I set out at a quick jog and just manage to make my bus, nearly tripping and dropping my history presentation—poster, elephant, and all. The Lego man that’s supposed to be Hannibal loses his spear, and it rolls under the seat. I hope that Mr. Broadside doesn’t mind that Hannibal is bald and dressed like an astronaut.
The bus smells like exhaust, gym socks, and old leather. The bus driver smells like gym socks and smoke. I close my eyes and hope the day will be over soon.
No such luck.
The trunk breaks off my model war elephant ten minutes before my presentation on Hannibal’s invasion of the Roman Empire and has to be reattached with Eric’s chewing gum. Then I somehow manage to trip over the only line I have as Servant while reading Act II of Julius Caesar in English class. Everyone laughs, including the teacher. I laugh too, hoping that makes it more of a “with me” than an “at me” thing, but I don’t think it works if you’re faking it.
Oh. And it’s Thursday, which means taco salad day at the cafeteria. It also means I actually have to eat lunch in the cafeteria—it’s a no-H.E.R.O. day today.
Still, it could be worse. I don’t have any harpoons or missiles to worry about. Today I’m just a normal kid with normal problems going to his normal math class waiting for his normal day to end.
Mr. McClain walks through the door, two or three students trying to squeeze in past him. “Put your books away,” he says.
I look at my backpack. My book is put away. I look at everyone else’s books. Open on their desks. I look at everyone else’s face. The pale, hollow look of resignation on some. The flush, flustered, frantic look of mad concentration on others. I hear Reggie Townsend whisper a prayer behind me.
I look up at the stack of papers in Mr. McClain’s hand.
It’s Thursday. Taco salad day.
Math test day.
“Make sure you have a pen or pencil and keep your arms and hands where I can see them. Robert, take that hat off. Ms. Greenway, please place your notebook all the way into your bag. This will take most of you the whole period.”
I managed to keep up with it all. The papers and the presentations and the loser superhero and the secret identity and the not dying. But somehow I forgot about the math test.
I look around me. I can see sweat bubbling on foreheads. I can hear heartbeats accelerate as the tests are passed back. Angela Locksford comes in late and hurries to her seat. I can smell the wintergreen Tic Tac in her mouth. Behind me, somebody moves his chair, and the sound of the metal feet scraping the hard floor causes my spine to quiver.
I think about Mr. Masters’s watch. One minute is more than enough time to make it to the fire alarm and stop this thing.
One row across and two seats ahead, Natalie Cross, last year’s mathlete champion, has her two mechanical pencils lined up beside her folded hands.
The girl in front of me whose name I can never remember hands back the test. It smells like printer ink and Mr. McClain’s cologne. It’s six pages long.
“You may begin,” he says.
From four rows away, Catherine Chow says, “I am so going to tank this thing,” under her breath, where only she and I can hear.
Someone in the back of the class emits an S.B.D.
I try to focus.
I look at the first problem. Something about xs and ys. There’s a cube in there, too. I can only assume I’m supposed to solve something, reduce something, or balance something.
I should know this. I’m actually pretty good at math. Math is important to chemistry, and chemistry is important to sidekicks who have to wear utility belts full of gadgets and grenades to compensate for their crappy powers. But for some reason my brain is fried and the numbers look like a foreign language.
I glance around. Everyone has their heads huddled over their papers, pencils working furiously. I pick up my pencil, unsure of what to do with it.
And then my eyes stop on Natalie. Or at least the back of her head. And the brown hair that she just got cut a week ago, making it much easier to see over her shoulder. The way she is sitting, the angle that I’m at, I catch a glimpse of her answer form, but it’s pretty far away. There’s no way any normal person could see what she has written from here.
I look back down at my paper and try to concentrate.
I can’t concentrate.
I close my eyes.
When I open them again, I look a little harder.
Natalie looks up for a moment and then writes something. The answer to number five, according to our class’s top student, is twenty-four.
As it turns out, I don’t have anything written for that one yet. I chew on the end of my pencil.
