Never Fear, Meena's Here!

by Karla Manternach

  “Doesn’t matter. You wear that all the time. Everybody will know it’s you.”

  She has a point. “I just feel like I should match the Rainbow Ring.”

  That’s when I get an Inspiration.

  “Or maybe it came looking like this so it could match me,” I whisper.

  I dive through my supply bins and rummage until I find—there! I dig out my old sneakers and pull off one of the rainbow laces. It’s a little frayed at the ends, but I slide the Rainbow Ring onto it, tie it around my neck, and tuck it into my shirt. I don’t want it out where everyone can see it, in case someone lost it and is missing their powers.

  I hear Rosie thumping up the stairs and open the door. She’s cradling a big bowl of popcorn. “Thanks, squirt,” I say, lifting it out of her hands.

  She pokes her head in. “What are you doing?”

  “Making bracelets.”

  “Can I make one?”

  “They’re not for sisters. They’re for friends.”

  Her face falls. “I’m your friend.”

  “Bye, Rosie.” I give her enough of a push to get her back into the hall and close the door.

  When I turn around, Sofía is frowning at me.

  “What?” I say. “I was nice about it.”

  “I don’t mind if she hangs out with us,” she says. “Why can’t she come in?”

  “I see Rosie every day.”

  “I don’t.”

  I sigh and set down the bowl. “You don’t have to share a room with her either. Or let her tag along when you’re working on projects. She’s everywhere!”

  Sofía crosses her arms right over the top of Raymond, which makes him look like he’s choking. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”

  But I don’t want Rosie around. Not this time. Sofía and I went more than a month without talking to each other over the winter, and even though we made up weeks ago, I still feel like we have catching up to do. Ever since then, sometimes I feel like just another one of her friends—like when Pedro makes a joke in Spanish that only she understands, or she invites Maddy and Nora to stay in for recess with us. If it were up to her, everybody would always be included. Even boys who fold their eyelids inside out and kid sisters. I don’t even have a bracelet to show the world I’m special—her best friend. The one and only.

  I pry Raymond gently out of her grip and smooth his rainbow-striped mane. “Can’t we just finish our bracelets?” I ask. “I haven’t had you to myself all week.”

  Sofía’s face softens into half a smile. When she picks up the jar of beads we’ve been saving, I let out a breath and plop down on the floor.

  We dump out all the beads and cut pieces of plastic string. Up until now, we haven’t been able to agree on how our bracelets should look. I want rainbow colors, but Sofía wants pastels. “So, what’s it gonna be?” I ask.

  She grabs a handful of popcorn and chews thoughtfully. “Let’s just make them however we want,” she says. “We don’t match. Our bracelets shouldn’t have to either.”

  I guess that’s true. Maybe it doesn’t matter what they look like, so long as everybody knows what they mean.

  Because friendship bracelets work the same way as calling the top bunk or sticking your finger in a cupcake so no one else takes it.

  They let everybody know what belongs to you.

  At least now we don’t have to figure out who gets the only yellow bead. I pick it out of the pile and thread it onto my string. I want it to look like a diamond with all the other colors of the rainbow circling it. As I thread more beads together, I start thinking about the Rainbow Ring, and pretty soon I’m picturing the superhero movie poster they’ll make for me someday. I can see it perfectly: a rainbow burst, radiating across the page. Right in the center is me, wearing—

  I stop working and stare out the window. I’m trying so hard to imagine my suit that I only sort of hear Sofía when she says, “Meena?”

  She snaps her fingers in my face.

  I blink. “What?”

  “Sorry,” she says, looking relieved. “Just making sure you’re still here.”

  I scowl and bend over my bracelet again. Sofía was the first one to notice that I have mini seizures. She says when I space out, it looks like I’m daydreaming, except I don’t remember it afterward. All I know is that time jumps forward, and someone is usually snapping in my face.

  That part is pretty annoying.

  “What do you think,” I ask, “tights or leggings?”

  “For what?”

  “My supersuit.”

  “Oh. Leggings, I guess.”

