“Yeah, a story. Something other than you like the color blue and have horrible nightmares. Tell me something fun.”
“Fun?”
He laughed. “Stop repeating everything I say.” He grazed his fingers over the grass, searching for more stones to throw. “C’mon, you must have hobbies, right? Everyone has hobbies.”
I raised an eyebrow. “What are yours?”
Iron Phantom lunged for my sides with his fingers. “I asked you first. Just start talking, Abigail.”
I wasn’t about to be subjected to another tickle fight, so I gave in. Reluctantly. There wasn’t really anything interesting about me, and I didn’t want him to find that out. He had superpowers for crying out loud. He was the emperor of the Land of Interesting and could probably find someone more worthy of his time if I turned out to be a dud.
“Um, I like musicals. And I like traveling, like going on vacation and stuff?” It came out more like a question, like I sometimes enjoyed leaving Morriston, but only on Tuesdays. Basically I sounded like a confused fool, but his small smile and encouraging nod helped me continue. “When I was little, my dad took us on a trip to Australia. I got to pet a kangaroo.” I smiled remembering that moment—the baby kangaroo all brown fluffy fur and tiny T. rex arms.
“Your turn.” I’d had enough sharing for the moment.
He tapped his chin, thinking. “Well, before I learned about my powers, I always wanted to be a doctor. Honestly, I kind of still want to be a doctor.” The surprise must have shown on my face because he looked away, as if embarrassed. “An oncologist, actually,” he clarified.
“Did you know someone with cancer?”
Iron Phantom scratched the back of his head, tugging on his mask. “Sort of.”
And on went the rest of the night—him teasing me, me getting twice as many hits back, and a round of Twenty Questions in between. I wanted to ask how he learned about his powers when he was a kid, but I didn’t want to ruin the moment. Even though he wore a super suit, talking about favorite foods (his—pizza, mine—triple chocolate fudge cookies), favorite movies (horror and comedy), and favorite animals (we both agreed wolves were kick-ass) made me forget he was a little abnormal. Regardless of who he was with or without his mask, I knew, no matter what my dad or brother said, I wanted to spend more time with him.
“Thanks for this,” I said after we teleported back to my room. It was after two in the morning, but I wasn’t tired. I could have listened to him talk about the new mystery novel he read or his trip to Italy all night if I wasn’t scared someone would try to check on me at home and find my room empty. Connor had that weird sixth sense thing going for him after all.
“My pleasure. Thanks for coming.” He leaned against my windowsill, squeezing my fingers in his gloved hands.
“You’re welcome.…” I shook my head in disbelief.
“What?”
“I just realized that I still don’t know your name.”
He shrugged. “So? You know me. Does my name really matter?”
“I just feel weird calling you Iron Phantom.”
He reached into a pocket in his suit and pulled out a folded piece of paper. He held it behind his back, out of reach. “Yeah, that makes two of us. I never asked for a fancy superhero name; it just sort of happened because I kept pulling that disappearing act.” He shrugged again. He shrugged a lot when he talked to me, I noticed. Like all our conversations were one big leisurely stroll through the park. Maybe they were for him. For me, they were more like a stumble down a dark alley. “Call me whatever you want.”
“Even … Steve?” Steve was the first name that came to mind. I reached for the paper behind his back, but he switched it to his other hand.
“That sounds nothing like my real name, so go for it.”
I made another grab for the paper, laughing. “Then I shall call you Steve.”
“All right,” he said.
“All right,” I replied.
“You’re still doing it—repeating me.”
“Sorry, Steve.”
The corners of his mouth crinkled when he grinned. He tapped me lightly on the head with the paper, then pressed it into my palms. “Good night, Abigail. I’ll see you sooner than you think.”
As I stared at the spot where he disappeared, a single question formed in my mind:
Was this a date?
I thought back to how he appeared in my room, seemingly for no real reason at all. How he kept finding excuses to brush his fingers against me. How he sat next to me under his tree, far too close to be friendly …
A date. Holy crap. That was totally a date.
