Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain

by Richard Roberts

  Seconds crawled past. Dad failed to come knocking at my door as I turned on my computer. Mom came through. I had cover for tonight.

  Ray wasn’t online. Hadn’t been online all day. I was going to need that cover.

  Claire was online, but I didn’t feel like talking to her, and she didn’t seem any more eager.

  Time crawled. Around sundown I went to stage two. I found a multi-hour video of the championship tournament of Teddy Bears And Machine Guns and put that on. That would be my alibi.

  It got dark. I couldn’t wait anymore. I pried open my window, crawled out, snuck my bike out onto the street, and pedaled off toward school. This could go wrong in so many ways.

  As I pulled up to the school, out of breath, one of those ways nagged me, tensing my stomach. What if Ray couldn’t be talked down? He had super powers now!

  I unlocked the lab’s front doors and rode the elevator down. I could stash my bike safely here so it wouldn’t get stolen. Even in this neighborhood, someone might try that.

  The gate slid open. Ray wasn’t here. My heart sank a little further. It would have been so much easier to talk this out here. At least I could use the back door to get into the locked school.

  I looked around at the clutter. I’d hardly stuck any batteries to the wall yet. Pieces of circuitry formed a pile on a work table against the wall, and bars of plastic and metal sat in piles on the floor. My jumpsuit hung over one of the levers of the brooding anemone mass of my smelter. The air conditioner cannon lay right in the middle of the room, still gently pouring out chilly air.

  Ray had super powers. So did I. I had a cannon. Okay, a souped-up air conditioner, but it might convince him not to just push me out of the way.

  I wished I’d had more time, more inspirations, more weapons. Armor and a disguise in case I was seen. Not good for either, but I slipped into my jumpsuit. And the helmet. And the sticky gloves. And I grabbed the German grenade and stuffed it into a pouch at my waist. I was armed for Bar Mitzvah. It would have to do.

  I walked down the long tunnel to the door behind the shop classroom. For the first time I noticed how bleak and shadowy it was. At the other end, I snuck into the (hopefully abandoned) school. The blank white hallway was empty. I crept upstairs. The institutional, dirty beige hallway was empty. The gym was on the very far end of the school, at the tip of the J, and I walked as softly as I could. Any minute a janitor, security guard, or late teacher could spot me, and then what would I do?

  They didn’t. I reached the mud brown, oversized twin doors that opened into the ground floor of the gym. I pulled on a handle. The door came open, and I stepped in just in time to see Ray kick over a display table.

  At least, it had to be Ray. Skinny, my height, wearing black. Not a black T-shirt and pants. A black suit. Dress shirt, jacket, crisply creased slacks, shiny black leather shoes, that same black hat, and a pitch black mask. Not one of those skimpy generic hero masks, but a masquerade ball mask with a sharp beak that hid the whole upper half of his face.

  He kicked another table over. I didn’t recognize whose glassware broke, whose papers scattered all over the floor and turned purple with chemicals. I did recognize his next target. He walked over to Marcia’s exhibit, broke the lock as he yanked it open, and lifted out the alien machine.

  I had to say something. What could I say?

  Someone else knew. “Put the energizer down, and your hands up,” a girl’s voice ordered.

  The gymnasium was three stories tall. I had never looked at the metal struts that crisscrossed the ceiling like rafters in an attic. Now a girl in pink plunged down from them, sliding down a cord and then letting go to land with expert delicacy on her feet.

  She held a long pole in her other hand, an extended cheerleader’s baton. With the full body pink leotard, the little dress, the sparkles everywhere, she had to be a superheroine. A superheroine our age? A sidekick. It hardly mattered. This was now officially a disaster.

  “I knew it,” she lectured Ray smugly. “I knew there were supervillains’ kids mixed in at this school. All I had to do was make the bait too good to resist.” The baton twirled, and she leveled it at Ray. “Energizer down, hands up.”

  Ray lifted the glowing alien machine up in one hand, and threw it. He didn’t throw it at the girl, but still threw it so hard it sailed all the way across the gym and bounced loudly off the wall. Then he cracked the knuckles of both black-gloved hands theatrically. Ray couldn’t possibly be this stupid.

