Super (6 page)

They’d been allies for that one night, but now there was going to be trouble. Bud took the hint and stepped back too. Far away from Eric’s quiet rage.

“What?” said Clay. “Bud’s starting a rock collection, that’s all—Hey!”

Eric had grabbed Clay by the shirt collar, yanking him close.

“It’s not enough to be a bully? You want to be a super-villain now, is that it?”

“Get your hands off me!”

One hand holding Clay by the collar, Eric leapt up to the sky … and fell. His feet didn’t get more than a few feet off the ground before something in him gave out and he collapsed back to earth.

“What the …?” Clay shrugged Eric off and stumbled backward, his face twisted in confusion. Eric wobbled to his feet, barely able to stand. Daniel recognized that dazed look on his friend’s face—he’d seen it before back at the bridge.

“Hey, what’s the matter with him?” asked Bud.

No one answered. No one said anything. But a mean smile crept across Clay’s face, making his already ugly face even uglier. It was never a good thing when Clay Cudgens smiled.

“Hey, Eric,” said Clay. “You okay, man? You need a hand?”

Before Daniel could shout a warning, Clay gave Eric a hard shove, knocking him backward.

Eric was lifted up and off the ground by the force of Clay’s little push, and he landed with a loud smack that knocked the wind out of him. He lay there clutching his stomach and gasping for breath.

“Well, well,” said Clay. “Here’s an interesting twist!”

“Whoa,” said Bud, and the air took on the tang of spoiled meat.

Clay stalked toward Eric’s helpless form, cracking his knuckles as he walked.

“Man, payback hurts, don’t it?”

Eric struggled to stand up, but he just couldn’t get his breath. Daniel was at his side, but even with help Eric could only make it to one knee. If he didn’t get better fast, they were both in serious trouble.

“Maybe I’ll just give you to Bud,” said Clay. “I bet even lard-butt over there could whup you now.”

“Hey!” said Bud.

“But just to make sure, I think I’ll soften you up first. This’ll be fun.”

Not that long ago, Daniel had watched Mollie Lee stand her ground against Clay. She’d been protecting Daniel at the time, and though she was super-fast, she was no match for Clay’s strength. If the two of them got into a fight, Daniel doubted that Clay would even feel it. But she hadn’t backed down; she’d stood up for a boy she barely even knew.

Daniel tried to hold on to that memory of Mollie, her face full of stubborn bravery. He kept it foremost in his mind as he put himself between Clay and Eric.

“Leave him alone, Clay.”

Clay’s smile grew wider and, if possible, uglier.

“I’m surprised at you, New Kid. I’d have thought you’d be halfway home by now. You’re gonna need a place to change your shorts.”

Clay laughed as he stepped over to the edge of the line of trees and wrapped his arms around a sturdy maple. Its trunk
was too thick around for Clay’s arms, but he dug his fingers into the bark and pulled. And pulled. The veins in his neck bulged and his arms began to shake, but after a few seconds there was a deep-sounding crack. A snap of splitting roots and the whole thing lurched out of the ground, taking a giant chunk of earth with it.

He lifted the tree above his head and grinned like a maniac.

“I should flatten the both of you!”

“Clay, man,” said Bud, “what are you doing? You’ll cream Daniel with that thing!”

“Then he’d better move!”

Clay assumed Daniel would run away, of course. Just as he assumed that Eric could take the hit. After all, he’d seen him take much worse. But only Daniel knew how very weak his friend was right now. That thing would kill him.

“Clay!” shouted Daniel. “Wait! Don’t!”

“Catch!” said Clay.

In a cloud of leaves and dirt, Clay tossed the tree. It was a lazy throw, but it still spun toward Daniel, a thousand pounds of deadly wood. Daniel barely had time to react. He needed to run, he needed to …

The leaves settled and the dust was making his eyes water, but Daniel was surprised to discover that he was still alive.

Clay was still standing over the hole left by his uprooted tree. He was frozen still and he was staring, openmouthed, at Daniel. At the tree overhead.

Daniel looked up to see the giant maple tree suspended above. He quickly glanced over his shoulder to see if Eric was behind him, but his friend was still on the ground. In fact, Eric’s face held the same shocked expression as Clay’s.

Daniel was holding the tree. Alone. Over his head. All by himself. A thousand pounds of solid wood and dirt.

