Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain (19 page)

She hit hard enough to stun, but no more. As I walked toward her, she lurched up – and couldn’t move. I’d poured a lot of power into her, and it worked. Everywhere her body touched the wall and floor was stuck. In that awkward rag-doll position she couldn’t even get leverage.

I lifted my air cannon and slid the focus back up. I kept walking as Marcia clenched her teeth and glared hate at me, but no matter how she tensed up she couldn’t move. I lowered the barrel of my cannon and pointed it at her face.

“You’ve figured it out, right? We sprang your silly little trap for fun. I only wish you’d been smart enough to bring help. Three against one, this wasn’t even a fight.” My own voice sounded giddy and glib in my ears. The visor on my helmet zoomed in on her face as I focused. Yes, that was Marcia, and, in a close up, I could see her trembling. Whether with anger of fear, it didn’t matter. No one deserved this more.

I shrugged, turning away from her. “I suppose it doesn’t matter how easy it was. We’ve made our statement. Congratulations, Miss A. Maybe one day you’ll tell your grandchildren that you were the first to fall to The Inscrutable Machine! HA! HA HA HA!” I couldn’t help it. Fake laughter became real laughter, bubbling up inside me. “AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!”

I braced a boot against a display table and shoved it over. Photos and carefully light stained papers flew. I kicked another table out of the way. “But I don’t want you to feel you lost for nothing,” I called back. “We’ll fulfill our half of the bargain and trash the place. In fact…”

I bent forward, pretending to read my own display. The Machine curled up eagerly as I reached out for it. Still active. I laughed. “Oh yes, I love the irony. Let’s see how well this thing works.” I closed my fist around The Machine, but only long enough to toss it lightly across the row at another table. “Eat. Recycle the entire room.”

The Machine dug in, crunching up metal plates and rulers, and then wood and the metal lining of the table. By the time the table broke and fell over, The Machine was the size of a dog, and snapped up the remains in big gulps.

“HA HA HA! So much for the daughters of superheroes!” I crowed

“We’re done here,” I called out to Claire and Ray. Claire giggled, and Ray tipped his hat at Marcia with a sneer. I walked out through a side door—a side door without a handle to keep it closed. Only I had taken the easy route tonight.

When the door swung shut behind us, I whispered to Ray and Claire, “Split up. We have to get out of here.”

Ray leaned in close, showing me his toothy smile under the mask, and whispered. “You’re a wonderful friend, and an even better supervillain.” He didn’t give me time to react. He turned and ran. Ran fast. He was around the corner of the school and racing up the street in seconds.

Then Claire threw her arms around my neck and squeezed the breath out of me. “That was so amazing! We can’t talk now!” Then she ran away, too. Not as fast, but she could run just fine in those ridiculous pajamas. Without running out of breath, either. I wanted some Super Cheerleader Serum!

I’d collapse if I tried to run, but I jogged over to the elevator of the lab. I started stripping off my jumpsuit before the elevator hit bottom, struggled into my clothes, dragged my bike back out, and pushed open the doors again.

No one around. No sound of sirens, no visible signs of trouble. I locked the elevator doors, got on my bike, and pedaled as fast and as hard as I could.

No one chased me. By the time I got home my lungs hurt and my legs wobbled, but I crawled back in the window to find my door still locked and the game video still playing. It had hardly been any time. I turned off my computer, flicked off the lights, and fell into bed.

I didn’t get to sleep through the night. Quiet scratching and rattling woke me. I sat up. The Machine was shuffling around outside the window. It had vomited up its cargo somewhere and returned to normal size.

Automatically, I pried the window up and fastened The Machine into place around my wrist where it belonged. A little more weight lifted off my heart. I’d hated leaving him behind.

Then I about jumped out of my skin as someone knocked on my bedroom door.

“Pumpkin? I’m sure you’ll think this is good news, but there’s no school tomorrow. Talk is that they may go straight to Christmas break,” Dad’s muffled voice informed me.

My body went cold and my heart seized up again. This was it. Someone had found out. Hope and playing innocent were the only cards I had now. I swung tiredly out of bed, shambled over to the door, and opened it enough to peek out. “Something happened, didn’t it? Something happened to the school. I know it did, because The Machine came back,” I told him, holding up my wrist. I couldn’t keep my voice from fluttering.

