Baby steps, those first adorable moments of movement before the dribble mouthed toddler tumbles to the ground.  Parents pull out cameras or camcorders depending on the period with the hope of remembering the fateful day for many years to come. The thought of offering up blackmail for their wayward teens always adds a double incentive as well. 
Yet for Lisa Ledford this photo book memory took a turn for…for the weird. The time had come at long last when her 17 month old child teetered up right, one had griping the high chair, the other outstretched towards the future.  Just the day before she had taken the poor sap to the doctor’s office as she had done nearly every two weeks for the last five months.  Dr. Millburn found nothing physically wrong in the X-rays or brain scans.  He suggested that perhaps the boy was a slow developer and to practice walking with him.
Lisa found this difficult as her son seemed to have a lead bottom, destined to hit the floor. After several mishaps, a bruise and a crying Luke she decided to let nature play its role.
Then it happened. In an instant, in the mid burble of the yellow telly-tubby the boy stood, propping himself up on the high chair.
"Joe get the camcorder it's happening, it’s really happening!"

The little hand released the bar for a quick moment before grabbing back on for dear life as a tall lanky man who embodied the 90s in all of its high waisted glory crashed into the room.
"Did I miss it?" He scream whispered long legs trailing behind.
"No, you didn't" Linda said as if talking to the baby.
"Why are we talking like this huh?" He asked imitating her tone.

"You didn't miss anything did you. Now open the camera and don't scare the kid."

"Right," Joe said catching the drift. They waited as little Luke teetered back and forth, steadied himself, reached out and pulled back in. All the while the little red dot on the camcorder flashed record. Joe was good at a lot of things. He was good at fixing cars and good at making coffee. He was even good at dancing after taking a few too many ballroom styled classes.  However he wasn't too great at waiting. "Linda," he whispered. There was no response from his wife whose eyes were dead set on Luke. She feared to blink just in case her infantile sons choose that very moment to take a step.

"Linda. Linda Linda. Lind..."
"What," she whispered a bit perturbed with her eyes still trained fixedly upon the child and the high chair.

"Maybe he would do something..."he changed his tone to a sing song tune. "Maybe he would do something if one of us stood there and had him walk to us"

"Joe," she began in a more strained version of  sing song. "He will do it if we just wait and watch."

"But what if he didn't"
"He will""But what if he...”
"He will! Linda snapped. For the next 18 or so years Linda would blame Joe for what happened next.  Luke peered up at them just then aware of being spied upon. They both smiled and waved, Joe from behind the hulking camcorder. The baby stared and then in a moment of absolute chaos screamed and cried, rocking to and fro like King Kong at the top of the Empire State Building.
The maternal instincts of Linda kicked in and in the next moment she found herself directly in front of the baby with outstretched arms. Yet before she had the chance to scoop up the snotty nosed kid, something unthinkable happened.
It is at this point that the event of Luke’s first steps became less of a blackmail video and more of a lets never ever show this video to anyone sort of video.
The boy took a quick moment to wipe his nose with the outstretched arm and then released the chair and took a clumsy first step. Joe scrambled with the camcorder and Linda nearly cried tears of joy as the toddler inched closer to her. It was all a beautiful family memory that is until the third step when something truly strange happened.
The baby seemed to be nearly jogging but not quite jogging more like walking quickly. Linda backed up. Her face in the video later portrayed the mix of confusion and triumph thrown together like an unsightly Picasso imitation at the dentist’s office.
She inched backwards at first and then jogged and then attempted to dodge out of the way but the damage was done. The child hit her like a speeding bullet, knocking the both of them against the wall. The next scene the camcorder captured was the tan carpet supplemented by the subtle sounded of a cursing Joe, a crying Luke and a Linda who repeated “What just happened? What just happened?” over and over again.
~
My family keeps a safe behind an old photograph built into a crack in the wall that could never be repaired. In the safe are many things, many things that I know too well. There is a little new blue shoe with the rubber melted off the bottom. There is a stone lion claw, the long lost member of our neighbor’s maimed cat. There is a video of my fist steps cursing and crying included.
When the thing first happened my Mom thought they should tell the doctor, that they should tell the police that I was special. She thought I would be a hero one day like the Flash or Quick Silver or at least be in the Olympics of something. My Dad was smart, impatient but smart. He told her what they would do. He told her that I would be a science experiment, a freak or that they would think me unsafe like a weapon and lock  me up or worst. My Mother was unconvinced but scared all the same.
In order to cope or at least that’s what my Dad says she built the safe. She calls it Luke’s special box and keeps all my less than average keep sakes in it. There hasn’t been one though for quite a few years.
When I was little she bought a bright red cape for me. My Dad said not to encourage me but she told him it was just a plaything.  She used to tell me I would be a hero someday but not just yet for now I needed to be her hero. I swooped about the house, careful not to step too many times on beat. Sometimes there were mishaps, a cabinet door snapped off a table leg askew. All of which angered my father who continued to tell her not to put such stupid fantasies in my head.
When school started they told me to be extra careful. By now I had mastered the power and rarely had any mishaps at all. I walked down those halls that morning with uneven steps like Batman in Gotham City. I was in control. I was the secret hero. I was Clark Kent. I mostly compared situations to comic books back then but you get the point.
Then I saw her the Mary Jane to my Spiderman, the Louis Lane to my Superman; Adler Song. Adler was the sort of girl who made your ears turn red when she laughed and made the sky turn dark when she cried. I never knew which was more terrible or more beautiful. The five year old side of me wanted to impress her in some way even though the five year old side of me also found her gross and made faces at her when she walked by.
I was by far the best at finger painting but she didn’t seem to notice that nor does the fact that as the years went on those rude faces faded into actual smiles. I learned some things at school. I learned that I was bad at math and science and reading and writing and apparently attendance as well. The fact is I’m’ slow at pretty much everything except fast walking.
It occurred to me after my first few experiences in PE that fast walking was a lame superpower. I couldn’t run fast or jump high or lift things just walk and look pretty awkward while doing it. I wasn’t just average either at the whole athletics thing. I was the slowest runner, the most uncoordinated soccer player on the team; I didn’t even have enough stamina to be good at cup stacking.
In junior high when my Dad’s tall genes set in I became toothpick or Lanky Luke or simply just Lank. The name stuck. I’m not even sure half the kids remember my real name even now.
Adler moved to another school somewhere in all those confusing pre-teen years. I never seemed to impress her probably because there was nothing impressive about me. I genuinely tried as hard as I could at school but the concepts never seemed to stick. I tried for that whole I don’t care slacker appeal then but the peeping white socks from beneath pants that never quite covered my ankles screamed “POSER”. I tried to learn guitar but it was too hard and I gave up after the second day. The neighbors called the police during the drum faze and the Seas of my dojo kindly suggested I try a yoga class after the whole gi incident.
High school was no walk in the ball park either. Freshmen year someone stole my clothes during gym and hung them on the flag pole, tighty wities and all. I hid in the bathroom until the janitor found me. Sophomore year I joined the debate team and actually seemed good until the championship debate when I made an indirect reference to the balding moderator. It was a hairy situation indeed. My junior year I finally got a date to prom sure she was a bit strange and nerdy and perhaps my cousin but I had a real date to prom. Everything was going well until an untied shoe lace caused me to trip, pushing super jock Lance Henderson into the punch bowl. At the end of the night I went to the store to buy cream for my black eye and bleach to remove the egg salad.
Fingers crossed for senior year. It’s been much the same so far. Teens in those wishy washy books gone movies always go on and on about being invisible. I envy them. At least they have some sort of consolment. Lank sticks out like a sore thumb in a school of pinkie fingers, the butt of every joke, the backlash to every slap. At this point I just want to be done and move on to a world who has never heard about me. Hence the point of college.
Yet I trudge on. If life has taught me anything it’s how to keep walking even when you hate looking at the things on the side of the road. If you stop you will have to look at them longer. If you move forward than they are truly behind you. I only wish I had some directional sense because the roads have all began to look the same.
 

It’s a Monday but not just a regular Monday more like the sort of Monday that makes you wish for some sort of random contagious illness to fall upon you.
“No Mr. Ledford you cannot go to school for the rest of your life. I absolutely prohibit it,” the doctor would say. “No ifs and or buts. I prescribe a life time dose of videogames and junk food. Remember you must stay away from responsibilities at all costs for the sake of your very life.”
Then everyone would talk about how brave poor Luke was and how much everyone loved him. Funny how people take the time to notice you when you dying or better yet when you’re dead. Ask Van Gogh he knows.
I felt ashamed for my sultry attitude. After all there were people in remote countries of the world dying of malnutrition and poverty without a thing to their names. And here I was comparing myself to a one eared dead and quite possibly deranged painter.
The momentary lapse of thanksgiving was shot down the moment I saw the poster that lined the entrance of the building that morning. I parked the unfortunate little wreck of a used Chevy Caprice Wagon. I told myself I would prove the parental units wrong with a perfect driving record and convince them about the Jeep. Unfortunately I’m not a very good arguer.  There was a little stone angel on our mailbox and now there is a little stone angel indent on the back of my car. It’s very decretive. My sister named it Michael. She is also six and watches teenage mutant ninja turtles and thus Michelangelo the Chevy Caprice Wagon was born.
I stepped out of the car and tried not to look at the colorful sign. Unfortunately, there was no good way not to look at the massive lettering save walking around with a paper bag over my head or being Stevie Wonder. Career Day:  the epitome of every indecisive teen existence. I’m sorry that I wasn’t born with visions of being a doctor or a lawyer implanted into my genome. It’s just difficult to pick a path in the span of a year and decide to stick with it for the next fifty or so. I know people can switch jobs but really after all of the college and training and of course the all important five letter word of the hour money wouldn’t it be best to nail it the first time.
The cheerleaders really outdid themselves with the sign this time I thought as I drew closer to the entrance. The C was a stethoscope and the D was a pair of sideways nerd glasses.  What will they think of next! I mused.
This whole dread of Career Day started sophomore year. Somehow I had gotten it into my juvenile brain that Dentistry was the path for me. I mean there wasn’t much of an appeal in sticking your hands into people’s mouth and touching rotting teeth but Dentist are respected. They make money and well they don’t really have to talk to people so much because their hands are constantly in their patient’s mouths. There was also this dentist’s assistant Maria I noticed at my last visit. Maria was Ukrainian I think or Polish or maybe just had an unfortunate speech impediment. I could never tell. Anyway Maria was absolutely enthralled with Dr. Dungbottom. I mean the guy had an overbite as a dentist. That basically screams a thousand horses could not make my teeth straight. He was shy and awkward and a word for poop and butt was literally in his name. Yet Maria saw differently. She respected Dr. Dungbottom.
I saw myself in that moment swishing fluoride as Dr. Dungbottom but with a much less severe overbite and a much less crappy name and with a girl like Maria. Then life would be good. It would be a new start and the whole awkward stage would be far behind, way back in my review mirror.
Then came Career Day. A dentist came to teach a session, not Dr. Dungbottom but Dr. Smith. He was the face of perfection, sleeked back black hair, straight teeth and a bow tie so starchy you could make chips out of it. I stared in awe. This man was a hero to me.
I listened attentively. These were the words of a dentistry god. He showed off the tools, the mouth mirror, the tongue prop and the famous cheek retractor. All went well, though the people around me gave strange glances to one another when I gasped at the unveiling of the drill.
Half way through the lecture he called for a volunteer. My hand was up so fast that I nearly dislocated my shoulder with the g force.
“You with the…,” he struggled to find any significant feature, “Skinny arms. Come on up.” Only slightly offended I jolted up to the stage careful not to move too fast.
‘”What’s your name son,” he said looking up at the towering mass of awkwardness that was Luke Ledford.
“Luke,” I responded a bit bashful to be in the presence of such a superstar.
“Lank!” yelled someone from the crowd.
“Alright son,” he continued after the auditorium recovered from laughter “I want you to model the right way to hold a drill for us. I took the drill from his hands and shifted it about spastically. I had seen something like this in a documentary and I wanted to prove my potential.
“Actually I was going to show you how myself but that’s pretty darn close,” he said like a westernized and larger less green version of Yoda. He was the great master of his art.
I beamed; at least I had been somewhat close to the correct form. This showed potential. This showed that dentistry coursed through my veins. 
“Alright then,” he continued watching my face which had no doubt contorted into a psychotic mixture of nervousness and excitement,”Alright now to perfect your form all I need you to do Luke is move your pinkie finger a bit to the left.”
My head swam with the watching eyes and Dr. Smith’s lulling voice. This would be my dream profession. I knew it or at least thought I did deep within. There would be plenty of money and people would respect me and I would find the Maria to my Dr. Dungbottom.
“Luke. Luke. Luke!”
I jolted to attention. Dr. Smith and the whole of the audience stared expectantly. Panic set in. I had failed to perform the simplest of tasks. Suddenly I couldn’t remember his instructions. Move something, something pink. I scanned the tool. My pulse sang a tune of urgency. Then I saw it, the answer. A small pink button protruded from the side of the drill. In an spastic rush of fingers I reached for the button and snapped it on.
The drill buzzed to life and the subtle murmuring of the auditorium fell silent. I gazed at the spinning metal bit in a horrified daze.
Dr. Smith gave an awkward sort of chuckle. “I don’t know what in the world your doing son,” he said as if he thought me a rodeo clown. I stared at him in terror and pain. I had already failed.
He caught my lack of humor and toned his down. “Now all I need you to do son is to flip the pink switch off and move your pinkie over about half an inch.”
I had failed. I looked like an idiot in front of the whole school. Now no one would go with me to prom. Now everyone from freshmen to seniors would know me as that kid that accidently turned on the drill during career day. I was given one job, one job!
“Uh you know what son maybe you should just put it back on the counter and sit down. It’s hard doing things in front of so many people.” He gestured towards the counter from which he had originally taken the drill. The auditorium was deathly silent like a room full of morticians or the library on 5th street with the crazy librarian.
No. I had come too far. To turn back now would be cowardice. I needed to do this right I needed to set the record, to redeem myself, to prove that Luke Ledford is no pansy.
“Dr. Smith,” I started, the drill still spinning wildly. I stepped forward in emphasis but was suddenly caught on the microphone wire. At first it was a mere stumble, then a fumble, then a first class dive bomb towards the dentist.
The next thing I heard was the screams of Dr, Smith.
“Get him off me. Get this crazy kid off me!”
Strong and official hands untangled me from the dentist and drug me off stage.
~
I heard later that it was four stitches from the drill and some bruising from my bony elbows. My parents convinced the school board that I was just a nervous klutz and the incident was not a staged attach on dentists. No law suit was filed. Though word of the incident spread far and wide, especially among those connected with dentistry. Needless to say, Dr, Dungbottom began to wear double gloves when treating me for the next two years or so. Maria left the office and married a male model from Ecuador.
In short my dreams of dentistry were crushed. Junior year I wanted to be a pharmacist. I thought it would be easy to get medicine off a shelf and give it to people. That is until the speaker at career day started talking about all the accidents possible with prescription drugs. She concluded that pharmacists hold the fate of the world in their hands. As I am unable to hold a dentist drill in my hands, I found the job a bad match.
Now my dream is City College and some sort of job that I can’t screw up. In the future, I might rise up through the ranks and actually become someone but for right now I just want to be anyone with a paying job.
Career day has consistently promised to bash my self esteem, kill my dreams and assure the student body that I am a loser. It’s my second least favorite school event right behind prom and the bane of my current existence. It also provides the opportunity for the smart kids and the rich ones to talk about their Ivy League ambitions right in front of everybody with future desk job ambitions.
Today I found myself a quiet place in the auditorium near the back with my friend Cameron. The first speaker was a nurse. Besides all the space for error in the profession I don’t think I could ever get over being called a nurse. I thought of Florence Nightingale with the little lamp, the 19th century dress and the white bonnet to top it off. There was something not quite right about being a male nurse. I mentally stopped imagining myself as Florence and checked nursing off the list in the first five minutes of the presentation.
The next speaker was a forensics guy. His watery blue eyes bulged in a precarious way and I could almost see the little ring imprints around his left eye from peering into a microscope. Cameron sat up a little straighter. I became friends with Cameron in the 1st grade and ever since I’ve known him, he has been obsessed with anything police. I’m’ not quite sure where the obsession came from. I mean his Dad is an optometrist and his mom is a librarian. I have a feeling it has to do with too many detective shows.
“Mr. Forensics man is ambidextrous,” Cameron whispered in my ear. Cameron went through a Sherlock Homes craze sophomore year. It took me three months to convince him that the scarf did not look cool and the deer hunting hat most likely had lice.
“How do you know that?” I asked with feigned skepticism. About 4% of the time Cameron was right about his crazy assumptions. The rest of the time it was anyone’s guess.  Still I felt forced to play into his game both out of pity and slight amusement.
“Elementary my friend,” I cringed as some girls in front of us turned around to stare.
“Please don’t say that so loud”.
“Elementary my friend,” he whispered “He holds his razor with the left hand as evidence by the large patch missed by his right ear and as you may very well observe he holds his microscope by the right hand. Ambidextrous!”
I nodded “I would never have thought of that.” He exhaled triumphantly and reclined against the gym wall.
The third speaker was an accountant. I paid little attention other than to the strange piercing in his ear. It took no Sherlock Homes to realize that the inch wide gage directly contrasted his otherwise lackluster appearance and personality. There was something odd about the way he talked, cheery but serious. He reminded me of a child care worker forced to be happy for the kids but worn out and cynical to the bone within.
The speaker caught my stare and a chill ran up my back. His little green eyes stared back with such a lack of emotion that I wanted to scream or run out of the room or both. Then in an instant he looked away again and continued to speak to the crowd.
At the end of the presentation Cameron went to talk to the forensics guy. I pitied the man I really did. My friend would no doubt attempt to demonstrate his less then par powers of deduction. I shuffled out towards lunch, existed to be forever finished with career day.
“Would you like a pen,” The voice interrupted my jubilee. A pen was thrust out in front of me by a fleshy white arm. I looked up at the owner of the arm only to find the beady eyed accountant.  He locked eyes with me in a near intimidating manner.
“Yeah sure,” I said and took the pen. Maybe I was just paranoid but I wouldn’t have wanted to be in a dark alley with that guy despite his pudgy body and tourist style wardrobe. There was just something wrong with the picture, something I couldn’t place. I looked back. The accountant stared at me through the crowd blankly. I turned about and walked quickly out of the auditorium.

I checked the box titled undeclared major on the City College application. I really did want it to be an answer other than I have no idea but nothing really jumped out.  The essay asked for an accomplishment that defined me. The only thing significant I have done is service work at a homeless shelter in which I spilled soup on a near day to day basis and achieving Webelos Boy Scout in elementary school.
I thought back to that little red cape and the memory safe. So much for being a hero, I wasn’t even mediocre. Everyone seemed to have something special, a sport, a subject, an instrument maybe a cute girlfriend. At the very least they promised to become something beneficial to society.
Then there was me, lanky, awkward, stupid, weird, allergic to non-hypo allergenic animals. The TV blared in the background cutting off my thoughts with the words of a BBC nature host.
“Lily turn that down would you.”
The volume was not altered. I could imagine Lilly sitting in front of the TV rolling her eyes.
“Lilly I said turn it down!”
“What was that?” she finally answered. “I couldn’t hear you.”
I sighed got up and barged into the room. A set of brown pig tails sat poised over a coloring book.
“You’re not even paying attention to the TV,” I accused her.
“That’s because I can multitask Luke,” she said in her own small and adorable way. I conceded, even my little sister had authority over me.
“Well at least turn it down some.”
Lilly somewhat obeyed and turned the volume down about 5%. What was with her and these nature programs anyway the show was boring and the hosts were always stuck up British guys.
“The basilisk genus otherwise known as the Jesus Lizard is the only vertebrate so far discovered that is able to walk on water,” the British host began. An image of the speedy reptile flashed across the screen.
“Two main adaptations allow the lizard to achieve this strange phenomenon. First large webbed feet and a bow legged stance and secondly the ability to move at speeds equivalent to the fastest land mammal, the cheetah.”
As the host moved on and the picture faded to that of a troop of baboons, I had a revelation. Perhaps this whole time my power had not been fast walking at all. Perhaps it had been walking on water.
~
On a 1-10 scale of lameness fast walking was about an 11. If I could have run fast and leaped high, things would have been different but this was not the case. The ability to walk on water however was beyond cool. It was hero status. If my power was truly to walk on water I could maybe kiss that desk job goodbye and do something significant for once in my life.
I did some research about my little lizard friend. I learned that I had half of the equation. I could move equivalent to the speed of a cheetah and naturally walked a bit bow legged. However, the big webbed feet were a bit to amphibious for me.
Yet after some calculations (math is actually applicable in the real world. Who knew?) I figured out the perfect solution. Swim Fins! It would be difficult to move with them on land but I figured I would do somet inventing and work out the bugs in my suit later like all the great heroes do.
I would defiantly need to wear some sort of tights. I had lost my pants too many times while moving at normal speeds to risk such a feat on water. Besides, all the heroes wear them. Real men and I suppose actors too, are not afraid of tights.
The only thing left to do was to test it out and make sure the power was really real. The problem was that we don’t own a swimming pool and I don’t necessarily feel comfortable breaking into the school pool wearing tights and flippers. The solution was an old abandoned ponding basin a few miles from my house, hidden from the road by dense trees. 
I planned to drive to the basin around 2a.m., park some distance from the main road, hike in and test out my theory. As for the tights, I originally intended to buy them on the way home from school one day. However when I got to the store, I chickened out. What if someone I knew was there? Did they even sell men’s tights? I bought a bag of beef jerky to redeem my manhood instead and decided to figure out a different way to get tights.
My suspicious behavior went virtually unnoticed by my parents and sister who determined long ago that I was bound to act strangely for some reason or another on a consistent basis.
I choose a night and began to gather my arsenal of supplies. The swim flippers from the attic, the mosquito repellant, the pepper spray just in case. I finally decided upon swiping tights from my Mom. Unfortunately all of her tights were missing (probably in the wash) and I didn’t feel the need to ask when they would be back. I decided instead to take a pair of jeggings. at least that’s what they say on the label. I’m’ still not sure exactly what they are only that one size fits all, secretly their very comfortable, secretly.
The stage was set. It was essentially the perfect murder without the whole murder thing.
I snuck out as planned jeggings and all. I prayed that I would not get pulled over by an officer or arrested while wearing women’s pants. Prison is a tough place especially for those with jeggings.
The night smelled like adventure, like discovery, like danger and momentarily like manure as I passed a dairy farm. This would be the night that determined my future I would either be one of the world’s greatest heroes or a dead end job sort of guy. All depended upon the outcome, all depended upon how successful a pair of swim fins could hold me up and just how far those jeggings could stretch.
Not to get ahead off myself but I had already started to think up my super hero name should I discover my real power. The hydroflash or Storm Walker or Wave Glider was among the top three. I could carry a trident like Poseidon or like Finnick Odair from the Hunger Games. To my defense it was a long drive and Don’t Stop believing came on the radio. It’s a very inspirational song.  
I took a back road for a few miles and then parked under some trees on the side of the road. I fingered the can of pepper spray in my pocket. Something about the atmosphere felt wrong. My good sense seemed to be screaming turn around. It was like one of those horror movies when the girl opens the closet even though literally every person in the audience knows it’s a bad idea. I mean the first rule of creepy houses is don’t open the closet. The first rule of forests at night: don’t walk in them alone.
I stepped out of the car and pressed the automatic lock button about three times just to make sure. What was I scared of? I could fast walk at the speed of a cheetah.  No hockey mask wearing, chainsaw wielding person could possibly catch up, unless of course they caught me off guard.
An old fence creaked as I stepped over it. I assumed the property had been abandoned long ago. There was no house near it just the ruins of a fence and a large swampy pond in the center. The swim flippers were connected together by a rope and I swung them over one shoulder. Despite, the ripples of fear that ran up my spine and the ridiculousness of the jeggings, I sort of felt cool like Indiana Jones or something. 
The ground squished beneath my sneakers. Decaying leaves and who knows what else formed a slippery barrier between the rubber soles and the ground beneath. In the absence of human interaction the forest had become overgrown. The thick branches threatened to snag and cut me in the dark and the underbrush reached out like hungry hands for my ankles.
The one thing I had forgotten was probably the most obvious. I was so well stocked for a trip into the woods that I forgot that it would be nighttime. I even remembered to bring a snack.  It’s alright though the moon was so bright that night I hardly needed a flashlight at all.
Still the occasional passing of the clouds often cast dark and strange shadows. They appeared to be claws or tall figures or miniature nooses hanging from the tree tops. Creatures scurried about as I disturbed the night landscape. An owl cooed loudly and swiveled green luminescent eyes toward me. It seemed to know me to be out of place. It seemed to sense my fear. Still I walked on.
I stopped frozen. The bushes rattled and scuffled. This was it. This is how it would all go down.  It was something big. I imagined a thousand scenarios, a bear, a thug, a psychopath, Bigfoot.
The fawn and its mother walked through the foliage and upon seeing me, veered sharply to the left.
After ten minutes of what felt like hours I stumbled out upon the bank of the ponding basin. Peering back I could see vaguely the outline of Michelangelo the Chevy caprice. I steeled myself. This was not the scene I first imagined as I sat in front of the BBC documentary. This seemed more like Friday the 13th than a self discovery moment. I needed to get this over with fast and get back to the car and then back to my warm bed as soon as possible.
I fastened the flippers on, removed my shirt and pulled up my jeggings as a cautionary measure. I stared out at the opposite bank. A mouse sat on his hind legs chewing on something in his forepaws. This was the moment. In a second I would know. I would either discover my true super power or be forever defined by a mundane existence. This was it. This was the moment of revelation. The…
Something scurried in the forest and I decided I shouldn’t take my chances any longer. I pushed off with all of my might. Then KURPLUNK! I found myself appreciating the bank of the basin up close. I stood up slowly, painfully. I was covered with mud from head to toe and could suddenly foresee a trip to the dry cleaners for the jeggings.
“What the heck was that?”
I searched the ground and found the source of my full body mud bath. Three thick copper pipes had been disturbed by my now throbbing swim fin clad feet. I stepped over the piping and pushed aside the mud in order to uncover any other hidden land mines.
After making sure the take off strip was clear I readied myself for a second trial. This would be a funny story for the fans years later after I saved the world.
I pushed off and the distance to the pond suddenly became milliseconds. It had been so long since I had been able to fast walk. My parents would have disapproved of it even here. They would have been afraid that some random person in the woods would see it and expose me.  Though I hardly think exposing a fast-walking freak would be the objective of anyone wondering the woods at 2.a.m.
My finned foot struck the water and filled up, then the other one. Then came a third step and a fourth step and suddenly it was happening. I was fast walking on water!
“Whoooo,” I screamed.
Then tragedy. Suddenly I was sinking, descending farther and farther into the water with each step. I sped up my pace but it only served to deposit me quicker into the ecoli filled basin. Finally, I plunged into the center of the basin and was forced to doggy paddle. It had been four seconds and not even 75meters by what I judged. The experiment had been a failure. I was simply too heavy. The physics would not hold me up.  I was a failure after all.
As I swam through the dark water, I thought about all of the names I had made up in the car and how stupid they were. It was foolish even to dream about being anything other than Lank. At this point mediocre was a goal.
I chided myself. Feeling sorry for myself was not going to solve any problem. I needed to go to college, learn some sort of trade and become someone that way. Super heroes are the things of legend anyway. It’s not like anyone has ever seen one outside of a comic book. I was just a super freak not a hero of any sort. My Dad was right I needed to stop fantasizing about red capes and actually make something of myself.
I finally reached water that I could stand in and started to wade slowly back to the shore.
“This couldn’t possibly suck more!” I yelled, no longer afraid of mass murderers lurking in the bushes.
I began to sniffle a bit but was too prideful to actually cry. I went to wipe my nose with my forearm and smashed something squishy against my lower lip. A large black slimy creature stuck to my arm. In horrification I realized they were all over me like zebra stripes against my pale skin.
“Leaches! Leaches!” I cried, struggling to pull them off and stumbling about in the shallow water. I had been pulling at a particularly large one on the back of my arm when my old friends the copper pipes made an appearance once again. I found myself face down with mud in my mouth and a jegging wedge. I laid there panting afraid that any further movement would bring greater calamity.
“You are aware that this is private property,” a deep feminine voice said from above me. “And trespassers are to be dealt with to the greatest penalty of the law.”

