Poppy Mayberry, a New Day

by Jennie K. Brown

  This was so not good.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Mom and Dad worked quickly, speaking in hushed tones. I should have told someone about the note from Mr. Salmon. Dr. Nalsom. Whoever he was.

  But at the same time, who knew what he would have done to Pickle, and worse, to my parents. But this situation we were in didn’t look like it was going to get much better.

  Mr. Salmon peered over my parents’ shoulders. “Five minutes left, and then you’ll be given a little extra motivation to work harder,” Mr. Salmon warned, sending a cold glare Headmistress Larriby’s way.

  “How dare you threaten me,” Headmistress Larriby shouted with a grunt.

  Mr. Salmon began to move, his eyes on Headmistress Larriby, but Mom’s words cut him off.

  “I think we almost have it,” she spoke quickly. “Just have to decode the Friday power and then they’ll be complete.”

  “Hurry it up,” Mr. Salmon sputtered.

  My mother let out a sigh of relief. “Here. It’s done,” she called, handing the file over to Mr. Salmon.

  “On the desk,” he demanded.

  Mom obeyed. Then he tied my parents’ hands behind their backs once again. He grabbed the file and read. “This is it! All the power is in my hands.” He tilted his head.

  “Noooowwww,” he groaned. “There’s just one more thing.” He moved the gun from person to person to dog. “What do I do with all of you?”

  My breath came out in quick, short bursts. “Please just let us go. We won’t tell anyone. We promise!” I shouted.

  “Shhhhhhhh,” Mr. Salmon demanded. “I could do that, but one of these days, someone in this room is sure to tattle.”

  “Richard,” my father said with a stern voice, addressing Mr. Salmon by his first name. “You have our word. Take the powers, leave Nova behind, and let us take care of explaining everything. No harm done.”

  Mr. Salmon stepped toward my father. “And then chance you alerting the authorities?” He rolled his eyes. “I don’t think so. Nobody knows who I am. Where I am. Except for the four of you,” he growled. “This,” he said waving the gun, “is too messy.” He pulled a lighter from his back pocket. “What we’ll need is a fire. And how fitting, considering how the Princes supposedly went up in flames.”

  Pickle growled.

  “Shut up,” Mr. Salmon yelled, kicking her cage. My cute little girl cowered against the metal bars.

  This couldn’t be happening. I wished I never knew anything about my stupid powers. I just wanted to go back to being an innocent little Monday.

  “If only it were that easy,” Mr. Salmon said, reading my mind. “These powers can’t take us to the past though,” he said sneering. Wrinkles creased his forehead. “But perhaps there’s a formula for that. Hmmm … I would need a test subject to take with me.” His eyes met mine.

  “Owww!” I squealed, as he grabbed a handful of my hair with his spindly fingers.

  “Don’t touch her!” my father demanded.

  “Ha!” Mr. Salmon said. I grimaced as he pulled harder at my red strands of hair, my scalp burning. “And what will you do about it?”

  My father jerked his body from side to side, struggling to get out of the bindings.

  “Hmmm?” Mr. Salmon asked, louder this time. “What can you do about it?”

  And then, my heart fluttered at the word spoken next.

  “This!” Logan’s voice shouted in response.

  Suddenly, Mr. Salmon’s eyes grew wide and his head darted from space to space in the office, looking for the body belonging to the voice.

  It was like time stood still around me as a few things happened at once.

  First, the lights in the room suddenly shut off. I didn’t know if it was due to my father’s Wednesday power or if it was perfect timing for a power outage.

  When the room lit up again, Sam stood in front of me. I had my answer.

  “Don’t move!” Mr. Salmon demanded, the weapon now pointed toward Sam. But Logan was here somewhere too.

  “Now!” Logan’s voice shouted, as he suddenly appeared at the side of our villainous math teacher.

  “Logan!” I screamed as his fingers wrapped around the weapon in Mr. Salmon’s hands. Their bodies twisted and turned as they struggled for control. I ducked as best as I could, being bound to a chair and all, while shouts and barks echoed through the hall.

