Super Frost: Confessions of a Teenage Superhero
Chapter 9

I had a strange dream the other night, one that didn’t seem like there was an end, and it was somewhere in between a borderline crazy dream and a nightmare. It started when I was back at home and I didn’t have my powers yet, and I was still going to Generic High because I had just got finished talking to Alice after school while walking home. When I opened the front door and got inside, I turned around and found Jeremy there, standing in front of my porch with fire in his eyes. He didn’t say anything to me, but I could tell from the cool but ferocious expression on his face, there was rage boiling in his veins. He had his fists clenched, and I knew that he was probably looking for revenge.

Terrified, I slammed the door and locked it, then I ran upstairs. I heard an explosion, followed by a thud coming from the door as Jeremy stomped inside, following me.

“You can’t hide from me!” he shouted.

I ran through the hallway, looking for a place to hide. Strangely, no one was home. My brother hadn’t come home from karate practice and mom and dad hadn’t left work yet. I didn’t want to hide in my parents’ room or my brother’s, for I was afraid that Jeremy would probably set something valuable of my family’s on fire. I looked downstairs and I could see my living room walls and curtains were already in flames. I could smell the smoke billowing up the stairs and engulfing the house. I wished I was close to the phone in the kitchen so I could call the fire department to hose him down.

I didn’t have any powers, so I figured I would have to improvise. I needed to create a distraction for him. He was moving toward the kitchen when I suddenly thought of the perfect idea. I ran to my bedroom and went to my dresser. I had some unused balloons from my brother’s birthday party that I confiscated from him because he made way too much noise with them. With his super strong lungs, he kept making the balloons explode in my ears. I didn’t have super strength when I was his age, so my lungs could barely inflate a nine inch balloon even if I stretched it first, as it is impossible for all children under the age of twelve. Though my lungs were now slightly weaker than my brother’s, I figured I’d use the element of surprise.

I took three twelve inch balloons from my dresser and checked to make sure Jeremy was occupied with looking for me so he wouldn’t come upstairs for a minute. I didn’t have a lot of time, though, so I had to be quick. I inflated and tied the balloons, leaving the three of them on the floor in my room with the door closed and locked from the inside. As soon as Jeremy started coming up the stairs, I bolted for my brother’s room across the way, locked the door, and opened the window. Charlie had made a big rope hanging from his window to climb down it so he could go into the backyard and climb to his tree house.

I climbed out Charlie’s window and held onto the rope while I waited for Jeremy to be distracted. I could hear Jeremy jiggling the door handle of my room, figuring that I was hiding in there. Then, BOOM, he smashed the door open and the fire from his hands made all three balloons explode. That was when I slid down the rope. I ran to the edge of our backyard and tried climbing over the wooden fence. Unfortunately, I still didn’t have the upper arm strength to pull myself up and over the wall. I couldn’t climb ropes and I couldn’t climb walls, so there was no way I could leap the fence.

Jeremy was still coming. There had to be a way out so I could call the police. But I was so stupid to leave my bedroom without my cell phone. I tried to find a gate or something easy so I could get through the neighbor’s fence, but there was no way out. I stood against the fence, pounding my fists against it, screaming for help, but no one heard me. It was like no one was home.

By the time Jeremy was staring down at me, his arms and hands in flames and ready to burn me in his rage, I woke up to being shaken. I tried sitting up, but the end of my mattress was being lifted up and down as if someone was doing the same thing to my blanket. I peered around and saw my brother Charlie, shaking the bed with his strong hands and nearly tilting me off the mattress.

“Charlie, what the hell are you doing?” I shouted.

He stopped shaking the mattress and put his hands on his waist. “You stole my dumbbells! Where are they?”

“I didn’t steal anything of yours, I swear,” I said. “I don’t even have enough strength to pick up your stupid weights!”

“What about my balloons from my last birthday?” he asked.

“Hey, that was all your fault for hurting my ears with those,” I said. “For all you should know, I got rid of them. They’re all gone and you’re never getting them back until you’re eighty. Now get out of my room, you pest!”

“Daddy!” he yelled.

I got up from my bed and grabbed him, shushing him with my hand over his lips. “If you don’t keep this quiet, I will freeze your tongue until you graduate from high school. For the last time, I didn’t take your stupid exercise equipment. Now, go back to your room and I will give you some new balloons for your eighth birthday next year. Are we clear?”

