SUPERHERO FOR A DAY
DAY 1: TRANSPARENT
Tyler David Fendlesworth hated Mondays.
Monday was the first day of a whole week of school. Monday meant riding the crowded school bus where it was impossible to find a seat. Monday meant pop quizzes on materials forgotten over the weekend, stuffy, hot classrooms, musty smelling books, hours of brain-aching study. Monday meant a week of inedible school lunches and – worst of all – bullies. Ty went to bed each Sunday night hoping that a miracle would occur and it would be Tuesday when he woke up. Better yet, Friday! That’d be nice. Only one day of studying and dodging bullies and trying to keep out of sight. He dreaded the sound of the alarm clock because the morning after Sunday was always Monday.
The dreaded alarm sounded, as it did every Monday morning, a horrendously loud beep-beep-beep that jarred him from sound sleep, and he grunted and slapped it, hoping to get the snooze button on the first whack. It took two tries, but finally, silence again descended. He poked his head out of the covers just far enough to expose one slitted eye. His room was distressingly filled with light for someone who wished it was still midnight. He rolled over and tucked his thick blue blanket around his head, rooted under his pillow for extra protection, and snored himself back to sleep.
But the snooze alarm did its job and jarred him awake again ten minutes later. And ten minutes after that.
“Tyler! Get! Up! You’re going to miss the bus!” his mother’s exasperated voice came up the stairs to prod his ears. Her voice was only slightly less jarring than the alarm. Ty knew if he didn’t get moving, she’d do something no alarm clock ever invented could – bring a glass of cold water to dribble on his head. It wasn’t a pleasant way to wake up, but it was effective.
Ty groaned and rolled over. “Here we go, again!” he mumbled as he lay staring up at posters of outer space plastered over his ceiling. He crammed his pillow over his face and made his traditional Monday morning plea to God, wishing with all his heart that he could change time, zip forward about ten years to when he was all grown up and could look back on an illustrious school career without ever having to actually do it. But that was about as likely to happen as his other favorite fantasy – soaring away into infinity on a starship to see new planets where nothing happened as you planned it and yet everything always turned out right.
School was inevitable as Mom getting mad if he delayed too long and, finally, he shoved the pillow aside, pushed the quilt off his legs and stood up. Ignoring the detritus of dirty clothing, candy wrappers, and assorted stuff that littered his floor, he dressed quickly with very little thought or care. Scuffed and torn blue jeans with a new hole decorating the left knee. Hm. He wondered when he’d done that, but it didn’t really matter. Dirty green tee-shirt that read “Annoying the world one person at a time.” It didn’t smell that bad. What would it matter anyway? Nobody cared. He was small for his age, standing only to the shoulders of his classmates. His thick glasses magnified sky-blue eyes and his teeth stuck out. His clothes were not new or fashionable and he was as skinny as a bundle of firewood sticks. On top of all that, he was smart. With all that stacked against him, he was doomed. The bullies could sniff him out the second he put a foot on school grounds. It wouldn’t matter if he wore Armani suits. In fact, that might actually make it worse.
He stuffed his feet into scuffed red canvas Keds, just threadbare enough to be truly comfortable and with a hole where one pinky toe occasionally stuck out, slung his heavy backpack over one skinny shoulder and plodded down the stairs. If only he wasn’t so healthy! Roger McKinlin had the luck to go and catch pneumonia and got to miss a whole month of school! But try though he might, Ty never got sick. He had walked home in the rain, making sure he stepped in every puddle so his feet were wet and cold. He had made sure Bobby “the Boob” Conklin coughed in his face when he had chickenpox. He had refused to wash his hands for a whole week, no matter how grubby and gross they got. He had even kissed LeAnn Hooper’s cheek in hopes of catching cooties! He shuddered at the memory. That had taken guts. But no dice. Ty remained distressingly and undeniably healthy.
He couldn’t even fake illness. He had a healthy suntanned complexion and bright sparkling blue eyes. Well, that’s how his mother described them. He couldn’t look pasty if he tried. And she had long ago stopped falling for the fake fever trick of sticking the thermometer near a light bulb to heat it up. He’d accidentally heated it to 107 and she’d never left him alone with the thing since.
He dropped his pack on the kitchen floor with a thunk and sat at the table, staring at the toast his mother put before him. She had buttered it, even though she knew he hated it that way. A glass of orange juice stood beside it. He’d rather have apple. And while we’re at it, a slice of chocolate cake, please. He sighed.
