Junior Hero Blues

by J. K. Pendragon

  “How was your date?” asked my mom, and for a minute I didn’t know what she was talking about. I’d completely forgotten about Rick and the nice time we’d had.

  “Oh.” I stared down at the yellow linoleum and kicked at a broken patch while I hung up my coat. “Yeah, it was good.”

  “Good?” She sounded concerned. “What’s wrong, Javi? You look down.”

  “No, no, I’m fine, just a long day at school.”

  “You see, they work these kids too hard,” said my dad. “They need to have a nap time, in the afternoon.”

  “That would be really nice.” I swayed a little as I kicked my shoes off.

  My mother tsked. “You must be tired. You want some coffee?”

  “I just had coffee.” I yawned, still staring at the floor, and shuffled toward the hallway.

  “Did he buy it for you?” asked my mom. “Hey, who buys the coffee when it’s two boys?”

  “We each bought our own coffee, Mama.”

  “Anyway,” said my dad, “it shouldn’t always be the boy who buys coffee for the girl. You should think about that, Helena.”

  I escaped into my bedroom and shut the door, slumping against it. My room was a mess, due to my somewhat compulsive hoarding tendencies. I’d knocked a stack of binders down off my desk coming in through the window, but I didn’t have the energy to pick them up. I read somewhere that people with clean living spaces have more energy. But maybe it’s people with more energy have cleaner living spaces. Correlation doesn’t equal causation, after all.

  Anyway, my phone was beeping. I went and collapsed on the bed, picked it up, and got a big jolt of energy when I realized that it was a text from Rick.

  Hey Javi! Sorry I had to leave early. I really enjoyed our date. :)

  I sat up cross-legged on the bed and typed a reply, trying my best to match his impeccable texting grammar. I had fun too! It’s okay that u had to leave. I did too.

  Well we’re both busy guys I guess. :) We should do it again sometime.

  I was getting all stupid and excited, and my heart was doing something weird. I actually had my hand on my chest before I realized it and tugged it away. Ew, feelings. I texted Kendall. I need to temper my expectations.

  I lay back on the bed and grabbed my laptop, glancing out the window while the computer whirred and beeped and took ages to start up.

  Wat? Kendall’s grammar was much more familiarly butchered. Hey ur in the news. U didn’t miss ur date did u? Bcuz I will bury u.

  I had no idea why Kendall was so invested in my love life, considering the hordes of girls she went through on a regular basis. No the date was gr8. He’s prolly not that into me tho. WHICH is good bcuz ur the 1 that said I should implement a no white boyz rule.

  This white boy is totally the exception, J. He’s super sweet, and totes into u. Trust me, I know. ;)

  I rolled my eyes and flopped backward onto the bed, holding the phone above my face. HOW do u know?

  Hush Javi. Ppl talk, I listen. I can’t expose my sources.

  Whatever

  So what did he say? Kendall’s text response time was ridiculously fast. Maybe that was her superpower.

  He said that he “Really enjoyed our date” and “We should do it again sometime.”

  Aaaand what did u say?

  I haven’t responded yet. I flipped back to the conversation with Rick and stared at it. What was I even supposed to say?

  My phone buzzed as Kendall replied. You are killing me rn.

  Okay I’m texting him back.

  Good. I want screenshots.

  U can wait until tomorrow and steal my phone like u always do.

  Make it worth my while then.

  I rolled my eyes and texted Rick back as instructed. Yeah, sounds good. Let me know when is good for you.

  He didn’t respond, so I went online and looked for the news article Kendall was talking about. Because I’m a narcissist and I like to read about myself. Shut up.

  Blue Spark, a relatively new and mysterious member of the League of Liberty, was at the forefront of what first appeared to be a jewelry-store heist downtown today, but soon morphed into a superpowered battle between League and Organization representatives . . .

  Yadda yadda yadda . . .

