by Lisa Yee
To my Mom and Dad. Thank you for always encouraging me to dream.
Copyright © 2016 DC Comics.
DC SUPER HERO GIRLS and all related characters and elements © & TM DC Comics and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
WB SHIELD: TM & © WBEI. (s16)
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1745 Broadway, New York, NY 10019, and in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto. Random House and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
randomhousekids.com
dcsuperherogirls.com
ISBN 9781101940624 (hc) — ISBN 9781101940631 (lib. bdg.)
Ebook ISBN 9781101940648
v4.1
ep
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Copyright
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Part Two
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Part Three
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
About the Author
“WONDER WOMAN!” Principal Waller bellowed.
Wonder Woman blinked several times, unable to comprehend what was happening. The cheering ramped up, along with a snide remark—or two—from Cheetah,who yawned and stretched with the grace of a ballerina, accidentally-on-purpose bumping Katana, who immediately shoved her back. Luckily, the auditorium, along with all the other buildings at Super Hero High, was built to withstand invaders, firestorms, comets, and teenagers.
“Wonder Woman, please join me on the stage,” the principal said again, suppressing a smile. It did not behoove her to appear too cheerful. After all, Amanda “The Wall” Waller prided herself on running Super Hero High with so much strength and conviction that there was no room for frivolity. With her massive shoulders, severe suits, and no-nonsense haircut, Waller’s mere presence was enough to shut down an entire fleet of alien interlopers—or a room packed with rambunctious super-heroes-in-training.
Harley Quinn of the “Harley’s Quinntessentials” channel on ViewTube laughed and began recording as Bumblebee buzzed over to Wonder Woman and guided her toward the stage. “Go, Wondy!” Bumblebee shouted gleefully as her yellow wings lifted her off the ground. “You know Waller hates to be kept waiting!”
The normally gregarious Wonder Woman stood stunned as she listened to Principal Waller. The gold tiara nestled into her long, thick black hair glistened.
“This ‘Hero of the Month’ has brought pride and dedication to our school,” The Wall continued. “She is not here for personal glory, but for the greater good, and to shine the spotlight on others. That is what a true leader does.”
By now Wonder Woman was choking back tears. She had only been at Super Hero High for a few months. Her mother, Hippolyta, Queen of Themyscira, aka Paradise Island, would be so proud. She couldn’t wait to talk to her. “Wonder Woman,” she could hear Waller saying, “for your first assignment as Hero of the Month, you will be showing our newest Super Hero High student around the school. Oh! Here she comes now!”
There was a gasp from the crowd. Wonder Woman smiled. Cheetah frowned. Harley Quinn videoed.
The rumors were true!
It seemed like forever since she’d been hurtling through space for whereabouts unknown. Her spacecraft hadn’t taken the fastest, most direct route, but it eventually got her where she needed to be. She had little memory of the journey. Instead, her thoughts kept going back to when she had been happy and carefree, to the point of taking so much of her life for granted….
Several solar systems away from Earth and to the left, a young girl had almost been finished making a birthday card for her mom when emergency alarms sounded. Kara had heard these practice drills all her life and paid little attention to them. But when her mother burst into her room, the panic in her eyes told Kara that today was different.
“Kara!” her mom cried, out of breath. “Hurry! Come with me, now!”
Without asking questions, Kara grabbed her mother’s hand and ran, dropping the card behind her. She had written “To the best mom in the universe” but hadn’t had time to add “Love always, Kara.”
Her father was pacing outside by the spaceship. For a brief second, his face softened with relief when he saw his daughter; then it grew serious again. “Kara, get in,” he ordered. His normally soft, comforting voice was replaced with one she had never heard before. It scared her. “There’s no time! GET IN NOW!”
As the crushing sound of emergency alarms rang ever louder, Kara Zor-El of the planet Krypton did as she was told. She felt her heart racing as the spaceship began to shudder—but it hadn’t taken off. It was the vibration of her entire planet quaking from its very core. Her mother’s hands trembled as she placed a crystal necklace around Kara’s neck. “We love you, Kara. More than you can ever imagine,” she said.
Kara’s father joined them for an embrace.
“But, Mom, I don’t understand!” Kara said in a panic. In the entryway to the spacecraft, her parents hugged her even tighter. “What’s happening? Did I do something wrong?”
“You have done nothing wrong,” her mother said, gently brushing the blond bangs from her daughter’s eyes. Worry was etched on her face. “Always do your best, Kara, and you’ll be fine. I promise. You have the heart of a hero.”
Her parents were always so wise and strong. Nothing could have prepared Kara for their tears as they strapped her into the ship’s lone command chair and stepped away. Suddenly, the door was sealed shut with Kara inside…alone. She pressed her hands against the glass and her mother did the same on the other side. Her father pulled her mom away only seconds before the spaceship blasted off.
