Searching for Super

by Marion Jensen

  Benny kept an iron grip on Thimon’s arms and escorted him inside. Dad managed to restart the car enough to get it back into the garage, and in a few minutes, Thimon and my entire family were seated at the kitchen table.

  Dad started warming up goat’s milk. I wanted to scream that there wasn’t time for goat’s milk, but I knew my parents wouldn’t act until they’d heard the whole story.

  Thimon sat down and scowled while Benny and I stumbled over each other trying to explain the events of the last two weeks. Mom had questions. Dad had questions. Even Rodney, joining us with a yawn, piped in a few times. In the end, we told them everything. The pretend powers. The flash drive that Thimon had slipped into my backpack, and most important, the call I’d gotten from Juanita just an hour ago.

  “Juanita—and I assume the rest the missing relatives—are at the Baylor Hotel,” I said. “The thirteenth floor. It sounds like they’re in trouble.”

  Dad brought over six mugs, but left one of them on the tray. He looked sternly at Thimon. “I think somebody at this table hasn’t earned his warm goat’s milk.”

  Thimon rolled his eyes. “You people eat weird food. You understand that, right?”

  Dad ignored him. He sipped from his mug and drummed his fingers on the table.

  “Do you boys see where you made the mistake?”

  “Yeah.” I pointed at Thimon. “We believed that Jones over there. We never should have let him into our house. That stupid stuffed moose on his couch should have tipped us off right at the beginning.”

  Dad shook his head. “You got fooled, but so did the rest of us. We all did. They’re supervillains who have been playing these games for decades. You’ve got to expect them to be good at fooling people. But that’s not where you made the mistake.”

  I didn’t want a lecture, but I figured I deserved it. And whatever mistake I’d made, I honestly didn’t want to make it again.

  Mom spoke up. “The mistake you boys made was not telling us. We’re on the same team. We’re your parents and we want the same things you do. The next time somebody offers to give you free superpowers, tell us. We might have been fooled too, but with two more sets of eyes, things may have turned out different.”

  Dad nodded.

  “You’re probably right,” I admitted. “But can we have the life-lessons discussion after we stop the bad guys? Juanita needs us.”

  Dad threw his head back, chugging his warm goat’s milk. He put the empty mug on the table with a sharp rap.

  “Let me get this straight,” Dad said. “You’re suggesting that a handful of superheroes—without powers, mind you—just waltz into the supervillains’ headquarters, find and fight a family of supervillains who very likely have their superpowers, and attempt to rescue our relatives?”

  Mom clucked her tongue and shook her head.

  A silence settled over the table. Benny looked confused. Mom and Dad stared at me.

  “Um . . . ,” I said. “Yes?”

  Dad slapped the table and bellowed. “Of course yes! We’re superheroes. If we don’t stand up to the bad guys, then we have no right to wear our tights. I’ll call Grandpa. We can have the Baileys rounded up in less than an hour.”

  “Don’t forget the Johnsons,” I said.

  “Of course not,” Dad said. “We work as a team. Though I have to admit, it’s tempting to give our family a head start.”

  Benny stood up. “We get to go too, right? You’re not going to leave us behind like last time?”

  Dad looked over at Benny. “Do you have a supersuit?”

  For a moment my heart fell. Our supersuits were fake. They were part of the lies that Thimon had told us.

  And then I remembered.

  “Yes,” I said. “We do.”

  “Then go put them on.” Dad grinned. “We leave for the ranch in three minutes. Stragglers will have to hitchhike.”

  “What about Thimon?” I asked.

  Dad looked at Thimon for a moment, then made a decision. He slid the last warm goat’s milk in front of him.

  “Get the duct tape—we’ll strap him to the Mitsubishi.”

  19

  DO YOU BY ANY CHANCE SPEAK PORTUGUESE?

  It felt like steering an ocean liner. I wanted to drive to the ranch, load up in our biggest helicopter, and fly to the hotel with guns blazing. I wanted to pull a Benny. I wanted to leap into action, and then come up with a plan in the middle of the air.