I peered up slowly, blinking away the mud that ran down my face. A woman of about 50 stared down at me. A scar ran down the left side of her face. On the same side a dark eye patch stretched over her eye and fastened beneath her ear. She wore dark pants and a too tight for comfort black jacket.
I instinctively clamored to stand up. My ankle was bleeding from its second encounter with the copper pipe and a bruise was already forming on my knee.
“Lucky,” she continued. “The laws don’t necessarily apply around here.” A strange smile spread over her red lips.
“Right,” I said feeling as if I had walked into Rocky Picture Horror Show. “I’ll be going now.”
I started towards the woods with the flippers still on my feet. That woman was giving me the creeps. Where the heck did she even come from?
“Wait don’t you want to stay and chat for a bit.”
I picked up the pace slightly. “No not really!” I yelled back.
“But Luke dear we have hot cocoa.” I stopped at the edge of the clearing.
“How did you know my name?” I asked without turning to face the woman.
“I have the power to see as you have the power to walk quickly. Where I want you to go we all have powers of some sort, powers that are not generally appreciated granted, but powers all the same. I sense that you want to be someone, someone super Luke Leb Les Ledford.”
As creeped out as I was by her eye patch and strange knowledge of my name. I was also intrigued. What if she really did have sight or something like that and what if she could help me to hone in my power and do something great. I turned to face her.
“And where exactly is this place with the hot cocoa and the super heroes.”
She smiled strangely again. Her long dark hair was grey half way down like Lily from the Munsters.
“Right up the hill you can’t miss it.” She pointed up at a large hill overlooking the road.
“Well I must have missed it then because when I drove in here I didn’t see any...”
She laughed a strange fluid laugh cutting me off.  I shivered both from the cold and from fear. She dug within her pocket for a second. I mentally prepared myself to abandon the flippers and flee through the forest. She finally pulled out something small and metal, a bracelet of some sort. In the next instant she tossed it towards me. I caught it and turned it around in my hands. It seemed simple enough a thick metallic band twisted into a circle big enough for a person’s wrist. A lock smith with an artistic bought could have fashioned it much the same. I looked at her quizzically.
“Put it on,” she said. I obeyed.
“Well,” I asked, growing more and more skeptical about the object around my wrist with every passing second.
“Do you want cocoa now?” she asked and pointed towards the direction of the hill.
I staggered back nearly falling over the fins. On the hill rose a sky scraper of a building that escalated into a single peak at the base of the night clouds.
~
“That’s not possible,” I yelled after her. The woman had begun to walk towards the hill in silence.
“Wait how did you do that?” “Wait!”
I found myself following after her. I bounded over the rocky terrain still wearing the jeggings and carrying the flippers under one arm. I had forgotten my shirt.
I finally caught up to her. She didn’t even turn her head to acknowledge my presence.
“The building that you see is called the blade, a name adopted by its residence.” She continued walking. Her pace was almost faster than I could maintain.
“And who are its residence?” I asked, panting behind her.
“That you will soon discover Mr. Ledford.”
Then a long silence fell over us. I wasn’t sure what exactly I had gotten myself into although I was sure it was indeed something. When I wasn’t struggling to keep up with her, I was fiddling with the bracelet. The minute I slid it from my wrist the blade disappeared and only the sultry hillside remained.  The moment I returned it, the blade faded back into view.
“Evanescunt metal,” she told me without making eye contact. “It lets you see what is truly there and to see through what others would wish you to see. It divides illusion.”
“Oh,” I said dumbly. The hill’s face rounded off into a sharp crevice and the ground became somewhat more level. The woman gestured towards what appeared to be a set of stone stairs woven up the rest of the hill.
We took the stairs and found ourselves at the top of the hill (which felt more like climbing a mountain). The Blade was covered in glass window panes from top to bottom. Two motor cycles and a black corvette were parked to one side of the glass giant. I peered about unsure of how exactly they got up.
“There’s a little road,” the woman said from my left, “that leads up here from the main road. Evanescunt metal.”
“Oh,” I said again with an equal amount of stupidity.
She looked at the glass and said “efenen sesame.” 

The glass about the side of the door begin to do what I can only describe as separating. Smooth edges and cracks began to form until a double door appeared in the glass. Two small glass knobs sprouted from the doors and the woman pulled one open and gestured for me to follow her into the darkness.

~
We wove through a series of dimly lit hallways. The building felt a bit like an abandoned hospital. Every so often we came to a door that was labeled. The first one I read said Mission Room the next one said Interrogation Room the next one was painted over in black. The lights flickered. I was starting to regret my decision to follow this strange woman. I was nervous to meet whoever or for that matter what ever was considered the residences of The Blade.

“Buck up Ledford,” the woman said, her voice cutting through the chilling silence. “You are about to meet the inhabitants of The Blade. Don’t be afraid they are mostly agreeable.”

We came to a door as plain as all the others, labeled Training Room. She cracked the door open stepped in and pulled me in behind her.

The first thing I noticed was a man on a tread mill. As soon as we stepped in he and every other person in the room stopped what they were doing and looked at us. The man stepped off the treadmill leaving it running. I can’t blame them after all I must have been a strange sight.

The room was decked out in exercise equipment of all sorts. There were weights; pull up bars, what appeared to be par core, there was even hand grips on the walls and ceiling.

“Listen here,” she said, addressing the crowd that seemed to consist of nearly every age group of men and women possible. “This here is Luke Ledford and like you he’s special.”

Eyes studied me from mud soaked hair to bleeding feet. The room was lit much brighter than the halls and the people seemed so normal that I almost released all of my worries, almost.

“Luke why don’t you tell these fine people why you are special?”

Everyone stared and suddenly I felt as if I was giving a presentation at school. The last one of those went real well I recalled.

“Um…” I began,”Well I wouldn’t really say that I’m special. I…”

The woman with the eye patch cut me off. “Of course you’re special; tell them about your power!”

“Well,” I continued. “It’s not necessarily a power more like ability.”

“Every extra ability is a power!” some man from the back of the room yelled. The rest of the crowd picked it up in a chant “Every ability is a power! Every  ability is a power!”

“Alright, Alright settle down,” the woman with the eye patch said laughing. “What they mean to say is that non-traditional powers are still powers. None of us here were first choice superheroes. In fact, the people who knew about our powers mostly told us to hide them because the world would consider us freaks. Take Venus Fly Trap over there.”

She motioned towards a blonde girl in the back. I cringed. Her hair was a mess and, there seemed to be straw or something in it. I looked closer. No it wasn’t straw more like some sort of plant. It seemed to be literally sprouting from her head. There looked like there was some on her arms too. 

The eye patch woman fumbled in her pocket a bit and then pulled out a wrapped set of saltine crackers. She unwrapped one, broke off a chunk and threw it into the air.

“Catch Venus,”

The plants from all over her body shot outwards like dozens of striking cobras. I gave a scream of terror and flew back against the wall as one plant nabbed the cracker crumb. The others looked angrily at the plant that chewed at the saltine and nipped at it and at one another like a pack of freaky plant wolves. They then snapped back to the girl and returned to a state of stillness.

The room roared in laughter at my reaction to Venus and her fly traps.

“You see,” the woman with the eye patch began,” For most of Venus’s life she was forced to wear hats and long sleeves and her parents had to buy imported flies from Bulgaria and spent thousands contacting professional botanist.”

I looked back at Venus who was stroking one of the fly traps. I cringed again.

“Life is hard when you have Venus fly traps growing out of your head,” Venus said in her airy toned voice.

“Still,” the leader continued, “Venus has managed to contribute to the good of society through this facility along with everyone in this room.” She paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. “What about some personal testimonies Pitch why don’t you start first”

The man from the treadmill stepped up slightly and cleared his voice. There was nothing really out of place about him that I could notice then again there was nothing normally out of place about me either at first glance.

“Ever since I was about thirteen I had a really high voice,” Pitch said. The man sounded like he breathed within a bubble of helium to put it lightly.”At first people said it was just puberty but in high school everyone made fun of me for it.”

“The cardigans didn’t help!” a guy in the back yelled. The room roared with laughter but a kind sort of laughter one that Pitch joined in on.  The eye patch woman still gave a disapproving look to whoever made the comment.

“Anyway,” Pitch continued. “I joined men’s ensemble. I was the high notes. And when I sang it well it got a little out of control and glass started breaking and metal started bending and the whole front row blacked out. Then Vision found me and got me into this group and I started helping people in need. I got more self confident too. Just ask my girlfriend.”

He emphasized the last phrase. The crowd chuckled

“We’ll go next,” said two foreign voices in unison. A pair of what looked like college aged identical twins dressed in an obnoxious tone of green stepped up. The boy who was blonde and a bit pudgy began first.

“I am Christopher.”

“And I am Christi,” his sister cut him off.

“And we are…”

“…The Christenson twins!” Christi shouted in triumph

“Why are you always stealing my thunder Christi,” Christopher whispered in his accent. “It is very rude. Anyway you might not have been able to tell but we are Swedish!”

No one laughed. It was obvious to see that the color the twins were wearing was not the only thing considered annoying.

“Anyway,” Christopher continued, “Christi and I can read minds.

“Which,” Christi interrupted, “May sound how do I say very cool if it weren’t that we have to stand on either side of the person we are trying to read.” Christopher looked at her contemptuously.

“Let us demonstrate Christi.”

“Come Luke Ledford we will show you our power.” Christi took me by the hand while Christopher pulled a bench to the center of the room.

“Sit right here,” Christi motioned for me to sit in the middle of the bench. The twins then proceeded to sit on either side of me.

“Oh he is nervous about something,” Christopher said.

“No apprehensive,” interjected Christi.

“More like uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable” they both agreed.

“The boy one is sitting too close,” Christi read my thoughts laughing. My cheeks turned red. Christopher scooted over a few inches to the laughter of the crowd.

“Now he is bashful,” Christi said.

“He is remembering something,” Christopher said.

“Public speaking in Mr. McNabb’s class.”

“A laughing cheerleader, egg salad?”

“Whoa you guys are good,” I said in an attempt to stop them from telling the whole group about my fear of public speaking and the egg salad incident.
 
“It is our pleasure,” the two stood up and bowed simultaneously. I returned to my spot next to eye patch and the twins moved the bench to the side.

“Any who,” Christopher continued, “When we moved to America people thought we were how do you say…”

“Creepy,” Christi interjected. “I very clearly remember them calling us the creepy Christensons”

“Yes. Yes. I remember too and comparisons to that movie with the twins in the hallway.”

“Red Rum Red Rum,” Christi said in monotone.

“Yes but the point is,” Christopher said, “That this place took us from those creepy twins next door and put us in a community of people who actually care about us.”

The room applauded and the twins took their seats among the rest. Next up was a strong man who could only move in slow motion once in super strength mode. Other than a dog tag around his neck I would have guessed his thing was tech with the nerd glasses and out of style tennis shoes.

A heavy woman came up after him. She was able to do crazy ninja moves and use her fat like a first to smack down bad guys and keep them down.

After her came a couple who could levitate, not fly, levitate. The guy could only levitate side to side and the girl could only levitate up and down. Together they can pull each other up level by level until they reached the top of a structure. Apparently they found each other with this really good dating web site. Never underestimate technology these days.

At the end of all of the personal testimonies the eye patch woman came back up.

“You may call me Vision,” she said to me. I was somewhat eager to hear about her whole ability to see. She was clouded in mystery. However rather than give her own story Vision launched into one about the origin of whatever this gathering of random freaks is.

“Twenty years ago I realized just how many people had powers that went unrecognized; just how many people were told that they could never be hero’s when their very genomes said something different. And so I founded LISP. The League of Insignificant Super Persons would be a training facility for those underdogs given super abilities of any sort and the character necessary to become heroes. When society tells us no we say too bad because each of us was born with an extra special gift to bestow upon the world. We are citizens of this nation. We are heroes. We are LISP!”

The crowd began to chant. “LISP, LISP, LISP.” 

“So we ask you Luke Ledford will you join us, the League of Insignificant Super Persons in defeating evil and preserving justice for the common man.”

I was personally still grappling with a superhero league named after a speech impediment. But on deeper reflection I realized the value of this opportunity. It was like being part of the Avengers or the Fantastic Four. These people would train me up in their super hero ways and together we would fight crime and have adventures. Maybe one day I would get to be on a cereal box or have my own miniature Luke action figure.

“I will,” I said firmly. The room exploded into a frenzy of cheers and merriment. The next thing I knew Vision was lifting my hand in the air.

“Now I turn to you my loyal compaderes, what will we, what will we indeed dub Luke Ledford?” 

“Well, “Venus said. “What does he do?”

“Luke is able to fast walk at super speeds and can even walk on water for a short time.” I appreciated her exaggeration of my so called powers. I simply would have said I can walk fast.

“Where did you find him,” Christi asked eyeing my jeggings and the yellow flippers clutched in one hand.

“Luke seems to have come to us by fate. I am not sure of his wardrobe choice at the moment but I assure you he will fit perfectly into the LISP community.”

“Oh I know The Blur,” Christopher said.

“No sounds too much like The Flash,” Christi retorted. “There will defiantly be copy right issues.”

“What about The Sound Breaker,” Venus suggested.

“Well I can’t really break the sound barrier so…”

“Luke Fastwalker,” Pitch said. The crowd burst into laughter and applause.

No really I think it’s cool” said the strongman.

The group slowly began to nod their heads in agreement until the decision was unanimous. My official superhero title had been decided on and I hadn’t even had a say in. I didn’t really know a lot about Star Wars but at least I wasn’t Lank anymore.

“Do you Luke Ledford swear to live by the standards of LISP, to defend justice, to seek truth, to sacrifice for the good of humanity?”

“I do,” I responded.

“Do you swear to keep confidential the location, purpose and identity of LISP and all of its individual members and faculty?

“I do.”

“And do you Luke Ledford swear to represent LISP to the fullest of your abilities at the sake of your very life.”

“I do.”

“Then I Vision founder and commander of LISP dub you Luke Ledford an official member of this foundation. You shall now be called Luke Fastwalker for as long as you take residence and share drink with the company of these halls.” 

All of LISP cheered and I felt color rush to my face.  This was not at all how this night was supposed to have turned out. No I wasn’t able to walk on water well at least not for a significant amount of time. Yet I seemed to have found something if not better something beyond my wildest imaginings. Who could have thought up such a place or such a collation of people? Was this home? Was this my niche? I couldn’t quite let myself believe it. I couldn’t quiet let myself believe in my abilities. Still as all of the room chanted Fastwalker, I felt as if I just might have a chance.

“Now it is time for you Luke Fastwalker to make tour indelible mark on LISP. Only when The Blade tumbles will your memory ever be broken.”

She handed me a blue sharpie and motioned towards the back wall. Thousands of different signatures swirled over the white wall in all of the colors of the rainbow, some small others large, some thin and elegant others large and messy.

“Why does he get to be blue?” Christi mumbled in the background.

“This Luke Fastwalker is your contract to LISP. Please sign your birth name to this wall and know that the man behind the power also commits life and limb to the good of this organization.

I walked to the back wall and in my best cursive wrote Luke Lawrence Ledford.

The sun felt like a punch in the face like in the fifth grade when I got mixed up in that business about turning back packs inside out and Lance Henderson took a swing at me. Why was the sun so mean? Why did the sun hate me? Why was there a wadded up pair of jeggings by the door?

“What?” I sat upright.

Somehow in the early morning hours I had managed to break away from the LISP crowd, stumble through the forest to Michelangelo and drive home. After which I proceeded to take off the jeggings and fall senselessly into bed. The realization came back to me like electricity.

LISP was actually real. There was a whole league of people just like me who went around stopping crime and saving the world. Right now the only crime that seemed to hold any worth was the pair of muddy jeggings strewn across the floor. Speaking of mud I was still covered in it. It was caked under my fingernail and in my hair. I turned my head, just as I thought the bed was now also covered in mud. Well at least I managed to get all the leaches. Still this meant that I needed to clean the majority of my room and my Mom’s jeggings without anyone noticing. It was already 10:00a.m meaning most everybody save Lily on a good day was already up.

Like any good criminal, I frantically rushed about my room whispering “I’m dead. I’m dead. Oh I am soo dead.” Something about the assurance of my fate was near comforting. I decided to dispose of the largest offense until a later time. I placed the pair of jeggings in a shopping bag and buried them in my closet. Maybe she wouldn’t notice for awhile and that would buy me the perfect amount of time to figure things out.

Next I turned the sheets upside down. For the time being it would seem like nothing was wrong, save that the seams of the blanket were now on the outside. Today was wash day. I would volunteer to do the wash that day which granted would seem suspicious but would suffice to dispose of any evidence. I debated throwing in the jeggings but was afraid that they would either shrink into little baby pants or my Mom would notice them.

Finally I took a shower and washed all of the evidence down the drain. This time it was truly the perfect murder without of course the whole murder thing.

It was a Saturday. As I tumbled out the doors of The Blade earlier that morning I was invited by Vision to come back as soon as possible. In a dream like state I remember telling her that I could come back tomorrow or rather today since it was already today at the time. And so after warming up a frozen breakfast sandwich and putting the sheets in the wash, I told my parents I was off for Cameron’s house. There was something about the idea of LISP that they weren’t quite ready for I felt. Though, I hated to lie to them.  Like all of the great heroes I would have to keep my secret happenings secret even from those I love most. It would probably be in violation of LISP protocol to tell them anyway.

  I noticed in the car that the metal bracelet was still around my wrist. Thankfully no one at home had noticed it. I was a bad liar and probably couldn’t have pulled off a good story. I don’t know what I even would have said maybe that a metal worker visited for Career Day and made us all bracelets out of random car parts. I looked at the bracelet, seemed legit enough for me.

I wasn’t looking forward to the hike through the forest again. I knew that it would be different during the day time and hopefully less creepy but the thought of all those slippery leaves and the giant hill still did not sound necessarily fun.

Then I remembered the road that Vision spoke of. Now that I had the wrist band I would be able to see it and avoid creepy crawlies and unnecessary amounts of exercise. Just like a doctor’s note in gym class.

Sure enough The Blade was visible from road side and a thin strip of asphalt could be seen weaving up the side of the hill. Part of me was almost afraid that it wouldn’t be here today, that the happenings of the last evening had all been in my head.

I drove up the winding road to the top of the hill and parked in the grass alongside the corvette. I promised myself that once I made some money maybe from saving the world I too would get a cool car. No offense Michelangelo, but I doubt Batman ever owned a station wagon.

I approached the building. The glass reflected the afternoon sun and blinded me briefly. How did it go again seimi ackrate or something like that? I couldn’t quite remember where the door opened and the reflection in the glass made it impossible to peer within. I tried knocking on the glass but it felt too solid like knocking on a giant sequoia.

I was just about to try another sentence of mumbo jumbo when I heard a motorcycle in the distance. In a moment Pitch slid to a stop in the grass beside Michelangelo, sending blades of freshly cut grass into my face. Minus the whole weird voice thing Pitch was a pretty cool dude.

I brushed off the grass and sneezed about three times. I was allergic to it along with most everything else, pollen, mold, and all pets except hairless cats (and really who wants one of those). Basically the weather man is talking directly to me when he warns about air quality.

Pitch looked at me, confused for a moment. Then he started laughing in a quality that reminded me of one of Santa’s elves on one of those old clay animation Christmas shows.

“Vision never showed you how to get in huh.” I shrugged my shoulders and chuckled a bit too.

“Okay,” he said. “All you have to say is efenen sesame.”

The doors began to pop out of the clear blue glass like shark fins on the surface of the ocean. It was almost more breathe taking the second time.

“Yeah,” he said, smirking at me. “It takes a little time to get used to. I would write the code down in your phone or something for awhile.”

“What does it mean?” I asked with the sudden intrigue of an eight year old. “I mean is it like magic or a spell of some sort or like some ancient words that all superheroes know.

Pitch pursed his lips and looked into the distance.  I quaked with anticipation. This was something deep, something serious.

“Nope,” he finally said. “I’m pretty sure it’s just open sesame in Yiddish.” He opened the door and walked in.

“Oh,” I said and followed behind.  
~
“What’s in the mission room?” I asked. I hoped Pitch was not wearisome of all of my questions. It was after all, not every day that a person joined a somewhat elite force of super persons.

“It’s really very boring,” Pitch replied, “Just an old room with a couple of white boards. All of our current cases are pinned up. When one of us doesn’t have a case we are usually assigned in that room. Sometimes we go there to discuss the cases too.”

“Cool,” I said. The place was like an old abandoned hospital police station court house. The lights flickered again casting shadows on the door with the name painted over in black.

“Don’t mind the lights,” Pitch said, “Vision has been keeping them dim lately. Says something about our electric bills being too high, if you ask me, she’s joined some weird recycling cult. She collects soda cans on her free time. It’s a bit odd.”

“What about that door?” I said pointing to the blacked out sign.

“Well it used to be the office of this guy who worked with Vision. After he left we made it into a maintenance closet and then later into the printer room. We renovated last year and moved everything again. Now we just keep snacks in there. I think Venus brought red velvet cookies today if you’re interested.”

“Why’s it black though?”

“Oh that? That’s because our label maker guy was sick of changing the name of that room and besides Snack Room sounds way less ominous then a black sign.

“Oh,” I said, “Makes sense.”

We went back to the Training Room where I was met with much the same scene as the night before. People ran on tread mills, lifted weights and Venus practiced swinging from the holds on the ceiling, her fly traps wrapping around each one before her hands touched them. I wondered if I had really joined a gym for freaks not a league of superheroes. 

“Well you know everyone here Luke,” Pitch said, “Well except Frank Fantom and yes it is Fantom with an F. I think it’s a French thing. Anyway not sure you really want to know him too well but might as well introduce you before you have to meet him when he’s in a bad mood.”

“Yo Frank,” he called to a tall dark haired guy who was pulling a set of weight from a duffle bag. He looked at us coldly, put the weights down and made his way towards us. He wore long black athletic pants, a similar but not matching black hoodie (which made him looked stooped in the shoulders) and hair that threatened to fall like a curtain over his eyes at any moment. The only thing that wasn’t dark about him was his eyes which seemed to be an unnatural blue.

“What?” he said looking at Pitch without making any eye contact or even indication that he knew I existed.

“New guy!,” Pitch said energetically and motioned towards me.

“Hi,” he said flatly, looking at me but without any hint of friendliness. He then turned around and stalked back to the weights at the other side of the room. Not that I haven’t received colder welcomes but I immediately perceived Frank as something of a jerk. I looked towards Pitch again.

“Well that went better than expected,” he said matter of factly.

“Really?” I asked.

“Yeah well Fantom can be something of a… a party pooper sometimes.

“Yeah, I sort of got that impression.”

“I mean don’t get me wrong he’s great when you get to know him…well sometimes.”

“So what exactly does he do?” I asked.

“He can walk through things but only if their wooden. A nail in the door or 1% recycled metals will either leave him stuck on one side of the door or trapped within.” He leaned closer. “I heard that he spent seven weeks trapped inside the men’s room door at a New York air port.”

I cringed once more. He nodded.

“True story.”

After a few minutes Vision found out that I had arrived and came to talk to me. She directed me past all the people lifting weights to a little office. The minute she shut the door, the sound from the outside stopped. Sound proof. I felt like I was in one of those cool espionage movies like I was 007 and she was M. All I needed to be was cooler and British and I totally could pull it off that and wear fancy suits 24/7.

“Alright Mr. Fastwalker now that you are an official member of LISP we must discuss your Training. No doubt,” she said glancing briefly at me,”you are not in the best shape possible.”

I wanted to lie to her and say that on the contrary I worked out eight times a week and had won some sort of medal for being so darn athletic. Unfortunately, I figured that her psychic abilities or whatever would be able to sense a little white-lie like that.

“No Mam.” I simply said.

“Right so you will have to undergo some rigorous training before you are even able to be deemed mission ready.” I never liked when the words rigorous and training occurred in the same sentence. It was like homework and weekend or food poisoning and sketchy sushi restaurant.

“First we will have to put you through a fitness test.” Suddenly my aversion towards anything involving moving in a manner termed athletic made an appearance. I imagined the Presidential physical fitness tests that they made us take in elementary school and how humiliated I had been when a girl who looked very much like Shirley Temple was able to do more pull ups than me. Granted she only did one but it was still more than me. 

“Don’t fret kid you made the cut already. No matter how bad you are we’ll make you super and get you out on a mission.”

“Alright,” I said. It was weird being around someone who seemed to be essentially able to read minds. I was afraid to think anything now. Can a person just stop thinking I wondered? Lance Henderson was pretty good proof of that. Dang that would have been such a good insult, I thought. If only I could think of those types of things on the spot instead of while trying to think of nothing while by a psychic who also happens to be the commander of my superhero league. I am literally failing so bad I thought.

Vision took me to another room labeled examination room. It was long, poorly illuminated like the hall ways and virtually empty. I looked at her in confusion.

“Your goal is to get from here she pointed to a green line on the dark blue carpet to that red line. The line was only a few yards away.

“Oh and one more thing Mr. Fastwalker you may not use any powers.”

The course looked too easy like a battle field littered with grenades every other step, hidden dangers invisible to the average eye. I stepped over the green line with one foot then the other. Nothing happened.

“Bravery ten,” Vision said from somewhere.

I turned to see where she was but couldn’t quite place…

“AGHHH”

The ground was gone I was falling. My hands and feet reached wildly for anything. I grasped one of two trapeze rings that had fallen from the ceiling in that second with one hand. I struggled and finally grabbed onto the second one with my other hand. I could feel my heart beating like the drummer of Frank Fantom’s favorite heavy metal band. I mean the guy must listen to heavy metal what else could he possibly listen to, Bach.

“Focus 0.”

“Reflex 7.”

“Recovery 8.”

I was starting to understand how exactly this game was played. The platform was a couple of feet away and rose up. I would need to swing a bit and then pull myself up with the rings and drop at the last second. I swung once, twice, three times. Still the platform was too far away. I suddenly noticed that my arms were nearly throbbing with fatigue. I couldn’t hold on much longer. I just needed one more swing.

My feet scraped the edge of the platform but I wasn’t fast enough in pulling myself up and I swung slowly back in the opposite direction and stopped somewhere in the middle again. I tried to start the swinging motion again but my hands were slipping and my arms were giving out fast. I hung for about five minutes over the pit which seemed by the look of it to have no conceivable bottom. Finally with a muffled scream my fingers let go and I found myself falling.

The air was suddenly knocked out of my body as I was caught up by a large rope net. I lay there trying to breath like an alive person again.

“Arm Strength 2.”

“Do you really have to keep saying that?” I yelled at wherever Vision was lurking.

It seemed like the game must be over so I waited for Vision to come with some rope and fish me out and tell me that I did indeed suck at athletics. Yet Vision did not come.

There was no way they expected me to be able to get out of the pit. It was just too high and the stone walls too slick for anyone to possibly get out of.

Then something caught my eye. There were slits in the wall extending up for several feet by each of the four corners where the net was attached. I inched closer to one of the corners hesitantly. The net still lay above who knows how much distance before the bottom of the pit. When I looked down all I could see was darkness.

In each of the slits, seven consecutive peg holes led upwards towards the opening. I would need to remove the peg from the bottom hole and move it up one on each of the four corners until little by little I reached the top. The only problem was that as soon as I removed the peg I would start falling towards the undone side of the net.

As I didn’t want to fall to my death anytime soon, I decided that I would need to devise a solution of some sort. I could simply attempt to put the peg in the next hole fast enough to avoid the effects of gravity. However the likelihood of being able to do this each time seemed slim at best.

No matter what I did I was always guaranteed to run some risk of falling into the pit. That is unless I was somehow tied down to the net. And why not the whole thing was made of rope! The net was woven in a spider web like design with the center being where the net first began. I picked at the center of the web until the rope came undone. In this way I would have a near equal amount of rope in all four corners. I then proceeded to tie the rope around both feet and weave them in and out of multiple sections of the net up to my knees. Essentially I became the net and the net became me.