With shaking fingers, I slowly opened the paper he’d given me. A Hall of Horrors poster. I’d heard they’d been printed, but I hadn’t seen one yet. It featured a cartoon drawing of the Delafontaine royal family, blood dripping from their sharp teeth.
Beneath the picture, in highlighted letters, were the words Starring Seniors Abby Hamilton & Isaac Jackson.
Oh. My. God.
CHAPTER TEN
It didn’t matter that I got only three hours of sleep. It didn’t matter that I had a test during third-period world literature that I was totally unprepared for. What mattered was that I had rehearsal after school today.
I would get to see my superhero again.
Despite what he told me about his name, he wouldn’t have given me a Hall of Horrors poster unless he was in the show—unless he was Isaac.
“What’s up with you this morning?” Connor grumbled through a mouthful of cereal. I skipped into the kitchen wearing a bright green dress and rushed around, throwing open cabinet doors in my haste to make breakfast. Dad raised an eyebrow over his phone, then continued to tap at the screen.
“Nothing. Nothing’s up,” I said far too quickly to be considered innocent. I smoothed down the eyelet fabric of my dress. “Does this look okay?”
Connor snorted and reached for the backpack containing his Red Comet suit. My heart skipped a beat when I thought of my late-night date with another Morriston super. “You trying to impress someone?”
“No!”
“Weirdo,” he countered.
My brother was right. I was acting like a weirdo, but I couldn’t wait for rehearsal. Isaac, Iron Phantom, Steve—whoever he was, I knew I would get to see him today. He couldn’t leave me hanging; he had to make some reference to last night’s thinking tree by the pond.
Connor took a whiff of the air near my face. “You smell strange.”
Self-consciously, I made sure my hair was covering my neck. “It’s perfume.” Dad and Connor stared at me. I never wore perfume. “All right, I have rehearsal after school. Seeyalaterbye,” I yelled quickly, and ran toward the door.
“Girls,” I heard Connor say. “Can’t live with them.”
“Can’t live without them,” Dad finished.
“Nope,” Connor corrected. “Just can’t live with them.”
* * *
It amazed me how hard it was to track someone down in Morriston High when you actually wanted to see them. If you didn’t want to find someone, then they were everywhere. That ex-boyfriend who broke your heart, the lab partner you couldn’t stand, the teacher whose class you skipped—they would pop up everywhere all day long. A superhero who took you on a date last night—nowhere to be found.
“You’re acting like a complete weirdo,” Sarah said as we walked down the third-floor hallway to my statistics class. Isaac didn’t take statistics, but that didn’t keep me from craning my neck every few steps, trying to find his dark head of hair over the basketball players, cheerleaders, tiny freshmen, and a group of Goth kids in trench coats lurking in a corner near the elevator.
“Why does everyone keep saying that?” I stood on my tiptoes in the doorway of my classroom, still surveying the passing students.
“Um, because you’re acting like a weirdo? What’s up, Abby?”
“Nothing. Just excited for rehearsal today—was that Isaac?” I thought I saw a tall
boy with brown hair leave the bathroom, but he disappeared.
Sarah followed my finger pointing down the hall. “No, that’s Fanboy Kenny.”
“Oh.” My shoulders slumped.
The bell rang, and the hallway cleared. Sarah took a step across the hall to her French class. “We’re talking about this later. You’re acting really weird.”
But I couldn’t talk to her. I couldn’t talk about Iron Phantom to anybody except Iron Phantom. And just like so many times before, he had disappeared.
* * *
I’d never cared so much about seeing a guy before. I would have been embarrassed for myself if I wasn’t so certain that the mysterious Iron Phantom and I had connected last night. He was kind to me and he made me laugh. Being with him, reclined against the bark of his thinking tree, had felt incredible, like neither of us wanted to look away for fear the other might melt into thin air. Like snow in the springtime. Ice cream on a hot day.
I was crushing on him hard, and I couldn’t help it.
“Spill.” Sarah appeared in the auditorium and dragged me behind the curtain. Mrs. Miller was starting rehearsal any minute, and if I wasn’t out there and ready, she was bound to shake the Director’s Stick in my face.
