I clear my throat. “Ted.”
He jumps and then visibly cringes when he sees me. “What are you— You know what? It doesn’t matter what you’re doing here—you need to leave.”
“You have to give me another chance to pass the flying test.”
He laughs. “No.”
“But—”
The audience makes an ooh sound, and Ted glances over at the girl doing her routine. Whatever cool thing she just did, I guess he missed it, because he turns and scowls at me. “You had your chance. You can retake the test next year.”
“Next year’s too late. Look, I know why you failed me, but you can give me any flying tasks you want, and I’ll do them this time.”
“You think the rules don’t apply to you. You think you should get a third chance, because what? Because we’re related?” He makes a disgusted face when he says that last part.
“I only need a third chance because we’re related.”
He scoffs. “I did my job, plain and simple.”
Maybe, and it’s possible that he would have failed me anyway, because he was right when he said I just learned the routine. But him hating my guts and wanting me to fail didn’t exactly make him unbiased. “We both know you don’t like me. I mean, I don’t like you, either. This is your chance to humiliate me in front of all these people on live TV, and on about a billion videos on YouTube. You know flying’s not my best skill or anything. I’m probably going to screw up and look stupid, and the whole world’s going to be watching.” If not right now, then later, over and over again. The thought actually makes me kind of sick, but I keep going. “I’ll never live it down.”
“You want to do it here? Now?” Ted glances over at the stage area, where the current competitor is just finishing up her routine.
“The competition’s ending soon. I wouldn’t be taking up anybody else’s time slot or anything. I’m not competing. I just want the chance to prove to you that I can do this. You give me as many flying tasks as you want, and I’ll do them. The competition will officially be over, and if the audience wants to leave, they can, but you know that they won’t. They’ll stay, and they’ll watch me make an idiot out of myself.”
Ted taps the end of his pencil on his clipboard, considering it. “I can’t just take over this arena for my own private use.”
“I bet you know someone who can, though. Call in a favor.”
He clenches his jaw and glances over at someone near the judges’ stand.
“And,” I add, “if at the end of all this I still haven’t proven to you that I have a handle on my flying power, then I guess that’s that. I’ll fail for reals and have to retake the test next year.”
“No,” Ted says. “If you fail this, you drop out of Heroesworth. You don’t belong there—I don’t know why Gordon can’t see it.”
I hesitate. I know I was considering dropping out, but I changed my mind, plus it was different when it was my idea. Dropping out because douchebag Ted wants me to, because he doesn’t think I should be there in the first place, kind of makes my skin crawl.
“I…”
“If you want to do this, that’s the rule. You make a fool of yourself in front of all these people, so they see what side of your family you really take after. And when you fail, you drop out of Heroesworth, and you never look back.”
“If I fail,” I correct him.
He kind of chuckles at that. “We’ll see. Do we have a deal?”
I nod. We don’t shake hands on it, though there’s an awkward moment where I think we’re both considering it. He goes over to talk to somebody official about this, and I just stand there, wondering if maybe I’ve just made a huge mistake.
I haven’t even practiced since I took the test. Other than lifting off the ground a little at Mom’s house, I haven’t flown at all, and that wasn’t exactly some acrobatic feat or anything. It barely counts. And now my whole future’s depending on this. I’m going to have to actually fly in front of a live audience of thousands of strangers. Who theoretically aren’t even sure that I can fly, since there are conspiracy sites dedicated to arguing about it, and they sure as hell don’t know I’m afraid of heights. But they might find out in a few minutes. The whole world might know my worst secret.
This was a bad idea. And now I can’t stop imagining some awful video of me falling or even just looking freaked out while I’m high up, and thinking about how many people will watch it, criticizing every frame. Discussing my every move and what each facial expression might mean. All the gossip sites will post clips and make outlandish assumptions. New message-board threads will pop up where people will argue about every aspect of it. And they won’t just argue about whatever videos come from this, but about me. As if they know me, when really they don’t.
The whole idea creeps me out. But there’s no way in hell I’m walking away now. If I do, Ted will think he’s better than me and that I wasn’t up to his challenge. That I can’t really do what I just said I was going to do. But I can—or, at least, I really hope I can—and after everything that happened last night with Frank and the fear ray and almost losing Kat, not to mention Riley and Sarah and even Tristan, I kind of don’t care. Everyone’s going to be scrutinizing the videos of me whether I fail or not, so… whatever. And humiliating myself in the arena is better than humiliating myself by not even trying.
Ted comes back with a grim look on his face, but he’s nodding, meaning he got permission for us to do this, I guess.
I wait through one more competitor, and then while they announce the winners. There’s a huge round of applause from the audience when the winners come to collect their medals. Then, just as everyone starts to get up from their seats, the announcer says, “Wait a minute, folks. We have a special bonus performance from, uh, Damien Locke? Oh, I mean Son of Flash!”
Me and Ted both cringe when he calls me that. Ugh.
“Yes, we have Golden City’s own Son of Flash here today to perform a short flying routine that’s sure to be one for the history books!”
