The Super 4 : Dark Death (5 page)

I choked back a choke of disgust, as I saw her
huge mole, looking bigger than ever, on the bridge of her
nose.

“
Good evening, Beast- err… Madame
Blaise.” I said dramatically, biting back the urge to bow. “What’s
for dinner?”

“
Pea soup!”

I bit back the vomit that I felt rising up my
throat, as Madame Blaise ladled some of the horrible vomit-looking
concoction into a bowl, before placing it in front of me with a two
slices of bread.

My sister immediately scooped up some of the
vile soup with her bread and placed it inside her mouth.

“
Yum!” She said
dramatically.

I choked and examined the thick, goopy liquid.
I then went into hyper-speed mode and raced outside to dump the
entire contents into the Dumpster. By the time I got back into my
seat it seemed like everyone was frozen in time. I waited for my
body to settle into normal time again.

I then spread butter on my bread and made a
big show of swiping it along the bottom of my bowl, before masking
the smirk that appeared on my face into a look of absolute
surprise. “Oh!” I said loudly, “It’s all gone! What a shame! Now
may I be excused?”

Hours later I came out of my room at the sound
of footsteps. I opened the door and walked into the sitting room.
My parents were sitting on the couch with a big bag of chips and a
bowl of salsa.

I was starving so I walked into the room and
announced my presence.

“
Hey Mom, hey Dad!
Wassup?”

“
Hey son!” Dad boomed.

“
Hey Jake.” was the feebler
response that was emitted from my mother.

“
So,” I said, eyeing the bag of
chips. “You gonna finish those chips?

Mom said, “They’re all yours!”

Those were the words I was waiting for. I
pounced on the chips and salsa. “So.” I said between munches, “How
was your day? Great salsa by the way!”

“
It was fine.” Mom said, her eyes
on the large screen T.V. that was showing a program about top
models.

Now you see, my parents aren’t really your
normal Bob and Kate kind of people. Mom was a former model and
actress who owns the largest fashion whatever in the world. With
her long blond hair and blue-grey eyes, she sure made heads turn.
Dad on the other hand was a world-known soccer player with light
brown hair and green eyes. They met at this celebrity party
thingy-majig. I don’t know all the details or maybe I do, but the
main idea was mushy mushy, kissy kissy kind of stuff. And I’m not
that big on all that lovey-dovey nonsense. Anyway one thing led to
another and here we are.

At that point Jane barged into the room. Can
you believe it? Jake and Jane? Double J’s. I don’t know what my
parents were thinking when they decided my sister and I should have
the same sounding name. We were identical in every way. Same blond
hair, same nose, even the same ears! Everything about us was
identical except that, while my eyes were a dark emerald, hers were
sky blue. That, and her being just a tiny bit taller than
me.

“
Mom!” She complained. “You
promised I could go swimming!”

You see, while I’m great at basketball and
football, my sister excels at swimming and soccer.

Both our rooms are equally decorated in a
myriad of first and second-place trophies, certificates, medals and
ribbons. The only difference is that in addition to all her sports
trophies she also had plaques and awards of academic achievement.
That makes my bratty, little sister a little perfect angel.
Ugh!

“
Okay honey let me just rest for
five minutes.” was mom’s tired response.

“
Fine!” called Jane loudly as she
stormed up the stairs, a scowl fixed on her face.

Meanwhile, I sneaked out of the room, with the
salsa and chips in hand, and headed to my bedroom. I silently
thanked God for helping me convince my parents that a soundproof
door would help with studying. This meant that I wouldn’t hear them
yelling and they couldn’t blame me.

Now you may be wondering how come I heard
footsteps and my sister’s voice. Well wonder no more! It appeared
that I had gained a super hearing and vision! Either that or my
room isn’t as soundproof as I thought!

But one thing I knew for sure was that
everything was louder and brighter.

I could hear my sister on the phone
complaining to her best friend Rachel, a gossipy slob. I hated
her.

I could even make out the individual strands
of hair on my comb.

I lay on my bed pondering these new powers.
Unconsciously I ran my hand through my mop of hair. I wished I
could talk to someone about these newfound powers. But since even
the thought of Harrison brought bile to my throat I didn’t exactly
have a lot of options.

I narrowed the list down to those who had and
knew about powers. That left Darryl and Carly. I decided against
Darryl as the kid kind of freaked me out with his big brain. And
that was before he got super smart. That left Carly. At first I was
like no! Not her! You just tried to ask her out you idiot! Then I
realized that she never knew that I’d been about to ask her out. I
tenderly grabbed my phone and called Carly. After a long time she
picked up. “Hey Jake!’ She said. I let go of the breath I hadn’t
realized I was holding.

“
H-hey Carly.” I silently cursed
myself for my voice sounding so high-pitched and shaky.

“
Is everything okay?” She asked. I
could clearly hear the concern in her voice.

“
Yeah! Why wouldn’t it be?” I
responded.

“
Okay?” She said
uncertain.

“
I just wanted to let you know
that I discovered a new set of powers.”

“
Really?” She couldn’t keep the
tone of jealousy out of her voice.

“
Yah! I have some lamo power of
super vision and hearing.”

“
Oh. Well, uh…bye?”

“
Bye.” I replied.

To sum it all up I didn’t feel any better. In
fact if anything I felt a lot worse!

