Super Nobody (Alphas and Omegas Book 1) (7 page)

“Sorry about this!” she chuckled. “Total
opposites, these ones are. I'll be right back with you. Feel free
to come right on in.” She called as she disappeared back into the
house.

“Oh no, we couldn't-” Michael's mother said,
but he was already inside.

It was like someone had shot a toy-filled
missile at the place. There were action figures hanging from the
ceiling fans and vehicles peeking out of the potted plants. Michael
had to catch himself before he tripped on several balls, a NERF
gun, and finally some sort of castle playset that probably didn't
belong to any of the action figures, but had been taken over by
them anyway. Charlotte laughed and went over to scoop heaps of
Legos back into a huge plastic bin. Soothing jazz music drifted out
from somewhere in the distance.

“Sorry about the mess,” she said. “The twins
are little hurricanes. The property damage is somewhere in the
trillions.”

“Everyone's an artist, I see,” Mrs.
Washington said, eyeing some crayon artwork on the wallpaper. The
crayons had mostly been snapped in half and left where they could
be safely stepped on when coming in the door.

Charlotte laughed again, no trace of
nervousness. Michael felt his cheeks flame with embarrassment.
“They want to be just like their mom.”

There was more crying, even louder now. “Come
now,” Charlotte's mom said. “Enough of that now. You got no reason
to cry and you don't want me to give you one. I brought you in this
world, boy, and I tell you, it was painful. It's gonna be just as
painful taking you out.”

Michael watched his mother's face stay
carefully stony neutral, just taking in more and more and more
information as the seconds passed. He didn't even want to consider
what was going on in her head, or how many people she would call
about this just as soon as he and Charlotte stepped out of the car
to head into the gym. Susanna Washington, the gossip grenade.

Well, there wasn't much he could do about it,
except. “Mom, let's head out. We're gonna be late.”

“I haven't had a chance to talk to Mrs.
Sulzsko,” she said.

“She's pretty busy,” Michael said.

“She'll be out in a minute,” Charlotte told
them. “No problem.”

But she wasn't. The boy continued screaming,
and Charlotte's mom continued in her sweet death threats, reminding
him that if his brother woke up, he wasn't just going to die a nice
and painless death in his bed, she was going to string him up by
his big toes and poke him a million times so he couldn't sleep for
weeks. Then he'd die stark raving mad, and she'd make another one
just like him, only better behaved. She delivered all this as if
she were sharing a cinnamon roll recipe with an eager neighbor.

It must have been too much for Michael's mom,
because her lip started to twitch and Michael saw her folding her
hands together and wringing them. Finally, after another five
minutes of awkwardness and screaming, she broke.

“Maybe we should come back,” she said. “After
all, I'll need to pick you up when the Ball's over.”

“Sure!” Charlotte chirped, and bounded
towards the door. “Bye mom!”

“Bye honey!” came the reply, over the
screams. “Have a good time.”

Michael expected the questions to start
again, but his mom was mercifully silent the whole five minute
drive to LADCEMS. It was a thick, awkward blanket she threw over
them, but thankfully it was over as soon as he'd started to feel
really terrible for Charlotte. They arrived at the Ball.

Someone must have swapped out a nightclub for
their school. There were a pair of huge, kid-diameter searchlights
cutting the night into big chunks, and a red carpet leading into
the gym. They had those velvet ropes from movie theaters at either
side of the red carpet, and plants up to his neck. Beneath those
was some track lighting, making the evening into a sort of dim yet
sparkling afternoon time. And a teacher dressed in a tuxedo with
white gloves there to open the door and help Charlotte out of the
car.

She turned to him and flashed him a grin.
“Wow huh? I feel like I should have my zoot suit on.”

Michael didn't say anything. He was too busy
looking at the movie posters. Star Wars Episodes VII, VIII and IX,
the Exterminatrix, Groskin's Run, So I Blew Up My School, and
Invincible (the Marcus Patterson Story) were all in plain view as
soon as he'd walked in, along with all the romance films he didn't
know and couldn't care less about. There was a massive statue of
the huge golden guy with the sword.