There’s a lot of chatter coming from the audience. Some people leave, in a hurry to beat traffic, or maybe because they don’t care. But most of the audience sits back down. A charge of excitement and anticipation spreads through the stands. A lot of phones come out.
Ted gives me a really self-satisfied look as we head into the stage area, like he already thinks he’s won. He stays off to the side, but he gestures for me to go stand in the middle. A spotlight follows me, and there’s some random, tentative clapping from the audience. The hoops hanging from the ceiling look way higher up now that I’m standing right beneath them and have to crane my neck back really far to even see them.
Someone from the audience shouts something that sounds like an insult, only I can’t actually make out the words. It could have been anything, like, You don’t belong here, or, Who are you kidding? or, You can’t do this.
I force myself to keep my head up and face the audience, even though I can’t really see them, because of all the bright lights surrounding me. My hands are already shaking, but I hope nobody notices. I don’t have a microphone, so I just wave to everyone as a way of introduction.
Ted doesn’t ask me if I’m ready, he just starts barking orders. And he does have a microphone, so the whole arena can hear him, so if I screw up, they’ll know. “Up to the ceiling and back as fast as you can.”
I look up. All the way up to the ceiling, which is so far. My stomach twists and I wish I was anywhere else right now. Terror claws at me, telling me I can’t do this. I can’t even do the first task, and everyone is waiting for me to move, for me to screw up. But I remember how I felt last night, when the fear ray made me think the ground was going to fall out from under me. I could hardly move, because I thought I was going to fall and that I wouldn’t be able to catch myself.
This can’t be worse than that. Even with the audience tense and silent, wondering why I’m just standing here, flying up to that ceiling can’t be worse than how I
felt last night. And it can’t be worse than falling off a building, which I’ve survived more than once.
Ted starts to say something, either repeating his directions or telling me I’ve already failed, but I take off and he doesn’t finish.
I fly up to the ceiling, actively, like Amelia taught me. And even though my speed probably wouldn’t be considered “fast” by anybody in this competition—or possibly anyone who’s ever been able to fly—it’s the fastest I’ve ever flown. I want to close my eyes, but I keep them open, focused on my goal. I don’t look out at the audience, or down at Ted. Especially not down or at Ted. And then I touch the ceiling, and I think, I can’t wait until Amelia sees this, and I smile and stupidly glance around me.
My stomach drops. I feel like I’m going to fall, like maybe I already am, and there’s a moment before I get a hold of myself where I’m flailing and I know I must look terrified.
The whole world just saw me freak out.
I force the thought away, because if I stop to worry about it, I’ll fail. So I pretend all the muttering running through the crowd has nothing to do with me. Besides, even if people are wondering what the hell just happened or what the hell is wrong with me, it’s not like they know the truth. Not yet and not for sure.
My way down is slower than my way up, but I still push myself to go as fast as I can. When I get back to the ground, I’m so sure Ted’s going to tell me that’s it, that I’ve already lost, but instead he’s ready with another command. I don’t even have a chance to catch my breath before he says, “Up through that hoop, then down a little and spin through the air.”
This time I don’t hesitate. I fly up to the hoop he pointed at and move through it, though maybe not the most gracefully. I descend a little until I’m a safe distance from it and then…
And then I do just about the lamest air spin ever. I twist sideways, super awkwardly and clumsily at first. Then I pick up speed, and I’m pretty sure I’m still doing it wrong, but I’m doing something, and that has to count, right? I try to remember if I saw someone doing this in any of the videos me and Amelia watched, but they were mostly of just the routine for the test, and I have no idea what this is supposed to look like. But I’m spinning, and I’m in the air. And maybe the audience isn’t awed by my performance, but I seriously can’t believe I’m doing this.
“Around the bars!” Ted shouts.
I don’t know what that means, either, and I think he’s gesturing something, but I’m too dizzy to look down at him and see. I fly over to the bars, but really it’s more of a swoop. I, Damien Locke, actually swoop over to the bars.
There are vertical and horizontal bars set up back and forth like an obstacle course, all at different heights. I have to go around a vertical one, then over a horizontal one, about five times. And I assume that, like with the hoops, I’m not supposed to touch them. Going around the first vertical one is easy, but the horizontal bar after it is a lot higher up. I’ve never seen this setup before, let alone practiced it, so I know my performance here isn’t, like, the best or anything, but slowly and carefully I make my way through it.
Then Ted has me zigzag through the air. Then go through all the hoops, but in a different order than the flying test, so I can’t just count on muscle memory. He has me race up to the top of the ceiling again—as if once wasn’t enough—only this time he tells me not to come back down.
“Hold it!” he shouts.
I’m hovering inches from the ceiling, at the very top of the arena. With everyone watching. I’m glad Amelia made me practice being in the air for prolonged amounts of time, but my nerves are still getting to me. Because the longer Ted makes me stay here, the more I realize just how high up I am. Way higher than the gym at school. Not nearly as high as the top of the Golden City Banking and Finances building, but still. All I did there was fall—I didn’t have to hover and do tricks while the whole world watched.