He quietly nodded, my hand still on his mouth. I could feel him trembling.

“Good,” I said, finally letting him go.

He dashed out of my room and hugged my dad’s waist, still terrified. As much as I hated to admit it, my brother still hated me for getting my powers so late. He thought it wasn’t fair to him that I could torment him like this.

“Hey, buddy,” dad said, putting a hand to Charlie’s head. “What’s wrong?”

I hate you, he thought. You suck poo.

“I love you too, little tough guy,” I told him quietly before sticking my tongue out at him. Then I shut my door.

There was no way I’d keep my promise to give him balloons for his next birthday. I was keeping his balloons from this year in my drawer where I kept my bras and panties, where he’d never find them.

That weekend, Alice texted me her address and told me to come over to her house, seeing as she didn’t live far from me. Her townhouse was nice, though it was slightly smaller than my house. I guessed her family didn’t have a lot of money. Alice also told me she lived with her aunt, something I would have done with my aunt if my parents weren’t around, and both her aunt and her girlfriend were pretty cool people. Alice used to get a lot of crap because she was related to a lesbian, but I learned to see past that. Her aunt had a ridiculously awesome collection of shoes and books, from Ready Player One to Christian Loubiton’s classic black stilettos with the signature apple red soles.

We mostly stayed in her room that afternoon while she painted her nails gold. She loved metallic and frosty colors. She had nail polish colors in frosty shimmery shades of pink and blue, and she also had a metallic lavender, sparkly gold, and silver. She wanted to do my nails, but I told her I wasn’t into makeup.

And to get back at my little pest of my brother, I brought some of the balloons.

“Oh my god, you have a brother?” she said. “How old is he?”

“He’s seven,” I said, stretching a red balloon. I still kept my hands in my gloves to prevent the rubber from going brittle. “And he’s a total pest.”

“That’s adorable,” she said, looking up from her half painted thumb. “Be glad that you have a sibling. I’ve got none. At least you’re not completely alone all the time.”

“Honestly, it’s worse than you think,” I said, holding the deflated balloon in my hand. “I’m never alone. He woke me up by shaking the whole mattress one morning, demanding where I hid these.”

“That’s a brother for you,” she said. “Why did you take those away from him again?”

“He kept popping them next to my head on his birthday,” I said. “Every time he blew one up, he’d make them explode right in my face. So I grabbed all of his bags of balloons and I put them in my pantie drawer. Good thing is, he has no idea where to look. He wouldn’t be caught dead looking through my bras.”

“Wait, he’s seven years old, right? Are his lungs fully developed to do that?”

“He’s got my dad’s super strength. Of course he can do anything he wants, and he gets away with it… sometimes.”

She went back to painting her thumb. “Well, be glad that you even have a family. I never knew my parents. My aunt sort of adopted me after I had been in foster care for a while.”

I put the balloon up to my lips until I heard what she said, then put it down again. “Wait, you’re adopted?”

“Kind of,” she said. “Nobody knew my dad had a sister until much later. My grandfather kicked her out when he found out she was gay, so nobody ever talked about her. Then when I was three, she picked me up and took me home. I still don’t have any baby pictures anyone took of me.”

“But who were your parents?” I said. “Did you ever find out?”

Alice stopped and looked up again. “My aunt told me my dad died from an overdose and my mom died in an accident, but that’s all she would tell me. She said they were with some kind of experimental company, but something went wrong there. She knew my dad really well, but they were very private people and she didn’t talk to them much after she met Rhonda.”

“Do you know what that company was?”

“I think it started with a C, but I don’t remember exactly,” she said.

“Hmm… Chronos?”

“What’s that?” she said.

“That’s the agency my mom was hired by before she met my dad,” I said. “That’s how she got her powers. They were a horrible, evil agency turning people against the world into super villains, until my mom met dad and he got her to come over to the good side. And then they got married not long after.”

Alice hemmed about it, then added, “It might be them. I’ve never heard of them, really.”

Just as she started painting her nails again and I put the balloon to my lips, she said, “Do you really think you should be doing that, with your frost powers?”

I put it down again and said, “I’m still wearing my gloves, so.”