The Superhero Sidekick Code of Conduct is fairly clear about when a sidekick should or shouldn’t use his powers. It’s all pretty much spelled out in the very first rule.
He should use them to defend the greater good.
He should use them in the service of justice and honor.
He should use them to help those in need.
But when you think about it, that’s all a little loosey-goosey, really. I mean, who defines greater good? Or those in need, for that matter? Right now I need an answer for number five.
I look at number five and try to work through the formula in my head. Twenty-four seems like a decent answer.
If I fail this test, then my grades might slip. If I don’t get good grades, my parents won’t let me stay in the Highview Environmental Reclamation Organization any longer. And then how am I supposed to learn to defend OCs from the forces of darkness? The pattern is clear. If I don’t answer number five correctly, there is a very good chance that someone will die.
Natalie answers another one.
Besides, that girl is really good at math. Almost superhuman, you might say. She’s using the natural gifts God gave her. I’m sure Captain Marvelous didn’t let his super strength interfere with his ability to climb the rope in gym class. Do you think Invisilad ever got hit by a spitball? I doubt it. And how do you think H.E.R.O.’s own Jenna Jaden came to be captain of the gymnastics team? Sure, she holds back considerably, but she’s still the only one who can do a double backflip.
Natalie Price is already on number eight. That means she is about to the turn the page.
I hear the Titan’s voice in my head.
Save yourself for a change.
I focus on Natalie’s paper.
Then I quickly answer the first seven problems. I wait a bit for the last one, the answer to which, apparently, is eleven point five.
Natalie turns the page.
I turn the page.
I finish my math test about the same time as she does, though I go back to change one answer in the middle, just in case things look suspicious.
I hold my test out to Mr. McClain with two minutes left.
He reaches out for it.
Our eyes meet.
He gives me a funny look. Head cocked to the side. I can see the gray hairs starting to infiltrate the legions of black ones in his mustache, can trace the growing path of the crows’ feet by his eyes. He squints a little, a look of confusion or concern.
“Are you finished, Andrew?”
He looks down at my test, and I realize what the problem is.
I won’t let go.
“Oh, sorry,” I croak. And the paper slides through my fingers.
Mr. McClain smiles. I smile. The bell rings.
Take that, forces of evil.
That afternoon Jenna walks home with Gavin again. She says there’s a book he wants to borrow. I ask her why she doesn’t just bring it to school tomorrow. She says she guesses she could, but she already told him to just come by and pick it up today. I ask her if, you know, everything’s cool. She says, “Yeah, why not?” She asks me how the math test went. That’s pretty much the end of that conversation. She smiles, and I can see by the look in her eyes that something’s bothering her.
As she walks away, I can’t help but wonder if I’ve said or done something wrong, someth
ing that would push her away. If so, I need to figure it out and make up for it. The Titan I can deal with. At least for a little while. So long as I stay out of trouble.
But I don’t know what I’d do without Jenna.
9
UPPING THE ANTE
By the end of the week, everything seems to be mostly back to normal. The hole in Jenna’s side has healed. The Justicia community pool has been encased in concrete; the drones have been released from custody and gone back to their OC lives; the Supers are back to thwarting car thieves and purse snatchers, changing the spark plugs on their jet packs, or editing their memoirs; and the news has gone back to coverage of the growing number of politicians’ scandals and exposés on the fat content of school lunches.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m still miffed about the whole my-Superhero-mentor-is-a-beer-swilling, sidekick-abandoning-lout thing, but there isn’t a lot I can do about it right now. Jenna says I may be better off without him. Mr. Masters says he will come around. I don’t really know what to think anymore.
I did manage to ace my Spanish quiz, even studying only the fifteen minutes I had in homeroom. And despite my elephant’s lopsided schnoz and my bald, spearless, spaceman general, Mr. Broadside said my history presentation on Hannibal was excellent, though he pointed out that the opposing Roman general who defeated Hannibal was named Scippio, not Scorpio, which is the problem with spell check, I guess.