No one said anything for a long time, until at last Bud broke the silence.

“Whoa,” he said.

T
he first time Daniel had flown, when Eric had taken him on that ride over the forests of Mount Noble, the cold wind had stung Daniel’s face and the tingle of vertigo had made his stomach do flip-flops the whole way. It had been thrilling but also terrifying. He’d held on to Eric with white-knuckled fingers, his arms around his friend like a bear trap. The whole flight had been a back-and-forth battle between the joy of flying and the fear of falling. After all, he hadn’t really been flying—Eric had been the one in control. Daniel had just been along for the ride.

This time was different. Daniel didn’t feel the cold; or rather, he didn’t feel it in the way he’d ever felt it before. He
was aware of the wind blowing, and he felt the sensation of it, just not the pain. He knew it was cold, but the cold could never hurt him. And as for holding on to Eric, well, that would have been hard since Eric was little more than a spot on the ground below him. And getting smaller by the second.

Daniel was flying. Really flying. He wasn’t sure
how—
this wasn’t like walking or running, where you have the solid impact of earth-meets-foot to remind you what you’re doing. He just felt certain that he could, that the power was there. He could move mountains. Or fly over them.

At last Daniel was super.

After the fight with Clay, Daniel was as shocked as anyone else, even more so, to find himself wielding an enormous tree like it was a baton. If this had been a comic book, Daniel knew, he’d have had something heroic to say, a well-delivered superhero quip aimed at the villain he’d just thwarted. Instead, he went with the obvious:

“Eric! I’m holding a tree!” he said.

“I know!” answered Eric. “But how?”

“I don’t know! What do I do with it now?”

“Put it down!”

“Where?”

“Anywhere except on me!”

Bud was already long gone, and Clay was retreating as well. Daniel caught a glimpse of the boy’s face before he got out of sight, though. Clay’s already puglike features were
contorted with hate—hate for the Supers and hate for Daniel. It would have concerned him, and it probably should have, except that Daniel’s brain didn’t have room for Clay Cudgens anymore. Things were different now.

Daniel dropped the tree with a loud thud that tickled the bottoms of his feet. It would take five grown men to just budge the thing, normally. Yet to Daniel it had felt no heavier than a folding chair. He stared at his hands. They didn’t look any different, but if he concentrated, he could feel something, a buzz, the vibration of energy in his muscles just waiting to be released. It started near his heart and ran through his veins, from his fingers to his toes.

“Eric, what’s going on?” he asked.

His friend shook his head. “I don’t know. How do you feel?”

“Not that different, really. Just sorta tingly, I guess. My heart’s going crazy, though.”

“Try something else,” Eric said. “Pick up Bud’s rock.”

Daniel looked over at the bowling-ball-sized piece of limestone. He reached out his hands to scoop it up.

“Uh-uh,” said Eric. “Try one-handed.”

Daniel placed his fingers around the rock. Bud was a big kid, and he’d barely been able to carry it with both hands. Daniel hefted it easily, balancing it in his palm like a basketball.

“Man,” said Eric. “Can you do more?”

Daniel placed his other hand on the rock and squeezed.
It took some effort, but after a few seconds of trying, he shattered the rock between his palms. Eric had to duck to escape the flying shrapnel.

“More powerful than a locomotive,” said Eric. He pointed up at the sky. “Able to leap tall buildings?”

“No way,” said Daniel. Then, “You think?”

“One way to find out.”

Daniel looked up at the sky. Stars were just starting to wink at them through the blue-pink firmament of twilight. He took a deep breath, letting the air fill his lungs, then felt that vibration turn into something more, like a current of electricity. His calves were twitchy, eager to jump. His arms were already stretched high above his head, almost involuntarily reaching skyward. His body was telling him to go
up
.

And he did. He flew. One leap and he kept going, shouting as he soared through the heavens higher and higher, all the while willing the ground to stay away. He was a creature of the air now. Nothing else mattered, not even the sound of Eric calling his name. Beneath the howling wind and his own laughter, he was only barely aware of Eric’s warning, calling to him like an echo.

“Wait! You’re going too fast,” Eric shouted. “Don’t go too high!”

Daniel didn’t understand. How could he be too high? This was glorious. This was flight! This was everything that Eric and Mollie had experienced but Daniel had only ever imagined. This was freedom.

