The Super Awful Superheroes of Classroom 13

by Honest Lee

  Every once in a while, he helped his friends fight crime. You might be wondering how?

  Well, when Mark saw a robber robbing a bank, or a bully bullying someone smaller, he used his control over chips to make them fling salt into the villain’s eyes.

  Have you ever gotten salt in your eye?

  It really hurts.

  If you haven’t gotten salt in your eyes—good for you.

  If you have—then you know what I’m talking about.

  What’s that? Why would I put salt in my eyes? I didn’t do it on purpose! I was eating chips. Salty, delicious corn chips.

  Mmmm. Why do they have to be so darn delicious?

  When the students of Classroom 13 were struck by lightning, the Classroom laughed out loud. (Of course, no one heard the Classroom over the thunder outside.)

  But when the students turned out to be okay and not hurt at all—and, in fact, had been given superpowers—the 13th Classroom was more furious than ever. It had always wanted to be a superhero. Why didn’t it get superpowers, too?! This was so unfair!

  The 13th Classroom vowed revenge for the fourth time. Then the Classroom remembered that Halloween was coming up, which inspired a terrible, horrible, nasty idea.…

  Lily had always wanted to travel into outer space so that she could explore new worlds. But when she got her superpowers, she discovered another way to see new worlds—all she had to do was step sideways and walk into other dimensions.

  You see, there is not just one dimension—there are lots of them. One dimension is a world where dinosaurs still live and have to go to school just like you. Another is a place where everyone can do magic, so everyone thinks magic is dumb and boring. One dimension has robots that have taken over and enslaved the human race. There’s even a world where potatoes are the most intelligent life-form on the planet.

  One dimension is the one where Classroom 13 exists. And then there is your dimension, where you are reading about Classroom 13 right now.

  Anyway. Using her new powers, Lily stepped sideways and walked into the next dimension. (Instead of forward or backward, she walked to the left). The school looked like hers, except there was no Classroom 13. There was a Classroom 12 and a Classroom 14, but no 13.

  She was about to leave when a young boy said, “Where did you come from?”

  “Another dimension,” Lily explained. “I just got superpowers that allow me to walk through different dimensions.”

  “Cool! I have superpowers, too, but they’re kinda lame,” he said. “My name is Peter Powers, and I can… ugh, this is really embarrassing.… I can make ice cubes with my fingertips.”

  “You’re right,” Lily said. “That power is pretty lame.”

  “Hey, I can make drinks cold!” Peter said.

  “Good for you,” Lily said.

  *Peter Powers is a real kid in a real book series that you can read… for real. It’s written by some silly guy named Kent Clark. He and Honest Lee once had a super-battle. Kent Clark lost.

  If you had superpowers, what would you choose: superhero or super-villain? Good or evil? Underwear on the inside or the outside of your super-suit?

  For most people, the choice would be simple. But not for Ethan.

  He could never make up his mind. Even the tiniest decision could take him weeks to decide. Like the time he stopped eating because he couldn’t choose between a hamburger or a cheeseburger. Well, now that he had superpowers, he faced the biggest decision of his life: hero or villain.

  “What’s your power, anyway?” Fatima asked.

  “I’m a super-smart robot inventor,” Ethan answered.

  “That sounds so lame!” said Liam.

  “I think it’s cool. While you’ve been inside farting, I’ve been outside building THAT.” Ethan pointed to a giant robot on the playground. It was taller than the school. “It has lasers, shields, and rocket launchers, and can transform into a spaceship. It also has a soft-serve ice-cream machine in the cockpit.”

  “RAD!” Liam freaked. “What flavor?!”

  “I can never decide.” Ethan frowned. “So I put in chocolate and vanilla.”

  “Dude, that is awesome,” Dev whispered. “Look, don’t tell anyone, but I’m putting together a super-villain team. You should totally join.”

  “Can I think about it?” Ethan asked. But after hours and hours, he still couldn’t decide. His mom suggested he put together a pros and cons list. So he did:

  SHOULD I BE A SUPER-VILLAIN?

  PROS: Villains have more fun…

  CONS: …except when they’re in jail.

