Powerless

by Matthew Cody

  Chapter Five

  The Children of Noble’s Green

  “So, I guess I’d better start with introductions. Well, that’s Louisa and her little sister, Rose. Louisa can walk through stuff and Rose can turn invisible. That’s Simon—he can do things with electricity. It’s pretty cool, you’ll see. You already know Rohan—nothing gets past him. He can see and hear and smell just about anything. And, of course, Mollie—the best flier there ever was—”

  “Not ever,” interrupted Mollie. “Michael was better.” The room went silent as Eric glared at Mollie, but she just returned his stare.

  “All right,” continued Eric. “Mollie here is the fastest flier there ever was. And unfortunately, you’ve already met Clay and Bud—we don’t hang out with them.”

  Eric smiled at the last bit, and Daniel’s own mouth, he knew, was still hanging wide open. He was standing in an old tree fort deep in the woods of Mount Noble—the kids’ secret hideout. With two rooms and a tire swing, it was massive by tree-fort standards, and the supporting branches of two great oaks practically sagged under the weight. Newly painted boards covered up patches of rot here and there, but overall this place had been kept in excellent shape despite its obvious age and use. Freshly tied rope ladders dangled from the sides, and there was even a pirate crow’s nest made from discarded roof shingles.

  The walls inside were covered with posters and hand-drawn pictures. Some of them were just typical kids’ stuff like rockets or race cars, even a few baby animals. But most were drawings of children. In crayon, finger paint or Magic Marker, there were pictures of children laughing, children flying, even children lifting cars over their heads. But as intriguing as the actual pictures were, what shocked Daniel the most was just how old some of them looked—drawn on yellowing paper, with images so faded as to be nearly unrecognizable. Someone had been drawing these for many, many years.

  “That’s all of us, Daniel,” Eric finished. “The Supers of Noble’s Green.”

  “Man, I hate it when he says things like that,” said Simon, a plump boy with spiky blond hair. He mumbled it under his breath, but still loud enough for everyone to hear. But Eric just ignored him and turned to Daniel.

  “So,” he said. “What do you think?”

  What Daniel wanted to say right then was “I think you’ve all gone super-insane and I’m right there with you.” But he didn’t. He thought he should at least try being polite to the boy who had, earlier that day, saved his life….

  After saving Daniel from the terrible fall, Eric had carried him—no, flown him—around the side of the observatory to a safe landing spot.

  Mollie was there to greet them. She looked worried, but Daniel wondered whether she was concerned about his safety or about the fact that he now knew Eric’s secret. His head was spinning from the shock of it all.

  Eric saw the look on his face. “Listen, Daniel, I know you’re pretty freaked out right now, but I need you to stay cool for a while, okay? I promise I’ll tell you everything you want to know later, but right now we need to act like nothing happened. All right? Daniel?”

  Daniel’s heart still felt as if it were going to burst from his chest, but despite it all he almost laughed in Eric’s face. What choice did Eric think he had? Should he go tell a teacher that a super-bully and his smelly sidekick had chased him out a hole on top of the observatory, but since a flying super-kid caught him, now everything was okay?

  Mollie stepped forward and put her hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Please, Daniel. I promise we’ll tell you everything, just a little later.”

  And with that touch, Daniel’s heart stopped racing and he was able to catch his breath and calm down. He was still in shock, but Mollie’s hand was reassuring.

  “Yeah,” he said, nodding. “Okay. We’ll talk later.”

  Eric smiled. “Great, Daniel. Be at your bedroom window tonight around nine o’clock. We’ll meet you there.” Eric paused while he and Mollie exchanged looks. “And thanks, Daniel. For trusting us.”

  Eric and Daniel returned to the observatory and snuck into the planetarium, where the rest of the class was already watching the star show. Eric leaned back in his chair and grinned at the many colored lights overhead, but for Daniel, it all went by in a blur.

  When they got back to the bus, Rohan was waiting for them. He looked genuinely relieved to see Daniel alive and well.

  “Man, oh man,” he was saying. “Are you all right?”

  Daniel nodded and then climbed aboard the bus, silent.

  Behind him, Rohan was still muttering, “Man, oh man.”

