‘Everything’s still here! You’re just outside the holographic barrier!’
‘The what?’
Noah pushed me back up the slope. The school, the stormy clouds, and the rowdy students magically reappeared.
Penny and Jordan were there, too.
‘Dude, compose,’ Penny said. ‘Everybody’s looking!’
I clenched my teeth and sucked air through my nose until my hands stopped trembling.
‘Check it out,’ Noah said, pointing at a line of tripods behind us. ‘They’re holopods. They cover the school with a giant hologram of a burned-down building. It’s camouflage. Super rad.’
‘Are you all right?’ Penny asked. ‘You look a little … sick. You’re not gonna chuck, are you?’
‘No, I just …’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’
But I wasn’t fine.
I knew I was scared, but I didn’t know I was that scared.
That didn’t bode well for the rest of my year.
CHAPTER FOUR
10 p.m.
Later that night.
After a lame ‘Welcome Back!’ reception with a dinner fit for a funeral, kids spent the rest of the night unpacking in their rooms.
Students keep the same dorm until they graduate, so Noah and I were roomies for life, and Penny was still right upstairs again.
Jordan bunked with us, too, because his alternative would’ve been rooming with Dexter Dunn, my very own personal bully.
Even though I hated him, Dexter’s kind of the reason I was at the school to begin with. He was my neighbour back at home and almost killed me once, which is actually what brought Headmaster Kepler to my house to invite me to the academy.
So I guess Dexter’s not all bad?
Penny hacked away at the small hole in our ceiling that Noah had made last year with a fireball burp. It was almost big enough for her to climb through now.
‘You sure you know what you’re doing?’ Noah asked.
Penny hung upside down through the hole. ‘Not even a little bit.’
‘Did any of you see Headmaster Kepler outside?’ I asked.
‘No,’ Jordan said. ‘He’s probably livin’ it up in Cancún right about now.’
‘Doubt it,’ Penny said. ‘He stepped down “due to health reasons”.’
‘Maybe that’s a good thing then,’ I said. ‘It means we can investigate the mystery of Fifteen without worrying about him catching us.’
The first class at Kepler Academy had only fourteen superpowered students. Everyone knew that. It was taught in history class.
Except it wasn’t true.
At the end of last year, we found a photo that showed fifteen students instead. The headmaster had it hidden away in his creepy cave of secrets in the forest.
A cave overflowing with fake articles about full-blown superheroes, some villain named the Reaper, and the end of the world.
There was even a weird police mugshot of the headmaster, like he was some kind of villain.
But he isn’t – at least, I don’t think he is.
Penny had taken pics of everything with her phone for evidence, but we still didn’t have any leads.
‘Did you ask your parents about Fifteen?’ I asked her.
‘Yeah, but they didn’t know anything,’ Penny said. ‘Which doesn’t surprise me.’
‘Unless their memories were wiped,’ Jordan said. ‘Kepler has people for that.’
‘That’s just something he says,’ Penny said. ‘I think we’d know if any of us had our brains wiped.’
‘But we wouldn’t know, because our brains would be scrubbed,’ Noah said.
‘Fine, then I’d know,’ Penny insisted.
They agreed to disagree, mostly because nobody wanted to argue all night since school started the next morning.
Everyone said goodnight and fell asleep pretty much right away.
Everyone except me.
I stared at shadows, afraid that plant zombies would steal my body in the middle of the night.
Some hero I was.
Time crawled as the moon inched across my window. Five hours I stared into the dark, until I heard a sputtering outside.
I froze.
It couldn’t have been a worm-eater, right?
They don’t sputter. Go-carts sputter. Garbage disposals sputter. Butts sputter.
I slipped out of bed and army-crawled to the window. Slowly, I slid it open.
In the street was an old Vespa scooter, engine sputtering, with the rider standing in front of it.
Was I dreaming?
Was there really a Vespa ninja outside?
The biker’s helmet turned towards the forest.
I looked, too, but the trees were too dark to see anything.
