Geek Fire

Dragon Girl Book 1

Mel Woodburn

Contents

Author’s Note

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

About the Author

Author’s Note

Hey, Super Reader!

Emma’s adventures are just beginning, so make sure to keep in touch to find out about my upcoming books.

I offer sneak peeks, giveaways, and many other cool things that are just for my inner circle of readers. Follow me on Facebook or join my newsletter.

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Copyright © 2020 by Mel Woodburn

Geek Fire

Dragon Girl, Book 1

By Mel Woodburn

Cover Design by Dan Van Oss

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License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold.

* * *

All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Published by Mel Woodburn. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, contact Mel Woodburn at Mel@MelWoodburn.com

Created with Vellum

To Cillian and Steven

1

Emma Edgin never thought she’d be a superhero, but then again, she never thought she’d fail a class or be diagnosed with a developmental disorder either.

Superheroes weren’t real, but if she didn’t get a handle on this project, she’d flunk English.

Emma spun in her desk chair, twirling herself free from the grip of her project.

The power cord to her laptop tangled on her leg, yanking the computer off the desk. Emma slammed her feet down and caught it before it crashed to the floor, her sparkly glasses flying off her face.

Mr. Sniggles darted out between her legs to cower behind her backpack next to the bedroom door.

Emma held her breath, clutching the laptop to her chest. Had she been too loud? Would Nan wake up? She listened, but her pounding heart drowned everything else out.

Then, Nan’s faint snore echoed through the bathroom connecting their rooms.

Emma set the computer back on its spot on her desk, using it to push bits of paper and clutter out of the way. Then, she blindly groped for her glasses.

That had been close. If the laptop had broken, she wouldn’t get a new one any time soon. She doubted Hannah would give her another one. Though, maybe her cousin would like the excuse to get herself a new one.

If Nan had woken up, she would have demanded to know why Emma was up at two in the morning. Then, after Emma said “to finish a project due in the morning,” Nan would have asked why she hadn’t started it earlier.

Emma didn’t have a good answer. Even after she’d written down all the due dates and pieces of the project, she hadn’t known how to get started. She couldn’t figure out where to begin. And the whole thing sat in the pit of her stomach like spoiled yogurt, making her nauseous.

She was spinning again. Spinning away from the ache in her belly, spinning away from the fear of what might happen if she didn’t turn it in. Nan never let her spin.

Emma needed to get to work on her “My Future” project. She hadn’t even picked a career, let alone started researching it. Maybe if she started writing about what she wanted, she would get something worth turning in. She opened the laptop and wrote, When I graduate I want to be a…

The flashing cursor mocked her.

Stupid. So stupid. How could she not know what she wanted to be?

How was a freshman like her supposed to know what she wanted to do with herself? How could she know what her future would hold? She wouldn’t even apply to college until junior year.

Emma stood, kicked the chair back to the desk, and paced her room. With the twin bed lofted up over the desk, it felt bigger than Nan’s room even though they were both the size of a dime.

Emma needed the space to move. She stood next to the dresser. Careful not to touch the million scraps of paper she’d dumped out of her backpack, she spun the wooden globe and watched the steampunk-looking continents blur together.

If only she could figure out what she wanted to be, she could start researching it and turn in something the next day. Heck, if only she could pick something to research.

Picking a college was easy. CowTown was close enough she could come home on weekends if she needed to. But if she didn’t get this project turned in, she’d fail English and wouldn’t be going anywhere because she’d have tanked her GPA and her whole future. All in freshman year.

Her favorite books mocked her from their perch above her desk with their lack of useful career paths. Dracula, Swim Faster, and Prism Universe. That last might offer a project. When she was a kid, she’d wanted to be an astrophysicist like Donna Pern. Maybe she should write about that. She knew enough about that to kind of get started. It’d be a STEM field like Nan kept pushing her to do. It just… wasn’t her anymore.

Her laptop chimed, and Emma hurried back to see the message.

What gives? Ollie messaged. Are you really up this late? Ollie was just as disorganized as Emma, but at least Ollie had a plan.

Ollie… Emma typed back.

Working on your my future project?

At least with Ollie she could be honest about her struggles with this stupid project. No one else knew how far behind she was on this thing. She wasn’t ready to pick a career and be stuck forever.

Pick a job yet?

I wish. Maybe astrophysics, but Emma sent the message, incomplete as it was. She fiddled with the handle to the desk drawer. It had been loose for a while. She was kind of waiting to see if it would fall off or if something would happen to it.

But you don’t want to do that anymore.

Before Emma could answer, another message came through.

I’m uploading some pics to BigPhotos. Maybe I’ll actually sell something and get some money for an outfit for the spring formal.

Emma sighed. That was another thing. She still hadn’t picked out a dress or even been asked. Not like Ollie would have a date either. Her friend was too much of a tomboy for that. She could always go stag with Ollie like they had for the eighth-grade formal, but she’d rather go with someone.

How’s your project going? Emma asked, desperate to get the attention off herself. If she could help Ollie with some part of her project, Emma wouldn’t feel so bad about neglecting her own. Besides, Emma just wanted to go to sleep and maybe she’d figure out this project thing in the morning. Not that she’d have time in the morning.

Through some miracle of miracles, it’s done. Helps I’m already selling pictures and looking for new places to sell them.

Emma sighed and walked away from the desk to swing from the lofted bed’s ladder. She should be happy Ollie had finished her project. Ollie was ready for the future. She’d already planned out how she’d be living as a traveling photographer, seeing the world, and all that.

Still, Emma usually helped Ollie figure her homework out last minute—when she was awake late enough for Ollie’s night owl tendencies.

Just for a moment, Emma put her head down, trying to remember why astrophysics had interested her. So what if Dr. Pern was super cool? What was it about space she’d liked in the first place?

Before space, it had been marine biology; odontoceti, toothed whales, porpoises, and dolphins. Why had that fascinated her so much?

Hawaii had the best undergrad program for marine biology, but it didn’t interest her anymore. Besides it was too far away from Nan.

Nan needed her.

Her laptop chimed and, bleary eyed, she lifted her head. She’d sent a mess of letters and numbers ending in a string of dozens of semi-colons. To Andres.

She hadn’t even been messaging the cutie from Dredgetown High’s speech team.

Hola linda. K pasa?

Emma blushed. Andres had gotten her gibberish message.

Chime. A message from Ollie. Don’t you want to be awake for practice in the morning? Chime. Go to bed.

Emma sent a flurry of messages. But I’ll fail English. If I fail English I can’t go to swim championships

or the speech tournament

Or the spring formal

Or graduate

Or go to college

Or go anywhere out of Nan’s sight

ever

Ollie didn’t answer.

Emma scooted the hand-me-down chair away from the desk and spun. This time, the wonky wheel came off and she crashed into the bed frame.

Dang it.

“Emma,” Nan called through the paper-thin walls. “You’d better not be up!”

What could she— “I think Mr. Sniggles fell off the desk.” Emma tried to make her voice sound sleepy. Would Nan would buy the lie? The ancient cat was pretty clumsy.

“If I come over there and you’re not in bed…”

Emma didn’t bother waiting to see what Nan would do. Instead, she slammed the laptop shut and hoisted herself onto the top bunk in the sudden darkness. She tucked Elna Gabbie—her most precious Cabbage Patch Kid—under her arm and pulled the blanket over her head.

Nan would either check on her or start snoring again, then Emma could get back to work.

But before she knew it, her phone beeped in her ear and her Charlie Chaplin clock blew a whistle, shouting, “Wake up! Wake up! You’re late! You’re late!”

Outside, it was still dark, but she needed to get up and bike to morning swim practice. Somehow, she’d figure out this project. It would have to work itself out. If not…

If not, she was in some major trouble. Not just with Nan, but she’d have thrown away her whole future on not being able to start this stupid paper.

2

Even with the rotten yogurt feeling in her stomach growing worse, Emma made it through morning swim practice and math.

If only second period English didn’t have to happen. When class started, a heavy stone bounced and kicked inside her belly. She hadn’t turned in her project to turn-it-in.com. She didn’t bring anything to turn in at all.

Halfway through class, Mr. Attwood passed around a printout of their grades with only their student ID numbers as identification.

When the sheet reached Emma, she traced her fingers over the smooth paper, until they found her number. A big, fat F stared at her. The zero on the My Future project dropped her grade to 48%.

The rotten yogurt feeling gave way to hollowness. Her eyes burned. She blinked, and her back went rigid. The rest of the class passed in a blur.

Somehow, seeing it in print made it real, even though she’d known it was coming.

On the whiteboard, Mr. Attwood’s precise handwriting spelled out this week’s poem. Robert Frost, too familiar.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I, I took the one less traveled by.

Emma snorted. Failing English was the one less traveled by for honor’s students, but that didn’t mean throwing away her whole future was the path that she wouldn’t regret later.

The bell rang, and by the time she shuffled zombielike to the end of the row of English classrooms and around through the trailers to Advanced Placement Human Geography break ended. APHuG. The classroom felt like anything but a hug. In a fog, she passed Ms. Range’s World War II posters. The Lincoln-Douglass busts, their closed-mouth smiles mocking her. The Man in the Iron Mask replica mask mournfully stared at her as she made her way to her seat in the center of the front row. Ms. Range loved that historically inaccurate movie.

Overwhelmed, Emma’s eyes scrambled for a place to rest until she found the clock over the cluttered whiteboard. The charcoal gray numbers against the faint background clicked when they changed. 10:32 a.m. The clock was digital, so she never understood the faint click the numbers made when they changed, but click they did.

10:33 a.m.

Odd. So not divisible by two or four. Didn’t end in five or zero, so not divisible by five. The digits added up to seven, so not divisible by three.

Maybe seven?

Seven into ten, would leave three. Thirty-three by seven would be four. Thirty-three less twenty-eight left five—fifty-three. No.

Not eleven. Thirteen?

Maybe eight times thirteen for… umm… eighty plus thirty-two… too much. Also, that would be even. Seven times thirteen, Seventy plus twenty-one made—

“Emma’s crying,” someone said.

“What? The ice queen is actually crying?” her stupid cousin asked.

Emma had told Hannah not to call her that at least a dozen times. But Hannah would tell her robots couldn’t have their feelings hurt. It didn’t seem to matter what Emma said.

“I’m not,” Emma said, playing the numbers game to calm her roiling emotions. Okay, one hundred and three minus ninety-one left twelve. With the three made one hundred and twenty-three—but 10:33 wasn’t divisible by three.

All of a sudden, Ms. Range was there, kneeling in front of her.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Ms. Range’s breath smelled like chocolate. Emma was pretty sure Ms. Range had a stash of M&Ms in her desk.

“I’m fine.” That was Emma’s normal answer. That’s what you said no matter what, right?

“Emma, you’re crying.” Ms. Range pointed to her face.

Emma touched her cheeks. Now that she realized it, the hot, wet streaks started to sting. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment.

Ms. Range’s brown eyes drilled into her.

Emma looked down at the whorls in the fake wood of the desk. “I—” Emma stammered, trying to come up with something to say.

After an awkward moment, Connor said she’d freaked out in English class.

Emma’s cheeks burned hotter.

On the class phone, Ms. Range called Mr. Attwood.

“I’ve got Emma Edgin doing the crying thing. Did something happen in your class?” Ms. Range pitched her voice soft, but the whole class stared at Emma.

She put her head on her desk. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. She’d ruined her life by failing Honors English because she hadn’t done the stupid future project, and now everyone was going to find out what a screw up she was.

She could not be flaming out of high school. With one paper, she’d flushed away her entire future. School was over. College was gone. Her whole life was over and nothing would work itself out. She couldn’t save this. She didn’t even know how to run away and find something else or somewhere else to go.

Ms. Range kept murmuring into the phone. All the while, the whole class’s eyes darted from Ms. Range to Emma and back again with every nod and mm-hmm.

Finally, Ms. Range asked Emma to follow her. Outside, Emma stared up at the blue sky. The warm spring sun burned Emma’s bare shoulders. Thanks to all the plants in bloom, her eyes itched and her nose tickled.

Emma sneezed. Stupid allergies.

“Have you ever been tested for a developmental disorder?” Ms. Range asked. Her brown lips pursed in what might be a gentle frown of concern.

“What?” Emma asked, incredulous. “Like a learning disability?”

No one had ever suggested anything like that before. Emma was near the top of her class. Not number one, she was too disorganized for that, but, still, she always aced the standardized tests and—“How dare you!”

“Hear me out,” Ms. Range said, holding up a finger as if to buy herself some time.

Emma crossed her arms and turned away, then realized that was rude. Even though she didn’t want to listen to Ms. Range, she turned back. Emma wasn’t stupid. Nan always pushed her to do her best, but maybe her best wasn’t good enough for high school.

“There are different kinds of developmental disorders.” Ms. Range took a deep breath and re-plastered a smile on her face. “What happened with your English project? Is it true you didn’t turn in a single part?”

“I just… It was too much. I don’t know what I want to be. I just couldn’t get started.”

“That right there sounds like it an executive function issue.” Ms. Range shoulders dropped. “We’ll schedule a meeting this afternoon with you, me, your grandmother, Mr. Attwood, Mr. Wale, and Ms. Ngo, and we’ll figure this out.” Ms. Range smiled, making shadows appear in the creases between her cheeks and nose.

Emma’s mouth might as well have been stuffed with cotton balls. What would she do with so many people all being in one small office with her?

“Emma, are you listening?”

Emma nodded absently. To be stared at by a roomful of people—authority figures—figuring out if she was broken.

“There’s nothing wrong with having a developmental disorder. If you do, we might be able to work out an alternate schedule for your project, that way you can still pass English and—”

“And what? If I have a learning disability, how can I go to college and do all the things I need to be successful?” Emma’s voice came out loud and shrill. She didn’t sound like herself at all. Ashamed, she looked away.

At the window, half the class had pushed the blinds aside and stared out at them.

“Relax. It won’t be like that. Whatever happens, we want to make sure you get the support you need.” Ms. Range tucked a dark braid behind her ear. “If not, we’ll figure out what went wrong with this project and get things settled, okay? Besides, sweetheart, you’re a freshman. You have time to course correct.”

Emma didn’t know what to say. Yeah, she was quirky, but how could anyone think she had some kind of learning disorder? There wasn’t anything wrong with her. She was just a regular teenager. A regular teenager who procrastinated so much on her English project she never turned it in.

Procrastination was normal, wasn’t it?

3

Emma ducked out of geometry a few minutes early and rushed across the small quad toward the band room. It was weird seeing the grassy area so empty. The blonde jerk Blake Brewer had Alex beet red near the trees by the English classrooms. Any other day, Emma would have stopped to defend her friend against the bully, but if she didn’t set up her saxophone before Ollie got to band, Emma would have to explain why she’d disappeared at lunch and what was going on with her project.

Settled in the band room, Emma stared at the new music in front of her. Maybe the meeting Ms. Range had promised would be put off for another day. No one’d talked to her about English since third period.

Ollie rushed into the room during warm-up, her sweat-damp shirt clung to her curves. Her PE class was on the opposite side of campus and she never had time to shower before band. Once she set up her bass clarinet, she headed straight to Emma’s side. “What’s wrong?” Ollie asked, adjusting her neck strap.

Emma wanted to fix her own neck strap and tell Ollie about the her grade in English. But she didn’t trust herself to talk, so she muddled through the new music for graduation.

Halfway through “Pomp and Circumstance,” the classroom phone rang. Emma sucked in a breath around her mouth piece.

Frowning, Ms. Burbach drew her arms in a wide circle and stretched them out to her sides, cutting off the song. Then she turned her back to get the phone. The teacher’s grey beehive bobbed up and down.

Anxious, Emma gummed the mouthpiece of her saxophone, her anxiety building. This was it. The meeting was happening today after all. What were they telling Ms. Burbach? Would she tell everyone that Emma was a loser failing English?

After what seemed like forever, Ms. Burbach turned to the class. “Emma, report to the office. Everyone else, from the top.” Ms. Burbach already had her baton back in hand and tapped it on the edge of the music stand, starting the song with the others.

Emma retreated to the back of the room to put up her horn. Everyone except Ollie was already playing again. Only Ollie watched Emma slink out of the room.

Ashamed, Emma dug her nails into her palms, she’d never been called out of class like this before. The sun beat down on her, even though it was only March. Her pits felt damp, and an oniony scent followed her. Everyone would be able to smell her in Mr. Wale’s tiny office. This meeting was going to suck.

A half dozen classrooms stood between the band room and the office. While she couldn’t see in their tinted windows, she imagined dozens of students staring out at her as she headed to the meeting with Nan and half the staff.

Passed the classrooms, the Nottoli Dome stood like a relic of another time. Rumor said it had been a real airplane hanger during World War II. Whether or not that was true, it looked like it could have been. She felt as outgunned as a fighter pilot from back then would be in a dogfight against today’s planes.

The office loomed ahead of her. Her feet scraped the sidewalk as she struggled to bring herself to the cramped office. This was the end of her high school career. Still, she dragged herself forward.

With the office’s brick walls and lack of windows, Emma might as well have been headed to prison. She avoided the office and the authority figures housed inside as much as possible. No way could she handle a conversation like this. Keeping eye contact while talking with the school counselor left her practically in tears when the woman just wanted to be friendly.

Emma stared at her reflection in the glass door for a second before heading in.

Nan stood in front of the secretary’s desk. Her lips pressed together so hard they’d turned white. She glared at the secretary, at Emma when she dared walk into the office, at Mr. Wale’s door, at anything she could frown at. “What do you mean you didn’t turn in a single part of your English project?”

Emma backed towards the door, but Nan caught her by the arm.

“We’re going to get this sorted out. Then, you’ll be grounded. Forever.”

Emma scraped her teeth over her bottom lip. What should she say? Being grounded couldn’t be worse than having her whole future thrown away over her inability to get this stupid English project started.

The counselor, Mrs. Smith, stepped out of her office, a warm smile replacing her normally severe expression. “Emma, Mrs. Edgin.”

“Edgin was my daughter’s married name. It’s Harrington.” Nan crossed her arms over her chest as her mouth did that pinchy thing.

“I’m sorry. My mistake.” Mrs. Smith didn’t wilt at all under Nan’s imperious tone. “The meeting will actually be in the special education room. That way there’ll be enough space for everyone to be comfortable. Mr. Wale and the teachers involved are already there.”

The special ed room? Emma didn’t need to be seen going in there. That was even worse than being seen going into the office. At least she could play off a trip to the office. Teachers were always trying to send the honors students to talk to Mrs. Smith.

They weren’t allowed to call her Miss or Miz Smith, only ever Missus and she would let you know if you misspoke. None of the other female teachers or staff insisted on being called Missus. Only Mrs. Smith, whom Emma suspected was slightly crazy.

Although, Emma felt crazy paranoid herself. She found herself looking all over for any witnesses who might see Mrs. Smith leading her and Nan away from the office, behind the track, to a tiny trailer that was almost all the way to the continuation school across the football field. Which was where she’d end up next, anyway.

This trailer was smaller than the ones the English and history classes were in. And it had a door at either end which meant the tiny trailer housed two classrooms.

Emma hung back by the door. If she went in the special ed room, was she admitting she was “special?”

No. She wasn’t. She just needed this extra chance to finish her project. Nothing was wrong with her. She wasn’t special. Emma was top of her class and smart.

“Classroom” was a generous term for the tiny room in front of her. Barely bigger than the storage area between Mr. Attwood’s room and the one next door and crammed with grownups. It still felt more inviting than Ms. Range’s room.

The grownups sat at a large, round table. Mr. Wale fingered his tie. Today’s had a green alien and a spaceship on it. Mr. Attwood picked up his phone. Ms. Range hugged herself and stared at a young Asian woman Emma had never met before.

A thick silence hung between them, as if they’d stopped a heated discussion when Mrs. Smith opened the door. After a moment, Ms. Range said hello, and the others echoed her.

Emma swallowed hard.

An enormous beanbag in the far corner tempted Emma to throw herself onto it and sob. It looked so comfortable. In fact, the whole classroom had a simple, comforting feel. Unlike most classrooms,, whose walls drowned Emma with their clutter. Instead of being overcrowded with projects, quotes, reminders, grade postings, and whatever else a teacher might cram onto the walls, these were almost bare.

Only the front wall had a whiteboard. The back wall had a calendar and two black and white posters that weren’t inspirational. They had practical descriptions of some routines the special ed teacher must follow in her class. The curtains were all drawn to block out the view of the field, and the wall across from the door and the windows was completely blank. Emma’s eyes could rest here because it felt safe.

The simplicity comforted her until she stepped inside the frigid room. Goosebumps peppered her arms making her wish she’d brought a sweater. Usually the trailer classrooms matched the weather outside because of the lack of insulation, but this one was freezing.

Mr. Wale stood, his chair groaning in relief. “Thank you, Mrs. Burbach.” He gestured for them to sit in the remaining two chairs.

Mrs. Burbach left them there.

To Emma, Nan looked ridiculous as she pulled out the bright orange chair to sit in. An uncomfortable giggle tried to force its way out of her mouth, but she didn’t need to upset Nan anymore.

Being grounded on top of ruining her future would be awful. Tightness filled the base of Emma’s throat, and her stomach churned.

“Emma and Mrs. Harrington, you both understand why we’ve asked you here this afternoon?” Mr. Wale settled his bulk back into the orange chair.

“My granddaughter screwed up and didn’t turn in a project for English class.” Nan’s voice came out sharp and brittle.

Emma was in for a tongue lashing on the drive home.

“That’s one way to put it, if a little harsh,” the teacher Emma didn’t know said. The teacher’s shirt was crisp white, and her dark hair piled around her shoulders.

Emma stared at her. The shape of this woman’s hair was familiar. Emma had seen her around, but had never associated this woman with the special needs kids.

The young teacher offered her hand to Emma’s grandma. “I’m Natalie Ngo, the special education teacher.”

Nan ignored her.

Ms. Ngo held it out for a moment, blinking her dark eyes slowly. Then she turned to Emma and offered her the hand instead. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emma.”

“Thank you.” Emma should say something like the pleasure is all hers or it was a pleasure to meet her. Those were the right kinds of things to say, but she wasn’t going to lie. Meeting the special ed teacher to get tested for learning disorders was the opposite of a pleasure.

“We’ve reviewed Emma’s records and have spoken with some of her other teachers, and we feel testing for some developmental disorders would be a good idea. Her third grade teacher suspected she might have autism.” Mr. Wale frowned at Nan. “But testing was declined.”

Emma chewed her lip. She hadn’t known that. Why would her teacher have recommended her for testing? She’d gotten exceptional marks across the board that year. Well, except for organization and PE.

“I’m declining it again.”

Emma blinked in shock.

“Excuse me?” Mr. Wale sat back a little in his tiny orange seat. “I’m sorry, Ms. Harrington. I’m afraid you don’t understand—”

“No, you don’t understand. My granddaughter isn’t stupid. She just let a few deadlines go.” Nan stood up and grabbed Emma’s arm. “We’re leaving. Now.”

“Ma’am, please sit down,” Ms. Ngo stood up, facing off with Nan. Her lips curled in a light smile. “We all agree your granddaughter is very smart.” Ms. Ngo waved them back into their chairs. “We see that from her test scores and the work she does in class.”

“She’s very insightful,” Ms. Range added.

“But, I’m afraid, she has problems that aren’t purely academic,” Ms. Ngo said, keeping her tone even. “She seems to struggle with peer interactions. Not to mention the amount of homework assignments she claims to have completed but hasn’t been able to turn in.”

“What does that—”

“Like all of them,” Emma murmured to herself.

Almost every day she had that problem, until she started keeping a spiral notebook just for homework. That notebook lived in her backpack, and she didn’t tear out the homework until it was time to turn it in. When she tried binders, it seemed like her papers just went everywhere, and it didn’t matter where she put them, but the homework notebook and keeping handouts in her textbooks had finally gotten her on track that year.

Nan stared at Emma as if she’d never seen her before.

“That’s good to know.” Ms. Ngo wrote in her notebook.

Mr. Attwood’s phone buzzed.

Emma flinched.

“We’re not saying you’re stupid, Emma.” Ms. Range smiled at her while Mr. Wale tugged at his tie and Mr. Attwood frowned at his phone.

“Problems with deadlines,” Ms. Ngo said, ticking off her fingers, “trouble getting started, losing things you’ve already done, and general disorganization are all part of a process we call executive function.”

It took Emma a few moments to realize all eyes were on her, but she didn’t know what they expected her to say.

“It looks like you’ve struggled with these issues for some time.” Ms. Ngo reclaimed her seat and invited Emma to do the same with her hand. “The notes in your permanent record say similar things about your problems with organization and how you keep trying to reinvent yourself into an organized person. Do you feel like these kinds of things are harder for you than for others?”

Emma started to answer, but Nan talked over her. “She might be disorganized, but—”

What was Emma supposed to do when Nan talked over her like that? Half the time, Nan answered wrong, but if Emma tried to correct her, Nan said she was being disrespectful.

Ms. Ngo held up her hand. “Please, let Emma answer my question.”

Emma sat down. She felt almost at ease with Ms. Ngo. She started working the grime out from under her nails. The sensation of one fingernail passing under the other soothed her.

“What did you want to say, Emma?” Ms. Range asked, putting Emma even more on the spot.

Everyone was here to help her pass English and figure this out, right? “I… yeah. I’ve always had trouble being organized. I want to be, but it’s like I can’t keep things straight.”

“We can help you find workarounds and ways to organize yourself.” Ms. Ngo’s voice sped up. Was she excited about helping Emma fix this? “It’s all about learning what works for you.”

Emma glanced up, but all the eyes kept boring into her. Her eyes brimmed with tears. She couldn’t tell where to look with so many people and she just wanted to melt into the background. She studied her nails instead. Ms. Ngo might be friendly and all, but this was too much.

“There are a few different conditions that can affect your executive function,” Ms. Ngo said, gesturing for Nan to reclaim her chair again.

This time, Nan sat, but she didn’t look happy about it.

“We want to figure out which one you might have so we can give you the support you need, both with executive function and any other challenges you’ve been smart enough to compensate for.”

“Any other challenges?” Emma repeated.

Everyone stared at her.

Was that a stupid question? If she really were a robot with no feelings, things wouldn’t get to her.

“Sweetheart. We’re all here for you.” Ms. Range rubbed her arms. She looked as cold as Emma felt. “We want to get you tested to give you the supports you need.”

Mr. Attwood snorted. “Only if she actually has one of these conditions and isn’t just being lazy.” He reached for his phone again.

Mr. Wale put his hand on Mr. Attwood’s. “Aaron, we all know you’re going through some issues at home, but you should have noticed an honor student missing this many assignments in a row.” Mr. Wale leaned forward in his chair. “Emma doesn’t have a reputation as lazy. Something like this is a major red flag for any number of problems.”

Mr. Attwood slid the phone into his shirt pocket. What kind of problems did he have?

“Let’s just continue on with the interview,” Ms. Range said. “We’ll start with this, and then we’ll probably have you meet with someone more qualified to diagnose these kinds of things.”

Ms. Ngo reached across the table and patted Emma’s hands. “Do you struggle with anything else that seems to come easily to your friends?”

Emma jerked her hands back. She didn't want to be touched. That derailed her from the question. She tried to remember the question, but Mr. Attwood’s phone buzzed in his pocket and Mr. Wale glared at him.

Ms. Ngo gave Emma a reassuring smile and nodded. “What about things you do that you try to hide or don’t get to do as much as you would like because other people think it’s weird?”

“What kind of questions are these?” Nan demanded. “Everyone has their quirks. My granddaughter just needs a clear schedule. What kind of people are you, expecting a fourteen-year-old to pick what she wants to do for the rest of her life? She’s got plenty of time to decide.”

“I don’t expect you to stick with the career you research for this project,” Mr. Attwood said. “Just pick something you’re interested in. The idea is to help you to evaluate potential career paths.”

All the teachers started talking at once.

Emma’s eyes itched and she fought the urge to rub them. Stupid allergies. She lost the thread of the conversation. Too many people talking at once made it impossible to follow anything.

What did Mr. Attwood mean she didn’t have to stick to the career she picked? Anything else would have been a lie. Emma shivered. Why was it so cold in there?

Everyone turned to her again. Had she missed a question?

“I think too many people are talking,” Ms. Ngo said after Emma remained silent for what must have been too long. Ms. Ngo stood and gestured across the table for Emma to stand. “Emma, come sit on the beanbag, so you and I can chat. While we figure out what’s going on, your Nan can talk to the others about what we’re doing here. How does that sound?"

“Good,” Emma said, though she felt a little patronized. She did need to get away from all the eyes staring at her.

Relieved, Emma left the table and flopped onto the beanbag. Too late, she realized she was wearing a skirt. Hoping she hadn’t flashed her teachers, Emma tugged her skirt down and shifted her knees to the side.

“I know we’ve just met, but what other kinds of things do you find hard?” Ms. Ngo brought over a chair. “It seemed to me that you were struggling to follow what everyone was saying.”

“I don’t like everyone focusing on me,” Emma said. “I just want to fit in.”

“Sorry, I guess we were interrogating you a little bit.” Ms. Ngo didn't force the eye contact thing. “So, you have trouble with big groups of people or people in general?”

She was really easy to talk to. “I never know what to say. I express myself way better in writing than out loud.” Emma rubbed the beanbag’s soft fabric. It felt comforting to her overly raw nerves.

Ms. Ngo nodded as if that made perfect sense. The others’ voices carried over, but Ms. Ngo was patient. “It seems to me you have trouble following the thread of the conversation if there’s a lot of people talking or a lot of side conversations. Is that true?”

She wished it was different. “I guess I smile and nod a lot. It seems like there’s a lot of times everyone’s laughing at a joke and I just didn’t hear it or didn’t get it.” Emma started cleaning under her nails again.

“I hear some kids call you ice queen. Why do you think that is?”

Emma shrugged. She didn’t get it. At all.

Ms. Ngo tipped her head to the side and lightly clasped her hands, watching Emma, but not making eye contact. “Do you want to be tested?”

Emma didn’t look up. “I don’t want to fail English.”

“I’m referring you for an interview with a psychologist associated with our school district.” Ms. Ngo rubbed her knee with two of her fingers, one nail longer than the other. “He’ll ask you this type of question. We’ll get your grandmother to agree. Before the interview, try writing what you struggle with that others don’t seem to or things you hide because other people think they’re weird. Okay?”

She could do that. “Whatever.” Emma stopped playing with her nails.

“And you’ll meet with me tomorrow during sixth period.”

“What about band? I can’t miss class.”

“One day will be fine. We’ll set up an alternate schedule for your project and look for ways to help you manage executive function type tasks. That way, you can get a handle on organizing yourself.”

Emma shrugged. The click of the clock drew her attention. 3:19 already! Over an hour had passed. How had she not heard the bell signaling the end of the school day? She was late for swim practice.

But things were looking… hopeful?

Or not. It was too soon to tell.

4

Leaving the classroom, Emma felt lighter. She wasn’t relieved exactly. At least she didn’t think so. She still had an interview with a psychologist to look forward to, and who knew what that would be like or when that would happen? But at least she had extra time for her project now. She wasn’t going to fail out of high school her freshman year.

Instead of being oppressively hot, now the sun kissed her skin. Birds chirped in the trees. Sweet smelling flowers filled the planters between classrooms. It would be a great day if her allergies didn’t hate her.

Nan was talking, her tone sharp, but Emma ignored her. It sucked that her teachers had suspected she was special needs before this screwup.

What sucked worse was that Nan had ignored them. Did that mean she didn’t love Emma anymore now that… others knew?

Emma rubbed her nose, trying to stave off a sneeze. Maybe she would figure out her stupid future project after all. Since it didn’t matter if she wanted the job, she’d just pick something.

On the football field and the track, a handful of shirtless guys practiced with the rest of the track team.

Emma grinned, then her stomach turned to ice. The track team was practicing right here, next to the special ed room that she had just walked out of with the principal, the special ed teacher, Nan, and the honors teachers.

Hannah was on the track team.

Where was she? And that awful friend of hers, Summer would be with her.

There, on the far straight part of the track. Summer and Hannah matched in a sick way. Both girls had their hair pulled up in chubby buns, Summer’s blonde and Hannah’s dark. They’d see her any moment now.

Anxious, Emma turned to Nan to tell her she needed to go, but Nan was chatting with Ms. Ngo and Mr. Attwood about setting up an alternate schedule. Emma looked for somewhere to hide.

Hannah and Summer reached the part of the track closest to them. Hannah pointed straight at Emma and said something to Summer.

If only Emma could fly away. That was the only way to escape them now.

Even in the middle of track practice, while their teammates were drenched in sweat, Hannah and Summer both looked pristine with perfect red lipstick. Sparkly eye shadow decorated their eyes along with streakless mascara.

“Nan, Emma,” Hannah called out in a tone Emma had learned to dread. “What are you doing here?”

Emma waited for Nan to answer for her as she always did. But, for once, Nan seemed as at a loss for words as Emma.

“We had a meeting.” Ms. Range pitched her voice firm, but her mouth was smiling.

“What kind of meeting?” Hannah turned her shark-tooth grin on Emma.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nan said, moving slightly to stand between them.

Emma wouldn’t dare keep asking questions when Nan talked like that, but Hannah did what she wanted and always pushed for more.

The distant roar of an engine pulled Emma’s attention away from whatever humiliation her cousin was planning. It sounded wrong. The whining buzz hurt Emma’s ears.

“I do worry about my cousin. She cried this morning in geography.” Hannah reached towards Emma.

Face burning, Emma stepped back from Hannah’s mock sympathy.

“That’s not at all like her,” Hannah continued, ignoring Emma’s withdrawal.

A green glow started on the western horizon, but no one else seemed to notice. Emma tingled when she focused on the green light. Was that fear or something else? She sneezed. Snot flew out of her nose. She wiped it away with her shirt sleeve. She guessed the tingling was from all the dumb pollen in the air.

Summer scrunched up her face in a ‘oh gross’ expression and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. Miss Perfect better lay off or Emma would sneeze on her for real. As soon as she figured out this green glow. She’d never seen anything like it before and it wasn’t fading away.

“Emma’s your cousin?” Ms. Ngo asked.

“That’s why I’m so worried about her.” Hannah worked whatever magic it was she used to twist people around her finger, but Emma could see right through her.

The engine sound intensified, making Emma’s stomach roil the way the TV did when it was on but not playing anything. It was like that feeling but times a million.

Summer tucked the same hair back into place.

“If you must know, we have a new program for orphans,” Ms. Range said. “Your cousin will work with others who have lost their parents.”

Emma winced, either from the lie or from the intensity of the buzzing from the weird engine, she wasn’t certain.

“Well, that’s boring,” Hannah said.

The roar grew louder.

Emma’s whole body vibrated with the sound.

Finally, the others turned towards the sound and the green light growing on the horizon. The engine roar shook Emma’s whole body. She clapped her hands over her ears to protect them. Still, the roar grew louder.

The teachers and the track team froze and stared up at the sky, looking for the source of the bone rattling pain.

In addition to the glow spreading through the sky, a nebulous green cloud appeared over of the horizon. In the center of the cloud, a thing rose over the tree-line.

It was shaped like an egg and a football mashed together, with the front end flatter and the back end flaring out before coming to a narrow point behind it. The thing had no wings.

A few track team kids pulled out their cell phones and started filming. The thing dominated half the sky and didn’t leave a contrail behind it like a rocket ship would.

She didn’t want to call it a UFO, but it was flying and she couldn’t identify it as a rocket, or a plane, or a helicopter, or anything else that should be in the sky. So, what else could it be, but an unidentified flying object?

Fascinated, Emma stared at this thing.

Even Nan and Hannah stopped talking, though she doubted their voices could have carried over the horrible noise. If she could escape back inside the classroom, it would be quieter. Eventually the roaring faded or else her ears were giving up on hearing. The thing grew smaller—it must have been traveling higher and higher into the atmosphere. Then, only the buzz remained.

What the heck was that thing?

5

The next morning, Emma’s jaw ached so bad it woke her up before her alarm went off. As she got dressed for school, she turned on the TV to listen to the news like she always did. Usually, she paid more attention to the weather, but today Valerie Virgo, with her plastic smile and bouncy hair, told the whole Sacramento area that EastTech had taken credit for the rocket launch the day before.

Emma froze, her shorts half-buttoned when the screen cut to EastTech founder Johana Sklowdowska.

The woman’s hair stuck up every which way with a few flat patches as if she had tried to pat it down and failed. “I apologize if our launch caused anyone distress or undue excitement about aliens. That was not our intention.” She paused and smoothed her crumpled blazer, drawing her shoulders back like she saw how hunched she was. “We did have all the appropriate permits in place, but neither we at EastTech nor the government realized that the launch would be quite so visual or impactful.”

Emma shook her head and continued getting dressed. How could they not realize a rocket launch would be a big deal?

“In order to minimize anyone’s distress at this launch or confusion, we would like to be very clear.” Ms. Sklowdowska took off her chunky glasses and chewed on the end. “This was our launch. No aliens were involved. Nor do we expect any problems to come from it. No radioactive materials were used and there is nothing to be afraid of.”

Emma snorted. Yeah right. As if she didn’t know about the launch or the social media storm that had followed it. What had been the green glow then? This denial only made it look more like the government and EastTech were trying to cover up a real UFO.

At school, no one got any work done in any of their classes. Math, science, English, geography, it didn't matter. Instead, they just wondered if EastTech had launched the rocket or if it had come from something else, something alien.

While it definitely helped to keep everyone’s mind off of Emma crying in class the day before, it didn’t help her forget about the meeting she was about to have with Ms. Ngo later that day or how she would tell Ollie about the My Future project fallout. She’d ditched Ollie after morning swim practice and had left her phone in her locker to deny getting Ollie’s messages. Some bestie Emma was.

At lunch, Sebastian and Connor wanted to chat, but Ollie cornered Emma. “You’re going to Viva Market with me for lunch.” She caught Emma’s arm and dragged her to the crosswalk.

Emma rubbed her nose. Itchy again. “I took a double dose of Benadryl today.”

“Double dose of Benadryl my butt.” Ollie stormed across the street.

Glancing left and right for any cars, Emma raced after. Even though the city had put in a crosswalk, there was no light, so crossing between the school parking lot and the rundown grocery store still meant risking your life.

“Dude,” Ollie said as soon as they’d made it to the other side and could slow down enough for words. “First, you disappear at lunch yesterday, and now Connor says you cried in geography. Then, you get called out in band and miss swim practice. And, where’d you go this morning?” Ollie put her hands on her hips.