“Oscar,” Charlotte breathed. “I totally want
a picture.”

Not only was there a photographer on hand to
take their picture, but he led them over to a little station not
far off to put accents and their names on the photo. They decided
not to go with the wigs or silly costumes.

“We can do it again later if we get bored,”
she said.

They were pretty early, so only a few other
kids were milling about. The parents and administrators were
already outnumbered, but not by much. The gym had been decorated
enough that it didn't much resemble what it started out as.
Streamers hung everywhere, balloons were taped into large clusters,
and in the center of the gym was a small section of painted plywood
from which hung hundreds of little Oscars, to chest height.
Charlotte immediately went over and started looking at them.

“Ah,” she said. “One for each of the sixth
and seventh graders. That's pretty tight.”

“Tight?” he asked, and immediately wished he
hadn't.

“It was a slang word in the eighties. I
started listening to really old school rap, the first ever rap, you
know, when the synthesizers were really just getting going. Totally
radical time to be listening to music. Hair metal, synth pop,
emerging rap, it was a good time for America.”

“Sounds like,” he said, and scanned the room.
It wasn't lit like normal. There were a few spotlights piercing the
dimness, and some strips of Christmas lights in strange places.
There was even a raised platform, probably a dance floor, with
hundreds of lights under it, pointing straight up. Well, he
wouldn't touching that with a ten foot pole.

“You want something to drink?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said, still picking through the
Oscars.

He went over to one of the tables and checked
out the refreshments. A pair of those big orange sports coolers
were labeled 'ice water' and 'lemonade', but the punch was a
mystery. The principal, Mr. Samuelson, sauntered over. “Having a
good evening, Mr. Washington?”

“Yep,” he said. “I mean, yes Mr.
Samuelson.”

“No need for the mister. Just call me
Samuelson. I see you've brought the Sulzsko girl. A very bright
young lady.”

Michael didn't know how to respond to that
one. “Uh...thanks.”

“Punch?”

“I'll sue,” he said.

“I definitely don't want to get on the bad
side of your grandfather,” Samuelson smiled. “No sir, not when your
grandpa was my teacher growing up. Never met a scarier, nicer man
in the whole world.” He must have caught the politely puzzled look
on Michael's face, and the intention flooding out of him to get
away from there and back to people his own age. “Two punches coming
right up. Right and left hook.”

Charlotte had found his Oscar. It was a
picture of him from last year's yearbook photos, but only his face
remained, glued to the yellow piece of paper. On the back was
printed 'You're a Star!'

“I bet they don't have one for me,” she
said.

“Don't count on it,” he said. Sure enough,
they found her Oscar a few minutes later, just as a massive rumble
came from outside. Michael spilled some punch on himself, but was
lucky Charlotte didn't notice because she was looking over toward
the door.

“What is that?”

“Don't know,” he said.

Someone passed by them. “Davey Rightman, his
brother brought him.”

Michael knew all about this. When he caught
Charlotte's mystified face he explained. “Ronnie Rightman is in
high school, and he's got his own car, and he likes his music nice
and ear-bursting.” It seemed like all the nastiest jerks got cars.
His mother had no plans to get him a car, ever, as far as he
knew.

Davey showed up a few minutes later with a
girl on his arm who was more undressed than dressed. Michael knew
her name was Candice something, but everyone called her Candy.

After a while the deejay started up with an
odd selection of new songs along with the really hokey garbage you
always danced to whenever there was a cousin of yours getting
married, like the Chicken Dance and the Hokey Pokey. Charlotte's
face crumpled up in agony until she stormed over to the deejay's
blaring table and started making requests. Then, after the deejay
had shaken his head a number of times, she stormed back over to
Michael.

“You were right. They don't have anything
from the forties or fifties.”

“Why don't you ask about the eighties then?”
he said. “I'm sure he's got some synth pop. Maybe some, what did
you say...Depeche Mode?”

She smiled, which meant he'd just scored more
points. “It's okay. I'll just dance at home.”

