The Last Superhero

by Kristin Butcher

  The murmur got louder.

  Wren shoved her fists onto her hips and glared at the kid. “Are you calling me a liar?” Her puzzled expression had vanished. Now she looked like she was ready to slug someone. “I never promised you anything.”

  “Yes, you did. Why else would we have come to your lame meeting?”

  That's when Miss Holmes stepped in. She held up her hands for silence, and when the room eventually quieted down, she said, “Obviously there's been a misunderstanding here. I don't know what this is all about, but I promise you I'll get to the bottom of it. In the meantime,” she glanced at her watch, “lunch hour is nearly over, so I declare this meeting adjourned.” She waved a hand at a boy standing at the back of the library. “Frank, you hold the door, please. The rest of you, off you go to your lockers.”

  When Wren went to move, Miss Holmes put a hand on her arm and said something in her ear. Wren didn't look very happy, but she nodded. Then she turned to the table and started gathering up her things.

  I slipped into the mob exiting the room. It's not that I was bailing on Wren; I just wanted to get a copy of the notice with the burger offer. The one on the wall outside the library was gone, so I let myself be swept along with the crowd until I spied another one on a bulletin board farther down the hall. Ripping it down, I tore back to the library.

  It was empty now except for Miss Holmes and Wren. They were stacking chairs and putting the library tables back in place.

  “It's true,” I said, holding up the notice.

  They both stopped what they were doing and came to look. It was the notice Wren had plastered all over the school but with one small change. Slapped on top was a bright red, sticker that said: Everyone who shows up will receive a coupon for a free combo meal at Danny's Dogs and Burgers!!

  “You didn't do this?” Miss Holmes asked.

  Wren scowled and shook her head.

  “Do you know who did?”

  Wren's scowl got bigger, but she shook her head again.

  As we left the library, I whispered to her, “Why didn't you tell Miss Holmes it was Ross? You know he's the one who made up those stickers.”

  She shrugged. “What good would it do? I can't prove it. It would be his word against mine. And anyway, I'm not a cry-baby tattle-tale. I don't need Miss Holmes or anybody else to fight my battles. I can take care of Ross myself.”

  ELEVEN

  But she didn't. At least not the way I thought she would, and that's because of Miss Holmes, Mr. Taylor and—most of all—because of Danny over at Danny's Dogs and Burgers.

  Before classes were dismissed that afternoon, Mr. Taylor came on the public address system with speech #202. That's the one about respecting the rights of others. Obviously Miss Holmes had told him what had happened at the meeting in the library.

  But right when he got to the part where he was supposed to threaten the guilty parties with a lifetime of detentions if they got caught, the speech changed direction. Mr. Taylor said that Miss Holmes had contacted Danny's—in case some kids came looking for free burgers. The thing is, when Danny heard why the meeting had been called, he said he wanted to support the cause. He wasn't willing to give everybody a free combo meal, but he would take fifty cents off any meal purchased by Mt. Rigg students during the weekend. All they had to do was flash their student cards.

  So suddenly the kids in school weren't mad at Wren any more, and Wren wasn't mad at Peewee. In fact, she stopped by his locker after class to thank him for getting a big crowd out to her meeting. Peewee's dirty trick had backfired, and judging from the look on his face and the way he slammed his locker door, he wasn't real happy about it.

  I guess that's why he sabotaged Wren's petition. She'd tacked it up in the main hall first thing Monday morning. She figured that after a weekend of gorging on Danny's dogs and burgers, kids might feel more open-minded about saving the Quarry Street Firehouse. If she could get enough signatures, city council would have to rethink their position.

  Well, she got signatures all right. Pages and pages of them—Daffy Duck, Robin Hood, Casper the Friendly Ghost, ET, Darth Vadar, Mr. Clean—the list went on and on. Though I didn't actually see Peewee and Garth writing on the petition, I was pretty sure they were the ones responsible for messing it up. Once they'd signed a few fake names, the rest of the kids just kept it going. Of course, that meant another lecture over the PA from the principal, but it didn't change the fact that Wren's petition was wrecked.