Emma stared at the camera resting on Ollie’s chest. What could Emma say? Ask if Ollie thought she was stupid? Tell Ollie she was getting a second chance because she might be special needs? That she didn’t deserve to be an honors student? As if.

“I know it’s not your allergies.”

Emma bit down on her tongue as hard as she could. Why didn’t it hurt when you bit your tongue on purpose?

She couldn’t tell Ollie any of those things. And not Ms. Range’s lie about the program for orphans either. Or how her third grade teacher had wanted her tested for autism. And definitely not how Nan refused to have her tested then and barely got talked into it this time with the threat of Emma failing English.

“Is it that project?” Ollie asked.

“Did you see the space ship?” Emma rubbed her aching jaw, trying to buy time.

“Talk to me, Em.” Ollie stopped in the middle of the parking lot. “Best friends don’t keep secrets.”

“I don’t have words right now.”

“Whatever. Blame your allergies and the spaceship.” Ollie pulled out her camera and snapped some pictures of the sad looking quarter operated merry-go-round. She ignored Emma’s commentary after that, unwilling to listen to anything other than the truth.

After geometry, Emma trudged into the frigid special ed frigid classroom, where she found another stranger. Ms. Ngo apologized for the surprise, introduced the district psychologist who had had an unexpected cancellation, and sat down at her computer, ignoring Emma and the shrink.

Emma shivered her way through the interview. If she came here again, she would pack a sweater. Ms. Ngo liked to keep her room cold.

Even as she told the shrink about spinning, and her clock game, and the things she found interesting, Emma kept thinking about Ollie rushing into band and looking for her. Emma, who wouldn’t be there because she was getting tested for being some kind of freak. Emma, who hadn’t even bothered telling Ollie she wouldn’t be there.

Swim practice was going to suck.

6

At the end of swim practice, Emma rang out her hair. Ollie and Sebastian both ran their fingers through their short hair then shook their heads, spraying Emma and making her shiver.

“You going to the spring formal?” Sebastian asked.

“If Nan lets me.” Emma toweled her hair.

“And why wouldn’t she?” Ollie crossed her arms, pinning her own towel in place.

Emma froze, uncertain of what to say.

“Neurotypical crap, right.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma asked.

“Never mind.” Ollie hurried ahead towards the locker room. “See you in speech.”

“What’s her problem?” Sebastian patted his towel on a scab on his knee.

“Don't wanna talk about it.” Emma rubbed her chin, jaw throbbing. “I’m still trying to get my head around the UFO.”

“I can’t believe it. Right here, over Pueblo Lindo.”

“That scab’s almost gone, Bash.” Emma’d noticed the thing yesterday but hadn’t said anything.

“Even though I was running, I watched that green thing instead of where I was going.” Sebastian shook his head. “And boom. Down I went. So torpe.”

“But it’s healing nice.”

“Yeah.” Sebastian pulled a shirt over his head. “Too bad about Nan not letting you go to the dance.”

They kept chatting for longer than Emma meant to. By the time she got to the showers, Ollie had already left the locker room. Somehow, it was almost six when Emma stopped by Ms. Ngo’s classroom to get a list of careers to research for her project. And, she still needed to get dinner. Hopefully, Steve’s California Tacos would be better than the sandwich she’d had last Thursday.

Her hair damp, she hurried back to the speech room. If she were lucky, Ms. Range and the others would be there early. Otherwise, she’d be stuck at the picnic tables outside the Nottoli Dome. It might be a nice day for March, but she didn’t need to freeze outside when the sun set.

Thankfully, she could see the silhouette of Ms. Range and a handful of students through the window. Emma rushed into the warm classroom, her bag of tacos waving behind her like a lopsided tail.

Ms. Range and some of the other speechies stood in a semi-circle behind Connor, whose phone was playing a movie. Riley had pushed her ever-present sunglasses up onto her forehead so they pinned back her hair like a headband. Ollie’s narrow frame squeezed between Ms. Range and Alex.

In her rush to see Connor’s phone, Emma stubbed her toe on his massive backpack. She yelped. How many books did he have in that thing? Still, no one noticed her.

Tinny voices shouted from Connor’s phone.

“Oh my God! Did you see that guy?” Alex asked.

“He coughed and the whole gas station blew up.” Ollie bounced up and down, and Emma recognized it as a stim.

“What is that—?”

Had Connor filmed his movie without inviting Emma to act in it? “What’s going on?” She craned her neck to glimpse the video.

“You haven’t seen them?” Connor pushed his shaggy, blonde hair out of his eyes and grinned.

“Seen what?” Emma felt stupid even asking. Everyone else had been entranced with the phone, making her the weird one out. Again.

“What are the odds that a couple days after EastTech’s launch these crazy things happen?” Ollie asked.

“Besides, where was the warning?” Alex asked before Emma could even open her mouth to ask what crazy things. “No news station reported the launch before it happened. And now—”

“Now what?” Emma asked frustrated. She hadn’t been online or really talked to anyone and she’d been cell phone free since school had let out. She didn’t want to admit she’d detoured by the special ed classroom. Even though she was getting to make up her project, she still refused to think she might be special needs.

“People are doing weird things. Like super powers things!” Connor pushed his phone into Emma’s hand, but with all the conversation going on and the tiny screen that kept playing, Emma struggled to focus on any one thing.

“It would seem.” Ms. Range kept her voice flat and even.

“What do you mean it would seem?” Connor stood and started pacing the room. “Things like this are all over uStream!”

“We don’t know if these videos are real or if they’re fake.” Ms. Range tucked one of her braids back. “Remember those scary clowns a few years ago? Nothing but promo for a tv show. Without more information, we can’t leap to conclusions.”

“These are real!” Connor threw himself into a chair, and it crumpled, spilling him onto the floor.

“Dude,” Ollie snickered. “Maybe you should lose some weight.”

“He’s too thin as it is.” Ms. Range helped Connor to his feet. “My momma would have said you all need more meat on your bones. Probably just an old chair.”

Ms. Range and Connor kept talking, but Emma stared down at the little screen in her hand. The next video started on autoplay. It was titled “Dredgetown Speedster.” Weird things were happening as close as Dredgetown?

In the video, she stared passed a balding head at two figures in dark clothes with ski masks. Each man pointed a gun at the poor clerk. From this angle, though, it seemed like the guns were aimed right at her.

A red blur zipped in. The guns disappeared and then bananas were pointed at her instead.

Emma blinked, trying to make sense of the blur. What had just happened?

A boy—too skinny to be a grown man—appeared leaning against the wall in the corner with a skateboard propped next to him. He wore red spandex that covered every inch of him, even zipping over his face.

Not an inch of skin or hair was exposed, but Emma had the strangest feeling that she’d seen him before. Then, in another blur, he tied up the robbers.

“Whether or not these videos are real, we can use them to practice for the big ParliPro debate next month.”

“Debate?” Emma asked, pulling herself out of the video. “I don’t do debate. I’m a speechie.”

“ParliPro’s different from the Lincoln-Douglas debates we usually have.” Ms. Range plopped into a student desk. “It’s a big room, everyone gets a priority number and can earn points just for speaking. It’s more like a mock senate than an LD debate.”

“I still don’t debate.” Emma tugged on her damp braid.

“Yeah,” Riley said with a smirk. “Last time you debated, it didn’t go to well. Didn’t you wind up arguing for the wrong side?” Riley gasped and covered her mouth. “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. That was rude, wasn’t it?”

Emma shrugged. “Who knew arguing that legalizing non-THC marijuana in things like CBD oils was the same as arguing to make weed legal? Getting high’s different from taking something to reduce inflammation.”

“Your logic’s wrong,” Connor said, smiling. “Either way, it’s still making pot legal. But we love you anyway.”

“And,” Ms. Range said, “you’ll earn points for the team even if you don’t say a word. But it doesn’t matter what side you argue. If you talk, you’ll earn even more points for our team.”

Emma shrunk in her seat. This was a bad idea.

Riley frowned, too.

“Besides,” Ms. Range turned on her thousand-watt smile. “I especially want those who like to memorize a speech to participate. I want you all learn to think on your feet. It’s good for you.”

“I don’t like it,” Riley said. “I’ll wind up putting my foot in my mouth and saying something rude, like I just did to Emma.”

“That’s why we’re going to practice,” Ms. Range said. “Besides, Riley, you’re a senior and go off to college in the fall. You need to learn to think things through before you speak. Tonight’s topic will be vigilante superheroes. We’ve all seen them in movies, and with these videos it’s a good subject. If someone had superpowers, should they use their powers to stop crime even though acting as a vigilante is illegal?”

“I don’t follow.” Ollie put her hands on Emma’s chair.

Ms. Range stood and headed towards her desk. “If you had superpowers, would you be a vigilante, or would you hide your powers because being a vigilante is illegal? What should you do?”

There had to be more choices than that. If Emma could read people’s minds, she’d use her powers to blend in so she wouldn’t be so lost all the time.

“You can’t ask that question and walk away,” Ollie said, playing with Emma’s soggy braid. “What about you? What would you do?”

Ms. Range stopped by the French Revolution display. She patted the print of the picture of Leonardo DiCaprio as the Man in the Iron Mask as if he would tell her what she should do. “I’d try to right the wrongs of the world.” Ms. Range ran her fingers over the replica of the iron mask from the movie that sat on her desk.

The thing creeped Emma out, but Ms. Range said the mask made her feel like the real Louis the XIV was right there.

“What does that even mean?” Riley asked. “I mean, really? Isn’t that the police’s job?”

“No.” Ms. Range bit the word out. Her voice became harsh. “Some cops abuse their power.”

“My mom’s a cop and she—”

“Your mother is not all she is cracked up to be.” Ms. Range turned away. “The police have their hands full and they don’t always help. A few weeks ago, another black youth got shot by the police. Now, the cops involved are getting paid leave.”

“Only for the duration of the investigation.” Riley shrugged. “The police try to do their best and make sure everyone gets justice.”

“Everyone or white people?”

Alex gasped.

“Sorry. Just debating.” Ms. Range sighed. “But I should be asking the questions to get you to debate. In groups, come up with some responses to this situation. What should the government do if these powers are real? Should these people use their powers to be vigilantes like in the comics or should they do nothing? Should they work with the law or outside of it?”

Emma didn’t have answers, but her mind was suddenly buzzing with ideas.

7

Emma kept her eye on the clock as she put together her saxophone. Even though she didn’t want to, Emma was leaving sixth-period band during the middle of class.

She popped the wooden reed into her mouth and went to lift her saxophone out of its case to put it together, but her fingers slipped on the gold instrument, and it fell back into its case.

“You okay?” Ollie asked, noticing Em’s problems.

Emma shrugged. She hadn’t even dared tell her best friend what was happening for an entire week. She’d managed to say that she had to leave halfway through class for an appointment. She’d skirted the truth and let Ollie think it was a doctor’s appointment. At least this time she wouldn’t be pulled out via a phone call halfway through class while mid-song.

Finding out the results from meeting with the school psychologist filled Emma with dread. She slid the neck into the body and the mouthpiece into place. If she wasn’t special needs, would they take away her chance to turn in her project on a new schedule? And what if the shrink diagnosed her with something? She pulled the neck strap over her head and hooked it to the loop on the back of the horn before lifting it out of its case this time. Screw her sweaty palms.

She sucked hard on the reed as if that would make this ache that had started in her jaw go away. She’d had Nan call the dentist, but they’d said that some students ground their teeth a lot because of stress. If it kept happening, she might need to sleep with a night guard. She’d never had any pain like that before, but she supposed the dentist knew what he was talking about.

Glancing at the clock, anxious for 2:20 to roll around, Emma popped the reed onto the mouthpiece and played her scales. She finished the scales and pulled out her sheet music for the spring concert. Her fingers kept fumbling on the keys, and she ignored Ollie’s curious glances.

Her chest tight, Emma struggled to play the two-measure long passage held together with a slur. She glanced at the teacher, the clock, then back at her sheet music. Finally, the clock clicked over to 2:20. Emma gasped for breath. Was it nerves or her asthma? She nodded to the band teacher and went to the back of the room to put away her saxophone.

She forced herself to breathe as she walked across campus, her backpack thumping heavily with each step.

When Emma opened the door to the special ed classroom, it felt like the whole school was already there. She wanted to run away. Tears pricked her eyes and her jaw throbbed.

Mr. Wale spilled out of his chair, his shirt stretched across his belly. Ms. Ngo sat at the table between him and Mr. Wale. Ms. Range smiled at her while Nan glared. Even the psychologist who had evaluated her sat at the table.

Should she sit between him and Nan? That was the only empty chair. All these people would know if Emma was normal or not. They may as well have invited the track team, the swim team, and the whole AP program. Did they expect her to talk with all these people all at once?

Emma dug her nails into her palms, grounding herself in the not-quite-pain her nails provided. She clenched her teeth, but that didn’t help at all. Her nose felt packed tight like it would explode, almost like when she had a sinus infection but even fuller. And under her tongue felt weird. Was it really grinding her teeth?

“Would you like to come in?” Ms. Range asked, her voice warm. “I promise we’re not talking bad about you behind your back. We all got here in the last couple minutes.”

Emma nodded and stepped inside, leaving her pack at the door. She took her seat next to Nan and prayed they’d be done before the track team made its way to the field for practice. She didn’t need to see Hannah again. Not after getting whatever news she was going to get.

Mr. Wale tugged on his tie. This one had a dinosaur looking up at a meteor on it. That wasn’t a good sign. “At our last meeting, we already hinted around creating you an IEP in order—”

“A what?” Nan interrupted him. “What’s an IEP?”

“I’m sorry.” He gave her a flash of a smile. “An individualized education plan. We talked about an alternate schedule for Emma’s freshman project once we had confirmation of Emma’s executive function issues.”

“Mr. Wale, I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves.” Ms. Ngo chewed her lip. “I’m not going to patronize you. You are very smart, top of your class, but I want to make sure you understand exactly what’s happening and why we’re here.”

“You all thought I didn’t do my English project because something’s wrong with me. We’re here for the shrink to tell us if I’m normal or not.” Emma met Ms. Ngo’s eyes until her eyes started watering. She hated meeting people’s eyes, especially grownups. That wasn’t fair. She hated talking to small groups of people anyway, unless it was something that interested her. Then she could talk for hours.

“That’s a harsh way to put it, but essentially true.” The shrink nodded to her. “Your teachers suspected you had a problem with executive function. You’ve been in our district your whole academic career. I was also able to interview your elementary and middle school teachers.”

All those people thought her brain was broken? Or the shrink had told all her teachers their suspicions. Why would they do that to her? She’d aced every class she’d ever had, even when losing papers and things made it so she had to redo half her work.

“So what?” Nan pushed back from the table and started pacing. “I told you about how smart she is, how she learned so much, and could tell you all about rocks by second grade. She’s smart. She’s not stupid.”

“Mrs. Harrington. Emma.” The shrink’s mouth twisted into a smile, but Emma didn’t believe it. “Please do not mistake a diagnosis with a developmental disorder as being stupid.”

What a crock. That was a total lie. Disorder was another way of saying not up to snuff, stupid, useless.

The shrink stared at her face.

Emma looked at the empty wall, finding a shadow that looked like a superhero with a cape. Her nose itched.

“Emma, this may be hard to take in, but you meet the diagnostic criteria for autism.”

The shrink’s words punched Emma in the gut. She didn’t know what that meant other than “not normal.” It meant they thought she was less than. She’d always been top of her class. How could they think that? The room closed in around her, Emma shifted in her seat, pulling her knees up under her.

“Like the Rainman?” Nan snorted. “She’s not like that. She might be a little socially awkward sometimes, but she’s not—”

“Mrs. Harrington, please let me finish,” the psychologist’s voice was practically a whisper, but somehow the soft sound cut through Nan’s bluster.

Nan folded her hands in front of her and clamped her mouth shut so fast and so tight her lips turned white.

“Autism isn’t represented in media as it is in real life and, to be honest, autism in girls and women is severely under diagnosed.” The expression on the shrink’s face opened. “It presents differently in men and women. We’re coming to learn that girls of average and high intelligence are good at masking their symptoms.”

“This is bull.” Nan held out her hands, her fingers splayed, and then clasped them again. “Her parents got this baloney diagnosis when she was three. I was sure you would see how smart she is. Not this stupid, bull—”

“Mrs. Harrison, please sit down.” The shrink had gone pale. “Are you telling me that you denied your granddaughter the support she needed her entire academic career?”

Stomach roiling, Emma stared down at the table. No whorls in the wood. No patterns to look for shapes in. She was normal. She wasn’t some kind of freak.

But then, why would her parents have had her tested?

“She doesn’t need any support because she’s normal.” Nan didn’t sit down. “She might have trouble with other kids sometimes, but she’ll grow out of it.”

Her parents had tested her when she was three. Was she really a weirdo?

“That’s not the way this works. Mrs. Harrison, please step outside with me. I don’t want to upset your granddaughter anymore.”

Emma stared up at the clock, as if it would give her an answer. As if 2:37 could tell her something about herself. She wanted to play the numbers game, but what if that was an autism thing? She needed to be normal. She needed to prove she wasn’t stupid.

“Emma, are you all right?” Ms. Ngo put a cold hand onto Emma’s.

“Don’t touch me!” Emma yanked her hand away. “I’m not stupid.”

The pain in her jaw got even worse. She wanted to close herself off from the whole world. How could this be happening?

“I’m sorry,” Ms. Ngo said. “I know better than to touch you without your permission. But being autistic doesn’t mean you’re stupid.”

That was a lie. Emma was sure of it. They thought she was dumb.

“The other staff members and I have been discussing developing a plan with you,” Ms. Ngo said.

“I don’t need a special plan. I’m not—”

“Emma, you want more time to work on your English project, right?” Ms. Range asked.

“Yes?” The question had to be a trap. There was no way to answer and not wind up in the special needs program.

“Maybe it would help if we put aside the acronyms.” Ms. Ngo brushed the thought away with one hand. “Your plan would be an alternate schedule to turn in the different pieces of the freshman project.”

“And some additional supports to do the parts that you couldn’t handle on your own,” Mr. Wale said.

A teardrop hung from the tip Emma’s nose.

“Would you like a moment?” Ms. Range asked.

“I’m not autistic.” Emma crossed her arms and shifted making the foot she’d pinned underneath her tingle.

“I understand that this is difficult.” Ms. Ngo said. “Maybe it’s best if you and I also talk about what it means to have autism. We’ll start by learning about what it is and different ways that someone with autism can compensate for their different thought processes.”

“I’m totally normal.” Emma shook her head.

Ms. Ngo sighed.

“I’m not a weirdo.” Tears blurred Emma’s vision.

“Of course not,” Ms. Ngo said. “But you do need some help. Let’s start with looking into what it means to be autistic. You don’t have to accept the diagnosis or even think of it as something that applies to you, if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t?” Emma blinked at the teacher.

“No. Though, it would be beneficial to look at some issues that autistics struggle with and see if you feel any of those apply to you.” Ms. Ngo smoothed her dark hair. “Or if you have any of what we in the autism community like to call our autistic superpowers.”

“Superpowers?”

“Intense focus is one of them. We tend to have special interests that draw us in.” Ms. Ngo traced her fingers on the orange tabletop.

Wait. We? “Are you saying you’re autistic?”

Ms. Ngo nodded. “I received a late diagnosis. Which is why I chose to go into special education. I wanted to help kids like me who didn’t fit in.”

Disoriented, Emma swallowed hard, trying to take all of this in. No one was talking over each other, but Emma still couldn’t wrap her mind around what was happening. “When am I supposed to meet with you to do all this?”

Mr. Wale frowned. “I’m afraid you need to drop one of your classes this semester.”

“I can’t drop anything. I’m in honors.” Emma crossed her arms.

How could she drop a class halfway through the semester? She was in honors English, AP Human Geography, geometry, Spanish, and band. The only thing she wanted to drop was PE, but freshmen were required to enroll in it. She needed everything else to get into a good college.

Then again, she’d been in band since fourth grade. She played the saxophone like her mom had and that made Nan so happy, but if she had to quit something... “Band, I guess.” Emma choked out the words. Her face burned, her throat felt so dry. What was she going to do if she wasn’t in band with Ollie? “What… What do I tell my friends when I stop showing up to band?”

“We’ve got a perfect cover story for you,” Ms. Range said.

Cover story meant a lie. “I’m not a liar.”

“No one’s asking you to lie,” Ms. Ngo said. “Most of your friends know that you’ve lost your parents, right?”

After a moment, Emma nodded. She stared at Ms. Ngo, waiting for her to say something that would give her a reason to storm out.

“This is a special college readiness program for orphans. It just happens there’s only one orphan at this school right now.”

Emma held up a hand to object, but Ms. Ngo kept talking.

“This isn’t a lie. You are an orphan. It is a special program for you to help you finish high school and to transition to college.”

The same thing Ms. Range had told Hannah. Emma didn’t like it, but it wasn’t technically a lie. Dishonest, but not a lie. “I guess…”

“Think of it this way,” Ms. Ngo said. “You’ve got a toolbox for handling things life throws at you, but most people only use one or two tools. Let’s say some people use a hammer.”

Emma had heard that word before though she hadn’t really understood what it meant.

“You think life’s too hard because you’re stuck trying to use a broken hammer for all of your problems because that’s what you’re used to using, but really, you can use a wrench or a screwdriver or a pair of pliers. You just have to learn how to use those other tools properly.”

“My hammer’s not broken.” Emma’s jaw throbbed. She blinked back the tears.

“You have a perfectly functioning set of tools, but you’re only using a handful of them. Let me teach you to try to use some other tools.”

“My hammer’s not broken.” Emma walked out of the classroom and ran for the gym. If she was lucky, she could make it to swim practice and think about all this stuff later.

She wasn’t autistic. She couldn’t be. Her hammer worked just fine.

8

Emma was the first one to the gym. She hurried past row after row of small, red lockers to the athletes’ lockers in the back. Nan called her phone, but she rejected it, texting back, Going to swim practice. Don’t want to talk.

Her hammer worked just fine.

Emma changed into her two-piece racing suit whose top doubled as a good sports bra, workout shorts, and an oversized gym shirt. She twisted her brown hair up into an ugly bun and threw a couple extra hair holders in for good measure to keep it up while she ran.

When the final bell rang, Emma was already bouncing up and down at the gate to the pool, full of nervous energy. Her shorts brushed her legs with each bounce. She clung to the wrought-iron fence, staring in at the pool and ignoring the students waiting for their bus. That long run today sounded good. She needed to move, burn off the energy, and get past all of this craziness.

“Dude, your appointment’s over fast,” Ollie said. “Everything okay?”

Emma jumped. She had been so wrapped up in her own world she hadn’t even seen her friend coming from the gym.

“You were hella nervous in band and now you’re at practice early. I kind of thought a doctor’s appointment would last—”

“It wasn’t a doctor’s appointment, okay?” Emma released the gate.

“That’s all you’re going to say? You’re here early and doing calf raises before we run. You hate calf raises.” Ollie smiled. “Wish I hadn’t left my phone in my locker. There’s no way anyone would believe me without video evidence.”

“Yeah, well…” Emma let her voice trail off.

She and Ollie stared at each other. Ollie waited for her to finish, but Emma didn’t know what to say. Even in her workout clothes, or especially in them, Ollie looked almost like a boy. Wiry thin. When they ran she wore baggy shorts and double sports bras under a loose t-shirt.

“You’ve been on edge since last week. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

“I know, but this is…” Emma shrugged. What? Ollie had talked to her about how she hated being a girl and how she wasn’t even sure she liked boys. Yet, Emma hadn’t trusted her with this? Now Emma felt like a dick, but she sucked at talking about her feelings. She didn’t have the words.

“This is what? Different?” Ollie leaned against the fence. “Because it’s your problem not mine?”

Emma shrugged. “I just… I don’t have the words. Don’t have the words.” Stupid. Why did she echo herself like that? Nan always told her saying it once was enough.

“Let’s talk on the run?” Ollie shifted, turning away.

Emma followed her gaze to where Sebastian had already rounded the corner. “That would be good.” She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to move. She wanted to bury this inside.

“What would be good?” Sebastian pulled his towel from his shoulders and tossed it onto the fence.

Emma froze. She had to keep the testing a secret from him since he’d never ask a weirdo like her to the formal. Besides, she didn’t want even Ollie knowing her business, but Ollie had trusted her with so much, maybe talking it over with her would help somehow.

“If Ms. Range is right and all this superhero stuff is promo for some new movie.” Ollie winked at Emma. “We were talking about what superheroes would be cool to see. Like the Dredgetown Speedster or the Washington Wailer.”

“Right…” Sebastian didn’t seem convinced.

Emma didn’t like lying, but how else could she avoid telling him about the testing and her supposed diagnosis?

The rest of the team trickled in and coach unlocked the pool area. The others chatted as they stretched on the concrete pool deck, but Emma didn’t feel like much for conversation, which, to be honest, wasn’t much of a change from normal.

When they started the run, instead of pulling ahead like she usually did, Emma kept pace with Ollie and waited to talk until they were alone. In silence, they ran through the new suburbs on their way to Honda Hills. The town was growing up around them, changing, and Emma didn’t like it.

Ollie set a good, steady pace that Emma handled no problem. To her credit, Ollie didn’t push for more details. She waited until Emma was ready to talk or until the others cleared out, Emma wasn’t sure which. They turned out of the suburbs at the edge of town and into the dry, rolling hills.

The sticker plants were still green with bright yellow flowers. Their thorns threatened to snag them, but weren’t as dangerous as they would be when they dried out in summer.

“So…” Emma said after a while. Her feet thudded on the packed dirt in a steady rhythm that helped her focus, helped her understand her thoughts, her feelings a little better. Helped her control them a bit.

“So, what was your appointment?” Ollie asked.

“Not a doctor’s appointment.” Emma squeezed in closer to Ollie as they passed some thorns that hung into the path. Their hands brushed.

Ollie drew in a sharp breath. “Got that. Was it about your freshman project?”

“Kind of.” Emma ran, gathering the courage as her legs pumped at Ollie’s steady rhythm. Left, right, left, right. Her feet hitting the ground felt good. “Last Tuesday, my grade dropped to forty-eight percent in English and I cried in Ms. Range’s class.”

“Are you okay?” Ollie stopped, turning towards her.

Emma kept running. She knew she needed to tell her friend and this was the only way that was happening.

Ollie sprinted to catch up.

“It was over a week ago. Same day as the AstroTech launch.” Left. Right. Left. Right. Emma wanted to race into the gap between two hills and up the last steep hill to the old, craggy oak, but she couldn’t talk if she ditched Ollie. “Ms. Range said I should get tested for a learning disability. So, they tested me.”

Ollie didn’t say anything.

Emma glanced at her, but Ollie’s cheeks burned red and she seemed to be having trouble maintaining her pace.

“Am I going too fast?” Emma asked, wishing she’d bothered to carry a bottle of water. Today they would run three miles before they’d start swimming, and Ollie looked like she was toast.

“I’m fine.” Ollie’s words came out short and clipped.

Emma slowed her pace a hair. “I’m not stupid.”

“No one said that.” Ollie’s breath whistled between her words.

Emma slowed even more, but the change in rhythm didn’t help her control her emotions. She needed faster. If she moved less, she’d go crazy. She wanted to scream.

“I’m not.” Emma focused on her feet. Left. Right. Left.

“Of course not.” Ollie was still struggling.

“I didn’t mean to go too fast. Let’s walk.” It killed her to say it. Emma needed to run. She needed the rhythmic movement, but she stopped at the bottom of the hill and waited for Ollie to catch her breath. The words started tumbling out, along with the tears.

“I’m not dumb.” Emma tried to hold still, talk to Ollie.

“Having. A. Dis. Order. Doesn’t. Make. You dumb," Ollie gasped. She pulled an inhaler out of her basketball shorts and took a puff.

Dang it. Emma had pushed her too hard. She’d wanted to talk, but she’d wound up giving Ollie an asthma attack.

“Stupid asthma.” Ollie choked out a laugh.

“I’m not dumb, right?” Emma asked again. The panic made her voice rise. Nan had always said Emma needed to do her best, needed to push herself. Nan wouldn’t accept a B paper because she didn’t think it was Emma’s best.

“You’re hella smart.” Ollie started walking towards the next oak on their run. “Who thinks you’re dumb?”

Too bad the world didn’t work that way. Nan, Hannah, anyone who found out she was broken would call her dumb. Everyone would call her stupid. Nan wouldn’t accept her if she weren’t really smart. Nan had taught her to stand on her own two feet, but having a disorder meant she was weaker, right?

Emotions started spilling out of her. Words were impossible now.

Ollie was talking, probably trying to calm her down, but Emma may as well have been under water for all the good Ollie’s words did. Emma’s mouth ached. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t listen.

What was wrong with her? She felt so stupid when the words wouldn’t come. Body frozen, disjointed words tumbled around her head. Emotions crashed into one another. She felt so angry. So frustrated. So alone.

Her breath came almost as fast as Ollie’s now. She needed to get a hold of herself. Digging her fingernails into her palms didn’t help. Wild emotions flew through her. Her jaw throbbed. She started pacing, clenching and unclenching her fists, moving her arms. Anything to get the anger out, but it was too late.

“I’m not broken!” Emma shouted.

She screamed in rage, staring straight ahead at the old oak where their path could loop long or turn back short.

The scream turned into a sneeze.

Thick liquid gleeked out from under her tongue and boogers shot out her nose. Then about a foot in front of her the gleek and snot combined, igniting into a jet of fire that blasted the tree.

“Holy crap!” Ollie shouted, scrambling back.

Emma jumped back, but the ground never came. Wind surrounded her. Her feet swung in the air, untethered. She screamed.

Another gleek-sneeze. Heat singed her face, and another jet of flame shot out at the tree. The force of the unexpected sneeze knocked her glasses down her nose. Tears stung her cheeks, and she still couldn’t find the ground.

Ollie stared up at her, her mouth open in a blurry ‘o’ of astonishment.

Six or seven feet over her friend’s head, Emma flailed, trying to get to the ground. She drifted level with the top of the last hill. She tried to will herself to it, but she couldn’t move. Maybe this worked like swimming.

Emma frog kicked like she would in the water, imagining herself moving towards the peak of the next hill. Through some strange miracle, it worked. She found herself with her feet an inch above the dirt. She pulled in her arms and made herself stick straight, the same way she made herself sink in the pool, and exhaled, imagining herself getting heavier and heavier.

Her feet hit the ground, and she swallowed down her fear. Gulping in air, she sat down hard and wrapped her arms around her knees. She never wanted to do that again. Her nose burned and her mouth itched. She clamped a hand over her face, pinning them shut in case another gleek-sneeze happened again.

“Holy crap!” Ollie said again. “You’re a super.”

No, she couldn’t be. She was just Emma. Nerd, swimmer, failing English, Emma.

“Yeah. You’re a super,” Ollie said again. “Ms. Range is wrong. That shit is real and you’re one.”

Other swimmers sprinted towards the tree, looking to see what happened. Sebastian ran back down the far loop, others were catching up to them.

“We’ve got to go see what happened.” Ollie held out her hand to help Emma to her feet.

Emma shook her head, covering her mouth. No way would she get any closer to the fire. She needed to stay where she was, with her legs pulled in tight to her chest and her hand clamped over her mouth so it didn’t happen again.

“If we don’t, they’ll think we did it.”

Emma had done it, but Ollie was right. If they didn’t lookie-loo with everyone else, then they’d want to know what was going on. Cautiously, Emma reached out with the hand that wasn’t clamped over her mouth and let Ollie pull her up.

Ollie laughed as if this was the coolest thing ever. “My best friend is a super.”

Emma dared take her hand away from her mouth. “I’m never doing that again.”

“If you don’t practice, how can you control it?” Ollie asked, hurrying towards the fire to join the others. “And being neurodiverse doesn’t mean you’re dumb any more than having asthma means you’re not athletic. There’s Olympians with asthma.”

“Neurodiverse?” Emma asked, trying to keep her voice low so everyone else didn’t hear them.

“Your brown eyes are showing.” Ollie laughed.

“Hey!” Emma shoved Ollie at the joke. “At least I’m not an airhead, blue-eyes.”

Ollie chuckled and pushed back. “It means not the same as everyone else. Come on, neuro means brain. You should know what diverse means. Unless you really are shit for brains.” Ollie shrugged. “That astrophysicist of yours is autistic.”

Really. Well, that was something.

9

Somehow, Emma made it through the rest of swim practice without any more gleek-sneeze fireballs or levitation. When they did their long warmup swim, she’d contemplated what Ollie had said about having a developmental disorder being like having asthma. She didn’t know if she bought it. Her frustration sloughed off as she glided through the water. The easy rhythm of the swim relaxed her.

She made it through the workout and then it was time for sprints. They spread out across the pool, leaving their normal lane assignments to sprint with those in their lane. She, Sebastian, and the others in the fast lane fanned out across the blocks on all eight lanes of the pool, Sebastian to her right and Ollie to her left.

Emma dove, terrified she’d reveal herself as a super by flying instead, but nothing happened. She pushed hard, her arms and legs working together, moving in perfect harmony. Her feet churned the water and she zipped across the pool. She nearly kept up with Sebastian and left Ollie and the other girls in the dust.

The sprints left her feeling strong and ready to take on the world. Maybe Ollie was right. Despite her asthma, Emma was athletic. She just had to use her inhaler first.

After the last sprint, she swam a slow fifty breast. But when she pulled herself out of the water, Emma caught sight of Hannah’s pink Escalade parked in the bus turnout lane.

Leaning against the passenger door, Hannah glared at her watch. She looked bitchy and perfect in her jog skirt with not a hair out of place in her bun.

Emma groaned. Monday night meant dinner at Aunt Beth’s.

“How come swim practice always runs late and track never does?” Hannah hollered from the bus turnout, so the whole swim team could hear as they climbed out of the water.

No way could Emma get out of the family dinner. She couldn’t argue she didn’t feel good since Hannah had just seen her do her best sprints ever. Besides, that would be a lie.

Emma wrapped a towel around her waist, then pulled off her cap and goggles. Her eyes felt like they were bugging out of her head from the sudden lack of pressure. “I’ve got to get my things from the locker room and grab my bike. I’ll be right out.” Emma practically ran around the pool, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself. She changed into her dry sweats and threw a towel around her hair. Hannah didn’t appreciate getting any water on her leather seats.

Sebastian unlocked his bike beside her, a smile on his face, and a duffle bag slung across his shoulders. “Need any help with your stuff?”

“No, I got it,” Emma said. “Stupid family dinner tonight.”

“Gotcha.”

Emma’s cold fingers fumbled with the key for her bike lock. Ollie had already taken off since she could just pull sweats over her wet swimsuit and jog the block or so to her house. Most of the other kids caught rides home after practice or even drove themselves. Neither Sebastian or Emma were so lucky most days. Not to mention riding with Hannah was the opposite of lucky.

“That tree catching fire was crazy,” Sebastian said. “I can’t believe no one saw what happened.”

Emma grunted noncommittally and the lock sprung open. “See you tomorrow.” Emma left Sebastian as he climbed onto his bike. Feeling super awkward, Emma pushed her own bike to Hannah’s car with her backpack slung over one shoulder, the duffel bag over the other.

Hannah stared at Emma from top to bottom, taking in Emma’s baggy sweats, flip-flops, and the towel wrapped around her hair. “You’re such a mess.” Hannah made no offer to help as Emma tried to get her bike into the back of the oversized SUV.

Emma wanted to tell Hannah to stuff it and she’d bike home like she always did. But if she did that, she’d wind up in trouble for making Hannah wait for nothing.

When Emma finally managed to lift the bike up into the back of the Escalade, the towel fell off her head and into the gutter. She wanted to scream but was afraid another gleek-sneeze would come out and another blast of whatever-the-hell that fire had been. Besides, Hannah wouldn’t take that and Emma suspected she’d drive off with the bike, leaving Emma to walk the three miles home.

Emma just clenched her mouth shut and dropped the duffel bag beside the bike. She put her hair back in the towel, grabbed the extra dry towel, and headed to the passenger door, where Hannah waited to inspect her to make sure that she wasn’t too wet to get into the car.

“I suppose you’re dry enough.” Hannah stopped blocking Emma’s door and headed to the driver’s seat. “Just put some dry towels down.”

Hannah started driving even before Emma shut her door, forcing Emma to slam it. She buckled herself in as fast as she could.

“How’s Kyle?” Emma asked, not really caring about the answer. She shivered, despite the warm night. With her wet hair and Hannah having the AC turned up to high, she was freezing.

“Don’t give me that crap. You’re failing English and now you’re dropping out of band, and you’re getting a second chance to do your project. What gives?”

Emma gaped. Of course Hannah knew. Hannah wasn’t stupid, and she also knew that Emma wasn’t getting failed out.

“I—”

Ms. Ngo had told her the perfect lie, but she wasn’t a liar. Could she say it? Ms. Ngo said it wasn’t technically a lie because the program was just for her, the only orphan at the school. “They’re taking me into a special program for orphans.” The words tasted dirty on Emma’s tongue.

“Oh, so Nan pulled the orphan card and now you’re getting off scott free even though you didn’t do your project. That’s rich.”

“That’s not exactly what happened.” Emma shook her head, trying to find words. The words already felt dirty, but she sure didn’t need Hannah knowing she was broken. Autistic.

“Bull. The rest of us work our butts off so you can just skate through because Nan raises hell. You just say, ‘Poor me. I’m an orphan,’ and boom, all of a sudden you get a whole class period extra to work on your freshman project.”

Emma kept her mouth shut. What could she say that wouldn’t be a lie? What could she say that would stop Hannah from haranguing on her?

“You’re an orphan, but your parents died when we were kids. Do you even remember them?”

Emma shook her head. She wasn’t sure what were real memories and what were just impressions she’d gotten from the stories Nan told her. She wished she could really remember her parents. Nan talked so highly of her mom and, while Nan was clearly not the biggest fan of her dad, even he seemed like a fairytale.

If only they were still alive and were raising her instead of Nan. Maybe this whole fail thing wouldn’t have happened.

“Of course not. You were just four.”

Emma didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want this conversation. She didn’t know what it meant to be autistic—just that her parents and everyone else had decided she wasn’t normal. The school shrink, Ms. Range, Mr. Wale, Ms. Ngo all believed it. Ms. Range was nice about it. Ms. Ngo seemed to be. Emma wasn’t sure about her yet.

Mr. Attwood had been playing with his phone through half the meeting. Not on it, just touching it, putting it away, taking it out.