“Eat up!” she commanded as she scurried around getting ready for work. There was barely enough room in their small sunny kitchen/dining room for her to walk between the table chairs and the counters without resorting to contortions, but she managed it. She said the exercise did her good.
Ty knew she was just trying to be positive about it. He remembered the kitchen they’d had before Dad died, big and roomy and full of love. A lot of things had changed when Dad died. Their address, their car, their wardrobes, their time. Mom had to go to work to support them so she wasn’t home as much and frown lines and worry creases replaced the laugh lines on her face. Ty played along, being positive because his mom got so sad when he told her he was unhappy.
“You need to eat so you’ll grow!” his mother’s voice brought him back to the present.
Ty mumbled a groan and took a bite of dry, dusty, buttery toast. Just once, he wished she’d slather it with maple syrup. That was his favorite way to eat it. Messy, but delicious.
“Love you, kiddo,” Mom kissed his forehead and mussed his hair even more. “Have a good day. Have you seen my keys?”
“They’re in your briefcase,” Ty mumbled around the crumbs in his mouth, indicating her red leather briefcase, sitting open on the countertop.
“I looked there,” Mom shoved piles of papers around on the countertop, pulled appliances out of place and pushed them back.
She was a short, slender woman, who reminded Ty of a ping pong ball. She was always bouncing here and there, busy doing something. Ty was afraid he’d inherited her size and bone structure instead of his father’s taller more solid shape. Today, Mom was dressed in a business-like gray suit with a pink blouse. Her blonde hair was carefully pooffed and coiffed and her makeup neatly applied as always. Ty thought she was pretty, but he wished she could dress in jeans and tee-shirts and have time to play with him like when he was little. Before . . . yeah. Her keys. “They’re under that file in the blue folder.”
Mom looked at him funny, but she crossed the room to her briefcase and lifted the blue file. “Oh, my goodness! They sure are! How did you know that?”
Ty shrugged. “I saw them.”
Mom raised an eyebrow, but she was in a hurry. “Gotta go, slugger. See you tonight.”
Ty spit out the toast as soon as she left, poured maple syrup over the rest and gobbled every bite. He didn’t notice the sticky brown drips on his chin or shirt. Well, yeah, he did, but he didn’t care.
“Oh, look, it’s the Slob!” his brother Mark quipped as he walked in.
“Go suck an egg,” Ty rejoined, automatically.
Mark plunked his books down and managed to “accidentally” knock over Ty’s orange juice. It sloshed across the table and onto the floor. “Oops. You’re so clumsy,” Mark turned away to get his own breakfast.
Ty opened his mouth, but decided it wasn’t worth the argument. He’d been at verbal wits with Mark since the day he was born and he hadn’t won yet. May as well let it slide and figure out a good retort for next time. He left the juice spill and maple syrup mess where they were. They’d be molecularly bonded to the table and floor later, practically requiring a jack hammer to clean up, but maybe he could find a way to pin it on Mark. With that cheery thought, he slung his backpack across his shoulder again and headed out the door.
“Got all your homework, dude?” Mark asked as he pushed past, nearly knocking Ty off his feet into their mother’s roses.
“I keep telling you, Mark, a dude is an infected boil on a camel’s butt. Do you really want your friends calling you that?” Ty had to cock his head back to look at his big brother. Mark was everything Ty wasn’t. He was tall and blonde, his eyes worked, his teeth were straight, and for some strange reason the girls thought he was cute. He wore scuffed jeans as if they were designer labeled and his tee shirts made his beceps look good. Ty wished he even had any biceps to look good.
Mark just laughed. “Yeah, dude!”
Ty sighed. “Yes, I have all my homework.”
“You didn’t even look. You don’t want Nazi Mom on your case.”
“Yes, I did. She’s not a Nazi. Hey, did you know you have a smashed banana under your math book?”
“Yeah, sure,” Mark strode on. He reached back to swat Ty, but Ty avoided it.
“Really! It’s leaking out the bottom!”
“What?” Mark dropped his pack and bent over it and Ty ran to catch the yellow bus that waited, rumbling, at their corner. He could tell by glancing at it that he wouldn’t be able to get a good seat today. There was a kid in every seat and Greg Patterson and Richard Wilkins were hunkered down behind the third one, waiting to jump out at him and knock everything out of his hands. They did it at least once a week – perhaps demonstrating their lack of creativity – but they always hid in a different spot and chose a different time, so he wouldn’t know where or when to expect them. Sometimes they even let him sweat all week for nothing. They they’d get him twice as bad the following week. Ty was going to get ulcers if they kept this up.