  Just as the bus was about to pull away, Clay and Bud dragged themselves on board. Bud stared at his shoes as he walked and the air around him was strangely odor-free, but Clay held his head high, defiant. When they walked by Daniel’s seat, Clay leaned down and whispered, “What were you thinkin’ backing out of that window? You some kinda maniac? You almost got us in a whole mess of trouble!”

  Daniel was dumbfounded. Was Clay actually blaming him for falling out of the window?

  Daniel muddled through the rest of the day in a near state of shock. At 9:05 p.m., he saw Eric and Mollie standing outside in his yard, in the shadow of his house. He cautiously waved down to them and Mollie called back, “Ready?”

  But they didn’t wait for his answer. They just lifted off the ground and floated up to Daniel’s window. Eric reached out an arm to Daniel. “Want to take a trip?”

  Daniel hesitated and Eric said, “You’ll be perfectly safe. Trust me.”

  It was like one of those trust exercises where you fall back into your friends’ arms, hoping they will be there to catch you. Only Daniel was stepping out of a third-story window and Eric was not his friend. Not yet anyway.

  In the end he just closed his eyes and jumped.

  Eric put Daniel on his back and told him to hang on tight, and then the three of them were off—flying over the trees and houses, soaring through the dark. Mollie shouted above the rushing wind, “See you there,” and sped off ahead of them.

  “Show-off,” Eric said as he and Daniel followed a good distance behind her, drifting through the night sky over Noble’s Green, toward the dark woods of the mountainside.

  Now Daniel was sitting in the secret tree fort of a bunch of super-kids.

  “So, Daniel,” said Eric. “What do you think?”

  Daniel looked around at the kids’ expectant faces. “Are you joking?”

  Eric laughed. He was the type who laughed easily and often, and Daniel was finding it almost impossible not to smile along with him. But until he found some answers, he was determined to try.

  “So you all have …” Daniel tried to think of a word that wouldn’t sound as ridiculous as the one that popped into his head, but he couldn’t. “So you all have … superpowers?”

  “Wow, what gave it away? Maybe it was the flying boy who brought you here!” said the kid with the spiky hair, Simon. Turning to Eric, he let out a loud chuckle. “You sure you didn’t drop this one on his head?”

  “Save it, Simon,” said Eric. “Yes, Daniel. We all have superpowers.”

  Rohan said, “Well, I like to think of them as extra-normal abilities….”

  “And Rohan’s power is that he’s a super-nerd!” offered Simon.

  “Simon!” shouted Mollie and Eric at the same time.

  Daniel shook his head and rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. This was all way too much to take in. Here he was somewhere in the wilds of Mount Noble talking to a bunch of super-kids in their … Tree House of Justice, or whatever. This could have been any ordinary group of kids huddled around their flashlights on a sleepover, but for the fact that there was nothing ordinary about these kids. Of that, at least, Daniel was sure.

  “How? I mean, this is all impossible, right?”

  “Rohan?” said Eric. “Would you do the honors?”

  “Sure thing,” said Rohan, standing. Eric gave Rohan the floor and sat down in his spot. “Well, Daniel,” Roha
n continued, “the truth is that we don’t really know how we got these abilities, but we do know that there have been kids like us in Noble’s Green for a very, very long time.”

  “Kids only?” asked Daniel. “You mean there aren’t any adults … like you? Your parents aren’t …”

  “Heck no. All the adults here are as normal as you are. My parents would ground me until college if they found out.”

  “Go ahead,” said Mollie. “Tell him. Tell him what happens.”

  “I’m getting there, Mol. First things first!”

  “See, Daniel,” Rohan went on, “for a long time Noble’s Green has been a special place. For years, certain children here have been displaying these special abilities. Some of us think it goes back hundreds of years or more, but no one’s really sure. What we do know is that each generation of special children passes down the four rules to the next.”

  “What rules?”

  Rohan pointed his flashlight at Eric, who took over. “First Rule: Use Your Powers to Help. Never Hurt.”

  Next Rohan turned the spotlight on Louisa, who said softly, “Second Rule: The North Face and the Old Quarry Are Off-Limits. Danger Waits for Us There.”

