The Super Freak

by Brian Falkner

  Saltham seemed quite startled. ‘Good,’ he said and made some notes on his clipboard. He made another note when I finally made it to the top and slapped the beam, but didn’t say anything to me.

  Blocker made even harder going of the rope exercise when it was his turn, which gave me a small inner smile of satisfaction. He was strong, but he had a lot of weight to haul up the rope. He was sweating like anything when he finally reached the top and just about slipped off the rope.

  If he had fallen and broken his neck, would I have been sorry? Probably, but I couldn’t say for certain.

  The next exercise was a new one, and I looked on it with utter dread. I never seemed to be much good at these things. I knew if I failed, Saltham would just make me keep trying and trying until I got it right or got detention, which made me twice as nervous and half as likely to succeed.

  The exercise went like this. Two helpers would stand in front of you and grasp each others’ wrists. You had to run at them and do a kind of handstand in front of them, except that you would fall forward on to their joined arms and flip back over on to your feet again.

  Then you would take the place of one of the helpers.

  It sounds pretty straightforward, and most of the kids had no problem with it. They just ran into it, somersaulted through the air with the help of the other two guys, landed on their feet and went to take their place as a helper.

  I ended up behind Fizzer Boyd. Tupai was in front of him.

  Tupai sprang forward and vaulted over the outstretched arms easily, although there was a grunt from both of his helpers as they took the full brunt of his bulk. He took over from Stubby Forsyth.

  Fizzer ran forward, and I swear I’ve never seen anything like it. He sprang into the handstand and flipped his body over the outstretched arms like an Olympic gymnast. The two helpers never touched him.

  He landed cat-like on the other side and there was a spontaneous round of applause from the onlookers. Fizzer smiled and made a small bow, before taking the place of Mike Pinkington.

  I can do this. I thought. I can do this.

  I ran forward, placed my hands on the ground in exactly the right place … and my arms collapsed. I tumbled into a forward roll, breaking Fizzer and Tupai’s hands apart as my legs crashed through where my back ought to have been.

  Fizzer rubbed his wrist, although Tupai didn’t seem bothered.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered, wincing with embarrassment.

  ‘Again!’ Saltham called out from the far side of the hall.

  Red-faced, I circled around back to the start. I stopped and took a deep breath.

  I can do this.

  I ran forward again, thrust my arms down in the same spot and, once again, they buckled, and I rolled forwards.

  ‘Little Jacob’s doing roly-polies,’ I heard a voice snigger at the back of the crowd and didn’t need to look to know it was Blocker.

  Saltham called, ‘Again!’

  Mortified, I went back to the start and took a deep breath, trying to visualize the exercise and what my arms were going to do.

  Tupai winked at me and Fizzer gave me a warm smile. ‘You’ll do it this time,’ he said.

  He was wrong. I managed to keep one arm straight, but the other buckled and threw me sideways, my feet smashing into Fizzer’s chest. Well, where Fizzer’s chest would have been if he hadn’t sprung out of the way with that amazing athletic grace of his.

  ‘Sorry,’ I muttered for the second time.

  Old Sea Salt strode forward and stood right in front of me, glaring. I was about to get blasted out of the water by a Navy Destroyer.

  I stared back at him, trying desperately to get out of any further embarrassment. I focused my full power on his brain.

  He can’t do it, let him go. He can’t do it, let him go.

  Saltham shook his head, as if trying to clear it.

  He can’t do it, let him go. He can’t do it, let him go.

  It didn’t work.

  ‘Again!’ he barked.

  I grimaced and faced the ordeal.

  And, as I looked and thought about it, I realised suddenly and with certainty, that I could do it. All I had to do was to keep my arms straight. Just focus on that one thing. Fizzer and Tupai would do the rest.

  A feeling of confidence flooded over me. Of course I could do it. It was only nerves that had stopped me from succeeding before.

  I flung myself forwards, dived on to the mat, my arms like rigid poles, sprang into the air, twisted perfectly over the outstretched arms of Fizzer and Tupai, and landed on my feet on the other side.

  I almost expected applause, but there was none.

  ‘Next,’ said Saltham, and that was that. I just changed places with Tupai.

  I did that exercise twice more, and had no further problems with it. It was funny, once I realised I could do it, it became easy.

  In fact, I did it better than Blocker. He was OK, but he was so heavy that the other kids couldn’t hold his weight, and he always ended up on his bum on the gym mat. It wasn’t actually his fault, so Saltham didn’t make him repeat the exercise, but I still felt a warm glow every time I did it right and he picked himself up off the mat.

  At the end of PE most of the other kids got changed and wandered off to their next class, but I had a quick shower.

  I didn’t want to be sweaty and smelly after school when I met Erica in the library.

  Her letter was zipped safely in an inside pocket of my schoolbag where I could touch it and bring it out to re-read in quiet moments, trying to read between the lines and work out what she was thinking from those few short words.

  Meet me in the library after school on Friday. Erica.

  The trouble was there wasn’t a lot you could read into that.