“Yeah, but don’t you breathe frosty air too?” she asked. “Ice and liquid nitrogen makes rubber brittle, you know that, right? It would shatter.”

“I knew that, but I don’t think my powers are that strong enough to do that,” I said. “I can’t even fly yet.”

She closed the polish and put it aside on her bed and carefully took the red balloon away from me. “Gimme. I don’t think you should take any chances.”

“What I wouldn’t give for some Bubblicious,” I said to myself. “You’re not going to make it explode in my face, right?”

“I am not your brother,” she said. “So this Jeremy person, is he good or bad now?”

“I don’t know anymore,” I said. “I feel like he spared my life because I told him to, but then again, I feel like he just decided to help me because of something else. He might be tired of being branded as a bad guy, you know? But he won’t even look at me anymore. It’s like I did something to him when I started begging for mercy with my mind.”

She stopped inflating the balloon and held it tightly with her unpolished hand. “So, he’s kind of got mixed feelings for you? Is that what this is about?”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think he’s my type anyway. He’s kind of a bad boy kind of guy, and the guy I like is popular, and well… perfect.”

The red balloon was now up to its defined size and Alice handed it to me. “I can’t tie it with my fingers, nail polish. Can you do it?”

“I have gloves, remember?” I said. “I don’t think I can tie it with my bare hands without freezing it.”

Alice waved her polished hand vigorously to dry her nails and said, “Oh yeah, that’s right. If only your school didn’t have that dumb rule about super kids shutting up about school with normal kids and why they can’t be friends. That is not cool.”

“The principal is not cool,” I said while she twirled the end of the balloon around her two unpolished fingers and carefully tried to make a knot. “Neither are my teachers. They’re supposed to be helping you control your powers, but they kind of do it in a cruel way.”

She successfully tied it and started twirling it on her fingers. “Not all teachers are supposed to be cruel,” she said. “I think that’s an overstatement. Your teachers are helping you with your powers, you shouldn’t let them get on your bad side.”

“I know,” I said. “So what should I do if I want to survive this?”

“Just be cool about it,” Alice said, tossing the balloon in the air and pushing it to me. “Don’t let anything get to you. I mean, you did win your first battle class, so you should be a made hero already.”

The balloon fell over me and I tapped it to keep it in the air. “I don’t know. I feel like I’m an outcast right now. You should have seen Fiona when she looked at me.”

“Who’s Fiona again?”

“Fiona Dangerous, popular sophomore, Tom’s girlfriend, or so everyone thinks,” I said.

“Right, right, right,” she said, tossing the balloon higher. “To tell you the truth, I think maybe you’re just different than the rest of the school. You didn’t develop your powers until after you started going to my school. I don’t have powers at all, and I already thought you were cool from the second Steve and I met you. You’re lucky to have a cool family like that. I don’t have that.”

I tossed the balloon higher when it came down. “Thanks. But I don’t think anyone at my school thinks the same way you do.”

“Just be patient,” she said. “You’ll get there in time.”

The following Monday when I got back to school, tickets were already on sale for the big dance of the year, the September Ball. I didn’t even know we had school dances. Mylana told me that we didn’t have a football team, so we never had a homecoming game or dance in our school. What really shocked me was I learned we didn’t even have a senior prom. Graduation was basically the one time everybody got to dress up, but there was usually no dancing. I had to keep in mind what Alice said, but I still thought the faculty at this school were not great because they didn’t even let us have a super cool prom at the end of senior year. Someone’s got to change that, I sort of thought to myself.

But I was pretty certain that I wasn’t going to this dance my first year of superhero school.

Classes were more of the same. I learned more about math formulas, scientific facts about our superhero world, and basic history of how some people have evolved and the civilians who created laws impacting our lives, and I tried to keep up with power control class in first period. But since the battle class last week nearly wiped me out, I had to take a break from it all. Mr. Oz went easy on me, for he knew I couldn’t fly yet after a great defeat like that. He actually said he saw me in there and I did a great job for my first battle. Jean Harley, however, said that I could try harnessing more of my power using some meditation practice, which everyone in the room took part in. I think I did a lot better with that, for I almost felt the whole room covered in snow. But it was just around me, and not anyone else. Glitch saw the snow falling around me and told me that was the coolest thing he ever saw me do, no pun intended.

