The Madrona Heroes Register: Echoes of the Past (34 page)

“
Yeah. You guys go ahead.
I’ll catch up. There’s something I want to check really quick
first.”

“
You want me to
wait?”

“
Nah. You better go with
the princess or she’ll never make it home.” Zach
laughed.

Binny gave Zach a knowing look, as she
knew all-too-well their sister’s penchant for wandering off at
inopportune moments. And then, she was off herself, running after
Penny and Cassie. Zach could hear her yelling “Hey, wait up.” as
she got further away.

Zach waited briefly while Binny faded
into the distance of the now dusky forest before he traced the path
backwards for a couple of minutes. Eventually he caught up with his
quarry. “Hey Caleb.”

The late July sun had started its slow
descent and Caleb Adams was heading home for the day. He stopped
and turned back at Zach’s call, “Who won your game?”

“
I don’t know that
hide-and-seek has a winner exactly.”

“
You raise a good point.
I’d never thought about that. What can I do for you, Mr.
Jordan?”

Zach was standing in front of Caleb
looking uncomfortably down at his feet. “I’ve been meaning to ask
you something.”

Caleb waited silently.

“
I was wondering, well, I
was thinking I guess – ” Zach hemmed and hawed, not sure why he was
suddenly nervous. “It’s just that Penny has powers, not just me and
Cassie and Binny. Penny’s mother didn’t get the drug from Luce
Laboratories. So whatever that drug did, if anything, it clearly
wasn’t responsible for giving us our powers. So I guess what I’m
asking is, where did they come from?”

“
And you think I can help
you answer this question?” Caleb seemed to be gently enjoying
Zach’s awkwardness.

Zach finally looked Caleb straight in
the eye, “I do.”

“
Well, I do have some
notions that I’ve been meaning to share with you and your
companions.”

Zach’s pocket buzzed, and then it
buzzed again.

“
Shouldn’t you get that?”
Caleb raised an eyebrow. “I suspect your parents would like you to
come home for dinner, no?”

Zach cast a glance at the phone pulled
halfway out of his pocket. “Yeah, it’s my Dad. I’m
late.”

“
Well, perhaps another
time then.” Caleb smiled and resumed his own trek home.

“
Yeah, another time.” Zach
said under his breath and headed in the other direction.

§

July turned to August, a daytrip to
the islands was made, and tongues were stained purple from a
seemingly endless number of blackberries. Julie Jordan even managed
to sneak in a week of chess camp for her children. Penny convinced
her mother to sign her up too.

The kids could walk to Julie’s new
apartment it was so close. And despite not sleeping in the Madrona
house, Julie seemed to spend even more time there than when she had
lived there. There was now the occasional Jordan girls’ slumber
party on the floor of Mom’s living room. But in general things had
gotten relatively routine.

Binny had even managed to convince her
parents to buy her a fifth skateboard. As the summer progressed she
would ride through the neighborhood thinking less each day about
her parents’ divorce, and more about her new powers. “Are you
reading my mind?” Zach would sometimes ask when they were alone
together. Despite Binny’s reassurances, Zach could get twitchy and
uncomfortable just at the very idea of Binny browsing his private
thoughts.

Binny skated her favorite routes on
autopilot. Invariably she would end up at one of the many entrances
to the Madrona woods. Partly because that’s where most roads in
Madrona led, and partly because that’s where she loved to spend
time. Binny was so lost in thought she almost ran into the teenage
boy crossing the little bridge over the trickle of a stream that
bordered this side of the woods. He had red spiky hair, blotchy
skin, and a smirk on his face as he drank from a tall silver beer
can.

Binny realized that she
knew this boy.
It was the boy that yelled
at Caleb. The boy who let his dog poop in my hideout. The poop I
sat in.
The humiliation of that day came
back to Binny in a tear-streaked rush. This time the boy was all
alone.

“
Watch where you’re
going.” He barked at her.

Binny wasn’t sure what came over her,
but she didn’t feel any fear of the boy who was almost ten years
her senior. “Why don’t you watch where YOU’RE going?”

“
Are you kidding me?” The
boy wasn’t used to being challenged. And certainly not by a
ten-year-old girl on a skateboard.

“
Have you been throwing
more empty cans in the forest for someone else to clean up?” Binny
shot him an accusatory look.

“
Hey, I’ve got an idea,
junior police girl: why don’t you go home, play with your dolls,
and stay out of the big scary woods.”

“
Hey, I’ve got an idea.
How about you never come back to these woods again and go somewhere
where you’re actually wanted.” Binny’s hands were on her
hips.

The blotchy boy started laughing. He
laughed so much it turned into a cough, and then back into a laugh
once he caught his breath. Binny watched him carefully, knowing
exactly how small he was trying to make her feel with his endless
laughter. Binny thought back to that day when Caleb had stood up to
the boy.

The boy’s laughter finally subsiding,
he leaned in closer to Binny, “How exactly are you gonna stop me
from going anywhere I want?”

“
I know what you’re scared
of.” Binny didn’t move an inch. “I know what you did that you don’t
want your grandfather to find out about. And if you ever come back
here, I’ll tell him myself.” Binny’s eyes were slits as she
concentrated on the boy looming above her.

