Super Nobody (Alphas and Omegas Book 1) (15 page)

“Don't you have a trip to pack for?” his
mother asked.

Michael's father stared at her for a long
time. Then, finally, he looked at the floor and muttered something
under his breath. He left the room silently, face red and eyes
down.

Michael wanted to think about this
conversation, but shopping around Thanksgiving time was always one
of those things that melted every other thought out of his head. He
said goodby to his dad and let his mother fuss him around until he
was ready to head out. The atmosphere in the minivan was strained,
but Michael put up with his.

His mother let him run around the store just
as long as he was back at the registers when she beeped him on his
phone. So he went to bounce a basketball around the sports
department for a while, then stared at all the video games he
wanted to play and knew he didn't want to play, because they would
suck away his reading time. Then he checked out some action
figures, though he was getting too big for them. He stared at the
Alphas for a long time.

There was Ginger, a red-headed, freckly
figure, twelve inches tall and surrounded by a halo of light. The
figure lit up from the inside, which made her look transparent. In
real life, she could make light, or even blast somebody with
it.

Next to Ginger was Stone, a smoother, happier
and squarer-jawed version of Michael's father, who was a lot like
the old Superman comics, if you could still find them. He had a
dozen different hands, because the real Stone could turn into
whatever he touched. There was a fire hand, a water hand, cement,
steel, and one that was transparent and supposed to be air.

He looked over the others, Rajasthan and
McKorsky, Shadwell, and Kravenz, and wondered if any of them lived
in his town. Were these people walking around shopping at the local
Kmart right now? Whenever you saw them on TV, there was always some
sort of computer generated distortion, like automatic makeup
effects or a digital mask. The real Stone or McKorsky might not
look anything like these figures. Rajasthan might be a big fat guy,
or Kravens might be ugly and scarred.

Well, his mother was going to buy him
something. He could go for a new bike or a pair of sidewinder
skates or a cheap tablet, but he really wanted to have Stone
standing watch over him right now. Or maybe Ginger. She looked a
bit like Lily, if Lily got a bunch of freckles and dyed her hair
bright red. He could use a little super in his life, and a little
less Active. Besides, he could stuff Charlotte's notes (real or
forged) into Stone's real cotton shirt (complete with tiny pockets
that wouldn't hold a button).

He was looking at the different hands when
his mother rolled by, backed up, and then came up the toy aisle
after him. She frowned down at Stone, and Michael knew he’d done
something bad.

“What's the matter?” he asked.

“This is what you want?” she asked. “A
doll?”

“It's not a doll mom,” he said. “Sheesh. It's
an action figure.”

“What sort of actions does it do?”

He just rolled his eyes at her.

“Well, I promised,” she conceded. “You could
buy whatever you want.”

That was a challenge and he knew it. Well,
the way things were going, with them keeping things from him, he
wasn't going to back down. Besides, he didn’t want Stone to play
with it. He had another idea in mind for the fully-poseable figure
with its 43 points of articulation and fabric clothing. He stuck it
out and popped Stone into the loaded shopping cart.

“But I told you I'd ask you to do something,”
his mother said kindly. She didn't say things kindly. It was like a
full-grown tiger purring. “And I don't want you to get mad at me,
okay? I told you we could write to Charlotte, and maybe we'll get
word back from her.”

“Oh...kay.”

“But you can't be going over to her house to
look for her. When she's healthy again, and ready to see you, she
will come back, and you'll see her then. But you can't go looking
for her.”

“But-”

“I know,” she said, “Charlotte's your only
friend, but you have to think about her right now. What's good for
Charlotte? I think we can agree that we should do what's best for
her, since she's not healthy right now, don't you?”

“I...guess.”

“I guess too. So let's leave her in peace,
and you'll see her again before you know it.”

In peace. That sounded odd.

There was no normal when it came to grocery
shopping. His mother usually bought light when his father was off
on one of his trips, but when he came back, she bought a ridiculous
amount of food: steaks, potatoes for mashing, fruits and
vegetables, baby back ribs. It was always pig out time when his dad
came home.

