by Matthew Cody
Today, Daniel was feeling in more of a high-dive mood. Low impact, high altitude. And he liked climbing up to enjoy the other great thing about Tangle Creek Bridge—the scenery. The old bridge itself looked like something off a postcard. The bleached-wood trestles and low stone wall that made it so treacherous also made it a local landmark. Tangle Creek was framed on either bank by green forest, and the water ran clean—it was free of the soapy suds or oily sheen that polluted so many of the lakes and rivers closer to the more industrial parts of Pennsylvania. Noble’s Green might feel like the small town that time forgot, but sometimes that had its advantages.
Daniel sat on his bridge perch, in no hurry, and enjoyed the breeze. Wildflowers were blooming along the bank, and they’d sweetened the already sweet air.
A machine-gun-like succession of small sneezes broke the idyllic moment.
“Hi, Rohan,” Daniel said as he glanced down to see his small friend climbing up the last few feet of the trellis while struggling to hold a handkerchief to his nose.
“Wild … wild geraniums,” Rohan said. “Very bad on the allergies.”
Daniel offered him a hand up, thankful that Rohan pocketed the snotty handkerchief before accepting.
“You diving?” asked Daniel.
“Me?” answered Rohan. “I’m not the high-diving type, thank you. You may enjoy hitching a ride with Eric, but it just gives me motion sickness. I’ll go down a ways and try a cannonball. Hey, where is Eric, anyway?”
“Making sure the coast is clear.”
Rohan squinted at Daniel—it was odd to see Rohan without his ever-present inch-thick glasses, but he’d left them on the bank with their shoes and towels. But Daniel knew that while he might be a blur to Rohan, the rest of the world—the trees on the far bank and even the distant peak of Mount Noble—was uniquely visible to his friend. Rohan could make out the gathering raindrops of the highest cloud. Even beyond.
Daniel thought about what Rohan had said about hitching a ride with Eric. His friend was only half right. Daniel did love that feeling of pretend flying, the freedom, the taste of the cold air. But every time Eric took him along, it was a bitter pill. Flying was glorious, and as Eric liked to say, there was nothing else like it. But it was also a stinging reminder of just how ordinary Daniel was. He wasn’t a flier—he was a passenger, a guest. At best, he was just along for the ride.
As if on cue, there was a sudden rush of wind, a swirl of movement in the air, and Eric was back. He stayed floating just a few feet away from Daniel’s perch but still high above the water below.
Eric didn’t wear a cape, and though he might not have a code name (yet), he was still the unseen superhero of Noble’s Green. Only a handful of other kids knew it, but he was the reason the town bragged about being the safest place on earth and could mean it. Lowest accident rate in the country, practically zero crime. An abnormally high number of UFO sightings, most of which were oddly kid-shaped, but that was all.
Mostly thanks to Eric.
“What are you two jabbering about?” Eric asked.
“I just got here,” answered Rohan. “We haven’t even started our jabbering.”
“So what do you have planned for us today?” asked Daniel. “I’m gonna try a high dive, Rohan’s doing a cannonball, but you’re doing something awesome, right?”
Eric shrugged, but Daniel knew it was false modesty. The Supers of Noble’s Green were the best-kept secret, probably in the world, but Eric loved the chance to show off for his friends. And why not? The Supers were a special group of kids, each with a unique power. Mollie flew at super-speed, little Rose could turn invisible, Rohan could hear a baby cough in the next town. But Eric was different—a flier who was also super-fast, super-strong, and super-tough—he could do almost anything. He was a superhero even to the Supers.
It was hard for Daniel to believe that he once hadn’t trusted Eric. Impossible to believe these days, after all they’d been through.
Eric started rising, slowly, into the air. Then, with his arms down at his sides, he rocketed upward and disappeared into the sky like a missile.
“What do you think?” asked Rohan. “Corkscrew cannonball?”
“Nah,” said Daniel. “He did two of those last time. I think he’ll pull out an oldie-but-goodie. Maybe a thunder dive.”
“Meh. Thunder dive is very last summer. Too old-fashioned.”
