Searching for Super

by Marion Jensen

  Thimon sputtered, and then said, “Rafter, you couldn’t hear me if you didn’t have your earpiece. Check your ear again.”

  I felt my ear. Sure enough, I had an earpiece. I pulled it out, dropped it on the roof of the Wilson Tower, and smashed it under my heel.

  “Guys, look at the hotel!” Thimon’s voice was urgent.

  I looked over at the hotel. Lights were flickering on in the top floors. I saw movement in several of the windows. Benny sucked in his breath.

  “Ninjas!” he proclaimed.

  Benny was right. Creeping along the hallway were several figures clothed in black. They wore masks and had swords and staves tied to their backs.

  Benny looked at me with gleaming eyes. “Ninjas, Rafter! We get to fight ninjas!”

  “Rafter,” Thimon’s voice came again in my ear. “Those earpieces are small. Sometimes they just fall deeper into your ear. You probably didn’t take it out from the last time you were practicing.”

  Thimon was lying. My earpiece was in pieces under my boot.

  I knew he was telling a lie, but what was the truth? How could I hear Thimon without an earpiece? And how could the moon be high in a sky that was dark just a half hour before?

  Maybe the same way Benny and I could be at the same statue as Juanita, and still not really see her.

  I know the Joneses are supervillains, but they’re not magicians.

  My head spun. It felt like I didn’t know which way was up. My stomach lurched as the ledge seemed to shift under my feet. One moment I was watching Benny, who looked hungrily at the ninjas across the way. The next minute I was tumbling through the night sky.

  “Rafter!” Benny yelled.

  I still had flight. I slowed my descent and righted myself. I paused in midair, hovering between the two skyscrapers. Benny watched me from above.

  I closed my eyes. I looked at the puzzle pieces in my mind.

  One by one, the pieces fell into place. A picture emerged.

  The picture made me angry.

  My friend was truly in trouble. She needed my help.

  And I was doing nothing.

  I rose back up to the ledge. I grabbed Benny by the handle and shot into the air.

  “Where are we going?” Benny shouted in surprise.

  “To the dam,” I growled.

  “You’re leaving Juanita?” Thimon sounded openly hostile now. “Rafter, why are you going to the dam?”

  I said nothing. Thimon asked me the same question a second time. And then a third.

  “Rafter!” Benny cried above the rushing wind. “Can you hear Thimon?”

  “I can’t,” I lied. “My earpiece must have fallen out.”

  “Well, now you’re just being silly.” Thimon didn’t sound happy.

  “Everything will make sense once we get to the dam,” I said. “We’ll be there in three minutes.”

  I soared through the sky. I realized that this might very well be the last time I ever flew. I frowned, and flew on into the blackness.

  I dropped down toward the mountains. The moon that shouldn’t have been there sparkled on the dark water of the reservoir.

  “Thimon,” I said. “Give Benny fire. He’s going to light up the night sky.”

  “Awesome,” Benny said. He pointed his hands out and sprayed a giant ball of fire into the air. The reservoir lit up like a night game at the Split Rock stadium. The reflection of the light on the water made it hard to see below the surface, but not impossible. I peered into the deep water and found what I was looking for.

  The last piece of the puzzle was in place.

  “Do you see anything strange, Benny?” I asked. “Anything out of the ordinary?”

  Benny examined the black water. He let the fire die, and looked at me over his shoulder.

  “The only thing I see is the dam, the reservoir, and the Joneses’ broken robot, right where we left it.”

  I nodded. “Exactly.”

  16

  YOU KNOW I DON’T THINK AS FAST AS YOU

  I set Benny down on the shore of the reservoir and landed next to him, the boots of my supersuit crunching in the gravel. Benny turned off his lights and my eyes adjusted to the pale glow of the moon and stars.

  “Rafter.” Benny looked serious. “You know I don’t think as fast as you. Why are we here at the dam and not back at the Baylor fighting with ninjas and saving Juanita? Ninjas, Rafter. NINJAS!”

