V Is for Villain

by Peter Moore

  “Okay, true,” I said. “No argument: physical-powered stuff isn’t my strength.”

  Miss Davenport chuckled politely, like, Kid, you won’t find this so funny when we’re done here—believe me. Blake shifted in his seat and looked at his thumbnails.

  Miss Davenport continued. “It’s a bigger issue than it not being your strength. Learning about powers and how to be a hero is, to be blunt, what the Academy is all about. It’s our whole reason for being, as they say.”

  “Are you kicking me out of school?”

  Mom turned to me. Blake looked at Miss Davenport. Miss Davenport went pale.

  “No, no, of course not. No. What we want to do is find a way to make things better for you here. And we think we have a good solution.”

  I already got the feeling that their idea of how to make things better for me was pretty different from my idea about it. “Okay…” I said, drawing it out.

  Miss Davenport reclined in her chair. She seemed to feel she was back in comfortable territory. “Brad, you see, it’s like this: you’re sixteen, a junior, and, well, looking at your transcript and your profile, it’s clear you’re lagging behind in your development.” She glanced at another paper on her desk. “Your strength factors all average out to 25.5, which is…well, it is higher than a Regular’s strength. But let’s be direct: it’s nowhere near the strength of a true powered person. I mean, don’t take this the wrong way, but there are powered students in elementary school with higher strength scores than yours.”

  Blake didn’t say anything, either, but by the way he turned his head away, it was pretty clear he was embarrassed.

  “No significant powers have manifested yet, and again, at sixteen, we expect to see most powers at least start to bud. Of course, I don’t know what your genome map shows, but at this point, it’s highly unlikely that you’re going to develop any powers that you don’t already have. I don’t imagine I’m telling you anything you haven’t probably thought about quite a bit yourself. I know this may sound harsh, but I really think it’s time to face the music: it just doesn’t look like you’re ever going to get strength, flight, invulnerability, or any of the other major physical powers. And, given the incident that happened in PT class, well, we’re lucky you didn’t get hurt even worse. Overall, it seems clear that you shouldn’t be in classes with the more highly powered students.”

  “If I’m not being kicked out, I’m not sure where this is going. Are you asking me to try harder?”

  “Well, there’s nothing you can do if you don’t have powers. It’s not your fault. Here’s what I’m getting at: you do have intelligence. You’re really quite smart. And, Brad, I want you to believe me when I say this: there is nothing wrong with being smart. I mean that sincerely. Granted, it’s not like being able to punch through stone walls and rescue trapped people. And no, it’s not quite as exciting as flying. But still: it can be useful. Even coming from your family, these things happen. Not everyone can be a hero. The world needs all kinds of people, including really intelligent ones. Some Regulars truly value intelligence. You can make a good life for yourself, make a good living. There’s no shame in that.”

  However much she might have been trying to make me feel better, it was having the exact opposite effect.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  Her already big eyes went wide with what I guessed was concern. But her voice had an edge of impatience. Or maybe condescension. “There is nothing you can do. That’s my point. Look. You’re terrific just the way you are. But you’re not truly suited for the powered program here. And since we would never want to see you leave, we have a great solution for you. You’ll be switched over to the alternative program.”

  “Wait, what?” There was no way I had heard her right. “What did you say?”

  “Now, don’t you worry. You’ll get an excellent education in the A-program. There will be lots of classes that you’ll feel much more comfortable taking. Advanced Dual Variable Calculus. Quantum Mechanics. Let’s see, what else?” She looked at a school handbook. Obviously she didn’t do a whole lot of work with the A-program. “Oh, right. There’s Theory and Practice of Dimensional Transmutation. Concepts in Genetics and Power Enhancement. Anatomy, physiology, pathology. So many. And you can still take electives in theoretical aspects of powers, if you’d like.”

  “You want me to switch over to the A-program? For all my classes? Even the ones I’m good at?”

  She nodded. “It’s kind of an all-or-nothing program.”

  “You’re saying you think I’m really an A-hole.”

  “Brad!” Mom said.

  “No, Mom, that’s what they call themselves. These are the kids who don’t have cool powers, but the Academy won’t throw them out, because they’re from high-powered families.”

  Blake shifted in his chair. His face was red. “Maybe if he, you know, applies himself more…maybe then he can stay where he is.”

  “Honey,” Mom said, “we need to listen to what Miss Davenport recommends.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s easy for you to say. You’re not—” Blake stopped himself. Which was a good move. Last time he pulled that one, he ended up getting the cold shoulder from Mom for almost a week. “Sorry,” he said.

  “This is what we’ve been discussing, and it’s what we agreed would be best for him,” Miss Davenport said. I figured Blake wanted to smack that understanding smile right off her face. I sure did.

  Wait a minute. “Wait a minute. You all have been discussing this? For how long?”

  “That’s not important,” Miss Davenport said. “What’s important—”

  “Hold on. Not important? It’s kind of important to me that you’ve been plotting to wreck my life by dumping me into the A-program and nobody told me a thing.”