  Then came Mollie. She seemed reluctant at first, but Eric gave her a little nudge in the ribs and she stood up. “Third Rule: It Ends at Thirteen.”

  Finally Rohan turned the light back on himself. “And most important, the Fourth Rule: Never, Ever Let Grownups Know.”

  “Not even Clay will break that one,” said Eric.

  “So, wait a minute,” said Daniel. “You all were born with superpowers and a bunch of rules to go with them? Like an instruction manual? The Supers’ How-To Book?”

  “We weren’t born with them,” answered Eric, patiently ignoring Daniel’s sarcasm. “They show up in us at different times. Rose here is the youngest that I know of….”

  “I’m five and a half!” she shouted, smiling big. “And Eric tells me the rules so I can tell them to other super-kids someday. And Michael told them to him and … somebody told them to Michael.” Rose looked a lot like her older sister, Louisa—dark skin, pretty black hair worn long and a friendly face. Unlike Mollie, when the two sisters saw Daniel staring, they answered him with welcoming smiles.

  “The point is that these rules have been around forever,” continued Eric. “Like the drawings and this fort, kids have been passing them on to each other for years and years. Everyone follows the rules.”

  “Not everyone,” said Mollie.

  “Well, yeah. There is the occasional bad apple.”

  Daniel knew right away who they were talking about. The memory of Clay chasing him off the top of the observatory was still painfully fresh.

  “Tell him the rest,” said Mollie. “Tell him about the Third Rule.”

  Rohan gave Mollie a tired look. “All right, Mol, all right. See, Daniel, the reason there are no adults like us is because of the Third Rule: It Ends at Thirteen. No one keeps their powers past their thirteenth birthday.”

  “You mean you give up your powers?” asked Daniel. “Just like that?”

  “No, not exactly. We don’t just give them up…. The truth is, we don’t know what really happens. We don’t know how we got these powers, and we also don’t know how we lose them. But when I wake up on my thirteenth birthday, I will be just like you, and with no memory of ever even having powers. It all just disappears.”

  “Just like that,” Simon said. “You go to sleep special and you wake up just a regular dweeb like everyone else.”

  This time Eric kicked Simon right in the shin. “Ow!” he yelped. “What did you do that for … oh.”

  Daniel’s face was red, he could feel it. Everyone was looking at him. The “regular dweeb” was blushing.

  “Yeah, whatever. Sorry,” said Simon.

  “Never mind, it’s no sweat,” answered Daniel, but what else could he say? It was true. Here he was, just an ordinary kid standing in a room full of superheroes. He felt very small. Very small indeed.

  But that feeling didn’t squelch Daniel’s natural curiosity. A secret group of super-children? A set of mysterious rules passed on from kid to kid? None of this made any sense.

  “So where did these rules come from, then? I mean, who wrote them?”

  “Tell him! ’Bout Johnny!” said a voice in Daniel’s ear, but when he turned to ask who this Johnny person was, no one was there. “Johnny! Tell him!” repeated the empty air.

  “Rose! You know better than to talk to someone when they can’t see you. It’s not polite,” said Louisa. She came over and sat next to Daniel, but she wasn’t looking at him. She was looking at the empty space immediately next to him.

  Rose appeared only inches away from Daniel’s face. “Sorry.”

  “Who’s Johnny?” asked Daniel, trying not to appear startled by Rose’s sudden-appearing act.

  Louisa answered for her sister. “Johnny Noble. He was the first of us, and he was the writer of the Rules—we think. He was a real, true superhero.”

  “It’s only a legend,” said Mollie.

  “Well, actually there is some evidence,” Rohan put in.

  Daniel interrupted them. The kids here had a habit of talking to him as if he had some idea of what was going on. It was getting irritating. “Jonathan Noble? You mean the guy the town is named after?”

  “He was more than that,” said Eric. “Much more.”

  Daniel heard some rustling behind him and turned to see Rose digging around in an old trunk in the corner. She returned with a large stack of what looked like comic books, which she very carefully placed in front of him. Even though they were wrapped in plastic, Daniel could still smell the age on them.