When I got to the cafe for lunch, Pat, Andy, and Glitch were waiting for me. Our table was mostly empty, which was kind of a good thing, since I didn’t want a lot of attention from all the other kids after what happened my first week.

“I still can’t thank you enough for what you did last week,” Pat said.

“Don’t mention it,” I said. “I think you thanked me enough.”

“Yeah, well, nobody wants to mess with us now that you’ve done what you did,” Andy said. “You really showed them who’s boss.”

“I can’t say that for everyone,” I said. “I still haven’t learned how to fly and I don’t think I really did my best that day. Jeremy wasn’t supposed to be on my side and now he won’t even talk to me. I wanted to thank him that day, but he wouldn’t even let me do that.”

“J-just give it time,” Glitch said.

“Everybody needs space after a battle like that,” Pat said. “It’s really hard to turn one of the villains into a good guy after a while. Jeremy is kind of a complex guy. He hardly ever speaks to anyone, really.”

“But he did talk to me,” I said. “And I think we formed a truce in the arena so he wouldn’t kill me.”

“I t-t-told you he l-likes you,” Glitch said. “You s-still don’t believe me?”

“It’s hard to believe anything when he’s just so distant,” I said. “Alice told me to not take it personally and just go with the flow.”

“Wait, who’s Alice again?” Andy said.

“She’s a friend I met at Generic back when I didn’t have powers yet,” I said.

“You know you really shouldn’t be talking to civilians about any of our classes and stuff,” Pat said.

“Actually, you shouldn’t be talking to any civilians at all,” Andy said. “Civilian kids are not supposed to be friends with hero kids until after they graduate from high school. You know there’s a lot of talk on the news about civilians getting angry for the damage heroes have caused in cities, and they really don’t like our people getting along with normal people.”

“There haven’t been any riots or protests about it yet,” Pat said. “But it’s still against the rules to be friends with average people out there. If Principal Rushman finds out about this, you’re dead.”

“But I’ve got a funny feeling she might not be just a civilian,” I said. “She did tell me her parents had died and her aunt had to adopt her. She also said her parents used to be part of a corporation, and I’ve got a funny feeling they had something to do with Chronos.”

Glitch put his chocolate milk down. “B-but that’s impossible. N-normal p-people never get p-p-powers.”

“That’s what I thought, but she never really knew her parents,” I said. “Maybe her parents were experimented on and she got their genes after they died in an accident or something when she was a baby. But I don’t know.”

“If that’s the case, she would have known by now,” Andy said.

“And what are your powers again?” Pat said.

“I signed an agreement saying I’m not allowed to disclose what my powers are,” Andy said before taking a bite of his pizza.

“What kind of agreement?” Pat said.

“That’s classified,” Andy said. “Anyway, I’m only here as an engineer, really. I take different classes than all of you crazy head heroes, and I design weapons of defense and destruction.”

“So safe to say, you don’t have powers and you’re just sort of here,” Pat said.

“I didn’t say that,” Andy said. “No comment.”

“So that means yes, you don’t have powers,” Pat responded.

“No, it means no comment.”

“So, I feel like towards the end of battle class, I just let my guard down around him,” I said. “I was only trying to protect myself when he was throwing his fire on me, and he said he wanted to take my powers away. I didn’t let him, but I really didn’t want to put up a fight. What do you make of that?”

“I really don’t know,” Pat said. “He looked like he was choking you from where I was standing.”

“But then he let me go when I told him to form a truce with me,” I said.

“I didn’t hear you say that.”

“That’s because I said it telepathically.”

“Oh, I forgot you have super mental powers, like your mom.”

“Right, but what does he have against me now?” I said. “I knew he was mad about my family being ruthless with his dad, but I really didn’t count on him sticking up for me. I also didn’t count on myself helping him fight my opponents, who were originally on his side. They were pretty strong bad guys too.”

“S-s-sounds like a l-love story to me,” Glitch said.

“I’m not in love with him, if that’s what you’re suggesting,” I said. “I told you, he’s not my type anyway. And sure, I would love to know what having a boyfriend would be like, but I’ve never been in love, and superheroes’ significant others often end up dying anyway, so why should I even have a boyfriend when I want to save the world?”

