Superkid

by Christina Barr

  “Those other boys must have been Brock’s brothers,” Princess Lady Diva said.

  “How do you know so much about Brock?” I asked.

  “He rides the bus with me, and his brothers are there with him every day. I know how to get to his house too.”

  I got excited. “You sure?”

  “Felix, I once traveled across the whole mall by myself when I was three to find the Easter Bunny. I’m sure I can find Brock’s house because I pass it every day.”

  “Good. The plan is that we go to Brock’s house, sneak inside his tree house, and take the candy back!”

  Stickman looked really scared. “Easier said than done.”

  “No!” I put my arms around him. “We did great tonight. We defeated them once, we can defeat them again.”

  Princess Lady Diva looked a little worried too. “I don’t know about trying to fight a fifth and a third grader. It’s dangerous.”

  “We have to try. Everyone is depending on us.”

  They were still worried. When I thought about it, I got really worried too. I mean, it was really dangerous what we were doing. That’s why I kind of didn’t take the time to really think it all the way through. I didn’t want to get scared. I wanted to be the hero. Besides, I wasn’t the one with the super brain anyway.

  “Follow me,” Princess Lady Diva said.

  The farther we went, the less I started to recognize. Everything looked different in the day time. Night was weird. I kind of didn’t like the dark too much. Then because it was Halloween, everything was supposed to be scary. Spiders and demons were everywhere, and some people had fog on their lawns. There was also creepy music and monsters laughing like the bad guys in the movies that I’m not allowed to watch without Mom and Dad.

  Stickman started to hold onto me. Then after a while, Princess Lady Diva started to hold onto me too. She didn’t look that scared though. Maybe it was because I made her not afraid.

  “This is it,” she said.

  Brock’s house didn’t seem all that evil. It looked like a normal house. The porch light wasn’t on, and the screen door was closed, so I guess they weren’t passing out candy. That was a sign of evil, but I needed to be sure.

  “Are you positive, Princess?” I asked her.

  She nodded. “You can look in the back for a tree house.”

  “Do they have a dog?” Stickman’s voice was full of terror.

  “He has two puppies and a lizard.” I remembered back to the first time I ever saw Brock. It was too bad he had to go so far away from the path of good. Things didn’t have to end up like how they were, but I guess they were anyway.

  “Be brave,” I told them.

  Stickman was still really scared. “How do we know the coast is clear?”

  I wanted to make him feel better about our plan of attack. He was just a little kid. Then I got a great idea on how we could have the element of surprise. “How do your invisibility powers work?” I asked Princess Lady Diva.

  She seemed even more nervous. “I turn invisible, but only if you’re not looking.”

  I knew she had that anxiety thing, but it still seemed pretty dumb to me. “Then what’s the point of having the powers?”

  “I can stay invisible when I turn invisible. It’s just you who makes me kind of nervous.”

  I started smiling. That was exactly the kind of information that I needed. “Then Stickman and I will look away, and you can go to the backyard and see if they’re there.”

  Her eyes got real big. “I can’t!”

  “But if I don’t look, you’ll stay invisible,” I said. I felt a little uncomfortable taking a risk with her, but she had done more than prove herself. She was my best friend and my partner for a reason. I trusted her. “I know you can do this.”

  She was shaking. That’s how scared she was, but she gulped it all away. “Turn around.”

  Stickman and I did as we were told. It was so exciting knowing that she was using her super power. I wished I could have seen it, but I had a lot of faith in her. She would sneak in the backyard and come out and tell us that everything was fine in no time.

  “Ahhh!”

  Princess Lady Diva started screaming, but it could have been a fluke. I didn’t want to turn around yet and make her turn visible like what happened with the cat in the tree.

  “Felix, help!”

  That was good enough for me. Stickman and I started running for the backyard to rescue our best friend from the terrible forces of evil. When we got in the backyard, the boys all had their masks off and the biggest brother had his arms around Princess Lady Diva.