  On Tuesday she started all over. This time she set up a table in the main hall and sat there with her petition, hounding every kid who walked by. So naturally kids stopped walking by. When Friday rolled around, Wren had managed to get just seven signatures, including hers and mine.

  “I don't get it,” Debra said as she plunked a bowl of salad onto the table.

  Ever since Christmas, Debra had been having supper at our house on Tuesdays. It was her day off, so she came over in the afternoon and made dinner. Of course that meant she had a key to our house—I should probably have protested about that—but since she was a way better cook than my dad, I decided to overlook it. Besides, it was just once a week.

  “Why is everyone so opposed to helping this Wren person?” she asked. “It sounds like she's promoting a good cause if you ask me.”

  I piled a bunch of chicken onto my plate. “Kids don't care about saving a rickety old building,” I told her. “That's something old ladies with blue hair and elastic stockings get excited about.”

  “But it's just a petition,” Debra protested. “What would it hurt for kids to sign their names?” I bit into a chicken leg. “Probably nothing if they weren't being forced to do it.”

  “Who's forcing them?” That was my dad.

  “Wren,” I sighed. “Saving the firehouse might be a good cause, but Wren doesn't give anybody a chance to decide that for themselves. Because she thinks it's a great idea, everybody else is just supposed to go along with it.”

  “You're going along with it,” Debra pointed out.

  I rolled my eyes. “I don't really have a choice. I'm not quite as anonymous as the other kids in school. Wren knows where to find me. Besides, somebody has to be on her side, and like you said, saving the fire house is a good cause.”

  “So who are these boys who keep sabotaging her efforts? And why are they doing it?”

  “Ross somebody-or-other and his buddy, Garth the Goon. They're a couple of morons in Grade Eight who think making other people's lives miserable is fun.”

  “In other words, they're bullies,” Debra harrumphed.

  My mouth was full, so I just nodded.

  “Why doesn't someone report them?”

  I swallowed and frowned. “This isn't kindergarten, Debra. Kids in middle school aren't squealers. And even if somebody did rat Ross and Garth out, the teachers still probably wouldn't do anything about it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they're both major suck-ups, and the teachers love them.”

  “Oh, come on,” Debra scoffed.

  “It's the truth,” I said. “Not that it matters. Wren doesn't need teachers to bail her out. She can take care of herself.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I grabbed another piece of chicken. “She's been warring against these guys all year. Every time they do something mean to somebody, she makes sure they pay for it.”

  “And then they do something to her,” Dad said.

  I shrugged. “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  Dad put his fork down. “So whose turn is it now?”

  I guess playing pranks on Wren wasn't as much fun as Peewee thought it was going to be, because the next day he was back to picking on the library regulars.

  Lunch hour had just started, and I was on my way to the art room. As usual the halls were plugged with kids. It was a human traffic jam—perfect conditions for Peewee to torment his victims. Though I didn't actually see him do anything, he was right there when a girl squealed and the armload of books she was carrying su
ddenly shot up into the air. If you ask me, that was just a little too convenient to be an accident. When the girl's binder burst open, raining paper all over the hall, Peewee and Garth laughed so hard they could barely stand up.

  The girl, on the other hand, looked like she was going to cry. Timidly pushing against the mob hemming her in, she tried to round up her stuff. One of her text books had landed at my feet, so I bent down and picked it up. Another one had been kicked down the hall. It took a few tries, but the girl eventually rescued it. But there was no saving the exploded binder. Its pages were scattered everywhere, and in no time they were all trampled and torn.

  By the time Wren came along, the crowd had thinned out.

  “What's going on?” she said. I wasn't sure if she was talking to me or to the girl. We were both bent over the mess on the floor, hunting for any pages that might be worth saving. The rest we just stuffed into a garbage can.

  The girl looked up. “My binder exploded,” she sniffed then went back to picking up paper.

  Wren turned to me. “Is that what happened?”

  I frowned. What was this—the third degree? I spread my arms to take in the mess. “It sure looks like it to me.”