Emma stared at the goosebumps on her arm. “I’m cold.”

“Are you even listening to me?” Hannah stopped a bit too hard at the stop sign on Woodson Road.

On the other side of the freeway, they’d pass her trailer, then head around the corner to Hannah’s side of the winery. The rich side. And Emma would be stuck at another awkward dinner. Aunt Beth would ask her about school, and Emma would start talking about what they were learning, then everyone would tune her out or ask her to shut up, or Aunt Beth would interrupt her and ask if any boys had asked her to the dance. Hannah would go to prom with Kyle of course.

“Are you?” Hannah asked again.

“Yeah. I guess.” Emma picked at her nails again. She drew the nail of one thumb under the nails on her opposite hand, cleaning out the gunk.

“You get this free ride on so many things because you’re an orphan. You might be smart on paper, but you are just so weird all the time.”

“Hannah, no more please.” She couldn’t do this anymore. She was already shutting down. If she wasn’t careful, she might lose control again like she had that afternoon. Words started to play keep away, and she didn’t need another sneeze-gleek of fire.

What a stupid superpower. It wasn’t like the comics at all. She sprayed something from under her tongue and something else through her nose, making something like Greek fire—two chemicals that when mixed ignited.

“What? Is this conversation bothering you?” Hannah asked. “Not like you feel anything anyway.”

“Stop saying that,” Emma shouted. “I have feelings!” To distract herself, Emma looked out the window, staring at the grape vines—staring at the holes between the rows of grape vines and the angles they seemed to shoot off from each other. The main row straight down the middle and angling out in companion rows.

It would be better if she could turn off like a robot.

“Do you?” Hannah glanced at her. “You never act like it.”

Emma didn’t say anything. Instead, she focused on breathing slow and steady through her nose. She kept her mouth clamped shut. What could she say to that? How could she defend herself? Of course she had feelings. She was human after all.

When Hannah finally parked at the end of the long driveway, Emma bolted from the car. She yanked her bike and bags out of the back, then leaned the bike against one of the thick white columns supporting the balcony. She lugged her heavy bags inside. Hair in a towel again, Emma checked she wasn’t dripping on the marble entryway, but she was good.

How dare Hannah talk to her like that? Saying Emma got to pull the orphan card for no good reason when Hannah lived in a mansion like this. Emma’s house was nothing but an old worker’s trailer on the edge of Hannah’s parents’ winery.

Emma stared up at the double staircases heading toward each wing of the giant house and shook her head, at least she didn’t have to climb those—though now, if no one was around, maybe she could try levitating up them.

No. No. No. She couldn’t use her powers. She had to hide them.

She ground her teeth and discovered the ache in her jaw had disappeared. The sneeze-gleek fire-blasts had cleared away the pain that had been building all week.

Nan and Aunt Beth’s voices echoed from the living room of the enormous house. Emma prayed Nan hadn’t told Beth about her diagnosis and everything that had happened that day. She stumbled out of the entryway and into the living room, weighed down by her duffel bag and her backpack full of textbooks.

Nan wore a shirt bedazzled with a glass of wine, some grapes, and the words, "Wine me up!" on it. Emma blinked, trying to reconcile this shirt with the woman who was so anti-alcohol she had taught Emma to hurry down the cheese aisle in the store because the other side had alcohol and someone might think they were going to buy it or maybe the alcohol would jump into their cart and make them drink it, Emma wasn’t sure which.

“I like your shirt, Nan,” Emma said. She knew her grandmother liked sparkly things, but the wine shirt just didn’t make sense on her.

“Thanks! I think it’s so pretty, don’t you?”

Had Nan even read the shirt? The most she’d ever seen Nan drink was half a glass at a wedding they’d gone to for Nan’s great-niece.

“Hello, girls,” Aunt Beth said. “Dinner’s ready and waiting.”

“We’d have been here earlier if swim practice let out on time.” Hannah stood behind her with just her backpack slung over one shoulder, still looking perfect.

“Sorry.” Emma shrugged as her duffel bag started playing Ollie’s ringtone.

“Ignore it,” Aunt Beth said. “Let’s eat before dinner gets cold.”

Emma carefully set her bags down next to the enormous leather couch and followed her family into the dinette. On Mondays, they didn’t eat in the formal dining room. That was for special occasions, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or when Aunt Beth hosted some ridiculous dinner where Emma never knew how to behave or what to say, and Hannah always seemed to be everyone’s favorite.

The hightop marble table was already set with four plates of salad.

Perfect Hannah seemed to deflate at that. “Dad’s not here.”

It was half question, half statement. Three weeks in a row now, Uncle Nathan had missed the Monday family dinner.

Emma felt a little bad for her. Hannah gave Emma such a hard time about not remembering her parents, but half the time, Uncle Nathan worked late.

“He’s still working on the case of that kid who got shot last month in Dredgetown.” Aunt Beth sat in her customary seat. “What was his name?”

“Jamal Robinson?” Emma climbed up onto the tall chair. She hated eating at this table, not just because it felt pretentious to eat so high up, but because her feet dangled, and the chair was too narrow sit on. By the end of the meal, her knees always hurt. At least she’d be the one to go get the plates out of the oven and then later the desserts from the fridge.

“That’s the one. They think he might be the judge on that case, if it gets that far.” Aunt Beth waited for everyone to sit before starting to eat her salad.

“That’s a high-profile case,” Nan said, picking up her fork. “Does he really want to be involved in it?”

“Not like he has a choice.” Beth shrugged. “He’d rather drop it since that Valerie Virgo keeps harassing their office about it.”

Hannah stared down at the salad on her plate as if she didn’t eat like this every night, as if her mother weren’t the most perfect housewife ever with a maid to help her keep up the house during the day. They only lacked a full-time live-in servant.

“Hannah, don’t hunch darling,” Beth said, her own back ramrod straight.

Emma’s phone rang again from the other room. Emma closed her eyes and groaned.

“What’s wrong?” Nan asked.

“It’s Ollie. This tree at swim practice caught fire, and she probably wants to—”

“What? A fire?” Nan asked. “After our meet—”

“Yeah. It was crazy.” Emma cut off Nan before she could talk bring up Emma storming out of the meeting. She didn’t want Aunt Beth or Hannah knowing about her diagnosis. “Out there in Honda Hills. Right in front of me and Ollie, the turn-around oak just burst into flames.”

“Someone lit it on fire?” Aunt Beth leaned forward.

Even Hannah stared at Emma, wide-eyed.

“We didn’t see anyone other than swimmers, and I don’t think anyone would do that on purpose.” Not a lie. Just, not answering the question.

“Maybe someone left a cigarette,” Nan said, “and the ash caught the tree on fire. It happens.”

“Or one of those supers did it,” Hannah perked up now that the conversation had turned away from her absent father. “Maybe you didn’t see them because they were invisible.”

“I think the supers are just a hoax,” Aunt Beth said.

“I hope so,” Nan put down her fork. “That sort of thing is fine in the movies, but we don’t need a bunch of freaks running around, setting fire to things, and causing problems.”

Emma choked on a bit of spinach. She started coughing. Her phone rang again. Nan thumped her on the back, and Emma grabbed her water. Eyes watering, she chugged it.

“What happened?” Nan’s mouth pinched.

“Spinach got me.” Once in a while, when Beth got the baby spinach, the long stems choked Emma.

Before, Emma hadn’t wanted to use her powers again because she’d felt so out of control. But, now, with Nan being so anti-superhero, she definitely couldn’t use her powers. First, Nan wouldn’t accept her because she was autistic and now because of this? Nan was the only person she had left. “Can I go text Ollie to stop calling me? Otherwise my phone’s just going to keep ringing all through dinner.”

She’d have to talk about the superhero thing with Ollie later.

10

The following Wednesday, swim practice was cut short because, at lunch, some genius threw pure potassium into the pool and blew it up. After a punishing dry land work out full of push-ups and duck walks, Emma and her friends clustered outside the locker rooms.

“Why don’t you come with me to rehearsal?” Ollie asked. She had a small part at the end of the play and rehearsal was after swim practice.

“I’m grounded, remember? I’m supposed to go straight home.” And it wasn’t like she was getting anywhere on the project with Ms. Ngo. She’d been reading all these books about people with autism. As much as she hated to admit it, she could see herself in them.

“We’ve got a half hour before practice is even supposed to be over and it’s Wednesday. Your Nan plays Bingo Wednesdays, right? She won’t even know you’re gone.”

“She might call me or ping my phone.”

“Why would she do that when you’re supposed to be swimming?” Ollie asked.

Somehow Emma let Ollie her into the musty costume room over the auditorium lobby. Better than to get singled out by Mr. Attwood in front of the play’s cast. Ollie claimed he was totally cool with the drama kids and would let them borrow costumes to wear for the spring semi-formal. Instead of prom at the snazzy Capitol Convention Center, the underclassmen had the semi-formal masquerade in the sweaty school gym.

Semi-formal meant ties were okay, but no tuxes for the guys and the girls got to wear dresses that weren’t too formal, whatever that meant. Hannah had gone in a full sexy vampire costume last year, this year she already had a designer prom dress for prom.

“This dress is perfect for you!” Ollie held up a ridiculous, Elizabethan, ruffled monstrosity.

“Yeah, right. Besides, it’s not like Nan will let me go to spring formal anyway.” Emma pushed away the dress.

“It’s not really your fault.” Ollie continued down the rack of costume dresses and pushed a green, flapper dress at her. “Try this one.”

“Nan doesn’t see it that way.” Emma sighed but accepted the dress. If she didn’t try it on, Ollie would keep at it. She pulled off her shirt and slipped it on over her swimsuit top. “I’m supposed to always do my best, but I didn’t even do anything. She’s not going to unground me because I’m working on the project now.”

“That’s dumb. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s your Nan’s. You said she admitted that your parents had you tested as a little kid, before you even started school. If that’s true, then it’s your Nan’s fault for not telling the school district you were autistic—especially when your third grade teacher said you should be tested.”

“You seem pretty sure of that,” Emma said, pulling off her shorts from under the dress. How could anyone dare blame her failing English on Nan? Nan was always so sure of herself and so angry at the world. She was even more closed off than Emma sometimes.

But Emma was afraid that Nan wouldn’t love her anymore if she discovered who she really was.

Ollie wolf whistled. “That looks great on you. Everyone will want to dance with you.”

Emma’s cheeks burned.

“And I’m sure,” Ollie said, leaning in, “I told you I’m ADHD, right?”

“What?” Emma gasped. When had Ollie told her that?

“Yeah… oh, you were kind of freaking out and made a fireball right afterwards.” Ollie stood on her tiptoes to pull a box of masquerade masks off the top of the rack. “Any more of that stuff?”

“What stuff?” Emma asked absently.

Her reflection at the end of the aisle looked ridiculous. The neckline plunged much too low for her taste. Her swim top stuck out blue past the green flapper dress. Fringe bounced with her tiniest movements. The hem hit her mid-thigh, but the material was so slinky she might as well be wearing just her swimsuit. She’d never worn anything like it. Never would again either, if she had any say.

“Fireballs. Flying?”

Emma shook her head. She might have caught herself drifting out of bed once, but it might have been a bad dream.

“Too bad. It’d be cool if my bestie was a superhero.” Ollie dug around in the box. “We’ve got to get you a mask for the ball, too.”

“You have ADD?” Emma asked again.

“ADHD. That’s probably why we get along so well. We both struggle with executive function.” Ollie slid a Phantom Of the Opera type mask onto her own face. “What do you think?”

“That’s—” Oh no! Emma had said all those things about having a disorder meant people’d think she was defective, broken, and dumb. “Ollie, I didn’t mean to—I don’t think you’re dumb at all.”

“Dude, no offense taken. Now put this on.” Ollie shoved a lacy, black mask at Emma. It looked like a butterfly drawn by a toddler, then copied by a grown up who’d never seen a real one. And the antennae—if that’s what they were supposed to be had small hooks on the end like moths and skippers, not the simple balls real butterfly antenna ended in.

“You know I can’t wear this thing, right?” Emma held up the mask.

“Uh, why not?” Ollie asked, lifting the Phantom mask to stare at Emma.

“I wear glasses. How am I supposed to see?”

“Just put it on then slide them over it.”

Frowning, Emma took off her glasses and hung them from her shirt collar. Then, with the mask on, she put them back on over the mask. Emma squinted. Trying to see through the mask was like looking through two black toilet paper rolls someone had taped together and called binoculars.

“See, I’m a genius and, unlike you, I’m genius enough not to take honors English or else I’m too dumb to get in. One or the other.” Ollie smirked. “That class seems like way too much busy work for me, but that’s not what I was talking about. This mask—is it me or is it me?” Ollie pulled on a tuxedo jacket that fit like it was made for her. It tapered down to her slim waist. Admiring herself in the mirror, she snapped a picture with the fancy camera she always wore around her neck.

“No tuxes,” Emma said. “They’re not allowed.”

“For dudes. Besides, I can’t be the phantom of the opera without a—”

Screech! Tires squealed outside.

The girls ran to the small attic window. Ollie reached up and unhooked the window to peek outside. Both girls stood on their tiptoes, trying to see through the narrow opening.

A bright red sports car spun in tight donuts, in the main part of the parking lot. Some idiot upperclassman. Only a handful of athletes’ cars were left near the track, including Hannah’s pink Escalade. Emma’s nose tickled.

“Dumbass,” Ollie said. “That’s so dangerous.”

“Everyone's going to be crossing the lot soon!” Emma said. The dumbass might be doing donuts, which was dangerous enough to him, but the school wasn’t cleared out yet. Soon, student athletes would leave through that parking lot. On normal days, Emma zipped through there on her bike.

“What does he think he’s doing?” Ollie asked.

If only she could reach the window better. Her feet left the ground, making her gasp. She floated high enough to stare out the window.

“No fair,” Ollie said. “I thought you said you didn’t have any more powers.”

“I didn’t think I could. I’m kind of stuck now.”

Below her, the driver didn’t stop his donuts as the first people hit the edge of the parking lot. They stayed back behind the yellow, metal posts that kept cars from driving into the school. The track team, including Hannah and Summer, emerged through the gate by the football field bathrooms.

Summer waved at the car and blew a kiss. That meant it was her spoiled boyfriend, Hunter.

Hannah shook her perfect head and stepped out past the yellow posts that kept cars in the parking lot. She walked towards her car along the back of the history and social science trailers.

The sports car’s tire popped. The car spun towards Hannah and the social sciences classrooms.

Hannah froze.

Even though her cousin was a bully, Emma still loved her. Emma shoved the window open. She scissor-kicked to sail up through the narrow window. Somehow, coming out of the narrow window, she knocked the mask back over her eyes. She barely caught her glasses and slid them into place.

Emma willed herself to move as fast as she could, pumping her legs now like a flutter kick.

Out of control, the car zoomed toward Hannah. No way she’d be able to snatch Hannah out of the way. Her only chance was another gleek-sneeze fireball. Could she do it on purpose?

The mask blocked her vision, so Emma focused on the shrinking space between the car and Hannah. Aiming for the car so she wouldn’t hit her cousin, Emma lifted her tongue to force the gleek stuff out.

Snot flew out of Emma’s nose. The fireball hit the ground right in front of Hannah.

The force smashed Hannah against one of the trailer classrooms. Scorched dirt and asphalt flew through the air, making a crater lined by a jagged ridge. Windows shattered.

Tires squealed. Screaming. Emma and Hannah both.

The car careened into the pit.

Emma half floated and half swam through the air to her cousin’s side.

“Are you okay?” Still floating, Emma lifted Hannah to her feet. Glass crunched.

Hannah stood hunched, blinking at Emma. She seemed confused. She rubbed her back and tried to stand straighter, but still stooped like an old woman.

“Are you okay?” Emma shouted. She wanted to take off the stupid mask under her glasses, but what if Hannah told Nan she had powers?

“I can’t hear you,” Hannah shouted in Emma’s face while pointing at her ears.

“You trashed my car!” a guy yelled.

Emma blinked trying to clear the stinging smoke from her eyes. The sports car lay on its passenger side. Hunter glared at her as he struggled to climb out of the shattered driver's window.

Emma turned to flee, but dozens of people clustered around the edges of the lot. Oh, no. What would happen to her now that all these people had seen her use her powers?

Summer approached the edge of the pit, encouraging Hunter to climb out. Emma winced as Hunter cut his hand on the broken window. For sure he’d burn himself on the scorched asphalt surrounding the hole, too.

Panic clear on his face, Blake Brewer shoved Hunter from behind to get out of the car. Hunter wobbled and nearly fell into the smoking hole.

A big, glass bottle stuck through the spiderwebbed windshield. Had they been drinking?

The pit stood next to the backside of the social sciences classrooms. Ms. Range and a handful of teachers had joined the crowd, along with the whole cast of the play, including Ollie who was not-too-subtly giving a thumbs-up, but no one else was looking at the crowd.

Everyone was staring at Emma.

Emma stared back. She blinked as if she could will them away. She hadn’t meant to use her powers again. But she couldn’t let Hannah get hit by a car.

“No way! A super just saved you!” Kyle ran up to Hannah and put his arm around her shoulders.

“A real super! Here at Pueblo Lindo High!” someone else called.

What should Emma say to that? She floated a little bit higher, staring down at the crowd. She wanted to bounce on her feet, but only managed to shift awkwardly in the wind.

“Are you going to protect us all?” asked another.

Emma swallowed. Was she a superhero now? She didn’t want to be. She didn’t want to do anything but fit in.

“What’s it like being a super?”

“What do we call you?”

“How’d you get here so fast?”

More and more people asked her questions and made non-question comments that Emma didn’t know how to respond to. She floated upwards a bit more, her fingers digging into her fists. She didn’t know what to do. If she didn’t get home soon, Nan would find out for sure that it was her. How could she change into her warm sweats and hurry home with no one seeing her?

“Thank you for saving her!” Kyle said, then turned to Hannah. “I—I don’t know what I’d do without you. I love you.”

Hannah collapsed against him. She might have internal injuries or cuts they couldn’t see.

“Call 911,” Emma said. “She should get checked out by a doctor. All three of you should.”

Emma swam through the air towards the costume room, but she couldn’t go there because they’d all see her go in. Everyone on campus had run to the explosion and had seen her, but maybe the stupid dress and the mask would keep them from recognizing her. Maybe, if she slunk home, everyone would think she’d already been there, and maybe—maybe everything would go back to almost normal.

Ollie could get Emma’s stuff out of the costume room, and Emma wouldn’t have to do any superhero things ever again. Emma touched down on the far side of campus near the locker room. She darted in, then slipped into her PE uniform.

She tossed the whole costume into her duffel bag and ran to her bike. Her hands shook so bad she could barely unlock it.

No way she'd do that again.

What if she’d hit Hannah? What if she’d hit someone else? No. No. She couldn’t do that again.

11

Emma swatted at the hands shaking her. She curled tighter around Elna Gabbie, the Cabbage Patch’s red yarn hair pressed against her cheek. But the hands kept shaking her. Then, her Charlie Chaplin alarm screamed, “Wake up! Wake up! Hurry! You’re late! You’re late!” Why wasn’t her phone alarm going off too?

Blue lightning flickered through her eyelids. Emma groaned and stared up at Nan. Her stomach groaned. Waking up exhausted sucked.

“Are you sick?” Nan asked. Bags lined Nan’s eyes and her mouth pressed tight, fine lines radiating outward.

“No.” Emma shook her head. Not sick. Exhausted. Yesterday, she’d biked home and gone straight to bed.

“Then get ready for school. Do you need me to drive you?” Nan asked, not looking convinced.

Emma glanced at the clock. 6:48 a.m. That meant Charlie Chaplin had been shouting at her for nearly ten minutes before Nan had awakened her. Why had Nan waited so long?.

Not to mention, the harps and chimes from her phone should have been going another five minutes before that… Crap. She’d left her phone with her backpack in the costume room. Ollie better have it, since Emma’d left it when she’d flown out the window to save Hannah.

Good thing morning practice was still a couple days a week. If she hurried, she’d make it to school on time. The four miles to school would take her forty minutes on her bike. She needed to get ready and leave by 7:15. That gave her half an hour to get ready.

“Don’t think so.” Emma climbed out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth.

Nan got out of her way.

“Is Hannah okay?” Emma asked.

“Why wouldn’t she be?” Nan said. “Get ready for school.”

Obedient, Emma headed back to her room and tugged on some shorts and a t-shirt. Since they hadn’t swam, she didn’t need to swap out the swimsuit and towels in her gym bag, but she did need new dry land clothes. She threw in some socks, a pair of shorts, two shirts—one short sleeve and one long.

Outside, gray clouds filled the sky, but so far as Emma knew, it wasn’t supposed to rain. Still she grabbed her Dollar Tree poncho and stuck it into the big center pocket of her duffel bag. Nan handed her an apple, and Emma raced out the door to her bike.

Either Hannah would be in Ms. Range’s class or she wouldn’t be. Hopefully, she was okay.

Emma pedaled furiously, struggling to make it to school on time. A block from school, the first bell rang. She pedaled even harder. At the full bike rack, the second bell rang while she locked her bike next to Sebastian’s.

Her stomach growled through English class. Worse, she hadn’t done her homework, but at least that didn’t seem to matter since they’d spent the whole class talking about superheroes. When the bell rang, she raced out of the classroom to go buy some food.

Three news vans were broadcasting from the parking lot near the crater Emma’s gleek-sneeze fireball had made. Valerie Virgo stood next to the crater, far paler than normal. Emma ignored them and rushed across the street. At the grocery store across the street , Emma bought a tube of cookie dough and a po-boy sandwich, then ran back, sucking cookie dough straight from the tube.

Late again, Emma froze in Ms. Range’s class.

A debate raged out of control. Everyone talked—no yelled—all at once. The voices seemed to mash together. Why didn’t high school teachers make kids raise their hands to talk like in grade school? That kept the voices from being overwhelming.

Like the morning after the supposed EastTech launch, a single question dominated the chalk board:

Does someone who has superpowers have a responsibility help to those who don’t?

What a stupid question. Yesterday, Emma could have hurt Hannah instead of saving her. Besides, she didn’t need any new responsibilities just because she got superpowers after the stupid UFO thing. With an F in English and an autism diagnosis, high school was clobbering her. No way could she handle being a superhero, too.

Across the classroom, a huge crack spidered through the parking lot window. Her fireball had done that. She needed this superhero thing to go away. Saving Hannah was one thing, but anything more was beyond her.

Hannah! Was her cousin there?

Summer and Hannah sat in their normal spots right next to each other, but an angry purple and black bruise dominated half of Hannah's face. Her left eye had swollen shut. Hannah screamed at Summer.

“Enough!” Ms. Range’s voice cut through the classroom, and all the conversations stopped.

Only Hannah and Summer kept screaming at each other.

“She destroyed Hunter’s car! If you’re going to go out and use your superpowers, you should pay to fix the damage you cause. The insurance company won’t pay for superhero damage.”

“Your asshole boyfriend almost killed me.”

“If Blake hadn’t gotten him drunk—”

“If that super didn’t save me, I’d be dead. Pancaked between the wall and his car.”

“Ladies,” Ms. Range stood at the front of the classroom, in parade rest with her hands clasped behind her back. “I understand you are both at the center of this debate. That said, avoid the profanity and give someone else a chance to talk. I’m going to restate your arguments and open up the floor for someone else.”

The eye slit on the creepy mask stared at Emma. What would it be like to be forced to wear something so awful?

Ms. Range sighed. “Ms. Lee is arguing that superheroes have a responsibility to act to save someone’s life, correct?”

“I guess so.” Hannah rubbed her arm, just below a huge black bruise.

“Ms. Sestina is arguing that unless a superhero can pay for repairs on any property damage, they should not use their powers. Is that correct?”

Summer nodded and smoothed her hair.

“Good. Then once Emma takes her seat, we’ll continue the debate in a civil tone. Remember to use our debate phrases.” Ms. Range gestured to a poster on the wall with a list of good words to use in a civil debate.

I agree because…. I disagree because… Yes, but…

Emma slunk to her seat in the middle of the front row. Her duffel bag knocked into the poor students along the edge. At least the debate meant she didn’t need to borrow paper or pencil for notes.

Emma stared up at the clock. She couldn’t hear it click over the sound of everyone talking, but the numbers on it clicked steadily forward. 10:07. Not even. Not divisible by—

“It’s great that there’s supers now,” Kyle said to her right. “I kind of like having Hannah around. I don’t want her to be pancaked.”

Emma struggled to filter out the voices, but they were too many for her to even try to play the number game.

“I agree. Supers should protect people when they can.”

She couldn’t think. The voices washed over her.

“—Dragon Girl—”

She couldn’t think.

“—fireball—”

She needed to curl up into a ball.

“—dead—”

Not dead. No.

“—Pay for what they do—”

Emma pulled her arms over her head.

Again and again, it seemed like the whole class she had a responsibility to be out patrolling for crime, rescuing kittens from trees, righting injustices, and that sort of thing.

Emma pulled her feet under her, pinning them against the hard orange chair. She didn’t want to be a superhero. Last night had left her exhausted and broken. Besides, she wanted to fit in, not take care of everyone. Just because she could gleek-sneeze fire and fly, didn’t make saving the whole world her responsibility.

The debate continued, but Ms. Range knelt in front of her. Was the last time she cried in here really only a couple weeks ago?

“Emma, you look overwhelmed,” Ms. Range whispered while the others argued. Their voices drowned out Ms. Range’s voice. Whatever Ms. Range was saying ended with an invitation to go outside.

Emma raced out of the classroom.

The sky had turned darker gray, and Emma rubbed her arms. Despite the rain poncho in her swim bag, she hadn’t dressed warm enough for this weather. She paced the open space between the planter and the row of trailer classrooms.

In the debate, no one even considered the supers’ side. They all imagined themselves as people needing saving. No one thought about her, or what having that responsibility would do to someone. What would she have done if she’d blown up Hannah? She could hardly see to aim the fireball. No one asked how the super felt about damaging Hunter’s car or putting that massive bruise on Hannah?

Seriously. How did she feel?

Tears pricked her eyes. This was all too much. Emma needed to talk to someone. She needed to talk to the only person who knew her secret, the only one she could trust. She headed across the small quad towards Ollie’s French class. With another twenty minutes before the bell, Emma paced outside the classroom.

How could she care for everyone? She had too much going on already and couldn’t handle this.

“What are you doing?” Ollie asked, appearing from inside the classroom. “Madame Benoit asked who the crazy girl outside was.”

Emma stopped mid step. Her arms were raised halfway in the air and she’d been pacing. Had she really been flinging her arms all over the place?

“I—”

“You’re on the verge of a meltdown.” Ollie stood beside her, her hands palm outward, but didn’t touch. “I put your stuff in my gym locker.” Ollie grinned. “And Madame Benoit gave me a bathroom pass to get you away from the window. You had the whole class watching you.”

“Just what I need.” Emma glanced around, making sure no one was in ear shot and lowered her voice. “Both English and AP HuG only talked about me and what happened yesterday.”

“What did they say in Human Geography?” Ollie led the way towards the gym.

“That supers have a responsibility to use their powers to help people and because of that the flying girl that saved Hannah…”

“You don’t think being a superhero would be fun?” Ollie asked.

“God no.” Emma’s drew her shoulders up to her ears, the tension returning. She focused on keeping her hands balled into fists at her sides. “Just because I’m a weirdo who got stuck with powers…”

“You can flap. You don’t have to hide your stims with me,” Ollie said.

“What?” Emma stared at Ollie like she was still speaking French.

“Your stims. I flap sometimes too.” Ollie flung her arms up and down like Emma had been doing. “Spinning is fun too. Chewing on things. It’s okay. It’ll help you calm down. Avoid meltdown or shutdown.”

Emma’s nails dug deeper into her palms. Her shoulders were still inching up towards her ears.

She chewed her pencils to nubs and had broken more than one pen in her mouth, chewing until they burst. Nan always got on her for that. Was that an autistic thing? What about biting her nails? When she’d stopped biting them she’d starting tweezing the hairs out of her legs. It was like an addiction. Was all that part of being autistic?

“So you don’t want to be a superhero?” Ollie asked as they crossed the grass on the main quad.

“How can I? I can’t even pass freshman English.” Emma leaned against the grey gym wall. Her voice kept rising on its own. “I couldn’t even pick a job to do this stupid my future project. Now I’m stuck in special ed and I don’t know—”

“You telling me you wouldn’t try to stop someone from getting hurt?” Ollie asked with unmasked incredulity.

“Well… no.” Emma stared down at her feet. She’d needed to save Hannah, but Hannah was her cousin. Would she feel the same urge to save a stranger? “But why can’t I just keep my head down?”

“Because that’s not you.” Ollie smiled, her mouth crinkling upward until her cheeks rose into little pink hills.

Emma looked away, running her hand over the rough bricks.

“Drop it.” Ollie started walking towards the locker room so briskly that Emma almost had to jog to catch up. “I’m excited about the play. I mean I’m just a freshman, and my part’s so small—”

“What’s going on?” Emma asked.

“Don’t look,” Ollie whispered. “There’s a big, scary dude coming up from the office. He must have seen us outside, and it’s not break. Talk to me about the dance or the play. We’ll finish this conversation in the locker room.”

“Hey! What are you doing outside during class?” the man shouted.

Emma turned so fast her hair hit her in the face.

Ollie stiffened.

The man looked chiseled out of granite. He had a gray buzz cut, a gray suit that looked pressed and neat, not like Mr. Wale’s crumpled ones. Even broader through the shoulders than the senior swim guys, he screamed authority. Just looking at him made Emma’s eyes water. She couldn’t bring her gaze up to meet his.

Ollie held up her bathroom pass, a large serving spoon with the word bathroom and a toilet printed on it. Then she pointed at the locker room doors.

"We’re going to the girls’ lockers," Emma said.

“Both of you?” The man squinted at Ollie.

"Ollie is a girl." Emma’s voice came out clipped and hard. Just because her friend’s hair was short didn’t make her a boy. Even if she had a boy’s part in the play, it worked because they didn’t have enough boys and they did make-up and costumes and stuff.

“Who are you?” Ollie put her hand on the locker room door. “You’re not a teacher. Are you a new security guard?”

“No, I’m from EastWatch AstroTech and the Feds contracted us to investigate these supposed super appearances.” He handed them each a card.

“John Johnson?” Ollie asked, reading her card. “What kind of a made-up name is that?”

Emma elbowed Ollie. No need to antagonize the big scary guy who was looking for her.

“Stepdad adopted me. Can’t help my first name was already John.” He shrugged. “Who are you?”

“Can’t we just go pee?” Ollie asked.

“Were you girls there last night?" He put a funny emphasis on girls like he didn’t believe that Ollie was one. “Don’t lie to me. I have a list from the teachers who were.”

Ollie slumped, her whole body collapsing on itself, her hand pulling away from the door. She glanced towards the man, then looked away.

“I was there. I’m Ollie Oren. I’m in the play.”

Emma swallowed hard when he turned to her.

“And were you—”

“Emma’s grounded,” Ollie interrupted, her words streaming out all in a rush. “She left right after swim practice. Missed the whole thing by about fifteen minutes.”

Emma froze. Another reason she shouldn’t do this super hero thing. She couldn’t lie to save her life.

“Emma…” The man somehow managed to glare at them while scrolling through his tablet. “Not Emma Edgin?”

“Uh… yeah.” Emma risked a glance at his face.

A heavy brow hid his light brown eyes.

She rocked, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. Why couldn’t she stand still? Nan always said it made her look guilty and unladylike.

“Hannah’s cousin.” Ollie said. “Hannah is the one that almost got squished by that douche’s car.”

“Ollie!” Emma shouted. It came out way louder than she intended. She hadn’t even meant to say anything let alone shout.

“Right.” The granite man coughed, covering his mouth. “You weren’t there though?”

Emma shook her head. “I left right after swim practice. I didn’t hear about the whole thing until this morning.”

“Can anyone vouch for your location?” the man stared down at her with light brown eyes, surprisingly like her own.

Emma shook her head. “I bike home alone, it takes about half an hour, but Nan didn’t get home from bingo until after I went to bed.” Tears pricked her eyes.

“Didn’t the government say supers are a hoax?” Ollie asked.

“That’s why I’m investigating. To verify that this is just a series of hoaxes.” The man frowned. “I’ll be interviewing the witnesses to this so-called superhero activity once I get settled in.”

“Please, I got to pee.” And it wasn’t a lie. She hadn’t realized it until now. Her bladder started screaming at her that if she didn’t go right now, she’d pee her pants.

The man sort of waved his hand, and Emma took that as a sign that they could go. Emma sprinted into the locker room and slammed into the stall before the outside door shut.

Crap! It didn’t matter if being a superhero was fun, too much, or dangerous. Ollie was right. Emma needed a costume that hid her identity and a superhero name. Otherwise, the Super Commission would get her.

12

“Thanks for talking me into going to this stupid class.” Emma stood at the top of the ramp to the special ed classroom.

Ollie had woven her lanky arms through the railing, her feet on the dirt track.

“No problem. Annie will mark me here and someone can bring my clarinet out here since we’re supposed to practice marching anyway.” Ollie shrugged. “Besides, I know what it’s like to get a diagnosis for something you just thought of as part of you.”

“I just…” Emma shook her head. From what Ollie was saying, she supposed it was starting to make sense that she had autism. Stupid toddler diagnosis and all. “Why can’t I just be normal?”

“Normal is boring.” Ollie laughed. "Pretending to be normal is even—”

“Look it’s Elsa and Olaf!” Summer shouted.

Emma winced.

“Don’t say anything,” Ollie whispered, leaning in closer to the railing on the ramp.

“What’s your cousin doing going in the special ed room?” Hannah’s boyfriend, Kyle, asked in a loud voice.

Emma turned, feeling like a deer in the headlights. Half of her wanted to rush into the classroom, but she couldn’t leave Ollie behind to face the upperclassmen’s wrath. What was she supposed to do? Just dart in and pretend she hadn’t heard? Talk to Hannah who she hadn’t seen since the so-called debate that morning?

“She gets an extra chance to work on her freshman project.” Hannah and her friends crowded close to Ollie, who did her best to disappear into the railing. “You’re an orphan, so that makes you special, right cuz?”

Emma stammered a response. No whole words came out. When she was talking about something that interested her, she could be so eloquent, but right then, she didn’t know what to say.

No way was she going to lie. So, she couldn’t say she wasn’t special. She had a diagnosis and well… she did do some of the things autistics did. She for sure stimmed and had special interests and dealing with people sucked ass. She couldn’t lie about what she was doing here.

Hannah, Kyle, Summer, and Hunter all laughed at her stammering incoherence. Somehow, Summer and Hannah had already reconciled their fight this morning.

How could Hannah be so horrible the day after Emma had saved her life? Hannah could have died and, yeah, she didn’t know Emma was the one who saved her, but you’d think Hannah’d be nice nice because she should be feeling grateful to be alive.

“She can’t even talk! Maybe being an orphan does make you special,” Summer said. She flashed her teeth, but her top lip stayed so tight it was more like a growl than a smile.

“She’s way too smart to get an extra chance.” Hannah said, narrowing her eyes. “She doesn’t even work at it. You’re just a spoiled brat.”

“Nerds like you don’t need extra chances,” Hunter said.

How could he be so glib after he’d almost killed Hannah? Even with the black eye, Hannah was acting like he was her friend.

The door opened under Emma’s hand. Startled, Emma stumbled back. Her feet floated off the ground, but everyone stared at Ms. Ngo.

Her dark hair streamed behind her in the breeze. “Enough!” Ms. Ngo shouted. “Leave them alone. Bullying isn’t tolerated at this school—”

“They weren’t bullying me,” Emma said. Her shoulders were drawing up towards her ears making the knot her neck pulse, and her stomach feel a little queasy. “Hannah’s my cousin. We tease each other.”

“You four deserve detention.” Ms. Ngo shook her head. “Hannah Lee, the day after you almost die, and you’re already picking on your poor freshman cousin?”

“Don’t give them detention,” Emma said.

Hannah would end her if she got detention. That had happened when they were kids. Also, Nan and Aunt Beth had gotten involved, making it that much worse. She had no clue what would happen if three of Hannah’s friends got detention. too.

“I swear Hannah and I tease each other all the time. It’s what we do.” Emma chewed her lip.

Ms. Ngo frowned. Her mouth, normally fixed in a wide smile, turned down at the sides and it made her whole face drawn and pinched. “You four are lucky. Get to class before I change my mind.”

Hannah and her friends hurried back toward the classrooms.

“How dare those silver spoons call you a spoiled brat!” Ms. Ngo turned to Emma. “They all need someone to put their heads on right for them. Even Hunter. Almost hitting her with a car didn’t stop him from trying to impress that Summer.”

Emma chewed her lip. If Ollie’d just gone to band like she should have, then she wouldn’t have been part of that.

“I’m gonna go to band now,” Ollie said, her voice soft and whispery.

“I’m sorry about…” Em’s voice trailed off and she waved her hand in the direction her cousin had gone.

“Those four calling you a spoiled brat…” Ms. Ngo sighed. She was clearly struggling for the words without insulting the rich kids. “They’ve got all the money in the world, all the advantage, and they can’t even be civil. I should still write them up.”

“No! Please. Hannah and I tease each other all the time. Just… It’s a little hard when her friends get in on the ribbing.”

The lie felt like dirt on her tongue. She hated it, and poor Ollie was already halfway across the track, going the long way to band. She’d be late for sure, but hopefully Ms. Burbach would be cool with it.

Ms. Ngo chewed her lip, as if considering saying more. Finally, she just shook her head. “I understand a lot’s going on with you. If you can’t handle working on your project now we can just talk about what happened to your cousin last night.”

“No!” Emma’s voice came out louder than she intended.

Ms. Ngo smiled, her cheeks rising into little round hills that almost blocked out her eyes. “It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. I know a lot of autistics have trouble talking about or identifying emotions. That’s something we can work on later, if you want.”

“Can we… can we just work on my project?” Emma pushed past Ms. Ngo and into the classroom. Dressed for the cold, for once, she didn’t shiver.

“Did you want to talk about what you read?” Ms. Ngo asked. “I’d like to talk to you a bit about what it means to you to have autism.”

“I didn’t read last night because… well…” Emma let her voice trail off, avoiding the lies. Before answering, she took her place at the empty table in the middle of the room. “I just… I went to sleep.”

“That’s normal. Our emotions can be overwhelming and sometimes we might have a physical reaction. Exhaustion is common.” Ms. Ngo smiled again, but it seemed forced. This time, her cheeks didn’t blot out her eyes.