  Despite Louisa’s flashlight, Daniel had trouble making out the details in the dark.

  “We need some more light,” Eric said. “Simon?”

  With a grin, Simon began furiously rubbing his palms together as Daniel felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The room began to smell like the air before a thunderstorm.

  Electricity, remembered Daniel.

  There was a tiny flutter of light, then another, and another. Within a few minutes, the tree house was lit by twenty or so little glowing spheres of energy, each one no bigger than a golf ball. They crackled and popped as they floated above the children’s heads.

  “Whoa,” said Daniel.

  “They’re my wisps,” said Simon, smiling proudly. “But don’t touch them,” warned Louisa. “Or you’ll get yourself a little shock.”

  “Stingers,” said Rose.

  “You buncha babies,” said Simon, but Daniel noticed that he wasn’t touching them, either.

  By the light of Simon’s wisps, Daniel saw that the comic books were indeed old—yellowed and faded with age. Little Rose leaned over Daniel’s shoulder and pointed.

  “Johnny Noble,” she whispered.

  Across the top of every book, printed in big, bold lettering, was the title—FANTASTIC FUTURES, STARRING JOHNNY NOBLE. The hero of every cover was a masked man in a skintight red shirt and black pants. In each drawing he was doing some different heroic deed, but most of them involved fighting Nazi tanks or punching out Axis soldiers. All these comics were obviously from the World War II era but were in relatively good shape considering their years. They were probably worth a small fortune.

  Daniel was confused. These were comic books about a superhero, a character named Johnny Noble, but Jonathan Noble was a real man, flesh and blood. He was a local hero, sure, and while Daniel assumed there were a few tall tales about him, like the one about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree, he was definitely a real man. Daniel remembered the photo he saw hanging in the observatory. But the character in these comics was shown doing impossible things like lifting three-ton tanks and flying.

  Yeah, impossible things like flying.

  “You’re trying to tell me that this is the same guy? That Jonathan Noble, the hero of Noble’s Green, is—”

  “Also known
as Johnny Noble, a superhero from World War II.” Eric sat down next to Daniel and took one of the books from him. Very gently, he removed it from its protective wrapper and opened it, careful not to put too much pressure on the pages. On the cover was an illustration of Johnny Noble in a dark forest, jumping from foxhole to foxhole and tearing up machine-gun nests and enemy barbed wire.

  “Eric!” said Daniel. “Those are comic books, not history books!” Daniel found himself pacing around the room. His earlier shock had worn off and his logical detective mind was taking over.

  Eric just shook his head. “There’s more, Daniel. Among the Supers there has always been a legend of a boy who grew up and kept his powers. The story goes that one of the first of us was so strong and so heroic that he reached thirteen and he kept his powers. See, it’s like a test—we were given these powers, and we have to prove that we are responsible enough to keep them. We have to prove that we are heroes.”

  “And why do you think that this boy, the one who grew up, is Johnny Noble?”

  Rohan took the book from Eric. “Well, obviously no one knows for sure. But it’s a theory.”

  Rohan was interrupted by a choking, gasping sound, and Daniel turned to see Simon sticking a finger down his throat.

  “Oh, don’t mind me,” said Simon. “I’m just going to make myself vomit if these two don’t shut up soon.”

  Eric folded his arms across his chest and sighed. Simon looked pleased with himself.

  “Okay,” said Daniel, rubbing his eyes. “Answer this—if there really was some kind of superhero fighting on our side during World War II—some Super who grew up and decided to fight crime and the whole thing—why haven’t we heard about it? You’d think it might have been mentioned someplace other than a bunch of comics.”

  Eric shrugged. “Why haven’t we heard the truth about aliens and UFOs? And ghosts and Bigfoot and stuff? It’s the government! It’s all over the television how the government is keeping things like that a secret. Well, what if they decided they wanted to keep him a secret, too? But someone here knew about him and published his stories in a way that guaranteed that the kids of Noble’s Green would read about him—comics! The government probably erased all evidence of Johnny Noble’s existence when he refused to keep working for them after the war … or something like that.” Eric set down the copy of Fantastic Futures very gently, almost reverently. “Now all we have are these few.”