  “Ahhh!” I screamed as the deafening sound of a gunshot rang through the building. A piece of tile ceiling smashed into pieces after crashing to the ground.

  “Let. Go of it!” Logan called, bravely struggling to wrestle the weapon from Mr. Salmon’s grasp.

  I rocked back and forth on my chair until the legs were thrown off balance enough for it to slam to the floor. My head pounded from the fall. I flipped my hands around, struggling with the rope behind me. Suddenly, it began spiraling loose. I watched from the corner of my eye as Mom’s and Dad’s ropes dropped to the ground too. Ellie stood in the doorway; her hands pointed toward Headmistress Larriby’s bound wrists next.

  Thank you, I thought to Ellie, rubbing the red on my arms.

  “Wednesday!” Sam yelled.

  My dad stood, now free, and with the combined Wednesday power of Sam, a stream of blinding light shot from their fingertips right into the eyes of Mr. Salmon.

  Both Logan and Mr. Salmon stumbled backward, the gun flying to the ground. Mr. Salmon’s eyes caught hold of the weapon, and as his fingertips touched the handle, the gun magically lifted from his hands and landed in Ellie’s manicured fingers. She pointed the weapon at Mr. Salmon.

  “Don’t even think about it!” Ellie said with authority.

  “I’ll alert the police,” Headmistress Larriby said, running out of the room while my father gently took the gun from Ellie’s hands, keeping it focused on its target.

  Mr. Salmon scowled. “If I can’t have these powers, then nobody deserves them!” In one swift motion, he picked up the sheet of paper containing the formulas. He pulled the lighter from his pocket, and with a flick of his finger, flames ignited the formulas.

  “Nooo!” I shouted, lunging toward the burning paper.

  My mother’s fingers wrapped around my arm as she pulled me away. “It will be okay, Poppy,” she assured me. The formulas to our magical powers turned to ash and wafted into the trashcan below.

  “Get the rope!” Mom shouted. I used my Monday power to send it across the room where an awe-struck Mark Masters uncurled the fabric that had a second ago cut into my wrists and wound it around Mr. Salmon’s hands. My dad looped another two-foot piece around his feet.

  “You won’t get away with this!” Mr. Salmon shouted, wriggling and writhing on the floor while Dad finished restraining him.

  My dad laughed. “Get away with what? Protecting ourselves? Protecting our town? Other towns?”

  I used my Monday power to open Pickle’s cage. My furry little girl licked my cheek in excitement as my mom and Logan wrapped me in a hug.

  “How … how did you find us?” I said, looking into Logan’s eyes.

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the note from Dr. Nalsom. “I went to your house … to talk about everything that happened in Morlantown.” He smiled. “And this was on your bed. It’s almost as if you wanted me to find it.”

  I smiled inside. My invisible knight in shining armor.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  We were now seated in the all-too-familiar library at Power Academy. My mom and dad, Sam’s parents, Mark’s grandma, and Logan’s grandparents were in the hall talking to a Nova City police officer.

  Ellie looked toward the door. I felt bad for her. Her parents hadn’t responded to the officer’s calls to the Luxe Spa across town. Dr. Nalsom slash Mr. Salmon had been escorted to Nova Power Prison, and the remainder of the confidential file that could expose Nova’s secret was tucked away safely in a History of Nova textbook.

  Headmistress Larriby sat with the
five of us as we passed around a photograph.

  “See.” She pointed to the aged photograph in the lower corner. “We all went to school together.”

  “What!” I exclaimed. Five friends stood, arms linked at the elbows. Headmistress Larriby stood in the middle. To her left were Mr. and Mrs. Prince. To her right, were my parents—a much younger version of my parents—but my parents nevertheless.

  “Why did you act like you didn’t know my parents then?” Logan asked.

  Headmistress Larriby sighed. “It wasn’t up to me to explain that to you.” She chuckled. “But if I knew you’d go looking for them, then I would have made a different decision.” She smiled. “We all went through schooling at Nova Power Corporation. Your parents got into the research department, and I got into education. Through the years, we remained close. So close, in fact, that I was the only one to know about the true whereabouts of Logan’s parents.”