Emma stared down at the orange desk.

“I have two lists of possible professions for you based on the two personality tests you took yesterday. Did you have time to make your own list of careers that sounded interesting to you?”

Emma shrugged. “I started… then…”

“Sometimes starting is half the battle. Let’s take a look at the lists that the quizzes generated for you and at the list you started for yourself.”

After comparing the lists and looking at what professions were common for her interests and personality type and her own half-started list, Emma was hit with a realization. She needed a job that would allow her to run off and save people at a moment’s notice without drawing the attention of anyone looking for supers.

The realization was that this was important to her. If she figured out the superhero thing—and a part of her did want to—then she needed a job that would let her just run off at a moment’s notice and not get fired. She didn’t think she could do that if she was a college professor, and definitely not a high school teacher. In fact, she didn’t think many of the jobs on her list would let her do it. She doubted there were a lot of jobs where you could just hare off and disappear for hours at a time.

“I know this isn’t really very high up on any of the lists, but…” Emma swallowed hard. Nan wouldn’t approve of any of the jobs that were a good fit for her. Emma liked writing and drawing, but Nan told her there was no money in that stuff. And the superheroes in the movies and comics were usually photographers and journalists. “I think I’d like to look into being a journalist.”

“I know you like writing, but you scored really high for introversion. I don’t know that would be a good fit.” Ms. Ngo said, shaking her head. “What about something like being a technical writer, a blogger, or a translator? With those professions and the internet, you can often work from home or go into an office and work independently.”

Emma could practically hear Nan in her head. “I don’t speak any other languages and bloggers don’t make any money.”

“You’re young. You’re in Spanish Two, aren’t you? You’ve got a lot of time that you can learn skills related to this path.”

Emma shrugged. They debated the benefits of researching journalism or not since it wasn’t a good fit.

“In the end, Emma, it’s your project. Besides, this process is to help you learn to evaluate professions so that later you can choose one.” Ms. Ngo rose to go to her desk. “Income and personality fit are only two pieces of the puzzle.”

“And the rest?”

Ms. Ngo shrugged. “Just remember you’ll need to interview journalists and do your own investigative article.”

Emma nodded. That might be, but reporters had all kinds of leeway in where they got to go and what they did.

“Why don’t you take journalism next year and work on the paper?”

Sebastian was in journalism and he liked it a lot. Even if Bash was nerdy like her, he was good with people where she never knew what to say or even when it was her turn to talk. “I don’t know if I’ll have the electives, with having to…” Take this class, but Emma didn’t want to say that.

“If it’s something you’re interested in, you should prioritize it. Get a feel for it and some experience.”

Emma pursed her lips together. Did Ms. Ngo think Emma wanted to do journalism because Emma liked Sebastian and because her best friend Ollie wanted to be a photographer? Best not fight Ms. Ngo on the why, but Emma was going to do a job that was good for superheroes. Though… a job that she could do from home might be even better.

Still, Nan said working from home was code for being unemployed or semi-employed. Emma needed a stable job, with benefits because of her asthma. Journalism was her ticket.

And, honestly, would her Nan love her any more or less once she discovered who the real Emma was?

13

With the pool still broken, swim practice was still on dry land. Since everyone knew that, they all had come prepared to run this time. Coach said the public pool across town would be available as soon as they got lifeguards scheduled.

That day, they started with a short mile and a half run around campus and through the neighborhood. The sky was overcast but sweat dripped in her eyes as Emma pushed to catch up to Sebastian. She now had the perfect excuse to get him to jailbreak her phone and put the semi-legal police scanner app on it.

His long, brown legs flashed even as she pumped her arms to catch him. They ran down through the subdivision with streets filled with girls’ names. Wendy. Candace. Olivia—though Olivia Street didn’t fit Ollie at all. The flower boxes sitting under the windows always made her laugh.

Emma pumped her arms harder, pushing past the heavy feeling in her legs.

“Hey!” Emma gasped as she closed in on Sebastian.

“Hey, yourself.” Sebastian slowed his long even strides so Emma could keep up. Usually, she spent most of the run trailing behind him, but ahead of the main pack.

“What’s up?” Emma asked, catching her breath through the long strides.

“Working on a big article for the paper.” His teeth flashed white as he smiled at her. He seemed relaxed despite the hard-for-her pace.

“Yeah?” Emma asked. That was good. Him talking about the paper would make asking for help with her project easier.

“An exposé about Dragon Girl.”

“Who?” Emma’s heart leapt into her throat. She’d heard that a couple times already today and she didn’t like the name.

“The super who saved your cousin.”

Emma took a ragged breath. “What’s there to write about?”

“Not much yet, but she’s perfect after all the bad stuff about supers in the news. I need to find out who she is.”

Emma’s eyes stung. No way could she have him publish who she was in the paper. She better change the subject. “I picked journalism for my ‘My Future Project.’”

“Glad they’re letting you make that up. I’d hate to miss you in honor’s English next year.” Sebastian smiled at her again for just a second.

“You don’t think I’m spoiled?” Emma’s feet pounded the ground.

“You?” Sebastian snorted. “Yeah right.”

Maybe smart kids deserved second chances, too. They emerged from the neighborhood onto the frontage road between the high school and the freeway. Big rigs dominated the freeway. What would one of her fireballs do to a big rig?

The steady pounding of her feet on the ground gave her space to think. “I was hoping you could help me with the project, since you’re all about the paper and journalism.”

“Sure! What do you want to know?”

“I was hoping maybe you could jail break my phone with the police scanner app… you know like you did on yours.” Emma swatted at the sweat on her forehead.

“I guess.” Sebastian’s voice was flat.

Left. Right. Left. The next part was a bit more major. Maybe she could turn his article to her advantage. She did need to do an investigation for her project. If she could pretend to help Sebastian with his research, then she could steer him away from her.

“Maybe I could work with you on your superhero investigation to pay you back?” Emma swallowed.

“That would be great. The more people on it, the sooner we’ll find out about her. Aren’t you dying to know who the girl that saved your cousin is?”

“I guess so.” Emma made herself spit out the next words. “I mean, I know everyone's wondering who she is, but what if she doesn’t want to be found?”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Sebastian asked.

Emma didn’t say anything for a while. That big EastTech man terrified her. Then with everyone saying she had the obligation to save people. But the government was looking for supers, and she didn't think they were going to play nice when they found them.

Sebastian slowed their pace again, probably thinking that that was why Emma wasn’t answering.

Right. Left. “Ollie and I met a man on campus today whose job it is to look for the super that saved Hannah yesterday. He’s working for the government or EastTech or something.” Left. Right.

“So, he’s trying to write my article for me.” Sebastian laughed. How could he just laugh? His uncle had been deported when the government had come looking.

“What do you think the government will do to her when they find out who she is?” Emma shivered, despite how hot she felt. Not like they would give her a medal for saving Hannah when they were trying to say supers were a hoax.

“Probably catalogue her powers, maybe run some tests, and let her go. I mean, they’re not going to punish a citizen for being a good Samaritan.”

She didn’t want the granite man guessing who she was at all. She didn’t think it was as simple as just cataloguing her powers.

They turned the corner again, finishing the long side of the run. Just the two short sides of campus now. Past, the parking lot where Emma’d saved Hannah then past the front of the office.

Emma still didn’t say anything, just struggled to keep pace with Sebastian. She glanced at Ms. Range’s spiderwebbed window and the cordoned off area of yellow tape. The school would have to have someone fix the damage she’d done.

“You going to be ungrounded in time for the masquerade?” Sebastian asked.

“Don’t know. Nan’s really had it in for me.” Emma glanced at Sebastian, but she got another eyeful of crater where she’d saved her cousin. Her mouth went dry.

“Too bad.”

They were reaching the last corner before the final run past the office, the old gym, and finally to the pool. “Can I take your phone home with me tonight then?”

“So you could jailbreak it?” At least one thing was going right.

“Yeah.” Sebastian picked up the pace. “You’ll help me look into that super?”

“Yeah.” Maybe she could convince him to keep her identity secret. Or convince him to report about the supers without revealing their identities. Otherwise, Sebastian’s article would be doing that EastTech man’s work for him.

14

Emma glided below the water, blowing out air until her lungs felt like they’d collapse. Chin tucked to her chest, straight arms pressed against the back of her head, and her feet out behind her, she waited until her head bobbed to the surface.

She did one breast-stroke arms, sucked in a deep breath, and slid back under the water with the strength of one frog kick. A second kick sent her deeper as she blew out all the air as hard as she could. Bubbles bounced against her eyes. She kicked a third time and glided again.

Here, under water, her eyes closed against the chlorine, the air gone, she didn’t worry about superpowers. No flying. No fireballs. No Super Commission.

Nothing to worry about. A log, gliding through the water didn’t worry. A crocodile. An alligator. Even with all the bubbles gone, Emma still glided from the strength of her last kick.

This moment was her peace. Her sanctuary. Her quiet time. Here, with her lungs empty and the pressure of the water against her ears, her chest, her whole body, the pressure to be an honors student vanished. No more pressure to go to college, to save the world, to get an A, to be perfect. Here, the water sheltered her. Nothing else intruded.

Almost done, she didn’t want practice to end.

The momentum of the last kick ended. Her head bobbed against the top of the water. She took one stroke and found the wall waiting for her. At the end of the lane, Ollie was already toweling herself off, goggle marks around her eyes. Only a few stragglers like Emma remained in the water.

Sebastian had carried their kickboards and pull buoys back to the equipment room. He stood halfway back to the concession tables beside the pool where their bags waited for them. He’d somehow braved the March chill without even a towel.

“You’re one of the fastest on the team, but girl you sure move slow when you want to.” Ollie pulled her big swim parka around her.

Emma laughed, pulled off her cap and goggles, then dunked her head under the water. She came up, water dripping from her hair down her face and her back. The world was waiting for her, but she felt better.

“Your Nan thinks you’re going to speech practice tonight, right?” Ollie asked.

“I am going.” Emma wasn’t a liar. She couldn’t lie to Nan and not go.

“Umm… right, but we’ve got to work on that project first.” Ollie wanted to try out some superhero costume ideas for Emma.

“Project?” Sebastian asked, toweling himself off “You mean the journalism thing? You need any help?”

“No!” both girls said at once.

Sebastian glanced from Emma to Ollie and back again. He laughed like he knew there was a joke he wasn’t in on. “I get it. ‘Project,’ right. You’re going to the dance, then?”

“So far as I know, I’m still grounded, but Ollie’s free.” Emma hoisted herself out of the pool and darted over to her duffel bag. She rang out her hair and started toweling herself dry.

“Well, I guess I’ll see her there.” Sebastian didn’t bother heading to the locker room. Instead, he slipped on a pair of old black sweats over his jammers and tugged on a sweatshirt. “And don’t forget, you promised to help me with my article.”

“I’ll take a look at your list, again.” Emma’s throat tightened at the thought of the list, even as she pulled on Nan’s old housecoat.

“Thanks!” He waved at them and headed out the gate, black sweatpants mostly hiding the wet spots from his jammers. He lived close enough that wet jammers until he got home must not be much of an issue.

Emma hurried as fast as she dared to the woman’s restroom. If she went too fast, the lifeguard watching them would yell at her to walk.

She didn’t want to draw any more attention to herself than the purple housecoat already did, but she was cold. The sun was already setting, and it had been cloudy and chilly all day. Ollie kept pace right beside her, her oversized backpack slung over one shoulder.

“I can’t lie to Nan, so I’ve got to go to speech tonight.” Emma pulled open the bathroom door. The showers were already full since this bathroom didn’t have as many as the campus locker room. Guess she’d to settle for changing into dry clothes. “She’ll skin me for sure if she finds out that I didn’t go.” That might not have been true. Nan hadn’t spanked Emma since she was a kid, but Emma didn’t want to find out if Nan’s threat was real or not.

“That project is the most important thing going on right now, isn’t it?” Ollie asked.

“Sure is.” Emma headed into the locker room. Emma needed a superhero costume.

“We’ll work on it at my house a while. Since I’m supposed to be at speech, Mom took a late shift at the diner and won’t be home until after nine. That gives us at least an hour to… work on the project.” Ollie hesitated before the last, struggling to speak in code.

They hurried to Ollie’s house, which was both older and smaller than Emma’s trailer. But it was a real house with wood floors and solid walls. With Ollie’s mom gone, no one could overhear them talking about Emma’s superhero costume and mask.

“So you’re for sure in on this thing now?” Ollie unlocked the door.

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“You guess so?” Ollie turned right as she entered the house, putting her into the kitchen. She yanked a tupperware out of the fridge. “I thought you wanted to be a superhero.”

“I don’t. But I want to be ready if I have to do something again.” Emma had to move again so Ollie could shove the tupperware in the microwave. “With that Agent Johnson and all the bad stuff about supers in the news, I can’t go out there without hiding who I am.”

“Got it. So, definitely a mask—”

“But one that I can wear with my glasses and see.” Emma turned sideways to shift her duffel out of Ollie’s way. “Because I was so scared I might hit Hannah or Hunter’s car.”

“Right.” Ollie frowned as she squeezed past Emma again. “Just go sit at the dining table. Stop following me around the kitchen.”

“Sorry.” Emma shuffled over to the table and plopped down, dropping her bags. Even dry, she felt chilled.

“I borrowed a few masks to try out. And if none of those work… well, I’ve got a couple other ideas.” Ollie continued to mess around in the kitchen.

“What about clothes? I mean I don’t have super speed. I’ll have to change my clothes or everyone will figure out I’m me because I’ll be wearing whatever I was wearing. Hiding my face isn’t enough.” Emma blinked in surprise when Ollie pulled some bread out of the dishwasher.

“It’s broken, and I figure that’s why most comic book superheroes wear spandex.”

“What?” Emma asked, trying to wrap her head around the dishwasher bread.

“Spandex. You can wear it under your clothes since it doesn’t add a lot of bulk. Then, ditch your clothes and boom, instant superhero. Since you can fly, maybe you can drop your clothes on a roof or something.” Ollie slapped the bread onto two plates and glopped some leftovers onto the bread. “One sandwich or two?”

If the not touching thing was… rigidity, maybe she should try the mixed up food. Besides, between swimming and practicing flying by the creek, Emma was starving. “Two. And what’s broken?”

“The dishwasher, so we keep the bread and stuff in it,” Ollie said like that was the most natural thing in the world. “The spandex is what superheroes wear so they can change fast.”

Did she really want to eat a mixed-up sandwich on dishwasher bread? “But I hate wearing spandex.”

“Then you’ll have to carry something with you. Like always. And be able to sneak off and change before you can save someone. This way, you only have to yank off some clothes. Way faster than changing.” Ollie set the plates on the table. “Besides, you’re in a swimsuit half the time anyway.”

“That’s different.” Emma eyed the dishwasher bread sandwiches.

“Whatever.” Ollie headed to her room and returned with a small box. “Start with these.”

While her leftovers sandwiches got cold, Emma tried on mask after mask that Ollie had taken from the costume room, but they all made seeing through her glasses difficult.

After the last one, Emma gave up. “I’m not being a superhero if I can’t hide my face.”

“I’ve got another idea, but you’re not going to like it.” Ollie grabbed her backpack.

Emma’s stomach sank. “Why wouldn’t I like it?”

Ollie yanked out what looked like an oversized tube of lipstick. “I know you don’t like makeup or how it feels on your skin, but if you can’t wear the mask with your glasses…”

Ollie held up the tube—a green stick of face paint. “I borrowed this from the drama room, too. Remember how they put on Oz when we were in seventh grade?”

“Why green?” Emma asked.

“Because they call you Dragon Girl.” Ollie shrugged. “Besides, it was the biggest tube they had.”

“I don’t want to be called that.” Emma took a bite of her sandwich. Chicken, stuffing, and broccoli all mixed together. She gagged and set the sandwich back down. Should have asked for just one. “I don’t breathe fire. I’m not fireproof.”

Ollie laughed. “You fly and it looks like fire comes from your mouth.”

“No, the videos show the fire appears a foot or so away from my face when the two streams of liquid combine. Like Greek fire.”

“You don’t get to pick your superhero name.” Ollie crossed her arms. “Face it, you’re Dragon Girl.”

“I’m not a dragon.” Emma chewed her lip. “I should to be called… Geek Fire!”

Ollie laughed. “I like it. I really do. The play on words of gleek, Greek, and… you’re kind of a geek, but no one will call you that.”

“Sure they will. If we put it on my costume and I post a couple anonymous wiki articles about me.”

“Not going to work. The news already called you Dragon Girl.”

“I’m not Dragon Girl.” She had to take control somehow. “And I’m not painting my face with that stuff.”

“Em, sweetheart, you’re being unreasonable.” Ollie headed to the sink. “You say you need to hide your identity, but if you won’t wear spandex or a mask and refuse to paint your face.”

“I…” Emma shook her head, words sucked. She hated words, even with Ollie who got her, words didn’t always work.

“Either you’re doing this or you’re not.”

Ollie was right. Whether or not Emma wanted it, she had powers and she couldn’t stand by if something happened. And she’d asked Sebastian to put the scanner on her phone.

And, if Emma was going to help people, she had to be ready.

Ollie handed Emma a small box from her backpack. “And I made you this cool headband, too.”

Emma opened it and found a weird twisted metal, papier mâché, scaly thing.

“If I made it right, it should hook onto your glasses.” Ollie glanced down at the table and back up at Emma.

“Thanks, Ol.” She picked up the headband-thing. It was surprisingly light.

“Try it on.” Ollie reached for Emma’s glasses and slid the arms into sleeves down the side of the headband-crown thing.

It did look like a dragon headpiece. Tears pricked Emma’s eyes. Her stomach dropped. “I’m scared.”

“I know, Em. But, if something else happens, you won’t have your face hidden again by sheer luck. Luck kept your identity secret when you saved Hannah. But now, you've got to be prepared, or else…”

“Either I’ll be stuck and want to help and not be able to help, or else that EastTech man will get me.”

.

15

Monday after swim practice, Hannah stood outside the rear passenger door of her pink Escalade. The bruises from the Dragon Girl incident had faded from purple and black to green and yellow. Hannah’s mouth pinched like Nan’s did when she was unhappy. Must be that she’d had to drive the four blocks over to the pool, which wasn’t even out of her way home.

Kyle scowled at Emma from the passenger seat.

“You’re in the backseat tonight,” Hannah said, after inspecting the towel Emma had wrapped around her wet hair and deciding that Emma was dry enough to get in the car.

“Nan said Monday dinners are only for family.” Emma glared at the back of Kyle’s head as she climbed in. Even his hair was perfect, too.

“Kyle and I have been dating for three years.” Hannah’s tone didn’t allow for any argument and Emma wasn’t Nan. Nan would tell Hannah that Kyle coming to Monday night dinner wasn't okay. Hannah could deal with the repercussions.

Emma smiled at the thought of Hannah getting hers.

When they entered the big house, as always Emma stared up at the double stairways into the second story. Why did Hannah get to live in this palace when Emma was stuck in a gross trailer?

Not bothering to wait for Hannah and Kyle, Emma hurried out of the entryway, careful not to knock into any of Aunt Beth’s fragile collections with her duffel bag or backpack. On the other side of the wall, the fake wood floors and ornate couches where Nan and Aunt Beth sat still made her feel like the country mouse, but she felt a little better than being a tiny speck under the stairs.

“Are you ready for dinner?” Aunt Beth asked.

“Of course.” By the time dinner rolled around most nights—especially on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with two-a-day workouts—Emma was starving and could eat whatever was put in front of her.

“I’m glad you decided to come, Kyle.” Aunt Beth said with a smile.

Nan’s lips turned into a puckered white line. “Mondays are only for family.”

“I said he could come.” Beth ran her hand over her face. “We need some testosterone to balance us out since Frank’s working late again.”

“Is he still working on that Jamal Robinson case?” Emma asked.

“Yes.” Aunt Beth stood and headed towards the dining room. “But now that Speedster and a couple other wannabe superheroes are causing problems.”

“Really?” Kyle asked, leaning forward.

“Frank says supers are making so much more work for the DA’s office. Criminals come gift wrapped.” Aunt Beth shook her head. “But with no evidence, they have to release them again. So, what’s the point? More cases and more paperwork, but with no evidence to back it up… it means more time working for the DA’s office, but the criminals are back on the streets in no time.”

Emma frowned. That didn’t seem right. Were superheroes even making a difference?

“I think they’d be better off if they just arrested all the supers,” Nan said. “They’re dangerous.”

Emma shrank further into her seat. She didn’t want to talk about any of this. Would Nan still say that if she found out about Emma’s powers?

The table wasn’t really any more crowded than usual. But with Nan glaring at Kyle on one side of her and Hannah staring at him all moon-eyed on the other, Emma didn’t know what to do. So, she didn’t say anything and shoveled salad into her mouth. She reached for a helping of seconds, half oblivious to the conversation between the rest of the family and Kyle.

“The underclass masquerade is coming up,” Hannah said. “Who are you going with?”

Emma shrugged. “I’m still grounded.”

“Mom, you’re not really going to keep her grounded through the end of the school year, are you?” Aunt Beth winked at Emma.

“This is not appropriate conversation with someone who’s not family,” Nan snapped.

“Kyle’s practically family,” Hannah said. “We’ve been dating since freshman year.”

Emma rolled her eyes.

“Half the school knows about Emma crying in geography and well…” Kyle looked down at his hands. “Hannah told me about Emma’s… extra time on her project.”

“I’m still doing the work,” Emma blurted. Her feet dangled like a little kid’s, so to keep her emotions from getting the better of her, she let them swing. She hadn’t argued the grounding with Nan. She deserved it. Even if Ollie said it wasn’t her fault, it was. Emma hadn’t turned in the project. Autism or not, it didn’t excuse her from hard work.

“If you don’t let her date, how will she find a man to take care of her?” Aunt Beth asked.

“School is more important than finding a man,” Nan said. Her voice was hard and cold.

“That’s not how you raised me.” Aunt Beth smiled like the cat who ate the canary. She glanced up to the vaulted ceilings and towards the elaborate kitchen.

“That was a mistake.” Nan shook her head. “What if something happens to Frank? I thought your dad was enough, but…”

Emma swallowed hard. Nan never talked about Pops. His heart had given out shortly after Emma’s parents’ accident and Nan had been left with all the bills and no income to support them.

“That’s not going to happen to me,” Aunt Beth said. “Everything’s paid for and the winery makes a profit even past the DA’s office. Besides, Frank has a pension and life insurance. You have to make sure to prepare for everything, sweetie.”

Kyle choked. Hannah might think he was practically family, but it didn’t sound like he was quite ready for marriage and supporting Hannah. The two of them started whispering back and forth.

Nan shook her head. “School is important, and if she’s got too much going on, then the extracurriculars will go so she can focus on what matters. No fall sports either.”

“Come on, Mom. Go easy on her. High school’s overwhelming and even you told me she’s meeting her modified schedule.”

“I am! The new schedule makes more sense to me and I actually like—” Emma glanced at Kyle and Hannah. They didn’t need to know about her diagnosis. She was normal or normal enough. “That class with Ms. Ngo is nice.”

Nan frowned at them. “What is this? Try and talk an old woman out of parenting night?”

“It’s not like that,” Emma said. The tension was building in her jaw. She hadn’t practiced any fireballs since their long run on Thursday. If her emotions got too big, she didn’t want to accidentally gleek-sneeze one out in Hannah’s dining room. “I just… I’ve been working really hard and I’ve been grounded for almost a month. It would be nice to be able to go with my friends.”

“You should have thought about that before you didn’t turn in your project.”

“Mom, she gets it. She’s a good kid,” Aunt Beth said. “Besides, you knew Rosalie had her—”

“Ollie’s been wanting to take me dress shopping!” Emma blurted, cutting Beth off before she said anything about how her mom had her diagnosed as a little kid. “Even if I can’t go to the dance, it would be nice to help her pick—”

“See, Mom, she wants to do normal girl things. If you let her have a social life, then maybe it won’t matter that she’s—”

“Aunt Beth!” Emma cut her aunt off and interrupted Hannah’s whispered conversation with Kyle.

“She’s what?” Hannah asked.

“Nothing.” Emma’s cheeks burned, radiating heat throughout her body. “I’m nothing.”

Her jaw ached. She didn’t want Hannah to know. And definitely not Kyle. No one should know. She’d told Ollie because Ollie would understand. Hannah didn’t need to know. She was such a bitch to Emma already. “Can I go get the next course?”

“I’ll think about it,” Nan said, even as Beth nodded and Emma slid off the tall chair.

“What about you two?” Aunt Beth asked. “You have big plans for prom?”

“Me and Kyle are running against Summer and Hunter for king and queen.”

“Isn’t that hard? Running against your best friend?” Nan asked.

“Pretty sure people like us better. Especially after Hunter almost hit me with his car.” Hannah gestured to her face. “Besides, prom’s a month and a half away. This should be gone by then.”

“No one’s seen that Dragon Girl since,” Kyle said. “She’d have stopped that robbery last night if she were going to do anything else.”

“Geek Fire,” Emma said, returning with a serving plate layered with steaks.

“What?” Kyle asked.

“She’s called Geek Fire.” Emma set the plate on the center of the table and turned to go back to the kitchen for the side dishes.

“Where’d you hear that?” Kyle laughed. “She breathes fire. Everyone’s been calling her Dragon Girl.”

Only one dish. Aunt Beth had put the green beans and mashed potatoes on opposite sides of one casserole dish. Emma’s stomach turned. She hated when food touched that wasn’t supposed to. Maybe she’d just eat extra meat and not touch the sides. Wait, was that an autism thing?

“Her wiki page calls her Geek Fire.” Emma picked up the dish. Should she eat the sides so she wasn’t acting autistic? “It says the fire doesn’t start at her mouth and—”

“Yeah, right. She’s the Dragon,” Hannah said.

“Why would you call someone who breathes fire anything other than a dragon?” Kyle asked. “That’s just weird.”

“He’s right, even that Super Commission guy called her the Dragon when he interviewed me about being saved,” Hannah said.

Emma sat the dish on the table and climbed back into her seat. She didn’t want to talk about that EastTech guy or any of that.

“You’ll really think about it, Nan?” Emma asked, returning to the earlier conversation.

She didn’t want to tell Hannah and Kyle she was Geek Fire and that she didn’t breathe fire. If she admitted that she knew how the fire worked more than the wiki page said when Hannah had been there and had gotten saved… If she pushed it more, then… Even though, the uStream videos of her saving Hannah made it clear the fire started a bit away from her face, if she pushed it they'd suspect she knew something. She couldn’t push it anymore.

16

When math let out on Friday, Emma hurried towards her locker to ditch her math book and Sebastian.

He caught up to her anyway, and leaned on the locker next to hers. “It’s like you’ve been avoiding me since I did your phone last week.”

“Been busy and grounded.” Emma shrugged her locker sweater on.

“Did you get my messages about investigating potential Dragon Girls?”

Heat rose in Emma’s face. She’d been avoiding him ever since she’d seen her name on that list. “You mean the list of every female in the school. Including me?”

“Can’t rule anyone out yet.” Sebastian winked.

Why did he wink? Did he know something? If he did, he’d talk to her before publishing his speculations, wouldn’t he?

“That’s why I need you to help me rule out people.” He gave her a grin that was hard to turn down.

“So far, it looked like you didn’t rule out anyone.” Emma shoved the autism book into her backpack, hoping he didn’t see it. “I’m taking my name off the list.”

Sebastian shrugged. “I started with a list of all the female students and staff. Then, I took off everyone who was there. And everyone who doesn’t match her description.”

“Her description?” Emma zipped her backpack shut, careful not to look at him in case her face gave her away.

“Light skin. Brown hair, but that could have been a wig. Slim and ripped. And that dress—”

The second bell rang.

“I’m late.” Emma hurried towards Ms. Ngo’s room, not looking back to see if Sebastian were still trying to talk to her. She had to get him to drop the Dragon Girl idea for his article and go in a different direction on this whole super thing. A direction that didn’t involve revealing her powers to the world.

Ms. Ngo’s class would be good. She’d finally read the passage about black and white thinking and autism, and had recognized a little bit too much of herself in it. Either she’d written the best paper ever or it belonged in the garbage. Either she was the best swimmer on the team or she just wanted to play in the water. In between’s didn’t exist in her mind.

Under her sweater for Ms. Ngo's class, Emma’s pits started to get damp under the spring sun. She smiled to herself. She’d be back to her normal schedule and be a normal kid before the new school year.

But, after the autism talk part of class, she needed to brainstorm ideas for her own investigative report. She didn’t know what to write about, but she wouldn’t out any supers to do it.

At the edge of the field, Emma crashed into someone. Somehow, she’d been so wrapped up in thinking about her project that she hadn’t heard the shouting.

Dozens of students filled the edge of the track near Ms. Ngo’s classroom. The crowd almost looked like when people circled up around a fight, but no one was shouting fight.

Some people held their cell phones overhead, filming whatever was happening. Beyond the crowd, someone moaned. Then, a giant metal bench from the bleachers swung up and crashed down.

Emma jumped hoping to see over the crowd, but she was too short. She didn’t dare try flying for real in case someone saw her and turned her in to that Agent Johnson guy. Instead, when she jumped again, she let herself float a tad higher, but even then, she was too short.

“I’m sick of you getting away with hurting people!” a guy shouted. Was that the super? The voice almost sounded familiar.

The bleacher thudded into the ground. When it rose again, clumps of grass and mud stuck to it.

“You and your buddy almost killed another student and got off scot-free because your dad’s chief of police.” The super had to be yelling at Hunter or Blake. The half-empty Jack Daniels bottle on the dash, meant they’d both been drunk when Hunter had almost hit Hannah. He hadn’t gotten charged, just a warning. Blake hadn’t even received that since he was a passenger. Worse, neither of them got expelled or even suspended. The perks of having dads in the DA’s office and on the police force.

Still, she shouldn't let another super hurt either of them.

“Then you go around teasing and bullying everyone else?” The long bench slammed down again.

Emma needed to find some sort of disguise so she could save the bully. Was that right?

“That poor Alex, what did he ever do to you?”

Did the other super mean Alex from speech? He had to be attacking Blake then.

“Please,” Blake shouted. “It's not what you think!”

Emma glanced around for something anything that she could use to hide her identity, when a princess flew over them from somewhere in the school. The princess wore a pale blue, long-sleeved dress, a tiara, and a Halloween mask. A bright, pink wig covered her hair.

She shot blasts of ice from her gloved hands towards the attacking super.

“Strongman, that's enough!” the princess shouted.

Emma tried to elbow her way to the front of the crowd but couldn’t squeeze through all the upperclassman.

“He needs to be punished!” Strongman said. His voice sounded almost sulky now.

“We will deliver justice, but he didn’t kill anyone and doesn't deserve to be smashed.” The princess floated over the crowd. “Strongman, it’s time for you to go.”

The crowd parted, and a thin guy wearing a skeleton hoodie that zipped shut over his face ran towards the school. Emma started after him.

“Where do you think you're going?” demanded the princess.

Emma spun back towards the field. The princess was blasting ice out of her hands, herding Blake towards the goal post.

Blake’s forehead glistened with sweat, and grass stained his shirt.

“Strongman is right. You need to think about what your actions might do to others.”

“Please.” Blake’s voice quavered. “I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” the princess asked. She sounded like a woman, not a girl. Her voice sounded way more powerful than Emma’s voice. Besides, the way she’d ordered Strongman around almost felt like a teacher.

“Yes,” Blake sobbed. “I—I’ll do whatever it takes to make it right.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” the woman said. She shot a frozen blast at the bottom of the opposite goal post, encasing it in ice. “Run as fast as you can and lick the goal post—now!”

Blake obeyed. He sprinted, arms pumping up and down so hard his hands moved past his cheeks. At the goalpost, Blake stuck out his tongue, then hesitated inches from the block of ice surrounding the cushion.

“I said now!” the woman snapped.

Blake put his tongue to the frozen goal post then tried to back up, but his tongue stuck to the ice.

That only happened in movies. Definitely not in Pueblo Lindo where even in the dead of winter it barely dipped far enough below freezing for light frost on the grass.

“Who are you?” someone shouted at the super flying over them.

“I’m Ice Queen. Strongman and I will do what Dragon Girl hasn’t.” She floated, hands on hips, blonde wig streaming behind her.

The crowd cheered. Emma backed up. She hadn’t done anything other than save Hannah because she was still figuring out this superhero thing, not because she didn’t want to help people. Besides, nothing dangerous ever happened in Pueblo Lindo.

Thank goodness. Her police scanner app had been quiet over the weekend.

“I will make sure justice is served.” Ice Queen flew out over the freeway, disappearing behind a line of trees.

“Good thing we got some real superheroes now.” Connor appeared, breathless, out of the crowd.

“That Geek Fire girl is a real superhero,” Emma said.

Connor didn’t even blink at her use of the name. “You say that because she saved your cousin. She didn’t stop Blake and Hunter from hurting anyone else though.”

Emma shook her head.

“These supers are stopping the bullies.” Connor dabbed at some sweat on his forehead. “Blake was about to cream Alex even though the poor kid didn’t even say boo to him.”

“Alex from speech?” Emma asked, her mouth dry. Blake did seem to have it out for the guy.

Connor nodded, running a hand through his blonde hair. “We need someone to look out for us little people. People like Blake and Hunter and even your cousin, they all pick on us and it’s not fair. No one does anything to stop them.”

Emma shook her head again, pressing her lips together. Stopping crime, saving lives was one thing, but did people need superheroes to protect them from bullies? And like that? Threatening to smash them and freezing them?

No matter what Connor thought, Strongman and Ice Queen were wrong. Even a jerk like Blake didn’t deserve this.

A bunch of PE teachers and teachers whose classrooms looked out over the field started breaking up the crowd. Where had they all come from? And where was Ms. Ngo? Her classroom was on the edge of the field, too.

One of the PE teachers turned a hose on low and jogged over to Blake. He let the water dribble down onto Blake’s tongue, hopefully Blake’s tongue would melt free without him needing to go to the hospital.

The crowd started to split up, but Agent Johnson shouted for everyone to sit on the bleachers and put their cell phones away. He stood at parade rest, an immovable granite block. He said he needed to interview them about what they’d seen. But hadn’t he seen it for himself? The government couldn’t deny supers existed forever.

As he shouted orders, Agent Johnson locked eyes with Emma. Connor talked at her oblivious, even as Emma froze. Johnson’s eyes bored into her and she felt pinned to the spot.

He knew. He must know. He was staring right at her.

She ground her teeth as the now-familiar ache returned to her jaw.

Connor caught her arm. “We’d better get on the bleachers.”

Emma looked away. If only she could run and hide in Ms. Ngo’s classroom. If she didn’t get back to routine soon, she might make a fireball of her own.

Some of the crowd slipped away, but Emma let Connor lead her onto the bleachers where Riley and Alex were already sitting. Connor started talking. Agent Johnson barked out another order, then her friends started talking again. Other people’s conversations smacked into her, making her head spin. Emma smiled and nodded as if she were following.

Emma stared at the fluffy white clouds, searching out different shapes. A bearded face. A dragon. Tears pricked her eyes.

Maybe the hunt for supers wasn’t as messed up as she’d thought. Yeah, she hadn’t asked for superpowers but neither had the Ice Queen. Still, Blake didn’t deserve to be smashed. At least Ice Queen has stopped Strongman, but she could have hurt him if she’d missed with her ice blasts.

Maybe Nan was right and supers were too dangerous. Still, Emma wasn’t, was she? She hadn't hurt anyone and definitely wasn't trying to.

17

Emma closed the air vent. Nan always made the car too cold. Despite the warm weather, she wished she’d brought a jacket for the car ride to Dredgetown. Nan drove past the shady used car shop and the women in the teeny, tiny skirts that dotted the side of Harling Way despite the cold weather.

“The Portland Prowler and the Springton Angel have been taken into custody. As well as a teen girl who got caught moving things with her mind,” one of the radio DJs reported.

“The government has it out for any supers who dare to use their powers,” another DJ said.

“Dare to use,” Nan snorted. “Those freaks are dangerous. The government should be on the lookout for them. They need to be kept under control.”

“That Geek Fire girl saved Hannah,” Emma said. She wanted to turn off the radio and end the conversation that way, but she wasn’t allowed to touch it. Besides Nan was engaging with the show, which would make it even worse if Emma turned it off. She didn’t know what to do, and Ollie was stuck in the back seat listening to Nan’s vitriol.

“I’m glad Hannah’s okay,” Nan admitted. “But think, girls. Think! Do you want someone who can open her mouth and shoot fireballs next to you? What if she loses control? What if she gets mad at you? It’s worse than someone carrying an unregistered gun.”

The DJs were having a similar argument. One was sympathetic to the supers, saying no one asked to get these powers, but Nan and the other two DJs talked about the hunt for superheroes in such glowing terms. They didn’t get that supers were just people who’d gotten slapped with unwanted powers and were trying to do the right thing.

The DJs came to an impasse and put on a song.

Nan hummed along.

“Thank you so much, Ms. Harrison,” Ollie said for the millionth time. “I appreciate you taking us shopping for the masquerade.”

“Of course. Unlike my granddaughter, you didn’t miss any assignments, and well… That Natalie Ngo woman claims it wasn’t Emma’s fault… though I still don’t see how not turning in an assignment is anything but her fault.” Nan harrumphed. “Anyway, it’s not like you—”

“Thank you, Nan,” Emma didn’t need Nan going on about it again because she’d talk herself into a circle, grounding Emma again, despite everyone’s best efforts. “I’m really excited about this dance. It’ll be a good chance to see my friends and be a part of the school.”

Nan glanced at her from the driver’s seat.

Emma tried to sit up, feeling as though she’d done something wrong. She never knew what was right to say or when she should keep her mouth shut. Most of the time, she was better off keeping her mouth shut. Was this her black and white thinking though? Nan’s mouth was pursed, and now she was spiraling into thinking that something wrong when maybe Nan wasn’t really even making a face.

“I’m glad to let you be a part of high school.” Nan’s took in a deep breath and released it, focusing on the road again. “Just don’t go too far with any of those boys—”

“Nan,” Emma shouted. “I would never!”

Somehow, Nan was already pulling into the Outlet’s narrow parking lot. She squeezed her Oldsmobile into the small space between a big van and a beat-up, brown slug bug. The Outlet was a place of dreams, steampunk globes, and, hopefully, masquerade and superhero costume elements that Emma and Ollie could play off as potential masquerade costumes.