At first a look of mild surprise
crossed the boy’s face. Then as he digested Binny’s statement, the
look blossomed into genuine fear. And at that moment, Binny got
exactly what she needed.

“
What are you talking
about?” The boy demanded.

“
Do you think your
grandfather would be ok with you driving his car without him
knowing?”

“
What? How did you?” The
boy couldn’t finish his sentences. “You’re a freak.” He started
backing away from Binny slowly.

“
I’m not a freak. I just
don’t like litter.” Binny took a step towards the boy.

“
Hey. Stay away from me.”
The boy took another step back.

Binny tried to warn him but it was too
late. The boy had backed up, lost his footing, and landed sitting
right in the little stream. He wasn’t hurt, but the water was
already spreading to the front of his jeans. He looked like he’d
peed himself.

“
Are you ok?” Binny
reached out a hand to try and help him up. The boy recoiled from
her hand as if it were radioactive and scrambled to his feet. He
took one last fearful look at his ten-year-old nemesis and ran,
getting as far away from her as he could, as quickly as he was
able.

§

Binny felt bad about what had
happened. It’s not that the boy hadn’t deserved it. She just hadn’t
intended for him to get quite so scared. Well, maybe he deserved
that too. A little water was nothing compared to sitting in poop.
So what was really bothering her?

Walking in the woods Binny knew what
she really felt bad about. She’d just been thinking about whether
it was fair of her to use her powers; whether it was nice to see
people’s private thoughts without their permission. Almost
immediately after that thought she’d done exactly that to the boy.
She hadn’t hesitated even for a moment. Were there times when it
was ok for her to use her powers and times when it
wasn’t?

As far as Binny knew, she was the
first person on Earth ever to have to contemplate this moral
dilemma. She couldn’t exactly check “Telepathy and Morality: A
Discussion” out of the Madrona library.

The shelter that Caleb had shown the
kids had been the perfect replacement for Binny’s rusted out old
car. Just as she had with the car, Binny now came to the shelter
when she needed to think.

Binny wandered over to the same corner
she had weeks before on her first visit to the shelter. The milk
crate sat on the shelf just where she’d left it. The Jordan
children and Penny had spent lots of time in their new clubhouse
since that night they’d spent dodging guards at Luce Laboratories,
but she’d never looked back at the Register. The Madrona Heroes
Register to be exact – still scrawled in Binny’s handwriting across
the cover.

Binny opened the book to the first
page where she’d listed the members of their nascent superhero
team. Everything was just as she’d left it. A list of team members
and their powers.

Cassie Jordan. Random
invisibility.

Zach Jordan. Good at remembering alarm
codes.

Penny Yang. Good at breaking
stuff.

And her name on the last line. Binny
Jordan. But after her name something was now written. She was sure
she’d left it blank, but there was definitely a word there now.
Binny was pretty sure it was in her brother’s handwriting. The last
line in the list now read:

Binny Jordan. Leader!

Just over three miles from where Binny
Jordan was looking at an almost seventy-year-old notebook, a small
room was lit only by a grainy series of images on a large computer
screen.

For weeks now, almost every evening,
and sometimes late into the night, those images played over and
over again on the display. A hand rested on a raised circular
control in front of the screen. When the hand twisted the dial to
the left, the images on the screen played quickly in reverse. When
the hand let the dial rest at center, the images went forward at a
normal speed. This pattern had been repeated hundreds of times and
would be repeated hundreds more.

The black and white images were
clearly shot from above. They may have been grainy but showed one
thing with unmistakable clarity – a little girl standing up and
walking towards a large mirror on the side of a small room. After a
few more seconds, the little girl on the screen would start to
flicker. Sometimes the little girl was visible in the image.
Sometimes she was not. And often she hovered somewhere in between –
partially transparent.

Inevitably the video would get to the
part where another party entered the room and the flickering would
stop. At that point the hand would twist the dial to the left, and
the little girl would begin to flicker all over again.

Normally, books don’t have musical
accompaniment. But The Madrona Heroes Register wasn’t originally
intended to be a book. It was going to be a screenplay, and maybe
eventually, a film. But screenplays aren’t consumed widely unless
they’re made into movies. I considered making it a graphic novel
for awhile, but that seemed like an even more daunting challenge
than a screenplay. Thus, out of sheer laziness (and fear?), The
Madrona Heroes Register became the novel you have before
you.

But just because the story is told as
a novel doesn’t mean the movie ever left my mind. There are several
points during the story when I imagine the camera pulling back from
the scene you’re reading, and a particular song plays over
beautiful imagery. I am listing these moments here, so if you
choose, you too can experience the film that I saw in my head as I
wrote the book.

Each of these musical interludes
aren’t really described in the book at length because a film would
rely on the song and the visuals to set the mood. So you’ll have to
fill in a minute or two of ‘movie’ when you play the song to get
the full effect.

To experience these musical moments
you may need to spend a few dollars if the songs aren’t already in
your music collection. But I promise they are worth it.

Let My Love Open the Door,
Pete Townshend
– This song plays just as
Chapter 1 ends and we get a view of the entire
neighborhood.

Watching the Wheels
(Acoustic), John Lennon –
During Chapter
18, the song plays as the family walks from the ice cream shop to
the park and the kids eat their ice cream.