by Zoe Quinn
“Oh. Well, all right, then.” I shrugged. “I think for the moment, though, you probably shouldn't let on that you don't have your powers yet. Just to keep things from getting any more complicated than they already are. I know that Ordinaries aren't supposed to know about Supers, but I have no idea if there are any rules about Supers knowing about non-Supers—even temporary ones—being among them!”
“I guess that's good advice,” he agreed.“I can live with that— but what I really want to know is why on earth anyone thinks I have superpowers?”
“You inherited them,” I said. “At least, that's the theory. It's hard to tell who's going to get them and who isn't. The gene is pretty unpredictable.” I felt the need to add,“Right now, let's just hope you've got it and it's taking its time coming to the surface.”
“Well, if I have inherited it, who did I inherit it from?”
“From your grandpa Gil.”
For a second, I thought he might faint again. His face was totally blank. Then he burst out laughing. “My grandpa Gil is a superhero?”
“A retired one, just like my grandpa Zack.”
“Wow.” He let the idea sink in for a minute. “I mean, of all people…Although it does explain a lot. He's always asking me to lift heavy things for him, and pointing out road signs that are really far away and asking if I can read them. I guess that makes sense now.” Howie took a deep breath and let it out.“Wow,” he repeated.
I remembered the day Grandpa Zack broke the news to me about my powers. I knew exactly how Howie felt, but there was so much I still had to tell him.
“How about this…,”I said.“Tomorrow, during free time, you and I can go out for a canoe ride around the lake and I'll explain
everything to you.” “Okay,” he said. “That sounds good.” From the campfire pit, we could hear the other campers
laughing and singing:
“We are the superkids who come to Camp Courageous.
The counselors are awesome and the campers are outrageous….”
“So, Howie, how about getting some of those s'mores?”
“I'm allergic to marshmallows,” he reminded me, but he stood up anyway and followed me down the path. “Right,” I said. “Do you think that will be a major problem?” he said anxiously. “Not knowing your grandpa Gil was a superhero?” “No. Being allergic to marshmallows. I mean, s'mores are an essential part of camp, right?” There was a yelp and a muffled thud as he tripped over a rock and almost face-planted.“Ouch!” I helped him up, thinking that marshmallows were going to be the least of his problems for the upcoming week.
The Intrepids awoke the next morning to the sound of a whistle blaring. I sat bolt upright in my bunk and nearly clunked my head on the cabin ceiling.
“Rise and shine, superkids!” boomed Amanda's cheery voice.
She slept in her own room, which adjoined our cabin.
“Ugh.” Melanie rubbed her eyes. “What time is it?”
“Five-fifteen,” grumbled Casey. “A.m.!”
“Yes,” said Amanda. “Since it's the first full day, I let you guys sleep in. Tomorrow I'll come in at five sharp.”
“Why?” asked Megan—quite reasonably, I thought. “The brochure says breakfast isn't till eight.”
“Right,” said Amanda, “and while your opponents are still snoozing, we'll be out training for the cup contest. So move it, ladies!” She poked Melanie, who'd pulled the covers over her head and was trying to go back to sleep.“We've got to be down at the dock in ten minutes to meet the boys.”
“Boys?” Suddenly, Melanie wasn't under the blankets anymore. “Quick,” she cried, jumping out of bed, “somebody get me a hairbrush!”
The sun was rising over the lake when we reached the dock. I was yawning, Megan's eyes were half closed, and Casey was muttering about what she would do for a nice steamy mug of hot cocoa.
Melanie, on the other hand, was as chipper as could be, her pale, powerful blue eyes sparkling like the sun on the water.
“There they are!” she said, pointing to where a group of boys, led by Simon, was coming out of the woods.
“The boys of Bravery cabin,” Amanda announced. “Your teammates.”
The boys joined us on the dock, looking just as groggy and sleepy as we did. Simon made the introductions.
He pointed to the stocky boy with red hair and freckles.“This is Sam,” he said. “Super name: Slam. He's a powerful one, Sam is. He's got superstrength to spare!”