Before Kara could take in what was happening, there was an explosion so loud and powerful that it jolted the spacecraft, already barreling into the darkness. Debris pounded the tiny vessel, causing it to spin like the hands of a crazed cuckoo clock. If Kara had not been wearing a seat belt, she surely would have been tossed like a rag doll within the close confines of the ship. Instead, she was merely knocked unconscious.
Little did Kara know that her ship had veered massively off course at a velocity surpassing the speed of light. And at that speed, time did some pretty strange things, as Kara would find out.
When Kara finally woke, the silence consumed her. She would rather have heard the deafening sounds of the debris hitting the spacecraft—at least that would have taken her mind off what was happening. From the control panel, Kara could tell she was headed for Earth, a planet 21.7 light-years away and populated by a species of aliens known as humans.
On autopilot, the spaceship finally began to slow as it neared the Earth’s atmosp
here. From her window, Kara watched the blue marble of a planet draw closer. When the yellow sun hit the horizon, a crest of glowing gold arched over its surface. As she got closer, Kara could see vast fields of blue, swirls of white, and patches of green. Mountains and oceans soon appeared. Incredibly, if she focused, Kara could zoom in on wild mustangs galloping across plains, traffic clogging cities, and houses with happy families inside. Her gaze lingered on these the longest.
But just then, the emergency warning signal began to blare and the spacecraft started shaking uncontrollably as it entered the Earth’s atmosphere. Kara hoped for the best as she braced herself for the worst.
Deep in America’s heartland, where golden stalks of wheat reached toward the big blue sky, teenager Kara Zor-El felt alone. Though the tidy yellow house was endlessly cheery, she could only pretend to be.
Kara wiped away her tears with the back of her hand as she glanced at the freshly painted purple bedroom full of stuffed animals, some with their price tags still on, and posters of the most popular bands. Even though she’d been told that this was her room, Kara longed to go home. But that was impossible.
Smallville, Kansas, USA, Earth, was a long way from Krypton, just as another orphaned Kryptonian had learned a long time ago….
When their planet exploded, he had been sent to Earth as an infant but had grown to become his adopted planet’s greatest hero. The Kents were the Earth people who had taken him in, raised him, and loved him as their own. And when his superpowered senses had detected Kara’s craft crashing into the atmosphere, he had rescued her and brought her to live with his family.
But how was he almost a grown man while she was still a teenager, when they had both left Krypton at the same time? “Differing trajectories through space…wormholes and the like,” he offered as possibilities to explain it to a still perplexed Kara. The route she had traveled from their doomed planet had taken a lot longer than Superman’s, and she’d arrived on Earth almost twenty years after her fellow Kryptonian!
“There is so much I can tell you when the time is right,” Superman said as he’d set her down on the couch in the Kents’ living room. Aunt Martha and Uncle Jonathan looked on anxiously. “But for now you need to adjust to life here on Earth. You’ll have powers you aren’t aware of yet, and they will grow under the Earth’s yellow sun. Use them wisely, Kara. You are safe and in good hands here. I promise.”
Before she could speak, Superman was gone.
So much of Kara’s life had been turned upside down and inside out. Her planet and all she had known and loved had been destroyed. The one comfort she had was the crystal necklace her mother had given her.
As kind as Aunt Martha and Uncle Jonathan were, Kara could tell they felt sorry for her. And the truth was, she felt sorry for herself. Who could blame her? Imagine, one moment you’re making a card for your mom, and the next you’re being blasted off into space—and through the small round window in your spaceship, you are the sole witness to your planet’s destruction.
Knowing that the Kents were trying to show her every possible kindness, Kara tried hard to appear happy and optimistic. Without them having to ask, she helped out around the house and on the farm. Here was a girl who didn’t even like making her bed on Krypton, now volunteering to do the laundry! But things were different here. It wasn’t like home.
Something strange had happened to Kara in the short time since she’d landed on Earth. As Superman had warned her, she was now in possession of superpowers so intense she was afraid to sneeze, for fear she’d destroy something, or someone. Kara didn’t even know how many powers she had. They were growing at a rate faster than she or the Kents could have imagined. The first time she picked up some eggs from the henhouse, they cracked at her touch. When the Kents needed help herding a trio of stray cows, Kara accidentally tossed one into the sky. Luckily, she caught the startled cow before it hit the ground. And then there was the first time she tried out her heat vision. The beams from Kara’s eyes were so powerful that when they hit the cornfield, popcorn rained over the tiny town of Smallville, much to the delight of the drive-in movie patrons.