  They lunged for each other, so fast I had trouble keeping up. The girl pushed aside his fist with her baton and they slammed together, except she’d tangled her foot with his and Ray went down hard on the flat of his back. The baton didn’t wait for a moment. She prodded it right into his throat, pinning him with the threat of it as she laid a foot on his stomach. She was good. Who was she? A memory turned over. Miss A, the Original’s sidekick. I’d never met either. Like Mom, the Original had no powers, which meant he had to be one of the toughest, fastest, smartest men around. Ray was in trouble.

  My heart squeezed into a knot in my chest. I flicked the power on the air conditioner all the way up, the focus to the tightest blast it could deliver, raised my arm, and fired at her back. The barrel fastened to my forearm jerked, and the gymnasium echoed to a violent crash as a hole punched through the wall behind Miss A, level with her head.

  Thank goodness for terrible aim. If that had hit, it would have taken her head off. I thumbed the force down to a more moderate level as I stepped out onto the gym floor. I hoped my voice would be steady! “Killing you the first time we met would be bad form. The Original might think this was personal. Still, I thought you should know how badly you’re outgunned here. Hands up, or run away, or whatever it is sidekicks do when they lose. We’ll finish our business here and go.”

  Sarcasm dripped like venom as Miss A drawled, “Oh, please! Who do you think you’re fooling?”

  Marcia’s favorite vocal tick was unmistakable. Yes, that was Marcia’s voice, and her size and shape and blonde hair where the mask let it loose. Marcia was Miss A.

  Ray’s peculiar English accent was also unmistakable. A word out of his mouth and she’d know. I pulled out the German grenade, turned its volume to max, and tossed it out into the room. It hit a table and rolled off, nowhere near Marcia.

  “You have the worst-” was as far as her sarcastic reply got. The grenade screamed out over top of her, “SIE HABEN DAS NULL!”

  Marcia flinched. In that flicker of focus, Ray rolled out from under the tip of her baton.

  “That is-” Marcia started to say, and the grenade screamed, “DAS IST!”

  Ray was back on his feet. Marcia swung her baton to face him, and he lifted his hands, fingers spread instead of bunched up into fists this time. I clenched a fist, walking over toward the German grenade, lifted my hand, and released my grip. Blue and purple lightning arced out to ground into Marcia. Even if she couldn’t feel it, the flash of light made Marcia spin around to face me. Her foot planted again, stuck, and she lost her balance before ripping it free of the floor. It would take a lot of charge to keep a determined human stuck to anything.

  Thank goodness her squeal didn’t set off the grenade again. My throwing arm really was terrible. I bent down and picked it up off the floor. Dramatically, I clicked the volume down to zero again.

  Marcia’s roll took her under a row of display tables. As she hopped up on the other side, Ray kicked a table out of his way and advanced on her, each step slow and cautious. Her mouth curled into a sneer. “Do you amateur clowns think you can toy with me?” She sounded confident and she looked poised, not tense, as she waited for Ray.

  “Uh-huh. That’s exactly what we think,” another girl answered for us. She shuffled into the gymnasium. She had to shuffle. The full body brown teddy bear pajamas with the loose teddy bear hood had loose teddy bear feet. Her voice squeaked. She looked and sounded six. The hood shadowed everything but a broad, white-toothed grin.

  Marcia
laughed. “This gets more sad by the minute. You can barely walk in that outfit. How could you hurt anyone?”

  Marcia wasn’t exaggerating about Claire’s costume. Claire. That had to be Claire. Claire’s floppy bear feet dragged as she waddled up to Marcia. I clenched both fists. Marcia smirked at her. Then Claire punched her in the gut.

  Not the gut. The solar plexus. I’d heard it didn’t matter how fit you were, a punch right there below the ribs hurt. Now I saw it in action as Marcia stumbled backwards, bent over and wheezing loudly, fighting for breath.

  Ray stepped forward, but I shook my head at him. Marcia forced herself upright, and I pointed both fists at her and unleashed the charge I’d been building while Claire’s power distracted her. Then I swung my air cannon around, twisted the focus to a wall of force big enough I couldn’t miss, and fired. I still had the force set too high. Tables tumbled, and Marcia didn’t just fall over, she flew off her feet and landed on the floor against the wall.