  That’s not how it happened. We called Grandpa and told him about the Baylor Hotel. Then everybody left to change into their supersuits.

  I was the first one ready.

  It’s hard to describe the thrill of wearing a supersuit. You have a layer of tights that go under the armor part. The suit itself is an engineering marvel. It’s built strong to stand up to heat and blunt-force attacks. Hydraulics kick in to magnify any movement you make. The armor was bulkier than it was on the suits Thimon had us wear, but then, those were imaginary.

  These were the real things.

  Rodney went down to the root cellar to run the command center. If the systems had been working, he could have coordinated communications anywhere. Instead, he’d have to do it manually from the basement. The Johnsons would provide a supporting command center closer to the hotel, but Rodney would handle all the important stuff.

  There wasn’t anything for me to do at the moment, so I followed my older brother down to the cellar to watch him work. His fingers flew over the keyboard, and by the time I was done, he had the computer and all the communication equipment up and running.

  Over the radio in my helmet, Dad told me we were still a few minutes away from leaving. I sat down on a chair, the weight of my supersuit making it creak in protest.

  “I remember when you first lost your power,” I said as I watched Rodney work. “You couldn’t remember if a T. rex had a brain the size of a walnut or a chickpea.”

  Rodney smiled a half smile. “I’ve learned a little bit since then, but I’m nowhere near where I used to be. Sometimes it feels like I’ve been working nonstop.”

  “It shows,” I said.

  Six months ago, Benny and I would be popping some popcorn, sitting down here with Rodney, and watching the Baileys battle with the Johnsons. Now we were about to march into a hotel and battle real supervillains. Without any powers.

  When Benny and I used to watch the battles, I’d tell him how things would be different when we got our powers. How he and I would use tactics to beat the Johnsons and win the battles.

  I wondered if tactics could save us in a battle that was as lopsided as this one.

  When you go up against a more powerful foe, you don’t meet them head on. You hit them from the side. Or from behind. Or perhaps you don’t even attack them at all, but instead find some way to—

  My brain started turning. Slowly at first, and then a little faster. There wasn’t much I could do right now, but there was one thing I could do for the future.

  “Rodney,” I said. “Do you know how the flash drive worked? How it took over our system?”

  “It was actually a pretty simple script,” Rodney said. “Usually a virus is complicated because it has to figure out how to get into a system. But since we just popped the drive into our computer, it didn’t need anything else. The program ran through the system, copied passwords, banking information, and anything else it could find. Once it had everything, it transmitted the information wirelessly to a mobile phone.”

  “So if you had the code for the virus, could you modify it? Could you send the information to your phone?”

  Rodney thought for a moment. “Yeah. That’s not hard at all. I mean, all you’re doing is changing a phone number. I could do that in about three minutes.”

  I smiled. “As it happens, that’s about how long we have. Can you do it now?”

  Rodney shrugged and started looking through his drawers. “Sure, but why?”

  “I have an idea,” I said.

  We were almost the last ones to the ranch.
We had a long way to drive, but we also had to tape Thimon to the passenger’s seat of the car. Dad, Benny, and I went inside Grandpa’s house. Mom stayed behind to watch Thimon.

  Baileys filled the kitchen and dining room and living room. A few of the Johnsons who lived in the area were also here. They’d ride with us to the Baylor to meet up with the rest of their family.

  To my surprise, I saw Monroe sitting on a sofa in the living room. My first thought was to protect my ankles. Instead, I went over and sat by him.

  Monroe stared at me. He looked distrustful, but not hostile. That was an improvement from the last time I’d seen him.

  “Hey, Monroe,” I said. “It looks like your parents told you about the family secret?”

  I remembered when Dad had told Benny and me. He’d taken us camping, and told us over the orange glow of a campfire and a belly full of s’mores. It was one of my favorite memories.

  “I heard Uncle Marcos talking to Grandma,” Monroe said. “They told me everything after I said I knew what was going on.” He hesitated. “They told me that we’re all supposed to be friends now.”