Please don’t be worm-eaters.
She hopped onto her scooter and zipped off in a hurry.
She saw something in the trees.
She must have.
And then I saw Dexter and Vic stumble out, dragging their feet like zombies.
This couldn’t be happening!
They stopped next to the statue of Brock. Vic put his hand to his mouth and loudly slurped something out of it.
Worms!
It was dark out there, but I could see worms falling out of the goth-wannabe’s mouth!
Dexter was eating them, too!
Suddenly Vic’s head snapped in my direction.
I ducked.
They’re not really worm-eaters. My eyes are lying to me because they hate me! This is all just a really bad dream!
The wet sound of chewing worms grew louder in my ears as I crawled back into bed and pulled the covers over my face.
C’mon, brain! Wake up already!
Penny’s chainsaw snore ripped through the hole in the ceiling, and I remembered the look on her face when she was taken by Abigail last year.
It wasn’t just me who was in danger. It was Penny. It was Noah and Jordan. It was the whole school.
Dexter and Vic slurped again.
That was it.
Operation Save the Day was in full swing.
I jumped out of bed and ran into the hallway, pounding on the walls, shouting at the top of my lungs, ‘Worm-eaters! Everybody wake up! There are worm-eaters outside!’
But nobody was waking up.
I didn’t know what else to do.
… and then I saw the fire alarm.
CHAPTER FIVE
3:10 a.m.
Outside.
I pushed through students outside, frantically searching for Dexter and Vic over the ringing bell of the fire alarm.
Everyone was angry about getting woken up, but I didn’t care, because I was about to save the school again. What would this place do without me?
As the new headmaster shouted orders across the yard, the old headmaster finally made his first appearance.
Donald Kepler burst through the doors and scurried down the steps wearing nothing but his boxers and slippers, along with some kind of crazy lightbulb contraption on top of his head.
It was like something a mad scientist would wear to keep people from reading his thoughts.
I ran up to him. ‘Headmaster Kepler, I saw two worm-eaters out here, like, ten minutes ago! It was Dexter and Vic! They came outta the forest like this!’
I did my best worm-eater impression.
Kepler’s eyes twitched. ‘We must keep from making ripples,’ he said, panicked. And then he pulled me closer. ‘What year is this? Has he escaped? He must be kept outside!’
‘What’re you talking about? Did you hear what I said?’
The old man stepped backwards slowly, studying me. ‘… Who are you?’
Headmaster Archer came to Kepler’s rescue, guiding him away from me and back towards the school.
Uh … What just happened?
Did Kepler forget who I was?
‘Ha!’ Vic laughed from behind me. ‘Nobody remembers losers!’
I spun around and bolted for the worm-eater. He freaked, putt
ing his hands up to use his power, but I body-slammed him before he could.
Everyone was like, ‘Ohhhhh!’ and then they started chanting, ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’
I was a boy on a mission. If Vic was a worm-eater, his breath would smell like worms. All I needed was that bit of proof for everyone to have my back.
An army of Kepler students against two worm-eaters? Cake.
Vic and I scuffled as more students gathered around. My friends were right up the front.
Vic stopped struggling. He pulled me closer and sloppily licked my face all over. ‘Is this what you want?’
I flinched, disgusted. ‘Ah, gross, dude!’
The spit on my face didn’t smell like worms.
More like … lollies?
The worm-eater crawled out from under me. I tried pulling him back by grabbing his hoodie, but he wriggled out of it, and I fell back onto the grass.
Coach Lindsay pushed through the crowd. ‘Knock it off, you two!’
I jumped up, pointing at Vic. ‘Smell that boy’s breath! I saw him walk out of the forest with Dexter! I bet his breath smells like worms!’
Coach Lindsay was mortified, but not at Vic.
At me.
‘That boy is a worm-eater!’ I said again in case he didn’t understand.
Vic’s voice sliced through the air. ‘Why are you calling me a boy?’