  “It all makes sense now, Benny,” I said. “When Juanita gave me the flash drive, she was acting strange. Do you remember that?”

  It felt strange talking about Thimon when I knew he was listening in, but there was nothing I could do about it.

  For a brief moment, I wondered if we were in danger. But if my theory was correct, Thimon had had plenty of opportunities to hurt us before now and hadn’t taken them.

  Benny nodded. “Yeah, she didn’t look right. She looked like she was . . . empty.”

  “That’s a good way to describe it,” I said. “The people on the bus looked the same way. I think the reason they all looked empty is because they were empty. Juanita wasn’t really Juanita.”

  Benny looked excited. “You mean she was a robot?”

  I shook my head. “Do you remember when she gave me the flash drive? I put it in my front pocket. But when I went to get it, it wasn’t there. Thimon knew exactly where it was—in my backpack. He knew because he was the one who put it there.”

  “I still don’t get it.” Benny looked frustrated and angry.

  “Two superheroes on patrol just came out here about twenty minutes ago,” I said. “They looked all over the place. The robot wasn’t here. Everything was normal.”

  My brother pulled at his hair. I could tell I was losing him.

  “Benny.” I tried to sound convincing. “You know how Thimon makes us sit down before and after we use the powers? And he touches our foreheads?”

  Benny nodded. “To form a connection.”

  I shook my head. “No. It’s so he can use his power. His real power. It’s so he can trick our minds. He puts us in a fake, imaginary world. None of this is real. Right now, you and I are sitting in Thimon’s room, in a trance. Thimon has us under his control.”

  17

  WHAT IF YOU’RE WRONG, RAFTER?

  Benny stared at me with disbelief. “How can you be sure?”

  To be honest, I wasn’t sure. Maybe there was another explanation, but I didn’t think so. My plan was to act certain, and see if I could get Thimon to believe me.

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense, Benny,” I said. “This is all pretend. All the times we’ve been trying to do something important, Thimon has been tricking us into sitting down in his room and pretending.”

  Benny looked around. “But, Rafter, this can’t be pretend. It all feels real.”

  Benny did have a point. The gravel beneath our feet. The cool night breeze. The ripples on the surface of the water. It felt very real.

  I stared up into the sky, as if Thimon’s face might be up there, and we were in some kind of fishbowl. “It’s your power, isn’t it?” I shouted. “That’s why Juanita seemed so strange. Because we know what Juanita looks like and sounds like, but we don’t really know what she’ll say. Every time we’ve practiced, we’ve done it away from others. Not just to keep our identities secret, but because making other people believable must be hard for you.”

  “You’re both wasting time.” Thimon sounded out of breath. Maybe not out of breath, but like he was moving around and talking at the same time. “Juanita needs your help back at the hotel. It’s time to stop goofing off.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “It is time to stop goofing off. We spent the last three months hunkering down. And then we’ve spent a week with you doing nothing but pretending. Mom kept saying we were spending a lot of time in our room. That is exactly what we were doing. Sitting up in our room, not doing a thing. You Joneses are masters of misdirection and confusion. You have us fighting ourselves, then you have us hi
ding, and now you have us pretending to fight. You convince us we’re doing something important, when in fact we’re doing nothing at all.”

  “Juanita was right.” Benny’s voice was soft. “Juanita didn’t hunker down. She didn’t have her powers, but that didn’t mean she stopped. She wasn’t doing big stuff, but she was doing something. We stopped going on patrol, and she started helping other people. “

  I snapped my fingers. “That’s why Thimon had me beg Juanita to meet us in the park. She really did find something when she did that research. He didn’t want her to find anything else. While we were pretending to meet Juanita, we were really just in our room. When she really did show up to the park, he had Joneses there waiting for her. He tricked me into getting her kidnapped.”

  Suddenly I was mad.

  I really had gotten Juanita kidnapped. She’d managed to escape. And what had I done as soon as I found out? I’d run to Thimon. And right now, I was sitting in my room, pretending.

  This had to stop, and it had to stop now.