  She hit hard enough to stun, but no more. As I walked toward her, she lurched up – and couldn’t move. I’d poured a lot of power into her, and it worked. Everywhere her body touched the wall and floor was stuck. In that awkward rag-doll position she couldn’t even get leverage.

  I lifted my air cannon and slid the focus back up. I kept walking as Marcia clenched her teeth and glared hate at me, but no matter how she tensed up she couldn’t move. I lowered the barrel of my cannon and pointed it at her face.

  “You’ve figured it out, right? We sprang your silly little trap for fun. I only wish you’d been smart enough to bring help. Three against one, this wasn’t even a fight.” My own voice sounded giddy and glib in my ears. The visor on my helmet zoomed in on her face as I focused. Yes, that was Marcia, and, in a close up, I could see her trembling. Whether with anger of fear, it didn’t matter. No one deserved this more.

  I shrugged, turning away from her. “I suppose it doesn’t matter how easy it was. We’ve made our statement. Congratulations, Miss A. Maybe one day you’ll tell your grandchildren that you were the first to fall to The Inscrutable Machine! HA! HA HA HA!” I couldn’t help it. Fake laughter became real laughter, bubbling up inside me. “AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

  I braced a boot against a display table and shoved it over. Photos and carefully light stained papers flew. I kicked another table out of the way. “But I don’t want you to feel you lost for nothing,” I called back. “We’ll fulfill our half of the bargain and trash the place. In fact…”

  I bent forward, pretending to read my own display. The Machine curled up eagerly as I reached out for it. Still active. I laughed. “Oh yes, I love the irony. Let’s see how well this thing works.” I closed my fist around The Machine, but only long enough to toss it lightly across the row at another table. “Eat. Recycle the entire room.”

  The Machine dug in, crunching up metal plates and rulers, and then wood and the metal lining of the table. By the time the table broke and fell over, The Machine was the size of a dog, and snapped up the remains in big gulps.

  “HA HA HA! So much for the daughters of superheroes!” I crowed

  “We’re done here,” I called out to Claire and Ray. Claire giggled, and Ray tipped his hat at Marcia with a sneer. I walked out through a side door—a side door without a handle to keep it closed. Only I had taken the easy route tonight.

  When the door swung shut behind us, I whispered to Ray and Claire, “Split up. We have to get out of here.”

  Ray leaned in close, showing me his toothy smile under the mask, and whispered. “You’re a wonderful friend, and an even better supervillain.” He didn’t give me time to react. He turned and ran. Ran fast. He was around the corner of the school and racing up the street in seconds.

  Then Claire threw her arms around my neck and squeezed the breath out of me. “That was so amazing! We can’t talk now!” Then she ran away, too. Not as fast, but she could run just fine in those ridiculous pajamas. Without running out of breath, either. I wanted some Super Cheerleader Serum!

  I’d collapse if I tried to run, but I jogged over to the elevator of the lab. I started stripping off my jumpsuit before the elevator hit bottom, struggled into my clothes, dragged my bike back out, and pushed open the doors again.

  No one around. No sound of sirens, no visible signs of trouble. I locked the elevator doors, got on my bike, and pedaled as fast and as hard as I could.

  No one chased me. By the time I got home my lungs hurt and my legs wobbled, but I crawled back in the window to find my door still locked and the game video still playing. It had hardly been any time. I turned off my computer, flicked off the lights, and fell into bed.

  I didn’t get to sleep through the night. Quiet scratching and rattling woke me. I sat up. The Machine was shuffling around outside the window. It had vomited up its cargo somewhere and returned to normal size.

  Automatically, I pried the window up and fastened The Machine into place around my wrist where it belonged. A little more weight lifted off my heart. I’d hated leaving him behind.

  Then I about jumped out of my skin as someone knocked on my bedroom door.

  “Pumpkin? I’m sure you’ll think this is good news, but there’s no school tomorrow. Talk is that they may go straight to Christmas break,” Dad’s muffled voice informed me.