  I smiled. “Monroe, I can honestly say that I’m glad you’re on our side. My ankles are especially happy.”

  It appeared Monroe couldn’t tell if I was joking or not. He finally said, “Nobody will let me help out. They say I’m too little.”

  That sounded familiar. Dad had told Benny and me about the family secret when I was ten and Benny was nine. There were a lot of things we could read and learn about being super, but we weren’t allowed to do anything until we got our powers. Those three and a half years were the longest years of my life. Years of watching family members be super, but always being left behind.

  “Well, you’ve got a lot to learn,” I said. “And you’ve got to get your power. Then you’ll get your supersuit and you’ll be ready to go on a mission.”

  Monroe pouted. “I can help out right now, even if I don’t have a power.” He pointed at two Johnsons in the hall. “Those two are fighting about which one has to babysit me. I told them I have a plan, but they won’t listen.”

  The two Johnsons looked like they were having a heated conversation. It was clear that neither of them wanted to have to stay behind with Monroe.

  I sat on the sofa, and felt like I was looking at a younger version of me. Benny and I had plans. Back in the root cellar, dreaming of how we’d save the world. Ignored or forgotten by the other superheroes. We’d felt we weren’t going to be important until we had powers.

  I made my voice serious. “Monroe, whichever one of those guys is lucky enough to hang out with you, you make sure to tell him your plan. And if it’s a good one, then you make sure to carry out that plan. Sometimes, even the littlest things can help out in the end.”

  Monroe looked at me suspiciously. “Are you calling me little?”

  I shook my head. “You’re a superhero. Tonight the city needs us. All of us.”

  I left Monroe and went to find Benny and Dad.

  “Why arrrrren’t we alrrrready gone?” My aunt Verna was saying. For months, she’d been speaking with a ridiculous English accent because she thought it was more proper. “Why arrre we just standing arrround?”

  My thoughts exactly.

  “The Johnsons like to have a plan,” Grandpa said calmly. “Right now they’re trying to figure out the best place to meet. They assured me they’ll have something to us in a matter of minutes.”

  Nobody liked that. My family was used to leaping first, then thinking.

  Finally, Grandpa got a call from Mrs. Johnson, and then announced, “We’re meeting at a parking garage two blocks south of the Baylor. Everybody down to the motor pool. Dirk will assign you a ride.”

  Everyone got up to leave. “I hope I get to drive the Dirt Hog,” Benny said.

  “You know we’re not driving anything,” I told him. “But at least we’ll finally get to ride in something.”

  We went out the back door and followed the group toward the secret entrance of our headquarters. “We’ve got to stick together, okay, Benny?” I said. “We’re going up against real supervillains. This isn’t going to be like fighting the Johnsons.”

  “We’ll be fine,” Benny said. “We’ve been practicing with Thimon, remember?”

  “But all of that was pretend.”

  “Working together wasn’t pretend,” Benny said. “That part was real.”

  Grandpa had a huge backyard that backed up against a mountain. We got in line at an outhouse several hundred feet behind the house. It was actually the secret passage into the mountain.

  I pulled out my phone. It was 1:12 in the morning. Maybe I should have been tired, but preparing to fight supervillains really gets your blood pumping.

  We made our way into our headquarters and to the motor pool. Grandpa, Dirk, and Aunt Verna passed out the vehicle assignments at a small aluminum worktable in the center. Benny and I found Dad and got in line for our assignment. Two Baileys from out of town were talking about their powers.

  “I used to be able to shoot whips out of my hands,” a woman in her early twenties said. “But now all I can do is read someone else’s mind.”

  “That seems like a useful power,” the other Bailey said.

  “Well, it’s only one person’s mind.”

  “One person at a time?”

  “No. Just one person. He’s Brazilian, and he only thinks in Portuguese.”

  “Do you by any chance speak Portuguese?”

  “No.”

  These were the powers we were taking into battle. Somebody once said you should never bring a knife to a gunfight. We weren’t even bringing knives.

  More like bananas and wet wipes.