Carly

VII

I couldn’t help the envy that was currently
bubbling up my stomach. It wasn’t fair! Jake had four powers,
Harrison had three and I’m pretty sure Darryl has three to. That’s
if invention and super smartness are two different things. I only
had my double combo of water and electricity. Now I know you may be
thinking that’s a wonderful combo, because water is a brilliant
conductor of electricity. But still it wasn’t fair!

Mumbling my displeasure, I made my way towards
the dining room. Laid out on the mahogany table, was a large
platter of pork chops with a bowl of roast potatoes and cabbage and
gravy.

I wasn’t American in the slightest. With a
strong Norway background, my family moved to America in the late
twentieth century. From Maine, to San Francisco, to Washington. My
family has seen enough famous monuments to last a lifetime. I’ve
been to Norway a couple of times, but that was to see my
grandparents, usually in Easter. Every other national holiday was
spent in America with papa. I never met my mother, she died when I
was but a few months old. I’ve heard I look like her and from the
pictures I’ve seen I can’t deny it. We had the same light blond
hair, startlingly ice blue eyes and high ivory cheekbones. The only
difference, was the lack of smile wrinkles surrounding her eyes.
For someone who seemed so nice she certainly didn’t smile a lot.
Or, at all.

Not that I have wrinkles!

OMG that would be disgusting!

I sat down at the table and waited for Papa
and my cousin to fill the seats around me. When we had uttered a
prayer, we started digging into the delicious grub cooked by our
own Norwegian chef. I had piled mountains of roast potato and pork
chops onto my plate and it was slowly disappearing. I tried to make
conversation between mouthfuls but was quickly silenced by
dad.

“S
velg Carly!” I effortlessly
translated it to swallow and did just that.

“So as I was saying, or trying to
say at least, how was your day, pappa?” I asked.

“It was good,
Carls.
Perfekt
!”
He responded. “ And yours?”

“It was pretty great,
dad!”

“I wish you be speaking Norwegian
more, Carly!” His irritation bringing forth his strong childhood
Norwegian accent.

I sighed and said, “Fine! I mean
bot!”

My cousin, Hilde, or as they say
in America, Hilda, spoke for the first time during dinner.
“Endelig!” Once again I translated it to mean finally.

I was
offended,
“Hva mener du til slutt?
What do you mean finally?”

Papa had a huge
grin on his face. His blue eyes twinkling. “
At hun til slutt!
She means
finally!”

“
Papa! Jeg tok anstøt!
” I said. “Dad! I’m offended!”

He let loose a deep guffaw, his
smile wrinkles visible, unlike my deceased mother, his shockingly
red hair shaking, giving it the appearance of fire. Yeah, I know
fire and water. Haha. His red hair was really surprising, giving
the fact that most Norwegians are either blondes or brunettes. His
own parents have white blond and dirty blond hair!

“
Papa! Slutte å le!
” He didn’t stop laughing.

“
Nei
!” It doesn’t
take a genius to work out that that meant ‘no’!

At that point
the entire table, Hilde included, fell helpless to laughter.
“
Stopp! Stopp!
”
We begged each other. The food on the table remained oblivious to
us for a while.

Then the tasty fumes from the food
entered our nostrils and we suddenly remembered the banquet on the
table.

We gobbled down the food in two
minutes flat.

Papa called,
“
Eirik! Dessert, kan
du!
” Kan du meant please. I’m sure the
other one isn’t too hard to figure out!

Eirik, our chef, or as he goes by
in the U.S., Eric, came rushing in with bowls of krumkake. Krumkake
was a thin layer of rolled cake, filled with whipped cream.
Personally, it was the best food ever!

“Herr Martinsen!
Dessert ees sirved!” Eirik started english lessons very,
very,
late! He furrowed
his bushy brows as he struggled to form the words of english. He
nervously ran his hand through his mop of light brown
hair.

“
Takk, Eirik
!” We all yelled, giggling.

“
Takk, takk,
takk!
” We went into crazy fits of
laughter.

Eirik, startled by our many
thanks, replied with his own series of ‘ your
welcome’s’.

“Errr…...
Din velkommen,din
velkommen, din velkommen
!”

At this point there was no cure
for our mad fits of laughter. Eirik was even in the land of giggles
by now.

“
Din velkommen, din
velkommen!
” He let loose another series of
chuckles.

Looking at his watch, he
straightened up and politely dismissed himself, “Plis, escuss me,
meester Martinsen!”

Papa waved him
away, wiping tears from his face. “
Takk,
Eirik
!”

After he left we
laughed a bit, until we noticed the tempting plates of krumkake and
gobbled it down. Eirik, knowing my allergies for strawberries, had
instead placed several handfuls of juicy cloudberries, imported
from Norway. By imported I mean snuck into our luggage as we left
Norway. Hey, berries are amazing in Norway! The cold climate means
the berries mature slower and has a more intense flavour. Plus in
Norway cloudberries are considered
a
delicacy.
That’s part of the reason the
guards at Oslo Airport burst out laughing when they say the bags
stuffed with cloudberries and strawberries.

“Haha!
Du
badebukser
!” Personally I was offended to
be called a smuggler! But papa and Hilde just
laughed.

After the heavy meal my eyelids
grew heavy and I had to fight the urge to sleep at the
table.

“Papa! Vennligst ta med meg til
mitt soverom.”

“And why should I carry you to
your bedroom?” he asked, with a cheeky grin on his face.

“
Fordi jeg er lei
!”
I responded.

“Oh, you’re tired! Well then I
have simply got to carry you upside down!”