  I changed into my uniform and trotted off through the gym, rather pleased with myself for having conquered the difficult exercise.

  Saltham was still there, working away at something on his clipboard.

  I was feeling so pleased with myself that I actually smiled at him as I walked past, but he just glowered at me. I was almost out of the door before he spoke.

  ‘Stay out of my head,’ he said quietly, but then I was outside and I didn’t turn back.

  TWENTY

  FROSTY THE SNOW-GIRL

  The bell for last period sounded with a harsh trill; Maths dragged on forever. I had taken off my watch for the last fifteen minutes of the period and placed it discreetly on my desk among my books where I could stare at it without it being too obvious.

  The bell sounded like a jaildoor opening. I was free. But almost immediately came another feeling. A jittery, flighty feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  Why did Erica want to see me?

  I threw my books into my schoolbag and was first out the door. I struggled not to run as I made for the library. No point. I’d have to wait for Erica anyway. Beautiful, icy Erica. At that point my mind started playing games with me.

  She’s already got a boyfriend, and he’s seventeen. She’s just going to laugh at you.

  Then came another thought. Why would you want to go out with her, anyway? Just because she’s pretty? Maybe that’s true, but who wants to go out with Frosty the Snow-girl? She may be pretty and smart, but where’s her personality? She’s just a big snob.

  And actually she isn’t all that pretty when you think about it. There are lots of girls who are better looking than her.

  I tried to think of one but failed.

  You don’t really want to go out with her. No matter what she says, just tell her that you made a mistake; you didn’t mean to say it.

  Or even better …

  Tell her you made a deal with Ben, and you only asked her out so that Ben would stand for student council.

  That was it. Before she got a word in I was going to make it clear that I had no real interest in her. Then, when she gave me the bum’s rush, or even if she let me down gently, it would be me who had turned her down.

  I nodded my head t
o myself and scurried on towards the library. I had made up my mind.

  The library was big, old and made of block and old brick, giving it the appearance of ramparts, almost like the castle I often felt it to be. I wandered around the shelves feigning interest in several subjects without even noticing what I was looking at. My legs were unsteady and my hands were quite shaky as I picked a few books off the shelves and put them back just as quickly.

  I was glad Erica had suggested the library. It was the one place I felt most at home. Safe. Secure. I wondered why she had suggested it. I often saw her in there. Maybe she felt the same way, that it was a place of refuge.

  Or, maybe, she just found it a quiet place to get away from all the other kids, and be aloof in her beautiful ivory tower.

  She walked in while I was skimming through a book on ancient Peru and smiled nervously at me.

  I forced my hands to be steady and smiled confidently back. Confidence was important. I couldn’t let her see how nervous I really was.

  Now the trick was to let her down gently, before she could let me down.

  She wandered over to the long couches at the New Zealand Fiction section of the library and I sheepishly followed her. She sat, and I sat on the couch opposite. Not next to her. There were a few kids in the library, doing homework or killing time till their parents picked them up, but where we were was deserted.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, trying to sound warm and friendly but in control of things.

  ‘Hello,’ Erica said and glanced down at her hands.

  ‘First of all, thanks,’ I said. ‘Thanks for sending in the cavalry, the other day, at the GWF.’

  ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘I just guessed,’ I said and took a deep breath. ‘I thought I should tell you …’ I tried to launch into my pre-prepared I didn’t mean it speech but faltered, and she jumped right in.

  ‘I guess you’re wondering why I wrote that note,’ she said.

  My speech went right out of the window, and I just nodded mutely.

  ‘I’m sorry about the other day,’ she said, staring at her hands. ‘You asked me if I wanted to go out with you …’

  ‘Yes, but I was just …’

  ‘I’m sorry I got upset.’

  ‘My fault. But I was … I didn’t really mean …’

  ‘But nobody has ever asked me out before.’

  I shut my mouth with a snap.

  ‘And I wasn’t really sure what to say.’

  My mouth fell open again, and I stared at her. The most beautiful creature on the planet and nobody had ever asked her out. (Yes, I know what I said before but I was just trying to convince myself, OK?)

  ‘I heard you already had a boyfriend,’ I said. ‘I heard he was seventeen.’

  She nodded and smiled, a little sadly I thought. ‘I heard that one too.’

  ‘But you’re …’ I hadn’t intended it to go like this, but now it all came out in a rush, ‘but you’re beautiful. You’re gorgeous. You’re smart, you’re … you’re … I can’t believe you haven’t been asked out by lots of guys.’

  She shook her head. ‘Never.’

  That was a real eye-opener. It dawned on me that we look at people and we judge them and decide what is going on inside their brains without ever getting to know them.

  Erica wasn’t icy. She wasn’t aloof. She didn’t consider herself better than the rest of us kids.

  Erica was just shy!

  No-one had ever asked her out before because, like me, they’d been frightened off by her looks and her intelligence.

  I guess she was naturally shy, and that hadn’t helped because it made her seem quite stand-offish.

  And, I reasoned, the more other kids ignored her, the more isolated she became.

  I said, ‘My dad was a radio announcer, we moved around a lot.’