  “That’s what I thought.” I thread a few purple beads onto each side of the string. “We should talk about your suit too.”

  “Why would I need a suit?”

  “So you can be my sidekick.”

  Sofía stops threading beads and gapes at me. “I’m not going to be your sidekick. Besides, we don’t know if you are a superhero yet.”

  “I saved that girl, didn’t I? I must have some kind of special powers.”

  “Special powers don’t make you a hero. Even villains have those.”

  She’s right. I put my hand on my chest and feel the outline of the Ring under my shirt. “But villains don’t save people,” I say slowly.

  That’s how I’ll find out for sure if I’m a superhero, I realize.

  I need to find more people to save.

  3

  When I wake up on Saturday, Rosie’s bed is a pile of covers next to mine. I stretch out my arm and gaze at my new bracelet in every color of the rainbow.

  Then I remember.

  I sit up and feel for the Ring around my neck. Yes! It wasn’t a dream. I bolt out of bed, hurry to my workshop, and breathe on the window. Traces of my last picture reappear in the Magic Mist: a circle of fingerprints from yesterday morning, when my only wish was to make bracelets with Sofía.

  Today I draw a stick figure at the center of the circle with her hands on her hips. I make a squiggly line to look like a cape flapping in the breeze, then I close my eyes and make a wish.

  I want to save someone again.

  I know a thing or two about superheroes. I’ve seen a bunch of the old cartoons with Dad. Once in a while, Mom even lets us watch one of the movies, as long as Dad covers my eyes for the good parts. So I know the first thing I need to do is get to a big city.

  Because superheroes are always hanging out on top of skyscrapers.

  “Anybody want to take a trip today?” I ask, bounding into the kitchen.

  “Meena!” Rosie springs from the table and hugs me around my stomach like she hasn’t seen me in years.

  “Where to?” Mom asks, handing me a plate.

  “I don’t know. New York. Metropolis. Maybe Gotham?”

  “Some of those places aren’t even real,” Dad says from the stove.

  “New York isn’t real?”

  Dad chuckles and lifts a pancake onto his spatula. “Incoming!” He flicks his wrist, and the pancake sails through the air right at me! I leap for it and let it bounce off my chest before I catch it on my plate.

  Wow! My reflexes are amazing! “Do it again,” I say.

  Mom clears her throat. Dad winks at me, lifts another pancake off the griddle, and walks it over. I grin and slide into my chair.

  “Milk’s in the fridge,” Mom says.

  Rosie is arranging the strawberries on her plate into a smiley face. I nudge her with my elbow.

  “Oh!” She jumps up. “I’ll get it!” She runs for the fridge and lugs the gallon of milk to the counter in both arms.

  “Just a second, Rosie.” Mom gets up and reaches into a cupboard. While she’s not looking, I flood my pancakes with syrup and scoop fruit salad into the puddles, checking to make sure I have all the colors: strawberry, orange, pineapple, kiwi, and a few purple grapes. Perfect.

  I’m about take a bite when Rosie bounces over and hands me her old pink sippy cup.

  “What’s this for?” I ask.

  “You
r milk.”

  I thrust it back at her. “I’m not drinking out of that!”

  Rosie looks hurt.

  “I just thought it’d be easier than mopping up spills,” Mom says.

  I stab a grape. Okay, so I’ve been knocking over a lot of glasses lately. Sometimes I even fling cereal off my spoon without meaning to. My arms are herky and jerky in the morning. It goes with the spacing out and the whole-body-shaking seizure I had once. The doctor says I have epilepsy. You know what she doesn’t say?

  She doesn’t say I have to drink out of my sister’s sippy cup!

  “Let me see that,” Dad says. He takes the milk from Rosie and pours it into a cup for me. “Why don’t we let you pick out a sport bottle?” he asks.

  “Good idea,” Mom says. “I’m going to the hardware store after breakfast if you want to come. I bet they have some.”

  I perk up at the offer. The hardware store is the perfect place to get ideas for my suit!

  “We can look at paint colors for your room while we’re there too,” Mom says.