These weren’t just laymen knots either; there were full blown Webelo Boy Scout knots. Finally I moved to the first peg. I lifted the peg quickly but not quite quickly enough. The net lunged forward and I only stopped myself from dangling by snagging my fingers in the upper peg holes.

From then on I made sure to put my fingers in the other peg holes for support and moved each peg up the chain with finesses. After the first few fumbles the initial process went by with ease. Excitement mounted as I drew closer and closer to the final peg.

After about twenty minutes I had adjusted the last peg into the last of the seven holes. I untangled my foot from the center of the spider web and stood up in the net. There were still a good ten feet between me and the top of the pit.

I tried to jump but the distance was humanly impossible even for an Olympian and the pegs sent silt raining down with each attempt. They were not fit to hold me much longer. I finally sat down to think. I studied the pegs again. There was nothing to hold onto except smooth rock walls above them. I thought of making a lasso of some sorts but realized that there was nothing at the top for it to catch on other then the trapeze rings which were probably too far overhead anyway.

I shifted a bit on the net and lay flat on my back. I was defeated and helpless. Why couldn’t Vision just come and get me this wasn’t accomplishing anything. Great I could feel my wallet slipping out of my back pocket. The last thing I needed was to lose my drivers license to a bottomless pit. Couldn’t I just get pulled over by a cop like every other teenager?

I snatched at the wallet but not before the Velcro came undone and a penny dropped out. The little copper glint of metal dropped out of sight. Oh well at least I won’t have so much pocket change anymore, I thought. But then something extraordinary occurred. The penny flew back from the darkness of the abyss glinted in the light momentarily and fell back down.

My heart beat wildly and something deep within caused me to laugh. The penny flickered back into view again but slightly lower than it had been before.

There was a trampoline down there, a very strong trampoline. If something the weight of a penny could fly up that far what would happen if a person was to drop from this height?

I began to cut through the main supporting ropes of the net with my car keys until only a few thin stragglers remained. In one jump I could smash the remaining ropes and plunge down to the trampoline at the bottom. As I knelt there, I prayed that there actually was a trampoline and I was not out of my mind.  I stood up on the ropes jumped as high as I could and plunged down with all of my might upon the remaining strands.

Nothing happened.

“Dang it why isn’t this working,” I said stomping up and down.  “I guess I need to cut a few more of the roAGHHHHH,” the remainder of the ropes snapped and I plunged into the abysses.

“One. Two. Three. Four. I counted before the trampoline caught me with surprising gentleness and launched me upwards. There was this feeling in my stomach as I fell as if I was on a roller coaster. Now I felt more like I was the roller coaster.

“Whoooo,” I screamed with one fist in the air. Then the torn shards of the net came into view and the rings far above. I would need to catch hold of the rings somehow and use the momentum to swing to the other side. I shot out of the abysses. My raised hand skimmed the top of the ceiling. This would hurt; I had a bad feeling that grabbing the ring from this angle would rip my arms off. Still I braced myself reached forward and grabbed on to the rings.

Other than a slight chaffing from the plastic ring there seemed to be nothing seriously wrong. Perhaps it was one of those shock things and I would realize both of my arms were broken later or something. I swung wildly around the room from sheer speed.

I would need to land somewhere before I lost too much momentum and dangled over the pit again. However I also had to make sure that I timed it just right so as not to fall back down the pit. I imagined that landing on my feet was a bad idea. I mean it hurt to jump off the monkey bars and land on my feet, this had to be at least ten times worst.

There were too many thoughts and too many decisions. My mind was screaming at me to worry about two hundred and seven things at once. Then something crazy happened, I simply let go. I don’t know if it was lunacy or instinct or both but it happened.

I broke my fall mostly with my backside and rolled a couple of feet. Everything seemed more or less in tact except for perhaps a bruised butt. I leaned back in relief panting, my head over the edge of the abysses.

“In your face Ferguson!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. Mr. Ferguson was my P.E teacher who failed  me in the ropes unit sophomore year. I was forced to retake the class and double up on PE as a junior.

I laughed. There was this crazy sensation running through my whole body like fear but happy. After a second, I decided that it was the feeling of accomplishing something. It felt like the first day or summer or passing a hard class or like having a conversation with a girl way out of my league.

Suddenly something flew out of the darkness and smacked the ceiling. I reached out my hand and caught my lucky penny.

“Problem Solving 10”

“Tell that to my math teacher please!” I yelled.
~
After a few minutes, I got up and continued to walk across the room, ready for any unsuspected land mines. At one point the floors fell away except for a single strip that was made up of a 25 yard treadmill like apparatus. This would be easy I thought. Until I remembered that I wasn’t allowed to use any of my powers.

The treadmill turned up its intensity and I found myself at the very edge of it with a similar abyss at my heals.

“You don’t understand,” I said. “I run a twelve minute mile!” The treadmill turned up a bit more. “And that’s on a good day,” I yelled.

After about thirty seconds, the treadmill floor became slower by one mph. I tried to speed up and gained some distance away from the abysses. My breath rattled in my lungs. This was even worst then PE class. When another five minutes had elapsed the ground slowed again. I mustered the last of my strength and plunged on off of the treadmill and through the red line.

I learned against the wall panting. Relief flooded over me. I was actually finished with this nightmare of a fitness test and I hadn’t actually done that bad in my opinion. Actually, I had gotten two tens.

“Speed 1.”

“Endurance 6.”

“Thanks Vision,” I yelled.

“You’re welcome Luke,” she said flatly. I immediately regretted the sarcasm. It’s just that I had been so stressed out and I had almost died and stuff.

“Now that you have completed your beginning evaluation let us look at the areas you need to improve in.” 

If this was the beginning evaluation I was not looking forward to the actual training.

“Where are you Vision?” I asked.

“Go to the chalk board Fastwalker.” I gingerly stepped over the red line and across the floor which had repaired itself in the interim. The chalk board faced the course dead on.

“It’s a one way chalkboard,” I said as the revelation that I had been being watched from the board the whole time fully set in.

“Actually a two way chalkboard,” she said as the board cleared enough for me to see her through it.

“Observational Skills 0.”

“Hey I thought the test was over,” I wined quite frankly fed up with all of these tricks and brain games. I was also feeling a bit worst about myself after the last few scores.

“If you remember nothing,” Vision said with emphasis, “remember that the test is never over. The only difference is that when you miss a question in real life you end up dead or injured not with a bad score and a wounded ego!”

“Sorry Mam,” I ended up saying. She straightened a lose strand of hair and pulled it away from her face.

“That’s quite alright Fastwalker now to discuss your results. Your ability to act with courage and problem solving appear to be you strongest qualities and your greatest assets. They show that you are not brave because you are stupid but genuinely brave and quite capable of finding the solution to problems. The majority of your other results fall somewhere in the middle which is good, however your strength, speed, focus and observational skills,” she put extra emphasis on the last quality, “we’re to say the least, absent.”   

She eyed me with her one good one and I felt ashamed for some reason at my own inadequacy.

“It is very rare that a person miss both focus and observational skills, though they go together. Normally a person is either overall keyed in on the task and therefore misses observational skills or distracted by the environment and is unable to maintain focus. You appeared to focus on random objects which you granted used to defeat obstacles later on as well as distracted by what appeared to be thinking. Do you have a history of ADD?”

Somehow I always thought ADD would make sense for me. That would explain why I was never able to focus much on one subject at school at the same time. It would also explain why I was distracted by the guy walking a corgi and backed my car into the mail box. I mean corgis are really funny with their chubby bodies and short legs and that face! The only thing more distracting then a corgi is when people have nail polish with patterns. I don’t have anything against patterns. I mean zebras, leopards and tigers (oh my) are really very amazing animals but on girls nails it’s just distracting. I recalled a girl at the Wal-Mart checkout counter with zebra nails. I couldn’t keep from staring at them the whole time and when she asked me what I was looking at I said….

“No I don’t have ADD,” I told her. 

“Alright , it is also unusual that someone fail all of the physical assessments especially someone who’s power is fast walking. Tell me do you have any prior medical disabilities.”

“No,” I told her. I considered asthma and being allergic to nearly every substance on earth as too mild to count.

“Then you have no excuse,” she said sharply. My face turned red. She was right I didn’t have any excuse.  I have never had any excuse for my lack of talents and abilities. She must regret having me write my name alongside her most successful of heroes.

“Those who have no excuses Luke Fastwalker are the lucky ones,” she said softly. “You were born with greatness and you have no excuse but to let it shine through. Those with a disability must work extra hard to erase the excuse and allow the truth to speak for itself. As you have no excuses there is no reason why you cannot become a success.”

I stared at her for a moment and she at me. For some reason I no longer cared if she could read my mind or not, only that she believed I could be something great, something other than the skinny awkward kid. In an instant I understood what LISP really stood for and was honored to be a part of it.

At Church that Sunday I felt as if I had been hit by a train. Every muscle of my body throbbed and the bruise on my butt made it impossible to sit comfortably on the solid mahogany pews. I wanted to listen to the sermon, it about how worth comes from more than achievement or something, but I kept having to shift side to side because I was in so much pain.

Strangely, no one seemed to notice, that is no one but the Fisher’s daughter Marlene. Marlene was about five years old and every time I moved she watched as if sensing my discomfort. She studied my face and judged every movement with the suspicion of a private eye.

After the service, I went home and attempted to sleep off the pain and the strange events of the last day and a half.  The newly washed sheets felt like both a cloud of comfort and a witness to the fiasco. After all, just hours before they had been covered in dirt from the ponding basin by The Blade. Now the only indication that Friday night ever occurred, was the muddy jeggings in my closet. I really needed to figure out how to dispose of those or restore them soon. My Mom hadn’t seemed to miss them so far, so I figured they may be able to escape notice and wind up at the bottom of the grey can.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to think about jeggings, or parental expectations or even LISP right now. All I really wanted to do was shut everything out and forget about all of it at least for a little while. And I did for about thirty minutes until I shot up straight from a dream with the sudden and all too familiar realization that I hadn’t written that 1,000 word essay that was due tomorrow.

With much grumbling and wincing, I made my way down the stairs and to my laptop. I couldn’t afford another bad grade in English so I had to make this one good.  It wasn’t like it was my fault this time though. I hadn’t procrastinated like usual or consciously put it off for the last day. I had genuinely been busy with important affairs. Unfortunately, my English teacher wouldn’t know that.

Two hours later I donned at least a B+ paper from the printer and zipped it up in my backpack. This last week had been more eventful than any single year in my life so far. It felt good to have some idea about what I would be doing in the future and to belong to an elite team of “super persons” was always a plus.

I sat down on the base of the stairs and took it all in. Our miniature schnauzer Alfred trotted up and rubbed against my legs. I petted his head and he lay down on my feet in satisfaction. There was this feeling deep within that all was about to change. I wasn’t sure if things would get better or worst. I winced at the bruise on my knee. But I knew that things were definitely about to become different

.~
I returned to The Blade Monday after school. I told my parents that I would be spending a lot of time at Cameron’s house because we were working on a project together. They completely bought it, since I was not usually one to lie or to lie well for that matter. Things were changing. They had to change now.

It was convenient not really having any responsibilities to balance outside of LISP. I wasn’t involved with any extracuriculs, sports or clubs. I was a pretty non-descript guy which made my double life both easier for me and harder to believe for the outside world.

That Monday I held my head a little bit higher than I had in the past. I felt like I was a part of a story beyond myself. I mean I always felt like I was a part of a story for some reason. I think everyone sort of does. But now I’m not just the supporting character I am the main one.

No one really seemed to notice my boost in self-confidence however and the day was just as mundane as all of the one’s before it.

It was raining when I drove up the winding path to The Blade. It took about three tries before I nailed the pronunciation of open sesame in Yiddish. I then walked down the flickering hallway and found the Training Room where I assumed everybody would be.

“Hi Fastwalker,” everybody said as I walked in. The warm welcome felt good. Vision spotted me from her desk in the other room and immediately ushered me in. She handed me a manila folder.

“Here is your training schedule. You will need to do the exercises prescribed either here or at home. I am afraid there is no magic formula for getting stronger and faster other than working at becoming stronger and faster.”

I flipped through the folder. Each page was a diagram of a featureless humanoids doing some kind of physical activity. It was gym class but with actual motivation. I knew that I would have to work hard but I sort of imagined that I wouldn’t need to work that hard since I had a power. It was sort of the perks of being a super hero being awesome without really having to try, kind of like the most interesting man.

“You can’t just rely on one super power you know Mr. Fastwalker.” There was something creepy about her ability to know exactly what I was thinking. “You might be trapped under a fallen building or have to move quickly while maintain your identity. In these circumstances you don’t want to fail because your abilities are not sharp enough. What would LISP have done for you then?”

“Yes Mam,” I said. There was a silence as she studied my face with her one good eye. I wanted to ask her how the whole eye thing had really happened. I sort of wanted to ask anyone what her story was at all and why she hadn’t told it on introduction night.

“Well,” she said, “Go out and become super. I don’t want any excuses!” I got up and left the office and entered back into the training room. It was only Pitch, Fantom and some guy I had never met. I assumed everybody else had Monday jobs or school and had something of a normal life outside of LISP.

The new guy sat at the edge of a bench pumping iron thicker than both of my legs together. He wore a tight grey shirt that seemed ready to burst with each new rep. His features were heroic to say the least with a jaw line and hair of a male model. I wondered what exactly made him an insignificant superhero.

I sat down on the bench on the other side of the room and pulled out the instructions. The first exercise was a bar bell lift with a 25 pound weight on each side. I walked to the station where the bars were held and pulled one from the bunch. I had not expected it to be so heavy and dropped it to the floor after a second. Fortunately and unfortunately, the sound of the fallen bar bell was muted by my foot. I looked around no one had seemed to notice.

I then pretended to carry the bar lopsided across the gym, limping slightly all the while. It actually wasn’t that heavy (only about 15 pounds) but the awkwardness of its shape made me leach back and forth. There was simply no good way to carry it.

“Need any help Fastwalker?” asked Pitch who was doing pull ups on the other side of the room.

“No,” I replied in an effort to sound capable, “I got it.”

At long last I laid the pesky bar besides one of the mats on the floor. I was slightly out of breath and had almost broken a sweat. This was sad. Well I suppose that’s what happens when you’re crazy fast rabbit metabolism makes working out unnecessary for eighteen years.

I went back to the where the bar bell weight rack was and found the set labeled 25. My dog was 20 pounds so this shouldn’t be too bad I reasoned. My dog however is not 25 pounds of dead weight iron. Thankfully, for the sake of my toes the weight struck the floor instead. 

A distinctively Frank Fantom snicker came from behind me. I turned around to glare but Frank had already returned to his own set of crunches.

I put the first weight on the bar bell and returned to the rack again. I picked up the second 25 pound weight with more ease and strutted across the floor in triumph, careful to seem like a manly man.

After the weights were secured on the barbell I managed to wedge myself under it and do my first rep. One. It was actually kind of easy. I only had to do 25 reps for four sets. This wouldn’t be so bad.

At rep five I realized that it would be hard work but still not as impossible as I had first imagined. At rep ten my arms began to shake. At rep 11 my arms gave out and I rested for a moment. At rep 17 I was basically trapped under the barbell but I didn’t mind as long as I didn’t have to do another one.

This was pathetic. I couldn’t even finish one set. How was I supposed to save the world with the arm strength of a gerbil?

“Hi I don’t believe we have been properly introduced,” said a voice from above me that nearly oozed with heroic esteem. I looked up to see the handsome faced man. He was literally a more muscular life sized Ken doll.

“Hi, I’m Luke Fastwalker,” I said, suddenly aware of how many zits were on my face. “I walk fast and stuff.” He gave a hearty laugh.

“Ha-ha-ha, very good Fastwalker. I am Super Awesome Incredible Man.” He gave a near iconic pearly white smile and stared into the distance. 

“He named himself” Pitch said from across the room with an unusual flatness to his voice.

“That I did!” he said with enthusiasm, “Tell me Fastwalker is today your first day of training?”I nodded.

“Yeah, and I kind of su…”

“Don’t despair Fastwalker,” he cut me off, “there is hope yet for you. When I was a rooky at LEGIT…”

“LEGIT?” I asked.

“Yes LEGIT, the League of Extra human Greatness and other Important Talents.”

“It’s basically like the major league for superheroes,” Pitch attempted to clarify.

“When your useful you go there,” Fantom said depressingly. Pitch cast him a look.

“When I was a beginner at LEGIT,” Super Awesome Incredible Man began again, “I was just as small and noodle armed as you.”

“Really?” I asked trying to imagine this man as anything other than supper, awesome and incredible.

“No not really,” he replied. “Although my eight pack was only like a seven and a half pack at that time.” He paused and looked into the distance as if imagining a horrific past. “The point is you can do this Fastwalker. Maybe you will never be as buff as me but you still have some time to become somewhat decent looking. How old are you fourteen?”

“Eighteen,” I said.

“Oh well ladies also like big personalities and apparently guys who invent things you should work on that.” He moved the bar bell off of me.

“Anyway guys I’m going to call it a day. Does anyone want a red velvet cookie?”

“Nope,” we all answered in unison.

“Well,” he said saluting in our general direction. “I’ll see you heroes tomorrow.” He slipped through the door. I was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he peeked his Hollister quality head back in.

“Posture is looking better Frank.” Fantom groaned.  Super Awesome Incredible man winked at us curling up one side of his lip like an Elvis impersonator and quickly shut the door.

“Don’t worry about anything he says,” Pitch said after we were sure he had left. “He’s just full of hot air.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “I bet in real life he has a super lame name or something.”

“It’s Guy Manly,” Fantom said.

“Oh.”

“So then what’s wrong with him?” I asked. “Well besides the obvious.”
Pitch and Fantom looked at each other and snickered.

“Well,” Pitch began, “Frank’s super power is essentially that he is really manly twice as manly as normal to be exact. For some reason when he was conceived his genomes made two copies of all of the male traits making him double the stereotypical guy, which sounds pretty good, twice the strength, twice the speed, twice the face and hair.  The problem is that he also doubled up on all of the not so attractive guy traits.”

Fantom pretended to cough, “Arrogance.”

“Right,”  Pitch continued, “and also stubbornness,  flirtatiousness and the one that got him kicked out of LEGIT, a lack of directional skills.” Both of them had stopped what they had been doing at this point to talk to me.

“Every time they got called out on a mission Guy would get lost,” Frank explained. “It wouldn’t have been such a big deal but he also refused to take directions from anyone. By the time he got there the scene was usually already wrapped up.”

“Why didn’t they just give him a GPS or something?” I asked.

“They tried but he refused to take it saying something about being capable enough on his own,” Pitch said. “That’s where the whole stubbornness thing comes in.”

“Besides, I doubt that it would do anything,” Frank said. “A blind guy literally has more directional sense than the block head.”

“Well that’s a bit of exaggeration,” Pitch said. “Though a bit agitating at times Super Awesome Incredible Man…”

“You don’t have to call him that when he’s not here,” Frank interrupted.

“Alright fine,” said Pitch. “Guy is still a valuable addition to LISP.”

The door opened at that moment and Guy stepped in again about four red velvet cookies in his hand. The two looked sheepish like school girl’s whose gossip had been overheard.

“I was just wondering if you guy’s wanted a cookie?”

“We said no,” Frank said. “Did you miss the exit again? It’s that way.” He pointed down one end of the hall.

“No pshh who would be stupid enough to do that, really Frank.” Guy squinted his eyes at them and then stepped out the door again.

“I knew we should have made him flash cards or something,” Pitch said.
~
Tuesday was mile day and mile day meant humiliation day.  Normally Mr. Ferguson would follow the slow group around and around the track in his golf cart, urging them to move faster.

“Don’t be slow pokes,” he would yell. “Slow pokes end up working in fast food that’s why I can’t get my freaking cheeseburger in less than ten minutes.”

After which case he would proceed to blow his whistle like a lost child in the forest. I can’t believe they paid that guy to insult people and talk about how slow fast food restaurants are all day. They might as well pay me for being a continual source of comedic entertainment, it might compensate for the freshmen wedgies.

Unfortunately for me, I was the slowest person in my class right behind Beatrice. Every year, Ferguson liked to choose one person and make their life a compilation of sweat, blood and insults. Fortunately for Ferguson, he hadn’t had to pick a new person for the last four years.

“There’s an old person’s home off of First and Wilcox. I’ll give you the address so my Nana can teach you how to run! Move it Ledford.”

I had always wanted to start fast walking circles around Ferguson at this point but my self-control was just strong enough.

“Ledford you’re slower than my 18 month sentence for vehicular manslaughter.”

Alright, that one made me speed up a little. I took a few extra steps away from the wheels of the golf cart.

“Hey Beatrice, Beatrice,” I whispered to the large girl a few feet in front of me.

“Do you think you could maybe slow down for me?” I thought that if I could just keep the same pace as Beatrice, Ferguson might stop harassing me for a bit. Besides, if I could pass her up at the end it would save the humiliation of being dead last for the one millionth time.

“Not on your life Lank,” she said and sped up. 

“I just wanted to compliment your earrings!” I yelled behind her.

I was a super hero for crying out loud! Why couldn’t I run a mile? My heart was beating like crazy, my throat hurt and I was too humiliated to look at Ferguson who was continually glaring at me. It wasn’t even lap two yet and Lance Henderson was about to overlap me.

Then in one second my life changed. It was like in one of those corny pre-teen only movies when everything moves in slow motion and all the words get blurred together. Someone was walking out onto the bleachers but not just anyone, a girl. Adler! I would recognize her anywhere even after all of these years.

BAM! In a second I was laying face down in a heap of hurdles. You would think a responsible person would have put them away before making fifty kids run the mile. You would also think a school wouldn’t hire a teacher with a record of vehicular manslaughter and give them the keys to the golf cart. I seemed to think a lot of things that no one else seemed to. Ferguson didn’t even attempt to disguise his laughter.

“Got to watch where you’re going Ledford.”

I wanted to scream a thousand different things at him, all of which would land me with a trip to detention. Although that might enhance my non-existent bad boy rep, I decided against it and simply got up and started running again.

Adler sat down on the bleachers facing the track. How could she possibly have come back now? I mean I thought she moved to another city or something. And what timing! We we’re already half way through our senior year. It must have been tough on her having to leave her friends when they had been so close to graduating.

And here she was watching me completely fail at PE. I doubted that she recognized me or for that matter even remembered me but still. There was a sudden need to move quickly not to fast walk but to genuinely run as fast as I possibly could for the remainder of the mile. It was only about 200 yards but that was still a lot for me.

My feet shot forwards and my legs stretched. It was a strange feeling like the moment when you first jump off the diving board and you seem to be hanging in mid air for a second. Then I plunged into a sprint.

I heard the golf cart rev to life and Ferguson zoomed along behind me. I was gaining speed and fast but instead of feeling sick like normal I felt free. The wind whipped through my huge baggy shirt and too short for comfort shorts. I wonder if this was what it was like to be Usain Bolt only less Jamaican.

Beatrice looked over her shoulder. I was gaining on her and she knew it. I felt as if I was in one of those inspirational movies like Chariots of Fire. Everything was moving so fast but so slow at the same time. I wasn’t using my powers I was using something completely different. I guess its called determination.

I passed Beatrice. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her face scrunch up in disgust. There was only 100 meters left and my feet were flying. I thought of all of the people who had called me Lank throughout the years. They’re laughter and their mouths all forming that same ugly word. Lank. Lank. Lank. I saw fire. I felt fire. I passed someone else.

The golf cart whizzed ahead of me.  This step was for Ferguson who couldn’t appreciate a kid unless they were a football star. This step was for Lance Henderson who thought the only people valuable enough to consider worthwhile were ones that he could use or abuse. This step was for my Father who had told me to forget about being special and focus on being the same as every other freaking person alive. I crossed the finish line.

The kids who had already finished stood staring at me. They weren’t laughing like usual more like gawking. The golf cart was waiting for me.

“What the heck was that?” Ferguson asked.

“I don’t know,” I said unable to make direct eye contact.

“Look at me kid,” he said. I looked at him. “Do you know that you were 0.7 milliseconds off of breaking this schools 200 meter track record?” He showed me the stop watch. I stared at it blankly, still trying to catch my breath. I felt numb all over as if I had been floating in a tub of ice water.

“Do you know what that means?”I continue to stare blankly. My body could not recover for some reason from what had just happened. “It means that you Lan…Luke could have broken a school record! What do you say about joining track this year? Just give it a go.”

Disgust, anger, sarcasm all would have been a proper response but instead I just felt numb. I never believed that I could move that fast without the powers. Granted I had no idea if I could do it again and I was still not super hero fast but I had done something, somewhat extraordinary on my own.

Being able to fast walk had always felt like a get out of jail free card that I got to use when I really needed it. But now I felt as if I was something of a good player even without the card. Yet there was something else. There was a nagging not to get too ahead of myself. This was not where I was supposed to be (I suddenly felt the burning of my throat and the aching of my limbs again) nor where I wanted to be.

“Don’t just stand there like a dead fish,” The coach said. “What do you say?”

I opened and closed my mouth as if to say something important and meaningful and the swallowed. Ferguson leaned forward a bit to hear my response.

“Is the vehicular manslaughter thing really true?” Ferguson rolled his eyes.

“Ain’t that just like you Lank,” he said sneering, “given the chance of a lifetime and he throws it away.” He glared at me again and slowly inched away in the golf cart. I didn’t necessarily consider the invitation to join a sport where your practice killing yourself daily as the chance of a lifetime but then again Ferguson and I have very different values.

Beatrice came in a few seconds later. Her sweaty face twisted into a grimace when she laid eyes on me. She shuffled towards me without making eye contact. I could guess she was about to give the silent treatment.

“I didn’t actually like your earrings,” I whispered as she shuffled by.

She stopped and looked me in the eye. “Jerk,” she said and made sure to stomp on my foot on the way out. As I was doubled over in pain it occurred to me that I could have been a track star for all of these years. Why couldn’t I see that the ability to run was always there just buried under some psychological scruples? What stopped me?

With shame I realized that it had been myself. I was the only one who had told myself that I couldn’t run for all of these years. What else had I been telling myself that I couldn’t do?

Everyone else had left the stadium or was on their way out to their next class. Adler was just filling out of the bleachers when our eyes met. She smiled at me briefly and then turned away. That was a good start I thought. Even when we were kids she never did anything  like that. She had been more indifferent which for me seemed like kind since everyone else made fun of me.

Part of me wanted to run and go catch up with her. Yet despite my major confidence boost. I wasn’t ready for anything quite that bold.  I couldn’t just run up to her and say Hi Adler  I went to elementary school with you and haven’t stopped stalking you ever since. Something about that just seemed like a major no no.

For the next three weeks I trained like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky. I lifted weights. I punched things. I did a lot of stair running, mostly down them but on the occasions in which I ran up them I danced at the top.

Everyone noticed the difference but not just at LISP.  Ferguson was convinced that I was trying to impress the new girl I’m pretty sure. In this case and this case only, he was half right. People still called me Lank but it started to become more affectionate like a nickname rather than an insult.

“Are you taking anything?” Cameron asked out of the blue on day.

“Of course not do you think my arms would still look like this if I was taking anything?” I pointed to my Ramen Noodle arms.

“That true,” he said. “I just can’t place why you have been doing so much better in PE with my powers of deduction”

“I got a gym membership,” I told him.

“Oh,” he said. “Is that weird bracelet from the gym,” he asked. I had kept forgetting to take it off.

“Yeah,” I said. I hated to lie to him but to tell him but the truth would be out of LISP protocol. And I suspected that Cameron, the want to be crime fighter might be jealous of my powers and hurt that I never told him in the first place. It was just better this way.

I had been going to The Blade every day after school and I was slowly beginning to meld into the team. It was after all, a very supportive group of insignificant super persons. That day Vision called me into the office as soon as I arrived in the training room.