He got the drop on them today. He scooted up the steps and grinned down at his tormentors. “Hi, Greg. Hi, Richard. Drop something?”
They stared at him in surprise and he took advantage of their hesitation to walk by.
The bus started rolling with a lurch and Mark yelled from their yard. He scrambled after the bus, hauling his pack in one hand and hollering for it to wait. The driver saw him – or maybe heard him – and stopped to wait. Mark dropped a textbook on the lawn and skidded to a stop, lurching back for it in a move worthy of the football field. He scooped the book up and clutched it and his pack to his chest as he completed his dash to the bus. By the time he got there, he was livid.
Ty wished he’d been able to find a seat as he looked into Mark’s purple face, but he stood his ground.
“Thanks for the banana, hair brain,” Mark muttered, wiping banana-slimy fingers on the front of Ty’s shirt. He stepped on Ty’s feet in passing and slammed his pack into Ty’s chest, knocking him into the laps of the nearest kids.
Ty struggled (and was shoved) back to his feet and braced himself in the aisle for the ride to school. At least his was the last stop and it would only be a few minutes before he could be invisible. He couldn’t wait to grow up and be done with this nonsense of riding the bus and hauling textbooks full of dry dusty trivia facts he’d never need. He crossed off each day faithfully on his wall calendar, counting down until summer could begin. He wished the countdown would go faster. As it was, there were 142 days left of this school year.
And another five years to go.
He sighed. At least he wouldn’t see Mark again until after school, wouldn’t have to put up with his anger and jibes. It didn’t used to be this way. Mark had been his friend once. But that was before Dad died. Everything good was before Dad died.
He noticed Cindy Rawley scribbling Joey Gunther’s name over and over on her shiny pink notebook, and doodling flowers all around it. Girls were so silly. A few seats back from Cindy, Irene Howley and Eric Foster held hands and made goofy eyes at each other. The Howitzer twins hid behind a magazine giggling. Ty concentrated and suddenly saw that one – Ty could never tell them apart – was drawing a crazy picture of one of the teachers. It was actually quite good. The PE coach was razor thin with a large head and the twin was drawing him with his eyes bugged out, steam coming out his ears and sagging shorts. Ty stifled a snort of laughter.
Wait a minute! He blinked and straightened in surprise. How was he seeing all this? Cindy was hunkered down behind the seat three rows back from where Ty stood. And Irene and Eric’s hands were down on the seat between them. And the Howitzer’s magazine was turned in a way that Ty shouldn’t be seeing what they did, but he could. Amazed at his discovery, Ty didn’t even notice much that the other kids pushed and shoved him around as they were getting off the bus. He dropped his backpack in the dirt, a usual Monday morning kind of thing, but he barely noticed and merely scooped it up again, cramming the papers back in.
This was a wonderful development. His mind swarmed with questions. Where had this power come from? And why? What did it mean?Was he like the super heroes he read about and watched in movies that had their lives turned upside down by mysterious powers? This wasn’t the movies, this was real life, and he didn’t need any more scrambling, thank you. As if puberty wasn’t enough trouble. But then, in the movies, the super heroes got it together and used their powers for good, right? That’s what made them heroes. Ty liked the idea of being a hero. He liked the idea of getting his life together, too.
What kind of hero would he be? What could super sight be good for? Besides looking through walls into bank vaults. He could see fine print from miles away. He could repair fine arts, or perform tricky electronic soldering, or write his homework so teeny no teacher would be able to read it without a magnifying glass!
And what would people call him?
Tyler Fendlesworth, Super Hero.
Naw. Sounded corny.
Superman was taken already.
Wonder Boy? No freakin’ way!
Mighty . . . No, Mark would call him Mighty Mouse. Mark didn’t need any more fodder.
Tyler Transparent.
Maybe. Hm. That one had possibilities.
Ty didn’t know of anybody who needed a super hero, besides himself. Maybe that’s why he’d got the power. So maybe he could help himself. Maybe it meant the end of Ty-the-bullied-and-abused. He could see it now, Greg and Richard would run screaming when he approached because –
The shove from behind startled him so much, he sprawled on his face on the ground before he knew what hit him. Greg and Richard laughed as they walked by, high-fiving each other. Richard kicked Ty’s pack several yards away for good measure.
