Project Superhero

by E. Paul Zehr

  So it’s get back up and go again!

  But then there’s the pain of injuries. Like when I pulled a muscle trying to kick a soccer ball last fall. All I was doing was running along and then kicking. But it felt kind of funny in the back of my leg and it hurt when I walked. (Hitting the actual ball would probably have been helpful . . .)

  I remember hearing my uncle say once, “I threw my back out just lifting up a jug of milk at breakfast time.” That seemed kind of lame. But my simple run wasn’t a big event either, but I ended up with a real leg injury.

  I did some research and found out that’s because my muscles (and other stuff in my body) are just like lots of other materials. Every time I use them, I strain them and repetitive stress can weaken them. However, my body is constantly rebuilding itself.

  Despite that, small little things can really be the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” Batgirl is constantly straining her body at the best of times and getting really pummeled at the worst of times. She has to have strength and courage just to pick herself up and keep training all the time.

  How much can I really do? I still don’t know the answer, or if there even is a real answer. My answer so far is I can do a whole lot more than I thought I could.

  Which maybe means I sometimes try to do too much. I need to be smart about how much I can do, and some­times pushing too hard is just . . . pushing too hard. Time for a bit of a break!

  Now, where are my comics?

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 20

  Superhero Slam round 2 today and, well, it was surprisingly not that difficult to beat Captain America. Sorry, Lillian! She did her best but I have to say that getting “recovery” as our attribute to debate helped me lots.

  We both made some good arguments about how hard it is to get where we need to be as superheroes. I had the slight edge because as Batgirl I needed more training. Captain America had a special super-soldier serum treatment to help him.

  But what really kicked me over the top was the rebuttal round. Lillian said her superhero was frozen in ice for, like, 60 years and then thawed to be Captain America in the 21st century. It’s crazy hard to live in a world where all your friends are way old or dead. Plus after not moving around for so long he would have been so weak. He had to retrain himself and recover his Captain America powers!

  She made a pretty good point, I have to admit.

  But I didn’t say that during the debate, of course.

  Instead, I pulled out all the stops and laid down my story about Batgirl getting hurt really badly when Joker shot her and ripped up her spinal cord. She was in a wheelchair after that. But she still trained herself to be in great shape.

  More importantly she used her other skills — her computer smarts and detective abilities — to work in the Bat-Family team as Oracle. She created a new version of Batgirl that, I argued, contributed even more than she had when she was physically on the streets fighting crime. So she still helped save everyone, but in a different way.

  On the friend front, Audrey squeaked past Invisible Girl (they debated “courage”) and Dylan as Batman just crushed ­Spider-Woman. I can’t believe he got to debate “experience.” He has the superhero that’s probably the most experienced of any hero anywhere. He was totally lucky.

  Of course, since he beat a female superhero, he went on another rant about how boys were better than girls. He is up against Audrey as Iron Man in the semi-finals. Go, Audrey, go! All the girls are behind you!

  What was pretty funny was how Cade managed to out-debate and beat Thor! They both made some really good points, but they were debating “leadership.” Cade did really well talking about protecting the sea and fighting for the weak and helping all the marine life to work together. He explained how Aquaman worked with all the sea creatures from the smallest krill all the way up to the great blue whale, and he would get them to work together to overcome problems. He led by example. By doing it himself.

  Poor Thor didn’t have much more than “My father is Odin, king of the Norse gods.” And only Thor can lift the mighty hammer MJOLNIR. Basically he was saying, “I am the strongest and I will lead everyone.” He didn’t really talk about any kind of leadership at all.

  That means for the semi-finals it’s me versus Cade and Audrey versus Dylan. What a showdown.

  But I’m still buzzing about beating Captain America. BAM! KAPOW! I’m rocking this Superhero Slam. I think I might be able to, you know, actually win. For somebody who’s always been too shy to speak up, it turns out I’m pretty good at thinking on my feet and talking in front of people!

  At least I’m not (as) terrified anymore. Maybe the Batgirl in me is showing herself?

  Saturday, May 23

  It’s funny how sometimes you think you know all about something but then it turns out you don’t, not really.

  For the longest time I just thought all the movements and routines in karate were for exercise. Well, they are. But what I mean is ONLY for exercise. The patterns — or “kata” — that Auntie G has been showing us are full of fighting moves.

  Auntie G says that the old karate masters put together their favorite moves into packages you could remember and practice. I’ve been working on one called Pinan Nidan. It has some really cool moves in it. And an interesting idea.

  The idea is that if you learn some special fighting skills, you should be careful using them with others. And if you get good enough, you should try to hurt someone before trying to harm them.

  Auntie G explained how our bodies have lots of sensors in them. In our skin, muscles, and all over the place. Some of them are for telling us if we are going to be hurt. But BEFORE we actually get hurt, some of our body sensors warn us we will get hurt if we don’t stop what we are doing. Reminded me of times in soccer when I’ve been kicked and tripped and fell down. It felt like I was injured but really I was fine.

