su shook uselessly at the handles.
“Veronica! Stop it!” Jenny screeched from behind a toppled cardboard horse.
“You stop it!” I stomped up to her and used my now-flaming hand to turn the horse into ash. Jenny screamed. “You think you’re better than everyone else!” I yelled at her. “You aren’t! You’re worse!”
I took another step toward Jenny, who was now crab walking away from me. “I can’t believe I ever wanted to be like you,” I shouted. “Like any of you!” I gestured to the other Ests. I didn’t know what I was going to do next; I had never felt such an excruciating wave of feelings. It was like I didn’t control my body anymore. My emotions did. And I could see the fear in Jenny’s eyes.
Even worse, I liked it.
“Yo, Veri
!”
Snapped out of my ragey trance, I turned to see my dad, braving the Veronica-made storm. Suddenly things felt more real, saner. For some reason, this was the first thing that popped out of my mouth: “Dad? Mom was here! She wanted to take me away!”
“I know!” He jumped up onstage and grabbed my shoulder.
“I hate her! I hate her so much!” I screamed. I couldn’t help it. “She did this to me! Then she left us!”
The tornado intensified. The other kids were grabbing onto anything that was bolted down so they wouldn’t be swept away. Rain poured, pulling down what was left of the crepe paper. A gigantic bolt of lightning flashed, destroying the chandeliers.
“She’s the reason I’m a freak!” I cried as the tornado ate up everything in sight.
“No, sweetie.” My dad grabbed my other shoulder and pulled me around to face him. I’d never seen his face like this before. My dad actually looked … scared.
“It’s not her. Whatever you are, I was, too.”
His words whipped into the back of my brain. My brain wasn’t processing the words, but my body knew. At the same time, a crackling noise shot through the gym and the scene froze. I mean, I actually froze everything in the room. The kids, the tornado, the horribly wonderful Goth band, all were completely silent. Everything was encased in a thick sheet of ice, except Dad and me.
“What?” I asked quietly.
“You had the powers when you were a baby, but they went away. Just like mine eventually did. Just like your grandma’s did and Great-Grandma Beatrice’s did. I saw the signs that yours were back, but I didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to think about the problems they could cause us.”
“And Mom?”
“Your mom threatened to leave if we didn’t hand you over to the government. I told her if she left she could never come back.” Dad shook his hand like it had fallen asleep. A trail of blue lines on his fingers showed how my iciness had started to seep into him. He, too, was starting to freeze, but he didn’t fully let go of me, despite the fact that he was about to become a real-life Frosty the Snowman.
“And you never told me?” I asked. My voice was getting stronger and fiercer as the cold inched its way up his arm.
“She got freaked out after that storm we caused when you were a baby. She wanted to turn us in. She wanted to separate us. I wouldn’t let that happen.” His voice cracked. “There was an ultimatum. I don’t do ultimatums.”
“You knew I was messed up!” I raged. “All these years! You knew! And you lied about Mom. You are the one who said we don’t keep things from each other!”
His eyes were starting to glisten, but I knew it wasn’t from having an icicle arm.
I was glad.
“I just wanted to keep you safe,” he said.
“Safe?” In the midst of all this destruction, did he just say safe?
That’s when something inside me broke. My fragile heart cracked and splintered, then fell to the bottom of the darkest pit in my soul. I had given up so much to become an Est. Charlie hated me, and my dad, whom I loved and trusted more than any person on earth, had kept this from me, had lied to me all these years. I was alone. And that’s how it was going to be from here on out. I couldn’t recover from this. No one would want to be my friend, not even me. I was insignificant, I was worthless, and I was Weirdest.
Or worse, I didn’t even exist.
“Veronica,” Dad whispered. I could tell he was trying to reach me, but it was too late. I was gone. I could feel it.
I exhaled as hard as I could, which released a huge shock wave through the gym. It broke up all the ice, which crackled and shattered as it fell off everything and everyone. The wave smashed into the walls with such force they fell down. Only the wall that attached the gym to the rest of the school was left standing. And me.
Reality check: I just wailed on everyone with my stupidpowers!
Was anyone hurt? I rushed over to Dad, who had been knocked off his feet, but he looked fine; then I jumped off the stage and began checking on everyone else. My shock wave had hit them, but it seemed like they were all okay. How was that even possible? Some were rubbing their eyes like they had just woken up.
Then I realized that for the first time in a long time, I felt … okay. All those pent-up emotions were gone, purged from the inside out. Everything was quite literally out in the open, and there was nothing I could do about it. I had to face my so-called superpowers. More than likely, I’d have to face them in a padded cell or with needles being constantly jabbed in me, but who cares? I’d lost everything, so what did I have to save? Maybe I was Weirdest, and maybe that was as good as it got.