  “You are going to pay for this, Thimon,” I shouted. “If it’s the last thing I do.”

  In that moment I felt trapped. I could leap into the air and fly wherever I wanted, yet in truth, I couldn’t go anywhere. I was stuck in Thimon’s room.

  “Let us go!” I shouted. I looked around, but didn’t know what I was looking for. “Benny, how do we get out of here?”

  “Benny, behind you!” Thimon’s voice came in my ears. I realized that it wasn’t in my ears like I was hearing it in an earpiece. I was hearing him as if he and I were in the same room.

  Benny and I spun at the same moment. A thread of flame tore against the night sky. And then another. And a third.

  “What is that?” Benny asked.

  “Whatever it is, it’s not real,” I said. “Thimon’s trying to distract us again.”

  Before I wasn’t certain. Now I was.

  I heard the familiar whine of jetpacks. The noise grew louder until three figures emerged from the darkness. Their speed slowed and they landed on the other end of the road. Their packs kicked up dust and smoke. In a moment, they had their jetpacks off and tossed to the side.

  Ninjas.

  Two of them drew swords. The third one had a staff. They crouched in defensive stances, waiting. I could see their eyes burning in the darkness.

  “You can do this, Benny,” Thimon’s voice said. “These ninjas can lead us to Juanita. Beat them and save the day. Be super. Be important.”

  Benny looked at me. I could see the confusion on his face. “What if you’re wrong, Rafter? What if this is real? We can beat these guys. If Thimon gives me speed . . .”

  I looked at the ninjas. Their faces were covered. Thimon had a hard time creating other people, but a masked figure would be easier.

  “Benny,” I said. “This is all in our heads. We’ve got to break free.”

  Benny looked at the darkened figures. I could see his hunger to fight.

  I looked up at the moon hanging impossibly in the sky.

  The moon was fake. I knew it. I stared at it. Challenging it. It shouldn’t be there.

  Nothing happened. I stared harder, willing it to be gone.

  The yellow glow of the moon seemed to shudder. I reached out my hand and took a swipe at the moon, brushing it away as if I was swatting a bee.

  The moon shuddered. I swung again, and then it happened. One moment the moon was there, shining bright in a starless sky. And the next the sky seemed to dissolve. Like a football player running through a paper poster, the sky seemed to rip and tear.

  I swung at the mountains and trees of the canyon, like I was clearing cobwebs from a dusty basement. I pushed with my mind. I tore at the water and the gravel and the ninjas. The ground beneath me swirled and changed. Everything seemed to shudder and fall.

  One moment I was standing on gravel next to Benny in the cold night air. The next I sat on the carpet in the comfort of my home, still beside Benny.

  We were alone.

  My head hurt. That was why my body was never tired after training so hard with Thimon. It wasn’t my body working, it was my mind.

  The clock read twenty minutes past midnight. I saw that Thimon’s clothes, laptop, and tablet were gone. The door to the room stood open. The stairs creaked.

  Thimon was still in the house.

  I jumped to my feet and took two steps to the door before I stopped. I looked back. Benny still sat on the floor, cross-legged.

  He was still trapped in the other world.

  “What’s going on?” Benny’s eyes remained closed, and he spoke in a monotone voice. “Rafter, where did you go? I can’t see you.”

  I heard a door open. If I didn’t act now, Thimon would escape. I could stop him and then come back and help Benny later.

  My brain told me this was the best plan, but I couldn’t do it.

  I couldn’t leave Benny. Not for anything.

  I went to my brother and knelt down. I touched his shoulder. “Benny, you’ve got to wake up.”

  Benny’s eyes remained closed, his face somber. “I want to attack the ninjas, Rafter. I want to beat all of them. This is where I belong.”

  “It’s not real, Benny.”

  “I want to save people,” Benny said. “I want to do important things.”

  I had a thought. “Do you remember your goats, Benny? You got sucked into that game, just like we got sucked into this fake world. But when something more important came along, you put the game aside. We have to do the same thing now. This is all fake. We have to set it aside.”

