The Super 4 : Dark Death (20 page)

But that was two days ago, now it was the day
of the Awards Ceremony! I was happy for an unexpected, yet expected
reason: I wasn’t winning any prizes, except for math, yet it was
the last day of school!

I reluctantly
placed a buttoned blue shirt and jeans on. I wore my
Nikes
. I made a
worthless attempt to comb my hair; it only made my hair
poofy.

I went downstairs and helped myself to some
ready-made pancakes. I squirted on honey and chocolate
sauce.

My sister came racing down. She wore a gold
dress that came up to her knees. On her feet she wore a pair of
black sandals. Her hair was tied up in a ponytail, with curls
hanging off her face.

Tessa was especially excited today. Not only
did she love summer, but she was winning a prize in math and
french. I was slightly jealous.

She ate a light breakfast of fruit and milk.
She claimed she didn’t want to puke on stage. It was true. Tessa
puked when she was happy. That girl is weird!

Mum came down in a bathrobe. She took hold of
our faces and squeezed our cheeks. She leaned in to kiss us.
“Eurgh! mum!” I complained, pushing her face away.

“My little babies are all grown up,” she said.
Tears sparkled in her eyes. “I’m so happy!”

“Thanks, mummy!” Tessa said, reaching in to
peck mum’s cheek.

I finished my pancakes, wiped my mouth and
went upstairs. I pressed the button impatiently. The elevator was
stuck on my floor. I watched, while tapping my feet, as the letters
went from ‘A’ to ‘2’ to ‘1’ to ‘G’. I instantly went in the
elevator.

Just as the doors were closing, Tessa came
zooming out of nowhere. She pressed the button (she knew I wouldn’t
open the door voluntarily), and stepped inside.

I watched the buttons change from ‘G’ to ‘1’
to ‘2’. The elevator dinged, and the doors opened. Tessa got
out.

I tapped my knee, bored, as I waited to go up
the extra floor.

The ding signified the end of my long wait. I
quickly grabbed my bag from my room-but it was too late. The
elevator was already going down to the ground floor. I wasn’t in
the mood to wait again, so I decided to take the stairs.

I sprinted down, two feet at a time, but
decided to keep my hand on the banister. I felt that at the speed I
was going I would fall over myself, and end up rolling down the
staircase. I made it to the bottom floor in five minutes. Not
bad.

I waited for the bus, on the curb, a few
minutes away from my house. I hated getting to school in the family
car. I prefered the liveliness of the school bus. Of course, at
first everyone was deathly silent when I entered the bus for the
first time. But a few weeks later, the noise had gone back to
normal.

The bus pulled up a few minutes late. I got in
quickly-the driver looked like he was in a bad mood, and I didn’t
want to ruin the day.

After stopping four more times, the bus
finally made it’s way towards campus. I felt like I had the day my
life changed. That horrible Monday that changed my life. I
remembered my happiness that day. I felt it today too. I don’t know
why.

It was as if someone briefly inhabited my body
and forced it to be happy. Nothing could change my mood. Not the
storm clouds gathering in the sky, not the sound of birds flapping
their wings in a desperate attempt to escape the rain, not even the
nervous chatter of the students. Nope, nothing could ruin my
mood.

We all take our appropriate seats.
Award-winning students at the front, the rest at the back. No
matter where we were seated it was all in alphabetical
order.

I gave Jake a thumbs-up from my seat behind
him. He smiles weirdly. Carly sits a few seats away from him, and
every now and then, his eyes flash over to her. I smirk.

Darryl is seated at the very edge of the
second row. The ‘g’ last names should have sat there, but because
of his many awards, he had to sit at the edge to make it easier to
collect his prizes.

Soon, the seats were all filled in, with the
parents standing at the back, most held cameras or
phones.