Sam smiled shyly. “Hey.”
“This is Alexander,” Simon continued, nodding toward the boy I thought looked like a football star. “He's the speedster in the group. Clocked him last night going…well, actually I couldn't clock him because he was moving too fast!”
Alexander waved and smiled at each of us. Then a weird thing happened: when his eyes met mine, I felt a strange little jolt. Not the heart-fluttery kind like when I looked at Josh Devlin, the cutest boy in my school; this jolt made me feel like I had just made a very important connection. I figured it probably had to do with our having the same power.
“This chap is Dave,”Simon went on, indicating the third Bravery member, the tall, lanky boy who'd offered to bring Howie some s'mores the night before.“Dave's power is the ability to stretch himself to great lengths.”
To demonstrate, Dave spit on his index finger, then reached his arm around Simon, beyond Sam, and past Alexander, all the way to where Howie was hovering alone at the edge of the dock. I noticed that Melanie couldn't seem to take her eyes off the stretchy kid. He noticed her, too, and winked; then, with a mischievous grin, he stuck his finger into Howie's ear and gave him a wet willie. It was harmless, of course, the kind of silly, gross things boys do to their buddies all the time. But Howie was so startled he toppled over the edge of the dock and landed with a splash in the lake.
Dave simply stretched his arm even farther, reached into the water, and fished Howie out, depositing him safely on the dock.
“This,” said Simon, sighing, “is Howie.”
“Sorry, pal,” said Dave, pulling his arm back to its natural length. “Didn't mean to scare ya. Just goofin' around.”
“What's your power, Howie?” Amanda asked.
I heard Simon mutter “Good question” under his breath. My cabinmates, who already knew the situation from listening to Mr. Hunt's conversation with Simon, looked from me to Howie, then back at me. Howie wiggled his eyebrows at me, clearly remembering that I'd told him not to let on about not having superpowers. He'd obviously kept quiet overnight, but I couldn't see any way of bluffing his way out now, not in front of Amanda and Simon. So I shrugged and gave him a supersympathetic look, hoping he'd understand that it meant “You'll have to tell the truth, bud.”
“The truth,” Howie said, “is that I don't have one. Yet.”
“But his grandpa is super,” I put in quickly. “And chances are Howie will be getting his powers any day.”
I held my breath, hoping the boys wouldn't pitch a fit about bunking with a non-Super. I was relieved when Alexander just shrugged.
“No biggie,” he said.
“Yeah,” said Dave. “I'm kind of a power newbie myself, since I just got mine a couple of weeks ago.”
Sam gave Howie a high five. “It's cool by me, dude. Let me know if I can lift anything for ya.”
I could have hugged each one of them!
“Let's choose our team captains, shall we?” said Simon. “We'll put it to a vote.”
I was flattered when my cabinmates unanimously chose me. The boys picked Alexander.
Simon came over to me and patted my back. “Congratulations,” he said, then lowered his voice so only I could hear. “I hope you don't let the fact that Alexander is faster than you are get you down.”
“How do you know he's faster than I am?” I asked, feeling stung.
“Well, he's a boy….”
I raised my eyebrows. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Sorry,” said Simon.
“Guess I hit a nerve. We'll just have to see who's faster, won't we?”
Anger prickled inside me. “Yes, we will.”
“Let's get started,”Amanda was saying.“Breakfast is at eight, so we've only got two and a half hours.”
It was the longest two and a half hours of my life!
THE Intrepids and the Bravery boys trudged into the mess hall at 8:01 and slumped onto the narrow benches on either side of one long wooden table.
“That was worse than gym class,” Megan observed, dropping her head onto the table.
We'd trained for every second of those two and a half hours, and, super or not, we were exhausted. We'd done sit-ups, pushups, chin-ups, we stretched (Dave liked that part) and ran, and then we stretched and ran some more.
“That was like gym class times one billion,” Casey clarified. “Like advanced-placement gym class. No…it was like turbo gym class. That was like atomic gym.”