I don’t know how I did on the math test yet, but I asked Natalie how she thinks she did and she’s pretty sure she aced it, so I’m pretty sure I aced it.
The bell rings for fourth period, and I gather my stuff and head up toward the teachers’ lounge. Time to H.E.R.O. up. Today we are supposed to practice hacking into computer mainframes. Finally something that Gavin’s big biceps won’t give him an advantage in.
Plus it’s Friday. Pizza day. Mr. Masters is probably paying for the pies now and handing them off to Nikki, who will use her powers to sink into the ground and sneak them into the basement so that the other teachers don’t see. I still can’t figure out how she does it—something about autonomic molecular reconfiguration—a fancy way of saying she “just walks through stuff.” I figure of all of us, she’s the most likely to change her mind about the whole sidekick thing, drop out of school, and become a bank robber.
I run into Jenna waiting outside the door of the lounge. She looks the same as always. Glasses perched. Hair pulled back. Tiny mole on her chin. Every time I see her, I kind of feel like I’m just waking up.
My eyes start to water.
Something’s not right.
I look around to see if it might be someone else, but I can pinpoint exactly where it’s coming from. There’s no mistake.
Jenna’s wearing perfume.
Jenna never wears perfume. In fact, it was Jenna who once told me that only old ladies and middle-aged soccer moms wear perfume.
I start to say something when I suddenly hear familiar footfalls behind me. I turn to see Mr. Masters with Eric, Gavin, and Nikki in tow. No one is carrying pizza, and Mr. Masters does not look happy. The sleeves are rolled up on his canary-yellow shirt. His sweater vest is all angry zigzags again.
“Come on,” he says, removing his watch and looking at Jenna and me. “Something has happened.”
I know, I want to say. Jenna Jaden is wearing perfume. But I’m pretty sure Mr. Masters is thinking of something else.
Sixty cents later, we are descending the stairs. For once I can’t smell the pork rinds. All I can smell is Jenna. As we take our seats, Eric spells out the word lunch, but the head of H.E.R.O. isn’t paying any attention. He takes his spot front and center, and I take my usual spot next to Jenna.
“Did you hug your grandmother or something today?”
“What are you talking about?”
I make an exaggerated sniffing sound.
“Oh. It’s just body spray. Sorry. Is it too much?”
She really looks concerned, raising her eyebrows at me. From the moment she found out about me, Jenna has always been sensitive to my abilities. When we listen to music, she doesn’t crank it up, even when it’s a song she likes. When we go out to eat together, she doesn’t overdo it on the pepper. She doesn’t have to do these things, of course, but I let her, because I like that she thinks about me.
“No, it’s fine. Don’t worry.”
“Do you want me to move over?”
“No, seriously, don’t worry about it,” I say.
She smiles, but still she scoots in her chair, closer to Gavin, who sits on the other side.
I’m about to lie to her and tell her how much I like it, in fact, when Mr. Masters clears his throat.
“What I am about to tell you is top secret, though I’m certain it won’t be for long. Two hours ago, there was a breach at the maximum security prison in Colton, two hundred miles north of here.” The lights go off and the screen flashes to life, showing a photo of a veritable fortress, complete with guard towers and barbed wire and an outer wall of solid steel at least twenty feet high. Mr. Masters clicks to another picture of the same building from a different angle, this one a satellite shot. Part of the outer wall is obscured by white smoke. “At approximately ten thirty-five a.m., an explosion tore through the outer perimeter. A figure wearing a gray mask, a dark gray hat, and a business suit subdued a handful of guards and bypassed several other security measures with ease, infiltrating the prison’s supranormal security wing.”
I’m only half listening to him. Something about a break-in. I’m sure there are Supers out there cleaning it up. Probably the Fox already has this all under control. I lean closer to Jenna.
“It’s flowery,” I whisper.
“It’s called Purple Passion,” she whispers back, sounding just a little annoyed.