After a few minutes, Mrs Kaminski came on
stage. She tapped the microphone a bit, “Testing…One...Two…
Welcome! Parents, teachers, students, family and friends! Welcome
to this year’s Award Ceremony!” She paused to allow the applause to
die down a bit. “As I’m sure you all know, today is a day we have
chosen to award the students whom have out beaten the rest. These
students, I hope, have taken their study time and doubled it. Or
you’re like Darryl and came first with half of it!” The audience
laughed. “I don’t want to bore you to death before the awards, so
here’s to our eighth grade winners!” The audience
applauded.

Ms Roberts, the eighth grade representative
teacher, walked onto stage. She took out some cards, and grabbed
the microphone. “First place prize in Grade Eight, first math
prize, first English prize, first history prize, first geography
prize, first…”

She went on like that for a while.

Darryl had walked up on stage, and was waiting
for her to finish.

A little kid with bright green eyes and curly
hair kept on cheering and yelling and clapping, every time Darryl
got a new prize.

I tuned out.

Then Ms Roberts
mentioned something extra, “...And, because of his superior
performance, Darryl had also been awarded to
skip
ninth grade! He will go
straight to tenth grade!”

Everyone started talking at once. Jake turned
to me, and I shrugged. This was news to me.

“
Everyone! Everyone, please settle
down.”

Even with that it took a while for us to shut
up.

Ms Roberts looked relieved. “Thank you.” She
looked confused, as if she’d forgotten what she was saying. “Oh
yes, give him a round of applause please!” Darryl bowed slightly to
accept his many gold medals. He had a lot. The applause was
subdued, except for Carly, Jake and I. And the green-eyed kid. Who
was he?

But by then, Ms Robert was on to her next
person. Carly got the silver medal. Second in the grade. Second in
English. Second in almost everything. Except math! She came third
in that.

Once again I tuned out. I clapped as Jake got
his first in P.E. and Overall Best Athlete award. He didn’t get
medals-he got trophies. I was next.

“
And second in Math, Harrison
White.” The audience clapped politely as I made my way up. Ms
Roberts put on a faux smile as she placed the silver medal over my
head. She rattled off some more names and awards, finishing with
honor roll. “-and Max Greeney! Thank you all for coming to this
year’s Award Ceremony! Have a great summer, and I hope to see you
all in the fall!” Everyone applauded, as people rushed off to their
parents, dragging their friends with them. Smiles were smiled.
Pictures were taking. Medals were counted. I saw Darryl with the
little boy and some lady with extravagant coloured hair. I waved at
him. But he didn’t see; his attention was on the little boy. Jake,
however, saw my wave, he walked over, dragging Carly with him. We
smiled for some pictures, then the adults left us alone to talk
amongst ourselves.

“
Thank goodness that’s all over,”
Jake said. His trophies were taken by his parents. “That news about
Darryl. That was pretty surprising, huh?”

“
Sorry about that.” We turned to
find Darryl standing behind us. He rubbed his arm awkwardly. “It
was supposed to be a secret.”

“
It was. A big one,” Carly said.
“But it’s alright.”

“
Thanks,” he said,
relieved.

“
No prob,” she responded. We
walked towards the school. We decided to pass by our lockers. For
old times sake.

“
Man, I might actually miss Middle
School!” Jake said. We turned to him, surprised. “What?”

“
Nothing,” I said,
smirking.

“
Hmm!” he said, stalking
off.

But before he could get too far, Darryl asked,
“Hey! Jake, what’s that on your locker?”

“
Huh?” he responded. He walked
towards his locker. A piece of paper was stuck on it. It
read,

If you wish to see your loved ones again, meet
me in the basement.

-The Shadow

We turned to each other. “This isn’t good,”
said Carly.

“
Wait, you know about the Shadow
too?” I asked.

“
Yep.” Jake and Carly chorused.
They looked at each other in surprise. I was shocked.

“
Nope,” added Darryl, “Who is
he?”