The new music just sounded like a cosmic
ballet danced by skyscrapers, all bizarre echoes, groans of metal,
and glass breaking with some words in there, only you couldn't hear
anything they were saying. Michael hadn't understood the world of
music until Charlotte began explaining, and still didn't know much.
It just seemed like every time the world changed, the music changed
with it, like a mirror. So when the world was happy, there'd be all
sorts of sunny, cheerful music, like this old rocker John Fogerty,
but when everything got serious, the music turned dark and moody
and made people want to jump off tall buildings.

So right now the music sounded something like
the world ending, only played in reverse. It wasn't exactly dance
music, but layered somewhere in there was a kind of beat, so you
could twitch and jerk to the rhythm. Davey and Candy were in a
tangle of dancers, spread out around and inside the hanging
Oscars.

Michael guessed it wasn't that bad, all told.
He was spending time with the best looking girl in the school.
There were more than a few confused glances, and a couple of
open-mouthed starers. Charlotte might have had a chance at getting
in with the popular people, a shred of possibility someone would
see her as just the misguided new person instead of a freak, but
that time was gone now. He was still a bit worried for her, but he
realized that it was her choice. If she wanted to damage her social
life beyond hope of repair, it was okey dokey with him.

“Let's get another glass of that punch,” she
yelled at last.

Mr. Samuelson smiled at them again, and
served up the punch.

“Enjoying yourselves?” he asked.

“The music is a bit much,” Charlotte
yelled.

“Ah.”

“Yeah it sounds like the whole place is about
to blow up.”

Then the whole place blew up.

The wall with the big scoreboards imploded in
a shower of concrete and sparks, throwing up a shower of screams
and leaving behind a trail of flames. Something flew in, streaking
across the entire gym, blowing through a bunch of hanging paper
Oscars, smashing into the bleachers, and crunching into something
beyond that. After that it was all smoke and confusion. People were
rushing here and there, and probably smashing into each other or
climbing over each other. Lucky for everybody, there were plenty of
exits to crash into at breakneck speed, and throw open to be out of
the sudden nightmare.

Michael had been knocked over by the
refreshment table. The punch bowl had come down on him, soaking him
from the waist down. He gasped, trying to remember how to breathe.
His body was completely encased in pain. He looked around for
Charlotte but couldn't make her out in the sudden gloom and thick
smoke. Most important, his place in the gym put him closest to the
thing that had embedded itself into the bleachers.

That something was a man, a well-built and
square-jawed fellow with a few scraps of shirt that hadn't been
burned to a crisp. Most of his hair, and all of his eyebrows had
been singed off. He was coughing and smoking quite a bit where his
pants were on fire. And he looked to be in a lot of pain.

Michael took one of the big orange coolers,
righted it, and unscrewed the top. Then he dumped it on the man's
leg.

“Thanks son,” he said quietly.

He wanted to ask if the man was okay, but
that was a silly question. Surely, if you could rocket through a
wall, through a set of bleachers and halfway into a cinderblock
wall with only a bunch of nasty smelling burnt hair, you were all
right. At least, that's what he would have thought, until the man
fell out of the hole and onto his face. He was out cold.

“Are you okay?” he heard himself ask, even as
he thought about how stupid that sounded.

That was when Michael realized he was alone.
And not alone. The gym was clear of almost everybody, anyway,
though there was a lot of smoke. Teachers and students were making
their way out, but there was someone standing at center court,
hands balled and encased in smoke. Blue flashes erupted around
him.

“Where is he?” the figure said. Michael knew
that voice immediately.

“Trent?”

“What the...loser? Skinny loser Michael?
Broke my nose Michael?” Yeah, it was Trent. The same ridiculous
bowl haircut, the same too-tight t-shirt, only now his nose wasn't
beaky, it had its own elbow. And now he looked to have gained about
fifty pounds in the arms and shoulders.

Lightning lashed out from Trent's body in
long, ragged arcs. They left black marks all over the basketball
court floor. One of them latched onto the refreshment table and,
sparks flying, whipped it across the gym.

There was Charlotte. She must have been
knocked over by the refreshment table too, somehow. She was lying
on the ground, and a surge of terror went through Michael as he saw
that she wasn't moving. The bits of lightning were licking the
floor not far away from her.