Seven
October has a variety of Wednesdays. There’s one where night comes far too soon, another where everyone has a secret crush on someone just a little out of their league, one where pumpkin-flavored everything replaces apple-flavored everything, and one that thinks it’s a Wednesday in August.
On a Wednesday a few weeks after I visited the police station, marked by Molly bringing pumpkin-flavored donuts for everyone in World History, something amazing happens.
“And what you’ll find as you study these topics,” Mr. Meyers lectures, “is that we’re not sure who discovered water, but we’re fairly certain it wasn’t the fish.”
Kristen tilts her notebook at me. Deep, she scrawls in the margin.
“Like the ocean,” I whisper.
Good thing we can swim, she scribbles.
I glance at the clock above the classroom door.
One of the many unfortunate aspects of Capital City High is that the clocks hardly ever work.
They end up being more decorative than useful—and we’re not allowed to have our phones out while teachers are teaching.
Except for the clock in this room. Mr. Meyers is not a teacher who will tolerate something not functioning and he maintains his timepiece personally.
Yes! I am pleased to learn there are only three minutes left of class.
Suddenly, the school secretary, Ms. Bedelia, hops on the loudspeaker. Ms. Bedelia is everyone’s favorite adult because she always wears fun sweaters with cats on them. As usual, she sounds cheery and over-caffeinated.
“Good morning, Capital City Sharks, and pardon the interruption. Students and faculty, please convene in the auditorium for a very special guest speaker. Second period has been canceled. That’s all for now, have a FIN-tastic day!”
High-fives and excited expletives explode throughout the classroom, except from Aaron, who lies his head on his desk like he’s having sleep withdrawal. He must have some seriously late nights. I haven’t talked to him yet, which is good, because I have no clue how to find out if he has powers.
Sweet, Kristen scribbles. No calculus.
Kristen, too, has yet to actually speak with Aaron.
Ten minutes later, we wait in gum-covered seats in the largest room our school has. The place is already packed, and the freshmen haven’t even arrived yet. The combination of sweat and hormones makes the air feel sticky.
“I can’t believe they’re trying to get us all to fit in here,” Kristen mutters. “This room is definitely not up to fire code.”
“Who do you think the speaker is?” I ask.
Our school holds assemblies a few times a year, but they’re broken up by grade level, so we aren’t normally all in here at once.
Assemblies usually involve a businesswoman outlining her ten tips for a successful morning routine or a comedian performing skits about how to turn down crystal meth. They’re also usually planned.
She scrunches her nose. “I hope it’s not more about that Dark Static guy. I think they’re blowing that ship way out of proportion.”
“He almost killed Dr. Milligan,” I say, shocked that those words had come from her.
Kristen is always the first one to get a political debate started.
It’s kind of her passion—she once started a “save the spiders” campaign to make people bring spiders outside instead of squishing them, although that one failed big time.
“He didn’t, though. D.S. could have, but he didn’t,” she replies.
I remember the first time I went to Kristen’s house.
We were twelve, and Materio was still the preeminent Super in Capital City.
Materio had just vanquished Poseida, a villain who threatened tsunamis if Capital City wouldn’t give her access to our treasuries, and Kristen had covered her room with newspapers, trying to prove that Poseida had been trying to help us all along.
Kristen also decorated t-shirts alleging Poseida’s righteousness. She sold only one—to my dad.
Reflexively, I scan for Damian Scott Jr. There’s an empty seat next to Molly. Make that two empty seats: one for Damian and one for Fox. Where is everyone? I highly doubt they’ve all taken a magical quest to the bathroom at the same time.
My throat dries as anxiety seizes my thoughts. Did D.S. attack again? Is that why we’re having an assembly? Who did he hurt this time?
“I’m going to get some water,” I say to Kristen. “Save my seat, please.”
“I’ll guard it with my life.” She leans back and closes her eyes.
I climb over the students between me and the aisle and finally step out of the packed auditorium.
Quiet air fills the hall. The closest drinking fountain is just around the corner, but I head in the opposite direction, walking a full lap around the auditorium, so the stuffiness from being too close to eight hundred other teenagers can wear off.
Curving into the final turn, I stop— Holy Aces.
Literally.
The water fountain is a few feet away. Standing over it is Golden Ace. He wipes off his gilded spandex Supersuit. No freaking way.
Like Dark Static, Golden Ace’s mask conceals his face, and bulletproof fabric covers most of his skin. A sheepish smile forms beneath his mask. “Oh, sorry,” he says, “Am I blocking you?”
I hesitate. Then I realize he’s talking to me.
“Oh gosh, don’t worry about it,” I say. He steps sideways to make room for me, and I approach the drinking fountain of life. Of all the times I’ve dreamed about meeting him , it’s never been by accident, and never in school.
A brown stain smears his suit, just to the left of his bellybutton. Golden Ace frantically dabs the spot with his finger.
I sip the cold water and instantly feel better. The dryness behind my throat fades, my brain works again, and my feet remember how to do their job. I glance at the Superhero. Is it a good idea to talk to him? Is that the normal thing to do? Would he hate it if I tried?
Then again, I’ve waited for five years to meet him. “That looks like a burrito stain,” I say.
Golden Ace sighs. “Yeah. I keep telling myself to quit eating when I wear this, but I still do. And nine times out of ten, this happens.”
“I, too, am a fan of burritos.” I say. “Soap usually helps me… And, sir, Mr. Gold?” How do I address him? “You’ll need a paper towel.”
“I’ve gotta go make a speech soon.” He studies the mark on his suit. “Figured I’d work on this thing for a few minutes and head in, stain or not.”