That day the shopping cart was completely
overloaded. Stone nearly slid off the mountain of bagged fruit and
vegetables and boxes of cereal and jars of peanut butter and
whatnot.

“What's going on mom?”

“Hm?”

“This is a lot.” He swept his hand over the
smorgasbord.

“Your father's been complaining he keeps
going to bed hungry,” she explained, then went on to herself.
“Should be a little more worried about getting a beer gut.”

Back at home, he helped unload the groceries,
which involved trucking most of the groceries down to the basement
where they kept a pantry that was practically a panic room. It was
stuffed so full that sometimes he had to set stuff on the floor,
because there weren't any shelves left. After that, he pretended to
go out to the porch for something, and came back with the notes. He
stuffed them into Stone's shirt, and partway down his pants. Then
he put on a pair of concrete hands and posed him on top of his
dresser, like Stone was ready to smash something.

The school announced there wouldn't be any
classes until LADCEMS could be fixed up right and proper again.
They estimated that school would be ready again just after
Thanksgiving break. That gave them an extra week free, but nothing
is ever truly free. The note promised that an extra week would be
tacked onto the end of the year, which was very lame.

Michael's mother told him, since she couldn't
just leave him in the house alone, that he could help her with the
Christmas shopping. He was okay with that; it meant he had plenty
of time to read in the car and walking around. His mother was
amazed that he didn't even go tearing after all the new toys in the
toy section, or head straight for the video game stores in the
mall.

He shrugged. “Maybe I'll listen to some
music.”

But he stuck close to her, and they made
their slow way around the mall. Lunch was a taco salad from the
food court, while Susanna ate a custom built sandwich full of weird
stuff like wheat grass and bean sprouts. Sandwiches were supposed
to be lunchmeat pink or lunchmeat gray with cheese yellow, not
green and orange and pink and cabbage purple.

Finally they headed toward the Macy's, where
a short line of early Christmas-wishers were waiting to have their
turn with Santa. When the big white and red fellow looked up, he
gave a hearty 'ho, ho, ho' and waved at Michael.

“Hmm,” his mother said. “Maybe you should go
have a word with him.”

“Mo-om. I'm not eight anymore.”

“Too big for wishes are you? Well I sincerely
hope not. Now go on, at least we can get a picture. You don't have
to say anything, just for me okay?”

He dredged up a huge sigh. Once her mind was
on something, there was no nay-saying. His father knew this
already, and did whatever Susanna Washington asked, right off.

The mall had gone all out for the Christmas
décor. An entire sleigh stood nearest them, with six reindeer
staring off into the sky. Fake snow twinkled all over the ground,
and a huge fake tree had been smothered with lights and baubles of
every shape and color. At the top stood a permanently happy angel,
just about to play his little harp thing. There was a striped
barber pole not far from Santa's tiny house, which didn't look like
it could even fit a twin size bed. Atop the enormous candy cane, a
fake snow-covered sign read NORTH POLE. Several elves moved back
and forth, explaining the deal to the kids and their parents as
they waited. A couple of others helped children get to and from
Santa, in whatever state they came. Several were dragged, kicking
and screaming, not away from him, but
to
him. Michael
grinned at the sight.

He joined the line and went through a few
more pages of something called
Eldest,
which was about a boy
who found a dragon egg. It was really old, but Lily had recommended
the series. He had to admit, for a boy of seventeen to have written
the first book, a 900 page whopper, that was pretty amazing. Though
it definitely wasn't the
Lord of the Rings,
the second book
was getting even better.

By the time he looked up again, he was
standing at the stairs and Santa's elves were ushering off a five
or six year old girl dressed all in pink, a space cadet who was
telling the elf that she hadn't gotten through her entire Christmas
list. She still wanted some Cinnamaroll shoes, and a diary to keep
all her memories forever, and a new lunch box, and...oh yeah, a
pony.

Michael shook his head and told himself it
wouldn't be long, just get it over with.