  “Brad, every single one of our graduates has gone on to live a perfectly fine, productive life. I know that, in time, you’ll see that this is best.”

  Mom finally touched my arm. “Are you really, truly opposed to doing this? Are you happy in the Academy?”

  As always, Mom made a good point.

  By no reasonable definition of the word could I honestly say I was “happy” as things were. But, still: the A-program? Really?

  “Whatever,” I said.

  Miss Davenport smiled again. I wondered if her teeth were false. They were too big and white for someone who wasn’t a natural hero. Cosmetic dentistry, definitely. “Listen, Brad, it may not feel like it now, but we’re all doing what we know is best for you. You’ll be so much more comfortable in the A-program, being with kids who are more like you. You’ll see. But I want you to go in with a good attitude.”

  I had an idea of what I wanted her to do, but saying it wasn’t going to help anything. So instead, I just said, “I will.”

  “You don’t want to sabotage yourself, right? I mean, you have to be part of making your own happiness. Embrace this opportunity. Let yourself grow into the person you were always meant to be.”

  Well. I didn’t know then, but I can say it now. In spite of all her obnoxious and trite little platitudes, and my firm belief that she was more interested in getting me away from the stars in the Academy and tucked quietly away with the rejects, she did have one thing right: I found my people in the A-program. And without that, I might never have come to understand who, or what, I really am.

  Over the past five decades, the Monroe Academy has molded boys and girls into young men and women who demonstrate the hallmark values of heroes the world over.

  We help students develop their powers and abilities so they can be put to use in only the most noble and heroic ways.

  With the emphasis on virtue and honor, we guide our students to develop their bodies, powers, and civic pride, enabling them to become leaders in the American and international ranks of heroes.

  Monroe Ac
ademy for Powered Teens:

  We accept only the best…we produce only the best.

  Excerpt from

  Monroe Academy brochure

  Silent Treatment

  There wasn’t much talk on the ride home from school. I was still taking in the news that I was being yanked out of the mainstream Academy program. And the fact that it had been in the works for a while and Mom hadn’t told me a thing about it felt like a total betrayal.

  Before we left school, I asked when the change was going to happen. Because it was almost the end of Friday, Miss Davenport said, it would be “just perfect” to start on Monday. And over the weekend, I would have a chance to go buy the A-program uniform. Couldn’t be better timing, she said.

  When we got home, I headed upstairs. Blake called to me when he reached the living room. I stopped midway.

  “You know, Brad, I’m not any happier about this than you are.”

  “Yeah, well, at least you knew it was coming. Thanks for letting me know.”

  Well, it’s not my fault you don’t have any decent powers. Even my psycho voices were against me.

  Over the weekend, I met Virginia, Travis, and Shameka at Ducky’s Diner, a place that serves mainly Regulars. I didn’t especially want to have the conversation anyplace where we might run into kids from school. I told them about my getting dumped into the A-program.

  “Hold on. Can they do that?” Travis asked. He took a big bite of his Ducky burger. I’m pretty sure that news of an impending attack by the Phantom Legion wouldn’t get him to take a break from eating. “Can they just do that to you?” he said, barely intelligible with his mouth full of food.

  “They can do whatever they want,” Shameka said. A few people turned around. She adjusted the volume on her voice modulator. “It’s a private school.”

  Virginia poked at her Greek salad, not saying a word.

  Travis squeezed his eyes shut as he swallowed what was probably way too big a gulp of food, making his face go red. “The thing is, if they didn’t want you to stay in our program, why not just tell you that you have to find another school?”

  “Two guesses,” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Travis said with a shrug.

  Shameka shook her head. Virginia pursed her lips.

  “Um, my brother? And my parents?” I said. “Why do they even have the A-program? For kids who can’t hack it in the regular program but come from families that the Academy doesn’t want to piss off.”

  Nobody said anything for a while. Finally, Shameka cleared her throat, which made her voice modulator give a high squeal of feedback. “Well. You know, we’ll still see each other all the time, right? I mean, it’s not like you’re moving to, like, Alaska, right?”

  “No, it’s definitely not,” I said, probably not sounding too convincing.

  “And we’ll still eat lunch together,” Travis said. “You’ll probably have the same lunch period, won’t you? Don’t they have the same lunch period as us?”

  “I’m sure,” I said. Lie. I had no idea.

  I looked over at Virginia, who still hadn’t said a word. She didn’t have to. Ever since we first met—in fourth grade at Shameka’s swimming pool party, when, even though I couldn’t swim, I jumped into the deep end, which just ended with me sinking to the bottom of the pool. Virginia dove in and pulled me out, all this before she had even developed her power of aqua-respiration. We turned into close-enough friends that we could leave some things unsaid. Which, fortunately, was what she did at Ducky’s. Saying it out loud would have been too rough.

  Nothing would ever be the same again.

  Bad Good Kid

  As I walked down the corridor toward A-wing, I realized that I had never even been in this part of the building. It was empty, not a student in sight, most likely because I was an hour and a half late to school. Mom had tried to wake me up at the regular time, but I fell back asleep. The truth is, I had barely slept all night, so, yes, I was tired in the morning.

