Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain (13 page)

Not that we got to discuss it much. We had to eat, and then there were afternoon classes. Afterward, Claire, Ray, and I ended up outside the door at the corner of the building at the same time, and then stepped in and descended the elevator together. Ray and I, of course, stared fixedly at the big brown bag Claire carried until the gate opened at the bottom.

“Yes, it’s food,” Claire admitted as we stepped into my lab. “Mom said that if you’re going to destroy her ice chests, you’ll have to be happy with sandwiches and a fruit basket.”

“Sandwich” hardly described the corned-beef-on-toast monster half the size of my head that I pulled out of the bag. I did my best to look sorry.

“Before I build anything else, I need more equipment,” I told Ray and Claire as I unwrapped it. “I’ll need to shape glass and plastics, better chemistry containers and tubing, pressure chambers, a microcircuit presser, lifts and braces… and that’s just basic stuff so I can make sophisticated tools. I may have to dig out my savings and buy some of it. The super noggin doesn’t seem to like building anything simple.”

“How does that work, Penny? Inside, I mean?” Ray asked as he rooted through the fruit basket. He didn’t like any fruit that I knew of, but I couldn’t identify half of these. One was covered in big thorny spikes, for pity’s sake.

“I haven’t done it enough to be sure, but so far I focus on some scientific concept and I get an image… it’s not a picture exactly, just an understanding of how to do something with it.”

“So, if you started thinking about how to make Claire athletic enough to join the cheerleaders, the answer would pop into your head?” Ray inquired, in the absolute worst attempt to sound casual I’d ever heard.

Claire was as shocked as I was and squeaked, “Ray!”

My own voice spiked. “That would be cheating, Ray!”

“Cheating who? How? She’ll attend practice. She’s not doing this to win a competition. Does it matter how she gets in shape, if she really is in shape by tomorrow morning?” He didn’t sound the slightest bit guilty, and he stared at me really hard, like I was the one who had to be convinced to do the right thing!

“Yes, it does. It’s like taking steroids!”

That ought to have ended it, but he was ready for that argument. “No, steroids are banned because they’re unhealthy. If vitamins were that effective, no one would care. I know you wouldn’t give her something that would poison her like that.”

No, I wouldn’t. Anyway, it wouldn’t be steroids. They were so inefficient. Everything came down to the quality of her muscle fibers and the nerve…

“I can see it. It would be so easy. Why hasn’t anyone done this already?” The wonder in my own voice recovered my focus. I gave my head a shake.

Claire’s hand settled on my shoulder. “I agree with Ray. It’s not wrong; it just sounds wrong.”

“What?” I asked, looking up at her. I could barely see her. Chemicals drifted in my head.

Had I ever seen Claire look shy, before? “Can you really do it? Just get me into shape so they won’t have an excuse to turn me down? Nothing more?”

“Easy, Claire. Easy! There’s only one big chemical, and it wants to be made. Everything I need is in… is in that fruit basket!” I clenched my fists to stop myself from grabbing The Machine.

She leaned in, resting her forehead against mine, our glasses clinking together. Very softly, she said, “Then let me worry if it’s right or wrong. Do this for me. Please?”

I stirred the metal bowl very gently. I shouldn’t have used metal, but the contaminants wouldn’t make a difference.

Oops. I’d blacked out again.

“How much time did I lose?” I asked cautiously. I didn’t feel exhausted, so that was a good sign.

“Not much. Less than an hour. It only took that long because you said the chemicals had to mix slowly,” Claire answered. I looked back in time to see the hungry expression on her face. “Is that it?”

“Yeah. It’s stronger than you wanted, but that’s the only way it works. It’s funny, because, you know, supervillains try to make this stuff all the time, but they keep trying to make soldiers. They design it to make people more aggressive, better fighters, and that always goes wrong. If they just tried to give you better muscle tone and stuff, it works. So I’m calling it the Super Cheerleader Serum. Do I sound drunk?” I had to tack on the last, because I sounded drunk to me. Drunk on pride, maybe. Like creating life, this was another milestone every super-powered scientist went through, but mine would work because I hadn’t overreached.