  PROS: Villains don’t follow rules…

  CONS: …probably have mean parents.

  PROS: Villains have cooler weapons…

  CONS: …heroes have better friends.

  PROS: When villains die, they come back…

  CONS: …but heroes just beat them up again.

  Days went by. Ethan still couldn’t decide. So instead of making a decision, he decided not to make a decision.

  Instead, Ethan and his forty-foot robot went to the beach with his family. They had a very fun time in the sun.

  When Isabella found out she might have a superpower, she was excited to beat up bad guys. But even more than that, she hoped she’d become a horse. Or maybe a centaur, which is a half-person, half-horse. I mean, she really loved horses—so much that she was sure she would have some kind of horse-power.

  As she raced to the girls’ bathroom to look for a mirror, she couldn’t stop thinking about how awesome she would be as a horse: Her mane would be flowing and pretty. Her horseshoes would be shiny and new. And she would be the most feared crime-fighting horse out there. She’d kick crime in the butt—with her hooves!

  Of course, when she saw herself in a mirror, she flippered out.

  “A dolphin?!” she screamed. Isabella had no horse-power of any kind. Instead, she’d changed into an aquatic mammal. She was not happy. But she only had herself to blame. When the lightning struck, she obviously hadn’t been thinking about horses.

  She would’ve been happier as a sea horse. But a dolphin? It was just a big dumb smart fish dolphin.

  At least she could stand up straight, breathe normal air, and talk. That meant she could still go to class, birthday parties, and… well, maybe not aquatic shows.

  As for superhero battles and crime-fighting? Dolphin-ately not.

  Hugo sólo hablaba francés, es decir, hasta que todos en el Aula 13 tuvieran superpoderes.

  ¿Cuál era su? ¡Ahora sólo podía hablar español! Que embarazoso. Lo sé. Es un superpotencia terrible. Mientras sus amigos estaban volando o luchando contra villanos o salvando al mundo, todo lo que Hugo podía hacer era hablar un idioma diferente.

  ¿La peor parte? Sus padres no podían entender nada de lo que decía. Hugo quería pizza para la cena. En cambio, tenían tacos.

  Hugo odiaba los tacos.

  Mya & Madison were identical twins. They thought alike, talked alike, and looked alike. Though they didn’t have to, they also dressed alike. If Mya wore a blue dress, Madison did, too. If Madison wore green shoes, so did Mya. If Mya put her hair in a ponytail, Madison did the same. And if Madison… You get the picture.

  But that morning, something terrible happened—Mya & Madison wore (are you ready for this?) different outfits!!

  Madison wore blue jeans and a yellow shirt, and Mya wore a red dress with flowers on it.

  You see, they woke up late, got dressed in a hurry, and didn’t realize their clothes weren’t matching until they were on the way to school.

  “Dad, stop the car!” Mya yelled.

  “We need to go home and change our clothes to match!” Madison added.

  “Absolutely not,” their father said. “I’m late for work. You can dress not alike for one day.”

  “No, we can’t!” they screamed. Their father ignored them.

  The girls were feeling sorry for themselves when the purple lightning struck. Well, thanks to their new powers, they could look
however they wanted. They were shapeshifters.

  What’s a shapeshifter? It’s someone who can change their appearance just by thinking about it. I’m not talking about disguises; I’m talking about someone who can instantly change their face and body to become a totally different person whenever they want. Imagine: You could change your hair color to neon orange. You could change your eye color to bloodred. You could change your skin color to glitter green.

  You could turn into the queen of England, or a giant lion, or an alien space robot. You could become a giant dinosaur, or a bald eagle, or you could look like your favorite TV star. You could change into a banana, or a book, or a boat. That’s what a shapeshifter can do. They can change into anything!

  And what, or who, do you think Mya & Madison morphed into? Hmmm? Two Ms. Lindas? Two Abe Lincolns? Two world-famous supermodels?

  Nope.

  All the twins did was shapeshift their outfits to match. And they were happy with that.

  Jacob didn’t get a superpower. When the purple lightning struck his classmates and teacher, he was in the bathroom.