  She looked up at me curiously.

  I continued, ‘I’ve been to five different schools in the last six years. Found it hard to make friends every time we moved.’

  Her eyes widened. She drew in a sudden breath and said, ‘Me too!’

  I smiled at her; I had guessed as much.

  She stared straight at me, for the first time, and the whole story came bubbling out. ‘I was born here, but we moved back to Scotland when I was still a baby. Stayed there till I was eight. Then we returned to New Zealand. I had to leave all my friends behind, and all the new kids spoke funny, and they played different games and it took me ages to make any friends, and then, just when I did, we changed cities and … and …’

  She looked like she was going to cry so I jumped right in and said, ‘That’s the story of my life. Except the bit about Scotland. And the part about kids speaking funny. And the games.’

  She laughed, and the nearly-tears went away. She said, ‘They told us that Kiwi kids were really friendly, but I never found that they were. And then all the other girls in the class started to get boyfriends, and nobody ever asked me, and I started to think that there must be something wrong with me.’

  I changed couches and sat next to her. It felt like the right thing to do.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ I said. ‘Not by a long way! I guess all the boys were just a bit afraid of you.’

  ‘Except for you,’ she said.

  Just then didn’t seem like the right time to tell her that I had been blackmailed into asking her out. So I didn’t.

  I said instead, ‘So, um …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you, um, go out with me?’

  She turned to face me.

  ‘Everyone says you’re a troublemaker. A loner.’

  I held my breath.

  ‘But I don’t think it’s true,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the things you do.’

  I looked seriously at her. ‘You’ll ruin my reputation if you tell anyone.’

  She giggled. ‘I won’t say a word. And by the way, yes.’

  It took me a moment or two to work out what the ‘yes’ meant.

  And then I walked her home.

  As I said, Erica didn’t really live on my way home from school but she could have lived in Invercargill and I’d still have walked home with her.

  Words are powerful things. They can start wars and stop them. They can change people’s minds and change people’s lives.

  I didn’t know it then, but those few words of mine, not particularly wise, not particularly wonderful, would change Erica’s life. A few days later, she mustered up the courage to come out of her shell and made an effort to make friends with one of the girls in her class. And that was just the first step towards a whole new Erica.

  TWENTY-ONE

  SECOND CRIME

  You might have thought, with all this other stuff going on, that I had forgotten about my new career as a supercriminal. Well, I hadn’t.

  The great School Fair Robbery was still foremost on my mind, and my plans were slowly developing. But I needed information. Ben’s first council meeting was at lunchtime on the Monday, and the fair was on the agenda.

  Don’t get this wrong. Ben knew nothing about what was going on. He was my unwitting accomplice in the crime, and I had to be careful how I wheedled the information out of him, so he wouldn’t be too suspicious when all the money went missing.

  My plans so far went like this. I knew the money would be kept somewhere on the school grounds until the end of the day, during which time it would be counted and sorted. At the end of the fair, it would be taken somewhere else for safekeeping, as the banks would be shut until the following Monday.

  Somehow I was going to get myself into the counting room near the end of the day, and use my power to … well … I wasn’t quite sure about that part yet, I still had to know the layout.

  But my plan to get into the money room was simple. The only kids who would be allowed in would be those who were delivering the proceeds from their stalls.

  So, I needed a small bucket of money. I would pretend it was from one of the stalls. I needed seed money. B
ut now, at least, I knew where to get it.

  Blocker had come to school on the Monday morning gloating about the hundred dollar note he had received for saving little Caitlin Howard’s life. In his own mind, I think, he had reinvented history and had now even started to believe he had saved her, instead of just carrying her bag home. And, somehow, he had forgotten just who had chucked the rock.

  If ever there was someone who deserved to lose a hundred dollars it was Blocker Blüchner.

  Phil Domane was a different person that morning, though. He had also received a hundred dollars but there was no gloating from him. Quite the opposite, in fact. He seemed unusually withdrawn. Maybe it was guilt. Rumours about the truth of what had happened had already started circulating the school by the start of second period. Interval at Glenfield spreads information faster than the Internet!

  Anyway, I noticed Ben getting a couple of claps on the back as he went into English, and you couldn’t help but notice the kids staring at their shoes or turning away when Blocker pulled out his crisp new hundred dollar note and started bragging about what a hero he was.

  I resolved to make that note mine before the end of the day.

  Our English teacher was Miss Pepperman, naturally called Peppermint by everyone she taught. She was young and funky, only about twenty-three or so, and she seemed to get on better with us kids than she did with some of the grey old ghosts who ran the rest of the school.

  I got on especially well with her as we both found the English language endlessly fascinating.

  We were studying a kind of Japanese poetry called haiku. Miss Peppermint told us all about an international haiku competition on the Internet. All year nines and tens were invited to enter. Miss Peppermint was going to judge the entries from our school, and the best one from each class was going to be entered in the competition.

  The winner from our class, I decided, would be me.

  When the period ended, I discreetly followed Blocker, trying to stay out of his sight by keeping at least two or three other kids in between us all the time.