Claire reached out and took the bowl gingerly in both hands. “So I just drink this?”

The image in my brain objected. “No! This is way too much. Here.” That plastic bottle cap would do. I poured just enough in, and set the bowl down on the table. “That much. About a milliliter.” I knew because…

The picture in my head was gone. I let out my breath heavily and leaned against the bench. “It’s up to you if you want to drink it.”

Claire grabbed me suddenly, yanking me up onto my feet and giving me a tight hug. “You are the best friend I could have, do you know that?” she whispered into my ear.

“Say that after you’ve tried it,” I warned her. Now I was tired. Not in a muscle ache way, just drained.

She let go of me, picked up the bottle cap, and drank it. That fast, with no ceremony.

I stared at her. So did Ray.

“I can feel it. It tingles! No, it stopped. Um,” Claire reported, staring at nothing. She stepped away from the table, took another long step, stretched out her arms, and did a lazy cartwheel. She let out a loud giggle, turned, and took two much faster steps, then jumped up and did a front flip in mid-air, landing heavily on her sneakers. She wobbled, but didn’t fall.

“It—” I started to say.

I didn’t get the chance. Claire sprinted across the room and yanked me up off the floor, arms squeezing me tight as she spun me around. Ow. She was stronger, all right!

“You are the best friend I could ever have, Penny! I wonder what more of the serum would have done?” she crowed, while I got dizzy from the spinning.

Ray picked up the cue. “Only one way to find out.”

Claire put me down, hopefully to tell him that she wasn’t going to take more. Instead, we watched Ray lift the bowl and drink the whole thing in three swallows.

Holy carp.

“Ray, that’s dangerous!” I squeaked.

“I’m sure it’s fine,” he snorted, setting the bowl down. Then he grabbed his shoulders, and his voice turned hoarse. “Did you say it tingled? Because my muscles are burning!”

“Ray!” I bolted a step toward him, only to be met with raised hands.

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding! It only works on Claire. You talk to yourself while you work,” he assured me with a huge, sly grin.

I punched him in the shoulder. Hard. Of course, I personally have the muscle tone of a plate of spaghetti noodles, and I winced more than he did. “You idiot. It wasn’t funny this time!”

His grin didn’t falter. “Claire, who’s your best friend?” he asked over my shoulder.

“Penny is!” Claire let out a squeal, and I got yanked off the ground and hugged from behind again. Then she let me go and started cartwheeling around the room in circles.

The Super Cheerleader Serum was a success. Could I make some for myself?

Apparently not. Nothing popped into my head. Maybe the super brain didn’t like repeating itself.

Friday.

It had been quite a week. I ate breakfast in silence and lurked in the seat of Mom’s car. I was looking forward to a quiet day, and then the weekend. Maybe I’d talk to Ray and Claire about skipping out on rebuilding the lair this afternoon. We could go shopping instead, or get in a few games of Teddy Bears And Machine Guns, or both. There had to be one day this week without a major life event.

That quiet feeling lasted right up until German class, when the bell rang to start and Claire wasn’t in her seat. Sure, she liked to be fashionably late, but not tardy. Not that I had any reason to suspect that something was wrong, except that when last I saw her I’d fed her an unidentified mutagen produced in a fugue state by a child with still-developing super powers. And she hadn’t been online last night.

My growing panic must have been obvious. Frau Donsky looked straight at me and said, “Fraulein Lutra will be joining us late, if at all. It seems the cheerleaders are holding a last minute tryout, and the principal feels this is more important than mere academics.”

I melted into my chair. Not only was Claire okay, the Super Cheerleader Serum must have worked spectacularly. I still wasn’t sure it had been the right thing to do, but I wasn’t sure it was the wrong thing to do, and either way it was done. If it was done, I was glad I’d done it well.

She showed up for Science class, scooting in right before the bell like usual and setting up beside me as we listened to Mr. Zwelf tell us about solvents and disassociation and polarity, with a lengthy discourse on how water was just plain weird. I knew he was right because my super power kept distracting me with inspirations more like hints than images.

