Sidekicked (6 page)

Mr. Masters puts a hand on my shoulder. You don't realize how tall some people are until they put their hand on your shoulder and you realize you can probably fit snugly under their armpit. I can smell the vinegar on his breath.

“That's not it,” he says, “though I do think leaving a bandolier full of chemical weapons in your locker violates the school's zero tolerance policy. But believe it or not, this isn't even really about you.”

The OCs. Somehow I put them in danger. Here comes the speech about the public good. “I know. I should be more careful. People could get hurt,” I say, shrugging my shoulders, hoping his hand might slip off, but he just grips it tighter.

“No, really, I mean it.
It isn't about you
,” he says carefully, his Lurch-like eyes boring into mine, wrinkles lining up along his sloped and shiny forehead.

Mr. Masters is talking about
him
. About my hero.

He seems to scramble for the right words. “He's going through . . . how best to put this . . . a kind of
identity
thing. But I want you to know that I've asked the other Supers to keep an eye on you.”

Like the Fox.

“I don't need a babysitter,” I say, with less conviction than I would have liked. That earns me the raised eyebrow again.

“We all need saving every once in a while,” he says.

I nod. Hard to argue given yesterday's whole pool/acid/dangling/bumblebee thing

“He'll come around eventually,” Mr. Masters adds.

“I know,” I say, though I'm sure Mr. Masters can see right through me. If he does, he doesn't call me on it. Believe it or not, there's nothing in either the sidekick or the superhero code about lying. There can't be. Superheroes lie all the time. It's the cost of doing business in our line of work.

Still, there is nothing Mr. Masters can say that will convince me that the man who is supposedly my Super will ever save me from anything. Not anymore.

“Just be patient,” Masters says, trying hard to smile and failing miserably. “And work on your listening skills.” Then he turns and heads for his office and I duck into my room, thinking that “Be patient” should definitely be part of the Code. Rule number five, I guess. Alongside “Don't panic,” “Don't leave your utility belt in your locker,” and “Stay away from people dressed up like insects.”

But what do I know?

I spend the last hour of H.E.R.O. training in a fog, allegedly practicing my surveillance techniques, listening to snippets of conversations taking place on the floors of the school above me. Normally this is a favorite exercise of mine, as Mr. Masters pretty much gives me permission to eavesdrop on anyone, even the other teachers. “Especially the teachers,” he sometimes says. It's how I found out that Debbie Mansfield has a crush on Steven Eldred, which is unfortunate since Steve has a crush on Mark Fizer. It's how I found out that Eli Cummings, our former resident computer nerd, was hacking through the school's internet security system and then charging guys five dollars apiece to sneak into the computer lab during lunch to play Call of Duty.

It's also how I found out that Margaret Sabo thought I was “kinda cute.” I couldn't return the compliment, of course—I wasn't supposed to know—but it was nice to hear, even if it was followed by Caitlin Brown's comment of “Seriously? Beanhead?
Seriously?
”

But today I'm not interested in spy work. I just sit there, thinking about yesterday, and Jenna and me dangling on that line, and how there was absolutely nothing I could have done to save myself or her. I wonder what it would take to get him to show. Wonder if he even knew I was in trouble. Or if he cared.

The alarm in my soundproof room rings. In ten minutes, classes will be released for sixth period, and we all have to make it up and out of the teachers' lounge before the classrooms vomit students into the halls.

As I walk out, I see Gavin hand Jenna a towel to wipe her face with. They were both battling laser-blasting androids. I can smell the heat from the scorch marks on the walls of their training rooms. He wraps the towel around his neck and flexes just so his biceps will bulge through his shirt. I didn't know seventh graders had biceps. I thought we didn't get them until high school, when they were passed out with shaving cream and pamphlets telling us to say no to drugs. I can't help but wonder if I haven't been fooling myself the past year or so. Maybe biceps are a requirement for being a sidekick. If so, I still have a lot of work to do.

Eric stands next to me and follows my gaze.

Box of rocks
, he signs. As in,
dumb as a
. As in, don't worry about Gavin McAllister. He's not worth your time.

