The Last Superhero

by Kristin Butcher

  There was an uncomfortable pause.

  “Oh, thanks for the pencil crayons,” I said, patting the tin box. “They're great.”

  She smiled. “I'm glad you like them. I hope they'll help with this art project you're working on. How's it going?”

  I shrugged. “Pretty good, I guess.” Then I added, “Except for one little problem.”

  “Oh?” she said, “What's that?”

  “Well, my comic is set in a school, and the villain has threatened a lady teacher. She needs to look really scared, but for some reason I can't picture her in my head. So none of my sketches are working.”

  Debra peered over my shoulder at the drawings.

  “Hmm,” she mumbled thoughtfully. “I see what you mean. Looks to me like you could use a model. How about this?” Suddenly her body tensed up, her hands flew up to her head, and her face contorted with fear.

  “That's it!” I exclaimed. “That's exactly the look I need. Don't move.” I grabbed a pencil and made a quick sketch. “Thanks, Debra,” I said when I was done. “That's a big help.”

  She made a goofy curtsy and shrugged. “No problem. Glad I could be of assistance.” Then she started back toward the door. As she grabbed the doorknob, she swung around again. “I almost forgot what I came in here for. Your dad and I are going to watch a movie. He's at the video store right now, picking out something with a bunch of car chases and fist fights.” She rolled her eyes. “Definitely a guy flick, and since you fall into that category, I thought you might want to watch it too.”

  Spending a couple of hours with my dad and his girlfriend wasn't exactly my idea of a fun evening. I glanced at my drawing table.

  “Aw, come on,” Debra pushed. “Take a break. It'll do you good.” Then she waggled her eyebrows. “There's going to be popcorn.”

  How could I argue with that?

  SEVEN

  I was on my haunches, stuffing the books from my morning classes into the bottom of my locker when someone stopped beside me and said, “How was your Christmas?”

  Right away I knew who it was. Even if I hadn't recognized the voice, the black patent boots tapping the tile beside me were a dead giveaway. I looked up.

  Based on past experience, I was expecting a showgirl costume with feathers and sequins or maybe a floral velvet riding suit complete with crop and horse. But no, Wren wasn't wearing anything like that. In fact, her appearance was pretty subdued—for Wren, that is. From head to foot, she was dressed entirely in black—boots, pants, blouse, vest—the whole works. Not a spot of colour anywhere. Her hair was pulled back in a tight little knob with some sort of black doily covering it, and even her lips and fingernails were black. It was a pretty spooky look.

  “What's with the Count Dracula getup?” I said.

  Wren sagged against the locker next to mine, sighed and turned her gaze toward the ceiling. “I'm in mourning.”

  My snide mood vanished, and suddenly I was concerned.

  “Did somebody die?”

  “No.” She sighed again. “I'm mourning Christmas.”

  I rolled my eyes and went back to shoving books into my locker.

  “Why? Was it horrible?” I asked as I dug around for my lunch.

  She glowered at me. “No, silly. It was good. That's why I'm mourning it!”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” I retorted sarcastically.

  By this time the hall was getting really clogged with kids, and Darren, my locker partner, was waiting impatiently for Wren and me to move out of the way.

  “Snap it up, Jas,” he grumbled, reaching over my shoulder to shove some books onto the top shelf.

  I grabbed Wren's wrist and pulled her away from the lockers. It didn't really help. It was just as crowded in the middle of the corridor, and we kept getting jostled by the herd of bodies bumping past.

  I nodded in the direction of Wren's locker. “Aren't you going to get your lunch?”

  She shrugged. “I think I'll wait for the crush of humanity to move on. Egg salad sandwiches are not worth getting trampled for.”

  “Okay,” I said, preparing to head for the stairs. “See ya then.”

  “In the library?”