  Holy hippo, this day just keeps getting better! My bedroom walls are this barely-there gray that Mom and Dad picked out before I was born. They thought it would be soothing, but I say painting a baby’s room gray is giving her something to cry about.

  Clearly, they hadn’t met me yet.

  “I know exactly what I want.” I jump up from the table and gesture toward the wall. “A band of yellow down by the floor, then it fades into orange, then red and all the other colors until you get to the top, and the whole ceiling is purple!” Now, that’s a room fit for a superhero. It will even match the Rainbow Ring! I start skipping around the table.

  Dad holds up his hands. “Whoa there.”

  I stop. “What?”

  “I hate to tell you this, kiddo,” he says, “but it’s not your turn to pick.”

  I stare at him. “But it’s my room!”

  “You have two rooms, my dear,” Mom says. “Which is a little embarrassing if you think about it.”

  “Rosie’s the one who wants to share.”

  “Which is why we let you have your own workshop… and why you got to pick bright orange for the walls, although it nearly killed me.”

  “So who gets to pick this time? You?”

  “Your sister, of course.”

  Rosie looks up from popping the last strawberry into her mouth. “Me?”

  “It’s your room too, honey,” Mom says. “Your only room.”

  “But she’ll want pink!”

  Rosie’s eyes grow wide. “I can have pink?”

  Mom smiles. “You can have whatever you want.”

  * * *

  I’m still mad when we walk into the hardware store. But I’m not gonna lie: that first whiff of sawdust and garden hose…

  It helps.

  I turn and wave my hands at the automatic door, pretending that I’m the one making it swish shut. BAM! Next, I wiggle my feet into the prickly rubber mat, then I head to the gumball machines, turn all the cranks, and lift the little flaps, just in case.

  “Did you bring any money?” I ask Rosie. Sometimes our cousin Eli gives her a couple of quarters for helping him clean cages, because Aunt Kathy actually gives him an allowance, unlike some people I know.

  Rosie opens her sparkly pink purse, rifles through mini ponies and plastic gemstones, and pulls out two quarters. She spends hers on a big gumball, but I know those things are just air inside a sugary crust, so I get a bouncy ball instead.

  “Can I use your phone to take pictures?” I ask Mom. “In case I get an Inspiration.”

  She hands it to me. “Just don’t set it down anywhere. We’ll be in the paint department.”

  I bounce my ball down the main aisle and start taking photos. If I ever do convince Mom and Dad to give me an allowance, I bet I’ll blow it all here. There’s a spool of chain that looks thick enough to lasso a dragon and a tool pouch that would make a perfect utility belt. I bounce from one aisle to the next, spelling “kapow” with mailbox letters, wondering if heavy-duty sandpaper would make good armor, and pointing a caulk gun at the ceiling.

  But it’s not long before I’m bouncing my ball toward my favorite part of the store.

  Mom and Rosie are standing in front of the wall of paint samples. The sight of those little cards arranged in a rainbow waterfall warms my chest. Some of the colors blast. Others whisper. Standing there, letting each one speak for itself, feels a lot like staring at blades of grass until suddenly your eyes adjust and you see little ants running around too.

  This is the only place I respect the boring colors. Here, I can see what they’re made of. The whites and the grays and the beiges have more color in them than you notice at first. One is more red, another more yellow, another a little more blue.

  But I still like the bright colors best of all.

  Mom is already holding a couple of cards, each with five shades of the same color, darkest to lightest: a green one (celery to evergreen) and a yellow one (butter to marigold).

  Rosie is holding ten different shades of pink.

  I groan. A few weeks ago, Maddy brought birthday cupcakes to school. When it was finally my turn to pick, I took the orange one. But then Aiden wouldn’t take the last cupcake because it was frosted pink, and so Mrs. D made me trade!

  I should have stuck my finger in the one I wanted.

  I don’t know why some people think boys are allergic to pink. They act like it’s a girl color, but why should it be? Why do I have to get stuck with watered-down, wishy-washy red? The whole thing makes me mad all the way down to my toes, and if I have to wake up every morning to pink, I’m gonna want to punch something.