“Easy for you to say,” I say, turning so he can read my lips better. “You know kung fu.”

Eric shrugs, conceding the point, then punches me playfully on the shoulder, which actually hurts, though I resist the impulse to rub it because Gavin's looking in my direction. We all head up the stairs.

As I leave, I glance back at Mr. Masters, who is looking after us, hands clasped in front of him as if in prayer. I think about what he said, about bad guys targeting sidekicks to get at their Supers. What if he was right? What if there was someone out there who wanted a shot at the Titan and somehow knew who I was and that he and I were connected?

As soon as I think it, I snort. If anyone out there is thinking about using me to get at
my
Super, they are going to be sorely disappointed.

I
suppose you'll want to hear about where I come from, and where I got my powers, and what radioactive bug I was bitten by, and all of that junk. You'll want to know that my father was a researcher for a top-secret government program studying the properties of dark matter or that my mother was really an Amazon princess blessed with godlike powers. But the truth is, my father is an accountant—not a fake accountant masquerading as a costumed vigilante, but a real honest-to-god, dull-as-a-dictionary accountant with a closet full of white shirts and a carefully managed pension. My mother is an aide at Brookview Elementary—an aide because she got pregnant with me while in college and never finished her teaching degree. Neither of them has any superpowers, unless you count my father's ability to calculate tips instantly or my mother's uncanny ability to forget I'm not four anymore, sometimes still wiping the corner of my mouth with a napkin damp with her own spit the way she did when I was a toddler.

The truth is, I was born the way I am, without gamma rays, without cosmic intervention, without a flashback episode explaining my secret origins. I was born with a condition—doctors were careful to call it a condition and not a disease—called
hypersensatia
, which basically just allows me to see and smell and hear things better than most people. And when I say most people, I mean better than six
billion
other people. In fact, there are apparently fewer than five hundred people who have this condition, and none of them to the same extent as me. That makes me special, I suppose, though I prefer to think of myself as one of a kind.

My parents know about my condition, of course. There's no way they couldn't. I spent most of the first twelve months of my life screaming my head off and breaking out in rashes. The doctors thought I was allergic to just about everything. Perfume, pollen, lotion, bubble bath, strawberries, sugar, nuts, milk, wheat, laundry detergent, polyester, plastic, dogs barking, you name it. They thought I was photophobic—afraid of bright lights—and ligyrophobic—afraid of loud sounds. As the appointments continued, I was wrongly diagnosed with all kinds of phobias: cheimatophobia (cold), chiraptophobia (touch), chromatophobia (color)—just to name the Cs. Pediatricians turned to specialists, who turned to even more highly specialized specialists, and I spent most of my first three years undergoing one test after another while my parents turned their house into a quarantined safe zone, complete with special air filters, noise-reducing insulation, and allergen-free everything. For the next two years they ate like prisoners of war, eschewing foods with sharp odors, cleaning with unscented dish soaps, muting the television and watching it with closed captioning while I slept.

I made their lives incredibly difficult, until they were referred to a neurologist named Dr. Avian, who finally made the correct diagnosis. He ran a few tests and kept saying the word
extraordinary
a lot. When he was finished, he said that I was an absolutely remarkable human being and that my parents should be very proud.

He was the first doctor to tell them that. He then gave me some specially designed earplugs and a pair of sunglasses that I could wear to dampen the effects of sound and light until I learned to control my senses. He told my parents that my acute senses were actually a blessing, provided I could learn to manage them. That they might even come in handy someday.

And from the age of five, I worked with Dr. Avian to do just that. He taught how to dampen my senses—to shut everything out—and how to concentrate and heighten one sense at the expense of another, so that I could close my eyes and hear the sound of a mosquito's wings or smell an apple orchard from five miles away. When I was ten, Dr. Avian told me that if I concentrated hard enough, if I focused my senses to pinpoint accuracy, I would be able to hear and see things that no one else had ever experienced. But as he said this, I could smell the bit of tuna sandwich that was caught in his teeth from lunch, and I didn't exactly jump at the idea.