  I shook my head. “Uh-uh. I'm going to the art room.” I dangled a key in the air. “And I get to let myself in. Mr. Dow doesn't mind me working in there, but he doesn't want to spend his lunch hour supervising. I can't say I'm going to miss waiting around for Miss Holmes to—”

  Someone rammed hard into my back, knocking me into the lockers. I managed to stay on my feet, but the guy who'd crashed into me wasn't so lucky. His books went one way, and he went the other, doing a perfect face plant onto the floor. Some kids laughed, but most didn't even bother to look—and no one made a move to help him.

  Except for Wren. In the few seconds it took me to right myself and figure out what had happened, she had rounded up the guy's books and was helping him to his feet. Since she seemed to have forgotten about me, I made a beeline for the art room.

  The tang of turpentine and linseed oil met me at the door, a definite improvement over the peanut butter, tuna fish, and banana scented lunchroom. Not that I dislike any of those foods, but the combined smell is kind of sickening.

  I plunked myself down in my usual seat. Lunch and then work—that was the plan. But somewhere between the cheese sandwich and the apple, something went wrong. The door suddenly burst open, and Wren flew into the art room.

  “You've gotta hide me!” she whispered urgently as she pulled the door shut and began darting around the room like a fly trapped inside a jar.

  I put down the apple I'd been shining on my shirt. “Why?”

  “There's no time. I'll explain later—if I'm still alive.”

  Even with the theatrics, I probably would have pushed Wren for an answer if I hadn't heard angry voices coming down the hall. Somebody really was after her. Right away my eyes started searching for a hiding spot. Wren might be a little squirrelly, but she was starting to grow on me, and I couldn't very well leave her to the wolves. I studied the wall of cabinets behind Mr. Dow's desk. They stood about seven feet high, and the tops were piled with another foot of books and papers.

  “How good a climber are you?” I asked.

  Wren followed my gaze. “At this moment? I could do Everest.”

  I wouldn't have been surprised. The way she took off, she could've been part mountain goat. In a matter of seconds she'd leaped onto the counter beside the cabinets and, using a stack of drawing boards as a stepping-stone, she hoisted herself up behind the clutter on top of the cupboards. Then she pressed herself flat against them. I couldn't see her, even though I knew where to look, so it was a good bet no one else would spot her either.

  I sat down and tried to concentrate on my work. The art room wasn't normally open at lunchtime, so whoever was after Wren might not even try to come in. At least that's what I was hoping. Judging from the way every locked door in the hall was being rattled off its hinges though, I wasn't optimistic. Invasion was inevitable. So you'd think I would've been ready for it. But no. I still jumped when the door flew open and Peewee and his sidekick came charging into the room.

  I frowned at the great gouge my pencil had made in the paper. “Jeez!” I growled, glaring at Peewee and pushing the ruined drawing away from me. It slid off the table and fluttered to the floor. “Thanks a lot,” I fumed. “Look what you made me do!”

  It was like Peewee didn't even hear me. He was too busy peering around the room. Even though Wren was pretty well hidden, I didn't want him getting too good a look. In an attempt to sidetrack him, I jumped up from the table and started making noise.

  “What the heck do you think you're doing busting in like that? You're not an art student. Neither of you are.

  I'm the only one who's allowed to be in here.” Peewee swivelled toward me. His eyes narrowed into angry slits, and his mouth became a snarl. “Where is she?” he demanded. “She had to have come in here. There is no place else.”

  That's when
I noticed the big goose egg on his forehead and the raw, red gash on his arm.

  “What happened to you?” I said, unable to keep the laughter out of my voice. “Did you lose an argument with a door?”

  He slammed his hand onto the table so hard that Garth the Goon stopped scouring the room and turned to look.

  “Where is she!” Peewee yelled.

  “Where is who?” I yelled back.

  “You know darn well who! The crazy chick who dresses funny.” He turned to his pal. “What's her name?”

  “Wren,” Garth replied.

  “Right,” Peewee snorted. “Wren. What kind of a whacked-out name is that?”

  “How the heck should I know? And anyway, as you can see, she isn't here,” I grumbled. “Like I said before, I'm the only one with permission to be in this room. So why don't you and your buddy take a hike?”