This was every kid’s dream.

The world was receding. Even the roar of the wind was becoming little more than a faraway humming in his ears, like a lullaby. His eyes were closed. Why were his eyes closed?

The ground hit him like a wrecking ball to the face. Or rather, Daniel hit the ground. When the earth beneath him finally stopped spinning, Daniel opened his eyes to see that he’d plowed into a bank of fir trees. Pine needles were drifting down around him like a shower of snowflakes. After a few minutes Eric came running toward him. Daniel’s head throbbed with a dull ache that kept rhythm with his heart pounding in his temples.

“What … what happened?” Daniel asked.

“You … flew too high, too fast,” said Eric. “You get that high, you start to run out of oxygen. Man, you scared me. I didn’t know if you were tough enough to survive a fall like that.”

Daniel stared at him, not comprehending.

“Daniel, you flew.”

Daniel looked around him at the snapped pine branches, the gout of dirt that had been torn up as he’d skidded to a halt. He remembered the wind. For some reason the air smelled differently up there. It was hard to talk past the knot in his throat. The words just weren’t there, so he nodded instead.

“Wow, Daniel,” said Eric. “You really flew. And that tree … how’d you do that?”

Daniel cleared his throat, suddenly self-conscious.

“I don’t know … puberty?”

“Man, come on!” said Eric. “This is serious!”

“I know! I know! But I don’t know what to say. I have no idea what’s happening to me!”

“Do you feel like you could do it again?”

Daniel shifted his weight beneath him and thought about the wind. He felt that same tingle in his hands and feet, just a bit weaker now. He concentrated on it as his feet began to lift off the ground. Then he suddenly felt dizzy. His stomach flipped over on itself and he had to sit back down.

“Whoa, whoa, take it easy,” said Eric, putting a firm hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “You just about killed yourself last time, you know.”

Daniel took a deep breath and looked up at the stars. How far had he gotten? Must’ve been pretty far to start losing oxygen. He’d heard of climbers running out of air on the top of Mount Everest, and that was nearly 30,000 feet. Eric was right—Daniel hadn’t even realized what he’d been doing, or how fast or how far he’d been flying. It was as if the wind had just pulled him along, and he hadn’t had a care in the world. Not a fear.

“You were fly-drunk,” said Eric.

“What?”

“That’s what Michael used to call it. You get up there with nothing but the wind and you kind of lose yourself. It’s easy to do, but it’s dangerous. Michael used to joke that friends don’t let friends fly drunk.” Michael was one of the Shroud’s last victims. He’d had his powers, and his memory,
stolen from him on his thirteenth birthday, but before that he’d been the greatest flier Noble’s Green had ever known.

“Eric, has anything like this happened before? I mean, someone getting powers who wasn’t born here?”

Eric thought for a minute. “No, not that I can remember. But we don’t get a lot of new kids here anyway, so maybe it was just a matter of time.”

“I can’t believe this,” said Daniel.

Eric smiled. “So, I guess … welcome to the club, Super.”

Daniel shook his head. He certainly didn’t feel that super now. The nausea was passing, but he still felt weak and tired, like he’d run a marathon in hundred-degree heat. All he wanted to do was sleep.

“I feel terrible. I don’t think I could fly now if you pushed me out of a plane.”

“Well, maybe it’s a slow process—you getting your powers. Maybe because you weren’t raised here, you just haven’t stored up enough … superpower or whatever. You’ve got a small gas tank.”

Daniel shrugged. It didn’t sound right to him, but he was willing to go with any explanation for the time being. He was so tired, it hurt to think, but through the haze, one thing did occur to him. A worrying thought.

“Eric,” said Daniel, “why didn’t you come after me?”

“What do you mean?” asked Eric. Daniel noticed that his friend wasn’t looking at him. Eric always looked you in the eyes when he talked to you.

“When I flew off, you didn’t follow me. If you were so worried about me, why didn’t you follow me? Eric, look at me.”

Eric looked at Daniel, and what Daniel saw in his friend’s eyes was something he’d never seen there before: fear.

“You didn’t fly after me because you couldn’t,” said Daniel. “Right?”

“I tried, but … it just … disappeared.”

Daniel shook his head. Eric’s power disappeared. At the same time that Daniel’s appeared.