  Her eyes settled on the door behind us. “I think you’re ready for some answers, Poppy,” Headmistress Larriby said just as my parents walked in.

  “Poppy. I’d say it’s time to go,” my dad said, walking me toward the door.

  My mom hugged Headmistress Larriby. “Thanks again, Mayella.”

  “I’ll call soon.” I said to my friends.

  They say the truth will set you free. But it sure didn’t feel that way as I sat at the dining room table while my mom and dad explained their true role in Nova. At Nova Power Corporation. The only thing keeping me sane was the cuteness of Pickle curled up on my lap. She whimpered as I rubbed behind her ears.

  After Logan’s parents disappeared years ago, only five people knew about the origin of powers. My parents. Headmistress Larriby. Mayor Masters. And Dr. Nalsom—wherever he’d disappeared to. Since my own mom and dad were the only two left in the department of scientific research, they were the ones in charge of administering the weekday powers to hospitals.

  “So you’ve been in charge of Nova’s weekday powers this entire time?” I asked my parents.

  “Yes, Poppy.” Dad played with the coffee mug sitting in front of him. He and Mom seemed more nervous than I did. Mom twirled strands of curly orange hair around her finger.

  “So your job as a security officer wasn’t even really your job?” I asked.

  My dad shook his head. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. Perhaps if I had, you wouldn’t have been in this—”

  “But if you did, then I don’t know if I’d ever have learned the truth.” I sighed. Was I better off knowing it though?

  I pulled Pickle tighter against me. “But why Nova? Why are we the only town with these powers?”

  Mom and Dad looked at one another and frowned. “I don’t think we’ll ever know the answer to that,” Mom said. “When Roy Lichtenstein—the man who brought the powers to Nova—died, that reason died with him.”

  I smiled. All the History of Nova textbooks said Roy Lichtenstein was the first one to recognize weekday powers—right after the meteor crashed in our town. But he was the one who first invented the powers. At least the history book wasn’t all fiction.

  Dad took a sip of coffee and then set down the mug. “But we can infer. I heard Nova was intended to be an experimental town. A magical town to determine if these powers were something to be introduced elsewhere.”

  I cradled Pickle to my chest, stood, and paced the length of the dining room table, hoping that would help process what they were saying.

  Dad cleared his throat. “When we realized the extent people would go to for powers, it was decided the weekday powers would be Nova’s secret alone.”

  Mom reached toward me and gently caught my elbow. “Oh, Poppy,” she sighed. “You have to believe us when we say that there were so many times we wanted to tell you about all of this.”

  “Then why didn’t you?” My eyes locked with my mom’s, and I reached for the orange pendant she gave to me so long ago. She glanced at the necklace in my hands and then back at me.

  My parents looked at one another and then Mom spoke, “We didn’t think it was vital for you to know everything at such a young age.”

  “Not only that,” Dad added, “but how would the rest of the world react if they found out that having these superhuman powers were just a shot away? They’d be fighting,” he hesitated, “even killing to get their hands on power.”

  I took the seat next to my mom. “And why didn’t you mention anything about Logan’s parents?” I asked.

  They gave one another yet another odd look. “We assumed they died in that horrible fire in the N.P.C. lab, and we thought bringing it up might be hurtful to Logan.”

  “But you were friends,” I all but shouted. “You would think it would come up. I don’t know, maybe during the million times Logan visited our house!”

  I took three deep breaths, trying to calm myself down.

  My mom spoke slowly and calmly. “Sometimes you file things away in the past, and they remain in the past. Margie and Elliot were our best friends. We worked together, we went out for dinner together, and we even had babies together.” For a second, I forgot Logan and I were just a few weeks apart. My mom continued. “In an instant, our best friends and colleagues were gone. Clinging to all the good memories we had together was painful, so we let them go.”

  I could tell there was more to the story.

  My mom read that from my mind. “And right before the accident, they revealed something that put a rift between us,” she said.