Dad looked down at me with his most gentle and concerned frown. “No one was hurt, and the structural damage will be fixed by New Year, but, yes, something happened. Supervillains attacked your science fair. Supervillains your age.”

I stared up at him helplessly. He pushed the door open and bent down to put his arms around me, hugging me to him tenderly. “Your invention came back because they used it to eat the whole science fair. Don’t worry, Princess. That’s all they did to it. I’ve seen the security tape. They weren’t after it, or you. It had nothing to do with you. You’re safe. You’re completely safe. Okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered back as my body went limp. We’d gotten away with it. No one knew I was a supervillain.

o all superheroes—okay, supervillains—sleep like the dead after a battle? I did. It helped that I got to sleep in, with there being no school and all. I was awake and had my hair washed by the time the nerves hit me again. I was a supervillain. I was in so much trouble if someone found out. Had I done anything to give myself away like Marcia had?

Forget that. What was this going to do to my superhero career? I could get this all straightened out somehow, but I’d have to work with Miss A eventually. She was unlikely to forgive being blasted with an air cannon. A gigantic ego like hers would hold onto the memory of tumbling helplessly through the air, smacking against the wall, and then being fastened to it like glue by super-science weapons with particularly ridiculous themes.

I had the best equipment. And now I couldn’t use them for real superheroing because they’d be too distinctive! Not the jumpsuit, either. I couldn’t even let anyone see that in the lab. What a mess.

My mood bounced up and down while I got dressed, and as I drifted into the kitchen my Dad completely misinterpreted it. Right out of nowhere, I got lifted off my feet and the life hugged out of me. “It’s okay, Pumpkin. This isn’t your business. The community will deal with it. You’ll have no shortage of villains to deal with when you’re a fully fledged superhero yourself.”

So, nobody had figured it out overnight. That was one weight off my shoulders. “I guess,” I non-answered as I plopped myself down into a kitchen chair. I felt enough relief to sniff the air, and I liked that sweet, buttery smell. Just as I identified it, Dad poured some pancake mix into a skillet and started frying it up.

Buttermilk pancakes. I blow holes in the school gym, humiliate a prominent sidekick, destroy the entire science fair, and force the school semester to end early. My punishment? Fresh buttermilk pancakes. That certainly took another level of sting out of my worries about last night.

The first stack landed on a plate in front of me. As I carefully applied butter and thick maple syrup to every layer, Dad suggested, “If your powers fully emerge before you finish high school, your Mom and I could find you a hero to teach you the ropes. Starting as a sidekick may seem like a joke, but no one is ready for their first super-powered battle.”

No kidding.

“We’ll have plenty of time to decide, honey, but I’d rather not,” Mom broke in, wandering into the kitchen. Her hair looked like an electrocuted badger. Since she didn’t have to take me to school, she must have decided to sleep in. As she grabbed a plate of pancakes for herself she explained, “Can you think of a single parent in the community who made their child become a sidekick that you’d want to be like? The Original is an—a jerk, and Miss A has obvious emotional problems. She should not have been there last night.” I smirked around my mouthful of gooey pancake as she restrained herself from swearing in front of me.

Dad was unruffled. “We’ll have to let Penelope decide. When the time comes. If there are more supervillains this young, it may be healthier to let them fight kids their own age.” Silence reigned for about three seconds before he failed to hold back a snorting laugh and added, “I can’t believe I just said that.”

“I can’t believe life gave you the chance,” Mom sighed more seriously.

At that point, my phone roared. “Hey, Penny, if you’re up, do you want to come over to my place?” Claire asked on the other end.

“Mom, Dad, can I go over to Claire’s?” I dutifully repeated.

“Yes,” they both answered together.

Dad seized the chance to follow up before Mom. “You have the day off school. We want you to go out and enjoy it.” You know, and not mope. Dad wasn’t subtle today.

“I’ll be there as soon as I finish breakfast,” I assured Claire.

First things first. I stuffed myself to bursting with pancakes.