“Hey, I know a kid called Atomic Jim,” said Sam.“He's in the Valiant cabin. He glows in the dark, and none of his bunkmates can get any sleep.”
“Those push-ups!” Alexander let out a groan. “My biceps are on fire!”
“Melanie,” I said calmly, “quit looking at Alexander's arms. You're burning a hole in the sleeve of his polo.”
“Sorry,” said Melanie, turning her eyes away. “I didn't even realize what I was doing, I'm in so much pain—I've got, like, a zillion blisters from all that running, and I think I'm getting shin splints.”
“That's what I like about flying,”said Megan.“It's low impact. No impact, actually.”
I glanced down to the far end of the table, where Howie was seated. His cheeks were a little pink, and the hair around his face was damp with sweat. But other than that, he looked perfectly fine.
“Howie, how come you aren't as worn out as we are?” I asked.
“Because,” said Howie, “you guys went all out right from the get-go. I, on the other hand, paced myself.”
My cabinmates and I exchanged glances; so did the Bravery boys. We had attacked all of Amanda and Simon's tasks at full force. I suppose we thought we'd look less than super if we didn't. We'd actually outsupered ourselves in our efforts to impress both the counselors and each other.
“Slow and steady, that's how I did it,” said Howie. “After all, exercise is only beneficial if you obey your limits.”
“You know something?” said Alexander, flashing a crooked grin around the group. “He's right.”
The others agreed; Mega-Megan nodded and Casey gave Howie a thumbs-up.
“Listen, team,” Alexander said in a take-charge voice.“I know this morning was tough and we're all feeling beat. But it's only gonna get tougher.” He thumped his fist on the table, and his eyes turned serious. “I don't know about you guys, but I really want to win this Courageous Cup. I say we all work as hard as we can to make that happen. We'll pace ourselves, like Howie said, but we won't back down from anything! We'll give it our all. We'll do anything we have to do to be the best. And I mean all of us.”
“Jeesh,” whispered Megan. “He may be cute, but he's awfully bossy.”
“Alexander,” said Sam. “We get it. We all want to win.”
Alexander suddenly looked embarrassed. He cleared his throat, recovering his cool.“Right. Of course. We all want to win.”
A moment of awkward silence passed. My stomach growled, reminding me how hungry I was. I saw Simon on the far side of the mess hall, where the kitchen staff had set up a hearty breakfast buffet. He seemed to be eyeing each selection with great interest—the scrambled eggs, the sausage patties, the pancakes and maple syrup.
Probably calculating the nutritional value of everything, I told myself. Making a list of what he wants us to eat.
“Those pancakes smell great,” Melanie observed, gazing longingly in the direction of the buffet. “I'd love some, but I think my legs are too tired to walk that far.”
“No problem,” said Dave, stretching his arm the fifty or so feet across the dining hall. He guided his hand between two campers who were standing in line. “'scuse me,” he called, picking up a serving of pancakes.
“Hey, does that count as cutting in line?” I joked.
“Nope,” said Dave. “Cutting is rude. I'd never do that.” He turned to Melanie. “Maple syrup?”
Melanie beamed. “Yes, please.”
Dave stretched out his other arm, picked up the near-empty syrup pitcher, and poured the last of the sticky stuff over the stack of pancakes.
“You could have left some for the rest of us,” huffed the next camper in line, who was holding a plate of waffles.
“Sorry,” called Dave, placing the plate on the table in front of Melanie.
“Thanks,” breathed Melanie. “That was awesome.”
Megan, Casey, and I giggled.
“I guess the rest of us are going to have to walk,” teased Sam.
We all stood up gingerly on our sore legs and headed for the buffet. On the way, Alexander pulled me aside.
“About Howie not having his powers…,”he began in a low voice. “I think it might be a problem.”
“Wait a minute,” I said, frowning.“Just because Howie isn't the super-est superkid at this camp doesn't mean he's a problem.” I remembered Simon's comment about Alexander's being faster than me and I became even more defensive. “I mean, we all know how much you want to win, thanks to your little speech back there, but if you think you're going to kick my friend Howie off our team —”
“Hold on…easy there.”Alexander held up his hands to stop me; his grin returned. “Who said anything about kicking him off the team? Not me.”