“Well, if your boyfriend is a hero too, maybe he won’t die,” Andy said. “Maybe he’ll be there to marry you and have kids with you, and you’ll teach them how to be heroes like you. You never know.”

“Heroes can be vulnerable,” I said. “Not everyone can live forever and still be strong.”

“How true,” Pat said.

At that moment, I think someone messed with the fire alarm, because there was a loud siren wailing throughout the building. The whole cafeteria got quiet as everyone listened for the alarm. It sounded like a bomb was coming down on our school from the wailing alarm.

“What is it?” I said quietly to the guys. “Are we under attack?”

“I don’t think so,” Pat said. “It’s probably a lockdown.”

“Like a lockdown drill?” I said.

“Sort of,” Andy said. “Some protesters in Metrocosma sometimes get out of hand that they start rioting near the school, and they’re against us young heroes. But if it’s just an exercise, these alarms will go off and we’ll do it as a drill, and only for about fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“What do we do, get under the tables?” I asked.

The crowd of people in the cafe started getting up and moving toward the exits. “F-follow me,” Glitch said.

“Yeah, follow Glitch, he’s the best one at navigation,” Andy said. “He knows this school better than we do and he’s a freshman.”

“Um, you’re a freshman too, dude,” Pat said.

Everyone left the cafeteria in three straight lines, and every time we reached a hallway that went two directions, one of the lines went the other way towards a classroom. I stayed with Pat, Andy, and Glitch in front of me, following the long line toward what looked like the basement under the school. I guessed the object of this lockdown drill is that we barricade ourselves in a tight place where there’s no way any crazy protester could get in and hurt anyone. But just as we were about to lock ourselves in the basement, Glitch’s arms started shaking.

“Oh no,” he said. “N-not now, not n-now…”

In a split second, Glitch disappeared. Now we had a problem.

“Oh, not again,” Pat said, stopping while everyone else went ahead.

“Hey guys,” I said. “Do you know if Glitch can fully control his powers?”

The guys turned around. “Sometimes,” Andy said. “It depends on how nervous he is most days. But now he just poofed, and he could be anywhere in the school.”

“He could be anywhere in the city,” Pat said, correcting him.

“Oh yeah, you’re right,” Andy said.

“So what do we do?” I asked.

“We’ll have to split up,” Andy said. “I’ll tell one of the teachers that Glitch is missing…”

“No way, man,” Pat said. “Do you want him to get in trouble for wandering off? They could suspend him for being caught off campus during a lockdown!”

“Not necessarily,” Andy said. “If I tell the teachers exactly what happened, that there was a problem with his powers that he just randomly teleported when he had no control on it, they might go easy on him. No freshman barely has any control on their abilities.”

“Either way, I am not searching the whole city for him,” Pat said, crossing his arms.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Pat, you can go search the inside of the building, I’ll check the school grounds and part of the city, if that’s possible.”

“No, Violet,” Andy said. “You got in trouble once at the civilian school, which is how you ended up here. You can’t get in trouble a second time. You don’t even know how to fly yet.”

“I’ll be careful, I promise,” I said. I raised my hands to swear on it, saying, “I’m keeping my gloves on, see? If I beat Jordan and Wanda at battle class, I can do this.”

Andy sighed and rolled his eyes. “All right, go on ahead. Pat, you take the south hallway, Violet, take north and head out the double doors. Search the stairs, search the roof, search everywhere you can think Glitch could end up. I’ll tell Principal Rushman that one of the students disappeared by a lack of a better term, an accidental technical glitch.”

Pat turned around and headed down the hallway behind us while I dashed up the hallway and went outside to the parking lot. The sirens still echoed outside campus grounds. The road from the hovering campus on the water to the city of Metrocosma was pretty long. I didn’t even anticipate how far I’d be running to get there. As I walked backwards into the parking lot, I looked up at the roof to see if Glitch popped up there. But he wasn’t. Even if he did get up to the top of the school building, there was no way I’d be able to get up there because I couldn’t even levitate with my frost powers. So I turned around towards the long runway and broke into a run.