  My mom placed her hand on my dad’s forearm. “Logan’s parents revealed to us that they had cheated a bit.”

  “What do you mean? Cheated?” That was something you did on a test.

  “They abused their position at N.P.C.,” my mom said, reading my mind again. “When Logan was born, his parents gave him extra teleportation and invisibility power than they should have.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Some people in power abuse their power—even good, kind people,” my dad said. “And others go to great lengths for their children.” My dad paused for a few seconds. “Logan’s parents did a little bit of both. They had access to extra weekday powers, so when we were ordered to administer the first cusp powers, the Princes used more than they were supposed to on their son.”

  “So I teleported with Logan because his Tuesday powers are just so strong? Because he has extra power from his par … ” my voice trailed off. Whoops. They didn’t know about the whole teleporting with Logan thing.

  “You what?” my Dad said in his dad-voice. He sighed as his eyes softened. “Exactly,” my dad said, nodding. “But, Poppy.”

  I leaned forward. “Yes.”

  “This cannot get out to anyone. With this knowledge comes the responsibility to keep it between as few people as possible. You’ve seen too closely what happens when bad people know too much.”

  I nodded in agreement. “You know you can trust me.”

  “And your friends?” Mom asked.

  “You can trust all of us,” I assured her, knowing they could.

  My dad rubbed the back of his neck. “The danger on that train … with Dr. Nalsom at Power Academy. I am so sorry you had to go through that, Poppy. I should have told you more, and sooner.”

  I looked toward Pickle and then back up again. “And I should have just told you about Logan’s parents.”

  My dad smiled. “Well … that’s all in the past. Now we need to look forward.”

  My mom nodded in silent agreement.

  But I needed to know more about the future. “What now?” I asked. “Mr. Salmon destroyed the formulas. Won’t people start asking questions when powers eventually die off? These powers are all we’ve known. They’re all Nova knows. It could destroy our town.”

  My mom and dad gave one another a knowing smile.

  I narrowed my eyes. “What is it?” I asked. There was no more hiding anything from me.

  “Well … there is one more copy of the formulas,
” my mom said, reaching a hand behind my head. She gently lifted the hair from my neck and unclasped my lucky orange necklace.

  She flipped the pendant over in her hand a few times. “Because of the actions of Logan’s parents in giving him extra powers, we decided to make just one copy of the formulas.” She smirked mischievously. “As a precaution.”

  I studied the necklace my mother gave me years ago. “So, this isn’t just a pendant?” I whispered.

  My mom chuckled. “It’s more than that, Poppy.” She touched the necklace where the chain met the pendant’s loop. Suddenly, a metallic pop sounded from it. “This is a locket.”

  My eyes widened as the orange front of my necklace swung open, revealing a hollow space. Folded up inside was a tiny piece of weathered paper.

  I unfolded the sheet to see five series of ingredients and measurements written down. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the formulas before now, but my eyes latched onto two familiar ingredients from the Monday formula.

  “My name?” I questioned, my eyes lighting up in recognition.

  “That’s right,” Dad said, leaning closer.

  I pulled the tiny list to my face and read the two ingredients aloud.

  “Oils of poppy and rose.” This was unreal.

  “Poppy Rose Mayberry,” my mother said softly.

  I pointed to the center of my chest, where the pendant always rested. “Right here?” I asked.

  My mom kissed the top of my head. “See Poppy,” she said, “you’ve had the powers all along.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Three Weeks Later

  “Can you believe Mr. Salmon just up and moved out of Nova?” Veronica asked, believing the excuse the police gave the entire town. She plopped herself down on our living room couch.

  “I know!” I feigned surprise. “It’s totally unbelievable. He probably couldn’t handle a bunch of middle schoolers,” I added for effect.

  I breathed heavily, inhaling the delicious aromas of dinner. Mom and Dad were baking a huge batch of lasagna and garlic bread, Willie “studied” in his bedroom with Katie Ellerton, and the rest of my friends would arrive any minute for a dinner at the Mayberrys’.