“Says the boy who wears ties to school.”
“Watch it. Ties are cool.”
They sat there for a few moments searching the heavens, squinting against the bright afternoon sun. Of course Rohan spotted him first.
“Uh-oh,” said Rohan.
“What? What do you see?”
“He’s coming down and … Oh, no!”
“What?”
“Belly flop!”
Then Daniel saw him—arms and legs out like a parachutist in free fall.
“Aw, man!” said Daniel as he held on tight and closed his eyes.
There was a brief echo of laughter as Eric plummeted past them, followed by a monumental splash. It was the kind of splash that you feel in your toes, a cracking explosion that ended in a thirty-foot-tall plume of water that soaked everything in sight: the bridge, the bank, and—just as Eric had planned—Daniel and Rohan.
The two square inches of skin where Daniel’s butt met the seat were the only area of his body that did not get soaked by the cannonball tsunami. Every other spot was drenched. Rohan whined about water getting up his nose as Eric came floating up for air. That kind of fall would have flattened anyone else, but Eric just smiled.
“So, judges,” he said. “What’s my score?”
“I’ll give you a ten for style,” said Daniel. “But your form was a little off. Five point five.”
“You get zero point zero from me,” said Rohan. “I’m going to be tasting creek water for a week.”
Eric put his hands on his head in mock outrage. “What? Well, I’ll just have to try harder next time!”
“No!” said Daniel. “No next time! Not necessary!”
But it was too late. Eric was already peeling off into the sky above in preparation for his second super-soaking belly flop of the day.
“Way to go,” said Daniel, elbowing Rohan in the ribs. “Better hold on to something—What is it?”
Rohan had that faraway look on his face that meant he was sensing something that no one else could. It could be a small distraction, like a particularly delicious smell from several miles away, a baking pie in the next town over. Or it could mean trouble.
“Rohan?”
“There’s a car coming,” his friend answered. “Too fast.”
Daniel understood immediately. He looked up to see Eric plummeting once more out of the sky, oblivious to the approaching car. Daniel tried to wave him off, was shouting at him to slow down, but Eric didn’t hear. He connected with the water just when Daniel heard the motor above their heads as the car neared the bridge.
When the second splash passed, Daniel opened his eyes to see Eric ricocheting back up out of the creek, laughing as he flew up toward them. But as Eric landed on the trellis, the laughter stopped. He heard what Daniel was already hearing—the screeching of tires and the scraping of metal from the bridge above.
Daniel grabbed Eric by the shoulder and shouted in his ear. “Car! It’s going to—”
His words were lost in a jaw-rattling crash, and then the world went strangely silent for a moment as a sleek black Porsche came flying over their heads, falling.
Then not.
Eric was there. Hidden from whoever was inside, he had a grip on the underside of the car and had stopped its fall. It was a surreal moment as the car floated high above Tangle Creek, held up by Eric, just a few feet away from where Daniel and Rohan were sitting.
The driver’s side window was open, and a pale-faced teenager leaned his head out. He still couldn’t see Eric beneath him, but he looked straight at Daniel—a bewildered, questioning look on his face.
“Uh,” answered Daniel. What else was there to say?
Then the car shook. It quivered for half a second, and Daniel noticed something shocking—Eric was straining. Veins bulged in his neck and his arms were shaking under the Porsche’s weight. Then he fell, and the car fell with him. They hit the water together, Eric disappearing beneath it. The car bobbed on the surface for a moment, then followed. The driver abandoned the sinking vehicle just before it was swallowed up by the creek.
But no sign of Eric.
Daniel wasn’t a great diver, but he managed to hit the water safely. Under the surface it was chaos as the sinking Porsche churned up the dark creek silt, and as the escaping air from the car bubbled and roared all around him like a whirlpool. Daniel was only an average swimmer, but his arms cut through the water with a strength that surprised him. Fueled by concern for his friend, Daniel managed to swim through the muddy water until he spotted a shape down there other than the sinking car. Eric wasn’t moving, and when Daniel got close enough, he saw that his friend’s leg was trapped beneath the vehicle. The farther the car sank into the soft bottom, the more stuck Eric would become.