  You know how Isabella feels about horses? Well, Emma feels the same way about cats. She loves loves LOVES cats. Her whole life, all Emma had wanted was a pet cat. There were just two things in the way:

  1. She was super -allergic to them, and

  2. Her mom and dad. Though they were divorced, both agreed on one thing: “I’ll never have a filthy, flea-ridden feline in my home!” (Their words, not mine.)

  Emma used to be annoyed with her parents’ anti-cat ways—but now she was terrified she’d be homeless. With her soft coat, her whiskers, and her tail, there was no way her parents would let her in either of their houses.…

  Oh, did I forget to explain? The strange thundercloud with the purple lightning changed Emma into a GIRL-CAT.

  “Oh no. Does this mean I’m allergic to myself?!” Emma said in a panic. She licked her paw to be sure. No hives. No rash. Well, that was good.

  Being a cat may not sound so superpowerish, but I assure you it is. Thanks to her new cat features, Emma could smell danger (and tuna fish) from blocks away. She had razor-sharp fangs (and bad kitten breath). Thanks to her claws, she could climb walls and trees. She had fast reflexes and always landed on her feet (though she was easily distracted by feathers on strings).

  “Hey, Girl-Cat, me and some of the other heroes are going to hit the streets for a patrol. Want to join?” Jay-Fu Triple J asked.

  Emma yawned. “Thanks, but no thanks, Jay-Fu. I need a catnap. Licking oneself all day is exhausting.”

  Emma was worried about how her parents would react when they saw her. She decided her dad was a little nicer, so she went to his place first. “Are you house-trained?” he asked.

  “Of course!” she said.

  He let her stay—until she knocked books off bookshelves, scratched up his sofa, and shed all over the rug. “Bad kitty, er, I mean… bad daughter!” her dad said. “Out you go! Shoo!”

  So Emma went to her mom’s house. Her mom let her in, gave her a hug, and put down a saucer of milk. But just like a real cat, Emma soon hid somewhere in the house. No matter how many times her mom shook the bag of treats, Emma wouldn’t come out until she was ready.

  No one had seen or heard from Benji Bearenstein for days. Ms. Linda and her students were worried. So were Benji’s parents. The police put together a search party, and the superheroes of Classroom 13 were looking everywhere (when they weren’t doing their homework).

  At the end of the week, Ms. Linda was beside herself. She had been the last person to see Benji, right before the lightning struck. Where could he be?

  Ms. Linda felt something on the back of her hand. She thought it was an ant until she realized it was tap-dancing. Then it jumped up and down and waved at her. It looked like… but it couldn’t be…

  Ms. Linda grabbed a magnifying glass from her desk drawer and looked through it. She gasped. “BENJI!?!”

  “Hey, Ms. Linda!” his voice squeaked. Benji was tiny. His superpower shrank him down to itty-bitty-teensy-weensy.

  Ms. Linda was both shocked and horrified, but Benji didn’t mind it so much. He’d always loved miniature things. When he was normal size, he drank juice from doll-sized teacups. He sharpened his pencils down to tiny nubs so he could have the littlest writing utensils. He even started a miniature animal business once (but that’s a whole other story you probably already know if you knew Benji when he won the lottery).

  For Benji, being tiny was the biggest thing that had ever happened—so he’d been having fun.

  It turns out when you’re super small, everything else is super big. That meant traveling across Classroom 13 didn’t take seconds, it took days. Desks were as high as mountains, books were as big as buildings, and specks of dust rolled around like giant tumbleweeds.

  Cockroaches were the size of trucks and they were not nice when they thought you were dinner. Mini-Benji had barely survived by learning to use a broken staple as a sword. He’d also befriended a group of ants (each the size of a horse) who led him to a pile of corn chip crumbs underneath Mark’s desk. He’d never been so grateful for someone’s leftovers.

  Mini-Benji told Ms. Linda all of this while she fed him water through an eyedropper. (One drop was like a giant waterfall for Benji.) As he drank, he began to grow—though not much. As soon as he reached six inches tall, he stopped growing. His parents came to pick him up and his mom cried all the way home. But his little sister couldn’t have been happier. She let him live inside her dollhouse as long as he agreed to be nice to Barbie.