“You have been working very hard lately Luke,” she said. “It is a bit early to pull you out of your training but a situation has arisen in which I believe you would have the most likely point of infiltration.”

I made my face blank, a skill I learned from countless super hero shows. On the outside I was a piece of marble but on the inside I was giddy with delight. At 18 I was about to set out as a crime fighting vigilante and protect the helpless citizens of the world. I literally could not think of anything that would have made me happier. Still I pursed my lips together and maintained stoic composure.

“Oh hold it together Luke,” Vision said. “Kristi and Christopher will probably throw you a party after this session.”

It astounded me just how good she was.

“As for your mission,” she continued in a more serious tone, “two days ago a student went missing from none other than your high school. His name was Brent Goldstein. He was in actuality a very boring individual, not a part of any unusual clubs or gangs and not involved in any substances as far as we can see. He was studious, good mannered and fairly good at golf. In short if average had a name it would be Brent Goldstein.” 

I thought I had seen him before. Rather short with brown curly hair. I always wondered if he was Jewish or if it was the other sort of stein. Maybe he spoke Yiddish.

“Mr. Fastwalker,” Vision said to recapture my attention, “It is your job to find Goldstein ideally in good health and return him to his parents. This should be an easy mission. The kid probably got fed up with trying to be good all the time, snapped and split town for a few days. It happens all the time. Plus Goldstein had a car. That would make disappearing on his part a whole lot easier.”

“But what if it was something more than him just disappearing on his own?” I asked. Don’t get me wrong I was ready to defend the world against evil but this was starting to sound like an episode of CSI and I’m no cop.

“Burn that bridge when you get there,” Vision said. “And if you need backup simply tap your wrist twice.” I looked at the metal band around my wrist. “Go ahead try.” I struck the cool metal twice with my index finger.

In an instant a little red square appeared on Vision’s wrist band. The black letters LF appeared in the center of the illuminated box and a small feminine mechanical voice began to speak.

“Luke Fastwalker,” It said. I could see multiple watches in the training room lighting up as well. “Distress signal, location 3567 W. Gettysburg.”

“Good enough for you?” Vision asked. I nodded. She double tapped her band. “False alarm.” The light on her band and on all of the bands in the outside room turned green and then flickered off.

“Do you accept your mission Luke Fastwalker?”

“I do.”

As I exited the room everybody stopped their work and stared. I stared back feeling both sheepish and excited. Part of me wanted to tuck into myself and treasure these new pieces of information I had been shown. The other half wanted to shout from the roof tops that I Luke Ledford had his first mission as a superhero.

“I guess what everyone is too polite to ask is whether that false distress alarm meant that you’re finished with the first stage of your training?” Fantom asked flatly.

I tried to muster my best straight face but a smile was slowly breaking through.

“Ooooh,” Kristi said. “Ooooh he’s a sly one.” I finally nodded that I had indeed passed the first level of training.

In an instant the room erupted in a chorus of cheering and congratulations. People began to rush forward and shake my hand and then to hug me. Pretty soon we all stood in the center of the room in a giant Venus fly trap infested group hug. Venus was great but I would never get over how creepy those things were.

After a long and awkward hug Christopher said “Do you know what time it is?

“Um about four fo…”

“It’s party time!” Christi said. The crowd went wild with cheering and jumping and strange noises that I didn’t want to understand.

“The Christenson twins are the master of the office party,” Fantom explained.

“This isn’t an office more like a gym,” I said. “Plus shouldn’t we wait for the people who aren’t here to get back.” The big lady, the strongman and the levitating couple were all absent.

“Ah same thing,” Fantom said, “And if you snooze you loose.”

“To the party room!” Christopher yelled. Everyone began to pile out of the exercise room and into the hall. I stuck close to Fantom who seemed to be the only one unaffected by party fever.

“There’s a party room?” I asked.

“The examination room is the only one big enough to have a dance floor. Not that you really want to see any of these people dance,” Frank laughed dryly at his own joke but composed himself quickly once he realized that I didn’t think it as funny. “Guy found a disco ball at a yard sale and decided to hook it up here. You won’t see Mr. Manly dancing though he thinks he’s too cool for that, mostly sits by the punch bowl and flirts with Venus. It’s totally a thing.”  

Once we were all in the room. Pitch fiddled behind a counter with the lights. Everything dimed and a disco ball dropped. I assumed that Pitch was considered LISP’s official DJ. The first song that Pitch played was hooked on a Feeling.

“Nooo!,” Everybody yelled.

“I like this song,” Pitch said scrunching up his face. “Why don’t you guys?”

“It makes me feel…I don’t know..”  Guy started.

“It just it feels so done before,” he continued.  “You know like that whole era, the Pina Colada song, Come and Get Your Love. All of those songs are an awesome mix of beats but they just don’t work for us. We are so unique we need a whole new era of music you know?’

I literally had no idea what he was talking about but I trusted that the music dispute would resolve itself sooner or later.

“Who wants eggnog?” Christopher yelled. Everyone cheered.

“Whoa Whoa Whoa,” Pitch said, “Is their alcohol in that stuff because he’s not twenty one and you guys deffitly aren’t and we’re a league of law abiding citizens.”

“I tell Christi to leave it out.” Pitch narrowed his eyes.

“But will Christi leave it out?”Pitch asked in a mock Swedish accent.  Christopher’s face went slack and expressionless. He finally sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Fine we’ll all just have milk like Santa’s good little Elves!” 

“Do you have any of the Nyåkers Gingersnap?” Frank asked from beside me. He sounded strangely energetic in his inquiry of the small cookie.
“Saved them just for you Fantom,” Christopher yelled as he exited the room.
“I was thinking everyone,” Pitch began, “Since we can’t decide on any one good song to dance to why don’t we have a karaoke night?
They all cheered at the idea. Deep inside my stage frightened and insecure self wanted to go curl up and die but there was something about being around these people that told me I would not be judged. Christopher returned with hot cocoa for everyone and the mood settled a bit. Instead of being a wild dance party it would simply be a jazzy karaoke gathering. Christi came out with the cookies later and handed them directly to Frank who seemed unwilling to share. I sort of wanted to try one but there was something about the look on Fantom’s face that told me to back off of the gingersnaps.

“Alright,” Pitch said once everyone was settled. We all sat on the ground together side by side. “Who want to go first?”

There was a dead silence. I suddenly realized that the whole karaoke thing hadn’t been thought out too well. Everyone wanted to see their friends sing and dance badly. There was no problem there. It was just that no one wanted to sing or dance badly.

“Well,” Venus broke the silence with her subtle faltering voice, “I have a little number. It’s nothing special or anything.”

“Venus, Venus!” the crowd cheered. I felt that they were mostly happy that someone other than themselves would take front and center first.

She approached the large open area we deemed the stage and stood resolute before us. It was strange to me that just a few weeks before I had fallen through the floor and sailed like a bird from a giant trampoline in this room. Now it simply felt like a dance floor turned karaoke hall. The disco ball still sparkled above us. 

“RESPECT please,” Venus said in her own sweet peaceful spacey way.

Fantom snickered in the back. I glanced towards him; he was still stuffing his face with Swedish gingersnaps. As far as the song choice, I had to agree with Fantom. It was difficult to imagine sweet little Venus belting out those iconic 1970’s words. I tried to imagine it but all I could muster was an awkward train wreck of a performance. 

Pitch could be heard over the auxiliary cord typing out a search for the karaoke version of the song. Finally he found the music and the performance began.

The lights dimmed and the disco ball swirled around in a lazy continuous cycle, casting specks of sparkling light across Venus and her fly traps.  The bright music cut through the coffee shop atmosphere like a knife but like a knife that was simply spreading better. Then Venus began to sing.

Her voice suddenly transformed from that of a shy girl with random plants sprouting from her head to that of a bold woman from the 70s who just wanted a little R. E. S. P. E. C.T. At first I didn’t even think that the voice was coming from her body. I thought that somehow Pitch had rigged it to make her sound good and save the embarrassment. But I was wrong. Venus was good. Beyond good Venus was stunning.

She was really getting into it to, swaying from side to side and pointing at audience members such as Super Awesome Incredible Man. Her fly traps sang the “oohs,” and the “I just want some,” background chorus. Though I thought that the plants were slightly creepy, I found myself clapping and singing along.

When the song ended we all stood up and clapped.
“Wow how long have you been working on that one Venus!?” Pitch asked laughing.
“Oh you know it’s just a hobby really.” She had returned back into her shy interior.

Pitch went next. He sang Payphone by Maroon 5. He was also amazing but not surprisingly since he was in men’s ensemble and his superpower was literally singing high.

“Who’s next?” Guy asked.
“Why not you,” Christi asked him.

“I am obliged at your kindly assumptions but I can only sing the star spangled banner and other manly man songs,” Guy said. “Why not you?”

“Oh we would love too wouldn’t we Christopher?” She looked over to her brother. I could nearly feel the room inwardly growing. 
 
“Yes,” Christopher said, “very much. But I must warn you Christi and I only know Swedish yodel based songs. They are very complex. Would you like to hear a sample?”

“Luke! Luke! Luke!” Someone had begun the chant. I shook my head and waved my hands. Karaoke wasn’t really my thing.

“Come on Fastwalker,” Pitch urged, “It’s your party anyway.
“No. No.  I can’t sing,” I tried to answer without sounding like I was shutting down the party bus

“Awe who cares,” Pitch said. “Just get up there and start talking before someone else takes your spot.” He looked over towards the back of the room where the twins sat with an over exaggerated grimace.

“Luke! Luke! Luke!”

“Alright, alright,” I got up and moved towards the front of the stage unsure of what to do next. Everyone stared. They were all so talented and the only thing I could really do was talk.

“So I was thinking that if the whole superhero thing doesn’t work out we could join the music business.” People snickered. I had no idea what was happening just that it was happening “I mean Venus is great for soul, Pitch’s high notes are like baby angels singing and we could always use someone to man an accordion.” I looked towards the twins in the back who were both laughing. Too my surprise this was actually working out. “What do you guys think Fantom would play? Piccolo seems about right,” Between bites of Gingersnaps I caught a faint smirk.

“But really we could tour the world.  I feel like Vision would like that to see all the different places, seeing all the people. She’d like that. ” The crowd was silent momentarily, before bursting into laughter. I didn’t understand why they were laughing it hadn’t been that funny. “Italy and France imagine all the things she could see there.” Pitch was on the floor laughing behind the sound booth. “Let’s not even get started about Greece,” People were clutching at their chests in near cardiac arrest and I still didn’t understand my own jokes.

“Alright well apparently you guys are reading into this more than I am but I don’t see anything weird about Vision seeing. It’s her gift she should use it. Good Night super persons,” I said and got off the stage quickly.

It took about five minutes for everyone to stop laughing and breath normally again. You would have thought someone dropped laughing gas.

“Luke,” Christi finally said, “Do you actually know what Vision’s power is?”

“Yeah of course, seeing,” Everyone launched into another laugh attach.

“No I mean,” Christi finally mustered the strength to speak again, “What exactly does she see?”

“She’s like physic.”Christi shook her head and the room continued to giggle.

“No Luke. Vision isn’t psychic she…she,” Christi broke down in laughter,” I can’t explain this.

Pitch took over “Vision can ‘see’ but only through clothes.” The full horror of my whole karaoke night act sank in.

“Wait. Wait so she always sees..” Everyone nodded. “But what about the first time she met me. She knew my name and everything.”

“Are they written on your drawers,” Pitch asked. I nodded in horrification and the room burst into laughter again.

“But she always knew exactly what I was going to say next or exactly what I was worried about. How could she do that?” The LISP members looked around at one another.

“There’s no nice way of saying this Luke,” Venus started, “but you wear your emotions on your sleeve quite literally.” I was slightly offended. How could this many people know exactly what I felt? Did this affect the whole James Bond espionage feeling I was going for?

“Please don’t be offended,” Venus said. “It’s not that noticeable at first. If you were doing any spy work it probably wouldn’t affect you. But the people who know you as friends tend to see everything.” 

The first emotion I felt after the statement was the feeling you get when you learn that everyone has known about your secret crush except you didn’t know that they knew. The next thing that came to my mind was the key word friend. Venus considered me her friend and if she was right everyone who could read me (so literally everyone at the party) considered me a friend too.

“I’m so sorry about the,” I began to laugh, “I mean what I said must of sounded pretty awful, London, France and underpants.”
They laughed and pretty soon I was laughing harder that I had ever before.

“That’s quite okay,” Pitch said. “Your comedy act is welcome back any time.”

After a few more minutes of talking and joking around we decided that it was time to leave. It felt like we had been there for hours but in reality in was only 8p.m.
“Oh no,” Christopher said. “Fantom blacked out on the Gingersnaps again.”
I flipped around. An unconscious Frank Fantom lay in a pile on the ground. The little canister of cookies still open a jar.

“Again?” I asked. “What’s in those things?”

“Ginger, flour, sugar, a dash of love, I don’t know Luke what do you think we put in them!?” Christopher said.

“Well then why does he keep blacking out on your cookie recipe?”
“Let me clarify” Christi jumped in before her brother had a chance. “Gingersnaps are Frank’s kryptonite.”

“You mean they’re poisoning him?” We knelt in the dim room beside the body. The disco lights casting beams over us every few seconds.

“No. No. No.,” Kristie said, “How do you say… he is addicted to them and when he eats ginger he cannot walk through anything, even wood.”

“And so he passes out because…”

“Oh he passes out because of the sugar,” Christi said. “A cookie without sugar is a sin!” She laughed at me. “Silly boy don’t you know anything about baking?”

Apparently, I didn’t nor about social grace. Although, it made little difference, I knew somehow that these people would accept me for who I was and look past my numerous mistakes, no matter how severe. I could see that given enough time they would become more than friends, they would become family.

“I suppose we can just leave him here,” Christopher said. “I think he’s taking pre-med classes at the university. Hopefully he’ll wake up by then.”

“Pre-med?” I asked.

“Surprising I know,” Christi said moving the gingersnaps away and tucking one of his arms under the other. “He doesn’t look like the whiz-kid or the Good Samaritan for that matter. But this kid here has a good heart,” she pointed towards his chest. “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover Luke Fastwalker. We of all people should know that best.”

We sat thoughtfully for a moment. Finally I decided it really was time to go. I wished Christi and Christopher goodnight and made my way to the door. Before I left I swooped down and grabbed a gingersnap. I took a bite.

“Dang these really are sweet,” I said.

It was a Monday again. A slightly more bearable Monday since there was no Career Day presentations and I was pumped about starting my first mission, but a Monday all the same.

“Luke!” I looked back to see Cameron coming towards me. I always appreciated that he was the only on save my parents who actually called me by my given name. There were crazy amounts of books in his hands; some comic books others school books, as usual.

“Luke so you know how Zombie Smash IV just came out like yesterday?”

“Yeah.”

“Well I got it!” He was giddy.

“Awesome,” I said. He detracted a bit at my lack of enthusiasm and I immediately felt a bit guilty.

“I was thinking,” he continued a bit calmer, “that you could come over today and play. I haven’t even opened it yet.”

“Oh,” I said, looking for the right way to decline his invitation. I was busy with my mission after all. I couldn’t just put off the fate of a human being for Zombie Smash IV.

“Sorry I can’t today. It’s my Dad’s birthday and we’re going out for dinner.”

“Wasn’t your Dad’s birthday last month?”
Dang it! I should have known he would remember small details like that. Now he would think I was trying to get rid of him on purpose, which I wasn’t.

“Yeah it was,” I continued, “but we just didn’t get the chance to celebrate last month so we’re doing it tonight.” Lying was becoming easier. In a way it was nice. In a way it scared me.

“You don’t have time to play a few games before dinner?” he asked. Why wouldn’t he stop nagging? Couldn’t he see that I was busy? I never even liked Zombie Smash I, II, or III. He was the only one who was actually into them. The only reason he could get the game the day after it was released was because the company was tanking.

“Oh yeah and my Mom wants me to do some house work before we leave.”

“But do you ever really do everything your Mom wants you to do,” Cameron said slyly.

Now this was just getting annoying. Couldn’t he see that I didn’t want to play his stupid nerd game?

“Yeah I know. But this time she told me she would ground me if I didn’t.”

“Oh alright well I guess you have to then,” he said. I could tell that he knew I was telling less than the truth. Why was I best friends with the human lie detector?

“Well I’m off to class,” he said and started away though there was still about five minutes till. I stood alone in the hallway for a moment, thinking about what had just happened before making my way to class.

Goldstein had been in my first period.. I sat in the front and last week I remembered seeing a stack of homework on the teacher’s desk labeled Goldstein. Come to think of it the stack was much too big for missing one day of school. Goldstein must have missed school before he went missing himself.  I tried to remember if he had been here throughout the week but couldn’t quite determine if he had or not.

Why would a person miss school? Other than the obvious benefits of missing school. If a person was sick they would miss school. I suppose if a person was running away they would also want to ditch a few days in preparation. I thought about Goldstein for a while. It was hard to imagine that a guy like him would pre-mediate anything, let alone running away.

It just wasn’t in his nature. He came from a well to do family. He had friends and hobbies here. He was one of those people who liked to brag about their ivy league ambitions on career Day. I didn’t know Goldstein but the facts didn’t all seem to add up. His future was perfectly set before him. Why would he threaten to destroy it by doing something like this? I pretty much had more of a motive to hit the road then he did.  

“As some of you have heard,” Mrs. Neilson began, “our very own Brent Goldstein went missing Saturday afternoon.” There were shocked voices and scattered conversation throughout the room. “The school asks that if you have even the smallest shred of information about the where abouts of Brent that you contact the police immediately.”
I heard a loud sniff from the back of the room. I turned around to see a pretty blonde girl with short docked hair. Of course! Goldstein’s girlfriend! Tears were filling her blue eyes. I wondered what if anything she could possibly know. I knew I needed to break the social barrier and talk to her for the sake of Goldstein and for the sake of LISP.

The class was World Literature but my head was anywhere but there. I kept trying to figure out ways to learn more information about Goldstein, all while maintaining my cover. I couldn’t just go around interviewing everyone who was connected to him. This was beginning to seem more and more like police work and less like a superhero comic. I wondered why Vision had considered this an easy mission. What was a hard mission like?

The bell rang, class ended and I followed Goldstein’s girlfriend into the hall. I was trying to remember her name. It was something with a C, Caroline maybe. I decided to go out on a limb and go for it.

“Hey Caroline,” I called behind her. She turned around to face me. Yes! I had been right.

“I just wanted to say I’m really sorry about what happened to Brent.” I tried to muster my best sympathy without over doing it. She sniffed again.

“Thanks Lank,” she said. Really I thought do they not know that, that isn’t my name. I thought are conversation was over but then she turned to me and said with violent emotion, “He’s dead. I just know someone’s killed him!” 

We walked over to a small cove away from the bustling of the passing period. “Why do you say that?” I was aware that I had limited time to get information from her. “What if he just got stressed out and skipped town? I hear people end up doing it all the time.”

“That’s what the police are saying happened,” she murmured. “They say he was too focused on getting perfect grades and freaked out because the only thing unusual they found in his locker was a crazy amount of test prep books. But I know it’s not true. Brent would never do anything like that at least not without telling me. We’ve been dating for two and a half years. He doesn’t do anything without me. We’re even planning on going to the same college and everything.”

She was clingy I could tell. But she was just cute enough to ignore that especially for Brent who I never took as much of a looker.

“He was so talented,” she continued to burble on. “He even got to the championships in golf. Do you know how hard that is? Now he’s never going to get to play!” Another monsoon of tears then ensued.

Championship Golf Tournament, Golf was his life. Why would he skip town and miss that? Unless of course, someone didn’t want him to play that day.

“I’m sorry you’re going to be late to class now Lank,” she said wiping away tears with the sleeve of her sweater. 

“No thanks,” she scrunched her face in confusions, “I mean it’s always a goal of mine to be there when others need to talk. I thank you for that opportunity to know you better. If there’s anything I can do to help you more just let me know.”

Caroline nodded and started to rush to her next class sniffling all the way. It was a good save another rushed lie but a good save.

After school I decided to go home first and get something to eat before going to The Blade. Besides I didn’t want to run the chance of Cameron seeing me drive the opposite direction of home after I had promised him that that was where I was going. I was tired of lying to people. In this way I was technically telling the truth, technically.

I parked on the curb and got out, accidently slamming my car door against the mail box. They should really move this thing I thought. I dug through my back pack until I found the key to the front door and then let myself in. 

I then proceeded to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to hold me over until dinner.

“You done with that project with Cameron,” My Dad said from behind me. I hadn’t thought that he would have been home,

“Almost,” I said. “I’m going back over to his house right after this.”  My parents must have been convinced that the project had been building a NASA rocket or something. It had been almost a month since I told them about it. I was surprised that they never asked. Then again my parents were pretty good at staying out of my business and I was pretty good at staying out of theirs. It’s just the way things worked.

“I heard some kid just went missing today from your school,” My Dad said. He was always trying to keep up with the current news. The problem was by the time he heard it, it often wasn’t current anymore.
“It happened two days ago,” I said, “but yeah.”

“No it happened today like right now. I saw it on Breaking News. Some girl named Michelle Brooks never showed up to cheer practice. They found all of her stuff in her car and the motor still running, but no Michelle, no Michelle anywhere.”

I turned all of it over in my mind again. People went missing from places all the time. Probably even some from my school in the past, but for two people to go missing within two days of one another seemed suspicious. Especially since the last disappearance did not happen under regular circumstances. Michelle did not simply run away the way they said Brent had, not with the motor running and all of her stuff in the back of the car. Michelle had been taken and I had a feeling Brent had been too.
There were absolutely no similarities between their disappearances however or between them as persons. Brent was a book loving over-achiever and Michelle had been a petty and popular cheerleader. There seemed to be absolutely no connection or link between them. From what I can remember they didn’t even know each other.  Yet for some inexplicable reason I wanted to classify the two mysterious happening as part of one and the same.

I pulled up beside Pitch’s motor cycle and the corvette which belonged to Super Awesome Incredible man. The initials SAI were printed upon his license plate.

“Subtle,” I said, “subtle.”

There was surprisingly no one in the training room that day. Vision saw me as I walked in and opened her office door.

“How’s that mission going Fastwalker?” she asked.

“That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

She motioned for me to come into the office. I followed her and tried not to remember that she actually wasn’t psychic.

“So what’s the problem?” she asked once the door was shut and we were seated facing one another. I knew I had to be honest at least here.

“I’m finding it hard to find evidence when I’m not a police officer and this seems more like a case then a mission.”

“What did you think that all of your missions would be jumping off buildings and saving pretty girls?” she chuckled a little.

That wasn’t what I had thought but at the same time it was exactly what I had thought.

“Heroes are 25% detectives,” she said, “25% journalist, 25% dare devils and 50% Philanthropist.”

“That makes 125%.”

“Which is what you must give every day that you consider yourself a superhero or for that matter a hero of any kind,” she said. I nodded. I still wasn’t sure exactly how I was suspected to go about finding clues but something about her speech was somewhat calming. I felt that though I was uncertain now, the puzzle pieces of the whole process would begin to fall into place.

“There was another disappearance today.” I said.

“Yes, Michelle Brooks.”

“Could there be a connection?” She closed her eyes and tapped one long black finger nail against the table.

“There does not appear to be a connection,” She said matter of factly, “that does not mean however that there is not one. You must use both your focus and your observational skills. Remember that your mission is Goldstein and no one else but remember also that your oath is to all people.” 

I exited the office that day still confused about my role in the lives of Goldstein and Mellissa but rejuvenated in my resolve all the same. On the way home I stopped by the grocery store and bought a newspaper. I wondered if this was what Vision meant by being a journalist.

At home I took a pen and circled the Goldstein case. The Melissa one would be reported tomorrow along with any additional information about Brent. I then proceeded to read all of the other crime related columns just in case there was a connection there.

I found that I already knew most of the circumstances about Brent. Saturday evening, he had simply failed to come home from golf practice. His teammates and coach said that they had seen him get in his car and drive away. He wasn’t supposed to stop on the way home for anything just drive the whole way through. Yet he and his grey Chevy truck never made an appearance at the Goldstein residence not that night or for the following two.

~
The case had been weighing on my mind heavily. I had stayed up late the night before turning the facts over and over. Still nothing significant stood out to me. Frankly, I was beginning to become tired of it all, watching detective shows was one thing but it was no walk in the park actually being one.

It was PE day again. Thankfully it had not been mile day only a soccer unit. Soccer is my least favorite sport. Everything about it promises for awkward mishaps. When dribbling the ball I trip over myself while trying to show off with what little ball handling skills I have, when defending I always end up kicking someone in the ankles instead of the ball and getting them angry and on the rare occasion that I get to shoot, I am likely to miss the ball and fall on my backside.

They decided to put me in the goal box today. The goal box pretty much makes you a sitting duck. It screams come and give me a concussion with this ball or make me look like a wimp when I attempt to dodge in the opposite direction.

I am convinced that professional soccer goalies have the power to slow down time or something. Either that or they do not take mortality into question.

Adler was on my team thankfully. She was pretty good plus I didn’t want her to score on me. Lance Henderson was on the other team unfortunately and although he was a football player that didn’t stop him from being boss at soccer as well. It really wasn’t fair. The guy was good at literally everything sports related.

He was cutting through my team mates like a knife through Jell-O. Even Adler couldn’t stop him. I knew it was only a matter of time before he made a shot on the goal and for the sake of my pride I could not let him succeed.

He dodged the last defender; pulled back his foot and shot. The ball flew through the air. It was headed for the upper region of the net. I jumped arms outstretched in either direction as far as I could. I must have looked like a giant jumping praying mantis.

The ball collided with my face and tumbled harmlessly to the ground by the net. Yeah non-contact sports are definitely safe.

“There you go Lank,” Ferguson said, “taking one for the team!” Ferguson’s whole attitude towards me had changed in the last few days. He had even found some freshmen to harass instead. I assumed it was because he wanted me to join the track team but it was nice all the same.

“Yeah Lank!” someone shouted. They were off again in a mess of jumbled feet and black and white rectangles.

When the final whistle blew we had won 1-0. I had blocked the second shot with a place worst then my head. Still everyone cheered for me because at least I had blocked it this time. I changed back into my regular school clothes and began to walk back over towards my next class. It kind of sucked having PE first period. I mean you pretty much stank for the rest of the day and there was little to nothing you could do about it. I bet our class room teachers hated it.

I saw Adler walking alone in front of me by a few yards. Who was I kidding she probably wouldn’t even remember me. Plus we only had six months left before graduation. I needed to actually talk to this girl instead of being a creeper. Overcome your fears Luke. Just do it.

I ran up beside her.

“Oh,” she said a bit perturbed by my appearance. I was suddenly aware of how gross I must look. I was so sweaty and covered with acne and now I was just standing there not saying anything.

“Hi,” I tried to regain my confidence but it wasn’t working. “I don’t know if you remember me but…”

“Of course I remember you Luke,” she said.

“You do?” I asked. This was all news to me. My great Aunt forgot that I existed and thought that I was a waiter at the last family reunion. She made me bring her a refill.

“Yeah you were the kid that the miniature pony bucked at my third grade birthday party!”

Oh,” I said. “right.”  “as much as I hated being remembered as the disaster kid, I was happy that she had any concept of who I was at all.

“And your Adel, Adenine, Andromeda, Ad…”

“Adler,” she corrected me. I didn’t want to seem like I knew her off the top of my head that easy, though perhaps Andromeda was a bit far.

“You know like the last name of that the crazy psychopath girl that Sherlock liked.” I laughed. I had forgotten about her sense of humor.

“Where did you go when you left?” I asked her.
“Well my Dad owned this rising canned pineapple company, A Basket of Ananas. He got a promotion and we got to live in a Hawaii for awhile. People always thought I was a native which was annoying. I had to keep saying I’m not Hawaiian I’m half Chinese but literally everyone still thought I was Hawaiian. Here they think I’m Mexican. It’s a hard life being a half and half.”

That made me laugh and she laughed along. I was sort of ashamed because for all of these years I had thought she was Mexican too. That would explain why her last name was Song. 