Surprisingly, the car rolled easily off Eric’s leg when Daniel gave it a shove. It hadn’t had time to settle into the mud and silt, and Daniel pulled Eric out of the muck and kicked for the surface. They came out of the water near the shore, and Daniel grabbed a fistful of reeds with one hand as he pulled Eric’s limp body behind him with the other. Someone was there to grab him and help him onto the bank. Daniel saw a face, the pale one in the car window. A boy a few years older than Daniel.
“Here, let me,” said the boy, and he began to do CPR on Eric. It didn’t take long before Eric coughed up a lungful of green water and replaced it with a groaning breath of air. He was alive.
“You … you saved his life,” said Daniel, but the boy shook his head.
“No, you saved him. You pulled him out of there.”
“Eric?” said Daniel. “You okay?”
Eric nodded and rolled over onto his stomach. He vomited up a little more creek water and moaned.
“He’ll be all right,” said the boy. “He just needs a minute.”
“Really,” said Daniel. “Thank you.”
“Theo,” the boy said, holding out his hand. “Theo Plunkett.”
Daniel started to return the handshake but froze when he heard the last name. Plunkett?
“You all right there?” asked Theo. “Still shook up?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I’m Daniel … Corrigan.” Daniel had trouble getting out his own name. It stuck there in his throat.
Plunkett?
Theo looked back at the water. Daniel turned and saw a rather stunned-looking Rohan watching them from the far bank. The Porsche was gone. Lost on the bottom of Tangle Creek.
“Man, my dad’s gonna kill me,” said Theo, staring at the bubbles rising to the surface. “That’s the second one this year.”
Chapter Two
Mollie Lee
On August 13, at 2:53 p.m., summer ended early for the Supers of Noble’s Green. A new Plunkett was in town.
That evening, an emergency meeting was called at the tree fort to discuss the disturbing development. Nearly everyone was in attendance, and invitations were even sent to super-bullies Clay and Bud (who didn’t show, of course). Eric, Mollie, Rohan, Louisa, and Rose sat together in the dark, and by flashlight and candlelight they debated what should be done.
Meanwhile, Daniel was at home babysitting his little brother.
When Daniel’s parents announced that they were reviving an ancient tradition known as the weekly date night, Daniel had at first been thrilled. This meant that once a week he’d have his evenings free while his parents went to dinner and a movie, and that in turn meant more time to sneak away to the tree fort. What he hadn’t taken into account was the unthinkable possibility that his mom and dad wouldn’t be taking his little brother, Georgie, with them. Apparently, date night was just another excuse to invoke the slave labor clause of parenting, which read: The older child shall, from time to time, be drafted into all manner of unpaid, onerous tasks. Such as, but not limited to, scooping the cat’s litter, mowing the lawn, and guarding a three-year-old.
It confirmed what Daniel had long suspected: parents had second children just to make sure they got their money’s worth out of the first.
Bath time with Georgie was the worst, by far. Getting him to eat dinner was a pain, but Daniel refused to get caught in the same trap as his parents. If Georgie refused to eat his vegetables, Daniel didn’t push it. He just scooped the broccoli off the plate and went straight to dessert. He’d figured out long ago that successfully babysitting a three-year-old required a careful combination of threats plus bribery, and handing Georgie an ice cream sandwich was more potent than a brown paper bag full of cash.
But after dinner came bath. Ever since Georgie had learned how to get out of the tub on his own, he’d adopted a new game, the rules of which were aggravatingly simple—Daniel turned his back for two seconds and Georgie would leap out of the bath and run, dripping, down the hall at full speed shouting, “I’m a stinker!” all the way to the living room. Daniel would then spend the next ten minutes cleaning wet, soapy footprints off the floor and wet, soapy baby-butt prints off the sofa.
He’d just finished mopping up the last of tonight’s collateral bath damage and gotten Georgie into bed when Daniel heard a familiar tap-tapping at his attic bedroom window. Mollie had insisted they create a secret code—a special rhythm to the tapping that would identify it as her. When Daniel had sarcastically asked just how many other people in Noble’s Green could fly up the three stories to his window, Mollie had answered him with a punch to the arm. And so the secret code was born.