  Blue Spark has made several appearances in the last six months, and is recognizable by his glowing blue eyes and the markings on his body, which analysts have compared to a Lichtenberg figure, a type of scarring that appears on the body of those who have been struck by lightning. The official League database has very little information on Blue Spark, but mentions that his superpowers were acquired from a Kanaan alien. Rumors speculate that there is a connection between the strange markings (possibly scars) that Blue Spark shows off so readily and the unfortunate demise of Kanaan representative and beloved League superhero Tuvia, may they rest in peace . . .

  The paper wasn’t exactly wrong. I had gotten my powers from a Kanaan alien. Tuvia had been in a high-flying battle with an Organization villain when both of them had gone crashing into an electrical station. Meanwhile, some idiot had been climbing on one of the power lines near the station (spoiler: I’m the idiot) and gotten shocked with electricity, which somehow fused my DNA with Tuvia’s. Which is cool, except like . . . Tuvia died. And since I skipped out of there before the League could find me and figure out what had happened, I never got to meet them. I guess I’m selfish, but it would have been nice to have someone to, you know, explain my powers to me. The rest of the Kanaan barely wanted anything to do with humans, but apparently Tuvia was a pretty cool guy . . . person. Kanaan don’t have genders.

  Anyway. The news could get really sensationalist fast, which was why all this stuff about my origin wasn’t exactly in the public domain. The League relied on publicity a lot in order to sell merchandise and get public funding, but the journalists could be pretty damn pushy sometimes, especially considering the code in place about not revealing League or Organization members’ identities. Junior Heroes especially weren’t supposed to give away any information about themselves to news outlets, and the journalists were supposed to keep away from us.

  Except sometimes I thought it would be easier to just be like Captain Justice and not have to worry about having a secret identity. But then I thought about how Captain Justice’s parents died, and how he didn’t have any contact with the rest of his family. And then I thought about how being a superhero is kind of a crap deal in the first place, even with the League there making it better.

  But I guess it wasn’t really about me anyway, was it? That was the whole point of being a superhero.

  It wasn’t until I was sitting in second-period science class the next day that I realized with a jolt of horror that the gross toilet-y smell that had been following me around all day wasn’t a problem with the school plumbing at all.

  It was me.

  I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a public place and realized you smelled bad. I really hope not, for your sake, because it’s the worst thing in the world, but just imagine it. And then imagine that you’re only one step up from a social pariah already, and just trying to make it through senior year without being shoved in a toilet.

  And Oh god, I smelled like a toilet . . . ewwwwww . . .

  So I basically sat there for the second half of class not learning anything, just being secretly paranoid that everyone around me could smell me and was hating me. The moment class was over, I raced to my locker to meet Kendall and wafted my arms in her face.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Um, what are you doing?”

  “I still smell gross!” I whispered, sniffing my arm. “I can smell it! Smell! Ew!”

  “Didn’t you shower?”

  “Yeah! Like three times!” I really had showered three times. Once at the headquarters, and then again when I got home, and then again in the morning. I’d scrubbed everywhere.

  “What soap did you use?”

  “I don’t know. Regular soap?”

  Kendall sig
hed and opened her locker, reaching up to dig through a bunch of bottles and crap on the top shelf. “Here.” She pulled out a clear, flower-patterned bottle with what looked like hot-pink petroleum jelly inside. “Use this. It’s scented, so it’ll at least mask the smell.”

  I popped it open and gave a sniff, wrinkling my nose as it was assaulted by the olfactory equivalent of the nineties’ sleeper hit Spice World. “What is this?”

  “What? Don’t tell me it’s threatening to your masculinity.”

  “What masculinity? I’m just worried at it eating away at my skin.” I sniffed it again tentatively.

  “It’ll take care of the smell,” said Kendall. “Now some of us have plans for lunch.”

  “I’m gonna have a shower right now.”

  Kendall pinched her mouth to the side. “You sure that’s a good idea?”

  “No. I guess I could just skip out and go home early.”

  “Yeah, too bad the school’s not being attacked by a mutant crocodile or something, then you could have an excuse to skip class.”

  “That sounds like a bit more trouble than it’s worth.”

  “For you maybe.” Kendall slammed her locker shut. “But at least you’d have a chance to rescue your boy Rick from the jaws of certain death.”