  Wren let out an exasperated sigh. “That's not what I mean, and you know it.” Then she turned to the girl. “Cassidy, how did your binder explode?”

  The girl didn't stop working this time. She just shrugged and whined, “I don't know. I guess I dropped it.”

  Wren turned back to me. “Did she? Did she just drop it?”

  “Why are you asking me?” I protested. “It's her binder.”

  I knew perfectly well Cassidy had not just dropped her binder. When you drop stuff, it goes down—not up. It has something to do with gravity. And when you drop stuff, you don't usually squeal—unless somebody has just jabbed you, that is. Cassidy knew all that too, but if she wasn't talking, neither was 1.1 went back to poking through the papers on the floor.

  When I looked up again, Wren was gone.

  TWELVE

  After school Peewee showed up at Wren's locker under his own personal thunder cloud. He couldn't have looked sourer if he'd spent the day drinking vinegar. He was obviously looking for Wren. The thing is, she never showed. Which could mean only one thing. She had paid Peewee back for what he'd done to Cassidy, and now she was hiding.

  When morning classes ended the next day, I still hadn't seen her. I thought about looking for her myself, but the truth is, I didn't have time. There was only a little over a week left until the boot camp deadline, and I had to finish my comic. I grabbed my lunch and headed for the art room.

  I had just stuffed the last of my sandwich into my mouth and was laying my drawings out on the table, when I heard a knock on the door. I frowned, trying to think who knew I was in the art room. Then it dawned on me. Wren, of course. She was probably looking for a place to hide from Peewee.

  The chair scraped on the floor as I pushed it back. More knocking—louder this time. “Keep your shirt on,” I called as I trotted across the room.

  But either Wren didn't hear me, or she was in worse trouble than I thought, because the knocking got even louder.

  “Jeez!” I exclaimed as I threw open the door.

  To my surprise, Wren wasn't on the other side of it. Cassidy was, and if possible, she looked even more upset than when her binder had exploded. With jittery eyes peering out of a sickly white face, she reminded me of a nervous ghost. It was like I could see right through her. I couldn't, of course, but if I passed her in the hall, I'm sure I wouldn't notice her. She had this invisible quality about her. But then, if you're trying to stay out of the way of someone like Peewee, being invisible might not be such a bad thing.

  At first I couldn't think why she was there. Cassidy didn't look like she had enough nerve to cross the street by herself, never mind go calling on some guy she'd only talked to once in her entire life.

  And then it hit me. I wasn't the one she'd come to see.

  “If you're looking for Wren, she's not here,” I said.

  “I know,” Cassidy replied quickly, looking more and more like she was going to bolt. “She's in the Tombs.” And then to my surprise, she grabbed my hand and started pulling. “You've got to come.”

  “What's she doing in the Tombs?” I frowned, resisting Cassidy's tugs. The Tombs was at the bottom of a staircase in the oldest part of the school. It had been the lunch room once upon a time, but all that was down there now were cobwebs and ancient textbooks.

  “Please. There isn't time. You have to come,” she whined, trying again to drag me with her.

  I jerked myself free. “Hold on a second, will ya! I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what this is all about. Did Wren send you?”

  Cassidy was really starting to look desperate. Her eyes kept darting toward the hall, and she was practically wringing her hands. She shook her head so hard, her stringy blonde hair slapped her face. “No, but you have to come! Wren's in trouble. Those guys—the ones who made my binder explode—they stuck a coat over her head and dragged her down to the Tombs. I saw them!”

  That was all the convincing I needed. “When?” I demanded, trying to ignore the chill creeping up my spine.

  “Just now. I came here as soon as I saw.”

  If Cassidy said anything else, I didn't hear her.

  The Tombs was at the other end of the school, and since Peewee and Garth had a head start on me, I ran full out to get there. I didn't even slow up when I hit the stairwell. I just barrelled down the steps three at a time, ricocheting off the brick wall where the stairs doubled back. It wasn't until I got to the bottom that I stopped.