I attempt to hide my shock. “Golden Ace has a human side.” I can’t imagine D.S. being okay with a stain on his suit. Maybe that’s why he wears black, so the dirt—or blood—doesn’t show as easily.
“More than you would think.” Golden Ace continues to smudge the fabric. “I mean, here I am…” He tilts his head in my direction.
“Madeline,” I fill in.
“Nice to meet you. Here I am, Madeline, ready to fight the bad guys. I could start flying at any given moment, and I wear this suit that’s somehow repels dirt and blood but not cheese or tomatoes.
Thing is, at the end of the day, Superhuman is still human.
A lot of people have trouble remembering that. ”
“Yeah,” I reply, as if he’s stating the obvious. Wow , I congratulate myself, I am having a suave day . “But us NSRPs need to forget that. We need to believe that there are people like you out there, people who are more than human.”
“NSRPs?”
“Non-Super Regular Persons.” He hasn’t heard that acronym before?
It’s common jargon among Goldies. “It’s inspiring that Superheroes exist,” I babble, “to remind everyone that what people do matters. And Supers set amazing examples for society to follow—you show us that there are people who want to do what’s good more than anything.
Or more than that, what’s right. ” I close my mouth, heart pounding from putting so many sentences together.
Am I still ahead? Did that make sense to him?
I know not everyone feels this way about Supers, but at least the Goldies do. How do Supers view their powers? Are they a gift? Or a curse?
Golden Ace has more powers than the typical Super: super speed, strength, flight, and inhumanly fast reflexes. Goldies think he has more, but any others have only been rumors so far.
Golden Ace studies me for eleven heartbeats. I counted. At last, he says, “I’m glad I bumped into you.”
“Um. Me too,” I reply. He’s not at all what I expected.
Golden Ace chuckles, and the backstage door swings open. A well-dressed man with a trying-too-hard haircut joins us in the hall.
“Gold, you ready?” Mayor Phillip Bridges greets us. Phil is shorter than Golden Ace, about my height. With a woolen sweater and jeans, he’s tried hard to communicate a look that says I’m powerful but still relatable to a group of teenagers who are just happy not to be in class.
“What’s up, Madeline? Gold, I see you’ve met my favorite sister-in-law.”
“She’s very cool,” says Golden Ace. He jogs over to Phil. Right before heading in, he looks back at me. “Time to do Super-slash-human things, I guess.”
“Maddy, give your old man my best, yeah?” Phil salutes me and the door slams after him. The auditorium explodes with excitement.
She’s very cool. Holy freaking Aces. Golden Ace said I was cool!
Chants of “Ace, Ace, Ace,” last long enough for me to return.
Kristen has awoken from her power nap and monitors Golden Ace like he’s a magician and she’s trying to figure out his tricks.
“He has the worst costume,” she says. “If I designed that bad boy, Golden Ace would be on the cover of every fashion magazine in the world. Seriously, some of the fabric is off. It looks like he spilled something . ”
“I met him in the hall. He’s nice.”
She groans. “You let me sleep while you met Golden Ace. You owe me big time.”
Someone behind us shushes us. Kristen sticks her tongue out at them, and we settle in for the speech.
It hasn’t escaped me that the chairs beside Molly are still empty.
The lights are so dim that I can’t look for Aaron.
Where are they? How had Fox, Damian, and Aaron gotten out of this?
Do they know that freaking Golden Ace is here?
Golden Ace speaks to us for a grand total of six minutes. Something about unity and working together against evil. I have trouble paying attention after I spot the stain on his spandex.
Finally, he gestures to Mayor Bridges and they trade places. Golden Ace slips out, off to do more Super-slash-human things.
“What’s up, Capital High?” Phil rides on the energy Golden Ace created as my classmates cheer. “Give it up one more time for my man Golden Ace, and we’ll get this party started.”
“Ah,” says Kristen. “G.A. was the warm-up.”
I’ve heard Phil’s speech a million times.
He wants to help us kids reach our full potential, and that means staying courageous and going to him directly—or rather to his hotline—if something unusual happens in our neighborhoods.
Given Arielle’s effort to warn my dad and me about a crime spike, I should have known Phil would eventually speak to the entire school.
Kristen, however, does not tune Phil out and at some point whispers, “Mayors get tested for powers, right?”
What is it with everyone asking if random people have powers?
“Duh. Major conflict of interest.” Phil comes from money, but there’s no sum high enough to bribe Super test administrators. The penalty for falsely reporting the result of a Super test is life in prison.
“Only high school and pro athletes, politicians, and cops get tested,” I add.
“The feds have an undercover branch that keeps the data.” The government sends out representatives every year to administer the test, and these reps are the only people who can know for sure if someone has powers, which is why Arielle was so smug when she was chosen to administer the high school tests.
We get re-tested every year, since no one knows how people get powers—whether people are born with them or if powers develop over time.
“But people who think they might have powers wouldn’t run for office or play sports, right?” asks Kristen.
“Right, that would expose them. But obviously most people don’t have powers.”
Kristen slides down in her chair and whispers even more quietly. “Remember that court case when the Super test started?”
“Not really.”
“The one about discrimination? That coalition of Supers sued, said testing violates their right to privacy?”
“Oh right.” The Court ruled that registering Supers is discriminatory except where there is the potential for endangerment (if Supers are cops or politicians), or extreme advantage (if Supers are competitive athletes), since powers almost always come with increased strength and speed.
Supers can’t join the military either, because of mutually assured destruction with other countries.
“Do you think someone could slip through the test?” asks Kristen.
She studies Phil. “Why is he trying to seem like one of them? Bigger than a hero?
For as long as I’ve known Phil, he’s acted like that. It’s why people love him. “I’ll add that question to the list,” I reply. And where the heck is Aaron?