I can’t help thinking about how the videos of all this are going to look. How Damien Locke, a.k.a. Son of Flash, put on this really awkward, pretty terrible performance, like what everybody needed after watching all the perfect competitors was to see someone who was the complete opposite of that. And I wonder how long Ted’s going to make me hover here. Probably until I crack, or until the audience gets bored and starts to leave—whichever happens first.
I don’t know how much time goes by with me hovering there. It’s probably only a minute or two, but it feels like a lot longer with so much riding on this and the whole world watching. Then Ted’s voice booms out across the stage area. “Backflip. Right there, where you are.”
Yep, right here, where I am, hovering only a million feet above the ground. Just do a backflip, like it’s no big deal. Like I’ve ever even thought about doing a backflip in my entire life, in the air or on land. I don’t move. Can’t I just hover here for another couple minutes and call it good? Staying in one place isn’t so bad. I might actually be kind of good at it. They should have a separate category in the competition just for people who fly in place for extended periods of time. Actually, they could already have a category like that, for all I know. But I doubt it.
“We’re waiting,” Ted says. He keeps his tone professional and polite, like he’s talking to one of his flying students and not to the nephew he hates.
A backflip. Just move backwards, so that I can’t see bazillions of feet of nothingness between me and the floor, until I’m upside down. No problem. Nothing difficult or terrifying about that. It’s not an insane thing to do when you’re this high up, and especially not if you’re also terrified of heights.
The camera’s probably doing a closeup right now. The official camera broadcasting this to Channel Five. Not to mention all the people recording this with their phones, though at least they probably can’t see my face or how scared I am. They’ll have to see it later, on the official video, along with everybody else who wasn’t here today.
I can’t do a backflip. If Riley’s watching right now, he probably knows this is it, that I’m not really going to make it to second year with him. I don’t know if Kat’s watching or not, because I made her promise she wouldn’t if her dad was in the room, plus she might be asleep, since she’s still recovering from the poison. But if she is watching, she probably knows I can’t do this, either. That everything else I did just now was pretty spectacular, relatively speaking, but that this is asking too much.
But then I think, What do I have to lose? And before I can answer that question—because the answer is a lot of things, like my dignity and possibly my breakfast—I go for it. I actually do a backwards flip in the air.
Well, okay, not actually. But I try to. I arch my back and try to make myself turn over backwards in midair. It does not go well. Because, like, as soon as I’m not in a normal, upright position, I kind of freak out. Panic spreads through my chest and makes me feel way too warm. There’s a moment where all I can see is the ceiling, and I can’t stand the idea of not being able to look down and see how far away the ground is. Not that I make a habit of looking at the ground from this high up, but knowing that I can’t just look over and see it really freaks me out.
I twist and flail my arms in the air until I’m right-side up again. I cry out, and even without a microphone, I don’t think it goes unnoticed. My face feels hot, and I’m breathing too hard, and my nerves are racing. And I don’t fall or anything, even though I feel like I’m going to, but I know I can’t stay up here anymore. I have to get down, now.
I land—too quickly, and I kind of stumble as I do it—and the arena is silent. I shut my eyes, but then I make myself open them again, even if it’s just to stare at my shoes.
When Ted doesn’t ask me to do anything else, the announcer says, “Son of Flash, everybody!”
There’s some polite applause from the audience, but nothing like the roar when they were clapping for the actual winners of the competition. Not that I expected it or anything, and not that I care, because right now I just need to get out of
here.
Ted stops me when I try to walk past him. “Hold on,” he says.
“Save it. The last thing I need right now is a lecture.”
He scowls at that, and electricity burns a little beneath my skin. My face feels hot with shame, and I don’t need Ted rubbing it in that I couldn’t cut it. That now I have to drop out of Heroesworth. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Riley, or Kat, or my dad.
“I wish I didn’t have to do this,” Ted says.
“Then don’t.” I start to walk away again.
He holds out a hand to stop me. “You did… okay.” He says that so grudgingly, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be a compliment or an insult. “Much better than during your test.”
“I failed. I couldn’t do everything you asked. So—”
“You didn’t fail.”
“I what?”
“You didn’t fail,” he repeats, looking like it’s physically painful for him to have to say that to me. “You were right, I may have been biased during your previous test, though I still stand by my decision—the same decision I think any good flying coach would have made. I didn’t believe you had control over your flight. But after your performance here, even if it was a bit crude, it’s clear to me that that’s not the case. Even if your control is at the most elementary of levels.”
“You mean, I passed?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’d really like to fail you. I still have strong misgivings about you going to Heroesworth. But any flying coach could watch the video of everything you did just now, and… I don’t doubt that they would pass you.”
“I couldn’t do the backflip.” I feel stupid as soon as I say that. I shouldn’t be offering him reasons to fail me.
“It’s an advanced move. I didn’t expect you to be able to do it.”
“So, wait, that’s it? I really passed?!”
He looks away and nods. “I’ll inform the school I made a mistake.”
Chapter 47
The Phobia of Renegade X Page 35