  Auntie G said we can use this response when people try to do bad things. (Auntie G ALWAYS makes it clear we only fight against baddies.) Making them feel some pain works on the sensors to make them stop what they are doing. Like in a Batgirl comic book when she grabs a bad guy’s arm and pushes hard on — or hits — a nerve at the elbow. It hurts so much that he stops, but it doesn’t really harm him. If he comes back again, she does have to harm him.

  Auntie G’s other motto tonight was “hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” Yep, that doesn’t sound that super happy, but it sounds realistic! I think Mike Bruen would definitely agree with Auntie G.

  WEDNESDAY, MAY 27

  I’m super happy . . . but I’m kind of sad too. I feel pretty mixed up, actually. Today in the Superhero Slam I beat Cade. I made it to the finals but I’m feeling down.

  I was so freaked out before our debate. Freaked out because Cade is one of my best friends and I didn’t want to beat my friend. But also freaked out because I want to win the Superhero Slam and Cade has been awesome in it. I knew he would be hard to beat. So I was kind of scared/freaked out.

  I was so nervous I was actually shaking a bit before Ms. King drew out the attribute. I could not believe it when she pulled out “preparation.” That’s like one of the best possible ones for Batgirl — she’s all about training and research and always improving. But it’s one of the all-time worst ones that could ever be chosen for Aquaman. He just . . . goes and does stuff with water.

  And Cade knew it. Poor Cade! His face actually dropped when she read out “preparation.” He may have actually said a swear word (or two, actually) under his breath.

  Aquaman is all about natural talent, not preparation. Cade did his best, but he didn’t have much to work with. And I had lots to work with. It wasn’t pretty at all. I crushed a great pal.

  Anyway, a pretty big day! I’m pretty excited that I won, actually, but also sad that to win I had to beat my friend. I don’t even want to write about it because it’s kind of upse
tting, but Audrey lost to Dylan — Batman beat Iron Man! It’s just not as fun when I have some weirdness with my friends and now both Audrey and Cade are out of the Slam.

  Is it okay that I like being successful in this tournament even if it means beating my friends? And is this going to affect my friendship with Cade?

  TUESDAY, JUNE 2

  This entry is out of this world! I love getting mail, especially when it’s an answer to one of my letters. Here’s my interview of Nicole Stott — NASA astronaut and engineer! She’s spent over 103 days in space including her time on the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle.

  Dear Nicole,

  As part of a big school project, I’m looking at how or if a girl could train to Batgirl’s skill level. Anyway, we were talking about stress and life in biology and I was thinking about how stress relates to Batgirl.

  My science teacher, Mr. Richardson, suggested I write to you. I researched you and found out lots of cool things about you! Like how on October 21, 2009, you did the first live tweet from space during your Expedition 21 mission with NASA. Sweet! And how you have been in space on six different missions including living on the International Space Station for three months.

  I have a bunch of questions for you. I hope you can answer some of them for me.

  How much did you pack to go to the Space Station? Was it hard to figure out what to take with you?

  This may sound hard to believe, Jessie, but for a three-month trip to the space station I took one pair of pants, one sweater, a couple of t-shirts, some shorts, some work-out clothes, and a few other items. Not very much. My guess is your eyes have just gone kind of glassy thinking about this! You are no doubt wondering how we keep our clothes clean enough to get by with that pretty small number of items for three months. And no, we don’t have a washing machine or a dryer on the space station. The trick is your clothes don’t get that dirty and not in the same way they do on Earth. That means you can pack pretty light.

  On Earth with normal gravity, your clothes kind of lay against your body most of the time. So your clothing is picking up all the oils and so on that you have on your body. But in space your clothes more sort of float around you and don’t stick to you in the same way. They stay cleaner and useful a lot longer.

  What was the first thing you did in space?

  Well, it may not sound too exciting, but basically the first thing I did was get to work! Depending on where you are sitting on the way to orbit you can have a pretty good view out the window of space and Earth—which is awesome! We also had special wrist bands with mirrors so we could see around us. But once you get to the station, there’s lots to do. And that’s totally fine. That’s why I wanted to get up there in the first place!

  What did you do in your free time on the space station? Do you have any hobbies you can do in space?

  We are pretty busy when we are up there and working a lot. But I like photography and I was fascinated by watch­ing everything unfold beneath me. Looking for diffe­rent landmarks on Earth—like, “Hey, there’s Florida again”—and seeing things at different times of day. It was amazing and constantly changing and I really loved taking pictures of it. And also trying to do some watercolors!

  I brought some paints with me that I used with a very special brush. A dear friend of mine—who’s an outstanding artist—gave me a paintbrush to bring up in orbit with me. It was given to him by his teacher and it was the first one he ever had! So it was pretty neat to bring that up to the International Space Station and paint with it.

  You’re probably wondering how you paint in microgravity? Very carefully. Actually, it’s pretty much like painting on Earth but you just have to try and be a bit more careful to not get paint everywhere and make a mess.