  Sophia wanted to save the planet. That’s why she’d started the school’s recycling program, spent her weekends planting trees, and picked up litter for fun. She didn’t need a cape to be a hero—just the desire to keep planet Earth as green as possible.

  Before the purple lightning struck, Sophia was gazing outside. It hadn’t rained in weeks and the grass outside was turning brown. So when Sophia got powers, it just so happened that she could control the weather.

  The first thing she did? Made it rain. When the plants were all watered, Sophia said, “That’s enough!” Then a huge wind came and pushed the clouds over to the next town.

  “Amazing!” Ava said.

  “That’s the coolest power ever!” Jay-Fu Triple J said.

  But Fatima warned, “That’s a really big ability—be careful how you use it. Or else…”

  Sophia shrugged, ignoring Fatima’s advice.

  That week was the best of Sophia’s life. She could create miniature rain clouds to shower her garden. She could make a gentle breeze to blow dust off her indoor plants. And she could make little lightning bolts to zap her annoying brother in the butt.

  When Sophia was happy, the sun shined bright outside. When she read a sad story, it would get cold and gray. If she got angry (usually because of her brother), the wind would get so wild, it’d knock down all the trash cans in her neighborhood. It even knocked down a few streetlights.

  Sophia’s weather powers got so strong that when she watched a sad movie and started crying, it began to storm outside. The problem was, Sophia loved sad movies. If it was a tearjerker, she’d watch it. She loved to cry.

  But it all turned bad on Saturday when she decided to have a sad movie marathon. At first, the weather was just foggy and drizzling. Then it began to rain. Soon, it began to hail. Then the storm turned into a full-fledged flash flood. At this rate, the town would be completely underwater by the end of the night.

  Fatima rowed a boat over to Sophia’s house. She climbed through Sophia’s window and unplugged her TV.

  “Hey, I was watching that!” Sophia moaned.

  “Have you looked outside?” Fatima asked. “Your weather powers are connected to your feelings. And your sad movie marathon is destroying the town!”

  “Oh no, the plants!” Sophia said. Outside the window, entire trees were floating down the river that had been her driveway. She started to cry.

  “
Stop!” Fatima shouted. “You need to control your emotions.”

  “Okay,” Sophia said. “But how?”

  Fatima thought for a moment. “Do your homework?”

  “Perfect!” Sophia said. “Homework doesn’t make me happy or sad. It just makes me bored.”

  Every day after school, Dev walked into his house and said, “Mom, I’m home!” This was usually her cue to give him a kiss on the forehead and make him a snack.

  Today, his mom did not kiss him on the forehead. Instead, she screamed in terror. Then she chased him around the living room with a rolled-up newspaper, trying to smash him. After Dev explained everything, she calmed down. Mostly.

  Dev had become a spider-boy. He had eight limbs, eight eyes, and the ability to make webs. Strangely (or perhaps not so strangely), his mother, Mrs. Darsha, had a hard time dealing with this.

  Every time she saw Dev come around the corner, she nearly had a heart attack. There was a child-sized arachnid in her house, and her bug-killing instincts kept kicking in. You see, Mrs. Darsha prided herself on keeping a very clean home. When she saw something with more than four legs, she wanted to kill it.

  When Spider-Dev bumped into her in the hallway, she took off her shoe and tried to smash him.

  When Spider-Dev joined the family for dinner, she tried to smash him with a frying pan.

  When Spider-Dev joined her on the couch for movie night, she sprayed him with bug spray.

  “Mom, that burns!” he screamed.

  “Well,” she said, “it serves you right, you hideous monster—uh, I mean, my beautiful son.”

  Finally, Dev figured out a way to avoid his mom. He crawled around on the ceiling just out of Mrs. Darsha’s reach.

  The worst part of the whole thing? Dev had wanted to become a spider-boy. He thought having eight limbs would mean he could play four video games at the same time. Unfortunately, it turns out spiders don’t have thumbs.