“I thought… I thought we were going to the Avalon Mall?” Ollie asked, her voice small.

Emma looked at the big pink cinderblock building, the word “Outlet” painted in huge green letters and shrugged. “The Outlet is our first stop when we go shopping. They’ve got the best things here, especially for the masquerade. You’ll see.”

Emma led her friend to the front of the store, and seeing Ollie’s reaction, noticed the bars along the windows and the rolled up metal sheeting that rolled down to block the windows when the store was closed. Even if it wasn’t the best of neighborhoods, the Outlet was safe. It was full of cheap things and all kinds of practically magic stuff. They’d be fine.

Inside the store, Nan headed to the wall of books between the clothing section and the knick-knacks room.

“Haven’t seen you here for a while,” the cashier, a young black woman whose name tag read Roshanda, said.

“Been grounded.” Emma shrugged, not knowing what to say.

“She knows you?” Ollie whispered.

Emma didn’t say anything. Sometimes, strangers recognized her and knew her name more than she liked.

“Who’s your friend?” Roshanda asked.

“We’re going shopping for the spring dance.” Emma dragged Ollie straight ahead into the crowded racks of clothes, the women’s rack was first—though if Ollie wanted to be the Phantom of the Opera, she’d have to check out the men’s racks for suits. The top of each rack of clothes was covered in shoes, hats, purses, masks, headbands, and other small wearable items.

“This is the best place for costumes for the masquerade.” Emma pulled down an elaborate lavender hat, with flowers and netting. She popped it on her friend’s head and laughed.

“Are you sure this place is… is safe?” Ollie put the hat back.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” Emma said.

“Umm… the bars on all the windows? How nothing is out front of the store? The big safe that says that the clerks can’t access it. Want me to go on?”

She’d never really noticed that before. “We’re fine. Nan and I come here most weekends when I’m not grounded. It’s where I get all my best clothes.”

“It’s never been robbed or anything?” Ollie asked.

“Don' think so.” Emma was busy digging through shirts and dresses on the crowded racks. Nothing was working for her masquerade costume.

After a while, Ollie seemed to come around and started digging through the racks and pawing at the clothes. She picked up a simple brown purse from the top of the rack.

“You thinking about getting that?” Emma asked. Somehow, she couldn’t picture her tomboyish friend wearing a purse.

“I hate purses. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always losing things anyway, but for you…”

“Oh, no. I can’t carry a purse. I have enough trouble keeping track of my backpack.” Emma reached for the purse to put it back on top of the rack.

“You might have to carry one to hide… for the makeup and stuff.” Ollie dropped her voice. “That or like, cargo pants.”

“Get that gun out of my store!” Roshanda shouted. She sounded pissed. A baby started crying.

Emma froze. Ollie dropped the purse.

“Shut up!” a man shouted. “Give me all the money in the safe.”

“I can’t,” the cashier said.

Hands shaking, Emma inched her way towards the front of the store. She was a superhero but hadn’t brought the stupid green makeup or the costume with her. So, she was just Emma.

How could she hide who she was and get close enough to blast the robber? Of course. The racks were stuffed with potential disguises.

Emma grabbed an oversized shirt and put it on over her own clothes.

She needed to stop the robber without Nan recognizing her.

Without the cameras filming her.

Without anyone identifying her.

Poop on a Poptart.

“Open the safe.” The man wore a ski mask and waved a handgun in Roshanda’s face.

“I can’t,” Roshanda repeated. She tapped the words one by one as she read them from the sign in front of her. “Clerks. Do. Not. Have. Access. To. Safe. Contents.”

“Bull.”

Emma pulled a thin cotton shirt over the top half of her face. She could see through the shirt better than she had with the mask in the parking lot. Roshanda shook her head, mouthing, “Get away.”

The tension in Emma’s jaw promised a gleek-sneeze. She was still far enough in the racks no one but Roshanda noticed her. Nan was on the other side of the store, Emma had the shirt over her eyes for the security cameras.

“Put the gun down,” Emma said. “And get out of the store.”

She meant her voice to sound threatening and strong. Instead it came out as a little squeak. Why wasn’t her voice powerful like Ice Queen’s?

“What you doing, little girl?” The man waved the gun in her direction.

Emma kicked off the ground, levitating. The gun wavered.

“I said put the gun down or experience the wrath of Geek—”

A red blur flashed by and the gun disappeared from the man’s hand.

“What the hell?” the man shouted.

“Apologize to Roshanda here or I’ll leave you tied up for the cops.” A skinny guy in a red all-over spandex Halloween costume leaned against the glass door like he was super relaxed, his skateboard propped up beside him. The Dredgetown Speedster.

Emma knew the stickers on the bottom of that skateboard. She knew that pose. She knew that voice, that hint of Spanish in the accent.

“Say what?” the man said. “I ain’t apologiz—”

The Speedster disappeared in a blur. The man fell to the floor, his arms and legs bound with clothes from the shopping racks.

“I told you to apologize. You okay, linda?” the boy asked Roshanda, then he leaned back against the door and Emma knew she was right.

“Andres?” Emma was still levitating a couple feet off the ground.

The Speedster spun towards her, then disappeared, skateboard and all.

Andres Almanazar was the Dredgetown Speedster.

Emma retreated into the aisles, stripping off her improvised costume, and grabbed the purse Ollie had dropped.

“I think you’re right,” Emma said, hands shaking, her jaw full of pressure ready to let loose a blast of geek fire. “I think I need a purse.”

And she needed to talk to Andres. He had this superhero thing down way better than she did.

After they’d all been interviewed by the cops, they piled back into Nan’s car.

Although the security camera showed footage of a girl levitating, no one had associated that girl with Emma. Thank goodness. She’d even bought the purse that Ollie had suggested she get. She needed somewhere to hide that giant green makeup stick, and she needed to start wearing the spandex ASAP.

“Told you that place wasn’t safe,” Ollie said from the backseat.

“No one got hurt, and that’s the important thing,” Nan said. “I’m not going to the mall today though.”

Emma pulled out her phone and messaged Andres. Saw you at the Outlet today. Let’s talk.

Nan chattered away her fear while Ollie sulked and Emma held her breath, waiting for Andres to answer.

That was you? Andres finally messaged back when Nan had almost reached Ollie’s house in Pueblo Lindo.

Emma hesitated. She wasn’t sure exactly what to say. Admit to being a superhero in a text seemed like a bad idea. And, if she was lucky, she’d see Andres at the speech tournament next weekend.

Still, this was more pressing than that. She needed to talk to him but didn’t want to leave any kind of electronic record, even talking on the phone seemed dangerous. She didn’t want Agent Johnson or the Super Commission to catch on to her.

When can we meet?

18

While Emma and Ollie biked to practice at the city pool on Wednesday, Emma’s phone pinged with an incoming text. She checked it as soon as she got off the bike.

Since she’d changed Andres’ name in her phone, the message came from “Speedy.” I can meet up to talk about stuff tomorrow.

“Sweet!” Emma blurted like the idiot she was. She needed to work on keeping secrets if she was going to do this whole superhero thing.

“What’s going on?” Ollie asked, craning her neck to see Emma’s phone.

“Nothing.” Emma tried to slide the phone back into her backpack’s side pocket.

“Something’s going on.” Ollie caught Emma’s wrist and peeked at the phone. “Speedy? As in you’re meeting the Speedster and you didn’t tell me? I was with you the whole time Saturday and you never talked to him. How’d you swing a meet-up? I mean he vanished as soon as he tied up the bad guys.”

Her mouth opening and closing, Emma shook her head. Her bike tipped over and the water bottle spun off into the parking lot. Emma chased after it, letting her bike crash to the ground.

“Emma, tell me.” Ollie stood over her bike, arms folded across her chest. Her mouth pressed into a straight line.

Emma snatched up her water bottle and scrambled out of an upperclassman’s car. “I kind of...” Emma glanced around.

“Kind of what?” Ollie yanked off her helmet. Her short hair was smooshed every which way.

Emma shoved her bike into a spot on the rack. “Figured out who he is.”

“You what? And you didn’t tell me?”

Emma shook her head. What could she say?

“Who is it?” Ollie asked, leaning in close.

Emma stammered. “It’s not my secret to tell.”

“I thought we told each other everything. I can’t believe you won’t tell me this.”

“Won’t tell you what?” Sebastian asked, coasting up on his bike.

“Nothing.” Ollie locked her bike and stomped towards the locker room.

“I should try and patch things up with her.” Emma headed towards the locker room.

Ollie wouldn’t talk to her though.

“I am taking all of your advice.” Emma lifted her shirt to show the green spandex on her stomach and patted the pocket in her backpack where she had the headpiece, the green face paint, and makeup removing wipes.

“Whatever.” Ollie turned her back to Emma as she pulled on her swimsuit.

Emma headed into a stall for some privacy of her own. At least she always changed in a stall, so that wasn’t new since she started wearing the spandex under her clothes. She just had to make sure she was all the way toweled off or the spandex got a little sticky.

“I’m sorry, Ollie.” Emma changed and, still in the stall, messaged Andres where to meet.

“Dude, if you want to keep secrets that’s fine. I don’t need to be your friend then.”

“Ol, come on it’s not like that.” Emma hurried out of the stall and washed her hands, but Ollie had already left the bathroom.

Tears pricking her eyes, Emma headed outside. She hadn’t meant to piss off her best friend. Not over something so stupid. She wanted to tell Ollie, but she didn’t feel right telling anyone Andres’ secret. She wouldn’t want Ollie telling anyone, no matter how trustworthy she thought they were, not with Agent Johnson hunting supers.

Ollie and Bastian were on the far side of the pool, near the grass. How long had she taken to get changed and get all her stuff back together? She needed to get faster at changing with the spandex on.

“Hey, guys.” Emma spread out her towel on the opposite side of Sebastian.

“How’s your column going?” Ollie asked him, not acknowledging Emma at all. “The one about finding supers.”

He shrugged. “Not good, I guess. I’m having double narrowing down potential Dragon Girls—”

“Geek Fire.”

“Whatever she’s called. She’s got to be a student or a teacher or something. She shows up right at our high school, saves your cousin.” Copying coach, Sebastian reached for his toes. “But no luck. Even Emma’s still on my list, and it’s not her.”

Ollie snorted. “I thought she was supposed to be helping you rule people out.”

Emma cringed as she twisted into the next stretch.

Ollie licked her lips and frowned at Emma.

She wouldn't tell Sebastian here right at practice, would she?

“Yeah. Have you even ruled out anyone on my list, Emma?” he asked.

“I—uh, haven’t made any progress.” Emma shook her head. “What if I look into that Ice Queen and Strongman for you? I swear I recognized his voice.”

Sebastian frowned. “If you can’t rule out anyone for Dragon Girl, how can I expect you to have any better luck on narrowing down my other lists?”

“Ask her about the Dredgetown Speedster.” Ollie waggled her eyebrows. “She’s going to interview him for her project.”

“How’d you finagle that?” Sebastian asked.

“I....” Emma repeated herself again. “Whether or not I know who he is—”

“You can’t lie anymore. I saw the message about meeting up with him,” Ollie said.

Emma’s cheeks flared hot. “I’m not lying. But if I knew his identity, I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

Sebastian frowned. His tone was chipper, though. “Even though he’s not as good as a Pueblo Super, could you ask him some questions for my column?”

“Enough chatter,” Coach shouted over them. “Time for grasshopper pushups.”

As she rolled onto her stomach and tucked her hands tight against her chest, Emma groaned. Triceps pushups were the worst. Still, she felt grateful for the interruption. Maybe that was how she could steer the article. Have him put the word out he wanted to talk to the Pueblo Super, and then arrange an interview with him. With her in costume. Coach counted them off and her whole body shook as she struggled to keep up with his pace.

In her swim top, her phone pinged three times. That wasn’t a normal text.

“Was that the app?” Sebastian asked.

“Yeah. Uh... I got to go.” Emma grabbed her towel and bag and rushed to the bathroom to peek at the phone and, if needed, change into Geek Fire.

A robbery at Banana Splitz only a couple blocks away had caused the alert. They’d almost biked past it on the way here. Emma yanked the spandex over her swimsuit, pulled out the face-paint stick and slathered it on. She grabbed the wire headpiece Ollie had made for her from its little glasses case and clipped it onto her glasses.

Ollie had followed her to the bathroom, but Emma stepped out of the stall in her full Geek Fire costume.

“What’s going on?” Ollie asked.

“I’ve got to get to Banana Splitz. Cover for me.” Emma kicked off and flew to the skylight in the roof. She pushed the latch and slipped out.

“I’ll put your duffel bag in your locker then!” Ollie shouted after her.

Emma half-swam, half-willed herself towards the ice cream shop. The small brick building had two cop cars parked out front, but the police were still outside. Emma zipped down towards the back door and yanked it open.

Standing right under the cowboy-hat-wearing boar’s head, a man wearing a ski mask held Mama Cooper’s apron through the cash register window. He turned towards Emma where she floated towards the top of the doorway.

“Let go of her,” Emma said in her sternest voice. She remembered to speak from her diaphragm like Ms. Range always told her in speech practice. Her voice boomed out of her, so she almost sounded as powerful as Ice Queen. Emma grinned.

“Geek Fire?” the gunman asked. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”

The grin fell off her face. Emma wasn’t good with words. Well, not when she was talking, not in real time, so she didn’t have a snappy comeback like the comic book heroes did. Instead, she concentrated on making the smallest fireball she could and she gleek-sneezed at the boar’s head over the register.

The chemicals didn’t combine until they hit the boar’s head. It burst into flame. The fire and the chemicals dripped down onto the gunman. He shrieked and dropped the gun. On fire, he scrambled backwards, out the door and towards the waiting cops, smacking his hands against the spots of fire on his sweatshirt, trying to put it out. The flames spread.

The boar’s head crashed to the ground. Momma Cooper screamed.

Emma grabbed the fire extinguisher from next to the front door and aimed it at the boar, whose cowboy hat and sunglasses had bounced off onto the concrete floor. A burst of white foam came out of the fire extinguisher, splattering Momma Cooper and Emma both.

“Thank you, Dragon Girl,” Momma Cooper said.

“You’re welcome,” Emma said in her deepest voice, putting hands on her hips in her best super hero pose. It was surprisingly hard to do while levitating and her glasses half covered in fire extinguisher foam.

She didn’t bother correcting Momma Cooper. Instead, she tried to make sure Momma could see the words Geek Fire in dark paint that contrasted with the bright green spandex. Then, she frog kicked towards the open back door, since she didn’t want the police or the Super Commission trying to catch her.

As she flew away, she watched horrified as the flames spread through the gunman’s hoodie. Finally, someone tackled the gunman to the ground and forced him to roll, extinguishing the flames.

Satisfied everything was over, Emma flew back towards the pool to land on the bathroom roof. The whole thing had taken maybe twenty minutes, and she’d missed the rest of the dry land stretches. She settled onto the roof, pulled out her phone and saw that Ollie had texted her about her case of food poisoning and how she’d told everyone Emma was going to go home after she finished “in the bathroom.”

Emma groaned. Great. Just great. Now everyone thought she’d missed swim practice because she’d been blowing up the bathroom. Still, she felt pretty proud of herself for controlling her fire and stopping the robbery. And she needed to make it to speech practice that night and get her questions ready for Andres the next day.

Maybe Ollie would be over the secrets by the time speech practice rolled around. She could hope.

19

Emma stopped by Viva Market on her way back to campus to get herself dinner, embarrassed by Ollie’s cover story for her. Of course, it made sense that she couldn’t get in the pool after stomach issues, but, man, Ollie was mean. Emma ate her tube of cookie dough and sandwich on the band room steps, looking out over the small quad.

Her whole body ached from flying farther than she had before. Someone put their hands over her eyes and she jumped a foot shrieking. Her jaw ached a moment. That full feeling of being ready to gleek-sneeze was back.

“Hey!” Connor backed away, laughing.

Her tube of cookie dough rolled off the concrete and onto the grass. He picked it up and tossed the dirty end in the trash before stealing a couple bites for himself.

“How’s it going?” Connor asked.

“Meh. Ollie’s mad at me.” Emma grabbed the cookie dough back out of his hand as he climbed up beside her on the picnic table.

“What for?”

“I know someone else’s secret and I can’t tell her.” Emma scooped another bite of dough into her mouth. “It’s not even my fault. I just figured it out and asked the person and I was right.”

“If it’s the kind of secret you can figure out, that person must not be very good at keeping secrets,” Connor said.

“I guess. It’s nothing to do with her but it isn’t like I kept it from her. It’s not my secret.” Emma shook her head, trying to forget the whole thing. “What about you? Anything new going on?”

“I started a new project with Ms. Range.” Connor sat next to her on the bricks beside the steps.

“For geography?” Emma asked, looking up at him.

He shrugged, then reached over and squeezed more cookie dough out of the tube. “You still grounded?”

“Don’t know.” Nan had Emma on probation. Though if Nan found out Emma had missed swim practice, she would be grounded again real quick.

“I hear you’re not failing anymore… so, maybe you’ll be able to make it to the masquerade.”

Emma took a bite of her cookie dough. She didn’t know how to answer that. Even after Aunt Beth pushed for her to be ungrounded, with everything else going on, Emma wasn’t sure she wanted to go. She had to admit, being grounded had been a nice excuse.

What was that over by the social sciences classrooms? A shadow swooped over them.

“Don’t look now, but here comes Ollie.” Connor gestured behind Emma.

Ollie emerged from the corridor between all the science classrooms on the other end of the small quad. Her short hair was damp, and she glared at Connor and Emma.

“Hey,” Connor said, scooting away from Emma. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing.” Ollie sounded pissed though. Emma imagined Ollie’d wanted to talk about Emma running off to the ice cream shop, but with Connor there, they couldn’t—not and keep her superhero identity a secret.

“Woke up on the wrong side of the bed?” Connor asked.

“More like got out of the wrong side of the pool.” Ollie stopped between them. “Practice sucked, but someone missed it. But I dropped off my note—”

“Ditching practice? What a trouble maker.” Connor grinned at Emma.

“Yeah. I had a stomach ache.” Emma hated the lie, but she needed to get better at this if she wanted to avoid being hunted down by the Super Commission.

“And now you’re eating this?” Connor plucked the tube of cookie dough out of Emma’s hand. “This isn’t good for your stomach at all.”

“I feel better now,” Emma reached for her cookie dough, but Connor jumped off the bricks and held it out of her reach.

Emma sighed.

“Look, Ollie, I’m sorry, okay? You wouldn’t tell someone else’s secret, would you?” She glanced in what she hoped was a meaningful way at Connor. “Everyone’s got secrets and they wouldn’t share them with everyone, right?”

“Wow! I’m out of your secret circle.” Connor laughed. “At least some people trust me with their secrets.”

“Who trusts you?” Emma asked with a snarky grin. “I wouldn’t.”

“Not my secret to tell.” Connor winked at Emma. Connor was a huge gossip and a bigger flirt. “All kinds of crazy stuff happened today. I hear Dragon Girl made another appearance after Ice Queen called her out.”

“I don’t like Ice Queen,” Emma said. She tried to keep her voice flat and even, she didn’t need it going all loud like it sometimes did. “Or Strongman.”

“You wouldn’t,” Ollie snapped.

Was she trying to give away Emma’s secret? Seriously.

“Why not?” Connor asked, around another bite of her cookie dough.

Emma stammered a bit before she got ahold of herself. “I don’t like what they did to Blake, okay?”

“He got away with almost killing your cousin.” Connor shook his head. “Then, he goes around picking on people like Alex.”

“The guy had it coming, but…” Emma’s voice trailed off. How could she explain why she didn’t like it without giving herself away? The words got all tangled in her head. She wouldn’t use her powers against someone after the fact like that. That wasn’t stopping a crime or saving someone’s life.

“But?” Connor asked.

“That wasn’t the way to deal with him.” Chest tight, Emma held out her hand. If only she could smother her emotions with cookie dough. “Give it back.”

“And what was the way to deal with him?” Connor slammed the dough back into her hand so hard it smooshed out. “He didn’t get justifiable punishment that fit his crime.”

“Don’t they have to prove who got the alcohol and who got who drunk?” Ollie asked.

“That’s what the cops and the courts are for.” The words came easy enough to to Emma. Nan always put her faith in the cops. But Emma had played cop that morning and it wasn’t the same. She’d stepped in when the cops hadn’t been able to get a clear shot of the bad guy. She’d saved Momma Cooper’s life.

And burned a man. A guilty man, but she’d burned him. Had that been justifiable?

After she took a bite, Connor grabbed the cookie dough and waved it around as he spoke. “The cops let Blake go. The courts let them both go all because their parents are rich. And Blake’s dad’s a cop. He wouldn’t have been punished, if they didn’t—”

Ollie snatched the dough and took a bite.

“I don’t like the way they did it,” Emma said. “It just…”

“What?” Ollie asked pointedly. “What did it do? Yeah, Ice Queen humiliated him, but he needed to be called out.”

“Guess Dragon Girl did, too,” Connor said. “Otherwise, she probably wouldn’t have stopped that robbery.”

She had, but had it been the right choice? That guy had gotten burned and the cops were there by the time he ran out. “Guys, I think it’s time to get to speech practice.” Emma hopped up off the table, snatched her cookie dough back out of Ollie’s hand and headed for Ms. Range’s classroom.

“Breaking news there.” Ollie’s voice dripped with sarcasm.

Emma kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to get tied up with the superhero conversation in too many people’s heads.

“Yeah.” Connor refused to let it go, though. “Story says she burned up that boar’s head. You know the one over the register.” He swiped at Emma’s cookie dough, but she jerked her hand away just in time.

“Man, I hated that thing,” Ollie said as Emma said, “This is my dinner, get your own.”

“Way to go, Geek Fire.” Ollie winked at Emma, the hard edge softening around her lips.

Wait. Had burning the boar’s head gotten her out of the doghouse with her friend?

“Geek Fire?” Connor asked. “You mean Dragon Girl.”

“Not what it calls her on Wikipedia,” Ollie said. “Don’t you want to share your dinner with me? I’m starving.”

“Wikipedia’s wrong,” Connor walked ahead of the two girls.

“Told you,” Ollie said under her breath behind Connor’s back. She grabbed the last of the cookie dough from Emma. “No one will call her that.”

20

“See you tomorrow.” Emma climbed out of the pool after finishing a hard set of butterfly.

“Let me know how it goes.” Ollie ducked under water to blow bubbles and catch her breath before the next set.

“Where you going?” Coach shouted when Emma picked up her duffel bag.

Emma blushed and stammered. “Got an interview for my freshman project.”

Coach sighed and waved her off. He wasn’t happy with her. Yesterday, she’d ditched practice and then she was ducking out again, but she’d stayed up half the night making up her questions for Andres. She needed to do this interview for her project and maybe she could figure out this whole superhero thing better if she just talked to him.

In the bathroom, she toweled off and, still damp, wiggled into her spandex suit before pulling her regular clothes over the costume. She shoved the the thing of green face paint, the makeup wipes, and the crown thing into her cargo pockets. Who knew when Geek Fire might need to make an appearance? Then she took off on her bike towards Dredgetown.

It seemed like it took her forever to get to the arcade and lock up her bike. Andres sat in a folding chair in front with a pizza box on his lap. A dry cleaner’s, a bar, and a liquor store shared the same parking lot. She hadn’t been there since she was a kid, but as she locked her bike to a post, she fought the urge to stare at the winos in front of the liquor store.

“Your bike will be safe inside the arcade.” Andres rose to his feet and set the pizza box on a trash can. “Out here, not so much.”

Emma chewed her lip as Andres folded up the chair. Like always, just looking at him made things tighten in her belly. Something about his short, cropped hair and the green eyes set in his dark face set her heart on fire. But he lived in Dredgetown, Nan would never approve.

Unlike him, she was a mess. Her freezing cold feet stuck halfway out of her sandals and sweat dripped down her face. She wore her backpack on both shoulders with her duffel bag slung across that. Not to mention, her hair was falling out of her swimmer’s bun to make a tangled mess of swim-cap and helmet hair.

“Hey,” Emma said breathlessly when she realized she’d been staring too long.

“Hey.” Andres opened the door and set the chair inside. Emma followed with her bike.

“You sure they won’t mind my—”

“Not an issue. Let me put the duffel bag inside the arcade, too.” Andres had his hand on the duffel bag strap, ready to lift the oversized bag.

“I got it.” Emma was used to carrying the thing, but he was already lifting it onto his shoulder like her answer didn’t matter.

“Trust me. I’ll carry it. It’s better this way. If I let you carry it…”

“Let me carry it?”

What was that supposed to mean? It was her bag. She put her hand on the strap and tugged. When he let go with a smile, she stumbled backwards under the sudden weight of it.

She knocked through the arcade’s door, nearly falling over inside. After setting the duffel and backpack next to her bike, she popped back outside.

Three stores down, a homeless guy with a brown paper bag cackled at her.

“Let’s turn our phones off in case someone’s listening.”

Nan would kill her if she couldn’t reach Emma, but it might keep Ollie’s incessant texting at bay and Andres might be on to something. Her cell phone was always on, she hoped the Super Commission hadn’t been listening.

“Now let’s go for that walk.” Andres slammed the arcade door shut and steered her towards the parking lot.

Did that mean he didn’t want to be seen with her?

“Sorry.” He gave her an apologetic look as he continued herding her away. “This is so weird to me. I mean… I’ve never talked about this before.”

“Me either.” Emma stood there feeling stupid for a few moments, blinking at Andres.

“Let’s go for a walk.” This time Andres didn’t move to help her.

Emma nodded. With her wet hair, she felt a little cold but at least she didn’t have to stare at his perfection. Emma whispered, “So… we’re both supers.”

“Yeah. I guess I kind of been in the news, but I’m just fast.” Andres scrunched up his face. “You saw me. I saw you flying. Anything else?”

Emma patted the paper in her back pocket. She’d figured this would happen. He’d want to talk to her about what was going on with her. She’d need to get things going so she could figure her project—and well, for figuring out this Ice Queen business.

“Geek Fire.”

“What’s that even mean?” Andres asked after a beat.

“I spit two chemicals. When they mix they catch fire. Like Greek fire but…I’m a geek.”

“You’re that Dragon Girl from Pueblo.” He said Pueblo like he was talking Spanish, the b so soft it was almost a v. The vowels were smooth and quickly blended together.

“Geek Fire’s the name I’m trying—”

Andres laughed, a sound that normally sent warm quivers through her belly. “They all call you Dragon Girl.”

“I don’t even—”

Andres shushed her and pointed to people chilling in a nearby car with its windows down.

Emma sighed. She waited until they were far enough passed, but by then she’d lost her train of thought.

She wanted to tell him about how she didn’t really breathe fire, but no one else had accepted her argument, so she doubted he would either.

Instead, she didn’t say any of that. She didn’t even get to one of the questions on her script. She just stood there, struggling to remember what she wanted to ask him.

“Listen.” Andres cupped his ear and pointed towards something in the distance.

Screaming. Someone was screaming.

“What is it?” Emma asked, her heart racing.

“Don’t know.” He sized her up. “You got your costume?”

As soon as Emma nodded, air whooshed past her, and Andres disappeared in a blur. She ducked behind a pickup, yanked off her street clothes and pulled out the paint. She clipped on the headgear that Ollie had made her, and flew towards the sound of screaming.

Emma hovered over a run-down apartment complex. The playground set in the middle was missing a swing, and the slide was half torn out, but the monkey bars looked solid.

At the bottom of the busted-out slide, a tiny girl clutched a rag doll to her tiny chest and whispered to it. Barely more than a toddler. Her skin was ashen, like someone had spilled chalk over her dark skin.

Where was Andres? He should have beat her there.

“You mean she ain’t my kid?” a man asked, waving the gun back and forth between a woman and the girl.

Even as Emma swam through the sky toward the scene, she looked for Andres, but couldn’t see him. Had she beat him there? But that didn’t make sense. He was faster than her.

The woman was doing all the screaming. Tears ran down her face. “I ain’t said she ain’t your kid. I said you ain’t a father to her.” The woman wiped at the tears, leaving smears of mascara and green eyeshadow all over her face. “If you was any kind of father, there’d be no gun. There’d be rent money, and the damn electricity would be on.”

The little girl’s mouth opened and closed. It looked like she was trying to say Daddy, but no sound came out.

Emma’s heart broke. This poor little girl. Emma was close enough to do something, to say something. She wanted backup, but Andres still wasn’t there. Had something happened to him?

“Put down the gun,” Emma said in her best superhero voice. She was proud of herself, her voice sounded almost as good as it had in Banana Splitz. She sounded powerful.

The man turned towards her, took one look at her floating in the sky and, instead of doing the sensible thing, shot at her.

Heart skipping, Emma plummeted like a stone. She’d been getting better at controlling her flight and could turn it on and off at will now.

“No!” Andres appeared as if out of nowhere. He slammed into her just as she started flying again, sending them both into a crazy spin.

What did he think he was doing hitting her? He needed to go after the gun! Emma kept trying to swim higher into the sky, but Andres dragged her down.

They crashed. Her knees burned. Her shoulders scraped the ground. He let go.

Emma floated horizontally to get her bearings, leaving a cursing Andres to stand beside her. On the ground. Where he belonged.

“What the hell?” The man and the woman stared at them.

Emma and Andres stayed frozen for a moment. But Emma’s glasses had come loose and were falling off her face. She pulled them back on. That was almost bad.

Andres grabbed Emma and yanked her to his chest. Then, he zoomed away so fast the air stung her. Emma scrunched her eyes tight and struggled to hold on to her glasses. It felt like being on the freeway with your head sticking out the window. Only worse. Her hair, already a wet rat’s nest, tangled even more.

When Andres stopped, her eyes were watering, and the skin on her face was chapped.

“What were you thinking? You could’ve been shot!” Andres’s teeth clicked with the force of his words.

“Why didn’t you just take his gun like you did at the Outlet?” Emma squirmed out of his arms. Her glasses were bent all to hell and wouldn’t go back on her face right.

“Superheroes don’t do domestic disturbances.” Andres folded his arms across his chest. “Families need to work it out for themselves.”

Emma paced, throwing her arms into the air, clutching her bent glasses in her right hand. “That man was going to shoot the little girl!”

“She’s his daughter. He won’t shoot her.”

“That’s not what it looked like to me. Families don’t work it out by themselves. They just don’t.” Emma collapsed to the ground, wrapping her arms around her legs and pressing her eyes against her knees. “They don’t work it out by themselves.”

Andres put a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t touch me.” Emma slapped his hand away. She curled back into herself, eyes pressed tight against her knees. Darkness and geometric patterns danced against her eyes. She watched the shapes the gentle pressure of her knees made. “Don’t touch me. Don’t touch me.”

The colors behind her eyelids shifted. Green, purple, shimmering diamonds to rectangles to triangles, to dots. The words, ‘don’t touch me’ became a chant, losing all meaning. Her body grew stiff and cold.

When she sat up and pulled her eyes away from her knees, Andres was still there, staring at her open-mouthed.

For sure, she’d ruined any chance of him wanting to date her.

“You okay?” he asked.

Emma shook her head, not trusting words yet. She wanted to write down her feelings. Not feelings. Those she couldn’t comprehend just yet. No, she wanted to write and let it all spill out of her. All of everything bottled up inside. She needed to get it out, but, for now, the shifting diamonds helped. Her tweezers would help. If she plucked a dozen leg hairs, she might come back to herself.

She swallowed hard, gasping in the air. Her cheeks stung from the salty tears. She wiped them away. Working out what she needed to say and putting it all into words took time. The questions in her pocket forgotten, the words arranged themselves. “Families don’t just work it out for themselves.” Emma’s voice shook. “You should have grabbed his gun or gotten that little girl out of there.”

“Superheroes don’t mess with domestic—”

“Bull.” Emma shot to her feet. “We can step in when we’re needed. That little girl needed help.”

“Didn’t need you getting shot.”

Emma started levitating. She would find that little girl. Get her out of there herself. “I’m going to help her.”

“You were lost to the world for like half an hour. Whatever was going to happen has already happened.” Andres waved his hand over his face. “Besides your makeup is all…”

Emma’s hands trembled. She wanted to bury her face back in her knees. Follow the patterns, but she had to talk to Andres—the chickenshit—and get herself home back to the mall before Nan had a conniption fit.

She finally took in where they were. A gravel track around a dry creek, surrounded by a bunch of graffitied walls. No gates opened to the area they were in, except one bit of snarled chain link on the far end. Scraggly weeds poked through the gravel. A train track ran parallel to the creek. She had no clue where they were or how to get back to the mall.

“Thanks for meeting with me.” Emma brushed off her knees and sighed. Her leggings were torn, her knees bloodied. Her shoulders stung like they’d been scraped, too. Maybe it hadn’t been tears but blood she’d wiped from her face. Even her elbows ached. The shirt she’d worked so hard to stencil the words “Geek Fire” onto had been torn to bits.

“Whatever.” Andres’ slumped against one of the cinderblock walls.

“I mean I know I’ll see you on Saturday at the speech tournament, but—”

“No, you won’t.”

The words hung there between them flat for a moment. Emma took her time getting around to understanding them.

“What do you mean I won’t? I thought you were doing this mock congress thing.” Emma struggled to bend her glasses back into some kind of shape that would fit on her face. The metal frames were bent, but not broken.

“That was before.” Andres shrugged. “What’s the point of that when I’ve got superhero business to attend to?”

“What’s the point? A way out of this grossness is the point. Success is the point.”

“What’s my success matter? I’ve got a city to protect. I draw the line at domestic squabbles because otherwise, I’d be so busy I wouldn’t even be able to eat.”

“What’s your mom think of that?” Emma asked, limping towards the gate.

Andres didn’t move. Didn’t say anything.

“What’s your mom think?” Emma repeated as if Andres hadn’t heard her the first time.

“Don’t know. Haven’t been home since I started ditching to stop crime.”

“You ran away?” Emma asked.

His mono-colored Halloween costume was just as torn and snarled as her leggings and t-shirt, but there was a layer of grime on him she hadn’t noticed before.

“I buy what I can with the money I take off the drug dealers I bring in. Other than that…” He wiped at the dirty spandex. “Been stealing showers at the school gym and food at the school cafeteria. Out of a few dumpsters. That sort of thing.”

“You poor thing.” Even though that little girl needed saving, his stance on domestic disturbances didn’t seem so crazy anymore. “I had no idea.”

“Someone gave me this power so I could help people. I gotta help them.”

This was ridiculous. He needed to put himself somewhere in this equation. “You’ve got to take care of yourself.”

“No. You need to take care of yourself.” Andres caught her arms. “I thought he shot you. You can’t announce yourself like that. Fireball first. Announcements after.”

“I had it under control.” Emma pulled away.

“Like hell you did, falling from the sky like that.” Tears streaked Andres face, too. “You’re not fast like me. I can dodge a gunshot. You can’t. You got to get a better suit, glasses, something to protect your skin.”

Emma was crying again. She wanted to shut down. To turn off. She had to get back to her stuff. The mall. Nan would be going crazy.

“My grandma’s supposed to pick me up soon. Can we… Can we just go back? I’ll see if I can’t do anything to help you.”

“I don’t need your help. You need to get your act together. No more announcing you’re a superhero. If you’re going to blast something, blast the gun.”

Emma shook her head. Her aim wasn’t that good.

“I’ve seen you get lucky twice now. How many times is that going to work before you get shot?” Andres was shouting now.

“I—” Emma didn’t know what to say. She stared down at her bare feet. She’d lost her sandals in that crazy flight. Her costume needed boots or something.

He was right. She could have been shot, but she couldn’t stay out of it when a child’s life was on the line like Andres had. Alone with her thoughts, she returned to her backpack and cleaned her face. Then she returned to the arcade and got her duffel bag.

Emma clutched her bike’s handlebars. The winos by the liquor store were still there, and she missed Andres. Not like Emma wanted to talk to him again, even if she hadn’t gotten her questions answered for the interview. She just wanted someone else to be there so the winos wouldn’t think she was easy picking.

For her project, she’d make up an interview with Dragon Girl. And she needed a better costume. Hell, since Andres had torn their costumes to shreds, she didn’t even have one anymore.

Nan’s purple Oldsmobile pulled up, Emma sighed with relief. Grateful she didn’t need to blow up a bunch of winos.

“What happened to you?” Nan asked.

“Fell off my bike.” Yet another lie. Getting powers sucked. Still, she couldn’t tell Nan the truth. She needed at least one person to still love her.

Nan studied her for a moment, shook her head, and popped the trunk.

Emma loaded her bike into the trunk and tied it closed with a bungee cord. Then, she threw her backpack and duffel in the back. Emma slouched in the passenger seat.

“Sit up straight.” Nan snapped as she put the car into drive.

Emma tried to sit up straight, but the lies and the thought of the little girl weighed heavy on her. Not to mention all the school work she still had to do tonight.

Even though she couldn’t ignore people in danger because it was a ‘domestic dispute’ like Andres, she couldn’t run around like she had been either. Andres was right. If she kept announcing herself, she was going to get herself shot.

21

“Do you even deserve to go to the speech tournament?” Nan rocked in her recliner and put down her mystery novel to glare at Emma.

Emma let the garage door slam shut. She’d been leaving. What was she even supposed to say to that? Nan had let her go to speech practice, had ungrounded her, and knew she was working hard on her freshman project. Why was this coming up now?

Nan’s eyes bored into Emma.

A bit of orange fur stuck to the bottom of her shoe. She dragged her foot against the carpet. Why wouldn’t Nan believe she was doing her best?

“Don’t you have anything to say for yourself?” Nan asked.

Nan always had mood swings, but she’d halfway gone back on un-grounding Emma what felt like a dozen times in the last two weeks. Emma couldn’t handle it. She knew the rules and followed them, but Nan kept changing them on her.

Then, after getting permission to meet Andres for her school project, Nan grounded her again after she’d picked Emma up. It sucked because she blamed Emma for ‘crashing her bike’ and because she was mad about driving to Dredgetown like they’d agreed.

Mr. Sniggles jumped onto Nan’s lap and started purring. He batted the book further away.

Nan stared at Emma.

“You said I could go,” Emma said. “If I don’t go, I’d be letting down the team.”

Nan shoved Sniggles off her lap. “Fine. Go. What do I care?”

Emma rushed into the garage before Nan changed her mind again. She hopped on her bike and pedaled like crazy. The dress shoes dug into her feet as she pedaled. Her phone rang almost constantly while she biked to campus. The grease from the chain smeared all over her slacks. Nan would be pissed about that for sure.