  “He’s not my boy!” I shouted after her as she left, and then immediately felt self-conscious for yelling. I stared down at the pink bottle in my hand and brought my arm to my nose again. Yeah, a shower was definitely in order.

  Unfortunately the only showers available at school were the public ones adjacent to the men’s locker room. I hadn’t set foot in the gymnasium wing of the school since I’d finished my last year of mandatory PE, and was paranoid that I’d be spotted and called out as the unathletic nerd I was (and that I wouldn’t be able to shower without a bunch of dudes staring at my, um, assets), but luckily the whole wing was nearly deserted.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not self-conscious about my body at all. The accident that gave me my powers and markings also gave me a pretty awesome set of abs. It’s upsetting to me that I’m never able to show them off, because, you know, glowing lightning scars. I make up for it by wearing a revealing costume, but it’s not really the same. I sometimes fantasize that a hot guy would happen upon me in the showers and notice how sexy I am, and, you know, things would progress from there.

  Except that I don’t even like jocks. Well, except Rick. For some reason.

  Anyway, showering in a public bathroom where anyone could walk in and see me was really, really stupid. But I couldn’t stand the idea of smelling like crap any longer, and I didn’t want to skip either. With my luck, Captain Justice would probably pull up his “records” and see that I had, then drag me into his office for another “talk.”

  I would just be quick. In and out, scrub myself down, and then back into my clothes before anyone came in and noticed.

  Yeah, right.

  So there I was, in the big empty shower, trying to wipe myself down and get as clean as possible, or at least get enough of the pink stuff on myself to mask the smell. (Why would I rather smell like Princess Sparkle than sewer, you ask? Because I, my friend, am unashamed of my sexuality. Also because I’m not an idiot.) And then I heard a bunch of shouting and rowdy noises and doors opening and then, yep, you guessed it, a bunch of football players came barging into the locker room, heading straight for the showers.

  I’d left my bag with my clothes, towel, glasses, and special color-changing contacts from the League (since I’m not supposed to get them wet) in the locker room, of course. I couldn’t go running out there stark naked with glowing blue everything to get it, but the alternative was waiting there for them to all come in and see me. And at that moment, I didn’t even care about them finding out about my secret identity. I was honestly worried about them seeing my markings and my weird glowing eyes and thinking that I looked like a freak.

  I did the only thing I could think of, which was to jump up to the ceiling and pull off one of the weird Styrofoam tiles and climb in behind it. I’d just managed to put it back as the football players came flooding into the showers, and I was left sitting there, supporting my weight on the fragile metal beams, peering down through a crack in the tiles at a bunch of naked men.

  Oh.

  The little space above the ceiling tiles began to glow bright blue as my entire body heated up. I could practically hear myself buzzing with embarrassment and, well, other things.

  I should probably mention now that I had actually had sex before that point. Once. Or rather, Blue Spark had. It was some guy I’d saved from a collapsing theater. He wanted to repay me for saving his life. I was pretty sure he hadn’t realized I was a teenager. I kept the mask on the whole time. It was . . . enlightening. And awkward. There, you’re all caught up.

  Anyway, football players. Yeah, okay, I was enjoying this a bit more than I should have. I was terrified that one of them would look up and see me somehow, or that I would fall through the ceiling or something. But there was nothing I could do except wait, and watch, so . . . what else was I supposed to do?

  They all got under the showerheads, laughing and joking around with each other in their dumb jock voices. That should have been a turnoff, it really should have been, but it was hard to be distracted when the bodies were right there and . . .

  “Hey, have you guys seen Javier? I think this is his bag.”

  That sounded like Rick. I jumped, and nearly fell through the ceiling, craning my head to try to see through the crack. It was definitely Rick, although I couldn’t see him to tell if he was naked or not. Not that it mattered. Ahem.

  “Who, Jav-ver?” laughed one of the other jocks. “What’s with that kid, anyway? Why do you like him?”

  “Because I do,” said Rick. “Seriously, this is his bag, and his clothes are in it. He must be here.”