  “I’m afraid, Rafter.”

  That stopped me short. I almost laughed, but Benny’s face was serious. “You, Benny? I’ve never seen you afraid in all my life. You’re fearless.”

  Benny shook his head. His voice was almost a whisper. “I’m afraid of being a nobody.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  Benny continued. “When I see a giant underwater robot or a Jones—and I’m afraid—I think of the fear of being a nobody. That fear is bigger than anything else. That fear pushes everything else aside, and it gives me courage.”

  I felt like I’d just met my brother for the first time.

  “Benny . . .” I wasn’t as good at speeches as Dad was. I never said some things because it made me uncomfortable. But looking at Benny with his eyes closed, I could almost imagine him asleep. “Benny, you’re the best little brother a guy could want. You teach me a lot. If you’ll let me, I want to teach you something this time. You and I have been searching for super all of our lives. Thimon gave us that in the pretend world, but pretending isn’t enough. Not for you. Not for me.”

  My brother said nothing.

  “Benny, Juanita is in trouble, and she needs our help. Maybe we won’t be important to everybody, but we can be important to her. We’re going to go out into the real world where we might get hurt. Or worse, we might try and fail. We might never be super. But either way, if we do succeed or fail, it’ll be real. It’ll mean something.”

  For a moment, Benny remained unmoving. He sat perfectly still. I didn’t know what else to say.

  Then he opened his eyes. I thought I saw sadness in those eyes, but I also saw determination. And maybe just a bit of anger.

  “Where’s Thimon?”

  18

  STRAGGLERS WILL HAVE TO HITCHHIKE

  “Dad!” I pounded on my parents’ bedroom door. “Mom, wake up!”

  I heard a faint rumbling downstairs. I looked over at Benny in confusion. The noise sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it.

  “The garage door!” Benny said.

  Benny turned and raced down the stairs, his bathrobe flowing behind him like a cape. A burst of fear and excitement exploded in my chest, and I followed. Dad opened the door behind me. “What the . . . you boys know it’s not Christmas, right?”

  “A Jones!” I hollered over my shoulder. “Right here in the house!”

  Benny ran ahead. I followed him th
rough to the kitchen. By the time I got there, the door leading to the garage was already swinging shut. I pulled it open and raced outside.

  Thimon sat behind the wheel of the Mitsubishi, backing out of the garage. His backpack and duffel bag were in the seat beside him. Benny had launched himself from the stairs and was flying through the air. He landed with a crash onto the hood of the car and grabbed the windshield wipers to keep from sliding off.

  “Benny!” A moment ago I’d been focused on stopping Thimon. Now my only thought was to keep my brother safe. We weren’t in a pretend world anymore.

  The car backed out of the driveway, the engine whining. Thimon turned the wheel, spinning the car into the road. Benny slid along the hood but managed to hang on.

  I got to the passenger side and pulled at the handle, but the door was locked.

  “Benny,” I hollered, “get off, you’ll get run over!”

  I was about to hop on the hood myself and pull Benny off when the car suddenly lurched forward and died. Everything went quiet. I could hear Dad running down the driveway. The hood of the car crinkled in protest as Benny struggled to get to his knees. Thimon cursed from inside the car.

  “Stupid manual transmission!”

  Benny slid off the hood but I beat him to the driver-side door, which wasn’t locked. I dragged Thimon from behind the wheel, and then Benny took over. He pushed Thimon to the ground and in another second was sitting on top of him. Benny grabbed the front of Thimon’s shirt and pulled until their faces were just inches apart.

  “I oughta conk you on the head,” Benny shouted, “for messing with my dreams and making me believe something that wasn’t true!”

  “Good goat gravy, what in the name of all that is super is going on out here?” Dad came to a stop next to Benny and me. “Boys, what have I told you about roughhousing in the middle of the road in your pajamas?”

  “Dad,” I said. “I can explain.”

  “Let’s at least get back in the house first. It’s twelve thirty in the morning!”