It was weird I had known her for all of those years in elementary school and junior high and I had never heard her talk so much in my life. I had always imagined what talking to her was like but it had just never happened. Who knew it was as easy as going up and saying Hi. I knew that half of it had to do with her coming back and not having friends here anymore but still her reception of me was much warmer that I had first expected.

“Anyway, she continued, “My Dad thought the name A Basket of Ananas would appeal to more people because literally English is the only language that calls pineapples pineapples everyone else just calls them ananas. I mean it makes sense since the Pine apple neither grows on a pine tree  nor is an apple.  In the pineapple business it’s all about the name. All pineapple basically tastes the same. Unfortunately, he didn’t realize that the biggest importer of pineapples were English speaking countries. And here I am back here.”  She held out her arms to gesture to the school.

“That’s awful so the company tanked?”

“Yup,” she said shrugging her shoulders. “We still have about 1,000 cans of pineapple in our garage if you interested.” We laughed again.

“So besides your garage full of pineapples how are you liking being back?”

“Honestly,” she said a bit more seriously, “It kind of sucks. All of my old friends who used to go here are all in different clicks. There’s almost no point talking to them anymore because they’re really snobby. I just want to graduate at this point. So I’ve really just been focusing on school and gymnastics.”

Every second I learned something new about her that I was surprised to have never have even heard of before.

“What about you?” she asked. “How has it been for you?”

I had two choices at this point. Be an open book and tell her that up till recently everything had been a mess. Or I could be a dirty liar and try to be somewhat cool.

“Eh it’s been alright,” I said. It was a shallow answer one that could very well have ended the conversation right  there or made it difficult for Adler to respond. Fortunately for me she was a bit more merciful in her conversation graces then other people I knew.

“No more miniature horse accidents or anything?”

“Well…” We laughed. Somehow I sensed that this was the way I was supposed to be with her. Not cool or calculated just my goofy under confident self.  

“Isn’t it crazy,” I began after a long silence, “that we’ve known each other practically forever but have never really talked?” What was I doing? What was I saying? If only I could rewind and take those words back. They were so strange, so forward. They were nothing like me.

“Yeah it Is weird. I guess our friend circles just never really hung out around each other, which is a shame because I always thought you and Cameron were really fun.,” We entered the building. “Now I know that your super nice and it’s so easy to talk to you.”

“Same for you,” I said. “It’s heck of easy to talk to you it’s like we have…”

“Chemistry,” she said.

“What?”

“Chemistry is my next class.” She pointed to the door. “It was super nice to talk to you again. Bye Luke!” she slipped into the classroom. 

I stood there motionless for a few seconds. That may have been one of the single best things that had ever happened to me. She had remembered me. Plus she actually called me by my name. That had to mean something.
Chapter 10
The division 8 championship golf game was at some fancy country club out in the middle of nowhere. The grass was clipped uniformly. The tree’s were all approximately the same height and species and only civil little squirrels were allowed to scurry across the courses.

As it was my only lead, I decided I had better go check the place out. I  had thought long and hard about it and I realized no one was about to talk to some high school kid about Goldstein without a reason. I needed some sort of guise, a cover.

“Hello I’m here with the school newspaper, The Quill. We are doing a story about how much Brent’s parents, friends and mentors miss him and want him back in any way possible regardless of the circumstance. Seeing that you are the Coach would you mind…?”

“No comment,” the man said pulling down an A’s baseball cap.

“Thank you anyway sir,” I said.

It had been the ideal cover. Vision had said journalist after all. I had borrowed a camera from my parents supposedly for my never ending project with Cameron and had booked it here right after school.

I had better be get something out of this. Parking had been twenty dollars at the gate and the snooty glances of the club members were definitely not worth that much.

A boy with a green polo shirt leaned against a club and popped a stick of chewing gum in his mouth. He looked cool and collected, perhaps, capable of a crime. I approached.

“Hi I’m with The Quill…”

“Yeah,” he interrupted me. “I see you guys all over here every week. Yes I love golf, it’s fantastic been doing it for 12 years. No I will not join The Quill under any circumstances even if you’re going to Disney Land at the end of the year. What else do you want me to say?”

“No it’s not about golf at all. It’s about Brent. We’re writing an article in…”

“In appreciation of him,” he cut me off.  “Hah! Between you and me he wasn’t worth the starchy polo shirts he wore.” He looked at the phone recorder in my hand. “Turn that off. You won’t want anything I say in your little Brent appreciation column.”

I put the phone away.

“I can see you weren’t a big fan. I’ve been getting that response a lot and I was thinking of backing off the article. What’s your reason?”

At my suggestion of quitting the article he relaxed a little as if he had determined me as friend and not foe.

“Well the first thing was the arrogance,” he started rolling his eyes. “When you beat him he sulks around like a kicked puppy or something but when he wins, he never lets you hear the last of it. I’m’ convinced he thought he was a god or something the way he went around like the MVP of our team when he clearly wasn’t.”

“But he made it to championships so I guess he was at least somewhat good?”

“Yeah well so did literally half of our team. Only you would never know it because that stupid Caroline girl goes spreading it around like he won the Olympics or something. If you can literally hit the ball straight and get mostly pars you’re in. It’s not a big deal at all.”

“Say he didn’t just run off like people have been saying. You think someone, you know, knocked him off?”

He looked at me a bit defensively and whipped his nose. I sensed that I had crossed some sort of boundary.

“How should I know anything about that?” I shrugged my shoulders

“Just curious.”

“Go find yourself a story that someone wants to hear,” he told me and turned coldly back in the direction of the course.

The next guy I interviewed actually agreed to make a statement. He was decidedly kind faced and harmless looking. I wondered why I had even decided to ask him.

“Hi I’m here at the Division 8 Varsity Golf Tournament with James Leer.” I had heard someone do something like this once on Chanel 8. It was actually kind of fun. “James if you could please describe the overall character and attitude of missing person, Brent Goldstein?”

“Yeah Brent is a great guy,” he said sheepishly. “He was really great, you know just a cool sort of guy.”  There was an awkward silence.

“Thank you James,” I finally said and clicked the recorder off. That had been awful from both an investigative and journalistic point of view.

“Sorry I wasn’t able to say much about him,” James said, “I didn’t really like him that much to be honest.” Really! Even this guy didn’t like him. How was that possible?

“Yeah that’s what that guy over there said too.” I pointed in the general direction of the green polo shirt guy.

“Oh, you mean Jacob Mason?” I took mental note of the name and nodded. “Yeah he would say that what with them getting into fist fights every other day?”

“Fist fights?”

“Yeah Jacob usually took the first punch but Brent was always urging him on until he finally just snapped. It got Jacob suspended last season and he missed his chance at the championships last year because of it. That’s why I didn’t like him. Because he had the guts to let someone else take the full wrap for something that wasn’t their fault.”

I glanced over to Jacob who was stepping up to putt. Motive check.
I interviewed four more people all with similar opinions of Goldstein. Apparently, the guy wasn’t a particularly likeable fellow. Any one of them seemed somewhat suspicious but for now the main suspect in my mind remained Jacob Mason. I mean the guy cost him the championships last year. Why not cost him the championships this year and maybe a little more.

“Four!” I screamed from the parking lot. I could see people turn towards the lot and squint in my general direction. That’s for making me pay twenty dollars to park here I thought.
~
I had gotten a flat B on the English paper and was feeling pretty good about myself. Last night after the golf tournament, I had bought the paper again and gone through Melissa’s story. Like Brent’s, nothing showed up in the paper that I already didn’t know, other than the opinion of her parents and friends that it had been a random kid napping. According to them, Melissa wasn’t the sort of person to get caught up in things like that.

I had also done a little research on Jacob Mason and found he had quite the history. He had been listed under juvenile delinquent records under a charge of violence. It seemed like he had spent three months in a reform school in another state after causing a school fight and pulling a knife. It looked as if Jacob had come to the state to start over. I wondered if old habits die hard.

At lunch time I sat with Cameron and some other friends. My minds however, was still traveling back and forth over the road of details surrounding Goldstein.

“Hey do you think you can come after school and play Zombie Smash IV?” Cameron asked. I felt awful; I really did but today was the day I was going to meet with Vision about the progress of the case. Then I realized that Cameron wasn’t talking to me. He was talking to Zach.

“Whoa you already have it?” Zach said. “It only came out like three days ago?” Technically four days ago but I wasn’t exactly going to say anything.

I was happy that Cameron finally found someone to play the game with but at the same time I couldn’t help but feel a little left out. Cameron really had seen through my white-lies and since he couldn’t know the truth, he assumed the worst. Now he was most likely convinced that I didn’t like hanging out with him. I didn’t want it to be this way, but I couldn’t exactly explain myself fully.

“Did you hear what they found?” someone shouted. We all turned around to look in the direction of the speaker.  It was a girl with phone in hand. I assumed that this was where she was finding her breaking news.

“What this about?” one of the older kids commanded.

“Goldstein,” she said. “They found it in the river.” The whole room gasped. A muffled cry could be heard from Caroline in the back of the cafeteria.

“No not his body,” she clarified. “Well at least not yet. They found his backpack.” Chatter broke out among the tables. The disappearances had shaken a few people.  This new piece of evidence seemed to reek of foul play. I pulled up the news story myself. According to his parents, everything that was normally in his backpack was still there including a water logged lap top. By the looks of it, it was a nice one.

No one trying to skip town for a few days dumps a $500 laptop in a river just for fun. This little bit of information seemed to totally debunk the police theory. It added up, the parents didn’t think he did it, the girlfriend didn’t think he did it. And his whole golf team hated his guts.

I knew where I would be searching next and I would most likely be getting a little wet. In fact, I decide I would go right after school. Whatever else might be in the river (I shuddered to think of it) would be time sensitive. The sooner I got out there the better. Vision could wait a few hours before my progress report. She would understand.

From my GPS, I could see that it was the same river that ran through the golf course. It was an interesting fact that I tucked away just in case. I realized that the more time went by the less likely it was that Goldstein would be found alive. I suddenly felt afraid. I wasn’t a super hero or a private eye, or a journalist or anything that Vision had mention. I wasn’t ready to see a dead guy. In my mind it had been all Sherlock Homes-like until this point. Now I was convinced it would be more like Abbott and Costello.
As little as I wanted to see a dead guy, I wanted even less to see the guy responsible for making him dead. Maybe I could out walk a murder but I knew I couldn’t out walk a gun. A murder is a murder no matter who you are.

I pulled to a stop in a little parking lot designated for fishermen to park their cars and boats. There were clouds gathering in the skies and a subtle wind. I had a feeling that I might have to cut the investigation short.

I stumbled down the embankment with minimal grace and came to the foot of the river. It wasn’t a particularly fast river but at the same time it wasn’t a particularly slow one either. This was about the point according to the report where the backpack had been found. The water was shallow, almost too shallow to move along a heavy back pack in the current. I took out my phone and found the news report again. No it seemed to be just sitting there out in the middle of the river, grounded.

I remember learning that rivers often fluctuate in intensity between day and night, something about the snow melt in the mountains. As I had not necessarily gotten an A in that class, I found it hard to trust my assumptions. I would need to do more research about it. Dang it! The whole not doing well in school thing was actually starting to impact the real world and now I was having to do research to find things out.

If it was in fact impossible for the backpack to get moved to that location however, it meant that whoever had dumped it had dumped it from right here. I was sure the police had already figured out all the nitty gritty about where exactly the back pack came from but unless they released it in the press, I would have to do it myself.

I turned around. It would have been very easy for the backpack wielding culprit to have parked in this very lot and simply dumped the back in the shallow spot. But why I wondered, would he do that? No one tries to dispose of the evidence by just putting it in essentially in a puddle. It had to have washed down from where the waters are deeper and then scooted alongside the bottom of the river.

I had an idea. There was a large boulder just outside the water buried beneath a few feet of sand. I dug it out and then lifted it up, remembering all the weight training I had done in order to prepare to lift this big rock.  It felt like it was about a good five pounds. I couldn’t imagine that the backpack weighed anything less than that.

Now came the messy part. I took off my shoes, rolled up my pants leg and began to wade to the center of the river. The water only came up to my ankles really and splashed at the rolled up sections of my jeans. I placed the rock a few feet from where I thought the backpack had been. It stuck up out of the water much like the backpack had in the picture.

If the bolder was gone the next day or at least moved a couple of feet, I would know that it was possible that the pack had floated down from higher up. If not, then something very strange was happening.

I checked the opposite bank for a landmark so that I knew exactly where I had placed the rock. An old scraggly tree directly in front of the bolder would suffice. Then there was movement. I caught it out of the corner of my eye. The bushes were moving on the opposite bank. It was something big. I imagined that a deer and its fawn would step out of the greenery like they had the night I first discovered LISP. But it wasn’t a deer. Legs immerged from the foliage, human legs. I saw a polo shirt and a pair of golf pants muddied at the ankles. Jacob Mason.

Jacob Mason emerged fully from the brush and knelt waterside. There was a large white bucket in one hand. I froze. Every moment it felt that he would suddenly look up and see me standing in the middle of the river and recognize me as the reporter from The Quill.

He fiddled with something at the water’s edge for a few moments before he yanked up a steal trap. Something crawled within, claws visible and snapping. He had been trapping crawdads. He flipped the metal trap into the pail and shook it until the last of the crustaceans tumbled out. To my relief he then returned back into the forest causing the leaves to rustle and the pail to clink along as he went.

Then something strange happened within. Rather than escape back into the comfort of my own car, I felt the need to surge on. It seemed like more than a coincidence that the bag was found less than a few feet away from where the suspect with the most motive likes to trap crawdads. I needed to know more.

I waded forward to the opposite bank, where just moments before Jacob stood empting crawdads into a pail. My shoes were still on the bank by my car. I wouldn’t have minded it so much other than I had left my cell phone with them. Now anyone could take my phone, plus if I got into trouble I couldn’t call for help. 

I stepped into the first layer of bushes with stealth. I could still hear the rustling of Jacob somewhere in front of me. I made a point to move slowly and as quiet as possible. I didn’t want him to feel like he was being followed or to suddenly end up in front of him or meet him face to face.

The trees were especially thick in this part of the forest. They were also thin like bamboo and caused much rustling. It was like dodging lasers in those old espionage movies. One miss step and a branch would crack or a tree would creak and alert the whole forest including Jacob to my presence. 

Finally I could see that there was a clearing up ahead. The tree cover was becoming thinner and I could see the top of Jacob’s head or the back of his shoe from time to time. I waited until he was well into the clearing before I approached the tree line. I felt like the psychopath or monster in those old horror films, watching and waiting at the edge of the tree line.

After I deemed it safe, I peered from the trees out into the clearing. Jacob was just going into a little cottage at the center. I circled towards the rear of the house where there were no windows on the house. I imagined the awkwardness and perhaps danger of being caught now. I wished I had binoculars so I didn’t have to approach the house.

I sprinted to the rear of the building as quickly and quietly as I could possibly muster. I then took on a near crawl until I had reached the front of the house. I slowly got up on one knee beneath the front window and peered in quickly at the corner, ready to drop out of view or run away at any second. There was no need to however. Both Mason and an old woman that I assumed to be his Grandmother were looking at the contents of the white pail.

I continued to watch for sometime but nothing especially eventful happened. I assumed that what I was doing at the moment was most likely sem- illegal and I should stop before I had the chance to get caught. Beside, my phone was just waiting on the opposite embankment to be stolen by a random bystander.

I sprinted back out of the clearing, found my way out of the woods and waded back towards my car. My phone and shoes were untouched. I sat down on the bank, my feet almost touching the water. I had, had no idea how relieved I was to be out of harm’s way until I sat down there.

Now the relief of safety came flooding back to me as if the dam had been removed. I had done it! I had tracked a victim through the woods all espionage style without being caught. Now I knew the suspicious fact that Jacob Mason not only hunted crawdads by the lake where Brent’s backpack was found but actually lived just beyond the glade. I mean really? What were the odds? It seemed almost given that Jacob Mason had at least something to do with the circumstances surrounding Brent.
~
I walked with Adler to and from PE now nearly every day that we had it. That fact along with an absence of verbal abuse from Ferguson made the class slightly more enjoyable, only slightly. I learned lots of new things about her. Her favorite animal was the blobfish because it made her laugh. She pulled up a picture and showed me the ugliest fish I had ever seen. I found it more terrifying than anything but I could see the humor in it. It was literally a fish made out of a blob. I also learned that while she was away she had been in a band called the Undesirables and had learned guitar too. Book smart, gymnastics, guitar, what did she not know how to do? Apparently, the band fell apart after she left because she was the bread and butter that held them together.  

She didn’t just talk about herself the whole time though. She asked me questions too. It just seemed that mine were so dull. For instance my favorite animal is a dog. I’ve never played an instrument except for that phase in junior high where I wanted to be a Pop Star but was closer to a Pop Tart. I supposedly don’t do anything out of school besides homework, chores and giving homeless people soup that I periodically spill. I mean I volunteer there but I sort of feel like I should pay them for my services. I hoped Adler was not listening too closely to how boring and at times unfortunate my life sounded. Maybe she wasn’t one of those girls who was into successful guys, or cool guys, or attractive guys, or guys who could walk across the room holding soup and not spill it (to my defense Pedro the cook fills those things way too high). Who was I kidding? I shouldn’t even have a chance with her.

At least I didn’t have any competition though. Adler seemed nearly indifferent to most people at school except for me. I suppose she just didn’t want to form relationships with graduation so close. I selfishly hoped she would continue to uphold this ideal with everyone except for me.

Other than walking to PE, I hardly saw Adler throughout the day. I knew her second period class was Chemistry on PE days but that was about it. I assumed she had tougher classes them me and that’s why she was always so aloof. Every once and awhile I would see her in the utter chaos of the hallways. Sometimes she smiled. Sometimes she didn’t even notice me. She seemed so focused in the school setting like she just wanted to get from class to class, grab her diploma and disappear out of everyone’s lives forever. 

At lunch she seemed to disappear completely. I assumed that she would probably be sitting alone somewhere. If I only knew where she went, I would invite her to sit with me and my friends. Then again I thought looking at the bunch; she might think them weird and stereotype me as weird too.  She probably thought that I was weird before. But should I really let Cameron talk to her about his deductions and conspiracy theories? No, I decide, I wouldn’t introduce her to them anytime soon.
~
I went back to the riverside after school. I waded back to the center of the river, looked for the scraggly tree and found the rock just as I had placed it the day before. I looked towards the bushes, wary of meeting Jacob Mason face to face.

Sitting on the river bank, I concluded that it had not been strong enough to deposit the backpack where it was found. It appeared as if someone, probably Jacob had simply set the backpack down in the middle of the river. It made no sense. But then again perhaps it made perfect sense. Why would anyone place the evidence right outside their own house? Perhaps because it was so illogical that it was improbable. No one could possibly be that stupid, not even a high school golf player with a vendetta for revenge.  He would most likely not even be noted as a suspect which is what he would have wanted all along.

I knew I needed more evidence against Jacob but I didn’t know where to find it. He had the motive, was weird enough about it and the missing backpack was found literally just outside his house. But what had he actually done with Goldstein or with Goldstein’s body, I morbidly corrected myself. Was the Grandma somehow in on it? It was too early to jump to conclusions but I felt that the finger of justice was pointing at Jacob Mason for the moment.
~
There was another LISP get together Friday night. Pitch had completed an especially tough mission and everyone wanted to celebrate for him. I was starting to think that my first mission would go unfinished or that the police would get to it before I even had a chance. Either way I was a bit discouraged at the lack of progress. I just needed a way to prove without reasonable doubt that Jacob was the culprit.
Frank was still grumbling about how we had left him passed out on the floor at the last party. Super Awesome Incredible man started saying something about eating gingersnaps responsibly and soon they were at each other’s throat. Christi did not bring out the gingersnaps that night.

My phone rang. I answered it.

“Hey Luke are you almost here?”

“What?” Oh crap. I had forgotten about watching the premier of that movie with Cameron. I looked at my wrist watch. I was too far away now to make it in time.

“You forgot?” he said flatly.

“Yeah I did, I’m sorry.”

“Can’t you make it you don’t live very far from the theater and I already bought your ticket?”

I tried to search for an excuse but my mind was spinning.

“I’m not at home right now,” I finally said.

“THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY I CAN EAT MY GINGERSNAPS ANY WAY I WANT TO,” Fantom yelled in the background.

“What was that? And where are you anyway?” Cameron asked.

“I’m running errands at err Trader Joes, the one that is really far away from the theater. I pointed to my phone and mouthed ‘on the phone’ to Fantom and Super Awesome Incredible man. They began to grumble more quietly and Pitch lowered the music some. That was better.
“Anyway Cam I’m real sorry. My Mom’s just been a little crazy about the errands and cleaning lately.”   

“Alright,” Cameron said. “See you later.” I ended the call and immediately felt like a jerk. LISP was a big part of my life now. I just needed to adjust things so that Cameron also seemed like he mattered. He did matter! It was just all about  priority. Right now the priority was Brent Goldstein’s life and at the moment team bonding. Cameron could wait just until things settled down a little, they were bound to soon, I figured and took another swig of hot chocolate.

Jacob Mason emerged fully from the brush and knelt waterside. There was a large white bucket in one hand. I froze. Every moment it felt that he would suddenly look up and see me standing in the middle of the river and recognize me as the reporter from The Quill.

He fiddled with something at the water’s edge for a few moments before he yanked up a steal trap. Something crawled within, claws visible and snapping. He had been trapping crawdads. He flipped the metal trap into the pail and shook it until the last of the crustaceans tumbled out. To my relief he then returned back into the forest causing the leaves to rustle and the pail to clink along as he went.

Then something strange happened within. Rather than escape back into the comfort of my own car, I felt the need to surge on. It seemed like more than a coincidence that the bag was found less than a few feet away from where the suspect with the most motive likes to trap crawdads. I needed to know more.

I waded forward to the opposite bank, where just moments before Jacob stood empting crawdads into a pail. My shoes were still on the bank by my car. I wouldn’t have minded it so much other than I had left my cell phone with them. Now anyone could take my phone, plus if I got into trouble I couldn’t call for help. 

I stepped into the first layer of bushes with stealth. I could still hear the rustling of Jacob somewhere in front of me. I made a point to move slowly and as quiet as possible. I didn’t want him to feel like he was being followed or to suddenly end up in front of him or meet him face to face.

The trees were especially thick in this part of the forest. They were also thin like bamboo and caused much rustling. It was like dodging lasers in those old espionage movies. One miss step and a branch would crack or a tree would creak and alert the whole forest including Jacob to my presence. 

Finally I could see that there was a clearing up ahead. The tree cover was becoming thinner and I could see the top of Jacob’s head or the back of his shoe from time to time. I waited until he was well into the clearing before I approached the tree line. I felt like the psychopath or monster in those old horror films, watching and waiting at the edge of the tree line.

After I deemed it safe, I peered from the trees out into the clearing. Jacob was just going into a little cottage at the center. I circled towards the rear of the house where there were no windows on the house. I imagined the awkwardness and perhaps danger of being caught now. I wished I had binoculars so I didn’t have to approach the house.

I sprinted to the rear of the building as quickly and quietly as I could possibly muster. I then took on a near crawl until I had reached the front of the house. I slowly got up on one knee beneath the front window and peered in quickly at the corner, ready to drop out of view or run away at any second. There was no need to however. Both Mason and an old woman that I assumed to be his Grandmother were looking at the contents of the white pail.

I continued to watch for sometime but nothing especially eventful happened. I assumed that what I was doing at the moment was most likely sem- illegal and I should stop before I had the chance to get caught. Beside, my phone was just waiting on the opposite embankment to be stolen by a random bystander.

I sprinted back out of the clearing, found my way out of the woods and waded back towards my car. My phone and shoes were untouched. I sat down on the bank, my feet almost touching the water. I had, had no idea how relieved I was to be out of harm’s way until I sat down there.

Now the relief of safety came flooding back to me as if the dam had been removed. I had done it! I had tracked a victim through the woods all espionage style without being caught. Now I knew the suspicious fact that Jacob Mason not only hunted crawdads by the lake where Brent’s backpack was found but actually lived just beyond the glade. I mean really? What were the odds? It seemed almost given that Jacob Mason had at least something to do with the circumstances surrounding Brent.
~
I walked with Adler to and from PE now nearly every day that we had it. That fact along with an absence of verbal abuse from Ferguson made the class slightly more enjoyable, only slightly. I learned lots of new things about her. Her favorite animal was the blobfish because it made her laugh. She pulled up a picture and showed me the ugliest fish I had ever seen. I found it more terrifying than anything but I could see the humor in it. It was literally a fish made out of a blob. I also learned that while she was away she had been in a band called the Undesirables and had learned guitar too. Book smart, gymnastics, guitar, what did she not know how to do? Apparently, the band fell apart after she left because she was the bread and butter that held them together.  

She didn’t just talk about herself the whole time though. She asked me questions too. It just seemed that mine were so dull. For instance my favorite animal is a dog. I’ve never played an instrument except for that phase in junior high where I wanted to be a Pop Star but was closer to a Pop Tart. I supposedly don’t do anything out of school besides homework, chores and giving homeless people soup that I periodically spill. I mean I volunteer there but I sort of feel like I should pay them for my services. I hoped Adler was not listening too closely to how boring and at times unfortunate my life sounded. Maybe she wasn’t one of those girls who was into successful guys, or cool guys, or attractive guys, or guys who could walk across the room holding soup and not spill it (to my defense Pedro the cook fills those things way too high). Who was I kidding? I shouldn’t even have a chance with her.

At least I didn’t have any competition though. Adler seemed nearly indifferent to most people at school except for me. I suppose she just didn’t want to form relationships with graduation so close. I selfishly hoped she would continue to uphold this ideal with everyone except for me.

Other than walking to PE, I hardly saw Adler throughout the day. I knew her second period class was Chemistry on PE days but that was about it. I assumed she had tougher classes them me and that’s why she was always so aloof. Every once and awhile I would see her in the utter chaos of the hallways. Sometimes she smiled. Sometimes she didn’t even notice me. She seemed so focused in the school setting like she just wanted to get from class to class, grab her diploma and disappear out of everyone’s lives forever. 

At lunch she seemed to disappear completely. I assumed that she would probably be sitting alone somewhere. If I only knew where she went, I would invite her to sit with me and my friends. Then again I thought looking at the bunch; she might think them weird and stereotype me as weird too.  She probably thought that I was weird before. But should I really let Cameron talk to her about his deductions and conspiracy theories? No, I decide, I wouldn’t introduce her to them anytime soon.
~
I went back to the riverside after school. I waded back to the center of the river, looked for the scraggly tree and found the rock just as I had placed it the day before. I looked towards the bushes, wary of meeting Jacob Mason face to face.

Sitting on the river bank, I concluded that it had not been strong enough to deposit the backpack where it was found. It appeared as if someone, probably Jacob had simply set the backpack down in the middle of the river. It made no sense. But then again perhaps it made perfect sense. Why would anyone place the evidence right outside their own house? Perhaps because it was so illogical that it was improbable. No one could possibly be that stupid, not even a high school golf player with a vendetta for revenge.  He would most likely not even be noted as a suspect which is what he would have wanted all along.

I knew I needed more evidence against Jacob but I didn’t know where to find it. He had the motive, was weird enough about it and the missing backpack was found literally just outside his house. But what had he actually done with Goldstein or with Goldstein’s body, I morbidly corrected myself. Was the Grandma somehow in on it? It was too early to jump to conclusions but I felt that the finger of justice was pointing at Jacob Mason for the moment.
~
There was another LISP get together Friday night. Pitch had completed an especially tough mission and everyone wanted to celebrate for him. I was starting to think that my first mission would go unfinished or that the police would get to it before I even had a chance. Either way I was a bit discouraged at the lack of progress. I just needed a way to prove without reasonable doubt that Jacob was the culprit.
Frank was still grumbling about how we had left him passed out on the floor at the last party. Super Awesome Incredible man started saying something about eating gingersnaps responsibly and soon they were at each other’s throat. Christi did not bring out the gingersnaps that night.

My phone rang. I answered it.

“Hey Luke are you almost here?”