Ty got up and dusted himself off. Okay, so Ty-the-bullied was still around. He gathered up his books and papers again, dismissing the tears and scuffs on them. He didn’t care much about the state of his homework. It was finished, and finished properly, and that was what mattered. No teacher would believe him anyway, if he told how it got torn up. They’d scold about how he should take better care of it and he’d shrug and mumble that he’d do better and that would be the end of it. Today, he had more important things on his mind. He wondered just how much he’d be able to see and what he’d be able to accomplish with this power. He’d just have to keep an eye peeled for the bullies and not let them sneak up on him again.
Richville Middle School was a tall red-brick structure perched on a small hill near the highway. The buses dropped students off in a semicircle drive in the front, where a double staircase led them up to the wide puke-green front doors. Above the doors engraved words proclaimed ‘Richville High School.’ Ty guessed they’d never bothered to change it from the days when his dad attended high school there. Trees gathered close around the school as if they were holding it up or protecting it. Or maybe trying to hide the white trailers parked in back, serving as extra classrooms.
Ty’s luck (all bad) extended to his assignment of locker (#M437) which was, of course, located on the third floor and at the opposite corner of the school from his first five classes. Backpacks were not allowed in the classrooms, and extra books were discouraged, so he spent his breaks between classes going up and down stairs. He trudged up the wide spiraling stairs to dump his cargo, select his first class books and go back down. Well, on the plus side, he’d not get fat this year.
The morning went better than it usually did. Ty was able to see the bullies hiding behind doors or lurking behind stairway corners or sticking out feet to trip him in class. He saw a lot more than that, too, like the answers to the test in math and several notes passed under the teacher’s nose, some of them rather embarrassing. By the time the day was out, Ty was bursting with excitement. He could barely wait to get home and call Forest, his best friend.
He ran from the bus and tripped trying to get through the front door, finally falling into the hallway in his hurry. His backpack squirted books down the hall like a ketchup pack squished under a heel. Mark followed at a much more sedate pace, trying to look mature for the cute girls on the bus who were leaning up to the windows to watch his behind. He stepped over Ty, barely missing his fingers.
Ty scrambled to his feet and ignored his spilled books. He dropped his backpack in a lump, scrambled into the kitchen, grabbed the phone and dialed Forest’s number with trembling hands. Forest’s mother answered and Ty fidgeted while he waited for her to get his friend, practically dancing with excitement.
Ty and Forest had been friends since kindergarten, since the first time they met.
Okay, not since the first moment. After they had beaten each other up a few times and decided they could share the position of “King of the Playground,” they finally made a truce. The truce developed into an acquaintance, grew into grudging respect and finally strengthened into a lifelong friendship, which lasted even after the school boundaries changed and Forest had to go to a different school. They lived about three blocks apart, easy biking distance, and spent nearly every out-of-school moment together. If either boy’s mother was looking for him, she didn’t have far to look.
Mark came into the kitchen to find something to fill his hollow legs and gave Ty a strange look. “What? Did you win the lottery?”
Ty stuck his tongue out at his brother and dragged the phone into the pantry closet with him, shutting the door behind him. It was dark in there and smelled of garlic and other things that wrinkled his nose, but it was relatively private. He perched on a bucket of flour, under a shelf loaded with cans. The rim of another bucket dug into his shoulder and the dusty air tickled his nose. Finally, Forest came to the phone.
“Ty?”
“Four! You’ll never believe it! Guess what happened?”
“Tyler! Calm down! What?”
“I can see through things!”
Forest snorted. “Come on.”
“I can, Forest! I woke up this morning and I could see through things!” Ty shut his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I could see my mom’s keys under a folder in her briefcase. I saw Greg in history sneaking candy out of his desk. And . . . hold on,” Ty suddenly opened the door as quickly and with as much force as he could.
“Ow!” Mark jumped away, rubbing his head. “I need some sugar!”
“This is a private conversation, Mark!” Ty glared, full emphasis on ‘private.’ “Go away!”
Mark stared at him for a minute, then shrugged. “Okay, you little wimp. Keep your silly little secrets.” He walked away, adding over his shoulder, “I’ll find them out anyway. I always do.”
Ty waited until Mark was completely out of sight before he shut the door again. “Come over, Four. I’ll prove it to you.”
Forest arrived in about two minutes, red-faced and puffing. His straight brown hair was plastered to his head in the shape of his helmet and stuck up all around the edges. He had so many freckles, he always looked dirty. Ty remembered in first grade when they tried to connect all the freckles with a marker, like a dot-to-dot. Four’s mother had not forgotten it yet. Whether she had forgiven Ty yet was still debatable. “What?” Four demanded, gasping for breath. “Show me! How do you do it? How does it work?”