  “Unhand her!” I started running right for her, but the second biggest brother tackled me to the ground.

  Then Brock went after Stickman. He tried to hit Brock with his stick, but Brock caught it and swung the stick until Stickman lost his grip and fell to the ground. He rolled right to the oldest brother who put his foot on Stickman’s back and pressed down on it.

  “Ow!” Stickman was really hurt, but I could see that he was doing his best not to cry.

  The brother that had me down had his knees pressed into my back, which really hurt because he was pretty chunky. I tried to get away, but I got tired pretty fast. “Get off me!”

  Brock had an evil smile on his face. “I should have known it was you!” Then he came over to me and ripped my mask off my face. “Felix Brown!”

  “It’s Superkid to you!”

  Brock and his brothers started to laugh really loud, hard, and hurtful. The oldest one asked, “Is that the kid who rammed his head into the tetherball pole?”

  “It sure is.” Brock laughed and laughed and laughed.

  Princess Lady Diva was starting to get really, really mad. “And I’m the girl who beats up Brock all the time and makes him cry!”

  Brock stopped laughing then. “I knew it was you, Kiara. I could tell by your stupid hair!”

  “My hair is not stupid!” She stomped on the biggest brother’s foot as hard as she could. He yelled and let her go for a second, but then he grabbed her and fell on top of her and Stickman. He was kind of chunky too, so there was no chance of escape.

  Stickman couldn’t help but cry after that. “Get off me!”

  “Who’s the little baby?” Brock asked.

  “He’s just a kindergartner.” I yelled. “Leave him alone.”

  “You leave us alone,” Brock said. “If we let you go, you have to promise not to tell on us about the candy.”

  “No way!” Princess Lady Diva yelled. “You guys can’t do anything to us anyway.”

  Brock turned to her and he smiled. “Oh really?” Then he climbed up the ladder and went into his tree house.

  It really upset me that he was using his tree house for evil. I thought he built it out of love with his dad. How could they corrupt it so much? I promised I would never use my things of love for evil. As long as I wore my shoes and my cape, I was gonna fight for justice and goodness.

  Brock started throwing jump ropes and water guns out of the tree house and onto the grass. I didn’t know what he was up to, but it was no good. When he climbed out of the tree house, I got real mad. I got super mad! I didn’t know if could get that mad ever in my life! That jerk was wearing my shoes, the same shoes he said that he had thrown away.

  “Take those off!” I yelled.

  “These are mine!”

  Princess Lady Diva tried to break free, but the biggest brother had his hands pressed on her and Stickman’s back. “You said you threw them away!”

  “I lied, little girl!”

  The biggest brother picked Princess Lady Diva and Stickman off the ground and held them up against the tree. Then the brother that had me down got me off the ground and started marching me over to the tree. I tried to fight him off, but he was surprisingly too strong for me. I didn’t understand it. I should have been more than a match for a third grader.

  Then before I could really gather my strength, Brock came from behind me and snatched off m
y cape!

  “No!” I tried to get it back, but Brock’s brother pushed me back until I was slammed against the tree.

  “Tie them up!” The biggest brother said.

  We tried to fight, but they were too strong. If I couldn’t fight them off with my cape, what could I do without it? Brock didn’t waste any time using the jump rope to tie us to the tree. He had regular jump ropes and thick jumbo jump ropes for double Dutch. I didn’t see how we could escape.

  When we were tied up, the biggest brother ripped off Princess Lady Diva’s and Stickman’s masks. We were all just normal Felix, Kiara, and Li.

  I tried to wiggle away, but I didn’t know how. I knew they weren’t done yet. They were about to torture us. Brock’s brothers ran off with the guns to a faucet on the side of the house. They were planning on shooting us.

  “Why are you doing this?” I asked Brock. Some part of him on the inside had to be good. He was a kid after all.

  “Cuz, I feel like it!” he yelled.

  “That’s not a very good reason at all!”