A few stage crew kids moved around behind the curtain, pushing set pieces across the floor and flicking lights on and off to run tests. Rylan gave us a small nod as he rushed by with a wrench in his hand and scaled a ladder to the castle balcony. Sarah pulled me to a dark corner primarily used for quick changes between scenes. Her shrill voice hurt my eardrums. “You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said all day, you keep looking for Isaac, and you’re wearing…” A pause. “You’re wearing a dress. What did I miss?”
“What? I wear dresses.”
“On Easter you do. Never to school.” Sarah swept her auburn hair into a ponytail, something she only did when frustrated.
“Look, Sarah…” I didn’t want to keep lying to her. I’d lied enough about Connor and Red Comet. We had just figured everything out. But I couldn’t risk her telling Connor that I knew who the dangerous “villain” was. Though, maybe I could clue her in a little bit. Not so much that she would figure anything out, but enough that she would leave me alone.
“There’s this guy,” I began.
“Isaac the Red Comet hater?” Sarah looked like she was trying to brush the taste of his name off her tongue.
“Yes. Maybe. I’m not sure yet—”
“Where’s Abby?” Mrs. Miller yelled from the auditorium.
I ran to center stage and poked my head through the curtain. “Right here!” The rest of the cast laughed. My breath caught when Isaac winked at me from the front row.
“I’ll admit that he’s hot, but his taste in superheroes sucks,” Sarah muttered before taking her seat.
Today’s rehearsal turned out only slightly better than our previous one. Only slightly—meaning not very much. Isaac flubbed his lines, one of the lights came loose from the ceiling and nearly fell on a sophomore girl in the chorus, and I tripped every time Isaac wasn’t there to catch me when we ran choreography. Jimmy Stubbs, a junior boy who played Felix Frye, the sadistic town executioner, nearly sliced off his thumb as soon as he was presented with a sword and had to be rushed to the hospital. So much for sadistic. How he managed to injure himself with a blunt prop sword was anybody’s guess.
“I’m going to kill all these idiots,” Isaac whispered in my ear while Mrs. Miller directed the chorus girls to “stand in the windows so people can see you.” He pulled his phone from his back pocket, looked at the time, then roughly shoved it back in. “I really don’t have time for this.”
“Do you have somewhere to be?” I tried to inconspicuously straighten my green dress. Green. His favorite color. Isaac raised an eyebrow at me, then shrugged.
“Here. There. Everywhere,” he said. “My uncle wanted to take me out to dinner. He’s trying to start some family tradition since my parents are…”
“Are?” Dead. I knew they were dead. He told me last night.
“Not around.” He pulled out his phone again.
“I’m sorry,” I offered. I hated saying sorry, but I wanted to get back to the place we were at last night, where we both understood how much death sucked but tried to make each other feel better.
He didn’t look at me, still engrossed in his phone. Last night, in the darkness of my room, he sounded tormented when talking about his mom and dad. Today, he didn’t seem to care at all, and it made me want to rip out my hair. He had been there for me, and I would be there for him too. Didn’t he get that?
“Isaac! Abby! We’re running the finale again. Get in position, please.” Mrs. Miller pressed a button on the CD player at the foot of the stage.
I tried my best to remember the dance steps while pondering my partner. I knew he was trying to keep his identity a secret, but radio silence wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting.
The upbeat show tune played through the speakers. The choreography called for me to do two pas de bourrée—a kind of crisscrossy dance step with my feet—then spin counterclockwise directly into Isaac’s chest. But of course, right as my body was about to make contact with Isaac’s, his phone beeped with a text. He answered right in the middle of our dance and didn’t catch me like he was supposed to, and as a result, I overspun, tripped on his shoe, and landed on the stage with a crash.
The shock of the impact rattled my spine. A collective ooooh sounded through the auditorium, and the dance screeched to a grinding halt. Lying sprawled out on my back, I looked up to see Isaac grinning.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I tend to make all my dance partners weak at the knees.”