The tune Mollie had chosen was the Darth Vader theme from Star Wars. Mollie added her own lyrics. They went, “Daaaaaniel is a butt-head, dum-da-dum, dum-da-dum.”
“It’s unlocked, Mollie,” Daniel said, interrupting her before she could make up a second verse.
Mollie floated into the room like a gently blown leaf, settling with a plop on the edge of his bed. She’d really mastered the graceful entrance. So different from her first trip through that window, over half a year ago, when she’d crashed into his room, exhausted and terrified. Of course, that had been the time of the Shroud, when fear had been a constant among the special children of Noble’s Green.
“Your room’s a total mess,” said Mollie, eying the stacks of books and unfinished-model pieces littering his desk and bedside table. Daniel and Rohan had recently gotten into World War II era battleships and were trying to create a complete model of the Pacific fleet. But as summer arrived, the two spent more and more time outdoors and less and less time on their plastic armada. Now every patch of space that wasn’t already taken up with detective books and comics was being used for bits of the U.S.S. Independence and H.M.S. Nelson.
Mollie idly kicked at the flight deck of the U.S.S. Intrepid and made a face.
“It’s a work in progress,” said Daniel. “So tell me what you saw. Did you get over to Plunkett’s house?”
Mollie nodded. “We did a flyby, but we couldn’t get too close without being seen. Nothing to report, really. At least nothing freaky. There are moving vans parked out front and a big black limo. No other cars.”
“Well, their Porsche is going to be in the shop for a while, I suspect. Once they drag it out of Tangle Creek.”
Daniel thought about this for a few minutes, chewing the inside of his cheek and tapping his fingers on the Sherlock Holmes–style pipe that sat on his desk. His mom had found it at an antiques store and picked it up for Daniel as a surprise. He liked to hold it, to imagine that it helped him focus in the way that his hero Holmes focused. But he didn’t like to put it in his mouth, because the tip still tasted like bitter tobacco.
“I gotta say I’m surprised that Plunkett had any family at all,” said Mollie.
“He was an orphan. Theo must b
e a great-great-grand-cousin or something. I didn’t have much time to interrogate him before the fire department showed up.”
Herman Plunkett had officially disappeared over half a year ago. Though a missing-persons investigation was ongoing, the Noble’s Green sheriff’s department hadn’t mentioned foul play. Nor had anyone connected the dots between Plunkett’s disappearance and the mysterious collapse at the Old Quarry around the same time. No one suspected that Herman Plunkett, aka the Shroud, lay buried under that mountain of rock and rubble.
“Well,” said Mollie, “hopefully they’ll pocket the silverware and Plunkett family portraits and be on their way. Eric’s totally freaked out—he wants to keep an eye on them around the clock, like a stakeout or something.”
“Yeah, we have great luck with those,” Daniel said.
“But Rohan said that we’re all overreacting. He said there’s no reason to suspect that Herman’s family has anything to do with the Shroud.”
“He’s right about that,” said Daniel. “It’s not like I’m worried about a family of Shrouds moving into Plunkett’s old house, but I am worried.”
“What about?”
“You said that they were probably just here to pick up the family heirlooms and stuff, the valuable things. That’s what scares me.”
Mollie was up on her feet, pacing the room. She was always full of nervous energy. Daniel worried at first that she would tromp all over his model pieces until he noticed that her feet weren’t actually touching the floor. She was hovering about four inches above the mess. She was literally walking on air.
“So you think that there’s something in the Plunkett house that’s dangerous?” she asked. “Some secret about … well, about us?”
Daniel looked at the girl floating in his bedroom. He thought about Eric, flying high over the Plunkett house, spying from the safety of the night sky. There were certainly a lot of secrets in this town to discover.
Daniel shook his head. “I hope not. And I think most of Plunkett’s secrets got buried with him in that Shroud-Cave beneath the quarry. He was such a paranoid old kook that I doubt he kept anything in his home. I’m just being overcautious.”