  He started ignoring me and walked over to Kiara and was smiling like a true villain. “You’re not so scary now, are you?”

  “It’s pretty sad that you had to tie me up to find some courage. Is it just you and your brothers who are that lame, or do you get it from your mom and dad too?”

  He got really mad, and his nose started to twitch. Then, he punched Kiara in the stomach.

  “Stop it!” Li screamed.

  Kiara didn’t yell out, but I knew that it hurt her. Her face looked like it was in a lot of pain.

  “Not so tough now!” Brock yelled.

  I tried my hardest to get out. I couldn’t let him get away with hurting Kiara like that. “Boys aren’t supposed to hit girls!”

  “She’s not a girl! She’s a monster!” he yelled.

  Kiara growled, and she kicked Brock in the leg as hard as she could.

  “Ow!” Brock hopped away so he could be safe from Kiara. Then he rubbed his leg a lot.

  “You just wait!” I warned. “I’m gonna get my cape and then I’m gonna beat you up so bad—”

  “You still think you have super powers?” Brock started laughing and then he stood up. “Seriously? That big bruise on your head didn’t give you a clue?”

  “Felix is a superhero!” Li yelled. “And he’s gonna get free and he’s gonna kick your butt!”

  Brock walked over to Li and started poking him. It was worse than pain. It was annoying. “I’ve never seen him use his super powers.”

  I kept my mouth shut. It didn’t matter if he never saw me use my powers. I couldn’t explain the full secret of how to activate my powers. That information was too dangerous in the hands of evil.

  “That’s because he hasn’t worn his cape to school!”

  If I could have glared at Li, I would have. I couldn’t believe he just gave my power secret to my stupid arch nemesis!

  Brock walked over in front of me and held up the cape. “This cape?”

  I realized that he also had on my Super Max Air Shoes. With the both of them, he would be too powerful to stop. “No!” I tried to break free, but I was too weak.

  Brock laughed and spread out the cape and placed it on his shoulders.

  “No!” I had to close my eyes. The evil was far too great.

  “It’s just a stupid blanket!”

  I opened my eyes. Brock hadn’t changed at all. He would know if he felt any different. Maybe the shoes couldn’t make him special all by themselves. Maybe the cape couldn’t do it alone either. Together, they should have made him unstoppable.

  “It’s just a stupid blanket,” he said. He threw it on the ground and ran over to his brothers. They were making a mess and enough water had spilled onto the grass to make nice mud. He started stomping my very nice shoes into the mud. I liked to play in the mud, but I would have never done that.

  “Stop it!” I yelled.

  “Felix, don’t,” Kiara said. “It’s not that important.”

  Brock ran over to my cape and started jumping on top of it and splattered mud everywhere. “It’s just a stupid baby blanket for the stupid kid!”

  “Stop it!”

  “It’s not that important,” Kiara said again.

  How could she say that? Brock was ruining everything. How could I save the world if he was ruining what made me special?

  Brock’s brothers came to us with water guns in their hands and one extra one for Brock. Then they were all armed and ready to shoot us down like nobodies. I didn’t want to be defeated that way. I didn’t want to be defeated at all.

  “You can’t do this!” Kiara said to them. “You’re kidnapping us! It’s against the law.”

  “So is trespassing,” said the oldest one. “You broke the law first.”

  “Did not!” Li yelled.

  “We should know,” Brock said. “Our dad is a cop.”

  I knew that was a lie. “You said he builds stuff!”

  “Part-time!” Brock said. “Weren’t you listening during Career Day?”

  I was, but I guess I did kind of stop paying attention. “Then why didn’t he have on a uniform?”

  Kiara sighed, “Because there was already another cop there.”

  “You should really start paying attention in class!” Brock popped me on my forehead. It hurt, but I wasn’t gonna give him the satisfaction of knowing that he hurt me. I wasn’t gonna yell, cry, or do anything to make him feel better.

  Then they raised their guns.