When she got off the bike, Emma had almost a dozen messages from her team, wondering where she was. Good thing they were hosting the tournament, or she would have missed the bus.

Emma ran into the auditorium to find her team had already headed to their assigned rooms. A couple students from other schools stood in front of the room postings.

Riley sat on the edge of the stage. Summer stood close, her dark curls fanned out around her.

Riley played with her sunglasses, studiously avoiding Summer’s eyes. “Hey,” Riley shouted from across the room. She pushed past Summer to greet Emma. “What’s going on with you?”

Emma thought about the weird exchange with Nan and shook her head. “I—I’m just late.”

“No worries.” Riley slipped on her sunglasses.

Emma swiped at sweat dripping down her face. The torn spandex under her dress clothes made her extra sweaty. She needed to get herself together fast or things would fall apart on her again.

“You’re in Ms. Erickson’s room with me and Connor. Ollie’s in Ms. Range’s room with Alex. If you’re lucky, we’ll see your friend from Stockton.” Riley waggled her eyebrows.

“Andres isn’t coming." Emma clamped her mouth shut.

No matter what was spinning around her head, but she couldn’t let Andres’ secret slosh out with all the weirdness in her head. Instead, she kept her mouth shut and followed Riley to Ms. Erickson’s room.

Ms. Ngo leaned against the desk at the front of the room. She must be their judge. Awesome. The room was full. Connor yanked his sweatshirt and his backpack off the two chairs next to him. He ran a hand through his blonde hair and winked at them.

“Good, we’re all here,” Ms. Ngo said. “None of you have received your priority cards yet, right?”

Everyone shook their heads.

“Good.” Ms. Ngo walked around the room handing out little stapled packets of three by five cards. They were mixed colors, but were numbered and in color order.

“When you’re ready to speak, you’ll hold up your priority card. If you wish to speak once your priority cards are gone, you will clearly raise your hand.”

Emma nodded her understanding after Ms. Ngo finished explaining the rules. Even after practicing with Ms. Range, Emma wasn’t sure how she would handle the debate. She’d shut down in class when they’d practiced. She hoped she managed to do better now.

“Before I announce the topic, please turn off your cell phones and put them away.”

Emma ignored a new angry text from Ollie and stuck her phone in the side pocket of her backpack.

Ms. Ngo waited until she had everyone’s attention after the phone-stashing and then raised her chin. “What should be the government’s response to the presence of supers?”

What could Emma say that wouldn’t basically announce she was a super? At least she would still get a couple participation points for showing up. At least there was that.

Ms. Ngo wasn’t done. “For further elaboration, should they be forced to register their powers and what they are? Should using their powers in any way other than self-preservation or without governmental authorization be considered akin to using a gun without a permit? You have ten minutes before opening arguments will be drawn.”

Around her, the other students scrabbled on their notepads. Emma doodled on hers. It wasn’t like she’d gone out chosen to get superpowers.

And what implications did it have that Andres hadn’t stepped in to save that little girl when he should have? And more than that, he’d used his powers to stop Emma from helping the girl. Okay, so the man had shot at her—and with the way that she’d dropped out of the sky, no wonder he thought she was hurt.

The debate was heated, but Emma kept her mouth shut, too afraid of outing herself or Andres to say anything. Were any of the other kids there were supers, too? Most of their arguments seemed to have missed the point. Or else they were more concerned with controlling supers and forgetting that supers were people.

Towards the end of the session, Riley held up her priority card. Emma stared down at the pink number one card. Even after practicing, Riley still had that tendency to say the inside out version of whatever she meant and offend everyone. If only Riley had a lukewarm comment to get some points for talking.

“Superpowers should be licensed like guns,” Riley said.

Emma shook her head. Using her powers wasn’t at all like using a gun. A gun had to be purchased and then loaded. Emma just got stuck with powers. Powers had happened to her.

“And supers should wear something to identify their powers so people can know what they can do,” Riley said.

Emma’s stomach churned. The apple she’d had for breakfast hit the back of her mouth. That sounded like the stars the Nazis had made the Jews wear. Emma didn’t want to be singled out by her clothes.

The room fell silent. Ms. Ngo gathered up her long dark hair and pulled the end toward her mouth before dropping it. A dozen hands shot up, but Riley wasn’t done yet.

“Furthermore, so their powers don’t go to waste, supers must be hired out for work that is unique to their powers.”

Branded by her clothes and forced to use her powers. Emma swallowed back the bile and sunk her head to the desk. The debate continued on, but Emma didn’t hear it.

22

After that round, they flooded out of the classroom onto the small quad. The students from other schools kept a wide berth around Riley. Ms. Ngo ignored them and headed off in another direction, presumably towards the judges’ lounge.

“How could you say that?” Emma asked Riley on their way to their usual spot on the band room steps.

“What? Did I put my foot in my mouth again?” Riley pulled her sunglasses out of her purse, covering her eyes. The reflective surface showed Emma’s face back to her when she tried to look at Riley and see if she was serious.

“You don’t even know what you said?” Connor ran a hand through his shock of blonde hair. “How do you not know what you said?”

“What’s so wrong with suggesting superheroes be licensed and trained to use their powers? These powers are big and dangerous. What if they lose control?” Riley asked. “Besides, that’s how we do gun control.”

“It wasn’t that idea—though to be fair no one asked to have powers.” Connor sighed. “When you said supers ‘have to’ do work specific to their powers, it totally implied supers wouldn’t get to say no.”

“That wasn’t what I was trying to say,” Riley said. “I meant they could be hired—not that they couldn’t say no.”

“That’s what you said.” Emma meant to stop there, but the rest tumbled out anyway. “And you said supers should wear a patch on their clothes to identify them as supers. Like what the Nazis did before taking Jewish people to ghettos and concentration camps.”

Riley’s jaw dropped and she reached under her sunglasses to dab at her eyes.

“Your plan would make supers the government appointed slaves of anyone who had enough money to buy them.”

“What?” Riley gasped. “I didn’t mean that at all.”

“That’s what you said.” Emma’s voice shook as she sat on the brick steps to the band room.

Connor and Riley kept talking, but Emma stared at the small quad. Large trees lined the left side. The cement circle where they sat for lunch was empty. Was Emma that scary? Were all the supers so scary?

People acted like powers made supers different, inhuman even. But Emma wasn’t different. She was the same Emma she’d always been, a geeky fourteen-year-old girl. And now, a fourteen-year-old girl with this autism spectrum disorder diagnosis. Now, she was stuck with these powers that made everyone want to control her even more than Nan already did.

It wasn’t fair.

Emma’s hands stung. When she looked down, she saw she’d been digging her nails into her palms. She forced herself to relax.

And these powers… to Andres, getting powers meant he should drop out of school to be a full-time superhero. But was that because there was something else?

Connor and Riley’s faces were bright red. They were getting into it now. Riley kept arguing she hadn’t meant to discriminate against supers, but that supers were dangerous.

Emma swallowed over the lump in her throat. With the way people were reacting, Emma might become a criminal just for using her powers. Or else they might force her to be licensed as if she was a gun. These powers had set her up for all kinds of attention she didn’t want or need.

Connor stomped across the sidewalk to a nearby patch of grass.

Riley turned toward Emma. “You know I didn’t mean it like that, right?”

But Emma wasn’t ready to talk. “Sure.” Whatever Riley had meant didn’t matter. What she’d said did.

What other kinds of bad things could the government and just regular people do because Emma was a super? She needed to work harder to stick to her costume and cover her face.

But now, she needed to go find somewhere quiet to sit and think. A nice dark room where she could hang out by herself.

The other room let out. Ms. Range, Ollie, and Alex beelined for them. Connor followed them back but kept his distance from Riley.

“You scored some good points in there. Way to go guys,” Ms. Range said. She and the others were bubbling with excitement after the round.

Emma hadn’t even talked. If only she could forget about powers for a while. But she couldn’t. There were too many things she needed to keep in mind: the Super Commission, Strongman, Ice Queen, and all that Andres had said. Too much to think about what the regulations should be. Still, she’d better figure these things out before it was too late.

“What about you folks?” Ms. Range asked. “How’d it go?”

“Horrible.” Riley’s shoulders curved forward and her mouth twitched like she was about to cry.

“It was pretty bad.” Emma wanted to reassure her friend, but Riley couldn’t wrap her head around the idea of what her friend would do to her if she found out who she really was.

“Oh, honey, what did you say this time?” A woman came from the parking lot behind them.

“Mom, I’m so glad you’re here.” Riley threw herself into the strict-looking woman’s arms.

“Of course, pumpkin. I mean, I’m sorry I can’t stay long enough to judge a round or anything, but I will always support my little girl.” She stepped back from Riley’s hug and with a gentle smile on her lips. “Now what did you say this time that’s got everyone’s knickers in a knot?”

“We were debating the supers and…”

“Supers…” Riley’s mom groaned as if talking about supers was driving her nuts. And maybe it was. Mrs. Vann was high up in the Force. And if Andres was causing problems for Uncle Frank, then the supers must be making waves with the cops, too.

“And, I said they should be licensed and hired out to use their powers, so their powers aren’t wasted.”

“That’s not what she said, Ms. Vann,” Connor’s voice took on a hardness Emma hadn’t known he possessed.

“It’s what I meant,” Riley grumbled.

Emma looked at Ms. Range to moderate, but her dark lips were pursed together, the excitement from the round lost. “I believe that’s what you meant,” Ms. Range said absently. “We’ve got to work on stopping before you talk to think about the implications of what you’re saying.”

“Your teacher is right, pumpkin.” Mrs. Vann nodded. “We’ve got to think our words and actions through.”

“You’re in charge of the Jamal Robinson investigation, right?” Ms. Range squared her shoulders and her tone turned darker like a raging bull.

“Yes.” Riley’s mom frowned and rose, a confused look on her face. “Though I’m not allowed to discuss ongoing—”

“I hear the officers involved are going to court soon. Will things work out the way they should?” Ms. Range asked.

“I’m not at liberty to say—”

Riley turned her confused look from her mother to Ms. Range. “You and Daddy said Jamal Robinson was a gangbanger, destined for a bad end.”

“Riles, dinner table talk should stay between us. Besides, I wasn’t in charge of the case yet and I wasn’t saying that in an official capacity.” Ms. Vann shrugged. “I guess I need to be careful when I comment on the news at home.”

Ms. Range smiled, but the skin around her eyes didn’t crinkle. “I’m going to turn in my score sheets then get some goodies to celebrate our good effort in the mock congress. What do you kids want? Cookies or brownies?”

“Cookies,” Emma said, but the rest of the team said brownies.

Ms. Range left, score sheet in hand. The other judges and coaches were already heading back towards the old gym from the judges’ room.

The Pueblo team split up with the freshman hanging out on the band room steps. Ollie and Emma didn’t quite mend fences, but they avoided the question of the Speedster, superheroes, and secret identities. It was easy enough when Connor was talking with them, and Riley and her mom a couple feet away. Emma told Ollie and Connor about her run-in with Nan.

“You still doing that piece on civil disobedience?” Connor asked.

“I’m only doing the mock congress this time around.” Emma glanced up at Connor’s blue eyes, then looked away. “I wanted to. Maybe next month at the tournament in Rose Junction.”

“If she even gets to go.” Ollie sighed. “Sounds like Nan still isn’t too happy with you.”

“I don’t even know what I did this time.” Emma sighed. “Besides, I feel like I can’t catch my breath with all the stuff going on.”

“I hear you.” Connor sighed. “It sucks being a freshman. I thought I was getting a hang of this high school thing, then—”

“Hey! Is that Ice Queen?” Alex pointed at the sky.

Ice Queen’s pale blue dress rippled in the breeze as Ice Queen emerged from behind the trees Emma had been staring at. The bright pink curls from her wig set heavy on her shoulders. She was flying right towards them and their spot on the band room steps.

“It is! Wooh! Go Ice Queen!” Connor shouted.

While everyone looked the other way, Emma glanced at her phone. Nothing on her police scanner app.

“What’s she doing here?” Ollie asked.

“Don’t know,” Emma said.

Maybe Ice Queen was practicing flying and hadn’t counted on the school being full of people on the weekend. But Emma touched the green face-paint through her bag just in case. If she needed to help with whatever the other super was doing, she was prepared. Even if her costume was in shreds.

Ice Queen shot a blast of ice through the tree towards the middle their group.

Ollie screamed and jumped back.

Alex and Connor dove towards their side of the steps.

Emma grabbed Ollie and dragged her down the other side of the band room.

Emma undid her top buttons and yanked her dress shirt off to reveal the torn spandex underneath.

“What happened to you?” Ollie asked.

Emma glanced down to see the carefully stenciled words Geek Fire had torn when Andres had tackled her. “I tried to help someone Speedster didn’t want me to help.”

As Emma unbuttoned her pants, Ollie caught her hand.

“You can’t go out there,” Ollie said. “You could get hurt.”

Ollie had a point. They should call that Super Commission guy. Finding supers was his job. Agent Johnson’s card was still in her backpack somewhere. Surely, he had a way of stopping bad supers from hurting people.

“You’re right.” Emma pulled out her phone and started digging through the small pocket for Agent Johnson’s card.

“What are you doing?” Ollie asked.

“Looking for Agent Johnson’s—”

“For Pete’s sake, I’m calling 911.” Ollie dialed and hit call.

Riley screamed. The same piercing sound she’d made when she broke her arm falling off the jungle gym in third grade. Emma’s stomach churned at the memory of her classmate’s arm flopping loose.

What was Ice Queen doing to her friend?

23

“They’ll never get here in time.” Emma yanked away Ollie’s phone and ended the call.

“But—”

“Didn’t you hear Riley?” Emma tore off her clothes.

“Did you want to get hurt too?”

Emma smeared the paint stick on her face. Her skin crawled at the feeling of the damp makeup alternating with the dry patches she’d missed. She didn’t have time to fix it.

Jaw throbbing, Emma thrust her backpack at Ollie. “Watch my stuff and stay out of the way.”

“Keep your phone!” Ollie snatched it out of the backpack’s mesh side-pocket and held it up to her.

Emma had to stop Ice Queen. She kicked off the ground, but Ollie’s hand stopped her.

Riley screamed again and Emma’s blood turned cold.

“I’ve got to go!” Emma clipped on the crown-thing.

“How will you get your clothes?” Ollie waved the phone crazily, but let her go.

“Fine.” Emma stuffed the phone in her bra, then flew over the band room, the pressure inside her jaw and sinuses building.

In the middle of the growing group of her friends, Ice Queen paced in the air near enough to Riley and Mrs. Vann to reach out and touch them.

Riley clung to her mother.

A shard of pain pulsed over Emma’s left eye. Great. The pressure of the gleek-sneeze building was making a sinus headache. Worst power ever. Why couldn’t it be cool like Ice Queen’s stupid ice that shot out her hands. It probably didn’t come with awful sinus headaches.

What was Ice Queen doing anyway? She talked about justice, but this wasn’t justice. Had Ice Queen lost her mind? And why weren't the Vanns running away? Were they too scared to run?

If she shouted for Riley and her mom to run and for Ice Queen to stop, would they run into a classroom somewhere? That could give Ice Queen a chance to stop acting crazy. But if she yelled, nothing was stopping Ice Queen from blasting her out of the sky.

What if Riley was too hurt to run?

No, Emma needed to follow Andres’ advice. At least kind of. Ice Queen was too close to Riley and her mom. If Emma gleek-sneezed at them, there was no telling if she’d blow up Riley instead of saving her.

Emma should wait until she knew her sneeze would only hit Ice Queen before she gave any announcements. That meant Emma needed to get between her and the Vanns or draw Ice Queen away.

Heart pounding, Emma swam through the sky. They really might not be running because they couldn’t. The image of third-grade Riley’s broken arm flashed in her mind. Emma shook her head to clear it and kicked herself closer.

Riley and her mother shivered, their arms wrapped around one another. Clear ice encased Riley and her mother’s feet. No wonder they weren’t running. Ice Queen had frozen them to the spot.

“—deserves justice.” Ice Queen’s voice was pitched so low, Emma barely caught the words.

Deserved justice for what? And how was Ice Queen going to administer that justice? She’d already frozen their feet. What else did she intend?

Blake and Hunter had nearly killed Hannah, but Riley? What had she done?

Emma’s jaw throbbed. Her nose itched, making her eyes water. Not yet, she told herself. But the gleek-sneeze kept trying to force its way out.

Emma did one massive frog-kick, propelling herself toward Ice Queen. “Leave them alone!” Emma careened passed Riley and her mom.

Ice shot towards her, but Emma darted upward, Ice Queen following. The pain behind her left eye throbbed as she rose higher.

Emma spiraled left, trying to focus on Ice Queen. She ground her teeth to contain the gleek-sneeze threatening to explode out of her.

Her glasses and the wire-crown swung loose.

Crap! She caught her glasses before they fell. If she lost them, she wouldn’t even be able to see to aim. She slammed them back on her face and held them in place as she darted through the sky.

Ice Queen pivoted to shoot blast after blast of ice at Emma.

Dang it! Ice Queen wouldn’t give up her position near the Vanns.

Sweat stung Emma’s eyes. Her nose full of a thick acrid chemical , she gasped for air and shut her mouth again.

Maybe if Emma kept dodging, Ice Queen would run out of ice. She should only have so much liquid in her body, right? Simple science.

“Hold still!” Ice Queen threw her hands up and sent a giant column of ice up into the sky. The ice crashed down, shards pelting the Vanns and the bystanders.

“Stop trying to freeze me,” Emma shouted as she maneuvered between Ice Queen and the Vanns again.

Ice Queen clasped her hands behind her back and floated as if she were waiting for an answer.

The gesture bugged Emma. She knew it from somewhere, just as she had recognized the way Andres stood in his speedster costume. She knew this woman, but from where?

“I’m not doing anything she doesn’t deserve,” Ice Queen snapped.

“What did she do to deserve frost bite?” Emma asked.

“She deserves a lot more than that.” Ice Queen raised her hands, her fists glowing blue.

Emma’s nose tickled. The gleek-sneeze started bubbling out. Emma jerked her head away from Ice Queen. She wasn’t a murderer.

The fireball knocked Ice Queen sideways. Ice Queen’s pink wig flew off her head, revealing a huge black bun. A branch caught fire. Burning pine needles showered down.

Emma clamped her jaw shut and groaned. The pressure in her head and jaw were still there.

“Those boys deserve justice.” Ice Queen righted herself and pulled the wig back on, maneuvering herself behind Riley and her mother. “Justice! Not—”

Emma moved to keep herself between Ice Queen and her friend. “I don’t want any, ah—achoo!” Emma slammed her mouth shut and plugged her nose, but not fast enough.

She hit the tree behind Ice Queen with her sneeze and the tree crackled. Even from the distance Emma hovered, the heat of the fire was making her sweat.

“You want to help people, then help good people.” Ice Queen raised her fists and ice flew at Emma. “She doesn’t deserve it.”

She spun, her glasses flying off her face. She blinked, but her eyes couldn’t focus. Nausea churned in her belly. She couldn’t see.

Ice Queen was a blur of blue and white. Emma couldn’t even make out Ice Queen’s arms to see if she was aiming at her again.

Which, she was. As Emma dove towards the ground, putting herself in front of Riley and her mother, a shard of ice grazed Emma’s calf. Emma hovered over the ground, ignoring the pain and hoped it wasn’t too bad. She turned back to Ice Queen. “Everyone deserves help from injustice.”

The blue blur faded into the sky over the football field.

Emma slumped, drifting toward the ground. Ice Queen had listened.

Blue and red light lit the classroom and trees. Emma turned back towards the parking lot and the band room, putting Riley, her mom, and the tree behind her.

Cop cars crowded the small area—someone must have removed the yellow posts from the edge of the parking lot.

A dozen black uniformed people spread around the quad. She squinted. The cops were pointing guns at her. Crap!

24

Emma’s hands moved in small figure eights, propelling herself forward, a protective force between the cops and Riley, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense because the cops were there to protect Riley and her mom from… Emma. Her heart pounded in her throat. Cops rushed toward her, their fuzzy arms stick straight in front of them. This was the second time in three days a gun aimed at her. Only this time, it was dozens of them.

“Freeze,” a cop shouted.

Hovering in midair, Emma obeyed. Her heart pounded. The sour smell of her pits mingled with the smoke from the burning pine tree. With her hands stilled, she sank towards the ground.

The burning tree cracked and a rush of heat singed her back, tightening the paint on one half of her face. She wanted to move away from the tree, spin, move, something, but they could shoot her and she was wearing paper-thin, shredded spandex. A bullet would tear through her. Andres was right, she needed a bullet-proof vest or something.

“Hands up!”

“Stop flying!”

Emma obeyed both cops, dropping hard to the ground with her hands up.

No way she was getting out of this. Her superhero days were done.

She clamped her teeth on her tongue. The pressure of her teeth kept her focused. She’d just been trying to save Riley from a bully. She’d known something was wrong with Ice Queen but what would drive her to go this far?

“Stand down,” Riley’s mom ordered. “And get my daughter out of here!”

Behind her, the fire roared.

Several people were working to contain it with water bottles and what they had on hand, shouting to one another and trying to stay away from the fight.

Emma squeezed her hands into fists, her nails pressing into her skin, her calf beginning to scream from Ice Queen’s near miss.

The cops were still pointing guns at her. Emma couldn’t do anything for fear of getting shot.

“Melt this crap off our feet!” Mrs. Vann shouted over the roaring of the fire. “Before that tree falls on us.”

Emma whimpered. “I might hurt you.” She’d been so stupid. Had she even protected Riley and her mom at all?

“I said stand down,” Riley’s mom shouted again. “I’m Captain Vann and I order you to stand down.”

A huge red blob with flashing lights—a fire truck—pulled up to the band room.

Emma’s arms started to shake. This was getting out of hand and she had no idea what to do. Her whole body trembled.

“Ma’am, she’s interfered with—”

“With one actual crime. She saved us when Ice Queen attacked me and my daughter.” Riley’s mom sounded pissed.

“Ma’am, we’ve been ordered to comply with the Super Commission—”

“She just saved my daughter’s life! We are not punishing a good Samaritan.” The clicking sound of Riley’s mom’s teeth chattering interrupted her. “Besides, after this treatment, I bet she’ll stay out of police business from now on.”

Emma nodded emphatically. She didn’t mean to. It felt almost comical, her head bobbing up and down so fast. She pressed her hands up towards the sky and bit her tongue harder to keep from saying anything stupid.

Her eyes watered, and without her glasses everything was a giant blur. How was she going to get out of this? The Super Commission guy would arrest her for sure. If so, would they throw her away forever or force her to make fireballs for rich people?

And what about Ollie and her friends? Ice Queen had shot ice all over the small quad. Hopefully Ollie had gotten away. Maybe she could somehow get to Ollie and her stuff. Though how was she going to explain how she lost her glasses—especially when someone would find them with the crown thing clipped to them.

If anyone found them, they’d know she was Geek Fire. They would know, and she would be done for. She was so screwed. What had she been thinking? This superhero thing had been the worst idea ever. She might get shot, arrested, or killed. Not to mention, when Nan found out, Emma’d be grounded until she died if Nan even felt anything but contempt for her in the first place.

Emma’s shoulders ached. Her whole body shook. She closed her eyes and bit down on her tongue, keeping any other gleek-sneezes from escaping.

She could do this. Think, Emma, think. She needed to get out of there without getting shot. She needed to get her old glasses out of her gym locker, get back to the speech tournament, and act like she’d hid with Ollie the whole time. Ollie would back her up. If Emma could tell the lie.

“This is a medical emergency! We are freezing to death!” Mrs. Vann’s voice rose into a screech.

That decided her. Emma turned toward Riley.

“Hold still,” a cop shouted at her.

“Let her go! That tree could fall on us and we need medical attention.” Riley’s mom’s voice sounded weaker.

And why wasn’t Riley talking? Was she just as scared as Emma? Was she more hurt than her mother? Was that why Mrs. Vann was panicking?

Emma swallowed hard and held her shaking arms up over her head.

Behind her, a sharp crack rang out. A gunshot?

Boom!

Emma spun towards the massive sound.

The branch lay on the ground. Burning pine needles and twigs drifted on updrafts created by the heat. Emma raised her hand to protect her face.

Mrs. Vann screamed, but not Riley. Why not Riley?

The cops and firefighters rushed passed her.

This was her chance. Emma flew over the remaining trees.

“You’re lucky this time,” someone shouted at her.

“Please, please, please don’t shoot me,” Emma repeated, her racing heart in her throat as she flew. Her costume smoldered, burning her and her calf was doing more than simply aching. Emma stopped, dropping hard onto the roof of the new gym, and rolled.

With the fire out, she lay there, spent, her throat raw from the smoke.

Emma curled up into a smoky ball right where she was.

She hadn’t gotten lucky. She was screwed. She was stuck there, blind as a bat, in tattered and charred neon green spandex with no change of clothes. If she got out of this, she was done being a superhero.

If she didn’t show up for questioning, then they’d know it had to be her and she’d be arrested. But, she couldn’t show up like this either.

Emma crawled to the roof and peeked over the edge, but she couldn’t see anyone. Everything was too blurry.

Not being able to see sucked ass.

Before she did nothing else, she needed to get her old glasses. Good news was they were right beneath her in her gym locker. Emma climbed through the roof access and down the stairwell into the second story of the gym. She sat down on the blue wrestling mats. Emma wrapped her arms around her legs and waited for tears, but tears didn’t come.

She took stock of her situation. She was sweating like a pig. Her spandex was even more torn than it had been before. Her hair had come undone when her glasses had flown off her face. Twigs and leaves tangled in the back of her hair and cold ice melted against her face. Ice Queen’s blasts had gotten far too close for comfort.

She had to check her calf to see how bad it was, but without her glasses, she couldn’t even see a wound, so it couldn’t be that bad.

Her chest tickled. What the heck was wrong with her chest? It tickled again. She jumped up and shook her shirt and bra. Her phone fell to her feet.

Ollie. Thank goodness.

The texts kept rolling in. Emma brought her phone up to her nose. Still blurry, she closed her left eye and squinted with her right.

Where r you?

I have ur clothes.

I’m by the old gym, idk how long i can avoid cops

WTF? Answer me!

Are you ok?

Answer me!

With the one eye shut, Emma squinted to text Ollie back.

getting my spare glasses at the new gym.

She limped down the stairs and to her gym locker. Inside the locker room, it was so dark she had to use the flashlight on her phone to even get to her locker without crashing into anything. She leaned in super close to see the numbers to unlock her locker. She grabbed her old glasses off the hook and put them on her face.

The moment she could see, she gulped air greedily. How did she not realize she’d been holding her breath? With all this smoke, she’d give herself an asthma attack for sure if she didn't start breathing normally. Emma shivered. The cold sweat plastered to her body contrasted with the tiny pinpricks where the tree had singed her.

Ollie texted her again. Cops everywhere. Want interviews. Your bags on the roof by bio & our lockers.

Is Riley ok? Emma texted. She didn’t like that Riley hadn’t screamed when the tree had fallen.

Too bad she didn’t have time for a shower. She was covered in ash, ice, and sweat. The smell of smoke would give her away for sure. Still, Ollie was freaking out about stalling for her. The makeup removing wipes in her bag would have to do. Still, she didn’t want to clean herself, naked on the roof.

Crap on a stick. She’d just have to go for it as best she could.

Emma stumbled up the stairs, back onto the roof and still smoky and filthy, flew the short distance to the sciences wing. The flat roof’s gravel dug into her knees, but what else could she do. She found her bag by the edge on the locker side, then crawled to the edge nearest the old gym. There, she could see everything. Thank goodness, no one bothered to look up.

The cops had herded the terrified students into the old gym, while the firemen fought the fire that threatened to spread to the building she was on. Emma swallowed over a dry lump in her throat.

Riley shivered unconscious on a stretcher with a space blanket around her. Her mother traced Riley’s face with one hand.

Poor Riley. Emma clenched and unclenched her fists. Stupid Ice Queen. Emma hated how Ice Queen and Strongman had attacked Bake, but she still hadn’t thought Ice Queen would go this far. Attacking students was not meeting out justice.

Her phone vibrated again. Get here fast

Emma started by wiping the green makeup off her face, and, still on the roof of the sciences building, stripped down to her underwear, and wiped herself clean. The pack of wipes was toast. At least she was done with this superhero thing because otherwise she’d have to save her lunch money to buy more.

Her hair was a rats nest again, but she picked out the leaves and finger combed it as best she could. She’d have to either cut it short or wear it like her cousin in those perfect sock buns. Otherwise she’d have trouble with it in the future.

Emma swallowed hard. What future? No way she was thinking about continuing to do this superhero thing? She’d already told herself she was done. Death, lifelong arrest, eternal grounding, and Nan despising her were on the table.

But if she didn't keep going as Geek Fire, who else would stop Ice Queen? The cops couldn’t. Not to mention, Emma’s fire was the best weapon against the crazy woman’s ice.

Emma shook her head. She was just a dumb kid playing superhero. That granite-faced Agent Johnson should know what he was doing, right?

25

After getting cleaned up, Emma deleted the texts from Ollie, then flew down into the locker corridor. The shredded costume could stay on the roof. She ran towards the office like she was panicked and scared. Not like she needed to fake it. She was panicked and scared, just not about the same stuff as everyone else.

She ran into Agent Johnson full speed. He didn’t even stumble, and his wall of a body sent Emma to the ground. She hit hard on her butt, sobbing.

“Let’s get you to the old gym.” Johnson smiled and hauled Emma to her feet with one hand. “We’ll need to interview you with everyone else.”

He didn’t ask her name or anything. In the gym, the competitors huddled with their schoolmates and teachers. Alex and Ollie camped out in a corner. Somehow, Ollie had torn her slacks and her shirt was dirty. Alex looked put together. Ms. Ngo sat on the stage by herself. Ms. Range stood in a knot of other judges. Connor was nowhere to be seen, and Riley had been taken away in the ambulance.

“Thank God you’re okay!” Alex pulled her into a bony hug.

“Where’s Connor?” Emma asked.

“Dumbass ran off to get a better view of the fight between Ice Queen and Dragon Girl.” Alex snorted. “The tree fell on him—”

“Oh, no!” Emma gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. “I—I—hurt?” she stammered through her fingers.

“Yeah. Busted up his arm and got some minor burns. Ambulance took him to the hospital.” Alex rolled his eyes, not noticing that Emma’s stammering had put the blame on herself. “What about you? How’d you two get separated?”

“I—” Emma shook her head, not knowing what to say. She wasn’t a liar and definitely not a good one.

“I wanted to get my camera from my locker to get a good picture of the battle. Emma tried to stop me, but…” Ollie loosened her tie. “I ditched her.”

“When everything was over, I went to look for her by the lockers, but I didn’t find her,” Emma said, getting her story straight before they got interviewed. “I feel so dumb. I thought it was so cool with the Dredgetown Speedster and us having Geek Fire that I didn’t even think about there being super villains.”

“No kidding.” Alex ran a hand through his hair. “Connor thought Ice Queen getting Blake was the best thing ever, then she goes and attacks Mrs. Vann and Riley. He’s such a dumbass for getting closer to take pictures.”

“Hey!” Ollie thumped his arm. “I was trying to do the same thing.”

“But you used the zoom!” Alex said. “Those were some cool pics you got.”

Ollie blushed. “Yeah, they were. Em, wanna see?”

“Wait, you managed to get your camera?” Emma thought that had just been part of the lie.

“Well, yeah. I got an awesome pic of… of Geek Fire defending the Vanns from Ice Queen. Wanna see?” Without waiting for Emma to answer, Ollie whipped out her camera and shoved it in Emma’s face.

On the small screen, Emma floated looking ridiculous and awesome at the same time. The picture showed her and Ice Queen from the side. Ollie must have come out onto the small quad from the corridor near the freshman lockers and the science classrooms.

“Geek Fire’s smoking hot!” Ollie gave Emma a look that said she was immensely glad everything was okay but that there’d be retribution next time.

Emma rolled her eyes, feeling oddly relieved by that look. “You’re so punny.”

In the picture, Emma’s hair covered her face. Her glasses and crown thing were already gone. At least her face was still painted green.

“What’s that?” Emma pointed to a blur in the corner.

Ollie zoomed in on that spot. Between the digital zoom and the high res image, it was easy to see Connor kneeling under the tree, right next to a bit of green and black—Emma’s glasses with the Geek Fire dragon crown stuck on them.

“Stupid Connor!” Alex said. “He’s lucky the tree didn’t fall on his head.”

Oh no! The cops would find her glasses for sure, fingerprint them and all the witnesses to the crime, then figure out she was Geek Fire. How was she going to stop Ice Queen before she got herself arrested?

26

Nan towered over Emma and Ollie as she paced in front of them. The two girls cowered in front of her. Nan stood half a foot taller than either of them, and her fluffy white hair bounced with each step.

To avoid the tears that always came with eye contact, Emma studied the carpet. At first glance, the carpet was solid gray. But Emma relaxed the focus of her eyes, making shapes emerge from the subtle ridges and valleys in the carpet.

“Supers attacked your classmate,” Nan said, pausing momentarily to make her point, “and you didn’t even call me?”

Emma dug her teeth into her tongue. She didn’t dare point out that Ice Queen had attacked Riley.

Ollie’d gotten a hold of her mom, but Nan hadn’t answer her phone the first time. Since they had already been biking to Emma’s house, they thought telling Nan in person made sense. Who knew Nan would get this pissed?

Nan stared at the both of them, her cheeks sucked in.

Emma chewed her lip, waiting for the lecture to start again. Had she missed something? Uncomfortable under Nan’s gaze, Emma shifted her weight to her other foot. Did Nan want an answer? An explanation? That bit of carpet looked like a tiny squid silhouette.“I’m sorry?”

“I don’t even find out until it’s on the news and you two girls were already putting your bikes on the porch?” Nan’s face had turned red, and spittle made the gap between her bottom teeth shine.

At least Nan didn’t know Emma was one of the supers on the news. Still, if Emma didn’t say something soon, the plaque in the gap was going to fly out of Nan’s mouth and get her. “I did call you once I could, but you didn’t answer. Everyone was running everywhere and…”

Emma’s voice petered out, not sure what else to say. She hadn’t had more time to call Nan because she’d been involved.

Ollie had been right. They should have called the cops or the Super Commission or whoever could deal with Ice Queen, and Emma could have hid with everyone else.

“And then, we all had to go into the old gym to get interviewed, and they took our phones.” Ollie elbowed Emma.

“What am I going to do with you?” Nan started pacing again. “You’re all I have left of Rosalie. With those problems you’ve been having and the supers everywhere, maybe I should homeschool you.”

“No!” Emma’s voice shot out of her. Her throat closed in. No way would she stay home with Nan all day every day. Even if she could learn everything she needed or wanted from a computer or a book, she needed to get out of the trailer. She needed to get away from Nan. She needed her friends. She needed Ollie.

Nan didn’t say anything. Was she waiting for Emma to say more? Emma looked back at the carpet squid. It was a sooty gray around the edges. But since neither Nan nor Emma used candles unless the power went out, it must have been a Mr. Sniggles related spill.

“Nana Harrison.” Ollie cleared her throat. “You can’t keep Emma out of the world forever. Besides, anyone could be a super. Even you.”

Nan choked.

“Okay, bad joke.” Ollie crossed her arms as if to fortify herself. “But supers are everywhere, and we can’t hide and hope we’ll stay safe. Emma needs to go to school. She’s learning to deal with those executive function issues there.”

Nan glared at Ollie.

Emma’s heart seized. She didn’t need Nan turning her wrath on Ollie. “I can’t quit school because there are supers running around, can I? You always say school is the most important thing.”

“God Bless America!” Nan bellowed, her face turning purple. “It’s too dangerous for you to go to school.”

What could Emma say to pull the plug on Nan’s anger? The woman was ready to blow. What would happen if she didn’t get Ollie out of there? Would she ban Emma from talking to Ollie?

“My mom is probably worried sick. Let me and Emma go out back to call my mom. Then…” Ollie was quick on her feet and better at calming Nan than Emma would ever be.

“Then,” Emma scraped her teeth across her bottom lip. “Then, we can talk about homeschool later, after Ollie is safe.”

Nan nodded and collapsed into her arm chair. The color drained away from her face and the chair threatened to swallow her.

Emma wanted to ask Nan if she was okay, but what if she set Nan off again? Instead, Emma and Ollie rushed out the back door and into the small yard.

“Didn’t you call your mom while we biked over?”

“It was a way to get us out of there.” Ollie unlatched the gate. “We’d better get out of here before your Nan realizes I don’t need your help to call my mom.”

Outside the yard, the girls leaned against the rough wooden fence facing the rose bushes at the end of the rows upon rows of grapevines.

“She’s pretty pissed, huh?” Ollie said.

Lately, Nan’s moods were as wild as the changes to the thermostat. Nan was either burning hot or freezing cold.

Emma kicked a clod of dirt towards the grapevines. “You know you can’t sell that picture of me, right? My glasses are off and so is the crown thing.”

Ollie groaned. “No one will recognize you. Your hair is covering your face and your face is painted green.”

“With that facial recognition software stuff, they could catch me.” Emma started bouncing on her toes. “Probably why Ice Queen wears the Halloween mask.”

“That’s why the facial recognition stuff won’t work. You're always in your glasses.”

“Yeah right.” Emma flicked her fingers as she bounced. “Not like Geek Fire’s coming back anytime soon.”

“Why not?” Ollie caught Emma’s arms and stopped her from bouncing.

“The guns pointed at me. Both the Super Commission and Ice Queen are looking for me.” Emma headed down one of the rows of grapevines.

“Any thoughts on who she might be?” Ollie hurried after her.

“Not my job to hunt her down.” That didn’t stop Emma from wondering, though. Emma finally paused and rubbed her calf where Ice Queen had almost got her. It had just been a glancing shot, but she didn’t need more ice in her life.

“You can’t be serious.” Ollie knelt beside her, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Geek Fire, you have got to stop her.”

“No, Geek Fire is done. Ice Queen’s like the first super villain and everyone is looking for her.” Emma pulled away. “I’m done playing superhero. I was scared today. Besides, the cops or Agent Johnson will find her. Riley’s really messed up.”

Ollie frowned. “Ice Queen and Strongman really did a number on Blake, and the cops haven’t found either of them yet.”

Emma scraped her tongue against her teeth. “I don’t need them to find me either. I lost my glasses and mask today. They can use that to find me. And after getting shot at two days this week, I’m done. I could have died more than once today.”