“What?” Oh crap. I had forgotten about watching the premier of that movie with Cameron. I looked at my wrist watch. I was too far away now to make it in time.

“You forgot?” he said flatly.

“Yeah I did, I’m sorry.”

“Can’t you make it you don’t live very far from the theater and I already bought your ticket?”

I tried to search for an excuse but my mind was spinning.

“I’m not at home right now,” I finally said.

“THIS IS A FREE COUNTRY I CAN EAT MY GINGERSNAPS ANY WAY I WANT TO,” Fantom yelled in the background.

“What was that? And where are you anyway?” Cameron asked.

“I’m running errands at err Trader Joes, the one that is really far away from the theater. I pointed to my phone and mouthed ‘on the phone’ to Fantom and Super Awesome Incredible man. They began to grumble more quietly and Pitch lowered the music some. That was better.
“Anyway Cam I’m real sorry. My Mom’s just been a little crazy about the errands and cleaning lately.”   

“Alright,” Cameron said. “See you later.” I ended the call and immediately felt like a jerk. LISP was a big part of my life now. I just needed to adjust things so that Cameron also seemed like he mattered. He did matter! It was just all about  priority. Right now the priority was Brent Goldstein’s life and at the moment team bonding. Cameron could wait just until things settled down a little, they were bound to soon, I figured and took another swig of hot chocolate.

 

“Whoa, popping pills there,” I said in a joking tone. Some little blue gel tablets had fallen out of Adler’s backpack. I leaned over to pick them up and handed the packet back to her.

“They’re to help me have more energy. I’ve been really stressed out about school lately and my doctor recommended them. So far I’m convinced they don’t really do anything.”

She did look tired today. I felt like I should tone down my humor and try to be sympathetic guy for a change.

“Just a lot of homework or…”

“Yeah plus the SAT doesn’t really help much,” she began. “My parents want me to get a 22,00 at the least!”

“Oh that’s rough,” I said. I couldn’t really relate. My parents were happy when I got a 1400. They didn’t make me take it again.

“Next Saturday will be the fourth time I’ve taken it! And I can only get a 2030. I’ve been studying literally non-stop ever night, every lunch time. I keep forgetting to eat my food at lunch and now my Mom is convinced I’m anorexic. I’m not, just trying to meet your crazy standards!”

I didn’t exactly know quite what to say. I wasn’t sure why she couldn’t just be happy to be smart in the first place. I know I would be.  She didn’t have to prove anything.

“Those tests are bogus anyway,” I said. “They don’t actually say how smart you are.”

“Tell that to my parents and to literally every college in this nation please!”

I didn’t like it when she went all crazy psycho overachiever on me. I wanted to tell her to just forget about the SAT, enjoy life and go to prom with me but I wasn’t sure that any piece of that advice was good. For a moment I was sort of thankful that I wasn’t a whiz kid. There was absolutely no pressure to achieve and no one expected anything of me. It was sort of better, I thought.

There was one question I had never asked Adler. To be honest, I didn’t want to hear what she would do after high school or where she would be going to college. Firstly, I knew that it would widen the gap between our leagues. I mean since when did a brain surgeon end up with a Wal-Mart greeter . Things like that just felt less likely to happen as a rule. Secondly, I was afraid that her college ambitions involved going somewhere far away where I wouldn’t get to ever see her again.  I instinctively wanted to protect myself from the sadness that would ensue from that question so I avoided saying it.

Adler was gone the next day and the day after that. I assumed that the pressure was getting to her. I wished  I had gotten her number so I could text and ask what was up. Unfortunately, the only thing I could do was walk to PE all alone. 

~
It had been eight days since Brent Goldstein had gone missing and six days since Mellissa. I heard over the news that the police we’re starting to pull forces out of both cases but continued to search on for the missing persons. They did not believe they were connected but that they were unfortunately similar but separate incidents that occurred within the same approximate time frame. I tended to agree.

Vision continued to urge me on in my search for the truth. The standard LISP protocol was to continue to search at least a week after the local police had. It was a good policy and gave me some assurance that either way the case would be finished somewhat sooner than I had first imagined.

According to the police reports I read in the newspaper, nearly everything of value that Brent had possessed was found within the backpack, the laptop, his wallet and his driver’s license (which allowed them to identify the backpack in the first place). The only thing that was missing was Brent’s phone.

I knew someone (in fact several persons) had probably tried to call him after his disappearance but something told me I would need his number. I remembered that Goldstein had, had one of those old flip phones which admittedly was odd for a person so rich and apparently arrogant. Getting his number was easier than I thought. I had forgotten that he had been in my Spanish class last year and had been part of the group chat for our build your own Mexican house out of toothpicks and tears project. He had done none of the work I recalled. Then again I had knocked down the house on the day of the presentation. We were about even on team work initiatives.

The second leg of the golf championships was also today. Since I was running low in things to poke around at about the case, I decided that I should give my snooty country club friends another visit.

This time I parked my car a block away and walked in. I wasn’t about to donate to the how to make a snob foundation again. My first priority was to get another statement from Jacob. I had heard from the sports column that he had broken some sort of high school golf record at the last tournaments and would most likely be advancing. Who knew reading the newspaper would become so useful? My room was literally covered with newspaper clippings from the last two weeks. I told my parents it was for the project. They didn’t implore any further.

Jacob rolled his eyes when he saw me coming.

“You again,” he groaned “didn’t you go and get a real story or something?”

“Tried but Mr. Stanton is crazy and wants this piece done by tomorrow, which is nearly impossible since the only one who will say anything good about this guy is his mother.” I chuckled a bit. I would not be intimidated by him.

“You think me of all people really wants to sing Whose a Jolly Good Fellow for him,” he said. “Move along. The only reason I would want him here was to see me win the cup this year!” 

“Maybe you would change your tone if you found out he got murdered or something? I mean really have some decency and respect for human life,” I said beginning to stalk off. It was a risky move one that could have warranted several responses especially if he was in fact the one to blame.

“Human life?” he mocked. “That wasn’t human life. That kid was just an excuse to take up space. Get outta here will you?”

I decided to press no further. I had heard pretty much what I had come to hear. He was capable I thought. Maybe it hadn’t been premeditated but he was big enough and angry enough to do something rash. His records didn’t necessarily do him any favors either.  

I talked to a few other team mates who I had missed the other day. They all spoke about the incident with last year’s championship. Everyone was bitter that Brent had gotten to play by essentially getting Jacob suspended. They called him a free loader and worst. I sort of pitied the guy. It must not have been easy to have a whole team hate you. Then again he probably brought the majority of it down upon himself as he had most likely brought this who incident about.

I finally sat down in the grass facing the course under a large tree that was uniform to nearly all of the ones around it. This case was a drag. There was no concrete evidence that gave me enough reason to convict Jacob in my mind. I would need to talk to Vision about this. Maybe we could drop a unanimous hint to the police that it might be Jacob.

I watched him leaning upon his club like he had when I first met him.  It would be a sad story for sure if he was found guilty. He had after all skipped states to start over and now he was trapped under a heavy charge. There would be a little old woman living in the woods alone and some unchecked crawdad traps. Part of me just wished he could go free. No one liked Brent to begin with and he had essentially brought it down on himself. I knew immediately however, that there was a price to paid and it could not go unpaid if justice truly reigned.

I pulled out my phone. It was comfortable under the tree and I decided to test the whole phone number thing out. If the phone rang it meant that it was still intact somewhere. If it didn’t ring and went straight to voice mail it meant that the phone was either broken or dead. I dialed the number and waited.

Yes! There was a ringtone. Wait!  I listened closer something was vibrating. I dropped the call. It stopped. My pulse raced. Could it be that the phone was here! I called again. The noise started again. It was close. It seemed to be coming from in front of me.

Jacob reached down to his black duffle bag and pulled out an old grey flip phone, the very same kind that I remembered Goldstein having.  He looked around and held it close to him, concealing it like a weapon. And it was a weapon too, a very deadly weapon against Jacob Mason.

~
I stumbled out of the course that day wonderstruck. I had essentially solved the case. Yet now I was unsure of what to do. Did I tell Vision? Did I take him in and question him myself. Isn’t that what that interrogation room is for? Couldn’t we just tell the police that he was the guy and be done with it?

I drove along not quite sure where I was headed yet. I eventually decided that going to The Blade and asking Vision was a good plan. I sort of chuckled to myself. What luck it was that Goldstein’s phone had literally been feet away when I called! The guy had literally just admitted that he wouldn’t care if he was dead just minutes before. It couldn’t have been more perfect. 

I wondered what the party would be like for me once everyone had learned that I had successfully completed my first case. I imagined there would be plenty of gingersnaps.

I pulled up to The Blade imagining all of LISP toasting in my honor. Maybe they could all sing For Who’s a Jolly Good Fellow in Yiddish.

Once in the training room Vision ushered me in immediately. The occupants of the training room all stared at me this time. Something was different. Something felt wrong.  She shut the door.

“Did you hear it on the radio on the way over?” she asked.

“No I don’t know what you’re talking about but I think I solved the case. This kid named Jacob Mason did it.”

“Impossible,” Vision said flatly. I wanted to tell her that I knew she wasn’t actually psychic but instead I just sat in the stillness of the moment.

“Why?” I finally asked.  

“Because Jacob Mason has been kidnapped.”
 

“Kidnapped how?!”
“He was at the division 8 golf tournament…”
“I know I was just there,” I cut her off. She ignored me and continued on with her story.

“He went to the restroom half way through the tournament. When he didn’t come back by the time it was his turn to go, the coach went off to find him. He didn’t find Jacob though only a cracked and bloodied mirror and Jacob’s wallet in the corner also covered with his own bloody finger prints.”

I felt sick. I had just seen him less than a hour ago. How had this happened so quickly? And how had I been so wrong? Jacob was no cold blooded killer just a kid trying to start over in a different state. I hadn’t found the culprit just the next victim.

“Luke,” Vision began, “this mission appears to be bigger than any one of us thought. It looked like a runaway kid case at first but now we know that it’s not. All of these cases are connected and all of the disappearances have been staged.”

I swallowed hard. My palms were suddenly itchy and there were pins and needles in my stomach. Vision sounded so serious. Was she worried? Was she scared even?

“What I am trying to say Luke is that I am expanding this case to the whole of the department. It is a level 10. LEGIT is already going for it but I think that we have some to give too. From now on you are partners with every one of us.”

I nodded. Relief flooded over me. At least now I wasn’t alone in this thing. Yet there was a part of me a very secret remote part of me that felt just a tad disappointed.

“We are finished here,” she said. We walked out of the room and into the spot light stares of the whole team.
“Meet in the mission room. Code 10,” Vision said. They all shuffled from the room in silence. Vision and I followed from behind. It was strange to see them all so stoic. It was in stark contrast to the party mentality that I had seen just the day before. You would have thought from looking at them that they drank prune juice every day and had never laughed in their lives.

The mission room was covered wall to wall in white board. A long narrow table stretched down the length of the room at both ends. A single wheelie chair sat at the head of the table. The rest of the chairs lined either side of the table. I sat down in a chair. It was hard and about the same quality as the ones at school. I imagined the plush wheelie chair belonged to Vision.

Sure enough Vision took her spot at the head of the table. She waited for the room to settle until there was a complete silence.

“In view of the third disappearance at Luke’s very own high school,” she gestured towards me, “we deem the cases more than coincidental. As you are aware these cases have appeared to be all connected from the beginning.”

They have! I wanted to scream. The only similarities that I could see were between Goldstein and Mason. I had no idea how Melissa related to either of them.

“All three were 18 years old, all three disappeared in broad day light and most importantly all three were oddly intelligent individuals.”

I tried to track Vision’s train of thought but could not. Brent had been intelligent sure but I didn’t think Melissa was necessarily Einstein. She was a cheerleader, pretty, blonde, dating football players. I raised my hand unable to let it go.

“How do you know that they were all smart?” I asked sounding rather dumb.

“PLANET testing,” Vision replied. It was that stupid test that every high school kid is forced to take every year, in order to make sure the schools were decent. “We tapped the records and each of them showed a near perfect score.”

I nodded. I guess Christi was right. You really can’t judge a book by its cover.

“There was an incident about twelve years ago in Kentucky with some similar disappearances,” Vision began again. “Ultimately LEGIT shut it down but we learned about a new technology, an alien technology.”

As I had seen a girl with giant carnivorous plants growing out of her head, I was surprised to find myself so chilled by the word alien. I suppose for some reason, I had thought that the only aliens I needed to worry about were the illegal ones. It threw a sort of curve ball into the mix.

“Have any of you heard the term mass intelligence before?” Vision asked.

“Isn’t that that new higher education Catholic school on Polasky and Edgestow?” Pitch asked. I snickered but then caught myself at Vision’s glare.

“No,” Vision rolled her eyes. “Pitch this is serious.”

He cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

“Mass intelligence is an alien system (there was the word again) used to eliminate free thinkers. It’s not mind control. Not really. The objective appears to be to essentially eliminate any trace of emotional or creative thought. “

“So everyone just becomes a mathematician?” Fantom asked.

“Well no but in a way yes. The analytical part of the brain takes over and basically eats the creative side.”

“At least we won’t have any more modern art,” Fantom said. Vision glared again.

“Still very little is known about Mass Intelligence. What we do know is that the beaverdoem or brain of the contraption needs to be attached to four individuals whose minds are strong enough to transmit a similar signal to supposedly the rest of humanity.”

A projector screen began to drop from the ceiling.

“We were able to obtain some of the photos from the incident. Here ladies and gentlemen is a beaverdoem!”

She pressed a button and the screen flickered to life. A white cat wearing a tutu by a swimming pool appeared.

“The horror.” Frank said flatly.

Vision cleared her throat. “Sorry that was Mr. Cuddles,” she said and then recomposed herself. “Behold a beaverdoem!”

The screen flickered to a gruesome brownish pink lump. There was a muffled shriek. We all tuned to stare at Super Awesome Incredible man. His face got red and he pointed at Pitch. None of us believed him. 

It lay in the center of what appeared to be a control room of some sorts. Four blue tubes were spaced out around the mass. At the end of each tube were two blue bands with suction cup like apparatuses at the end.

“This beaverdoem is dead of course. They stopped it before it had attached to the students. Now it’s housed in area 52.”

“You mean area 51?” I asked.

“Nah,” Pitch told me, “Area 51 is just a decoy. They keep the real spacey wacey stuff in Area 52. It’s in Fresno.”

“Oh,” I nodded. That made sense.

“Since we have three intelligent kids missing from the same place I expect a beaverdoem is at play.”

“Wait. Wait. Wait.” Frank said, “Pink brains don’t grab kids and smash their heads against mirrors when they resist. How do you explain that?

“There has been speculation,” Vision began, “that the beaverdoem does not work alone. We are unsure of the exact details as none of the victims of the Kentucky incident recall much of what happened to them.”

I was terrified that aliens came into play here but at the same time relieved for the sake of the victims. If it really was a beaverdoem or whatever it was called, all three of them were still alive. It was a lot less depressing then looking for bodies.

“You have all been reassigned to multiple covers within this case. Venus you are a foreign exchange student from Persia, hence the head cloth,” she motioned towards the fly traps who hissed at her. “Pitch and Super Awesome Incredible Man you will function as undercover security guards. Chubby Ana we found a place for you as a cafeteria lady,” Ana looked towards the ceiling as if seeing heavenly visions.

“Levitators you will be posing as window washers. Please use the trolley. No one needs to see you levitating please. Christi and Christopher you are foreign exchange students from Sweden who can’t speak English.”

“Why can’t we speak Engli…?” Christopher began to ask.

“Shh,” Fantom motioned to them, “you can’t speak English remember?” Christopher silently mimicked him turning his face down into a frowny face.

“And Frank Fantom you will be posing as an average high school student,” Vision said. Frank laughed, then stopped once he saw that Vision was perfectly serious.

“Ughhh. You seriously believe people would think I’m still in high school? Ugh.”

“Nope never,” Vision said smirking.

“It is your job,” she said motioning to everyone at the table, “to make sure that there is never a fourth kidnapping. Meanwhile our boots on the ground like Strong Man and Mosquito Boy will be scouting out possible hideouts of the beaverdoem. Does everybody got it?”

“Yes Mam!” we all answered in unison.

This was about to get really interesting I could tell. I wondered how Vision had managed to get everyone into my school. I would remember to ask her when filling out my college applications.

The whole situation felt a bit surreal. Part of me thought I had just fallen in the woods one day and bonked my head and imagined the beaverdoem, the Mass Intelligence even LISP itself. Maybe I had and I would wake up like Dorothy and be like you were there and you were there. I sort of hoped not though. It was sort of an exhilarating feeling not knowing what was coming next like the size of a wave in the ocean or the color of the gum ball you get from the machine. It was more interesting that way. As long as of course waves remained waves and gumballs remained gumballs. The whole alien intelligence had taken me for a little bit of a spin there and like a top I didn’t know if I was just going to fall over or dance away across the floor.
 

 I thought that I had imagined the division meeting with Vision the night before because this morning at school everything was so normal. The LISP group was pretty loud and noticeable in my understanding however the halls were perfectly tranquil that morning. I wondered if perhaps they had turned up at the wrong school and were terrorizing another student body.

“Did you see the security guard out front Britney,” a girl asked her friend.

“Yeah,” Britney replied, “it makes me feel so unsafe!” I had been standing by waiting for class to start and I couldn’t help but ease drop. It was my second super power.

“Yeah I know right,” the other girl said, “but what I was actually gonna say was that he’s hecka hot!”

And way too old for you and he thinks he’s like Thor or something, I wanted to say. Yep Super Awesome Incredible Man was officially on duty. I kept my eyes open for any of the others. Then I saw them. I wish I hadn’t but I did.

Christopher and Christi came strutting down the hallway arm in arm.  Christi wore an obnoxious colored yellow and blue traditional Swedish dress. Christopher wore a suit to match. They’re shoes might as well have been wooden clogs. In fact they wore little black pilgrim shoes. Looking at the little brass buckles on top I couldn’t tell which one was worst,

But the finale was Christopher’s little blue bow tie which matched perfectly with the blue ribbon in Christi’s pig tails. I turned back towards my locker. People were following them around laughing and all the time they were just smiling and nodding at them. At least people might forget about Lank for awhile for the creepy Christensen’s.

Then they suddenly turned towards me. “Kusin!” Christi said and hugged me tight.

“What are you doing?” I asked through clenched teeth.

“Vision put us down as your cousins,” she whispered, “play along with it.”

“Cousins! So good that you’re here!,” I said loud enough for the people standing around to here. We had an audience to be sure.

“Varför är alla av utanför du dumma människor bara ständiga runt ?” Christoph said.

”Excuse my cousins they can only speak Swedish,” I told the gatherig masses. They continued to stare on waiting for them to do something snapchatable.

”Alright cousins...”

”Heidi,” Christi said stepping up.

”Henri,” Chrisopher said stepping up beside her.

Dang it someone had to have gotten that on video. It would be blowing up snapchat in ten minuites. 

”Alright cousins Heidi and Henri,” I continued my vouice a bit strained, ”don’t you think you should go to class now?”

“klass?” Christopher said.

”Yes kl.. class” I woundered if he was actually speaking Swedish or if he was just putting a k in front of everything or if it was essentially the same thing.  Christopher or Henri or whoever he was held a schedule in his hand. As he was looking around dumbly at everyone I snatched it and began to lead him to his first class. Coincidentally. it was also my first class. Then in horror I realized that we had the exact same schedule.

The halls began to clear and then completly empty as the bell rang. Now we could talk freely.

”Does Vision seriously think this is a good idea?” I said motioning to them.

” Tydligen,”

”Stop trying to get attention.” He crinkled his face up at me.

”And what are you wearing? Do you want to get me laughed out of high school?”

”It is tradishional Sweidish apparel,” Christi said.

”Why couldn’t you just wear what you wore when you were in high school in America like last year!?”

”This is what we wore in high school,” Christopher said. Suddenly  I understood better the whole creepy Christenson thing. 

”Anyway, can you please just play the whole Swedish thing down a bit?”

”Ja,” they both answered in unison.

I glared at them as they tried to contain their foreign laughter.

In class I was forced to present my kousins with a k to the class.

“This is  Ch… Heidi and this is Henri,” I said standing in front of the class between the two twins. It occurred to me that they were probably reading my mind and could hear all of my rude thoughts about them.

“They come from Sweden and are very excited to be visiting American for a few days. They are wearing traditional clothes today just for the heck of it. Don’t worry they don’t actually dress this weird all the time.” No one laughed.

“I think Swedish clothes are very beautiful,” Mrs. Neilson said matter of factly. Good for her for defending the Swedish wardrobe. Let’s give her Sainthood.

“Yes,” I said flatly. I could tell it was going to be a long and distinctively Swedish day.

At the end of the presentation Mrs. Neilson asked if there were any questions. I was beginning to like that woman less and less. One girl in the back of the room with classic braces and nerd glasses raised a bold arm.

“Yes,” I said as if to say please don’t.

“What is the name of the town in Sweden where they live?” I looked to the twins who both shrugged their shoulders and raised their eye brows.

“Va?” They both said. It was true revenge was best served Swedish.

“Right,” I said as if I had somehow forgotten that my kousins with a k could not speak English.

“Heidi and Henri live in the town Ryvsyznahazumitz.”

“How do you spell that please?” she said reaching for pen and paper.

“R…yvsyzahaz..umintz,” I spelled out faster then she could possibly write. “But I wouldn’t go there its really small, not even on the map, probably can’t even find it on a Google search. Oh and there’s wolves too.”

I quickly took my place followed by the toaster strudel boy and company. I couldn’t wait until lunch when they would get to meet my friends or the following morning when I would have to introduce my fake Kousins with a k to Adler.

~
The introduction at lunch went a bit better than I had expected. They were even somewhat civil and polite. Perhaps they had heard my anxiety about it in one of the classes that I sat in between them in. At this point, I was just thankful that vision had not allowed them to speak English. From a practical standpoint it meant that they were more likely to hear something because no one thought they could understand anything. From a human stand point they were about ten times less annoying.

I noticed Frank Fantom sitting alone, hood overhead even though it was like 90 degrees outside and ear buds in. He did look pretty convincing as a high school kid.

I checked my phone. I had been mentioned on Twitter. On no I thought usually when I was mentioned it wasn’t good, today it was guaranteed to be humiliating. I don’t know why I didn’t just erase the thing. I guess I clung on to some obscure hope that it would serve a purpose one day.

Lance Henderson had posted a picture of me with the twins behind. My face was contorted into a weird expression and the twins were smiling behind me like large colorful freaks. The caption read: Suddenly it all makes sense @LukeLedford321.

I put my phone away. I had more important things to worry about then what Lance Henderson has to say on twitter. Never mind how many favorites it had or the comment about the lederhosen. The fate of at least three human beings if not the whole world rested on my shoulders well technically our shoulders but still.

“The lunch lady sucks!” one guy said as he walked by our table. The portions on his plate were so small I would have guessed we were in a fancy French restaurant. I laughed to myself. Ana was saving all of the cafeteria food for herself.

I looked at the people around me. They were all in terrible danger and they didn’t even know it. What if we couldn’t stop the beaverdoem? I mean insignificant is literally in our title. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of fear build up within. But it wasn’t a normal fear. Not the fear directed towards the protection of myself. It was a fear focused on everyone, on Adler, on Cameron even on Lance Henderson. These people had so much life ahead of them, so many opportunities and second chances. They deserved the best protection possible because they are precious.

I locked eyes with Fantom. I could tell he was thinking the same. This place was way too large and full of unpredictability to successfully guard. It wouldn’t be long until we slipped up and there was a fourth disappearance.

~
The paper swooned about how the disappearance of Brent and Jacob had been related because of the cell phone found in Jacob’s pack. I wondered why it had taken them two days to report a fact probably discovered hours after the disappearance. The newspapers were often not a relevant source of news for my line of work. I wished the police wouldn’t wait so long to announce facts to the public.

Christi and Christopher had gone out to mingle and leached thoughts from suspicious characters. Everyone at the school was convinced that Swedish people had a different sense of the invisible personal bubble then Americans after they met the twins. They told their friends to expect being sat especially close to and in a way it sort of worked out. They dressed closer to normal today. I mean they were still wearing matching red Christmas sweaters in the spring but what can be expected really. Some people were even starting to like them saying that they were cute and foreign. I heard some girl talk about asking Christopher to the spring formal.

After the first day we had met at The Blade to discuss what we had learned. The answer was nearly unanimous. Nothing. There were too many random and distracting variables at the school to single out anything suspicious if there was really anything suspicious at all.  Everyone was essentially in danger and simultaneously a danger at all times. We continued to keep moving forward however. After all, it was the only move we or anyone, for that matter, really has.

It was PE day unfortunately and that meant getting Christi and Christopher into their athletic shorts and then having them play flag football with Adler, Lance Henderson and a bunch of overly c***y teenage boys. Fantom was apparently also in the class. He looked strange not wearing skinny jeans and dark colors. He was definitely less threatening looking.

“Agghh my eyes,” Christopher whispered as we passed him pointing to his legs. “I’m blinded!” Christi giggled nervously. Fantom glared at him.

Adler was back today. She looked better then she had the last time I had seen her, less stressed. She still looked tired though.

“Hey Luke,” she said waving to me from afar.

“Ooooh,” the twins said in unison. I stepped on Christopher’s toe discreetly as I walked over. I had about four seconds with her before like a dark cloud the Swedish twins moved in.

“Hi,” she said waving to them. They waved back silently looking her up and down from head to toe.

”Är hon mexikanska eller asiatiska ?” Christopher asked. Christi shrugged her sholders.

”Okay,” I said, ”Yeah these are my cousins Heidi and Heneri. They as you can very well see are Swedish. They can only speak Swedish and only understand Swedish so go ahead and say anything you want around them. Watch. Heneri your shirt is hideuous,”

Christopher continued to overexagerate a smile.

”See, like talking to a brick wall. You won’t even notie them.” Christopher rolled his eyes at Christi for a brief momment when Adler wasn’t looking before snapping back to a demented smile when she turned back towards them. 

”Adler.” she said and pointed to herself.

”Addlieuer.” Christopher said as if trying to pronunciate correctly.

Their introduction reminded me of Tarzan and Jane. Me Tarzan. You Jane.

Fergusin blew his whistle just then and we all lined up on the field.

”Aww, I see we have some new faces,” Ferguson said. He was studying them to see which ones he would give a hard time. I sort of wished he would pick Christopher.

He counted us off between two teams, wheeled his golf cart a little closer to the action and then blew the starting whistle. The twins were on my team unfortunatly. Adler, Fantom  and Lance Henderson were  all on the other team.  I felt somehow that the other team had been given  a severe advantage. In fact it seemed that all the good people had somehowe ended up on the opposite team.

They scored their first touch down in the first few secounds. The only guy on that team who was not hyped up on being full of themselves was Fantom. He wasn’t even participating, paceing up and down the field with the rythem of the game maybe reaching out for a flag here or there but otherwise nothing.

“Hey you riff raff!” Ferguson motioned towards Fantom, “start moving.”  Fantom gave him thumbs up and continued to walk along. Ferguson muttered to himself something about Goth kids.

“Your grades going to be lower than the hair over your eyes,” he threatened. Fantom put his thumb up again without looking at him. Ferguson dropped his attach and sat sulkily in the cart.
So that was the way to deal with Ferguson, I realized. Just don’t pay attention to a thing he says.

I lobbed Christi the ball to start the play. She ran down the line like a little Swedish nesting doll. One of the actual football players pushed her out of bounds and she fell down. The lug didn’t help her up, just went and got the ball which had rolled off the field. He was oblivious to the savage glare Christi gave him as he walked back in bounds.

“Get off the ground,” Ferguson yelled at her. She stood off and brushed the dirt from her petite frame.

Christopher jogged over to me. “You’re about to see some scary crap,” he whispered. “Christi is big fan of chivalry. You do not want to be in her head right now. I really don’t.”

The whistle sounded and 95 pounds of Swedish fury flu at the football player who had knocked her down. He had, had the ball at the moment but something told me that she still would have attached him even if he didn’t. She crashed into him at the waist and knocked him down. I wanted to close my eyes but I couldn’t look away.