  “If you do this, we’ll scream. Then your parents will hear,” Kiara said.

  “They’re not home,” said the third grader.

  Then the biggest one talked. “They think we’re still out trick-or-treating. We only came home to stash our candy in the tree house.”

  We knew we couldn’t do anything. Their house was the last one on the block. I didn’t know if anyone would be able to hear us scream. I didn’t know if anyone would really care. No parents could save us, and we couldn’t even tattle when we broke free. They would tattle on us too, and I was already in enough trouble. I had failed.

  “Fire!”

  They started squirting us with super cold water, and the guns shot out pretty hard. Kiara started screaming, and I would have given anything just to break free and save her. They didn’t squirt Li too much, but he screamed when they did. I closed my eyes as hard as I could and did my best to get through it. I was freezing, but I was gonna be a strong.

  They didn’t stop until they were empty. “Let’s go inside and get the eggs,” said Brock.

  Then the biggest brother talked. “And let’s find some feathers.”

  “And toilet paper,” said the third grader.

  Kiara was sobbing to herself. “My hair…” She had tears coming out of her eyes too. I didn’t like that. She was already wet enough.

  I looked at my cape. If I could somehow get my cape, then everything would be alright. “I just need my super powers back, and then I can—”

  “No,” Kiara said sadly. “You can’t do anything.”

  “Don’t say that.” I couldn’t believe she would. If she didn’t believe in me, then we were doomed. “If I can just get my cape, then—”

  “I lied, Felix.”

  I didn’t understand. “About what?”

  “About everything.” She started to get really red, and she kept crying and crying. “You’re not a superhero. Your cape is just a blanket, and Super Max Air is just a shoe. It doesn’t do anything.”

  “But…” I knew TV could lie, but she wouldn’t. “The things I could do—”

  “You didn’t. I just went along with it.”

  “What about your powers?” Sure the invisibility might have been a fishy story, but she was super smart!

  “I’m a girl! I’m supposed to be smarter than you.”

  It didn’t make any sense. She skipped kindergarten. “But you’re so young!”

  “I’m about to turn six!” she yelled. “We
were born the same year. I’m closer to your age than Li’s.”

  No, it couldn’t be true. “What about Kick Butt?”

  “There’s no such thing. I’m just pretty strong.”

  I didn’t understand. She was my best friend. She was the only person in the world who I thought really understood me. She was the only person in the world who I thought really believed in me. It couldn’t all be a lie. It couldn’t!

  Her betrayal hurt more than anything in the world. It was worse than when I hit my head or when Dad spanked me or when Mom told me there was no such thing as Dr. Clutter. Kiara hurt me on the inside, and I didn’t know how to make the pain go away.

  “Why did you do this to me?”

  She shrugged. “I guess it’s because I thought you were cute, Felix.” Then she put her head down. “I guess I like you. I like you a lot.”

  Then she started to cry harder. “I’m so sorry, Felix!”

  I had told some lies before when I was younger when I thought it was best. It was never good though. I always got in trouble, because Dad said the most important thing in the world was trust. He needed to know that he could trust me. I thought I could trust Kiara.

  “So you’re not a superhero?” Li asked.

  I put my head down in shame. “No. I’m not. I never was.”

  I should have known better. Mom and Dad didn’t lie to me. I thought they were being dumb because they didn’t have wisdom teeth, but I guess that was a lie too. My whole world was coming apart. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

  “Listen to me,” Kiara said.

  I didn’t want to. Everything she ever told me was a lie.

  “Listen to me!” she yelled.

  I only looked at her and decided to listen because she was so loud. “What?”

  “Just because you don’t have super powers doesn’t mean that you can’t be a hero.”

  I didn’t believe her. I was just a dumb kid with an overactive imagination, just like my dad said.

  “You still did a lot of good, Felix,” she said. “You don’t need super powers to be my hero.”

  We did still need to be saved, but I didn’t know if I could. I was still hurt inside.