  “I’m going to go get some tomato seeds,” Mom says. “Meena, do you want to pick out a water bottle?”

  I hand back her phone. “You can do it. Anything but pink,” I say. “Or white or beige or gray.” When she’s gone, I start running my hand over the cards, listening to the little flicks they make against my fingers.

  Suddenly, I stop. My eyes zoom in on a card. My throat swells as all the other colors disappear.

  You know how nature uses some colors more than others? Green grass. Blue sky. Plenty of fruits and vegetables that are yellow and orange and red.

  But purple. That’s a tough color to find. If you’re trying to eat the rainbow, it’s the hardest one to get—especially if your mom only buys dyed foods from health stores that squeeze vegetables into cereal somehow. Most of the time, you’ll settle for bluish purple instead. You’ll eat blueberries and grapes and plums when you can get them. When they’re out of season, your mom will try to convince you that beets should count as purple, even though they juice red all over your plate.

  Plus, they taste like pickled dirt.

  But let’s say that on those days when you can’t stand eating one more slice of eggplant, you go to bed in a room that’s the very purple-blue color you’re missing so you can fill up on it while you sleep.

  Wouldn’t you want your room to be painted that color?

  I stuff my bouncy ball into my pocket and reach for the card. It’s like royal blue that’s been dipped in purple velvet near a fire that makes it glow. It’s like staring into the sky at dusk, right when that first star blinks into view.

  And it’s right here, calling to me from a two-inch strip.

  Maybe I can hear colors. Maybe that’s one of my powers!

  “Rosie,” I whisper. “Look at this one.”

  She leans closer. “Purple?”

  “It’s not just purple. There’s blue in it, too.” I clutch the Rainbow Ring, almost swooning now. I need this color. “Don’t you want to wake up to this?” I ask. “Isn’t it the first thing you’d like to see every day?”

  She takes the card.

  This one, I say to myself, over and over. I squeeze my eyes shut, pushing the thought toward Rosie, wishing for her to pick it.

  “See anything you like?”

  My eyes snap open. Mom is standin
g over us with a bright orange water bottle.

  I make one last silent plea: This one!

  Rosie holds up my card. “This one,” she says.

  I yank my hand away from the Rainbow Ring like it’s just burst into flames.

  Did I make Rosie pick that color with my mind?

  “I thought you wanted pink,” Mom says.

  “I want this,” Rosie says. “It’s pretty.”

  Mom’s eyes flick to me, her mouth pulling into a thin line. “How about we tape the card to your wall and see how it looks? We can come back and buy the paint when you’re sure.”

  “Okay,” says Rosie. She skips down the aisle, pigtails bouncing.

  Mom turns on me, hands on her hips. “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” I say, dazed.

  But did I?

  Rosie was about to pick the wrong color, and I stopped her. I saved her. All by myself. In the nick of time.

  POW!

  Mom frowns. She rubs her forehead then turns and follows Rosie down the aisle.

  I trace the circle of the Rainbow Ring through my shirt.

  I wonder what else this baby can do.

  4

  The rest of the weekend, I collect supplies for my supersuit. Here’s what I discover:

  I could use an umbrella that shoots lasers.

  Hollowed-out tuna cans would make good wrist guards if they didn’t go flying when you karate chop the air.

  If you think your mom is going to spend fifty bucks on an old-fashioned trash can so you can use the lid as a shield, you must be out of your mind.

  I’m still thinking about my suit at breakfast on Monday when my arm jerks and my cereal bowl goes flying. Rosie yelps. Mom jumps up and lifts her computer away from the milk. Dad tosses me a dish towel.

  If there weren’t all these people around, I’d try blinking the mess away. Instead, I wipe the table dry and dab up the drips on the floor.

  “Nice work, sarge,” Dad says when I finish. “Miss Rosie, are you ready to go?”

  She holds out the milk-soaked front of her shirt. “I’m wet.”

  That’s when I get an Inspiration. “I could walk her to school,” I say.