It was true. He hadn't said that. I felt myself flush with embarrassment. “I thought that's what you were getting at.”
Alexander shook his head. “What I was going to say was that I'm afraid that if things get too rough during the contest, Howie might get scared, or worse—hurt. And I don't want to see that happen. That's what I was getting at.”
“Oh.” I looked down at my sneakers, feeling like a complete jerk. “That's really nice of you.”
“I was thinking, since you and I are cocaptains, we should make it a point to look out for him.”
“Yeah. I think that's a good idea, Alexander.”
“Thanks,” he said.“Oh, and one more thing. Call me Zander.”
ZANDER?
Zander, who has superspeed. Like me.
Zander. With a Z.
Like Zelda …Zip…and Zoe.
I gasped, throwing my hand up to cover my mouth.
“Whoa,” he said, obviously confused by my reaction.“It's really not that big a deal. If the nickname bothers you that much, you can keep calling me Alexander. Honest, I don't mind!”
His misunderstanding made me laugh. “No,” I said. “It's not that. It's not that at all.”
He was looking at me with a puzzled expression. I took a deep breath.
“Uh, Zander …exactly how much do you know about your family history?”
Before he could answer, four girls came hurrying over. I recognized them as the campers from the Fearless cabin.
“Hi,” said the red-haired one.
I'd met her the night before at the campfire. Her name was Sunny; her superpower was the ability to control the weather. For some reason, she was holding a brand-new bottle of ketchup, and she was smiling like crazy at Zander.
“Hi,” said Zander.
“We were wondering if you could help us out,” she said, a giggle in her voice. “Could you open this ketchup for us? The cap is really, really tight.”
“Sure,” said Zander. He took the bottle and twisted the cap effortlessly. It opened with a little pop.
“Oh, thank you,” crooned one of the other Fearless campers.
“We're so grateful,” said another.
I rolled my eyes. They were making it sound as if the future of the universe depended on getting that bottle of ketchup opened.
“No problem,�
� said Zander, with that crooked grin of his.
Sunny giggled. “Well, I'll see you around camp,” she said, batting her eyelashes a few times.
Under ordinary circumstances, a girl's batting her eyelashes at a boy would be considered standard flirting behavior, but this flirty girl had the power to control the weather. The motion of her eyelashes sent a near-hurricane-force wind blowing through the mess hall, sending tablecloths and paper napkins flying around the room.
Sunny giggled again.“Ooops. My bad.” She walked off, whispering with her cabinmates.
I looked at Zander, trying not to crack up.
“What? I was just being nice to some fellow campers.”
“You opened a bottle of ketchup for her.”
“So?”
I rolled my eyes. “Zander…they're superheroes. They have superstrength. I think they were more than capable of opening a puny little bottle of ketchup.”
“Oh.” He was looking puzzled again. “So why do you think Sunny asked me to do it?”
This time, I did crack up. “Never mind. Let's just go get breakfast.”
Zander followed me to the breakfast buffet, still looking confused. I couldn't wait to tell Megan and Casey what I'd just discovered: All boys are completely oblivious. Even the super ones.
After breakfast, we decided which workshops to do.
“Who wants to check out the aquatic rescue seminar?” I asked.
“I do!” cried Casey.“I love swimming. I can hear the fish! You might think they don't say much, but whoa, buddy, some of those trout never shut up.”
Dave said he'd come along with Casey and me, although he didn't really need to improve his swimming, since there wasn't a body of water on this or any other planet that was too deep for him; he simply had to stretch his legs to touch the bottom and stretch his neck to keep his head above water.
“The real reason I want to hang out at the lake,” he confided, “is so I can work on my tan.”
Megan was going to attend the soaring seminar. The counselor teaching the class, Skylar, had invited her to demonstrate her power for the future flyers and to get some one-on-one coaching. Zander was going to check out the fire-breathing class, and Sam couldn't wait to get to arts and crafts.