Neither distraction kept me from noticing Claire’s expression. She wasn’t smiling like I’d have expected, but she didn’t look depressed. She half focused on Mr. Zwelf, sitting up and leaning just a little forward in her seat with a distracted and thoughtful air. Even the crossed ankles added to the effect. If she’d propped her elbow on the work table, someone could have carved The Girly Thinker.

Mr. Zwelf set us to measuring how much salt and sugar dissolved in water. I measured a beaker and then the salt added to the beaker, and wrote it all down, and asked Claire under my breath, “Marcia found a way to turn you down, didn’t she?”

“Not exactly,” Claire hedged.

“Come on, spill,” Ray whispered, sliding down the bench.

I grabbed the beaker he’d been spinning on the tip of a finger and scolded him, “You’re the one who’s going to spill everything. If you break that, Mr. Zwelf will split us up!”

He immediately looked sheepish. “Sorry. Claire was saying?”

Right. I looked back at Claire. I gave her my sharpest look. She gave me back a pout, lips slightly pursed, blue eyes staring at me from behind glasses that magnified them hugely. If she wanted to get out of talking about it this badly, maybe I shouldn’t have pressed.

“I thought everything was going fine. The girls were all over me, and I could do anything. I had to tone it down because I was worried they’d get suspicious. Marcia was fine; she wasn’t catty or anything. I thought I was a shoo-in, but then I asked if I was on the team, and they said I should be the mascot. Mascot, mascot, mascot, over and over, it was all they would talk about!” Lifting her glasses, she put her hand over her eyes.

I wanted to give her my sympathy. I did. I really did. It’s just that I could see it. Claire, skin painted blue, with that bouncy fake tail and the big fuzzy ears and the fake paws, prancing around the sides of a basketball court with all of her strutting and attitude.

I put my fists in front of my mouth, but I couldn’t hide it. I started to giggle. “That would be perfect!”

“Penny!” she squeaked, looking so cross with her eyebrows jammed together.

“It would! You’d be so good at it, Claire! Wouldn’t she look great in the mascot costume, Ray?”

He grinned hugely. He could see it, too. “She would. They’d stop the game so she could give everyone the look she’s got right now. I mean it, Claire. We’re not kidding you. You’d be adorable.”

She so would. Even Ray thought so, and his reaction to Claire in a costume that showed off that much skin should have included a lot more drooling.

Wait.

I looked back at Claire. She folded her arms over her chest and gave me the most perfectly put-upon glare. I couldn’t stop giggling, but I managed to squeak, “Claire, can you turn it down?”

“It?” she echoed. She almost got what I meant, because she looked all confused and thoughtful again.

“Your power. Can you turn it off?” I locked my jaws together to avoid telling her how much I was enjoying seeing her like this, because I totally was, but she’d rather I think clearly, wouldn’t she?

Claire’s eyes flickered. She took a very deep breath, and, if I’d needed any further proof, Ray giggling instead of fainting gave it to me. Then she exhaled slowly and deliberately, and, as she relaxed, so did I.

All the other kids in class turned back to their experiments. Thank goodness we weren’t doing anything with open flames.

“Is it turned off now, or is it just my imagination?” she asked, slow and cautious.

I checked. She’d look good in the mascot costume, sure, but she’d have been happier as a cheerleader. That sounded like a rational opinion, didn’t it? “It is.”

Awkwardly, Claire leaned closer and whispered, “Penny, I’m pretty sure you don’t feel ‘that way’ about me, so if I’m not clouding men’s minds with lust…?”

“I’d say you cloud everyone’s mind with cuteness.”

Claire’s mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything. Ray filled in the silence by leaning forward and asking, “So Claire, whose Super Cheerleader Serum activated your super powers?”

It hit her. I could see it hit her as her eyes widened. And then she hit me with her whole body, yanking me off my feet and hugging me again. “Eeee! Penny! My best friend Penny! I have super powers!” she squealed at the top of her lungs.