I looked back at him, confused. ‘Because you’re … you’re a … wait, what?’
Penny gasped. ‘Oh, Ben, you beautiful idiot.’
That was the first time I’d seen Vic without half his face hidden by hair and a hoodie – or, should I say, half her face hidden by hair and a hoodie.
Vic was a girl.
It was way more obvious without the hood.
Hushed whispers came from the crowd.
My world was rocked. ‘But … your name is Vic. Short for Victor.’
‘Short for Victoria, you trash bag!’
‘But the guyliner …’
‘It’s just eyeliner when it’s on a girl!’
‘Time! Out!’ Dexter said, making a T with his hands. ‘Did you think Victoria was a dude all last year?’
Everyone laughed.
Everyone except me and Vic.
She was holding back tears.
Not my best moment.
Everyone shuffled back to the dorms after the fire alarm was switched off. I stood next to Brock, wondering if running away to Mexico was easier than it sounded.
Penny, Noah and Jordan sat next to me.
‘I made a mistake,’ I said.
‘Vic’ll get over it,’ Penny said. ‘Someday. Careful, though, cuz she’s super into Korean revenge movies. She’ll become your closest friend for the next fifteen years, and then BAM! She cuts your brakes and watches you drive off a cliff.’
‘I swear I saw them, though. I saw Dexter and Vic out here,’ I said. ‘You guys believe me, right?’
They shrugged.
Noah spoke first. ‘I mean, it’s three in the morning, and you have weird dreams anyway …’
‘And Dexter and Vic weren’t really acting like worm-eaters …’ Penny added.
‘And there’s some half-eaten gummy worms in the grass over there …’ Jordan said, pointing.
We all turned our heads.
Jordan was right. Chewed-up gummy worms were lying exactly where I saw Dexter and Vic standing from my window. They may not have been worm-eaters, but they were definitely outside after curfew, which brought back a sudden sense of panic in me.
Penny could tell. ‘Hey, relax, dude.’
‘I can’t,’ I said, choking up. ‘I’m scared that something really, really bad is gonna happen this year. Like, worse than last year. That’s how sequels work.’
‘Okay, so this isn’t a movie,’ Penny said. ‘And you’re not in a sequel.’
‘Nothing bad’s gonna happen,’ Noah said. ‘You’re just freaked out from last year.’
I nodded reluctantly.
‘But even if it does, we’re all together now, side by side,’ Penny said. ‘We’ve got your back.’
That was all I needed to hear.
CHAPTER SIX
The next day.
Breakfast.
Four hours later, I was at breakfast, walking the gauntlet of exhausted kids giving me the evil eye in the banquet hall.
Someone even beaned me in the head with a biscuit.
Who does that?
Noah waved to me from across the room. Penny and Jordan were with him. They had the whole table to themselves.
I sat across from Penny, but before I could dig into my food, a girl sat right next to me.
‘Good morning, Benjamin!’ she said with shiny eyes.
Her name was Millie Keegan. She was in the same grade as me, with the power of … something, I don’t know.
I can’t be expected to know everyone’s power!
‘You can call me Ben,’ I said.
Millie giggled. ‘Okay … Ben. Is anyone else sitting here?’
Noah shook his head.
‘It’s cool!’ Millie said to a boy waiting patiently at the next table.
I recognised him, too – Arnold Solis, with the power to absorb other people’s allergies.
Arnold grabbed his tray and squeezed in between Penny and Jordan.
‘Hey, man,’ he said. ‘Big fan.’
‘We’re the Braver Ravers!’ Millie said. ‘Ben’s fan club! We’re the only two members, but I know I can grow it to a dozen by the end of the year.’
‘Dude, you’re a rock star,’ Noah whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.
‘You’re Ben Braver!’ Arnold said. ‘The kid who defeated the first actual supervillain! You made history!’
Not gonna lie.
I liked the words coming out of Arnold’s mouth.
‘So he defeated a ten-storey-tall monster version of himself,’ Penny said, all nonchalant. ‘Whoop-di-spit.’