  And so there I was, walking down the A-wing hall in my new gray jacket, looking like a true A-hole.

  I checked the schedule Miss Davenport had e-mailed me8 and found the room for my third-period class. I opened the door and went in.

  My first thought was, This is a room full of sick people.

  It wasn’t that the kids in room A-301 actually looked unhealthy. But not one of them—not a single one—had the perfect muscular build that I was so used to seeing fill every classroom I had been in since elementary school.

  They just looked like Regulars. Like ordinary people.

  The ones who wore the uniform gray jackets had them totally unbuttoned, with T-shirts underneath. Some didn’t even wear the jackets; they were hanging over the backs of chairs or stuffed partway into backpacks.

  All told, there were only eleven students in the whole class. I couldn’t see their faces, because they were sitting with their backs to the door, watching something on the video monitor. It wasn’t footage of battles they were analyzing. It wasn’t newsreel of hero demonstrations or parades or anything like that.

  It looked like a normal movie you’d watch at home or in the theater. It sure wasn’t the kind of movie I had ever seen in school.

  “Can I help you?” a voice asked. It was a thin, middle-aged guy with a goatee and a ponytail. I hadn’t even noticed him when I came in, because he was leaning back in his chair, his feet up on the teacher’s desk, which was off to the side of the door. “You look a little lost,” he said.

  “Um, well, I think I’m supposed to be new in this class. In the program.” I took a look at my schedule and then walked toward him. “Are you Mr. Wittman?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said. He looked over my schedule. “Yup, you’re in this English class now. How’s it going, Brad?”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “Yeah, we’re about halfway through this movie. Have you seen it?”

  I looked at the screen a moment. “I don’t think so.”

  “Ah, it’s great. See, the guy who just got wiped out—”

  “Wittman,” a kid called out. “We’re trying to watch here. Why do you have to talk during all the good parts, man? It totally ruins it!”

  “Hey, Jack. Stop your bitching and just watch.”

  “You suck.”

  “So do you. Relax.”

  The kid hadn’t turned around. He shook his head and held his arm up, one extended finger sending a clear message to the teacher.

  Who totally ignored it. No demerit clicks. No throwing the kid out. Nothing. Mr. Wittman turned back to me. “Don’t mind him. He gets a little intense during movies.”

  “Wait,” I said. “This is the one about the crime family? Where the police are crooked and the one good son turns out to be the most vicious guy around?”

  “You got it. You want a great story about good and evil, one that’ll turn your head around? Have a seat. You’ve come to the right place.”

  The end-of-period bell rang, but nobody moved from their seats. I started to get up, but Mr. Wittman waved me back.

  “Relax.” He took a cell phone out of his pocket and speed-dialed a number. “Hey, can you hold on to your crew for, like, fifteen minutes? We’re watching something here, and I just want to get to the end of this sequence….Thanks. Yeah, that would be perfect.”

  The teacher didn’t take his gaze off the screen or his feet off his desk the whole time. And he was going to ignore the bells and send us to our next class late, just to watch a movie? It didn’t look to me like they ran too tight a ship over in the A-wing.

  We watched for about twenty minutes more when he took out his phone, dialed again, and said, “Yeah, I’m sending them over in a minute.”

  He swung his legs off the desk, stood up, and turned on the lights. “All right, that’s i
t for today. Get lost.”

  The students stretched, talked to one another, and grabbed their bags as they got ready to go.

  “Oh, right. We have a new student in class,” Mr. Wittman said. “Brad. He’ll be on you guys’ schedule. Help him out. Make him feel welcome. See you later.”

  A few kids murmured “hi” to me, a few more nodded, and the rest didn’t pay me any mind at all. I started to shuffle out with them. This was going to suck, big time.

  A strong hand grabbed my shoulder. “Hey, new guy,” a female voice said.

  I turned. It was that girl, Layla Keating. The one I’d met in the principal’s office the week before. “I remember you,” she said. “The bad good kid.”

  “So does that mean you’re the good bad kid?”

  “Babe, around here, we’re all bad bad kids. Welcome to the club.”

  Out of My Mind

  My next class was Integrated Science. Great. Sounded to me like one of those courses for the students who couldn’t hack the real thing—like how earth science is sometimes called Rocks for Jocks.

  Well, it turned out to be pretty different from what I’d expected. Half the room had a regular lab setup, and the rest seemed to have stations with all kinds of projects in progress. I approached the teacher, who was a tiny lady, maybe forty or so, with a long skirt to the tops of her sandals and a Jet Lag band T-shirt.

  “Hi,” I said, handing over my schedule. “I’m Brad Baron. You’re Miss Franks?”

  “Hiya. And it’s Tricia,” she said in a rich Texas accent.

  “Miss Tricia? It says—”

  “Nope. Just plain old Tricia. Welcome, Brad. How’re you doing?”

  “Okay, I guess. It’s my first day, so I haven’t really—”

  “Tricia!” one of the guys in the class called out. “Someone from the other class messed with my project. It’s all screwed up.”