Nikki turns to give us a dirty look. Apparently whatever Mr. Masters is talking about is kind of important, but I’m still curious why Jenna’s decided that the smell of her honey vanilla body wash and melon berry conditioner that I’ve grown accustomed to over the past year isn’t good enough anymore.
Mr. Masters continues. “When the smoke cleared, twelve guards had been knocked unconscious and three prisoners freed.”
“It’s nice,” I say, realizing that nice isn’t the word you would use to describe something with the word passion in it.
“Gavin gave it to me,” she whispers.
Sudden loss of cabin pressure. Stomach dropping. Eyes blinking. I have no idea what to say to that.
I look at Gavin, who turns and smiles.
Yes, I do.
In that case, I think it smells like crappity crap crap crap.
“All three prisoners shared the same name,” Mr. Masters says.
I stop glaring at Gavin momentarily and turn to see the photo on the screen, showing four figures escaping through the outer wall and into the forest beyond. The one in the gray suit leads the way. The other three are all dressed in orange prison uniforms. From here they just look like three faceless thugs, though one of them is much larger than the rest—looks more like a boulder with legs, in fact.
“The escaped prisoners are all named Jack,” Mr. Masters says.
Suddenly I forget all about Gavin’s purple passion.
Three Jacks.
The three Jacks.
I know these guys.
I mean, not personally know them. Anyone who knew them personally is dead or in prison. But I know them the way some people know generals from the Civil War or famous serial killers. I know them because it is my job as a sidekick to know them. I know them because I wasn’t hiding under a rock my entire life.
These are the guys the Titan took down almost six years ago. The Dealer’s henchmen. His Suits.
“Those of you who have bothered to study your criminal history probably have a guess as to who this is, then,” Mr. Masters says, pointing to the figure in the gray hat and suit. Now I recognize the outfit from the front pages of so many newspapers. I take a closer look, and a chill works its
way through me.
“But I thought he was . . .”
“Dead?” Mr. Masters says, finishing Nikki’s thought. “So did the rest of us. But obviously we were mistaken. Apparently the Dealer is back in the game.”
I can’t tell if Mr. Masters is trying to be funny or not, but the look on his face suggests not. Eric takes a long breath. I look over at Jenna, who huddles a little closer to Gavin. The room is graveyard quiet all of a sudden. No one says anything as Mr. Masters brings up brief dossiers of the escaped convicts. They are all pictures I had seen a dozen times on reruns of America’s Most Notorious Criminals.
The first is a photo of a man who looks like something out of a 1920s silent film where damsels are tied to train tracks and rescued by Canadian Mounties. The figure in the photo has coal-black eyes and thick white scars on both cheeks, bisected by a long, black handlebar mustache that twists upward at the ends. The mustache looks plastered on, too big to be real. But the hollow, deathly look in his eyes seems all too real.
“Jack Candor,” Mr. Masters says, “aka the Jack of Clubs. Weapons and demolitions expert. An unforgettable face and a notorious reputation. He was an accomplished hit man for three years before signing on with the Suits. Carries around a baton that he tosses like a boomerang so it can hit you twice, just to be sure. Most of the time you’re unconscious before you even know he’s there.”
Mr. Masters brings up the next photo—a behemoth of a man with no neck and a body like a bulldozer. He’s the boulder from the surveillance photo. His picture fills up the screen.
“Jack Voshel, aka the Jack of Spades. The bruiser. Easily identified because he is seven and a half feet tall and weighs four hundred twenty pounds. Carries a shovel as his only weapon. Seldom needs to use it. Not the sharpest knife in the block, but not to be underestimated, especially when barreling toward you.”
Mr. Masters clicks. The third photo shows a perfectly normal looking man by comparison to the other two. His close-cut blond hair is carefully styled, his thin, angular face drawn into a wry smile. Unlike the other two, he carries no weapons. His only odd feature is quite noticeable, though: a chunk of glass where his left eye used to be.
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