  While I was painting or taking pictures (and lots of other astronauts take many photographs too), some of my friends were playing music. There’s a keyboard up there and one of my friends Cady Coleman brought up a flute to play. On an upcoming mission Karen Nyberg is going to do some quilting!

  How does it feel when you first get back to Earth? Is it harder getting used to being in orbit or getting used to Earth again?

  It feels good to be back on Earth again and closer to family. That’s what I missed the most—my family. But it also felt super heavy. I mean that literally. Like my body felt heavier than I could ever have imagined. I remember coming back and it felt like the lower part of my leg weighed, like, 100 pounds.

  They do all kinds of tests and so on before and after a mission. On this one return, they had laid out these small orange safety cones. Like the ones you see on the road, you know? Except these were only about four-inches tall, really tiny ones, almost like baby safety cones. And they wanted us to jump over them. No problem, right? You could easily jump four-inches high I bet! Well, looking at those cones it was so hard to imagine being able to make my body do it and ever get my body to jump that high. And when I did it, it felt really funny.

  Lots of stuff you normally don’t pay any attention to—like just keeping your head up when you stand and move—took all kinds of extra thinking just to get it happening. It was like my neck forgot its job of holding my head up!

  Of course, I was able to do it once I kept practicing. That’s the thing that I find really amazing. Both for going into space and microgravity and coming back to Earth and regular gravity. My brain figured it out pretty fast. Just like how I adapted to space, I was able to adapt to normal gravity. Probably it’s easier to adjust to orbit because you’re so psyched to be up in space. It kind of overrides the awkwardness.

  But I do remember coming back from one mission. I was lying down the whole way back because I had been in space for over three months. Once we were back on the runway, I had to kind of roll off the recumbent chair/bed I was on and crawl over to the hatch to get out. There I was, crawling along on my hands and knees to get out that hatch. I remember thinking I had to do the heaviest squat lift I had ever done in my life just to lift up my own body to get out. Somehow I did it and was up and walking and feeling very heavy.

  What do you miss about space when you are back on Earth?

  Well, in addition to the fantastic view of the Earth, I really missed the graceful feeling of floating and moving around. At first when I got to space, I felt kind of clunky and awkward. It was hard to coordinate my body to float around. But pretty quickly my brain figured out how to help me do things and my awkwardness became a kind of graceful movement.

  It’s kind of interesting. We think we live on Earth in three dimensions. You know, length, height, width. And we do. But you really don’t understand the idea of volume of a room until you are in microgravity and you can float around and use the whole room. Maybe you’ve experienced something similar if you’ve ever gone snorkeling or scuba diving?

  When you are at the surface of the water, it’s like when we are in a room here on Earth. You move along side to side but not so much up and down. Then if you dive to the bottom to see a shell or a coral reef or something, you are using the 3-D idea and exploring the volume of the water. In space it’s just like that—except you don’t have to hold your breath.

  I also really miss the friendships with my crewmates. And the whole sense of the amazing adventure that you are part of when you are up there.

  What was the most dangerous thing you experienced in space?

  Luckily we didn’t have any major dangerous things happen during my six missions in space. But we ­always, always train, train, and train and prepare in case something happens. Because the truth is the whole idea of ­going outside Earth’s atmosphere into space is all dangerous! If you think about, even launching could be ­pretty dangerous. You are taking off from Earth on a huge rocket that has to be powerful enough to ­escape our gravity. Lots of what is going on is out of your ­control.

  Like I said, though, we did so much training so we could respond to things we cou
ld control if something did happen. Like on a spacewalk or if there is a problem on the station or whatever spacecraft you are on.

  There are three main things we always had to be ready to deal with:

  1) A hole in the spacecraft. This could be very bad because you could lose all the pressurization and the atmosphere you need to live up in orbit.

  2) Fire. Fire is a problem wherever you are, but up on the Space Station it’s a huge concern. Even if you get a fire put out, the problem with smoke is still there. It’s not like at home where you can just open up the windows and air out the house!

  3) Toxic spill. Now, we don’t have a lot of what you might think of as huge toxic worries. Like radioactive waste! Instead our main worry is ammonia. It’s in our coolant system and if there was a leak it could be a real problem because it would poison us.

  And we did have a number of alarms that would go off. They all turned out to be false alarms. But of course you only know they are false alarms after you have done everything you need to do if the problem really was there. To be honest, though, having some false alarms and seeing how well we all performed our duties (because we trained so much) made me feel comfortable that we would be okay no matter what.

  How much exercise do you get? Do you feel gross from not moving so much?

  Actually I did two hours of workout exercise each day—which is way more than I have time to do when I’m on Earth. We have to do so much because you lose so much bone and muscle strength really fast in space.

  We did cardio and strength exercise. The cardio “aerobic” exercise was on a really neat treadmill and cycle ergometer that had straps and harnesses so you could stay on them and not go flying off! You don’t notice it so much I bet, Jessie, but when you push down on your bike pedal, it pushes back. In space there’s not enough gravity working on your body to hold you down so you need straps instead. And we also had special exercise devices for doing strength training.