Ty held up his hands. “I don’t know, Four. It just started this morning. Here. You have three nickels and a quarter in your front pocket and a piece of paper in the back one.”
Forest got his change out of his pocket and counted it up. He stared at Ty with wide brown eyes.
“The note,” Ty prompted. “It’s a tardy excuse you forgot to hand in.”
Forest had to pick his jaw up off the ground. “How do you do that?” he asked in awed tones.
Ty shrugged. “It just happens. If I look at something and think about it, I can see through it.”
Forest laughed suddenly. “This could be really useful,” he said with a wink. “Did you by chance walk past the girls’ locker room today?”
Ty didn’t get it for a second. Then he did, and he laughed, too, as his face got hot, more embarrassed by missing the joke than by its contents. He filled Forest in on the events of the day and the two brainstormed for a while. X-ray vision could indeed be a useful talent.
When Mom got home at five-thirty, she looked exhausted. Her whole body looked wilted, like a flower that has been too long in the hot sun. She stepped into the kitchen and stopped in her tracks, staring at the sticky remains of breakfast. “Tyler! Mark!”
“Yeah, Mom?” Ty answered, knowing why she called, but determined to get there first.
“What is this?” She indicated orange juice and syrup brown streaks and puddles across the table and floor.
“What?” Ty played innocent, not too badly, he thought.
“What?! Do I have apes or children living in my house? Clean it up!”
“Mark spilled it. He should clean it.”
Mark arrived just then. “I didn’t spill anything.”
“You toad,” Ty cried, not as outraged as he sounded. “You spilled it on purpose!”
“His juice,” Mark replied and left the room.
Mom cleaned it up, commenting that it was a good thing she’d had tile installed in the dining room, since she had two clumsy elephants for children.
Four stayed for dinner that night, at Ty’s insistence. Usually they ate at Four’s because his mom was a better cook but tonight Ty had a plan. A mean-spirited, evil but delightfully delicious plan. He and Four hid out upstairs, goofing off and trying out Ty’s strange power, until the smell of roast beef and baked potatoes called them to the table. They scrambled down the stairs like a pair of unruly puppies and plopped into chairs. Mom had to remind them to wash. Of course. As if they’d do it without her reminder. Ty waited until the main course was half over before he innocently asked Mark what the note in his pocket was.
Mark looked up, caught flat-footed, surprise and shock battling for space on his face. “Note?”
“Yeah, in the front pocket of your jeans. I saw you put it there,” Ty took a huge bite of potatoes to hide his smile.
Mom glanced over at Mark. “What note?”
Mark tried to look innocent. “It’s a note . . . from a girl in one of my classes.”
Mom smiled. “A love note? How fun!”
“The other one,” Ty prompted.
Mark gave Ty a look full of dirt.
“Other one?” Mom questioned.
Mark took another bite, as if he hoped Mom would get sidetracked and forget about it. But he and Ty both knew better. Mark sighed. “I was supposed to give it to you. I forgot about it.” He fished the offending piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it over, slapping it into his mother’s hand.
Mom unfolded it and read it, her expression changing from curiosity to bafflement to anger. She looked at Mark with a question clear in her eyes.
Mark stared at his plate.
“Well?” Mom demanded in a tone of voice that said she wouldn’t drop it till she got an answer.
Mark cleared his throat and looked everywhere except at his mother.
“Mark, I thought we had worked on this. You still aren’t getting your homework turned in. You are going to have to repeat the grade if you don’t fix this.”
Mark turned red and started to get up. Ty could almost see steam coming out of his ears.
“Oh, no, you don’t, young man. Sit right there and explain to me why your homework hasn’t been handed in in over a month.”
Four and Ty enjoyed every minute of the grilling Mark received. After Four went home, Ty did not enjoy the grilling Mark gave him.
“How did you know about that, you little sneak?” Mark cornered Ty, his eyes so angry Ty actually felt a bit fearful.
“I saw the note.”
Mark said a bad word. “Nobody saw that note. Nobody. I made sure of that. I was going to burn it and do better next week. I don’t need Nazi Mom breathing down my neck. Now, listen up, snot brain. If you ever do something like that to me again, you’ll be walking on your hands for the rest of your life because I’ll wrap your legs around your head and you’ll never get them untangled. Got that?”
Ty nodded. He pulled a face at Mark’s back as he walked away.
Mark turned around. “I heard that.”
“Heard what?” Ty asked innocently.
“What you were thinking. Watch it, creep.”