About halfway towards the gate, I got tired of running. I bent over, almost falling to my knees, and gasped to catch my breath. If only I could fly, I thought. It would be so much easier. But as I got closer to the heavy steel wall gate on the pier, I could hear screams and shouts coming from the other side. And there was a faint smell of pepper that could only be tear gas. There was a huge protest on the other side of the wall, and the social movement was about to turn ugly with the police making multiple arrests of people picketing against superheroes and super children, a protest that might turn into a disastrous riot.

As I stood there with hands on my knees to catch my breath, I prayed that Glitch wasn’t out there getting his butt kicked by the angry mob outside the protection of the school. Then suddenly, I heard the revving of an engine and I stood up and turned to find a light blue classic PT Cruiser coming up the street behind me. The car pulled up to the side of the road just feet away from where I stood and the driver rolled down the window.

It was Mr. Oz, my flight instructor. “It’s not going to be possible to look for your friend on foot, especially when you can’t fly yet,” he said from the car seat, his elbow hanging out the window. “Get in.”

I got in the shotgun seat next to him and put on my seat belt. “Do you think we’ll be able to find Glitch in that mess out there?”

“Don’t worry,” Oz said. “Priscilla is impervious to most harmful substances. Hold on.”

As Oz took his foot off the brakes and floored the gas pedal, hurdling the car towards the gate, I said, “Wait, you named your car Priscilla?”

“Long story, no time to talk about it,” he said as he shifted gears.

“I’ve learned not to ask,” said a guy’s voice. I turned around to the back seat. Jeremy was sitting back there in his black leather jacket, riding without a seat belt while sipping a cold soda.

I turned back to my teacher and asked, “What’s he doing here?”

“Stowaway,” Mr. Oz said. “And he was the only other student to come with me to help me find your friend. I also gave him detention for setting fire to my bonsai tree in class, so he’s basically coming with me to pay a debt.”

“You know he almost killed me in battle class,” I said softly. “And now he refuses to talk to me.”

“I didn’t mean to kill you!” Jeremy nearly shouted. “Jesus, I was helping you near the end because you needed me to. I’m not helping you anymore.”

“All right, I don’t want to hear about your grudges against each other,” Oz said. “Maybe this time you guys will work this out and cooperate so we can find your friend. Principal Rushman told me to accompany both of you to find him, and you’re very lucky to get off campus at all without being penalized. Now you’re going to work together as a team, put all of your resentment behind you, and get over your problems. Got it?”

Jeremy grunted. I turned around and said, “Well, for one thing, Jeremy, you might want to wear a seat belt.” I looked back at the gate, which was getting closer and closer by the second. “At this rate, we’re going to smash into the wall ahead in a few seconds.”

“No, we’re not,” Oz said. “Watch this.”

He shifted gears again and pulled on the lever on the passenger’s side, my side, of the stick. As he held that lever in place, I looked at the rear view mirror outside my door, which started pixelating and flashing. The whole exterior of the car was doing it, as if engaging retro reflection panels. At the last second, he slammed on the brakes. I heard buzzing coming from the dashboard of the car, and in that moment, I saw a swirling portal that engulfed us right where that solid metal gate used to be. For what felt like seconds, we moved across a bridge of pixels, flashing colors, and flashing lights going off like lightning. The very next moment, there was a banging sound when Mr. Oz hit the gas pedal again and pushed the lever down and we came back to reality, where the car was traveling down a busy city street. He hit the brakes again when he got to the outskirts of the protest, where people were blocking traffic with their signs, and police officers tried to contain the chaos. That was when I realized…

We had driven right through solid steel during lockdown. And we must have taken an underground detour under the protest to the other side.

Cool.

“Woah. So, this car can fly too?” I said when we made it past the protesters.

“Sort of,” Mr. Oz said, getting out of the car. He motioned for us to exit with him and follow him around the city. “She can be a hovercraft also, but I don’t want to make a big scene with Priscilla flying through the air during a protest. People would get the wrong idea. She can also move through areas undetected by moving through other dimensions, which I prefer most of the time. Mr. Octavius, your quantum physics teacher, made a formula to make Priscilla do that.”

“Awesome,” I said.

“We should probably start looking,” Mr. Oz said, going to the passenger side of the car. He went inside the glove compartment where there was a computer in there and tapped a few buttons and switches, bringing it to life. “This sensor should locate your friend Glitch somewhere in the city. I’ve already checked the school and he’s not there. From what the sensor is telling me, your friend is somewhere at Metrocosma Community College, where new students go to train for Falcon.”