“You barely got hurt.” Ollie pulled out her camera and zoomed in super close on a mildew rose. “Besides, do you really trust them to find her?”

Ollie had a point. If they were too inept to find a stupid kid like Emma who was basically throwing her identity out there for anyone to catch, what chance did they have finding Ice Queen? Ice Queen talked like a real grownup. Still, Emma needed to keep her head down. She didn’t want to be arrested or worse—for Nan to find out and hate her. “If you want to find her, do it.”

“We have to think like she would.” Ollie grinned.

“Isn’t that the whole problem with autism?” Emma hadn’t invited herself on the hunt, but she didn’t want to pull herself out of it either. “I mean, I’m just getting a handle on this, but isn’t that why social stuff sucks for us? We don’t think the way others do.”

“Dude, at least pretend like you’ll stop her.” Ollie dropped her camera, letting it bounce against her chest.

Emma’s mouth went dry as panic rose.

“Pretend it’s a puzzle game. What do you know about Ice Queen?”

Ollie knew her too well. Puzzle games were the best. Emma chewed her lip. “Ice Queen’s got long black hair. Her wig came off while we were fighting.”

“So? That doesn’t narrow it down much. We’re a farming town. There’s like, a million chicanas with long, black hair.”

“I’m trying to work like Bastian. He’s got those lists.”

Ollie snorted. “Like those are any help.”

“I’d still be on his Dragon Girl list if I didn’t take my name off.”

Ollie gasped. “Clearing your own name—that’s almost a lie.”

Emma ignored the dig. “Also, she hates Blake and wanted to freeze Riley solid.” This was getting to be kind of fun. “Who has long, black hair and hates both Blake and Riley—”

“Who doesn’t hate Blake? He’s a jerk and Riley…” Ollie waved her hand, trying to find the right words. “She’s sweet, but she’s always saying horrible things on accident.”

“Yeah, but most people don’t see them enough to really hate them.” Emma clapped her hands. “Instead of starting with Bash’s giant list, let’s list people with long black hair who might want to kill them.”

“Strongman tried to kill Blake. Ice Queen stopped him and froze Blake’s tongue to the post.”

“This is your dumb game. You should play along.” Emma stomped back towards the yard. Even if Geek Fire didn’t do anything with this puzzle, Emma could still help the Super Commission find Ice Queen. “Who hates Blake?”

“Everyone.” Ollie laughed. “Dude’s a jerk. He’s always picking on Alex. So, Alex might hate him.”

“You’re still not doing this right. Alex isn’t a girl, and he’s got short brown hair.” Emma shook her head. “Think of people with long black hair that hate them—Summer!”

“What about summer? I mean, I guess it’s coming up, but we can’t wait that long.”

“Summer Sestina, not summer the season.” Emma rolled her eyes. Was Ollie being this thick on purpose? “Blake got Hunter the alcohol before they started doing donuts.”

Ollie ran a hand through her short hair, making it fluff out. “That makes sense.”

Emma bit her lip to keep from laughing at Ollie’s messy hair. “And she was pissed the insurance company wasn’t covering damage caused by supers, but let’s be real. Drunk driving killed the insurance settlement.”

Ollie frowned. “But Summer doesn’t even know Riley, does she? I mean, Riley’s a sophomore and Summer’s a senior.”

“They were fighting when I got to the gym.” Emma shrugged. What had that been about?

“Talking or fighting?”

Emma stopped bouncing. “Fighting. Riley’s face was all red afterward, and she changed the subject fast.”

“Okay, so you’ve got a case for Summer—a weak one, but kind of a case. Anyone else?”

“The only other people who might know both of them are teachers.” Emma shook her head. “But teachers wouldn’t attack students.”

Ollie frowned in thought. “Wasn’t Ms. Ngo was your judge in your tournament? You were upset over what Riley said. Maybe…she was too?” Her expression shows she was having troubles with this line of logic.

“So? She's a teacher and a good one. She’s not someone who would attack Riley.”

“Being a teacher doesn’t make her above being scared.” Ollie grinned, like she had won the game. “I mean, you were scared when Riley made that suggestion. And, if Ice Queen is Ms. Ngo, and was scared by Riley’s line of thinking, she might have decided to put a little fear into anyone who believes supers should be slaves to the highest bidder.”

That made sense except one thing. “Not Ms. Ngo. She’s real nice. You might as well say Ms. Range is Ice Queen. She’s got those long, dark braids.”

Ollie burst into laughter. “Ms. Range loves Riley. Besides, she’d already left campus to go get the brownies.”

“Okay, but that doesn’t make Ms. Ngo into Ice Queen either.”

Ollie thought about her, her expression pinched with effort. “Okay. She disappeared right after the round and she didn’t show up with the other judges. She had time to go to her classroom, change into her Ice Queen costume, and attack Riley!”

“I still don’t buy it.”

“Fine. What if we’ve got this all wrong and Ice Queen had it in for Riley’s mom instead?” Ollie asked. “Some people really don’t like cops, and Riley could have been in the way.”

“Maybe, but did you hear Ice Queen?”

“When you were fighting her? No.”

“Maybe she said it when you grabbed this.” Emma tugged on Ollie’s camera. “Anyway, Ice Queen said that Riley deserved what she got, and that if I knew what had happened, I’d be on her side.” Emma shook her head. “It’s got to be Summer.” Or Ms. Ngo. Emma didn’t want to believe that, though.

“Then Geek Fire’s got to ferret her out.”

Ollie had read too many mystery novels. “Ferret her out?” Who said things like that?

“Girls!” Nan shouted before Emma could answer. “Girls! Where are you? I thought you were staying in the yard.”

27

The paint flaked off the railing onto Emma’s hand as she climbed the ramp to Ms. Ngo’s classroom. Ollie’d guessed wrong. Ms. Ngo was too nice to be Ice Queen. But if that were true, why was Emma’s chest tight?

Trying to figure out Ice Queen’s identity had been fun on Saturday, but the thought of meeting one-on-one with a potential Ice Queen left Emma shaking. After all, Ice Queen had seen Emma’s face up close with only the stupid, green paint hiding her identity.

Heart pounding, Emma opened the door and a blast of cold air greeted her.

At her desk, Ms. Ngo’s long black hair hung past her shoulders as she looked over some folders. Was Ms. Ngo’s hair thick enough to make a huge bun like Ice Queen’s? Summer’s was.

Emma rubbed her arms against the chill. Based on the cold room, Ollie might be right. But how could Emma prove it?

“Good afternoon, Emma.” Ms. Ngo plastered the same smile as always on her face. “How are you doing today?”

Was the smile an act? Emma shook her head, not knowing what to say. Words sucked, except for writing. Then, she could go back and fix what she’d written a million different ways before sending it. Now, she hoped Ms. Ngo hadn’t already figured out Emma was Geek Fire.

“How are you doing after Saturday? I was terrified when those supers showed up.”

Emma nodded, trying to analyze what Ms. Ngo had said. Ms. Ngo was scared of those supers? Not just Ice Queen?

Even though Emma’s money had been on Summer, but Emma had to be sure she was right. She was. Wasn’t she?

It would help if Emma was good with people or even at asking penetrating questions like real journalists.

“We’d planned to go over the results of your interview with Speedster today.” Ms. Ngo tipped her smiling face to the side. “But I understand if you didn’t work on your project this weekend.” She walked over to the orange table where Emma always sat. “If you’d like to talk about what happened or dealing with autism or anything else instead of your project today—”

“No.” Why talk about emotions she couldn’t name? And her project was a mush in her head. The real question on Emma’s mind was if Ms. Ngo was Ice Queen or not.

“It’s hard to recognize our emotions sometimes. Try taking a moment to recognize how you’re feeling physically and—”

“I met with Speedster last week, but something came up and I didn’t get to interview him.” The words tumbled out of Emma, even as she tried to figure out how to circle around to asking Ms. Ngo what she thought. Always two steps behind where she needed to be to figure this Ice Queen thing out. “I should be able to interview someone else noteworthy though.” Or fake an interview with herself.

“You met with the Dredgetown Speedster?” Ms. Ngo patted the chair beside her, inviting Emma to sit.

Emma stopped hugging herself and stumbled to sit at the orange table like she should have done in the first place. Couldn’t she act normal for once in her life?

Emma tried to explain without revealing too much information. “I recognized Speedster as someone I knew at a robbery in Stockton. So, I messaged him about meeting up. It wasn’t hard, but…” Emma licked her lips. “He had to go respond to a crime almost as soon as I got there.”

“That’s very impressive. Not a lot of journalists have managed to arrange meetings with superheroes. Otherwise, we’d have dozens of interviews.” Ms. Ngo stared at her expectantly.

Was Ms. Ngo wondering if Emma had recognized she was Ice Queen? Or was she trying to decide if Emma was Geek Fire or not?

Oh, yeah. Very impressive was a compliment.

“Thank you.” Emma smiled, accepting the compliment, if a little late.

“Why don’t you send him your interview questions to answer online?” Ms. Ngo asked.

“No.” Emma chewed her lip, still not sure of what she to say or do. “We decided it’s best if there’s no electronic trail of anyone’s secret identity. The Super Commission is looking for anyone with powers and…”

Crap. Had Emma just said that she had a secret identity? Or else hinted that she knew more than Speedster’s identity. Crap on a stick.

Emma froze. Words had abandoned her again. What else could she say without incriminating herself as a super?

“I’ve seen the news.” Ms. Ngo’s smile slipped as she went solemn. “Supers who don’t hide their identity have disappeared. Like the Washington Wailer.”

Goosebumps prickled on Emma’s arms. She rubbed them, trying to bring some heat into her body. Washington Wailer had been identified because his mouth had to remain uncovered. Would Emma be discovered the same way? Granted, she couldn’t grow a uniquely styled beard, but…

If Ms. Ngo was Ice Queen and had been paying attention to this stuff, that would explain the care Ice Queen took in covering her face and hair with a mask. Not an inch of Ice Queen’s actual self was visible behind the costume.

“What do you think about that?” Stupid question. Why did Emma say that?

“I’m sure your friend the Speedster is worried that if you recognized him, the Super Commission will too.” Ms. Ngo frowned. “If I were a super, I’d be very scared if I didn’t take great care to hide my identity.”

Did Ms. Ngo admit to taking ‘great care’ hiding her identity? Was she hinting Emma needed to hide her face better?

“Especially with people making suggestions like Riley’s.” Ms. Ngno shook her head, her lips flat. “People are always scared of those who are different. But the thought of forcing supers to register their powers and farming them out makes me think of the registration and relocation programs of World War II.”

Ms. Ngo sounded like she was justifying herself for attacking Riley and trying to get Emma on her side. The pieces were sliding into place for Emma and she didn’t like it.

Now, Emma needed to make it through class without giving herself away or doing anything to make Ice Queen hate her any more than she already did.

“But I’m lucky I’m not a super.” Ms. Ngo laughed. “Also, I’m glad you’ve got another person to interview that’s related to supers somehow. Honestly, I expected you to interview your cousin since a super saved her.”

“I want to talk to the other people who saw Ice Queen attack Riley,” Emma said and then caught her breath. What was she doing?

Ms. Ngo chewed her bottom lip. “Poor Riley. She and her mother both had severe frost bite.” Tears pricked Ms. Ngo’s eyes. “I hope she doesn’t wind up losing her feet. That would be awful.”

Emma studied Ms. Ngo’s face. The drawn corners of her mouth. That ever-present smile was gone, but a hint of crinkles lingered around her eyes. What did that mean? Emma sucked at reading facial expressions. “My friends and I were right there on the band room steps when the attack started. I thought I’d put our opinions about supers in the article.”

“That’s a good idea. What about the other part of the project?” Ms. Ngo asked, changing the subject. More proof she was Ice Queen, since she didn’t want to dwell on the victims. “You haven’t interviewed any professional journalists yet, have you?”

Emma folded her arms across, drawing in on herself against the cold. When she crossed her legs, the scrape on her knee stung.

“We laid out the steps for that part of the assignment already. Did you not have time to do it? Or did you have problems getting started?”

Emma dug her nails into her palms. She was more upset over the fact that Ms. Ngo was Ice Queen than she might be able to hide. She’d trusted Ms. Ngo with the more dangerous truth she had. She was bro—autistic. How could…

How could that person be a villain?

“If you didn’t have time or energy, cut something out of your schedule. Managing your energy is very important.”

Was Ms. Ngo telling her to cut being a superhero out of the equation? Had Ms. Ngo figured out Emma was Geek Fire or Dragon Girl? Was Ms. Ngo afraid of Emma?

“I’m fine,” Emma said, trying to cut this part of the conversation short. She needed to focus on Ms. Ngo, not on herself.

“What can you cut if energy is the problem? You’re in honors English, AP Human Geography, geometry, microbiology, and Spanish 2 as a freshman. You’re on the swim team, the speech and debate teams. Not to mention you dropped band to work with me. That’s quite a heavy load.”

“Why’d you become a special ed teacher?” Emma cleaned some gunk out from under her nails, ignoring Ms. Ngo’s question. Emma knew it was awkward, but she didn’t care. Since being Geek Fire had been taking up all her extra energy, she needed to avoid admitting that to Ms. Ngo. Not to mention she was the worst liar ever.

“I’ve already told you and I don’t see how that’s relevant right now, but I’ve always wanted to make sure that everyone got equal dignity.” Ms. Ngo traced some shapes on the orange table. “I almost failed out of college because of my own problems with executive function. That made me reflect on where I needed to most apply my efforts. I hate it when someone is looked down on for being different.”

Emma frowned. Was that why Ms. Ngo had attacked Riley? Or did it have to do with Riley and Summer’s fight?

“What about you? Did you need help getting started on the project instead? That’s a problem a lot of autistics have.” Ms. Ngo smiled again.

Emma wasn’t sure she wanted Ms. Ngo’s help with anything.

“It’s not procrastination exactly. It’s more of a failure to start because something is too overwhelming. Let’s try breaking the reaching out to journalists into smaller steps. Today, you can draft an email that I’ll look over for you. Then, when you’re ready, you’ll send it to local TV anchors like Valerie Virgo and some reporters for the Lindo Herald.”

“I can do that.” Was Ms. Ngo changing the subject to get Emma to lower her guard and spill that she was Geek Fire? Or did Emma have everything all wrong, and Ms. Ngo really was trying to help her finish her project? She really hoped it was the latter.

“Great. Although, you should probably cut out swim or speech until the end of the school year.”

“Speech is over. Our last tournament of the year was supposed to be next month, but after Saturday…” Emma stopped and tried again. “Ms. Range decided it was best that the team take some time off.”

“In that case, you’ve already given up the speech team until next year.”

Emma shrugged.

“What else could you cu—”

“I can do the interview. I just didn’t email anyone. Just like I didn’t do the project before. I can write an email. I’m not stupid.” Emma swallowed hard. She’d been so busy being Geek Fire, but the real reason she hadn’t done it was because reaching out to a complete stranger was as terrifying as being shot at.

What if they said no? What if they said she was stupid? What if they read her stupid email online to make fun of how dumb she was?

Still, the way Ms. Ngo kept pushing for her to give up things when she’d already given up band irritated her. Ms. Ngo must have figured out Emma was Geek Fire and was telling Emma to drop something to work on school was her way of getting Emma to stop messing with her.

Sour panic bubbled up in Emma’s throat. If Ms. Ngo was Ice Queen, what was stopping her from making Emma disappear right then and saying Emma had never shown up to class?

28

When the bell rang, Emma rushed out of Ms. Ngo’s classroom. The warm spring sun on her face took the edge off the panic she’d felt in Ms. Ngo’s frigid classroom. If Ms. Ngo had been trying to scare Emma off from being Geek Fire, then she had wasted her efforts.

Emma had already made the decision, and knowing Ms. Ngo was probably Ice Queen only made the decision that more reasonable.

Didn’t matter who Ice Queen was, both Ms. Ngo and Summer were stronger, smarter, and more experienced than her. Ice Queen was faster than and had more control over her powers.

Not to mention, Emma had gotten banged up by her own friend when trying to help a little girl. Battling Ice Queen, she had lost her glasses, almost gotten caught, and had made a burning tree fall on poor Connor. That was not a positive success rate. The only good thing she had done as Geek Fire was destroy the creepy boar at Banana Splitz.

Her phone chimed. A crime was going on somewhere, but she didn’t care. She didn’t have a disguise. Her knees and arms were scraped up. Since Connor hadn’t spent the day bragging about finding Geek Fire’s crown, he didn’t have them. She’d even baited him if he’d found anything, but he just seemed confused. Which meant the cops must have found them, and she’d just had to get the pretty sparkly glasses. So it was only a matter of time before the Super Commission came for her.

If she hurried, she could make it to the computer lab before practice, at least she could try and get rid of Ice Queen a different way.

Emma power-walked rushing past the cheerleaders under the gazebo-thing in the middle of the big quad. Ollie caught sight of her and hurried towards Emma.

Emma tried to ignore her friend. Ollie still wanted her to play Geek Fire, Dragon Girl, whatever. She wasn’t understanding Emma’s fear.

“You going to practice?” Ollie asked, catching up to her.

“I might be late. I’ve got something to do.” Emma’s stomach was in knots. If Ice Queen figured out who she was, she was gleek-sneeze snot. If the Super Commission guy figured out who she was, she was gleek-sneeze snot. One chance. She had one chance to handle it all, before they all came for her.

“Superhero stuff?” Ollie leaned in so close her breath tickled Emma’s ear.

Emma flailed her away. “Quiet!”

People swarmed towards the bus pickup near the pool, not to mention the bike racks near the office. Still, no one seemed to have noticed the two freshman girls.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Ollie grinned.

Emma pressed her lips together, realized she probably looked like Nan and shook her head. “Not like you’re thinking. I can’t do this.”

“What do you mean you can’t?”

“I’m scared, Ollie. Don’t you get it? Ice Queen has it out for me now, the Super Commission is looking for me. I’ve got one chance to…” Emma glanced around. People were starting to notice her now that she’d raised her voice. “Just let it go, all right? No more Dragon Girl.”

“Geek Fire all the way," Ollie whispered, raising her fist for a fist bump.

Emma shook her head, ducked passed Ollie and into the library. Almost no one was there after school and Emma headed deeper inside. She sat down at a computer and started typing.

Ollie hovered, staring over Emma’s shoulder.

“Dragon Girl’s resignation?” Ollie asked incredulously. “You can’t quit!”

“I’ve got to.”

I’m Dragon Girl—Geek Fire is the name I picked for myself, and I want to assure you that I’m done playing superhero, so stop looking for me. Ice Queen is too powerful for me. I believe Ice Queen is either Ms. Ngo or Summer Sestina. Both have reason to attack Blake Brewer and Riley Vann.

Emma paused. She still didn’t know what the fight between Riley and Summer had been about. Still, she listed out why she suspected Summer and Ms. Ngo, then typed Geek Fire like a signature at the end of the letter.

She hit print and ran to the printer before anyone else saw it.

“You can’t quit.” Ollie was practically begging now. The few other students in the computer lab and the librarian were staring at them.

Emma leaned into Ollie, her heart pounding. “It’s my life on the line. I’m banged up and hurt. I don’t want to wind up in the hospital like Riley.”

“You’re not a coward.” Ollie crossed her arms and stared at Emma.

“I guess I am.” Eyes burning, Emma shoved past her friend.

In the office, Mr. Wale paced the hallway but smiled when he saw her. “Emma, Ms. Ngo tells me you’re doing very well with managing your project. Let me know if you ever need anything.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wale. I’m just here to drop something off for a friend.” She pulled her sweater tighter and pretended to drop something off at the front desk.

When the way was clear, she darted down the hall and slid her paper under Agent Johnson’s door. Since she hadn’t named the file or saved it, there was no way to link the note to her.

The note gone, she released a sigh of relief. Her time as Geek Fire was over. She didn't have to worry about this superhero stuff anymore.

Turning to go, she bumped right into Ms. Range.

“Oh! Emma! I didn’t see you,” Ms. Range pushed a braid back from her face. “What’re you doing here?”

“Nothing.” Emma stammered. “Just dropping something off.”

It wasn’t even much of a lie. She was done with the note and was done being a superhero and was done with lying. She could at least try being normal in some parts of her life.

“I see.” Ms. Range studied her for a moment, her eyes going to Emma’s scraped knees and elbows before settling on her face. “I didn’t notice in class this morning, but did you get new glasses?”

“These are my old ones.” Emma’s heart sank. Time for more lies. Still, at least she wouldn’t need any new ones after today. “I fell off my bike and couldn’t find my new ones. I think they got broken.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Ms. Range patted her shoulder. Her hand felt cold even through Emma’s sweater, but the office was cold.

“Thanks. I… I need to go to swim practice or I’ll be late.”

Heading out of the office, Emma resisted the urge to do a happy dance.

Done. Done. Done. No more Geek Fire. No more costumes, masks, flying, or sneezing fireballs. She’d even told the Super Commission guy her best bet for who Ice Queen was and that she was done being a superhero.

Now, she could move on with her life.

29

Thursday was the first home swim meet of the season. In the medley relay, Ollie destroyed the other swimmers in the backstroke and then glared up at Emma as Emma dove over her.

No matter how fast Emma swam, the other breast strokes pulled close. Gasping, Emma climbed out of the pool. Their butterflier pulled back ahead of the other team, Emma cheered and hollered, jumping up and down

Across the pool, in his gray suit Agent Johnson stared at Emma.

Her throat went dry and she lost the joy of the race. She waved awkwardly.

He nodded and turned away.

Hunter, Summer’s boyfriend was talking to him. Why were they at the meet? Was Johnson getting evidence against Emma as Geek Fire? Had he gotten her fingerprints off the letter? Crap, she hadn’t thought to wear gloves or anything for that.

Emma forced her attention back to the race. Either he would arrest her or not. The freestyler was kicking hard and bringing home the race, neck and neck with the girl from the other school. Beside her, Ollie and the dripping wet butterflier cheered as their remaining teammate arched her back and reached the wall just a hair before the other girl.

Emma tried to high five Ollie, but she turned her back and stomped over to Connor and Alex on the grass. The neon colored cast on Connor’s arm was a sign that Emma had failed at her stupid attempt to be a hero.

Not like Emma was happy with Ollie either. Even if Ollie’d blurred her face, she’d still gone and published the picture of Emma sans glasses and headpiece battling Ice Queen. Now, Emma in her green face paint, torn spandex, and lack of crown was there for anyone to recognize.

“You and Ollie going to patch things up soon?” Sebastian walked Emma back to his tent.

Emma climbed into it, ignoring whatever Ollie was doing now. “Don’t know. You can ask her.”

“That’s a no then.” He plopped down in front of Emma.

“Let’s work on your article. I want to figure out the whole Ice Queen thing after Saturday.”

Sebastian pulled a notebook out of his backpack. “I’ve really been working the Dragon Girl angle.”

Emma winced at the name but bit her tongue. If she wasn’t going to be a superhero anymore, she supposed it didn’t matter if people got her name wrong.

“I think we’ve seen the last of her.” Emma tried to sound casual. “Maybe we could try to focus on Ice Queen or Strongman. They’re more the bad guy type anyway.”

“Exactly. I might have a chance of talking to Dragon Girl and surviving. But Ice Queen doesn’t have a problem attacking people.”

“I don’t have anything new on Dragon Girl.” Gah, now even she was using the dumb name. “But during the fight, I saw Ice Queen’s real hair.”

“That’s right. You were there on Saturday.” He scribbled in his notebook.

“I know she’s got long black hair, and she attacked Riley and Blake. So…” Emma drew out the word.

“What, you’ve got an actual idea of who she is?”

Emma told him.

He laughed at her. “The special ed teacher or the homecoming queen?” He shook his head. “No way.”

“Why not? I admit, after a week of watching Ms. Ngo, I’m kind of starting to think it’s not her.” She hoped. She really did, but there were… things.

For starters, by now, Ms. Ngo probably would have done more than hint to Emma to drop stuff. That first day had to be just Emma overreacting.

“Okay, and Summer?” Sebastian asked.

“Summer fought with Riley not even an hour before Ice Queen attacked her.” Emma started shuffling a deck of cards. She needed something to do with her hands.

“Riley told me about that.”

“You talked to her?” Emma dropped the cards, filled with guilt.

“Yeah.” He shrugged. “I mean I visited her in the hospital. She’s my friend, and I am working on this article for the paper. Summer thought Hunter was cheating on her with Riley, but Riley’s tutoring him in German.”

“Tutoring him?” Emma tried to pick up the mess she’d made of the cards without taking her eyes from Sebastian.

“But Summer didn’t believe her.” He sucked in his cheek. Did he believed Riley that it was only tutoring.

“Then it’s got to be her.” That clenched it. It made more sense than anything else.

“Just because she has long dark hair and was mad at Riley doesn’t make her Ice Queen.”

Outside the tent, someone screamed. Emma poked her head outside.

Ice Queen hovered in the sky over the pool.

Not again! What was she doing here now?

Emma wanted to run and change and stop Ice Queen but couldn’t fight her this time. It wasn’t like she had a disguise anymore. Not to mention, showing up in a swimsuit, swimcap, and goggles would kind of give her away. Agent Johnson already had his eye on Emma after all. And Emma’d sworn off playing superhero.

That’s it. Agent Johnson was at the meet. He would have to handle the Ice Queen.

Emma and Sebastian followed Ice Queen as she flew over the swim meet and out over the parking lot, their phones and notebooks at the ready. Hunter, whose car had been taken away, climbed into the passenger seat of a fancy SUV.

This time, Ice Queen didn’t mince any words. She shot a blast of ice at the car.

In response to the threat, the familiar ache burbled up to the surface of Emma’s jaw. Pressure demanded relief.

A gunshot deafened her. Emma’s hands clapped over her ears.

Ice Queen wheeled away, but Agent Johnson had his gun braced in two hands and took aim a second time.

He wasn’t messing around. Emma didn’t need another hole in her head, so she scooted closer to Sebastian, who put a warm arm around her shoulders.

The gun fired again, but the bullet went wide as Ice Queen vanished.

Agent Johnson had his hand to his ear and spoke rapidly, but he was too far away for Emma to even hear what he said.

At the pool, everyone stared towards the neighborhood where Ice Queen had vanished. The same neighborhood Emma had run in earlier, with the girls names on the streets.

Emma started to run for something, but Sebastian caught her arm.

“Where are you going?” He was out of breath. Panic clear on his face.

“I...” Emma shook her head, reminding herself that this wasn’t her fight anymore. “I just wanted to go somewhere safe.”

“That Agent Johnson’s going to want to question us when his backup gets here.”

Hunter was Summer’s boyfriend. Summer wouldn’t attack her own boyfriend, which gutted Emma’s theory that Summer was Ice Queen.

That put Emma back to Ms. Ngo, but Ms. Ngo hadn’t done anything threatening since Monday. If she was Ice Queen, maybe she’d decided Emma was giving up on being Dragon Girl.

Grrr. Calling herself that again.

Of course, Summer might still think her boyfriend was cheating on her. Or else, Emma could have been completely off-base and Ice Queen could be someone else entirely.

At least it was on Agent Johnson to stop her now, and not Emma. As long as Emma kept her head down, Ice Queen would leave her alone.

Right?

30

Doing nothing felt wrong.

Saturday afternoon, Emma sat on her bed with one foot tucked underneath her, the other leg stretched in front of her, and her laptop balanced on her bent knee and a pillow. She chewed her lip, staring at the Dragon Girl shirt, notebook, and water bottle she could buy. All with Ollie’s stupid picture of Emma in the torn spandex fighting Ice Queen. Ollie probably had a nice stack of money from the picture now.

Mr. Sniggles meowed at her, demanding to be petted. When Emma obliged, the cat pushed passed her hand and rubbed his face against her cheek. His whiskers tickled her nose.

A sneeze started building, Emma’s eyes watered at the effort of trying to hold it in. She bit her lip, trying to evaluate what to do, no ache in her jaw. The sneeze escaped, a normal sneeze, spraying a fine mist over her laptop screen.

Even after upping her allergy medicine, sneezes were a bit scary. Impossible to hold in, and Emma couldn’t always tell the difference between a real sneeze and a gleek-sneeze. Even though gleek-sneezes usually came with a warning ache in her jaw, Emma was still afraid one might sneak out without her being able to diffuse it by catching the chemicals.

Ollie’s screen name popped up as online.

Sorry for disappointing you, Emma sent.

Ollie still hadn’t talked to her since Monday after school—and now she was offline, probably invisible.

Emma chewed her lip. Should she message Ollie again or just let it go?

Hey, what’s going on? Connor messaged her.

Not much. Feeling kind of bummed. Emma sighed. She didn’t really want to talk to him, but since Ollie wasn’t answering, maybe talking to Connor would help her sort everything out. She just couldn’t tell him everything. Ollie still won’t talk to me.

Mr. Sniggles pressed up against her again, demanding attention.

What’d you do to piss her off? That was Connor for you, blunt and to the point.

Emma shrugged. She didn’t know what to say, so she flipped to another tab to read more about autism. If only she could be normal like Hannah always told her to be. Of course, that was the problem.

The blog she was reading said autistics lacked a coherent theory of mind. Whatever that meant. Miss Ngo had been trying to explain that kind of stuff to her. She kept reading about it. They had trouble putting themselves in other people’s shoes. They struggled understanding how other people might know more or less about something or react to the same knowledge in different ways. Didn’t everyone have trouble putting themselves in other people’s shoes?

I guess you don’t want to tell me.

She couldn’t let Connor’s message just hang there, but she couldn’t answer him either. He was right. She didn’t want him to know. Sorry. Just reading something interesting

You see these articles going around about how Ice Queen is a super villain? Connor asked. What a crock. I think she’s going after justice for that Jamal Robinson kid.

You’re crazy! Emma typed back.

It’s totally a righteous quest for justice. 😎

How did attacking Blake and Riley make Ice Queen a crusader for justice? Ice Queen had attacked them for no reason. Emma’s guess about Ms. Ngo had to be wrong. She had to be Summer trying to get her way to prom queen.

Isn’t it obvious? She attacked one of the cops that was there when that Jamal Robinson got shot and the lawyer defending those cops and lampooning him as a bad kid. That lawyer’s defended bad cops before.

What? Emma messaged. What about Blake? and Riley?

She didn’t actually hurt Blake. She stopped Strongman from doing something he’d regret and only humiliated Blake.

Connor was nuts. How could Ice Queen be his hero? She had been about to kill Riley when Emma had stepped in and fought back against her. Emma had saved Riley’s life.

Riley just got in the way. Riley’s mom is the partner of the cop that unloaded on Jamal. She talked crap on that Jamal kid more than once. She even defended her partner to the press.

Emma and Ollie hadn’t even thought about the grownups who were attacked.

That asshole’s been flying under the radar. I bet Ice Queen can’t find him.

Emma swallowed hard. If Ice Queen wasn’t attacking students but was going after people involved in the Jamal Robinson case…

This was different information that changed her theory.

Crap. Crap. Crap. She’d sent the Commission after Ms. Ngo and Summer for all the wrong reasons.

She’d been trying to go about things as if she were normal when she wasn’t. Her and Olllie’s way of thinking hadn’t considered Ice Queen’s point of view at all. Emma hadn’t thought about why anyone else would attack those people or had even considered that the students hadn’t been Ice Queen’s real victims.

Emma needed to fix things, but how?

And if Connor was right? Ice Queen was attacking people involved in the shooting of Jamal Robinson, then…

If Ice Queen was looking for new targets, she might go after the judge: Hannah’s father.

Hannah’s family needed to be warned.The news wasn’t reporting on that connection. No one had mentioned that connection until Connor had spelled it out for her.

I’ve got to go! Emma knocked Mr. Sniggles off the bed. She’d been so wrong. She didn’t even know how to go about fixing anything. Protecting Hannah and her family needed to come first.

31

Emma’s hair flew into her face as she sprinted through the grapevines to Hannah’s front door. Black flicked across her vision as she tried to catch her breath. Wobbly, she jammed her finger on the doorbell. Ice Queen could show up any minute. If Emma didn’t warn them, Ice Queen would get Uncle Frank and whichever other family members might be there.

No answer.

Where were they? Emma held the doorbell down. The bell rang and rang, but still no answer. When she was about to give up, someone grabbed her from behind.

Screaming, Emma flailed and struggled to gleek-sneeze on her attacker, but a second person shut a heavy thing around her head. Her glasses dug into her face. Velvety fabric pressed against the rest of her face. The whole contraption covering her head was so heavy, she felt like her head would drop to the floor.

She might have been able to see through a tiny slit, but her glasses were knocked sideways, making everything blurry and fragmented.

“She’s not interested in justice at all,” a woman said. Ice queen. Who else could it be? “I’m sorry, Connor.”

Crap. Connor had baited Emma into this trap. What was he doing helping Ice Queen? How had he gotten tangled up with her?

“Let me go!” Emma swung her arms at the voice, but a warm hand pinned both her arms behind her back.

The thing on Emma’s face turned freezing cold. Emma shivered. Ice Queen must have used her powers to freeze it shut. Worse, Ice Queen had known who she was and had been waiting for her at Hannah’s house with Connor.

“I’m afraid you’re only interested in protecting the status quo,” Ice Queen said.

Still shivering, Emma thrashed against the iron grip. Panicked, she tried to fly away, but the grip on her arms only tightened.

Something metal clamped onto her wrist. She yanked her hand, but it did no good. Another one slapped onto her other wrist, chaffing her skin. Handcuffs. Ice Queen and Connor had handcuffed her.

Emma struggled against the cuffs, but her hands didn’t budge. These were the real thing. “Help!” Emma screamed, but the mask muffled the sound.

“Take her to the car,” Ice Queen said. That voice was so familiar. And powerful. She projected from the diaphragm.

“Sorry, Emma.” Connor grabbed the back of her t-shirt and marched her down the steps. “You need to liste—”

The door banged open like it always did when Hannah opened it. “What the hell?”

Oh God! Hannah! Emma’d rushed over here to save her. Now, Emma was the one getting Hannah into trouble.

“Damn! No one should be home,” Ice Queen said.

Mostly blind, Emma turned back to save her cousin and stumbled on the steps. Connor’s fingers dug into her arm, keeping her from pitching forward. Something thudded to the ground, then crunched.

“Hey! My phone!” Hannah squeaked. “My dad’s a judge. He won’t let you get away with this.”

“What should we do with her?” Connor dragged Emma behind him.

Footsteps crunched in the gravel. Ice Queen pacing? “Take her with us, too.”

“That’s right. You hurt the bystanders, too.” Emma said, trying to dig at Ice Queen’s sense of justice.

“Shut up!” One handed, Connor yanked Emma down the driveway. Her sandals fell off, and her bare feet skidded on the rough gravel. She levitated to keep from cutting her feet, but that only made things easier on Connor.

“Put her in the trunk and tie her feet together.” The way she projected form the diaphragm, Ice Queen was so painfully familiar. Who was she?

Rope dug into Emma’s ankles. Emma squinted through the slit in the mask, trying to see who Ice Queen was. But she could only see the blur of Strongman’s gray hoody against the blue sky.

“Tie her up while I take care of that horrible knot.” Ice Queen said.

“I’ve only got one hand,” Connor said. Was he always that whiny?

“That’s why I’m fixing the knot.” Something soft brushed against Emma. “Use this to tie Hannah up.”

“Gross! Is that pantyhose?” Connor’s warm grip left her arms, then water splashed onto Emma’s ankles.

Emma braced herself. The rope digging into her ankles froze solid. The sudden cold stole her breath. Tears stung her cheeks.

Blindfolded as she was, Emma levitated and arched her back to generate force to fly out of the trunk, but someone slammed her down.

Emma’s head spun worse than when she’d rode the teacups at Fairy Tale Town as a kid. Nausea roiled through her. She stayed down.

Water glugged out of a bottle. Then, a moment of silence.

“It’s cold,” Hannah shrieked.

“Where’s your phone?” Ice Queen demanded.

Hadn’t they already trashed Hannah’s phone? Emma felt like she was falling, even though her head was on the bottom of the trunk.

“Emma, where is your phone?” Connor asked.

“I left it at home.” It didn’t fit in her short’s pockets.

Ice Queen patted Emma’s shorts and t-shirt, feeling for the phone with her chilly hands. Ice Queen rolled her to feel Emma’s back pockets, and Emma didn’t bother resisting this time.

Connor would smash her into the trunk again. Who would have thought he was Strongman?

“No phone. Put her cousin in the car.” Ice Queen snapped.

Even muffled through the thing on her head, Emma knew that voice. Ice Queen wasn’t Summer or Ms. Ngo.

But her mind refused to acknowledge the voice she recognized.

Connor wouldn’t help either of them. He hated Summer. And the only time he’d met Ms. Ngo was when she judged that speech round.

Hannah’s knees thunked into the mask on Emma’s head.

The trunk slammed shut.

In the absolute darkness, Hannah sobbed and wriggled, bumping into Emma.

“It’ll be okay.” Emma’s voice was so muffled, she wasn’t sure Hannah even understood her.

“We’re going to die,” Hannah said just as quietly.

Emma didn’t disagree.

No one knew she had gone to Hannah’s. No one knew Ice Queen had kidnapped them. Neither of them had a phone and they were locked in a trunk. With the heavy mask on her face, she couldn’t even use her geek fire.

What else would Ice Queen do to them?

32

Twin jolts shuddered through Emma as Connor and Ice Queen shut their doors. The car whined, straining to turn over. Then, the engine thrummed and classical music blared over it.

The car lurched backwards. Emma’s feet connected with Hannah’s head and her knees hit Hannah in the back.

Hannah groaned.

Emma tried to brace herself against the sides of the trunk so they wouldn’t crash into each other, but with her arms handcuffed behind her back and her ankles tied together with a frozen rope, it wasn’t very productive.

“Oh God, we’re going to die.” Hannah wailed, her voice rising to a screech. “Ice Queen is going to kill us!”

Emma ground her teeth together and a dull ache started in her jaw. She didn’t disagree. Ice Queen had it out for Emma and didn’t care about bystanders.

But crying about it wouldn’t help. Crying and screaming wouldn’t get them out of there.

Hannah screamed. The classical music blared, shaking Emma until her teeth chattered, and her lungs vibrated. In her throat, her pounding heart fought the vibrations caused by the music and the road. Her breath came in ragged little gasps.

She couldn’t do this right now. The noise, the screaming, the music, all of it turned her stomach. It pitched on the edge of the cliff of overwhelm. Bile burned its way against the lump in the bottom of her throat. She tried to swallow it down.