Millie’s face suddenly got serious. ‘I don’t even care about that. I care that Ben rescued me from Abigail. She kidnapped me during the second week of school. She held me down as her vines wrapped around me. I was in my egg for eight months. How long were you in yours?’
Penny looked away. ‘… Like, an hour.’
Millie continued, staring death at Penny. ‘If it wasn’t for Ben, the whole school would have been in Abigail’s army, including you.’
‘Sorry,’ Penny said quietly. ‘It was a bad joke.’
‘So what’s your superpower?’ Arnold asked me.
‘My what?’ I said.
‘What power did you use to defeat Abigail?’ Millie asked.
I forgot that everyone still thought I was hiding a superpower.
‘Is it superstrength?’ Arnold said.
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Maybe not.’
Again, technically not a lie.
Arnold glanced over his shoulder, then whispered, ‘I’ve been working on mine over the summer. So if the school’s ever attacked again, I can help!’
‘How?’ Jordan asked. ‘By moochin’ someone’s peanut allergy?’
‘I can steal powers now,’ Arnold said with a proud smile. ‘Let me show you!’
Arnold grabbed my hand, but I yanked it away.
‘It won’t hurt!’ he said. ‘Your power comes back after a minute!’
I didn’t care about it hurting.
I cared about being exposed as a phony.
Arnold and Millie waited eagerly for me to give my hand back. There was an awkward silence as Penny, Noah and Jordan looked at one another.
Thankfully, Jordan saved me. ‘Do me!’
Arnold grabbed Jordan’s sleeve, brought the invisible hand to his mouth, and took a huge chomp.
Jordan wailed, ‘What’s the matter with you—’ and then stopped suddenly.
Jordan’s hand wasn’t invisible anymore.
In fact, Jordan’s whole body reappeared as Arnold’s became invisible. ‘Whaaaaat?’ Noah said.
Penny was unimpressed. ‘He needs a haircut.’
Jordan’s hair was curly and nearly shoulder length. His fingers trembled as he stared at them with watery eyes.
Millie handed him a small mirror she pulled from her backpack.
‘… I look older!’ he said with a humongous smile.
Everyone at the table realised he needed a moment. He was reuniting with someone he hadn’t seen for a very long time.
‘Told you I could do it,’ the freshly invisible Arnold said. ‘And I would’ve done the same thing to Abigail.’
‘You would’ve chickened out,’ Noah said.
‘Yeah, wrong! I’d be all about it in the heat of battle. You’ll see. Someday I’ll fight a real villain, and positively dominate them. Those chumps won’t even stand a chance!’
‘But Noah has you beat,’ Jordan said. ‘He would’ve set that monster ablaze, yo!’
‘Whatever!’ Penny said. ‘Noah’s nothing without his beef jerky. His kryptonite is a vegan diet!’
Noah puffed his chest out. ‘That’s why my goal this year is to create fire without beef jerky. I’ll be full-powered before the year’s out!’
‘Except this school’s here to prevent that,’ Millie said.
‘Does that seem right to you?’ Arnold asked. ‘Can you imagine if every student here was full-powered, like me and Ben? Kepler kids could change the world, but they want us to be just like humans when we’re better than that. We’re better than humans.’
A chill crawled up my spine.
Better than humans.
Arnold was sounding almost like Abigail.
‘You make us sound like half-alien hybrids,’ Penny said. ‘I’m not into that.’
‘We’re all thinking it,’ Arnold said as his face reappeared. ‘But I’m the only one with the guts to say it – we could’ve been killed. And it would’ve been Headmaster Kepler’s fault.’
‘Lucky for us, Ben was there to save the day,’ Millie said.
Arnold smiled at me. ‘Heck yeah, he was.’
Those two really liked me.
I wondered what they’d think if they knew I didn’t have a power – if they knew I wasn’t the big bad superhero they thought I was.
Actually, scratch that.
Ben Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid Page 2