  Peewee looked like he was going to say something else, but Garth spoke first. “She isn't here, Ross. I've checked the whole room—three times. Unless she shrank herself and crawled into a drawer, she's not here.” He jerked a finger toward the hall. “She's gotta be out there somewhere.”

  “She can't be!” Peewee yelled. “We had her cornered. There's only one way out of this hall, and she would've had to go through us to get to it!”

  “Fine!” Garth yelled back. “If you think I'm lyin', then you find her!” And with that, he crossed his arms over his chest and slumped sullenly against the wall.

  Peewee's face flushed purple, and he kicked my table, sending everything on it tumbling to the floor. He shook his finger at me, and bullets of saliva shot out of his mouth as he growled, “If I find out you've been lying, kid, you're toast.” Then gesturing for Garth to follow him, he stalked out of the room. It was Garth who slammed the door.

  Wren didn't move. I went to the door, opened it a crack and peered into the hall just in time to see Peewee and Garth turn the corner. Quietly I shut the door again. Then I walked over to the wall of cabinets.

  “You can come down now,” I called up to Wren. “They're gone.”

  She lifted her head and cautiously poked her nose over a stack of books. Then, inching backwards on her stomach, she climbed down from her hiding spot.

  When her feet hit the floor, I took one look at her and started to laugh. From head to toe, she was covered in dust. The back of her was still black, but her front was now grey. Set against the black of her lipstick and nail polish, she had the look of a moldy zombie.

  She immediately started beating at her clothes, sending dust clouds whirling around her head. That got her coughing and batting at the air.

  “Yuck! It's disgusting up there,” she complained.

  “Maybe so, but it saved you,” I pointed out.

  Her arms instantly stopped attacking the air and fell to her sides. “True,” she conceded more meekly. And then she added, “Thanks.”

  I stooped to retrieve my pencils and papers from the floor. Then I sat on the corner of the table. “So what was all that about?”

  She heaved a huge sigh. “It's sort of complicated. Ross and I have what you call a love-hate relationship.”

  I felt my eyebrows jump up. “Peewee—I mean, Ross—loves you?”

  She shook her head.

  “He hates you?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No doubt, but that's not the point.”

  “You love him?”

  “Get serious.”

  “Then what?”

  She eyed me impatiently. “This is not that hard to understand. Why are you having so much trouble getting it? We have a love-hate relationship. We love to hate each other.”

  It was my turn to roll my eyes. “That's not what a love-hate relationship is.”

  “That's what this one is.”

  I opened my mouth to argue but changed my mind and closed it again. There was no point. Wren had her own way of looking at things, and right or wrong, she wasn't about to change. Besides, it would only steer the conversation away from where I wanted it to go.

  “Okay, I'll bite,” I said. “Why do you love to hate each other?”

  “He's a bully,” she announced bluntly.

  I couldn't argue with that.

  “He picks on people,” she added. “Defenseless people.”

  “Does he pick on you?”

  “I'm not defenseless!” she bristled.

  I closed my eyes, and an image of me with my arm down Wren's throat, yanking out the story, popped into my mind. I took a deep breath and tried again.

  “So who does he bully?” I asked calmly.

  “Anyone he can. Anyone who doesn't fight back.”

  “Give me a for-instance.”

  “Okay,” she said, straightening up and suddenly looking very intense. “Okay, I will. Do you remember when we were at your locker just before lunch, and that guy bumped into you and fell?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “Well, that was Brady Williams.”

  “Who's Brady Williams—and don't tell me he's the guy who fell.”

  Wren shot me a sour look. “How droll. Brady is one of the kids who hangs out in the library at lunchtime. That just shows how much you notice. Anyway, the point is that Brady didn't fall by accident. He was pushed. You couldn't see, because your back was turned, but I saw everything. It was Ross and Garth who did it. Garth stuck his foot out, and then Ross shoved Brady real hard so that he fell over it.”