  My mind was going into full panic mode now. I’d put my clothes in the top of the bag, but if Rick dug any deeper, he’d uncover my costume, and then I’d be screwed.

  “Dude, I think we’d notice if he was in here,” said another guy. Or maybe the same one. It was hard to tell them apart. “Maybe he’s hiding like a little bi—”

  “Hey, that’s the guy I’m dating,” said Rick, making my heart swell a little. “What, are you jealous?” That prompted a bunch of jeering and laughing. I caught sight of Rick, sadly fully clothed still, making his way through the showers and looking around. Finally, sounding a little concerned, he said, “Well, I guess I’ll take these to the lost and found, then.”

  Of course then I started to seriously freak out. This was absolutely the stupidest thing I’d done in the history of ever, and that included climbing up an electrical tower after a pair of thirty-dollar shoes. Rick would take my bag to the lost and found, and I would be trapped here, probably forever. Or at least until night when I could sneak, naked, into the lost and found, and hope that no one checked the security cameras. Great, this was just great.

  Rick left the showers, and I heard his footsteps stop as he reached the locker room doors. “Hey, Kendall, have you seen Javi?”

  Kendall? Was she here to rescue me?

  “Yeah.” Kendall’s tone was pretty darn standoffish considering how she’d been gushing about him before. “He’s taking a shower.”

  “Yeah? He’s not in there, though, but his clothes are in this bag.”

  I heard Kendall grab the bag from Rick, and he protested. There was a moment of silence while she riffled through it, and presumably found my suit, and then the noise of her zipping it back up. “We should leave it in there. You probably just weren’t looking hard enough for him.”

  Her footsteps came into the locker room, causing a loud protest from every single guy in there.

  “Relax!” she shouted. “I’m gay, I don’t care about your dicks.”

  “Kendall, you seriously can’t be in here.” Rick sounded as if Kendall had just made him an accomplice in an accidental bank heist. “This is th
e men’s locker room!”

  “Is it?” Kendall sounded nonplussed. “Javier, are you in here?”

  “Get the hell out!” hollered a guy. “And take your little boyfriend with you.”

  “Hey, you can shut your hole!” Kendall yelled back, and then more quietly: “He’s gotta be here somewhere. We should just leave his bag.”

  “I’ve looked in every one of the stalls though,” said Rick. “There’s nowhere he could be. What if something’s happened to him?”

  “I’m sure he’s fine.” I could tell that she was worried and trying not to show it. “There’s no point in moving his bag, anyway. Maybe he’ll come back to it.”

  “Yeah.” Rick sounded unconvinced. “Maybe.” He let out a weak laugh. “I mean, it’s not as if he’s running around campus naked.”

  “Right,” said Kendall, and her footsteps receded. I couldn’t see much, but I was sure every guy in there was breathing a sigh of relief and uncovering his junk. Which, I mean, stupidest thing ever. Kendall didn’t even like guys and Rick did, but they didn’t seem to care about him.

  Anyway, so at least my bag was being left in the locker room, but I was still trapped up in the ceiling with, like, every part of my body cramping. And the excitement of seeing a bunch of naked guys was starting to wear off. High school guys are just not as impressive as certain adult movies might suggest. And when Rick finally got in the shower, he went and did it in the corner where I couldn’t even see, so there was really absolutely no benefit to the situation whatsoever.

  And then everyone just sort of wandered off in unison, like this big jock herd. They asked Rick if he wanted to come with them to lunch, and he said no. So then it was just him in the locker room, and me with the little sharp metal bars of the ceiling digging into my knees, waiting for him to leave.

  But instead he was all, “Javier? Are you in here? They’re gone now.”

  I didn’t respond, hoping he’d give up and leave. I didn’t know back then how freaking stubborn he can be.

  “Seriously,” he continued. “Javi, I know you must be in here. You wouldn’t go running off without your phone and your wallet and stuff. Are you sick?” He wandered around the now-empty locker room, his footsteps echoing. “Javvieeerrrr . . .”