“
Okay then, what does he look
like?” I asked, ignoring Darryl. Jake rattled off about his dark
eyes, and cloak, etc.

“
Hold up, people!” said Darryl, “I
still don’t know who we’re talking about!”

“
Well,” Jake began, “This evil
dude who always wears black and has weird eyes is trying
to-”

“
We’re wasting time!” Carly
interrupted. “We need to see what he wants,”

“
Agreed,” Jake said.

“
Okay,” I said.

We looked at Darryl, “I’m ready,” he said,
firmly.

“
Let’s do this!” Carly
said.

We marched around for a while. Lost. We
finally stumbled across a door labeled: Basement. Hazard!
Generator! We looked at each other. We nodded and opened the
door.

It was dark inside. I held up a hand of fire
and peered inside. There was nothing there. I shrugged at the
others, and marched in. Carly made a tiny electrical ball, and
carefully wielded ice around it. I tossed a fireball at Jake, and,
after some stumbling, he secured it in a force field.

We walked in.

Something whizzed passed us. We all turned in
fright. I bit back a gulp. The thing sped past us again. Then we
heard someone laughing. It wasn’t an evil guy kind of laugh, but it
was enough to spook us out. We moved forward. Someone sat on the
floor. His back was to us. He wore a blue button-down shirt, and
brown skinny jeans.

“
Hello?” I asked.

“
Hello, Harrison,” he said. “Hey
Carly, hi Jake, good afternoon Darryl,”

“
Who are you?” Carly said,
bravely.

“
I am the Shadow. The Dark One.
Or, as Jake called me once, The Shadowman.” he turned. His blond,
curly hair had strands of black in it, his amber eyes had black and
green laced through it. He was light turned dark. “Or, you could
call me by my human name,” He said human, as if it were a piece of
moldy cheese. He said it like Jake said ‘book’. “My name is Bobby
Huntlington. I’m shocked Harrison. You don’t recognize me? I am
shocked. Truly shocked! After all, you met up with my father just
the other night.”

“
Wait,” I said,
surprised. “Fatty was your
father
?”

“
Tsk. Yes, Fatty was my father.
You don’t see the family resemblance?”

“
No, not real- Well, kinda, yeah.
You have the same hair. And eyes. Minus the black and green,
obvious-”

“
Forget about Fatty and I. Instead
focus on them!”

Jake

XXX

The Shadow, or Bobby, pointed at a large sack.
Confused, I asked, “What is it?”

Bobby laughed, “You don’t recognize you own
family?” We gasped and ran to the sacks. I pulled the sack away. In
it lay Carly’s cousin and dad, Harrison’s family, some little kid
and a weird-haired lady, I think Darryl knew, and my
family.

I turned to
Bobby with furious eyes. There were tears in them. “How could you?
How could you be so
evil
?”

“
Don’t you know what happened to
my family? To me?” We stared at him with blank eyes. “My father ran
for president, but failed. He failed so badly! He only got a couple
of votes, and those votes were from my uncle and my aunt. So he
became a criminal. But a good one! To this day, no one knows who
was the assassin behind all those murders. Ha! No one even knew
they were murders! He was so talented!” Bobby spoke as if telling a
fairy tale. “And I’m even more talented! I followed you that day
you got your powers! I snuck behind you the entire
time!”

“
I knew it!” yelled Harrison, “I
knew I heard something!”

“Shut up! No one interrupts the
Shadow!”

“Sorry Bobby,” Harrison apologized.

“Insolent fool! Anyways, where was
I?”

“You were following us,” Darryl said,
helpfully.

“Ah, yes! I was confused about why you took
the wrong turn, but I followed you, thinking you had a secret
hideout. I was going to destroy it! But you led me to something
greater! I waited until you all had had your sodas. Then I snuck
in. I was drawn to a lab table. On it lay a black can. In green
letters was the word: Shadow. I drank every last drop. Then had two
more. I saw your money lying on the counter… and I stole
it!”