“So back where I started before I got my powers,” I said. “I think I have an idea where he might have ended up.”

“He could be anywhere on that campus and he could even wander off into the city,” Jeremy said. “You don’t know if the protesters would make it over there.”

“They won’t get close to him,” I said. “The college is well protected from all that.” In my heart, I hoped that would be the case and Glitch would be safe from the angry civilians.

Jeremy ignored me and said, “Should we split up and look for him?”

Mr. Oz stood from the car seat and shut the door before taking the button on his keychain and locking the doors. “I don’t think that’s the best idea, especially when this protest is in danger of becoming a serious riot,” he said. “If you two are seen using your powers at any time, the results could be dangerous. I want you two to stay together whatever the costs, get to the college, and find your colleague and bring him back here. I’ll buy you some time to make sure the protesters don’t come anywhere near the college. Good luck.”

We stayed alert and were careful as we walked down to the college where I tried out for high school for my early bird application, which was really a selection to see if some civilians had enough physical stamina and tactics to attend classes. I realized then that the only way anyone could make it in was if they passed the tests in the summer camp there. But Andy was a pretty good student at Falcon, and I was surprised he made it in without telling the school faculty what kinds of powers he had. I often wondered what powers he had, but I knew that would probably remain a secret he would carry to graduation. Jeremy stayed close to me and kept a sharp lookout for stray protesters and shifty people who wanted to cause a scene. I typically hated walking in the city, especially alone, but thankfully there were no scary things happening down there so far. Just a few homeless people looking for people to give them spare cash.

“Hey, pay attention to the light,” Jeremy snapped at me when the pedestrian light changed. “Keep your head up and look.”

When we had just reached the small college campus, we started searching the buildings to see if Glitch popped up in any of them. I knew he probably wouldn’t be in a classroom, for that would have been too obvious. I tried the girls’ bathrooms while Jeremy checked the boys’, but thankfully, he wasn’t in any of them. It would have been creepy for some of the civilian girls to find out that a short high school boy just suddenly appeared in the girls’ bathroom. Someone might have called security.

Jeremy started calling my name when I was nearly done searching the janitor’s closet. He said that he probably found something that I might want to see upstairs on top of the math and science building. So I followed him to the entrance of the building and up the elevator.

The math and science building was humongous. For a start, it was tall. According to the buttons on the elevator, there were fifteen floors. Before we even went inside the building, I looked up and saw someone cleaning the windows on a scaffold up high near the fourteenth floor. And as I looked back through the automatic sliding doors, there were some college kids lining up outside the building, looking up in a panic. Looking up at what, I didn’t exactly know. I hoped someone called the fire department.

But as it turned out, the fire department probably wouldn’t have helped at all. When we climbed up the hidden stairway to the roof of the building, there was a trembling Glitch, hanging over the edge of the building, both hands clinging to the ledge.

I ran to him and gripped his hands. “Oh my god, Glitch!” I shouted. “How did you get up here?”

“I… I… I d-d-d-don’t know,” Glitch said. “G-g-g-get me down!”

I pulled on Glitch’s wrists, but I had no idea his hands would be so sweaty and my gloves were letting him slip even more. I let him rest on the edge of the building, but I knew he wouldn’t be able to hang on much longer.

“Jeremy, a little help?” I said. “I can’t grab hold of Glitch while I’ve got my gloves on.”

“So take them off,” Jeremy said, advancing to us.

“I don’t want to freeze him,” I said. “You’ve got stronger arms than mine, you can help him pull himself up over the ledge.”

“No, just because you geeks have no upper arm strength doesn’t mean I get to help you,” Jeremy said, crossing his arms.

“Please, Jeremy, he’s my friend,” I said. I was out of ideas, but then without thinking clearly or thinking at all, I said, “If you help me, I’ll go out with you. How’s that?”

“Go out?” he said. “Like a date?”

I knew I just embarrassed myself again with my dumb mouth. “No, no, not like a date!” I said. “Like a friend get together! Maybe we could go out for ice cream or something! Or we could just go out and study together, your choice! Please, just help me save his life!”