I reached down to help Jenny, ready for her to threaten me with lawyers and exile to the front of the bus.
Instead she held out her arm and gladly accepted my hand as she stood. “Holy cow!” she exclaimed. “That was, like, bananas.”
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” I said. “Things got really out of control.”
Titan sauntered over, rubbing his head, which had a pretty big scrape. “Isn’t that the whole point of nature? It’s never under control.”
“Uh, Titan, I think we need to check you for head trauma,” I said. Why was he talking about nature?
He gave me a puzzled look. “How do you know my name?”
Oh, crap. His brain must be mush! My powers turned his brain to MUSH.
“Here. Sit down,” I said, turning a chair right side up. “I’ll get my dad to check you out. He knows a thing or two about bodily harm.”
I went back to the stage and found Dad sitting on the edge.
“Dad! I think Titan might have a concussion.” I motioned for him to follow me. He didn’t get up. Instead he just raised an eyebrow at me.
“Dad?” he asked. He took a good, long look at me before he shook his head violently, as if he was clearing out some cobwebs. “Yeah, Veronica. Veronica. I’m your dad.”
We found Titan, who was now surrounded by the Ests.
“Oh, hey, Doctor McGowan,” Titan said. “I’m fine. I think that maybe this girl got hit on the head.” He pointed at me.
Me? This girl?
“I’m Veronica. Guys?” They all gave me blank expressions. “I go to school with you? I helped plan this dance?”
“Oh, yeah!” Derek smiled. “You’re in fifth grade or something…”
“Hey, Rik, could you check me?” Blake asked. His perfect hair had been flattened and he was obviously shaken.
“Sure.” Dad found nothing physically wrong with Blake, but I was less than impressed with their conversation.
“So, Rik, how’s life?” Blake asked.
“Can’t complain. Except for the part where you call me Rik.”
“Right, right. Hey, Veronica! Long time no see.” Blake looked back at my dad. “Middle school kids, am I right?”
He was in middle school last year, thank you very much. Besides, was he really trying to look cool to my dad? The layers were peeling back from Blake. Right now he just looked like a high school freshman with bad hair, desperate to seem cool. Yuck. I wasn’t sure if it was good or bad that this was the least disturbing revelation of the day.
“Man, I wish I had some lip balm,” Blake added.
I reached into my dress pocket and grabbed a tube.
“No way! Your dress has pockets?!” he asked.
“Yeah, still does.”
Amid my confusion, Dad gently pulled me aside.
“Kiddo.”
“Dad,” I replied. I couldn’t look him in the eye.
“I’m so, so sorry. I know it doesn’t mean much right now, but I thought I was doing the right thing. It was stupid. I’m on your case constantly about the truth and here I, the adult, screwed it all up.”
“I’m sorry, too. Everyone hates me. I destroyed the stupid dance. I should have told you everything that was happening.”
He nodded. “I think today we learned that everyone makes mistakes. Even adults.”
“Wh
at’s gonna happen to me now, Dad?” I forced myself to look up at him. “Bad things, right? I don’t think I can change this—this thing about me.”
“No. And I wouldn’t want you to. And maybe one day you won’t want to, either.”
“Doubtful.”
“Anyway, I think ya lucked out—it seems like your little wave of preteen self-loathing made them forget you.” He gave me a sympathetic look. “But seriously, look at them. Maybe it’s for the best.”
Hun Su was dusting Blake off like a prized antique. (But they still looked cute together, especially now that I didn’t like him so much.) Jenny and Derek were fixing Kate’s hair, while Keesha stretched and ran in place. I looked at them—I really looked at them. Why had I only seen the things they had that I wanted? Every single one of them was terrified of Jenny, who bossed them around constantly. I wish her parents’ fortune could buy her a surgery to take out her bossy bone. I might not be Prettiest or Richest, but I’m also not Meanest or Scardiest (let’s pretend that’s a word), and that was something I could handle. Something I could be proud of.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS KINDA OKAY
Dad and I checked on everyone else. One by one, students and chaperones all confirmed they were okay—and they had never seen yours truly before. EVER. In fact, none of them remembered my powers, what had happened, or me. “Another freak storm” seemed to be the phrase of the day.
“So, why do you remember me?” I asked Dad. We could hear the sirens of police cars and fire engines making their way to the school.
“At first I had no clue who you were, but I came around. You are my daughter, ya know.”
I hugged him, but my brief joy was snatched away when I spotted a natural redhead motionless under a table. It was Charlie!
“No!” I ran to Charlie, and Dad easily lifted the table off of him. “Charlie!” I shouted in his face. “Charlie! Are you okay? What are you doing here?”
I was so relieved to see him. Then I realized the worst thing ever: Charlie wouldn’t know who I was. His memory would be wiped clean of me, just like everyone else’s.
My So-Called Superpowers Page 13