Yet, despite the accidents, there was one superpower Kara couldn’t get enough of: flying. Careful at first to stay near the Kent farm, she flew only a few states away. Later, she would fly higher and farther, testing herself. When in flight, she was at peace, able to remember her mother and father and the home the three of them had shared. Now, home was with Aunt Martha and Uncle Jonathan, she had to remind herself. But as caring and accepting as they were, the Kents’ kindness made Kara miss her parents even more.
The short time Kara Zor-El spent on the Kent farm was like being in a cocoon—warm and safe, albeit with her powers growing rapidly out of control. At night, before bed, she often thought about how a whole lifetime ago, her life had changed. And though Kara didn’t know it, it was about to change again.
As the weeks went on, Kara fell into a routine. Rising early to help on the farm, eating delicious home-cooked meals, going to bed tired after a full day of stacking bales of hay, lifting farm machines, and building miles of fences. “It’s just like if Clark were here,” Aunt Martha said, calling Kara’s fellow Kryptonian Superman by his Earth name.
“He’s a good boy,” Uncle Jonathan said as he polished one of Superman’s trophies. “And he’s doing well in college, even though they’ve got him busy all the time.”
“Speaking of school,” Aunt Martha said carefully, “Kara, it’s time you started getting ready for high school. We’ve enjoyed every minute of having you here, but…”
Uncle Jonathan nodded, but his eyes looked concerned as Aunt Martha continued. “Well, we were thinking of Super Hero High. You should be with kids your own age. Plus, as much as we love you, there’s only so much we can do to help you control your powers. You need to be with experts who can guide you. We’re just mere mortals.”
Kara looked up from the sketchpad where she was doodling a picture of her parents. The Kents were more than mere mortals, she thought. They were Aunt Martha and Uncle Jonathan, and she felt safe with them. Were they trying to get rid of her? Kara knew that her attempts at helping out often caused mayhem. Was this about that incident with the grain silo? She hadn’t meant for it to tip over when she accidentally flew into it. When a video of her setting it back on its foundation had been posted online, some people started saying that the girl in the video was Superman’s cousin, and had even taken to calling her Supergirl.
“But Superman got to stay here for years,” Kara began to protest.
“Dear girl,” Aunt Martha said. “Your cousin came to us as a baby, and as he grew, so did his superpowers. They developed slowly over several years.”
“But you, Kara,” Uncle Jonathan said, piping in, “your powers are more than any of us could have imagined. And they keep getting stronger each day.”
Kara had known that she was going to have to go to school eventually. Her parents would have wanted that. But she had thought that maybe Korugar Academy, located several sectors away, would be a good choice for her. Some of the galaxy’s most powerful teens went there. And like her, most of them were aliens in one way or another. Maybe there she wouldn’t feel so…out of place. Yet the Kents seemed set on her going to Superman’s alma mater. “Just look at the website,” Uncle Jonathan encouraged her.
“I think you’ll like it,” Aunt Martha added, smiling warmly at Kara.
Kara tried to return the smile.
Back in her room, Kara leaned forward as she watched the Super Hero High recruitment video. To her surprise, despite her initial hesitation, she found herself drawn to the school. It looked inviting and exciting, and everyone seemed friendly. She couldn’t help getting swept away in the enthusiasm as she clicked through several pages on the school website. The ones Kara liked most featured Wonder Woman. The Amazon warrior princess was so strong and confident. So self-assured. Unlike Kara, Wonder Woman looked like she had everything under control. Kara also read articles abou
t Wonder Woman by a teen reporter named Lois Lane on the Daily Planet’s website that covered some of the hero’s epic saves when danger threatened the city of Metropolis.
Eager to find out more, Kara clicked on a link to something called “Harley’s Quinntessentials,” featuring a pigtailed girl named Harley Quinn who promised “All Harley, all the time, giving you the latest in Teen Super Hero News, Notes, and Gossip!” She watched one video, then another and another and another. There seemed to be an endless supply of “Harley’s Quinntessentials” segments of Super Hero High students crashing into walls and one another, overturning armored cars by accident, causing havoc in the chemistry lab, and having bad hair days. Kara loved the laughs the clips gave her—especially because they made her feel like she wasn’t the clumsiest kid on the planet.
But still, she thought wistfully, if she could just be a little more like Wonder Woman, then maybe she’d fit in. Even on the “Harley’s Quinntessentials” blooper reels, Wonder Woman looked regal.
Kara adjusted the headband that kept her hair out of her face and tied the laces on her red high-top sneakers. She looked at herself in the mirror and straightened her blue shirt with her family crest in the center. Clearing her throat, she extended her hand and practiced saying, “Nice to meet you, Wonder Woman. My name is Kara Zor-El.” Then, on a whim, she tried out, “My name is…Supergirl.”