“Ho ho ho!” Santa said. “Come on up here son,
have a seat.”

He did.

“Now...what would you like for Christmas? I
hear BB guns and bicycles are popular this year.”

He wasn't sure what made him say it. He
hadn't planned on telling Santa a single thing beyond 'ah, I'm
cool', but what came out was, “I just want to see my friend again.
Her name's Charlotte.” I think she's in trouble, he thought.

“Well son, I've got a message from
Charlotte,” Santa told him.

“What?”

“Look over here Michael!” his mother
called.

“In the note you got. The numbers are her
locker com.”

He stared at Santa, but he was a middle-aged
guy who smelled a little like sweat, with a big fake beard smashed
onto his face. He couldn't know. But then again...this town was
full of Actives. Over a hundred, Springfield had told him. What he
couldn't figure out was why he was trusting this one.

“I know...I opened it. I got a note, but it
was fake. They took the real one.”

“Michael! Over here.”

“Hm. That's a tough one then,” Santa said. He
sounded disappointed but not really surprised. “Well, she'll get
you something. But she wants you to keep an eye open. Don't forget
about her.”

He looked up at his mom and smiled. Santa did
too. He was sure it was a good one.

Whatever Santa knew, and however he got his
information, Michael couldn't talk to him anymore. The elves
ushered him away, and so did his mother. She was intent on buying
something for his dad, and it soon became clear she was bent on
buying the worst sweater she could find.

“So,” she said later, “How was Santa?” She
was busy with a sweater that was shedding itself all over the store
floor. It had fuzzy eyelash things everywhere, green with silver
glints all over it. It was the color of puke.

“Hm?” he said. His mind raced. He tried to
figure out whether she could have heard. No, he decided.

“Santa? Big guy with the white beard and the
sore leg from all the kids sitting on his lap. Did you have a nice
chat?”

She'd heard something.

“Oh yeah,” he said. “I just told him I didn't
really want anything. I just wanted to see Charlotte again.” He
watched for her reaction, and wasn't disappointed.

“Ah,” she said, and that was the end of the
conversation. From the murder in her eyes, and the way she was
tearing through the sweaters now, she wasn't happy about his
Christmas wish, but he didn't believe she knew anything about the
notes, real or fake. She finally settled on a sweater, a big
periwinkle and red and mustard yellow monstrosity with a diamond
pattern he wouldn't use as a blanket if he was freezing to
death.

That was okay. Michael was just at the part
where the hero got betrayed by the one guy he helped out. It was
one of those parts of the book he couldn't read fast enough, and he
had to stop himself to slow down a lot, so he didn't miss
something. At the same time, he had to read faster, faster, faster,
to know what was going to happen.

He felt like that too, only about his real
life. When they got close to the Santa setup again, he was tempted
to ask his mother if he could go line up again, but two things
stopped him. The first was his mother's face: cloudy with a chance
of hurricane. The second was the fact that Santa was gone.

But he was walking on hot coals just to see
what was going to happen next.

Santa Claus was an Active. There was no other
explanation. Michael, for once, couldn't focus on his e-reader. He
kept trying to understand what the Santa guy and Jared McClaren had
in common. Maybe, he thought, Charlotte and Jared were in the same
place and had some way of communicating. He could see Jared, at
least one of the Jareds, getting out of any sort of prison. He
could have a riot all on his own, at least. Or he could dig a
tunnel a hundred times faster than anyone else.

So maybe he escaped, and when he did he
passed a message on from Charlotte. As a favor maybe. So that left
Santa. Was he a prison guard wherever they had Charlotte? Or maybe
he was an Active friend who also escaped.

Thinking about it didn't get him anywhere
fast. He just lay on his bed, unable to really get the third book
of Eragon moving. It was a million pages long anyway. He could
almost feel it weighing him down, pressing on his shoulders.

Thanksgiving break ended, and he returned to
a completely healed school. It was like nobody had split the school
open with their own personal psychic earthquake generator. From the
foundation to the roof, it had only taken them a week to put Humpty
Dumpty back together again.