“It’s flag ,” he was yelling. “It’s flag!”

Fantom grabbed her and pulled her off  just as she was pulling back her fist to punch.

“A-hole!” she screamed at the boy who was still on the ground.

“It’s uh the only English word she knows,” I said in explanation.
~   

Coach Ferguson hadn’t even said anything about the incident. I guess he thought that the guy deserved it or maybe he was just thankful for the entertainment. Either way Christi walked free of charge and the victim was more or less uninjured.

“Whoa that was so awesome,” Adler said, “I wish she spoke English so we could talk about it.” Christi walked behind us beaming.

Once inside the building again, we parted ways she to chemistry me to Algebra II.

“Christi,” bumped my elbow. I looked down into the greenness of her energetic eyes. “Is she your girlfriend?” she asked. I pretended to look annoyed, though I actually wasn’t. If it had been her brother it would have been a different story.

“No,” I said.

“Oh well I think she wants to be,” Christi said in a sing song voice. I shushed her.

“Really,” she said. “You should ask her to that dance coming up.” I shrugged my shoulders. The thought of it added about fifty times to my already flared anxiety but I sort of wanted to. I hoped that Christi knew what she was talking about.

Fantom was walking down the hall in the opposite direction. He stopped by us and pretended to struggle with a locker combo.

“The PE teacher is harmless,” he whispered. ‘His temper is completely out of insecurity.” 

“Oh,” I said, “So that’s what you were doing messing with Ferguson, trying to see if he would break.”

“Yeah of course,” he said. He looked at us. “What did you think I actually acted like that in high school?”

~
Mosquito man and Strong Man had checked nearly every old abandoned building and ware house in the city but to no avail. We had literally no idea where the beaverdoem might be stationed or of how it was capable of hiding. Like Adler’s team in flag football, the beaverdoem seemed to have the upper hand.  Still Vision further implored them to keep scouring the city for the alien’s liar.

Mean while. I was struggling to balance homework with saving the world. I was convinced that the real villain here was teachers. I mean did they just all convene on Monday and choose one day to assign all of their homework and therefore sabotage all of us? It sure seemed like it.

Frank slammed his locker closed. He seemed to be even more dark and brooding than usual. Something was clearly amiss.

“What’s wrong?” Christi asked him.

He pulled a curled up piece of paper from his back pocket.

“This!” he said thrusting the paper in our faces. It was a paper marked A.

“What’s wrong with it,” I asked.

“Everything!” he said and marched away. He stopped, slammed the paper in the trash can and walked off dramatically. He reached the end of the hall and turned around.

“My class is this way,” he said dully and sulked on.

“What’s wrong with him?” I asked Christina. I hadn’t really understood what was wrong with the paper.

“Frank is a perfectionist,” she told me. “He probably expected full credit maybe even extra credit. He’s always been like that even when we were in high school.”

I hadn’t know that they had gone to the same high school. I thought about how much she knew about him, how much deep stuff she knew about him. I guess it made since that they had known each other for a long time. Still I had known a lot of people for years and didn’t know the first thing about them. I only really took notice of the people I actually care about like now with Adler.

No way! I thought. That would be weird. Her with her braids and blue ribbon and him with his punk rock clothes and emo hair cut. Nah that could never be a thing, I thought. Yet there was something about it, no matter how weird it was, that almost just worked.

“So he’s literally freaking out about fake grades?” I asked with a laugh.

“yeah he’s something else,” she said, “definitely something else.” 

Days passed an no new evidence turned up. Our work at the school seemed nearly pointless and now Fantom was more focused on proving the teacher that had given with an A instead of an A+ wrong than looking for suspicious behavior.  Our feet on the ground were also not turning up anything worthwhile. Vision was getting nervous.

“You must realize that the more time you give it, the more likely it is to strike,” she said at one of our mission meetings. “This thing is not human. It is not of this world for that matter. We assume it to be a savage and hostile being that will not resist on the grounds that people’s lives are at stake. It is most likely is incapable of emotion.”

I felt like I was in one of those prepping session in a Tom Cruise action movie. The only problem was that I wasn’t Tom Cruise; I was the ugly guy that ended up dying in some obscure way.

The pressure was building. If the thing that we were battling against really was mass intelligence, it would inevitably strike a fourth time and soon. I watched a week go by. The newspapers began to talk about other things besides the missing children and the radio programs stopped completely. Police were starting to slow down as well. Somehow, I felt that the police or the military should know about the situation but in order to that we would need to uncover LISP. It was better for us to work independently and without arousing panic in the community.

It was torture to watch the families of the missing slowly lose hope in the survival of their children. Some still maintained that they could still be out there but most knew deep down that it had been too long for a kidnapping. There was some talk of doing memorial services for each of the three families. But the relatives of the missing asked for more time

I had a strange feeling about our situation. Whatever was stealing the children was probably waiting and watching for the right moment. It wanted everyone to forget so it would have a lesser likelihood of getting caught. Its plan was slowly working too. The people were forgetting and society was trying to mend the hole dealt so mercilessly upon it.

It felt like the team was just going through the motions. There was nothing left to learn or discern and we were simply floating from day to day. I wondered if the missing students were in pain. How was the beaverdoem keeping them alive? What were they eating or drinking? Would it just dispose of them and get another if it ended up waiting too long. There was after all an endless supply of intelligent kids in the world.   
~

Don’t you think,” Fantom said one day as we were sitting in The Blade, “that the schools Valedictorian would be a target?” Surly someone with such a high amount of rigorous classes would be guaranteed to have something of a high IQ. I wondered if the Valedictorian had been taken first or if for some reason they had been left behind.

“Because it seems that whatever is judging intelligence is not using the grade book.” He threw down a sheet of paper. I peered closer and realized that it was the class list in order of GPA.

“How did you get this?” I asked.

“I asked for it?” he said.

“They actually do that?”

“Yeah, usually if a top student wants to see how close they are to the top.” I looked down the paper until I found his name. I didn’t have to go far.

“How the heck are you number 10? You’ve only been here for a week!”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said with a smirk. “The point is look where Goldstein, Mason and Melissa are.”

I looked down the list. Fantom had circled the numbers of each missing person. 11,24. 45.

“Why are they so low on this list?” I asked. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“exactly,” Fantom said.

“This guy either has access to everyone’s PLANET test which let’s be honest is not a perfect representation of IQ or he has some other way of judging them. Maybe something to some degree alien that we haven’t taken into consideration.”

“Do you find it weird,” Christi asked, “that the only kids that are going missing is from this school?” Why would that be?”

We all shook our heads. There were many aspects of the case that just didn’t quite align.

“I suppose the beaverdoem could randomly take a kid from another school next. But there does seem to be a connection. There’s something about this place.” I said.

We were obviously missing something, something very big. Yet none of us could quite get a grasp on any one part of this case. To make things even more bleak, time was running out in the worst possible way. 

“So are you going to do it?” Christi asked in her whispered accent. The twins had been slowly moving further away from me as our time as Cousins with a k continued. Still they were always too close for comfort.

“Do what?” I pretended not to know what she was talking about.

“Ask Adler to the Spring Formal of course!” I tried to hold in my giddiness at the idea by keeping a stoic face. I probably did a bad job at it.

“And why would I do that?” I asked her. She looked at me slyly and for an instant seemed more like her brother than herself.

“Because you love her!” she said and skipped a bit ahead of me. We were walking to PE together. Christopher had hung back a little to spend time with a few friends that he had made. One of them was the girl that was talking about asking him to the formal. It was one of the few rare moments when the twins were separated.

“Whoah, love is a strong word!” I told her.

“Well what else do you call it?” she asked. “You don’t just like her because you think she is pretty. You really love everything about her. I can tell.”

“Yeah I think Adler is cool I guess,” I answered in typical guy lingo.

“Cool?” she scoffed.

“Okay really cool,” I allowed, “If I ask her though you should ask someone too.”

“Me ask someone here?” she laughed. “You know I’m not actually in high school right Luke?”

“Well you were like last year and Frank was in high school two years ago,” I said in a bought of boldness. Her face significantly reddened though she attempted to laugh and play it off like it didn’t affect her. I had been right.

“What is that supposed to mean?” she asked good naturedly.

“Nothing,” I replied coyly, “unless you think it means something!” Her face was now a tomato with twin blonde pony tails sticking out from either side.

She laughed. “You’re crazy.” I gave her a knowing look.

“Alright, Alright maybe you’re not so crazy,” she admitted dropping the act completely. “But it’s not that easy. I don’t really think a guy like him would like someone like me.”

“Now that’s crazy!” I said. “Sure you guys are a little different but you know what they say, opposites attract.” What was I doing? Was I actually playing match maker for a perky Swedish girl and essentially a real life Tim Burton character?

“You actually think so?”

“Yeah.” I guess I was playing matchmaker. Even if it didn’t work out everybody at LISP disserved a night out after how hard we had been working on this case. The dance would be a perfect opportunity for that. Besides, I couldn’t imagine Fantom saying no to her. Actually I thought again, I could because he literally says no to most everything 95% of the time. But surly he got a little lonely always wearing black and being by himself. I imagined he was also balancing college classes and it was obvious, he like the rest of us was becoming a bit neurotic.

“Okay,” Christi said. “But if I do ask him which I’m not sure that I will. You have to go with Adler alright?”

I was silent. I wanted to ask Adler but I was afraid she would say no. I mean she was so smart and talented and to her I was just that guy who walked with her back from PE with his Swedish twin kousins with a k. We really needed to solve this case so I could go back to life before Heidi and Henri.

“Come on Luke,” Christi said, “you know how afraid I am to ask Frank?” I could see her point. I wasn’t sure who was more likely to say no or even to say yes and then make it awkward.

“Alright,” I said begrudgingly. I was starting to sound like Fantom myself.

“Alright, what?” she asked.

“Alright, I’ll ask Adler to the dance!” she hid a closed lip smile.

“Swear!” she said fiercely, “Pinky swear!” Then I was pinky swearing with Christi in the middle of the school parking lot.

“I swear that I will ask Adler Song to the spring formal,” I said dully. “Are you happy now?”

“And I swear that I will ask Frank Faiola to the spring formal!” I snickered, Faiola. Frank had really gotten the good end of the stick with the hero name Fantom. Christi glared.

“It’s Italian I think.” Then she brightened. “You should ask her today after PE before someone else does!” The idea was bone chilling to say the least. First of all I sort of wanted to ask her when I wasn’t all sweaty. Second of all I didn’t feel necessarily mentally prepared for that. I wanted to think it through exactly what I would say, like a little script or something.

“It’s a bit early to ask someone to formal, I don’t want to seem overly eager you know,” I said dumbly.

“Oh that’s true Christi allowed.”

Just then, Christopher ran and caught up with us. He and Christi still wore matching clothes as usual. Today it was the obnoxious green shirt that they had been wearing the day I first met them. I guess they’re endless wardrobe had finally cycled through.

“You’ll never guess what happened!” he said with excitement.

“You solved the case?” I said sarcastically.

“Better! I’m going to formal with Candice!”

“Oooh. Good for you!” his sister gushed. Part of me felt happy for him but most of me couldn’t believe he had actually gotten a date and I hadn’t yet.

“How did you manage that? You’re not even supposed to know any English?”I asked.

“Luke you do not need to know any language so long as you are fluent in the language of love.” I rolled my eyes and made a disgusted face.

“Luke was actually thinking of asking a girl himself,” Christi said.

“Christi! You didn’t have to tell him that!”

“Is it the cousin again like last year?”

“No! what? How did you know about that?” They pointed to their ears and I made a mental note to never sit in between them again.

“He wants to ask Adler.”

“Oh the pretty Mexican girl with the pineapple company?” he said.

“She’s half Asian and stop reading her thoughts.”

“He’s going to ask her today.” Christi said. There was nothing like being pressured to ask a girl out by Swedish twins.

“No. I never said today.”

“You must go with your heart,” Christopher said. What was this a soap opera? And I was going by my heart and my heart said that I wasn’t ready today to randomly ask Adler to Spring Formal. Besides, I didn’t even know if she was here today or what sort of mood she was in. What if her cat had died or something? Then she would forever associate me with the pain of losing her beloved furry friend and my chances would be absolutely ruined. 

The Christenson twins both stared at me expectantly. They were like sad little puppy dogs

“Fine,” I said, “I’ll ask her today after PE.” They both clapped and cheered.

~

After PE finally came and I felt like I was going to throw up. The game had been baseball and there was a welt forming on my cheek where I had been struck by the ball. It made me look like I was wearing blush on one cheek. I knew that when and if I asked Adler the other cheek would be matching.

Adler and I walked side by side. The Christenson twins followed at a distance behind us.

“..And so then I said ‘what it is called when you eat a whole box of gingersnaps in one sitting?’ My Dad was like ‘I don’t know.’ And I was like ‘Gingercide’!”

  She was really pretty when she laughed and was goofy like that. I wished that she would be like that more often and stress less about her test scores. Gingercide! I would be sure to use that term for next time Frank ate those Swedish cookies.

“What’s wrong Luke?” she asked, “you’re really quiet.”

“Nothing,” I snapped to attention. “Well actually. I mean this is really weird and stuff but I was wondering if you would…uh if you would like a cat. There’s a stray hanging around our neighborhood that needs a home and I know you like cats but not because you’re a crazy cat lady or anything. I mean you’re not, you only have one. I mean he wears sweater and stuff but…”

What was I doing? I glanced back at Christi who was fanning her hand through the air and mini-panicking for me.

“Nah, my parents will definitely not let me get another Mr. Snuffles. He would be jealous anyway.”  She smiled at me.

“Was that really what you we’re trying to ask?”

“No,” I said and decided to give it another go. “Do..you…want to…go to….” Why was this so difficult? I was literally unable to say the last two words of the sentence.

“Spring Formal!” Christopher yelled from behind me.

“It’s the only English words he knows,” I said. She laughed and didn’t stop laughing. My cheeks both matched at this point.

“Of course,” she said. “I would love to. That was literally the best way I have ever been asked to a dance, tag team style.”

We laughed and suddenly it was okay that the whole situation had been extremely awkward. Maybe I owed Heidi and Henri over there a bit of gratitude. I looked back at them. They were making hearts with their hands. Or maybe not, I thought.

I sat in the mission room alone. The lights were off and the only thing that kept me from being in total darkness was beams from the clear angular windows. We were failing. The moral of the team was lacking. We were all becoming apathetic or distracted. All the while that thing was out there somewhere just sitting back, poised to attach when the time was right.

It was like walking on ice blindfolded. Any moment I knew that the perfectly smooth surface would crack and we would all fall into the flurry of broken ice and deathly cold water.

Someone barged into the room sobbing.

“Christi?” I said in the darkness. She flickered on the light. 

“Oh it’s only you Luke,” she said through tears.

“Oh no,” I said, “He said no.” How dare he, I thought. Christi was great. She was strange, too close to her obnoxious brother and a bit pushy at times but she was really great. More than Frank Fantom deserved.

“No he said yes,” She continued to bawl.

“Then why are you crying?” I asked. I was now very confused.

“I don’t know!” she nearly screamed. “I’m just so happy!” She took a tissue out of her pocket and blew her nose loudly. This was one of those weird girl things, I thought, one that I would never quite understand. I wished I could leave the room but it would seem too insensitive probably.

“Four and a half years and I could have just asked him to the freaking dances and he would have said yes!” She said this in a tone that was nearly angry.

“Whoa, you’ve had a crush on him for four years!”  That was pretty intense on the teenage girl crush scale.

“Well when you say it like that you make it sound like I’m a psychopath stalker but yeah.” That meant that for four years Frank Fantom had been literally oblivious. I had only known them for a month and a half and even I figured it out.

“Wow,” I said. “Why did you never just say something?”

“Because I was scared and because he was always so focused on school and then being a super hero. Plus I thought it was impossible that he actually cared about me.”

It was hard for me to believe that he had missed it. He was the one who always noticed things about people. And yet he failed to recognize what was happening right in front of him.

“This is going to be the best freaking dance ever!” she said finally and stormed out.

I sat there in the dark for awhile not even thinking just in awe. Then I laughed.

“Wow,” I said out loud, “Wow.”

~
Vision thought the dance was a good idea as well but not for the same reason we did. She thought it would be a chance to observe people outside of the daily school setting. I guess I agreed with her. It made sense but I sort of just wanted to forget about the whole LISP business for the night.

“The four of us can all be matching!” Christopher said. Frank cast a look at Christi,

“Actually,” she said to her brother, “I was thinking that we could just match with our dates.”

Christopher looked at her in surprise, his eyes widening. He then narrowed them at Fantom who pretended not to notice his frustration.

“But…Christi,” he said, “It would be the first time…we didn’t match.”  His face became small and childish. I even felt a bit bad for him.

“I find it hard to believe that you guys have never not matched even once,” Frank said.

“It’s true,” Christopher said. He looked like he was about to launch into a tragic back story that would further increase sympathy for him. “When we were but babes mother always made sure that we wore matching designer diapers and since then we have never gone without matching.”

Frank rolled his eyes at Christopher.

“I don’t care,” Fantom said. “You guys work it out.”

However the beaverdoem functioned, it was capable of scheming I knew. Why else would it have placed the back pack in the river by Jacob Mason’s house. It wanted to frame him perhaps and lead us if it’s trail. It was almost as if it had s sense of irony. The next victim framed for a crime he didn’t commit.

I thought of his Grandmother sitting in the cabin alone. She must think him dead. Who was going to empty the crawdad traps now? I suddenly had a burst of inspiration. 50% philanthropist eh?

Pitch, Fantom, the twins and I made our way through the woods to the cabin. Christi carried a platter of homemade cookies in one hand.

“Theses have less sugar right guys?” Pitch asked.

“What do you think that we would give crazy cookies to an old lady? What do you take us for?” I looked at Fantom and saw that he was struggling not to comment.

Pitch sighed. “It’s so much better being able to talk to you guys again. I’m sort of sick of talking to Super Awesome Incredible Man so much.”

“Sort of?” Fantom scoffed.

“Okay really sick of it,” Pitch continued. “All he talks about is how super, awesome and incredible he is all day long. I wanted to scream but I kept remembering that I shouldn’t break the sound barrier again.”

Christopher knocked on the door.

“Do not be afraid Mrs. Mason we only bring cookies,” he said. We all looked at him.

“What?” he said.

Apparently the woman was deaf because she did answer the door.

“Hi Mrs. Mason,” Pitch said. “We’re from the school and we wanted to offer you our greatest condolences about Jacob’s disappearance.” He held the cookies out to her.

“Well Bless your souls!” she said. “Come in.”

We filled into the little old cabin and were seated on a wall length sofa. I noticed that Christi and Fantom sat a little closer to each other than normal. I think Christopher noticed too by the severity of his frown.

“Thank you so much for coming out here!” She removed her glasses and wiped her eyes. “I just wish that boy wouldn’t have run off and get himself all mixed up in whatever he did. I was sure he had changed.”

“He wasn’t!” I found myself saying. She looked at me quizzically.

“I was a friend of his,” and I know he wasn’t into anything.” She accepted my answer and went on.
“He seemed like such a good boy lately, even doing his studies. School ain’t as easy as it used to be either.” Amen sister I wanted to say.

“He was recommended a stress reliever said if he worked any harder he was likely to get an ulcer or something.”

Who knew I thought? There was that whole concept of judging a book by its cover again. If I hadn’t known that Jacob was smart I would have never thought he cared anything about grades.

“That and balancing golf?” I said. “Wow he must really have been stressed?”

“Oh very,” she said. “I think even more so in the days before he disappeared. That’s why I wonder if he had gotten into something again.”

I thought about Goldstein missing school Had he been overly stressed too? Was that what the beaverdoem was waiting for, for the victim to become overly stressed and therefore more vulnerable somehow? I imagined that the ordeal of being kidnapped would be stressful enough on its own.

We chatted for a little while longer but uncover nothing particularly beneficial about Jacob or the beaverdoem.

“You did good in there,” Pitch told me after we had left the cottage.

“Thanks.”

I didn’t feel like anything was good though. The beaverdoem was ready to strike. I could feel it in my bones and we had absolutely no idea who or where. Someone was about to crack the ice.
 

“Technically we are still matching because we are both secondary colors,” Christopher said. All of the guys had gone to The Blade of all places to prepare for the dance. Christi would meet us there when we were ready and we would go over in guy’s corvette.

Fantom stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, trying to flip his hair out of his eyes. He wore a purple tie. Christopher stood behind him in a pink tie just staring at himself.

“Whatever floats your boat man. I don’t really care,” Fantom said to him. He glared at Fantom through the mirror. Fantom looked over at him and Christopher looked away and straightened his tie again.

My hair was sticking up in weird place all over my head but there was nothing that could really be done about it at this point. Adler and I had decided on green because we both liked the forest and the band Green Day. It just made sense. Besides it was spring, green just worked.

I looked at myself past Christopher and Fantom. I was Luke Fastwalker and I was ready to go to Spring Formal with Adler Song. I was tall and lanky and unfortunate but I was also a hero. At least that’s what it said on my contract to LISP. I wasn’t technically a hero yet because I hadn’t saved anyone. Still I felt like more of one that before and that was what really counted at least for self-esteem purposes.

The sound of heavy moving glass grazed our ears and we knew that Christi had arrived. We excited the bathroom and waited for her in the training room. We all looked so out of place among all of the workout equipment.

Christi’s heels could be heard in a constant rhythm drawing ever closer to the room. Finally she burst through the door.

Frank Fantom’s cool collected expression changed in an instant. Christi was beautiful. Her purple dress revealed a figure that was otherwise hidden and her braids had been unraveled into long blond curls.

“aghh Christi,” Christopher said, “you look marvelous. Does she not?” Frank continued to stare at her in a manner uncharacteristic for him.

“She is your date? It’s rude not to compliment her,” her brother said.

Franks trance was broken.

“No …sorry,” he fumbled over his words. “You...you uh look great.” I had never seen Frank Fantom utter a more awkward and misconstrued sentence.

“You don’t look so bad yourself,” she said smiling. They stared for a long moment at one another. I felt like I was in Pride or Prejudice or some other Jane Austen movie.

“Well let’s go,” Christopher said breaking the silence. He stepped between his sister and her date on the way out the door. I couldn’t help but feel a little bad for the guy. It must have felt like Fantom was stealing his other half.

As we walked down the flickering hallway are eyes were drawn immediately to the paper taped on the glass just outside The Blade.

“Vision?” Fantom voiced all of our thoughts out loud. It hadn’t been there a second ago so someone must have left it recently.

We stepped out into the daylight and subtle breeze.

Even though you are all on a mission, I figured that you might as well ride in style. Your Commander, Vision.

P.S Look over the hill
We all simultaneously peered over the hill and gawked at the stretch limo parked roadside. I felt like Cinderella when her pumpkin suddenly became a horse draw carriage, not that pumpkins should be compared to corvettes, but still. I could just imagine Adler’s face when we rolled up to her door in a fancy pants limo.

The four of us strutted down the embankment, heels and formal ware in all. I knew that we were technically still on a mission but for me it was a breath of relief. For a few hours in time none of this would really matter so much and then there was Adler. I hoped I hadn’t read into her too much but I had started to feel that just maybe she liked me too.

Fantom held upon the door of the limo for Christi and the rest of us followed behind.

“Welcome,” the driver said without turning around. “Help yourself to the apple cider and the radio.”  We then gave him the directions to Adler and Candice’s houses and we were off. It felt strange winding through the country roads and then suburban neighborhoods with champagne glasses full of apple cider and the surrounded sound speakers blaring. It was like a dream, a really good dream.

Candice was speechless. She asked Christopher how he had managed this. Since Christopher didn’t speak English, he just pointed and winked at her. It worked somehow and Candice sighed dreamily and leaned against him. I would never understand, never.

Then we turned down the street that Adler lived. I counted the house numbers each one marking one step closer to her delighted surprise. Finally we parked in front of a small white house with box wood shrubbery along the edges of the pathway. I approached the door and stopped for a moment. I couldn’t believe she had said yes. I couldn’t believe this was actually happening. I had dreamed of this moment since I was literally in kindergarten. How strange it was that it was actually going to happen. 

For a moment I didn’t think I was going to be able to ring the bell. This was going to be one of those many awkward stories that I would get to tell my grandchildren or cats later about how I majorly failed. But then I did it. Without thinking, as if it was any other doorbell, I pushed the buzzer.

Moments later the door opened a crack and Adler’s bright eyes peeped out.

“One sec,” she said and closed the door.

“Stay Mr. Snuffles,” I heard followed by a mournful meow.

She emerged from the house as radiant as a jewel. Her medium length hair had been cured into dark waves and now rested at her shoulders. The dress was somewhat twenties style and she carried a small silver hand bag to match. She was beautiful.

She stepped away from the porch and gasped.

“How did you pay for this!” she asked.

“Let’s just say I had some help.” She smiled at me and looked to the limo with a spirit of adventure in her eyes.

“All I can say is its better than going in my Volvo Station Wagon.”

“Tell me about it. I own a Chevy Caprice.”

I pushed down one of the lopsided lumps of hair on my head and helped her get into the limo. I thought super heroes were naturally supposed to have awesome hair. If I ever made it into a comic book I would be sure to tell the cartoonist to give me hair like David Hasselhoff

Everyone greeted Adler as she came in and she took up a glass of apple cider and sat beside me, crossing one leg over the other.

“Aw I see what you mean by help,” she said motioning to the full limo. As modern music blared through the speakers and I held the Champaign glass in my hand, I couldn’t help but feel like a cool dude. Everything was perfect in this moment.

I looked over at Christi and Frank who were talking quietly about something and at Candice who was laughing at something about Christopher. I wished that I had a camera in my head so that I could capture everything about this moment. Tomorrow it would all be over but right now we were together and in perfect bliss. I realized that although life was full of awful, uncomfortable, moments, it was sprinkled with just enough good ones to make it beautiful. It was like a crazy story, one full of not bad guys or good guys but of people trying to find their way. The beauty was that they didn’t fit in a box. They could not be contained because the pen was not theirs to hold in the first place and so their ink spilled over into every nook and cranny of the world.

Time moved again for me as it had before and I came out of my thoughts. The inside of a blaring limo was a strange place to think like a philosopher.

We finally pulled into the parking lot of the school and all six of us strutted with grace out of our expensive chariot. The eyes of other students arriving in cars were immediately turned downwards. So this is what that felt like.

I looked over at Adler she was smiling at me with bright brown eyes. There was something about this girl that I just couldn’t shake all these years. She was beautiful, funny and accepting. I imagined what would have happened if I had never talked to her on the way back from PE that day. I could have gone forever without knowing what it was like to know her.

I would have ended up going to formal alone and talking to Cameron the whole time. Cameron?! My moment of tranquility was broken.

I was a dirty awful cheat, liar, double crosser and betrayer. I had never told him about Adler. If he showed up tonight, he would probably expect to hang out with us. I looked at Adler by my side. I didn’t want that to happen. I could imagine Cameron screwing things up with all of his conspiracy theories and useless facts. I wanted to find out with Adler really liked me tonight not learn about the history of canned glue or something. I guiltily hoped that he had stayed home.

We stepped into the gym. Music was playing and the lights were dim. Ferguson stood at the entrance to make sure only students came in. He was the last face I really wanted to see that night.

“I knew you ran that fast lap for something,” Ferguson laughed gesturing to us. Adler laughed too. I wondered if that meant anything.

“Freeloader,” he said as Frank passed by. Fantom gave him a silent thumb up over his shoulder.

I suddenly realized the problem with this whole dance thing. I secretly knew it had been too good to be true. This was the first time I had ever been to a dance with someone that I actually wanted to dance with and I realized that I had no idea how to dance.

“Hey Luke,” Adler said. “I think I left my purse in the limo. I’m gonna go out and get it.” I was a bit relieved at least now I had some more time before she realized I had no sense of rhythm.

“Do you want me to go with you?” I asked.

“Nah, its fine. Why don’t you get some punch or something?” I was doubly relieved, punch most likely meant sitting at least for awhile.