The next second, a helicopter flew above us, piloted by some military guys in full body uniforms, helmets and vests. They looked to be police, but it was like they were on the side of the protesters because they pointed their weapons at us. I could hear a guy shouting on a megaphone, saying, “Get off the ledge and get down from the roof immediately!”

Jeremy and I looked at each other and realized that things did not look good for us here. If we backed away, Glitch would have slipped off the building and hit the ground like a pancake. But if we helped Glitch get back on the roof and get down from the top of the building, the police officers would have opened fire and we’d be dead.

Jeremy looked at the helicopter and back to me. Then he looked back at the copter and shouted, “I’m sorry! We’ve got this! We don’t need your help!”

The next thing that happened was amazing. I don’t know how he did it, but he must have played with the joystick or the handles and switches with his mind to steer the copter safely down onto the ground by the school football field where no one would get hurt. He kept his hand stretched out as he did this, lowering the copter smoothly while I held on to Glitch. When the helicopter was safe out of reach, he came over to me and put his hands on my arms.

“Lose the gloves,” he said. “I’ve got you.”

I turned to him and said, “But the ice in my fingers…”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Trust me. I will keep your hands warm. Now lose em.”

I carefully removed my white gloves. The sun was pretty hot and humid today because it was still September and the weather had been pretty warm, meaning that summer wasn’t over. But no matter how hot it was outside, I could feel my palms becoming colder and colder like the whole isle of Antarctica was having the reverse effect of the greenhouse gases. From standing at the top of the tallest building in the heat, I didn’t even break a sweat. My whole body was cold. But just as my arms were washing over like liquid nitrogen, Jeremy moved his hands lower towards my wrists and started pulling. I felt a surge of warmth in my hands, and I felt as if Jeremy was letting me borrow his strength to pull Glitch to his feet.

“Come on, pull yourself up,” Jeremy told him.

With our help, Glitch pulled himself up and over the ledge, kicking while pushing himself over. Finally, Jeremy and I were on our backs, and Glitch was safe on top of the building. We all got up, still out of breath from pushing ourselves harder. Jeremy was the most exhausted from everything he did; he used his brainpower to stop the helicopter from shooting at us, and he used his fire to keep me warm while also pulling Glitch over the ledge. But there was no way we would have done it without him. I had a new appreciation for him.

We all stood up with our hands on our knees when Glitch said to us, “Th-thank you. B-both of you. I… I don’t know w-what’s wrong with my p-powers, but I’m sure I’ll f-f-figure it out.”

“Don’t mention it, little man,” Jeremy said, catching his breath. “It was really Violet who did most of the work.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I said, putting my gloves back on. “If you hadn’t done something to keep me warm and helped me pull, Glitch would have been frozen solid or worse, he would have been a pancake.”

“A-and g-good job w-with that helicopter,” Glitch said.

A sound was coming from down below. People were shouting and clapping. We walked towards the edge of the building and saw that people were cheering for us. So I started waving at them to show them we were all right. Jeremy and Glitch took each other’s hands and bowed at them. The crowd of college kids watching screamed and cheered louder. I could even make out one kid going, “All right, superheroes! We love you!”

I started blushing, even though I technically didn’t feel myself blushing. Chances were, our faces were most likely going to be all over the news as the new heroes of the city, not just my parents. For a long time, I thought the public had something against us, like some people weren’t allowed to have these abilities, but I guess there were some good things they liked about us. Also, there were still no protesters in sight.

Then Jeremy held out his hand to me and said, “It’s just a hand.” So I took his hand and we bowed to our new audience.

But when we turned around to where we came in, there was Principal Rushman with Mr. Oz, Miss Harley, and a man with a white beard and a pressed herringbone suit who could only be the assistant principal Oliver Logan.

“Roger Sumners?” Principal Rushman said. “Is there a reason why you teleported up here?”

“N-n-no, m-m-miss,” Glitch said. His stammer was even worse around the principal.

“It was a fluke,” I said. “He couldn’t control his powers, so he disappeared and reappeared here at the top of this building.”

“Seems like we’ve got things to discuss, Mr. Sumners,” Miss Harley said.

“I… I… I’m s-s-sorry,” Glitch muttered.

“All three of you, in my office,” the assistant principal said. “Now.”

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