I did learn to control the intensity of my senses, though. Touch was not a problem, as my sense of touch is only a little above normal, making me more ticklish than most people and causing me to avoid wool like the plague, but not as intense as the others. Sight, sound, and smell (and by virtue of the latter, taste) were trickier. I learned to block out most of the input, managing to override the overload. At night I would stay awake and count the crickets or listen to the chatter of the chipmunks in the tree trunk of the neighbors' yard. I would wake up to the smell of coffee—which my parents refused to give up drinking—and would try to identify what kind of cereal my dad was eating based on the crunch it made.

And I grew up feeling helpless. Because for all I could see and hear and smell, I could do almost nothing about it. I couldn't hit a baseball to save my life, though I could count the stitches in it as it missed my bat. I never learned how to play the piano, though I could hear my friend Angie Mathers practicing her scales a block away. And the night I woke up to the acrid smell of gas, I was still too late to prevent our neighbors' house on the next street over from burning down. My only consolation was that the Tomlinsons were away for the weekend, so no one was hurt.

Lots of things have happened that I could do nothing about.

When I talked to Dr. Avian about this, he told me that every gift has a price. I asked him if I could get my money back. That I wanted it to be
good
for something besides making me feel helpless all the time. He replied that he knew of a way, but that it wouldn't be easy. It would require an intense commitment and the ability to keep a secret, even from my parents.

He asked me if I ever dreamed of being a hero. Not one of those once-in-a-lifetime, baby-drowning-in-a-river, bystander-turned-savior types, but a real hero.

He asked me if I believed in the forces of light, sworn to forever battle the forces of darkness.

He asked me if I was ashamed to wear tights.

I told him yes, yes, and maybe a little, but that I would if I had to.

And that's when he introduced me to Mr. Masters. Mr. Masters, whose shiny skull gleamed like a buffed bowling ball. Mr. Masters, who told me about the vast network of superheroes stretched across the globe, fighting evil wherever it raised its ugly head. Who told me of the need for some of those Supers to have sidekicks, and for those sidekicks to learn as much as possible from their mentors, so that they could one day become Supers themselves.

And Mr. Masters, who ran a program, specially designed to train those sidekicks, that just happened to be in the basement of a local middle school.

I'm not sure how they knew each other—though, later, learning that the good doctor spent his evenings turning himself into a bird and soaring over the city offered some explanation—but Dr. Avian told me I could trust Mr. Masters. That the program would do me good. It would not only help me to control my powers even more but would provide me with a sense of purpose.

I told him to floss more often.

Once I was in the program, Mr. Masters took over my training, though he was a little skeptical at first. After all, most of the kids he had worked with before could shoot heat beams from their eyes or had titanium-reinforced skeletons or human growth hormone XKY that let them triple their size. Mr. Masters had already helped train half a dozen sidekicks and sent them out to serve the forces of “goodness and light.” When he met me, Mr. Masters wasn't sure what I was good for. Or who I would be good with.

I spent several months in training before I was even assigned to a mentor. He needed to find just the right Super, he said. Someone who could best complement my own special set of skills.

In other words, a Super who could do most of his own butt kicking and didn't really
need
a sidekick.

What Mr. Masters didn't know—or didn't admit to, at least—was that my mentor, my Super, my
hero
, not only didn't need a sidekick. . . .

He didn't want one, either.

N
o one ever thinks anything strange about a superhero without a sidekick. In fact, most Supers choose to go completely solo or join teams of equals, just like most sidekicks eventually turn out to be Supers. The annals are full of Supers banding together to form legions and leagues, like OCs with their poker nights and book clubs. The Legion of Justice is probably the most famous, of course. And the Eradicators, back in the day. And Los Luchadores. Some heroes timeshare, like Helios and Nocturne, who conveniently split day and evening shifts on account of one is solar powered and the other is half vampire. Others just get married, like Mr. and Mrs. Magnificent—though my good friend and fellow H.E.R.O. member Mike says that well over half of all Superhero marriages end in divorce, so that's probably not the best example.