“Isaac, you tripped me!”
“Right. Sorry.” He ran a frazzled hand through his hair. “Let me get you, uh, ice. You definitely need ice. Sorry.”
His phone beeped again as he hurried from the auditorium. He typed out a reply, fingers flying across the screen. Somehow I doubted he would remember the ice.
“I knew we should have done The Sound of Music!” Another rehearsal ended with Mrs. Miller’s tears. She wiped the sleeve of a bright orange cardigan across her eyelids, clutching her Director’s Stick so fiercely I thought it would snap. “Hall of HORRORS,” she wailed. “This show is horrid! I should have known it would be horrible!”
I picked my head up a few inches, then let it drop back down with a dull thump. If I did that enough, maybe I would get a concussion or amnesia and forget ever being excited to have a lead role in this show. So far the only thing I learned in rehearsals was that Mrs. Miller sounded like an injured sea lion when she sobbed, and Isaac could use proper instructions in the art of phone etiquette. The thing was practically glued to his person. He was worse than my dad.
My head thumped against the stage again.
“Need a hand?” A voice from above startled me, and my eyes snapped open. God? Is that you? Forgive me, Father, for I never should have auditioned for this show.
The voice didn’t belong to God but to Rylan, staring down at me with his hands on his hips. He wore the traditional stage crew uniform: dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and a weary scowl stemming from heaving around set pieces between scenes. He held out a hand in a silent gesture of assistance.
“Oh, uh, thanks.” I gripped his hand, and he easily pulled me upright. “But you should have just left me down there to die. The captain always goes down with the ship.”
He smiled. “Not if you’re a pirate. Pirates are notoriously selfish. Not that I’m saying you’re selfish … or anything,” he added. He crossed his arms over his chest, then uncrossed them and shoved his hands in his pockets, like he didn’t know what to do with them.
“Right, but even pirates abide by some kind of code, don’t they?” I asked, straightening a fold in my dress.
“Perhaps,” Rylan said. “Which is a lot more than most people here can say for themselves.” His brown eyes flickered to the door where Isaac had vanished. “He likes to d
isappear a lot, doesn’t he?” Rylan observed.
“Isaac?” I snorted. “You have no idea.”
“Hmm…” Rylan leaned against the pulley behind the curtain. I examined my elbows and knees, checking to see if I accrued any more bruises after today’s fall. Rylan pointed out a long snag at the bottom of my dress. I groaned. Bruises were easier to deal with.
“That looks bad,” he said. “Sorry. Was that rude?” he asked when I stared at him.
“Not necessarily…” I watched as he gathered a handful of fake flowers that someone had knocked to the floor. He wrapped a rubber band around the stems, then dropped them in a vase on top of a checkered tablecloth that was part of Angeline’s kitchen scene. “I’m just a little surprised you’re so chatty today. Usually you clam up.”
Rylan’s shoulders tensed. “Oh.” He moved around the stage, avoiding eye contact, while he straightened the sets and collected stray props. “Well, I guess I warm up to everyone eventually. I’m not a robot.” He bent over to pick up two more fake yellow roses, dropping them in another vase. “I thought we were kind of, like, friends … maybe. Or maybe not—”
“Abby!” Sarah called out from the door. “Are we still getting pizza?”
“Yeah, I’m coming.” I turned back to Rylan. He had moved on from the props and was counting out a handful of screws in a toolbox. A friend. I wasn’t very good at dealing with secrecy and superheroes, but friendship—that was something I felt like I had somewhat of a grasp on.
“Rylan,” I asked, “what are your thoughts on pizza?”
* * *
“Sarah, your car frightens me.”
That was the third time Rylan made that statement in the past ten minutes. Sarah and I hadn’t exactly prepared him for what he would find inside her superheromobile.
“You get used to it,” Sarah said, crunching an empty coffee cup in her fist and tossing it behind her. The cup bounced off a poster of Fish Boy kissing a baby that was taped to the window and landed in Rylan’s lap, where he brushed it to the floor with a frown.
The Supervillain and Me Page 11