  The sound of engines filled the motor pool.

  “Oh, man,” Benny whined. “Uncle Chambers gets the Dirt Hog. He shouldn’t get the Dirt Hog. He’s bald.”

  Machines continued to roll out of the motor pool. By the time we got up to Grandpa, there weren’t many vehicles left. There were a few boats, but we couldn’t exactly get to the Baylor Hotel on watercraft.

  Dad stepped forward and Grandpa looked at his clipboard. “Let’s see . . . Hubert. We’re pretty much out of vehicles. You’ll have to just take your Mitsubishi.”

  “What?” Benny exclaimed. “We can’t show up to our first battle in the Mitsubishi!”

  “Even if we did have another vehicle, you’ve got Thimon in your car,” Grandpa said. “Nobody’s staying behind and we can’t just leave him here.”

  Benny and I had spent three months sitting behind the red line, looking at all the supervehicles we owned. I wanted to ride in one.

  “What about our secret identities?” I said. “If we drive our car, somebody might figure out who we are.”

  “You have supersuits,” Grandpa said. “No one will see you. You can rip off the license plates. I’m pretty sure the superhero code allows us to do that in an emergency.”

  Benny protested, but when Grandpa suggested that maybe Benny could stay behind to watch Thimon, he quickly backed down.

  In a few minutes, Dad, Mom, Benny, and I were puttering down the road in our rusty car.

  Thimon tried to shift in his seat but the duct tape held him fast. He was able to turn his head just enough to speak to us in the backseat. The lights of the dashboard glowed green against his skin. “Where are you taking me?”

  “We’re not taking you anywhere,” Benny said. “Right now you’re just baggage. And baggage doesn’t talk.”

  “You’re morons.” Thimon smiled at me like a wolf smiles at a rabbit. “You realize there’s no chance of you beating us, right?”

  “When I was little . . . ,” Dad began.

  Benny rolled his eyes. “Here comes a story,” he said under his breath.

  “When I was little, I could never figure out why people wanted to climb Mount Everest. I mean, I understood people wanting to get to the top of it, but why not just take a helicopter?”

  “You can’t take a
helicopter to the top,” Thimon said. “The air is too thin for helicopters to fly.”

  “Exactly!” Dad sounded excited. “I never wanted to go to the top of Mount Everest when I thought it was easy. Only when I realized it was difficult did I understand the appeal. Anybody can do the easy. The brave are drawn to the difficult.”

  “And the morons are drawn to the impossible.”

  “That’s us.” Dad sounded solemn. “A Mitsubishi full of morons.”

  “You think you’ve won,” Thimon said. “But you haven’t. That bratty girl got lucky. She called your bratty sons, and now you’re all headed to your doom.”

  Mom stiffened in the backseat. “Well, that’s not nice at all,” she said. “Hubert, do you know how we found out where the Joneses are?”

  “Well,” Dad said. “I think Thimon got it right. Juanita escaped and—”

  “It was Thimon,” Mom said. “He led us right to them.”

  Thimon’s mouth fell open. He gaped back at Mom. Even in the darkness, I could see his face turn pale. “You can’t tell them that. If they think I betrayed them . . .”

  Mom leaned forward in her seat. It was her turn to smile like a wolf.

  “That’s what happens when you mess with the Bailey family.”

  Thimon didn’t say anything else for the rest of the trip.

  20

  DON’T MIND US, WE’RE JUST HERE TO SAVE THE DAY

  Dad parked the car on the side of the road. He patted the pouches on his supersuit. “Does anybody have any change for the parking meter?”

  “Dad,” I said. “It’s two o’clock in the morning. I don’t think they give out tickets right now.”

  “That may be true,” Mom said. “But we’re superheroes. We always follow the law.”

  “We’re about to break into a hotel with a bunch of assault vehicles,” I said. “We drove twenty miles without license plates. We’re probably going to break fifty more laws before dawn. We may as well add a parking violation into the mix.”

  Dad ignored me. He found a quarter in the glove compartment and dropped it into the parking meter.