  My body went cold and my heart seized up again. This was it. Someone had found out. Hope and playing innocent were the only cards I had now. I swung tiredly out of bed, shambled over to the door, and opened it enough to peek out. “Something happened, didn’t it? Something happened to the school. I know it did, because The Machine came back,” I told him, holding up my wrist. I couldn’t keep my voice from fluttering.

  Dad looked down at me with his most gentle and concerned frown. “No one was hurt, and the structural damage will be fixed by New Year, but, yes, something happened. Supervillains attacked your science fair. Supervillains your age.”

  I stared up at him helplessly. He pushed the door open and bent down to put his arms around me, hugging me to him tenderly. “Your invention came back because they used it to eat the whole science fair. Don’t worry, Princess. That’s all they did to it. I’ve seen the security tape. They weren’t after it, or you. It had nothing to do with you. You’re safe. You’re completely safe. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I whispered back as my body went limp. We’d gotten away with it. No one knew I was a supervillain.

  o all superheroes—okay, supervillains—sleep like the dead after a battle? I did. It helped that I got to sleep in, with there being no school and all. I was awake and had my hair washed by the time the nerves hit me again. I was a supervillain. I was in so much trouble if someone found out. Had I done anything to give myself away like Marcia had?

  Forget that. What was this going to do to my superhero career? I could get this all straightened out somehow, but I’d have to work with Miss A eventually. She was unlikely to forgive being blasted with an air cannon. A gigantic ego like hers would hold onto the memory of tumbling helplessly through the air, smacking against the wall, and then being fastened to it like glue by super-science weapons with particularly ridiculous themes.

  I had the best equipment. And now I couldn’t use them for real superheroing because they’d be too distinctive! Not the jumpsuit, either. I couldn’t even let anyone see that in the lab. What a mess.

  My mood bounced up and down while I got dressed, and as I drifted into the kitchen my Dad completely misinterpreted it. Right out of nowhere, I got lifted off my feet and the life hugged out of me. “It’s okay, Pumpkin. This isn’t your business. The community will deal with it. You’ll have no shortage of villains to deal with when you’re a fully fledged superhero yourself.”

  So, nobody had figured it out overnight. That was one weight off my shoulders. “I guess,” I non-answered as I plopped myself down into a kitchen chair. I felt enough relief to sniff the air, and I liked that sweet, buttery smell. Just as I identified it, Dad poured some pancake mix into a skillet an
d started frying it up.

  Buttermilk pancakes. I blow holes in the school gym, humiliate a prominent sidekick, destroy the entire science fair, and force the school semester to end early. My punishment? Fresh buttermilk pancakes. That certainly took another level of sting out of my worries about last night.

  The first stack landed on a plate in front of me. As I carefully applied butter and thick maple syrup to every layer, Dad suggested, “If your powers fully emerge before you finish high school, your Mom and I could find you a hero to teach you the ropes. Starting as a sidekick may seem like a joke, but no one is ready for their first super-powered battle.”

  No kidding.

  “We’ll have plenty of time to decide, honey, but I’d rather not,” Mom broke in, wandering into the kitchen. Her hair looked like an electrocuted badger. Since she didn’t have to take me to school, she must have decided to sleep in. As she grabbed a plate of pancakes for herself she explained, “Can you think of a single parent in the community who made their child become a sidekick that you’d want to be like? The Original is an—a jerk, and Miss A has obvious emotional problems. She should not have been there last night.” I smirked around my mouthful of gooey pancake as she restrained herself from swearing in front of me.

  Dad was unruffled. “We’ll have to let Penelope decide. When the time comes. If there are more supervillains this young, it may be healthier to let them fight kids their own age.” Silence reigned for about three seconds before he failed to hold back a snorting laugh and added, “I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “I can’t believe life gave you the chance,” Mom sighed more seriously.

  At that point, my phone roared. “Hey, Penny, if you’re up, do you want to come over to my place?” Claire asked on the other end.

  “Mom, Dad, can I go over to Claire’s?” I dutifully repeated.

  “Yes,” they both answered together.

  Dad seized the chance to follow up before Mom. “You have the day off school. We want you to go out and enjoy it.” You know, and not mope. Dad wasn’t subtle today.