  “That sucks,” I said.

  “That's all you can say?” Wren snapped.

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I don't want you to say anything. Words are no help.” She made a fist and slammed it on the table. “The only way to stop bullies like Ross is with action.”

  I don't know why, but suddenly I remembered the gash on Peewee's arm and the bump on his head. Ding!

  The bell rang and the light went on.

  “So you did something?” I said warily.

  She bobbed her head. “Somebody had to.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I just gave him a taste of his own medicine. I waited until he went to his locker, and when his head was inside and he was reaching for something, I hit him behind the knees. You don't need any strength for that, you know. It's some kind of a reflex thing. Anyway, he went down like a ton of bricks—hit his head, scraped his arm. That's all.”

  “And that's why he was after you?”

  Wren looked away. “Pretty much.”

  EIGHT

  Wren spent the rest of that lunch hour—as well as the next two—in the art room. So of course I didn't get any work done on my comic.

  Turns out she and Peewee had been on each other's case since the first week of school. Peewee got his kicks from pushing people around, and it didn't take him more than a couple of days to zero in on the easy targets. And since the kids he picked on didn't defend themselves, he hassled them over and over again. Before school, after school, between classes—any time they were in the halls, Peewee and his pal gave them a bad time.

  Lunch breaks were the worst though. An hour is a long time to lie low when you've got a bullseye on your back. What Peewee's victims needed was a hideout. That's where the library came in. Because it was a teacher-supervised area, it was pretty much a Peewee-free zone.

  Not that it made much difference. Peewee simply stepped up his campaign in the halls.

  “And nobody does anything to stop him!” Wren fumed for the third straight day. “Not even the teachers.”

  I eyed her skeptically.

  “I'm serious!” she insisted. “Ross makes every rotten trick look like an accident. The teachers have to know what he's doing, but he's such a suck-up. Plus he never does anything really horrible right in front of them, so they look the other way.” As an afterthought, she grumbled, “Just like everybody else.”

  “Everybody except you, that is.”

  “Well, somebody has to do something. Why not me!” she exploded. “Why not you? Why not everybody else who wal
ks the halls of this school?” I could see her entire eighty pounds tensing up. She was getting ready to pounce.

  “Maybe they should help themselves,” I suggested, casually moving my drawings out of the line of fire. “If they fought back, Ross would probably leave them alone. Bullies only pick on people they know they can beat.”

  Wren clucked her tongue in disgust and flopped back in her chair. “Those kids aren't going to defend themselves, and you know it. You've seen them in the library. Do they look like fighters to you?” Before I could answer, she sprang forward in her chair. “They have been picked on their entire lives. That's all they know. It's what they expect.”

  “Are you saying they want to be bullied?”

  She glared at me. “Don't be dumb. That would be like saying poor people want to be poor. Knowing who you are and knowing how to change your situation are two completely different things.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I get your point. The library regulars need some help. But what you're doing isn't working. Hassling Peewee hasn't made him leave those kids alone. All it's done is get him on your case too. And if you keep pushing him, he's really going to start playing dirty.”

  Wren stuck her chin out stubbornly. “I don't care. I'm not quitting. If I back off, Ross is going to think he's won, and then he'll ride those kids harder than ever.”

  I sighed and shook my head. Arguing with Wren was a waste of time. “Whatever,” I muttered then added, “So how long are you planning to hang out in here?”

  “Why?” She was instantly defensive. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  I sort of was—I mean, even though Wren guaranteed life was never going to get dull, I needed to work on my comic, which I couldn't do with her around. But saying so would only win me a bruise somewhere, so I made a healthier choice and lied. “Of course not. I'm just asking.”

  Wren heaved a huge sigh and smiled at me. “You are too nice,” she said. “Not a very good liar, but a really nice person.” She gestured toward my drawings. “I mean, just look. You have this major project to get done, but instead of working on it, you're sitting here listening to me blab my face off.”

  She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up.