  Right away a dank, musty odor crawled up my nose, and cool air wrapped itself around me like an icy overcoat. This part of the building obviously wasn't high on the heating list. I shivered. The room was huge, and the light cast by the bare bulbs dotting the ceiling was dull and dusty, just like the endless rows of bookshelves.

  Somewhere in the middle of them, though, I could hear scuffling, and I took off toward the sound. As I got closer, I heard gruff whispers and a muffled yell.

  It was Wren.

  “Let her go, Ross!” I shouted.

  The scuffling and whispering stopped, and there was another stifled protest. It was Wren all right, and she couldn't be more than a couple of bookshelves away. I started to run, making as much noise as I could. With a little luck, it would scare Peewee off.

  But it didn't. In fact, the scuffling started up again. So did the voices, and they weren't whispers any more.

  “Hold her still!” Peewee ordered.

  “I'm tryin',” Garth grumbled back.

  “Well, try harder! She's wiggling all over the place?”

  Then there was another strangled complaint from Wren.

  “Let her go!” I hollered again as I tore around the last set of shelves and prepared to shove my fist down Peewee's throat.

  At first all I saw was his back and—above him—Garth's head. They were squished into a corner where a bookshelf met the wall. Then suddenly there was a thud, and Peewee started swearing and hopping around on one leg like a wounded kangaroo. And that's when I saw Wren.

  Her cheeks were splotchy red, and her hair looked like it had exploded. There was a gag in her mouth, but she was still making all kinds of noise, and though Garth was holding her arms, her legs were whipping around faster than a windmill in a tornado.

  Peewee lifted his arm. He had something in his hand. “I told you to hold her!” he growled as he tried to get close again.

  He still hadn't seen me.

  “Leave her alone!” I roared, hurling myself at his back.

  He wasn't ready for me and crumpled to the floor like a wet paper bag, dropping whatever it was he'd been holding. I heard it hit the floor and roll away. I looked up at Wren just in time to see her kick behind her like a mule and catch Garth a good one in the knee. Bellowing like a water buffalo, he let go of her and grabbed his leg. Wren kicked him again, and he
grabbed his other leg. That's when she pulled away the gag and opened her mouth to give him an earful. But she never got the chance.

  “Who's down here?” a huge voice boomed. It was Riley, the school custodian. The guy was a giant. Rumour was he had a second job as a bouncer at some bar. I wouldn't have been surprised. He was not the kind of person you wanted to mess with.

  Which is probably why Peewee decided it was time to beat it out of there. As Riley stomped into the opening at one end of the shelves, Peewee disappeared around the other end with Garth hobbling behind. How Riley didn't see them is a mystery to me. But I guess he didn't. Either that or he simply decided Wren and I were easier to catch. At any rate, he lumbered toward us like a steamroller bent on flattening a nasty bump.

  Less than an arm's length away, he stopped. Then he leaned forward, and his eyes narrowed as he looked us up and down. Finally he straightened up and yelled, “Students are not allowed down here, and you know it! I'm sick and tired of playing nursemaid to you kids. What is it this time—smooching or smoking?”

  Wren and I exchanged surprised looks.

  “You've got it all wrong,” I said. “It's not what you're thinking.”

  “Save it,” Riley cut me off before I could explain. “Just get the heck out of here before I report you both to the office.”

  “But you don't understand. We weren't the ones doing anything wrong. It was—”

  This time it was Wren who cut me off. “Let's just go,” she muttered through clenched teeth, then she started to run.

  THIRTEEN

  At the end of the row where the bookshelves turned into the main aisle, Wren slowed down and picked something up off the floor. Then she sped up again.

  “What's that?” I asked, chasing after her.

  She held up a heavy-duty felt marker. “The weapon.” she replied, swinging around the old wooden banister and charging up the stairs.

  “What weapon?”

  “The one Ross was going to write LOSER on my forehead with.” Then she stopped so suddenly, I nearly plowed into her back. She twirled toward me and stuck her face into mine. “Did he get any on me?”