“Alright,” I said. I watched as she left the room and then took a seat. The room was alive with sparkly dresses and shined shoes and a head cloth? Who wore a head cloth to a dance? I looked closer. Oh Venus! I had nearly forgotten that she ever went to the school. Why hadn’t I seen her this week? She was chatting with some Indian kid.

I could see Fantom and Christi a few tables over talking. I could tell that Fantom was shaking his head at something. Then Christi stood up and pulled his hand until he reluctantly got up. They walked out to the dance floor and a slow song came on at that moment. They were actually sort of a cute couple both physically and personality wise. Somehow I knew it was destined to be. I was glad to have played matchmaker. I was kind of good at it if I say so myself.

The song ended. Cameron was there. He had come with some of our friends and was sitting by the punch bowl. I decided that I wouldn’t get any for Adler and I after all.

Where was Adler? It was taking too long just to get a purse. I suddenly had a sinking feeling.

I walked out into the corridor and peered around. No sign of her. Maybe she had just gone to the bathroom but maybe not.  Her words shot back through my head. SAT. Stress. Honor’s class.

“Adler!” I yelled into the parking lot. I was panicking. The limo was gone and the lot was still and empty. I ran to where the limo had been.

“Adler!” I screamed again at the nothingness.

“Adler!”

Then it caught my eye.  The wind was blowing something white. I knelt and picked up Adler’s corsage.

“Fantom,” I burst into the gym. Fantom saw me from the dance floor where he held Christi tight. Realization came over his face and he and Christi both raced towards me.

“Christopher!” she shouted across the room. “Venus!” Both Christopher and Venus made quick excuses to their partners and sprinted to the exit as well. Some people at the dance turned to stare at us but most continued on with what they were doing.

“Run that fast in my PE class not here,” Ferguson said to Fantom who gave him a thumb up as we raced out the door.

“She’s gone,” I said, “I should have gone with her… I should have…”

“Luke stop!” Fantom said grabbing me by the shoulders. “You have to think logically now. Adler’s life and quite frankly everyone’s life depends on it!”

“It was the limo driver,” Christi said, “He never made eye contact, never explained the safety rules, never turned around.”

“So we just have to find a limo?” Christopher said. At night in a big city full of traffic on the night of spring formal I added to the list.

“Venus, where’s your car parked?” Fantom asked.

“I walked.” He groaned.

‘I know someone with a car?” I finally said. “They’re not in on LISP but they have a car.”

“Go get the car Fastwalker!” he said.

I fast walked up to the door of the gym and then slowed down into a fast jog. There was no need creating panic in the crowd and make situations even messier.

“Cameron!” I came to a stop by the punch bowl where my friends sat.

“Cameron I need your keys!” I was panting.
“Why,” he asked.

“I…I can’t tell you.”

“No,” he said bluntly.

“What?”

“I said no. Not until you tell me why you’re taking my car.”

“Can’t you just trust me?”I was becoming extremely angry, lives hung in the balance.

“Can I trust you? Trader Joe’s huh and your Dad’s second birthday this year. I saw your parents the other day and they asked me how our project was going. I told them great! Where have you been going everyday!”

The rest of my friends just stared on as it all went down.

“Fine! Fine!” I said. “Come with me and I’ll tell you the truth.”

He looked at me as if he had no idea who I was.

“I don’t know if I want to go with you. You’re acting weird, really weird. I just don’t know.” 

“Okay,” I tried to find some sort of composure. “I’m telling you Cameron David Baker that this is dead serious. I’m being as honest as I possibly can at the moment. There’s no reason why you should believe me but I’m asking you to because you’re my best friend. Remember when we were kids and my Dad made a tree house in the back yard? Remember the tree house oath? To defend against dragons, to save the princess but above all to…”

“Never leave a man behind.” Cameron finished my sentence.

“Right, never leave a man behind.”

He looked at me for a moment I could tell that he was trying to make up his mind. I wanted to yank him out the door, lives were at stake but still I waited. It didn’t help that Cameron was literally the most indecisive person I have ever known.

“Alright,” he said at last.

“Come on,” I said, nearly pulling him from his seat.

I walked as quickly as I possibly could without fast walking, with Cameron right on my heels.

“Where are we going?” he yelled to me over the still blaring music of the dance.

“To the parking lot,” I answered.

“Well I can see that!”

“Just trust me.”

We finally made it out into the parking lot where they all still stood.

“Heidi and Henri?” he asked

“Yes and no,” I told him.

We approached the group

“I told you to get the car not the guy who owns it,” Fantom said in frustration.

“I know,” I conceded. “But he wouldn’t let me take it and he’s still not going to let me take it until he knows what’s going on.”

Fantom opened his mouth to speak again but I cut him off.

“Cameron is s loyal as a German Shepherded as solid as a rock. He would never spill anything. He is the most trustworthy person I have ever known.”

Cameron just stood there rocking back and forth from foot to foot, not quite sure what he had got himself into. Even if he had real powers of deduction, he would never have been able to have guessed just what exactly was going on here.

“Alright,” Fantom said, “But Vision wouldn’t like it.”

“Okay Cameron you’re never going to believe this but we all have superpowers,” he stared at me with an obvious air of skepticism. “Venus take off your head dress.”

She slowly unraveled it like Voldemort in that first Harry Potter movie. Cameron’s face changed to something of shock and horror.

“Yes those are Venus flytraps.” I threw a penny from my pocket and they all shot out to grab it. “My cousins from Sweden aren’t really my cousins and they can read minds. This is Frank he can walk through wood. And I can fast walk really really fast.”

He just stared at us mouth gaping glasses starting to steam up in the coldness of the night.

“Now we need your car because we are going to try to defeat this thing called mass intelligence or a beaverdoem and…”

“I know what that is,” Cameron said.
“No it has nothing to do with that new higher education Catholic school,” I said.

“No I know what it is. In that comic book series that I’ve been reading; Brain Juice, there’s this thing called mass intelligence and it’s an alien ideology that tries to kill creativity and make everyone the same. The beaverdoem is the brain that they connect all of the hostages to, to transmit a signal to the whole world.”

All of LISP stared at each other dumfounded. How could a comic book possibly say all of that?

“Who wrote the comics?” Fantom asked.

Cameron thought for a moment. “I…I can’t really remember I just know it was some guy from Kentucky.”

“Kentucky!” I said, “…that’s where the first incident happened!”

Phantom nodded. “Was his name Earl Meyers?”

“Yeah, that’s him,” Cameron said.

“The only male victim,” he explained. “He must have remembered details about the story without remembering that it was his story.”

“So everything in the comic books was true?” Cameron asked, “Even the control serum?”

“Control serum?” we all asked.

“Yeah it made the victims want to come to the lair and slowly started taking over their minds to prepare them to receive the beaverdoem codes.”

“Why are we just standing here!” Christi shouted. “We’ve got to follow that limo.”

“She’s right,” Phantom said. “Cameron you come to. We need you to talk more about the comic book.” 

“My cars over there,” he motioned towards a brindle colored VW Bug.”

“Well,” Phantom said. “We’ll take what we can get!”

We all sprinted over to the car and crammed in. So much for riding in style but there were bigger things at stake. Phantom sat in the driver’s seat and sped off the moment we were all in the car. Cameron was still trying to shut the door. He zipped around the corner in the parking lot and pushed the pedal to the ground once we were on the road. He wove in between traffic like a needle through patchwork.

“Where did you learn to drive like that?” Christi asked.
“Bakersfield,” he replied.

“Jacob’s Grandma had mentioned that he was taking some stress relieving and energy boosting meds and I saw Adler with these blue pills that were supposed to do the same. Could that be the serum?”

“That’s exactly what they were in the book, these blue pills that we’re given out to the overly stressed smart kids.”

“Amazing!” Venus said. “I got an ad about those slipped into my locker last week?”

“Me too!” everyone but me said. Maybe they had missed me.

“Yeah that’s what happened in the book. The plan was that everyone who had taken the blue pills would turn against everyone who hadn’t and destroy them.”

Fantom sped up a bit.

“They stopped the incident before the kids were even plugged in last time so the ending must be mostly fiction,” Fantom said. “But maybe Earl somehow knew from the serum how to stop it. What happened to them in the book Cameron?”

“One hostages’ boyfriend figured it out and took the serum. He snuck in and took the nodes off of her head and placed them on his. He found out that if you unplug all of the hostages that they would all die. But if you unplugged one of them and replaced them quick enough they wouldn’t die only the signal would be disrupted.”

“Why didn’t the beaverdoem just take control of his mind too?” Fantom asked.

“Because he wasn’t one of the people originally given the serum. His brain was slower in analytical processes and therefore rebellious and free thinking. The signals from his brain completely shut down the beaverdoem.”

“So we just need someone with a quote on quote slower brain to connect to the beaverdoem,” Frank said.

Everyone included the driver turned around and stared at me.

“Okay rude,” I said.

“But I’ll do it,” I said. I would do anything for Adler. There was something about her that I just couldn’t live without.

“The only thing,” Cameron said with fear growing in his voice, “The guy that stopped the signal… yeah he died. “

“Like comic book die where they come back on the next page or like die die,” I asked.

“He wasn’t a main character so I think die, die.”

“Okay,” I said. The car had grown silent. “What about the rest of the hostages and his girlfriend? Were they okay?

“I don’t know,” Cameron said. “It was a cliff hanger and the next addition doesn’t come out until May.”

Was I willing to die for her? Or was I just a crazy teenager who thought he was in love with a girl he had just started talking to two months ago? We weren’t even dating. Yet I knew the answer was yes. I was strangely ready to die for her and not just her but for everyone, for all of the slow ones like me and for all of the not slow ones like Adler who would become little more than machines.

“Luke we can find some else maybe…” Cameron began.

“No,” I interrupted him, “I want to do this.”

“It might not even be accurate,” Venus reassured me. “The writer may have just made up this part. You could be fine.”

I nodded. There was always a chance that this whole thing was really just the creative whims of a comic book writer finishing the story. Still it was the best thing we had at the moment. If it really was true that unplugging them would kill everyone, I definitely didn’t want that both for Adler’s sake and for the rest of the hostages. I thought about Jacob’s Grandmother and how happy she would be when he came home. I sort of thought that maybe it was worth it.

“Don’t do it Luke,” Cameron said from beside me. He was pleading.

I was going to do it regardless of what anyone said. There was no better way.

“It doesn’t matter if he does it or not,” Fantom said, “If we never find where the hide out actually is.”

“Oh. I thought you knew that already,” Cameron said. We all looked to him quizzically and shook our heads.  “I’ve been following all the missing cases on and off and I noticed two things. Every person that went missing was A. intelligent and B. studying for the SAT.”

I thought back to Adler who was stressing over next week’s SAT. I hoped that she would get to take it. I hoped Id be there to congratulate her afterwards.

“So?” Christi asked.
“You remember that picture in the paper of the inside of Goldstein’s locker?”

“Yeah, with all of the SAT books,” I said.

“Right but notice where the SAT books were issued from; Nomuk Test Center. Our school in particular always directs students to Nomuk. We get the flyers in our lockers all the time.”

“Which would explain why people only disappeared from our school,” I said.

“I don’t know about here,” Cameron said, “but in the comic book the beaverdoem choose students off of their ability to learn. I’m guessing that why it would use the testing center.”

“That’s about two blocks away,” Phantom said and revved the little Bug into action. We all flew back against the vinyl seats. In a minute he screeched to a stop in front of the Nomuk Test Center.  The building was several stories high, made out of tan bricks and obviously very old. Tendrils of ivy climbed the tower and squirmed between the bricks like snakes. It had a sort of haunted mansion feel and I wondered why I had never noticed the ominous building before. 

We stepped out and stared up at the monstrous building above us.

“What’s that?” Phantom asked pointing to the top story. There was a bluish glow emanating from the window.

“It’s begun,’ Cameron said.

We walked up to the door solemnly, me more than anyone else.  The sight of Nomuk testing center sort of ended my whole heroic spell. This was actually going to happen. I was going to die or at least have my mind infiltrated by an alien. The door was locked. Phantom ran his hand over it.

“Oak,” he said. He then stretched a long arm through the wood and unlocked the door from the inside. I couldn’t help smile at Cameron whose eyes had become as big as ping pong balls. The inside was old looking, nearly Victorian style by the looks of it. A receptionist table sat empty at the very front.

Phantom walked over to it and looked through the draws. He pulled something out and walked back to us.

“You’ll need to take these,” he said holding a packet of blue pills out to me. He didn’t look me in the eye. I took the pills from him and began to pop a few out.

“Luke don’t,” Cameron pleaded again. “Never leave a man behind there’s got to be a better way to do this.” 

“I wish there was too but as of now there isn’t,” I said. I tried to separate my emotions from the task at hand but I couldn’t. This was it.

“I’m sorry Cameron,” I said. “I’m not always a good friend and I wasn’t there when you needed me, especially lately. I just wanted to tell you that your one of the only reasons I came to school every day and…just thank you” I was starting to get choked up and I didn’t want to cry, not now.

Cameron’s chin wobbled. “What are you talking about man? You’re the best and I should have trusted you more. Zach sucks at Zombie Smash by the way,” he said. We both laughed. “Go out there and slay your dragon, save your princess and…and come back…please just come back.”

I nodded at him.

Suddenly and without warning he stood up perfectly straight and started shaking as if in a seizure.   

“What’s wrong!”

“I take the pills,” he said through clinched teeth. “It’s…Its happening.” I looked at him helplessly.

Fantom’s voice broke through the chaos. “Go Luke!”

I smashed the rest of the pills into my mouth as I fast walked up the long flight of stairs. Here was that 25% daredevil. I could hear the steps of the rest of my friends behind me. I finally reached the top flight and the door. A blue light shone from underneath.

This was it. This was the moment I would die.

I flew through the door. The thing was in the middle of the floor, brownish pink and oozing with some strange brain juice, hence the name of the comic book. Attached to each of the four long blue arms were persons all sitting in a tall velvet backed chair. The one closest to me at the moment was Adler
 
I reached out to her and touched her face. It was cold like ice. Her eyes were clamped shut. Her body felt completely limp. I would have believed someone if they told me she was dead.  I placed my hand over her mouth just to make sure she was breathing. She was.

Fantom bounded up the stairs at that moment, panting. He walked towards me and knelt on the ground beside me.

“I don’t want it to be you,” he finally said. He sounded different, caring. “You have so much more left to give this world.  It’s uh…it’s not fair.”

“I still got to do it though,” I said trying to maintain my resolve.

“I know, I know,” he said.

This was for Adler but not just for Adler. It was for my parents, the kids at school, even the ones who call me Lank. It was for Ferguson and for Grandma Mason. It was for all of the people who worked to make the world a better place even when the odds were against them. It was for a race of beautifully flawed and helpless creatures, full of love and hate, full of happiness and tears. It was a cause worth dying for. It had been done once before and because of it I was suddenly not afraid.

“I’m ready,” I said. Fantom nodded and swallowed.

“Okay,” he whispered.

He carefully pulled the nodes from Adler’s head. She groaned a bit but then relaxed into a peaceful unconsciousness. He knelt behind me on the floor. I waited for the sticky nodes and striking pain. None came. Fantom still hovered behind me, alien parts in hand.

“Do it,” I told him. He faltered

“Okay, Okay, I’m sorry… It’s just…”

“You’re not doing this to me Frank. This thing is.”

“Okay,” he swallowed again and stuck the nodes to my temples.

I was so tired. Why was I so tired? The light hurt my eyes. Who had opened the window in my room? I squinted up.

There was a bright blue star like light shooting from what looked like a metal domed ceiling. The ground around me felt cold. I tried to move my body but it was impossible as if it was glued in place.  I closed my eyes. It hurt to stare at the star. It was like a giant broken Christmas light. Where was I?

I looked to the side of me as far as I could. There was a girl. She was blonde. There were blue lights shooting from her eyes towards the star as if she were feeding it. She looked so familiar. Had I seen her before maybe in a magazine, in a newspaper? Melissa?

Then the details came flooding back. Pain shot through my head with each piece of information. LISP, beaverdoem, mass intelligence, Adler, I’m not dead.  Then the ache stopped completely. I tried to call to Melissa but I couldn’t move my mouth for some reason only my eyes.

I listened for a moment. There was some sort of sound, a murmuring. I focused in on it.

“Two, seven, nine, eight, four, three, five, six, two…” the numbers continued on. The voices were so familiar and all in unison. They were almost inviting. I wanted to join in but the sequence was too fast. I thought that maybe I could join in but the numbers were floating to me not flying like everyone else’s was. I needed to try all the same though.

“Melissa, I thought in her direction, how do you know the numbers so well?”

Melissa faltered a bit in her sequence but rejoined the other again. Oh no, I was just causing them to mess up. That’s what I always did! I was always ruining things. Why was I even here?

“For the good and for the bad,” a small still voice echoed. “For the imperfect and for the beautiful, for they are the same. 

I needed to disconnect the signal I remembered, not join it. I needed to save Melissa and everyone else in the beaverdoem from becoming machines themselves.

“Melissa,” I thought to her, “You are beautiful. You are incredible. You are not defined by what you look like.

She faltered again, this time a bit longer. She joined in a millisecond behind the others and the voices were slightly overlapped. The star dimmed. This was actually working.

“Jacob it doesn’t matter what you have done. You are innocent now.”

He faltered as well and fell off beat from both of the other voices. Now everyone was off beat. The star was still flickering. One more and it would go out.

“Brent,” It was hard for me to find something good to say at first then I just decided to stick to truthful.  “You don’t have to prove anything. You can change whenever you want to.

He faltered as well but the light did not go out. In fact the flickering was burning my eyes even more than before. I began to doubt; maybe that comic book had been wrong all along.

“Come on guys,” I thought in desperation, “You are beautiful broken human beings not machines. Stop it with the numbers already,” Nothing changed. This was supposed to be like one of those old black and white films where we all walk off into the sunset not like Gone with the Wind, all tragic and stuff. Come on!

The star flickered momentarily. What was so different about that sentence? It had been corny and full of TV references. It had been completely random! I remembered Vision’s question. Do you have a history of ADD?

“Pineapple, didgeridoo, wasabi, Ben Stiller,” I screamed into their thought stream. The light began to flicker violently. It was working

“didgeridoo,” I heard Jacob’s thoughts say in an Australian accents as he dropped out of the number sequence. 

“ginger snap, raccoon, Murray, T-rex, Friday the 13th, beanie babby!”

“Beanie baby,” Melissa said and dropped out as well.

“Raccoon,” Jacob said.

Now the only one who was left was Goldstein who continued to repeat the numbers. I wondered what would happen if we broke him. The random words that I had just uttered flew about the room, circulating in and out of Jacob and Melissa’s thoughts. The light flickered faster now as if furious. I looked up directly into it, with these thoughts I would destroy the beaverdoem, with these words I would either free us or seal are fates. This was my last stand.

“Celery, outlet, Let it go, Gorilla, Enchilada, plunger, Shrinky Dink!

Goldstein slowed down, faltered and then stopped. “Enchilada,” he thought.

The ground shook beneath us and the star became brighter and brighter. Suddenly the ghostly blue morphed into a yellow as vibrant as the sun. We could move again. Then the star shattered raining pale gold fragments like glass down upon us.

Air rattled into my lungs. I looked up. Adler looked down at me, brown eyes glowing in relief. My head had been resting in her lap. I propped myself up and looked around at everyone. Fantom, Christi, Christopher, Venus, Adler and Cameron sat staring at me.

“You’re back,” I said motioning to Cameron.”

“Yeah, the trance ended about twenty minutes ago. I assumed you did something good at that point. You’re alive.”

“The others?” I looked around the room and saw the three teens leaning limp in their chairs without the nodes. 

“They’re fine,” Fantom said. I tried to stand up but felt woozy and sunk back down.

“Do any of you know what a didgeridoo actually is? I asked. They chuckled. Somehow I knew that everything was going to be just fine.

“And you guys explained to Adler about…well about all of this and us.”

“More or less,” Adler said. “When I saw the lady with the fly traps I knew you guys weren’t just a secret band or something.” All of LISP even Venus snickered. I was glad they enjoyed her humor because I felt like they would be seeing a whole lot more of her and Cameron.

“Ohh my head hurts,” I said. It suddenly felt like there were little Indian boys playing war drums inside.

“I have pain killers in my purse,” Adler said. “Let me go get them.” She got up and walked to the far side of the room.

I looked at the brown beaverdoem on the ground, dead and motionless. I wasn’t grossed out by it anymore or even scared of it. I just hated it. I hated everything about it.

There was a sudden shriek from the opposite side of the room! I was on my feet immediately, the blood rushing around and creating little black spots in my vision. A man stood against the back wall a syringe full of blue liquid in one hand, Alder’s arm in the other. She struggled to get away from him but his grip was too strong and the syringe rested inches from her throat.

I knew him. I had seen him somewhere. He was small, rotund and otherwise unassuming. I looked to his ear. There was a black gage, the accountant from career day.

We stood before Adler and her captor speechless.

“So you thought you won,” he said. His voice had a near mechanical quality. “You put in all your hand and you thought you made it big but you forgot you still owed some debts.” He inched the syringe closer to her neck.

“Who are you and what do you want?” I asked.

“I am not like you,” he said. “And I do not want you living.”

“What do you want with her?” I pointed to Adler. She was terrified I could see but trying to be brave at the same time. She held her head high and her chin defiantly.

“This is a high concentration of the control serum. It will either kill her or transform her mind into one similar but significantly lower than mine. In which case, she will see your imperfections and kill you.”

“State your identity.” Christi commanded.

“Beaverdoem of the 9th degree, planet: classified.” He tilted his head strangely at each of us as if studying us. His eyes rested on me just as they had that day in the gym.

“You are a free thought,” he said staring straight into my eyes. “You are dangerous. You are treasonous. You will die.”

I took a step back. What was he talking about? I didn’t understand but it made me angry, the same sort of angry that I felt towards the pink mass behind me. I realized that I had simply killed the machine and now the actual creature behind it stood in front of me.

“Free thoughts,” he continued, “inhabit this world. They destroy order. They are those who drag the species to the depths with their notions, their sentimentality, and their stupidity. They are your artist, your writers, your film makers and dreamers. They serve no purpose, they reap no reward. They destroy efficiency they…”

“They innovate,” I cut him off. His eyes widened and he seemed to have forgotten about the syringe in his hand. “They make beauty. They memorialize the human spirit and a spirit much greater. They shine hope in a word that is hopeless. They are a drop of water to this tired land. They are the story that mothers read to their children as their eyes become heavy. The song of the warrior and of the poet is the very same. And value is not a thing that can be earned or sold. “

Adler kicked him in the knee and he released her for just long enough for her to tumble to safety. Two arms sprang from the wall and wrapped around the accountant’s neck. I looked about; Fantom must have slipped out in the beginning. He was so stealth like well..like a phantom. In an instant, Venus’ fly traps wrapped around his arms and legs. They barked and squeezed like boa constrictors until he released the syringe.

“I’m so glad these walls were made out of plywood,” Fantom yelled from the other room.

I took a step closer to the accountant. A righteous anger burned inside, one that I had never known before.

“You thought that the valuable one’s here were the ones who could learn fast. Well they are valuable. But the rest of us are too. That’s what’s amazing about people. We can’t do anything on our own. We’re only one piece of the clock, one piece of the puzzle. We need a ton of other parts to function and no one piece is any more or less important than the others.”

“Who are you?” he asked.  

“Luke Fastwalker but they call me Lank.” I stepped away from the accountant and towards Adler. I never wanted to see him again. She wrapped her arms around me and leaned her head on my chest. I didn’t turn back around to look at him.

“Well,” I heard Fantom say, “It looks like Area 52 has its next resident.”

“Noo!” the account yelled.

“Hey,” Fantom said, “Fresno isn’t that bad of a place.”
 

Adler and I stood outside in front of the Nomuk test center. We had agreed to wait for the rest of the victims to wake up while everyone else dropped the accountant off at LISP holding centers. We would have to have a pretty interesting conversation with the victims once they woke up. I hoped Fantom would be there to give it and not me.

I looked over. Adler was smiling at me with big brown eyes. It was the sort of smile that made it hard to believe that she had just been taken hostage by an alien bent on world destruction. I took off my jacket and gave it to her. She must have been cold wearing her spring formal dress in that awful room this whole time. She slipped it on over her shoulders.

“I feel like this is usually the part in the movie where the hero kisses the girl he likes after she almost died and stuff.” I said.

Adler stared at me blankly. “Did you just ask me to kiss you?”

“Sorry,” I said. “I guess that is a little weird. I mean who does that? I guess it’s supposed to happen natur…”

She reached up, grabbed my face and gently brought our lips together. In my mind there were fireworks but I’m pretty sure it was just someone’s car alarm going off. This either meant that I’m worst at understanding relationships then I thought or that this girl actually liked me.

A loud honk caused us to pull away and stare at the road. Frank and Christi had returned in the corvette.

“Why did you have to do that?” I heard Christi say.

Frank leaned out of the car a bit. “That was cute Fastwalker but next time try not to put one foot in the air when you kiss her.”

~
Once the hostages woke up, we explained to them exactly what had happened. They didn’t remember anything. But unlike LEGIT we didn’t want them to have any unanswered questions. They all swore to keep it on the down low as well as their parents when we returned them.

As far as the police, they never quite knew how the kids all got back or what to do about it. All the parents said that they weren’t going to press law suits and didn’t care to comment. They eventually backed off. The journalist tried to pry out the true story. In the end they stopped too although the Quill published some crazy conspiracy theory about aliens and a league of insignificant super heroes. Everyone knew it was a joke. I guess with all of the new cases I would be joining, journalism just sounded like a good idea. Plus the journalism guy Mr. Stanton really was crazy and insisted upon it.

Jacob’s Grandma invited us all over for cookies the next day. Something told me that the Christenson’s gingersnaps would have some competition.

Speaking of gingersnaps after about four years of dating, Christi and Frank ended up getting married. It was a strange semi-traditional Swedish wedding with the only color scheme being black and a lot of it. We we’re all invited to attend. It was a beautiful evening, plus Frank’s traditional Swedish suit made a nice addition to my blackmail folder.

Christopher and Candice broke up shortly after the dance because she was way too clingy. I imagined it was hard for Christopher to break up with her, especially since he did it without speaking English.

After high school Cameron started training to join the FBI.  He even gets some experience some times by coming down and helping LISP with their cases. I brought Zombie Smash V to his house at 2a.m as soon as it came out. 

As for me, people still called me Lank throughout the rest of high school. I didn’t really mind anymore though. I had discovered that life is more than what people think you are. The story isn’t about me anyway. It’s about all of us. Greatness, I learned, is in knowing this.

I did decide to join the track team but I joined for me not because Ferguson wanted me to.  I ended up breaking the school’s 200 meter record and immediately got some sweet scholarship opportunities. One of which was to a school in Southern California where Adler had applied. Though she had higher choices of schools, she decided on the one where I went.

Right now I have no declared major but it’s alright. Life is too short and too precious to jump to conclusions. I believe that everyone has a calling and no matter what it is, they are a hero for doing it. I’m still waiting for mine. But so far the journey towards it has been a pretty dang awesome one.

LISP changed my life but not in the way I thought it would. Even now, I don’t feel like any big hero.  I mean I still have noodle legs and arms. I still can’t play sports and come to think of it, those dirty jeggings are still in my closet at home.

Yet I am a hero. Not because I’ve saved people, not because I belong to a league of them but because I care. Police officers are heroes when they care for others. Teachers are heroes when they care for others. Doctors are heroes when they care for others. But then again so are grocery store clerks, tech guys, locksmiths and yes even accountants as long as they care for others. 

No this isn’t a story about how one guy found greatness deep within. It isn’t a story about romance or even about my stupid shenanigans. No this is a story about people. I never understood the meaning of gifted, not really. Apparently, it’s not about jumping high or running fast. It’s not about understanding every concept and inventing incredible contraptions. Those things are gifts yes. But a gifted person is one who takes what they have been given and realizes it’s not their own. They then wrap that beautiful little jewel up and give it away to a person who really needs it. I guess the giver is the only one who is actually gifted in the end.