If she threw up in the mask thing, she’d never stop. It would be all over her face. She needed to get a hold of herself before she yacked or a gleek-sneeze filled the awful mask and killed her. Her battle against Ice Queen had proved she wasn't fireproof.

Maybe taking deeper breaths would help, but the hitch in her breath told her an asthma attack was on the way. Still, Emma focused on breathing deep—only for the car to fly around a corner and smash her into Hannah again.

Hannah stopped screaming. Either she realized it was useless or she couldn’t maintain the wailing any longer. Instead, she sniffled and sobbed near Emma’s feet.

Emma dug her nails into her palms, trying to ground herself into something familiar, but there were too many sensations she could overcome and the car turned again, rolling Hannah back into her. Emma’s ankles burned with cold where Ice Queen had drenched frozen the rope in place.

Come on, Emma, get it under control. Her eyes stung and her mouth ached as the pressure built, so she tried to focus on something, on anything other than Hannah’s pitiful sobbing.

Finally, the car stopped, and the overpowering music cut out. The only sounds left were Hannah’s sobbing and her own asthmatic wheeze.

The car doors opened and slammed shut. High heels clicked against a hard floor. A garage door motor groaned.

“We’re going to die,” Hannah whimpered.

No use contradicting her again.

What else could Ice Queen be planning? Somehow, she’d known that Emma was Geek Fire. Then, Connor had manipulated Emma to head to her cousin’s house where they were waiting for her.

Emma was so far out of her league. She had no phone, no way to reach out for help. Handcuffed and tied and locked in a dark trunk in a dark garage.

There was no way out.

33

Sweat trickled into Emma’s eye. She blinked it away as best she could. The heat in the trunk was stifling and Hannah’s incessant crying wasn’t helping anything.

“You’re right,” Emma said.

Hannah stopped sobbing and stiffened beside Emma.

Who knew that would break the sobbing cycle? Maybe she could talk some sense into Hannah now.

“What did you say?” Hannah asked.

“You’re right. There is no way out of this trunk. We probably will die.” Emma didn’t know what else to say or how else to say it. But if they were going to make it out of there, they both had to be trying their best.

Instead, Hannah started crying again.

“Shut up.” If Hannah didn’t stop soon, she’d push Emma over the edge and Emma couldn’t lose control. Not when she had a metal mask clamped onto her head keeping the geek fire and everything else in.

That’s when it clicked. Not just a metal mask. A specific kind of metal.

“A metal mask.” Another piece of the puzzle slid into place, a terrifying piece she couldn’t ignore. “Working with Connor. The status quo—tearing down the status quo to build something just and better.”

“We’re about to die and you’re muttering gibberish.” Hannah’s voice took on that cold, hard edge Emma hated. However, in that moment, this was the Hannah Emma needed.

“The mask she put on me—is it Ms. Range’s movie replica? The one from The Man in the Iron Mask?”

“Maybe?” Hannah didn’t sound very sure.

Emma’s heart twisted with betrayal. “Ms. Range is Ice Queen and she thinks I’ve been helping maintain the status quo by fighting her.” Emma gasped for air. Between the mask and the stagnant air in the trunk she could barely breathe.

“You’re nuts,” Hannah said. “No way Ms. Range is Ice Queen. Why would she or Strongman want to kill us? Oh God, we’re going to die.”

“Not us. Me,” Emma said before Hannah started crying again. “Remember, she said no one was supposed to be home. You—you’re collateral damage. Like Riley was. Like Hunter.”

Even if she couldn’t get out of this, there had to at least be a way to save Hannah from Ms. Range’s craziness. Hannah wasn’t supporting the status quo. Hannah wasn’t doing this. She needed to at least do something to stop Ms. Range from hurting anyone else, and that included Hannah.

“Why would she want to kill you?” Hannah asked after a moment.

Emma ignored the question. Emma hadn’t thought she was supporting the status quo. Was there a way to talk to Ms. Range? Get her to see reason? Emma twitched her legs, testing the bonds on her ankles. Miraculously, her feet came a bit apart. The rope had defrosted, and Connor’s one-handed knot was loose.

“Can you work your hands free?” Emma asked. “My ankles are defrosted.”

“Why would Ice Queen want to kill you?” Hannah asked again.

“Does it matter?” Emma asked. “We need to get out of here.”

Emma tried to work her feet free, but couldn’t. She worried she’d kick Hannah in the face if she moved her legs too much.

“Of course it matters. If we can convince her she’s wrong, she might let us go.” At least Hannah seemed to be getting over her panic.

“She’s not wrong and she won’t let me go. You… She might let you go. She has to feel guilty about hurting people who aren’t her intended targets.”

“What is your problem?” Hannah asked. “I’m trying to figure out a way to talk ourselves out of here—”

“And if she doesn’t want to talk? What if she comes in, turns on the car with us locked in the trunk, and leaves? We’ve got to find a way to escape without having to talk to her… and if not, we may as well give up now.”

“Super-villains always want to talk. That’s how it is in the comics and the movies.”

Emma tried to slap her hand against her forehead, but only succeeded in digging the handcuffs deeper into her wrists. How dumb could Hannah be? “This isn’t a movie. She won’t monologue at us, giving us time to figure out her dastardly plan and escape.”

“But she won’t think she’s a supervillain. She probably probably thinks she’s trying to do something good.”

Emma’s shoulders ached.“I’m going to try to get my hands in front of me.”

“What’s the point?” Hannah asked.

“Getting out of here.”

“Come on, Em. You’re not talking to me. Why won’t you tell me why she would want to kill you?”

If it would get her to start thinking? “I’m Geek Fire.”

Hannah’s body went still against Emma.

Emma tucked her knees against her chest and wriggled her arms down to get them in front of her feet.

“Ow! What are you doing? Can’t you ever sit still? And what the hell is geek fire?”

“I saved you when Hunter almost ran you over and you can’t even remember my superhero name right!” With her hands in front of her feet, but still bent double, Emma fumbled with the rope. She caught the ends and blindly worked the knot.Thank goodness Connor wasn’t an expert at knots, it was just a double knot.

“You’re Dragon Girl?” Hannah asked incredulously.

But Emma wasn’t listening. She was already answering the other question. “And no. I can’t sit still. Not when it’s something like this. I’m autistic and I need to stim.” Acceptance and honesty felt good. Now, if only she could find a way out of the trunk.

“Autistic? Stim?” Hannah repeated the words like she was lost.

The words had been new to Emma just a few weeks ago. “I have to move. It helps me feel better, more sane. Whole.” Emma kept wiggling her way around the trunk, hoping to find her way out. Even in total darkness, she wasn’t satisfied sitting still and waiting to die. Legs free, she shoved her feet against backseat.

“You’ve dumped a whole lot on me. Hang on.” Hannah squirmed away from Emma’s trunk acrobatics. “You saved me. You?”

“Yes. And now Ice Queen wants to kill me for getting in her way.” Emma kicked hard against the back of the seat again. Could Hannah be any more useless? First, she’d sobbed and wept and wailed, making all that annoying noise, and now she didn’t even act like she wanted to escape.

“This is crazy. None of this is real. This has got to be some sort of crazy dream. That’s what this is. A crazy dream.”

“Does it feel like a crazy dream?” Emma kicked the seat again.

Hannah didn’t answer her at first and Emma took that as confirmation that her cousin knew this was reality, despite the fact that Emma had revealed she was autistic and a superhero.

The handcuffs chafed Emma’s wrists, but the uncomfortable sensation didn’t drag her attention away from the task at hand. She was too focused on getting out. She wanted to ignore Hannah, but she was an invisible obstacle that Emma kept bumping into.

“I need you to help us get out. We can’t sit here and wait to die. We’ve got to get out of here.”

Emma realized she was hearing soft little sobs again. Hannah hadn’t answered her, not because she was admitting it wasn’t a dream, but because she was crying again.

“Can you see? I can’t.” At least the flat way her voice came out was a good thing here. It might hide her annoyance. “Can you see anything to open the trunk with? A button? A lever? A cord we can pull? Something?”

Hannah didn’t say anything, but the sobbing quieted again. Maybe Emma was getting through to her. Hannah bumped into Emma.

“Can you pull the nylons off my wrists?” Hannah asked.

This was what Emma needed, someone to help her, not a panicking body in her way. “You have to wriggle around to me. I don’t know where your hands are.”

Hannah’s hands brushed against her own. If Hannah was turned the right way, her feet should be pressed against the backseat, too. Even if they couldn’t get the trunk open, together they might be able to kick out the backseat.

Emma tugged on the stretchy cloth. The nylons were still frigid from where Ice Queen had frozen it in place, but the ice was melting away. It slipped over Hannah’s hands and she gasped.

“That feels so much better.” Hannah pushed against Emma, probably freeing her own feet. If only Emma could get this stupid mask off, they might have a chance against Strongman and Ice Queen. “When we get out of the car and there’s some light, could you help me get this mask thing off my head?”

If they escaped, they could use a neighbor’s phone to call the cops or the Super Commission to come get Ms. Range and save them. Though, Emma didn’t want to be there when the Super Commission showed up. If they got their hands on her, Emma might disappear too.

One step at a time. She couldn’t get overwhelmed with the whole process. She needed a plan. First, make a list of possible things and steps. Then, do the first thing, instead of getting overwhelmed like she had with her freshman project.

This was life or death and she needed to focus on it like Ms. Ngo had taught her.

One step at a time.

34

Get out of the trunk. That was step one. “Help me kick down the seat, on three.”

Hannah wriggled a bit until her shoulder pressed against Emma’s. Both girls laying on their backs, legs curled, feet pressed against the seat.

Emma counted them off and pushed against the seat like she would in the pool. And it worked just like in the pool, making her slide until her head hit the other side of the trunk. The seat gave a little under their assault.

After wriggling back into place and bracing herself with her arms, Emma counted them off again.

This time, the seat crumpled. Dim light filtered through tiny windows at the top of the garage door. Emma’s breath came a little easier. Connor and Ms. Range’s raised voices echoed into the garage. Hopefully, they were fighting about letting them go or not. Emma didn’t want to think both of them was on board with killing her and Hannah.

“Didn’t think breaking out of a trunk would be worse than sprinting a four hundred.” Hannah laughed breathlessly as Emma climbed into the back seat. “At least I can see now.”

“Let’s get out of here before they come back.” Emma groped for the door handle.

“Don’t!” Hannah shouted as Emma opened the door of the car.

The horn blared.

Still inside the car, Emma froze. Hannah’s warning had been too late. Emma had set off the alarm in her hurry to get out of the car.

Hannah opened her side of the car and sprinted, bare feet slapping against the concrete floor.

The door into the house banged open. The deafening honking stopped.

“Stop!” Ms. Range shouted.

A chill passed Emma.

Hannah screamed and toppled, her momentum carrying her downward. She cursed as she thudded to the floor.

Emma slithered towards the open car door.

“Stay where you are!” Ms. Range’s fuzzy silhouette stretched one hand towards Hannah and the other towards Emma in the back seat.

“My wrist!” Hannah moaned.

“No moving,” Ms. Range said.

“Man, you froze her feet to the ground,” Connor said. “She’s not going anywhere.”

Half blind and handcuffed Emma fell forward out of the car and a blast of ice shot past her. Her face, covered in the mask, smashed into the ground, snapping her glasses.

The stupid mask didn’t budge. It felt damp beneath where her glasses dug into her cheek. Was she bleeding now?

“She fell!” Connor shouted. “She didn’t mean to move.”

“How can you help her when she’s going to kill us?” Emma struggled to get her feet under her, but she only succeeded in flopping around on the floor. She felt pathetic. Weak. Useless.

“She’s not going to kill you.” Connor lifted Emma to her feet. “That’s not the plan.”

“None of this is the plan,” Ms. Range said. “She won’t listen to reason and now her cousin knows my identity, too.”

“What was the plan?” Emma leaned on Connor while he lifted her to her feet. “Kidnap me, then what? Getting me to help you hurt people?”

“I’m only hurting people who deserve it. Those who—”

“That’s not even true.” Emma wobbled, almost falling on Connor. “Ms. Range, you hurt Riley! You hurt Blake! You hurt Hunter!”

“Okay, so I didn’t mean to hurt the kids—unfortunate mistakes. I feel awful about it. And, Riley’s getting out of the hospital soon, but their parents deserved what they got and more. Racist, power hungry—”

“That’s not what the courts found,” Emma said. “You’re the one who’s always harping about the law and due process—”

“And civil disobedience when that law does not to protect its people.” Ms. Range’s voice shook. “Cops shot my brother for no good reason. Jamal Robinson died because cops abused their power. Does anyone’s life matter but the rich, white man?”

“Hunting down people is not civil disobedience,” Emma said, trying real hard to reason with her. “Not paying your taxes—not paying the share of taxes that’s supposed to go to war or to police. Protests. That’s civil disobedience. This—”

“This is the next step. Revolt. Rebellion. Making people see what needs to be done.”

Emma shook her head, the weight of the mask sending her off-balance. “This is revenge. It’s not what needs to be done. It’s not what should be done. Protest, newspaper articles, blogs—That’s what we need to do.”

“Those things aren’t working! Civil disobedience isn’t working! The system is broken. I want it to work, but we have to take it into our own hands to rebuild it. This is the sun king drunk on power. We have to replace the system with one that works.”

“Isn’t the point that brute force doesn’t work?” Emma stumbled again, but Connor held her up. “In middle school, we learned brute force changes the oppressor, but not the system. That’s what you said at the start of the year. How is this any different?”

Silent, Ms. Range slumped in the doorframe.

“If you really believe in killing the cops who shot Jamal, you may as well kill me now because I will do my best to help anyone I can. I won’t pick and choose who’s worthy of saving. When I can help, I will help anyone and everyone. That’s who I am. I’m not hunting anyone down. I’m not starting a new revolution if it hurts people.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Ms. Range’s voice shook.

Beside her, Connor stiffened, his muscles flexing.

Emma could see now where he’d gained his super strength. “At least let Hannah go. She’s not part of this.”

“Her father is.” Ms. Range stepped into the garage. “He’s the judge.”

“She isn’t helping him or forcing them to do anything. And she didn’t shoot your brother, Jamal, or anyone else. She didn’t pardon their killer or defend them. She’s a kid. Like me. Like Connor. Like Riley and Blake. You’ve frozen her feet, and for what? So she can go to the hospital? So you can add her to your tally? Or are you going to kill us both?”

Ms. Range hesitated, her arms wavered, coming back towards her sides. It almost looked like she was going to change her mind, but then she stretched her hands toward them again. “Connor, step away from her,” Ms. Range said, her voice lacking its normal warmth.

“You can’t—” Connor said, his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “We were going show Emma the truth about the corrupt police. Not this. Not lock her and Hannah in your trunk. And I’m not letting you kill them.”

“Then what should I do? She won’t help me and now they both know who I am!”

Emma dug her nails into her palms. With Ms. Range panicking, Emma needed to keep her head. By helping her up, Connor had chosen her side, hadn’t he? “Ms. Range, can’t you see what you’ve been doing is wrong? Turn yourself in to the Super Commission. They’ll—they’ll—”

“Do what? Make me disappear? Kill me?” Ms. Range frowned. “We both know that’s what happened to the Washington Wailer. I’m not in the wrong.”

“You’re not in the right either.” Emma took a step towards Ms. Range “I get you want to punish people who abuse their power is one thing, but you’re worse than they are if you kill me and Hannah. How could you hurt Riley? She looked up to you.”

“I am not!” Ms. Range shot a wild blast of ice, but it hit the garage door motor. Like Emma’s gleek-sneeze’s, Ms. Range’s power must sometimes get out of control when she felt threatened.

“You are. The cops shot strangers while responding to a crime! You attacked your victims’ kids, or attacked them when their kids were too close for them to escape.”

Ms. Range didn’t answer. Instead she ran a shaking hand over her face.

Emma swallowed hard. She hoped she hadn’t pushed Ms. Range too far, but she needed to get her to let them go. Emma needed Ms. Range to see how wrong she was so she’d let Emma, Hannah and Connor go. Connor might not realize it yet, but he’d become as much of a hostage as Emma and Hannah.

“Do whatever you need to to me.” Emma squinted at Ms. Range. “Let Connor and Hannah go. They don’t need to be involved in this. If you hurt them, you are worse than the cops that killed your brother.”

Ms. Range’s sobs echoed through the garage.

Had Emma broke through?

“I can’t turn myself in to the commission,” Ms. Range said finally. “Who knows what they’re doing to supers?”

“I don’t care what you do. Just… Just let her go.” Emma’s voice didn’t even shake this time. She shifted her arms so the chafing handcuffs dug deeper, using the sensation to ground herself and to search for the confidence to say what she needed to say next. “You don’t have to turn yourself in, but you need to let go of this…rage. Together, we can figure out what to do next. Just… Let Hannah go.”

“If I do that…” Ms. Range trailed off. “What’s stopping her from calling the Super Commission on me?”

“You decide. Do you think you abused your power? Don’t you think you should be subject to justice too?” Emma’s voice hung in near silence.

Hannah’s whimper interrupted the quiet.

“Connor, the keys to the mask and the handcuffs are on the kitchen table. Wait,” Ms. Range’s voice broke. “Wait until I’m gone to call the cops on me.”

Ms. Range got into her car, damaged back seat and all, and hit the garage door opener.

Nothing happened. The garage door motor didn’t grind or groan. The wild ice blast had frozen the motor casing froze solid.

“Ms. Range,” Connor called. “It’s broken.”

Ms. Range climbed out of the car and flew up to pull the cord to open the door manually, but that was frozen in the same chunk of ice as the motor.

Emma swallowed hard. Ms. Range couldn’t leave. Would she change her mind now that she couldn’t drive away?

“You’re right. I’ll free Hannah, then I’ll call the commission on myself. Maybe they’ll be lenient if… if I’m the one to call to turn myself in.” As Ms. Range headed into the house, her proud shoulders drooped, and her head hung low. Had the realization that she was as bad as or even worse than her brother’s killers broken her?

Connor followed Ms. Range into the house and returned with the keys right away. Whatever was keeping Ms. Range didn’t affect Connor. He unlocked the mask first and lifted the heavy weight off Emma’s head.

Emma blinked at the sudden brightness.

Her glasses fell, she tried to catch them with her cuffed hands, but the two pieces split apart and clattered hard on the ground. Her head and shoulders felt so much lighter with the mask gone. Again, the world was blurry. Maybe she needed to get contacts since being a superhero or not wasn’t her choice anymore.

“Shouldn’t one of you watch Ms. Range in case…” Hannah broke off, her teeth chattering too hard for her to finish the thought.

“I don’t think she’s going to do anything,” Connor said. “I think her heart’s broken. You could see it in her face.”

Emma hadn’t been able to see much of anything with the mask, so she had to take his word that Ms. Range was defeated, but Emma didn’t want to leave her cousin alone. Not with her bare feet encased in ice.

“Can’t you—whoosh—and melt her feet out?” Connor asked as he worked to release her hands from the cuffs.

“Whoosh?” Emma asked.

“You know, whoosh, dragon girl it up and—”

“Not how it works” Emma rubbed her wrists where the cuffs had chaffed them. “I don’t breathe fire. I spit two chemicals that when they combine create an explosion, like a fireball. Trust me—”

“No explosion!” Hannah said, her teeth chattering.

After what seemed like way too long, Ms. Range returned with a blanket, a towel, cooking oil, and a lighter. “Connor, grab the fire extinguisher from the wall… I don’t want to use my powers again. Not after… Emma pointed out I’m the bad guy.”

“What are we going to do?” Emma asked. “I was thinking maybe a hair dryer?”

“That’ll take way too long. Your cousin needs her feet free or she’ll risk losing her toes like Riley.” Ms. Range poured the cooking oil over the towel and rubbed it in until it was evenly coated. “I wish I had lighter fluid.”

Ms. Range set the towel on the thickest parts of the ice and warned them back before lighting the towel. It caught right away, the flames licking at the ice around Hannah’s feet.

Emma wrapped the blanket around Hannah’s shoulders and held her up while avoiding the flames herself.

“It’s so hot!” Hannah shrieked, even though the ice still looked solid around her feet.

“It’s the contrast. There’s still a lot of ice, sweetie.” Ms. Range watched intently, while helping Emma keep Hannah upright.

After a few moments, Hannah wobbled and Ms. Range nodded to Connor. The ice had to be loosening.

“The fire extinguisher,” Emma said. The flames had grown higher, licking up towards Hannah’s legs, but Ms. Range had been right. There wasn’t a faster way to get Hannah out of the ice and that had to be the best way to avoid frostbite or keep it from being as severe as Riley’s had been.

Connor aimed the fire extinguisher, squeezed the handle and nothing happened. “It doesn’t work!”

“Pull the pin,” Ms. Range said, but in his panic, Connor aimed the fire extinguisher and squeezed the handle. But with the pin in, he wound up crushing the handle with his super strength.

The flames rose higher around Hannah’s legs. Emma hissed in pain as the flames licked at her own legs. The risk of freezing over, the flames had become the bigger threat. Neither of them was fireproof, and Emma refused to drop her cousin.

“Ms. Range, you’ve got to put out the fire,” Emma said.

Ms. Range took a step back, her face ashen and pointed one finger at the flaming towel. She bit her lip as if in concentration and the towel winked out.

Ice did not encase Hannah’s feet this time.

Hannah leaned on Emma, wobbling and sobbing. She kept slapping her legs as if the fire had spread up them, but it was completely out.

Ms. Range yanked the ruined towel away. Hannah’s feet wouldn’t stay under her. She couldn’t seem to keep her balance.

“My feet won’t move. They feel—they feel like they’re still inside blocks of ice!” Hannah shivered.

“The ambulance is on its way,” Ms. Range said. “I already called 911.”

That was why she’d stayed inside so long.

“We’ve got to warm her up now!” Emma said. “It’s my fault she even hit your radar and—”

With his good arm, Connor threw Hannah over one shoulder and carried her into the house to wait for the ambulance.

“It’s my fault, Emma,” Ms. Range said. “I kidnapped the both of you. I’m sorry.”

35

Ms. Range paced the living room, phone to her ear. “The dispatcher says the Super Commission won’t let the ambulance through.”

Why wouldn’t the Super Commission allow the ambulance through when Ms. Range had said she wanted to turn herself in? What were they waiting for?

“But Hannah needs help now!” Emma wrapped the blanket tighter around her cousin’s shoulders as Hannah moaned in pain.

Ms. Range leaned against a bookcase. “He says to give her ibuprofen and put her feet into lukewarm water until the ambulance arrives.”

Armed with temperatures and times of how long Hannah should soak her feet, Emma prepared to save her cousin’s feet. Connor rushed to the bathroom. Things crashed to the ground, and he cursed about gross period stuff as he dug through the medicine cabinet.

Frustrated by the blurry room, Emma headed to the kitchen to fill a pot with water. “Do you have a thermometer for the water?”

“It’s in the bathroom. I’ll tell Connor to grab it while I get some more blankets.” Ms. Range disappeared down the hallway.

Emma dipped her finger in the water, it didn’t feel hot at all. If it was a bath, she’d get out because it was getting too cold. Did that mean the water was warm enough or too cold?

Connor returned with the thermometer and the ibuprofen. He handed Emma the thermometer and fumbled with the lid. After a moment and some choice words, Connor tore the lid off with his super strength. A few pills flew out, but he poured some into Hannah’s waiting hand.

“Water?” Hannah held out a trembling hand.

Emma had forgotten. Not everyone had to take pills every day for allergies like her. Emma set the pot of water by Hannah’s swollen feet and rushed back to the kitchen.

Emma returned from the kitchen to find Connor sitting next to Hannah who squeezed his good hand. Ms. Range had draped more blankets around Hannah’s shoulders and sat in the recliner on the other side of the room, clutching a picture.

“For what it's worth,” Connor said quietly, “I don't think you failed your brother.”

Ms. Range shuddered and traced a hand over the picture.

Hannah snatched the water from Emma and threw the pills in her mouth.

Hands free, Emma helped lifted Hannah's feet into the pot of water. Her cousin screeched that the water was burning her. That was good, right? That had to mean that her nerves were still working at least.

Hannah’s skin bubbled into large blisters. Emma started pacing the room, grateful for the lack of glasses keeping her from seeing Hannah’s feet.

Too bad the Super Commission wasn’t letting the ambulance through. They must be planning on arresting Ms. Range first. With the Super Commission on the way meant Emma and Connor were as much at risk as Ms. Range of being arrested or disappeared for being supers.

“I hate to say this with Hannah…” Emma risked a glance at her cousin who was gritting her teeth with tears streaming down her cheeks. “But there’s no reason they need to know Connor and I are supers. I mean… I was trying to give up being a superhero.”

“That’s why you didn’t do anything since the speech tournament?” Connor asked.

“And why Ollie and I have been fighting. She thinks I should help people, but I want to be normal.” Emma spat out the word. It tasted almost bitter in her mouth. “I get it now. I’m not normal. I’m autistic and I have powers, but I don’t have to use them.”

No one said anything for a few moments. Emma sat next to Hannah on the couch again and squeezed her hand.

The timer dinged.

“Thank God!” Hannah lifted her feet out of the water and set them on another blanket.

Huge blisters covered Hannah’s feet now. Emma could even see them without her glasses. But no black patches. That had to be good, right?

Still no ambulance. Still no Super Commission. What was taking so long?

“Please," Emma said. “Don’t tell them I’m a super. I know I can’t pretend I don’t have autism anymore, but I can avoid my powers. They made so much trouble.”

“Just because I abused my powers doesn’t mean that you weren’t using yours right.” Ms. Range’s voice was soft, but cut through the awkward quiet. “You tried to help people. That makes a difference. I won’t tell them you’re a super, but we need Dragon Girl. And I still think Strongman can do some good.”

Emma shook her head. “I don’t know how to fight. I’m not bullet proof or heat proof or anything proof. If I keep playing at hero, I’ll get hurt.”

Connor stared at a spot on the ground.

“Then learn how to fight and get some protective gear,” Ms. Range said matter-of-factly. “It’s hard, but is it harder than standing by instead of saving someone?”

Emma thought about that little girl who’s father had had the gun. When Andres hadn’t let her step in and help the girl, Emma had felt sick.

Emma needed to learn how to use her powers and how to defend herself. She needed strategy, but if she was there when something happened, she couldn’t sit back and let people get hurt. She couldn’t pick and choose who she would help, and she wouldn’t use her powers to get revenge or hunt down people like Ms. Range had.

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Connor said. “I would never do anything to hurt you on purpose.”

“Thanks.” Emma didn’t bother pointing out that he’d just helped Ms. Range kidnap her.

Hannah still didn’t answer. Was she in too much pain, or was she going to rat out Emma and Connor?

“Hannah?” Emma asked.

“It’s your fault I’m in this mess.” Hannah’s jaw clenched and her eyes were unfocused. “Ms. Range only kidnapped me because of you. My feet are ruined and my junior prom’s only a week away.”

Emma’s breath caught in her throat. Was that all Hannah cared about? A stupid dance? After Emma had saved her not once, but twice, Hannah was going to rat her out to the Super Commission? True, Emma and Hannah had never gotten along, but would she really take it this far?

“Emma saved your life,” Connor said, echoing Emma’s thoughts. “How can you—”

“I didn’t say I would tell,” Hannah said, wincing a little as she shifted her feet.

“Thanks.” Emma felt bewildered by Hannah’s response. She blamed Emma, but she didn’t say she’d rat her out. What was she getting at?

“You two have to make it up to me though,” Hannah said, regaining a little life back in her eyes. “Lying to the cops, that’s huge. My dad’s a judge. How can I lie—”

“I’m not asking you to lie.” Well, Emma kinda was. “Just don’t—”

“What? Don’t say why she kidnapped us? So, a lie by omission. It’s your fault my feet are destroyed, and you’re asking me to lie to the cops and protect you. Why should I?”

Emma wasn’t good in negotiations. She sucked at thinking on her feet and the back and forth. Same reason she didn’t debate. “I don’t know,” Emma stammered.

“She still saved your life.” Connor pulled his hand out of Hannah’s grip.

“And then got me kidnapped and almost killed. Or did you forget that? After you helped her kidnap us, Ms. Range wanted to kill us both. She froze my feet and now I’m stuck waiting for an ambulance that isn’t showing u—”

“Ice Queen,” an amplified voice called from outside, “send your hostages outside. One at a time, hands up,”

“You’re not my hostages.” Ms. Range squeezed the picture so hard the glass cracked. “I’m not forcing you to stay here.”

“Do they not understand that Hannah has frostbite on her feet?” Connor asked.

Emma started to answer, but he shushed her and held a hand to his ear. She realized he was talking to the 911 operator, not to anyone in the room.

“Tell her to let them know,” Ms. Range said, rising, “I’ll come out first arms up, and they can get Hannah and the rest of you out of here and someplace safe after they arrest me—or do whatever they’re going to do to me.”

Connor repeated what Ms. Range had said into the phone, then frowned as he relayed the next message. “He’s not in direct contact with them anymore since the Super Commission took over, but he’ll try to relay this for us.”

Waiting sucked. Emma’s heart thumped so loud she could swear the rest of them should be able to hear it. If only she hadn’t broken her backup glasses. Now, she didn’t have any. Emma stared at the floor, her eyes unable to focus on any one thing.

Without glasses, the patterns didn’t jump out of the carpet at her like she was used to. With no glasses, no squid-stains. No shadows and shapes to play with.

“We don’t need to wait for all that. I’ll go first and remind them Hannah will need help.” Emma dug her nails into her palms on her way to the door. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

She yanked the front door open and as it swung towards her, she raised both hands up over her head. “Don’t shoot!”

36

Heart hammering, Emma inched out the front door and headed across Ms. Range’s lawn towards the sidewalk with half a dozen guns trained on her. Police cars, two SWAT trucks, and a Mack truck lined the street.

A big man in a gray suit waved her forward. Emma squinted, at least she thought he was waving her forward, and everyone else was in uniform.

Emma swallowed, struggling against the urge to spin, to freeze, to run away, all the urges to do anything other than walk to the man waiting for her.

As she approached, Johnson’s features eased into focus. Of course, the Super Commission representative assigned to Pueblo Lindo would be here.

Her heart started pounding triple time and Death Valley set up camp in her mouth. No matter how many times she licked her lips or tried to work saliva into her mouth, nothing helped.

Johnson would know she was Geek Fire. How could he not? She’d been at every super event on campus. At the very least, he had to have figured out she was involved with Geek Fire. Or Dragon Girl. She supposed she should just give up on the name. Dragon Girl was everywhere now.

Emma focused on one step in front of the other.

Silent, Johnson held out his hands to her and, when he grabbed her hands, he pulled her around into the back of the nearest SWAT truck. An EMT slapped a blood pressure cuff on Emma’s arm and clucked his tongue when he saw her wrists.

“Sit still and try not to talk,” the EMT said.

“But I need to—Hannah!”

“Emma?” Mr. Johnson glanced at her, but remained on the ground, just outside of the SWAT van where he had a clear view of Ms. Range’s front door.

Emma nodded, confirming her identity. This was it. It didn’t matter if the others covered for her or not, if they shared why Ms. Range had kidnapped them. He had to know that she was the Dragon Girl. This wasn’t a secret that she’d managed to keep. “Hannah needs help.”

“Okay.” He met her gaze briefly. “Supers have it out for you and your family, don’t they? Your cousin, Hannah, is inside and injured. Is that correct?”

Emma nodded again, stunned that she wasn’t being arrested. He had her glasses, didn’t he? Or… maybe that was how Connor and Ms. Range had figured out who she was. They were the ones who had her glasses.

But still, Johnson had the letter she’d written with her incorrect accusation of Summer and Ms. Ngo. She didn’t dare ask anything. She just had to wait and see.

“If I were you, I’d get some self-defense training.” Johnson gave her a tight smile Emma assumed was supposed to make her feel better.

It did.

“I’ll look into having the school offer it as an alternative to PE. With so much super activity here, you students should know how to handle yourselves.”

Emma glanced at him. He really didn’t know she was Geek Fire?

“Blood pressure is elevated,” the EMT said.

“No kidding,” Agent Johnson snapped. “She’s under a lot of stress. Check her other vitals, ignore the blood pressure. Haven’t you ever done crisis medicine before?”

“Hannah can’t walk, sir,” Emma said. “Her feet…”

“Let us worry about that. From what dispatch said, Ice Queen pulled the same thing on her as she did on Riley and Captain Vann.”

“Yes, sir.” Emma waited for him to say something, anything, but he didn’t. Instead, he nodded to a man she hadn’t noticed. Emma could scarcely see him as he oozed out of the shadows and along the sidewalk.

“Send out the next hostage!” the man on the megaphone shouted.

“We weren’t really hostages—not after she decided to turn herself in,” Emma said. “All of this—” Emma waved her hand. “—really isn’t necessary.”

“You’re quick to forgive and trust her after she kidnapped you. We’ll let Mr. Invisible take care of her and your cousin.” Johnson stiffened as he watched Ms. Range’s house.

“He was helping her, wasn’t he?” Johnson asked Emma.

“Who?” Emma didn’t know how he was talking about, but he seemed to know more than he had been told. She realized he must be talking about Connor. She shrugged, trying not to throw Connor under the bus, not after he’d agreed he wouldn’t rat her out.

Instead, she stared at the back of the EMT’s head as he bandaged her wrists. The EMT moved on to her ankles, whistling at the marks the icy rope had left.

“Emma, don’t worry,” Johnson said. “You and your cousin will be safe. I’m not going to do anything to hurt you. Even Ms. Range will be taken into custody in as safe a manner as possible. We want to get her rehabilitated and helping people. Her powers are a gift to humanity. All the supers are.”

Emma looked at him sideways. That didn’t sound like someone who was part of a project to kill and arrest her.

So, what had happened to the other supers who had disappeared? Then she remember he was using a super to help bring this situation down.

Mr. Johnson smiled. “Excuse me for a moment.” He stepped closer to Ms. Range’s house then yanked Connor behind the SWAT van.

“Connor Kid, I am placing you under arrest for aiding and abetting a criminal in her attacks on civilians including kidnapping two minors.” He slapped a pair of handcuffs on Connor. The regular handcuffs meant he didn’t know Connor was Strongman.

“How could you?” Connor glared at Emma.

“I didn’t—” Emma started to say, but Johnson cut in.

“Range wasn’t as careful as she thought she was. She used her work computer and documented your ‘extra credit project.’” Johnson leaned against the truck. “Also, I’m not a mind reader, but I picked up on your guilt before I even saw you.”

“You what?” Connor asked.

Johnson gestured to a uniformed police officer. “Get him out of here.”

The police officer put Connor in a cop car. While the cop read Connor his rights, Connor glared back at Emma. He mouthed, “I’ll get you.”

Emma closed her eyes, avoiding his accusing glare. They must not realize he was Strongman. She’d stick to their agreement and keep her mouth shut.

“What did you mean, you picked up his guilt before you saw him?”

“I didn’t just read his face.” Johnson leaned in close and lowered his voice. “I felt his guilt as he tried to help your cousin inside.”

Emma stared open-mouthed at Johnson.

“You think the supers are an accident?” Johnson asked, meeting her gaze. “There are some… early adopters of these abilities.”

“You can read minds?” she asked, even though he just said that he wasn’t a mind reader.

“Not exactly. Emotions, bits and pieces, enough to guide my investigations. It’s not as useful as I would have hoped, unlike some powers.” He nodded toward her but didn’t actually say he knew she had powers.

Emma blushed.

“Not like Ice Queen in there or…” His eyes met Emma’s.

Her eyes turned to her feet, but he said nothing about her abilities.

Johnson ignored the lack of eye contact and kept talking. “An aggressive ability like shooting ice from my hands or spitting fire would be a nice for an ex-soldier like me. This ESP emotions stuff—not really my thing.”

How had he been an ‘early adopter’? Didn’t the powers come from that thing in the sky?

Johnson tapped his earpiece. “Shadow you’re a go.”

Emma stared at him, barely recalling the man who headed into the house only moments ago. Was amnesia part of his ability?

“You can watch on the screen behind you,” Johnson said.

Emma turned and saw that the SWAT truck had a small screen projecting a POV camera of the inside of Ms. Range’s house. Was that Mr. Shadow’s point of view?

Ms. Range hadn’t moved from her spot on the couch. The picture frame was still in her hand and Hannah was shaking her head.

No sound came from the screen, though Johnson probably had audio through his earpiece.

A gun was aimed at Ms. Range.

“No!” Emma shouted.

Ms. Range collapsed forward over the picture of her brother.

Emma was on her feet, shoving the EMT away, screaming, trying to hit Johnson. He’d said Ms. Range would be brought in with minimal force. Ms. Range might have kidnapped her, but she was also the woman who realized Emma was struggling and had pushed to have her tested.

On the screen, Hannah screamed. The image swung back to Ms. Range as someone shoved her unconscious body down and handcuffed her.

“I should have warned you,” Johnson said calmly. “Tranquilizer darts are standard procedure. She’ll wake up with a hell of a headache and disoriented, but she’ll be fine.”

“I thought he killed her!” Emma shoved at the massive man, her emotions calming.

He didn’t budge. “Load her up.” Johnson said, calmly touching his earpiece. Then, he stared down into her eyes. “It’s standard procedure for subduing a super.”

Emma’s eyes watered. Eye contact was torture in the best of situations. Trying to read hidden messages in what he was saying, she shifted her gaze to his mouth.

He had to be warning her about turning herself in as a super. But why would he warn her about the darts? Either he knew she was Geek Fire or he didn’t. It seemed like he knew, but why wouldn’t he say it? “Even if they turn themselves in?” Emma took a step back.

“Especially if they turn themselves in. Some might pretend to surrender with the intention of harming those that arrest them. But the government still wants all the supers it can get.”

Emma looked away.

He knew she was Geek Fire, but he wasn’t taking her into custody. He wasn’t forcing her into whatever their program was. But why not?

“They’ll load your Ms. Range into a nullifier truck, and Hannah’s already being wheeled into the ambulance. Would you like to ride with her to the hospital?”

He knew and he was still offering her freedom. “Yes.” Yes, she would.

37

In the tiny, black, flapper dress, Emma’s reflection on her closet door may as well have been a stranger. Fringe bounced off curves she didn’t recognize with her tiniest movements. Mr. Sniggles mewed at her feet.

Emma bent to pick him up.

Ollie shooed the cat away. “Let’s not have you covered in orange fur.” Ollie caught Emma’s chin and traced her lips with a green makeup pencil. “Now, hold still.”

“If I wear this, everyone will know I’m Geek Fire.” Emma’d only ever worn a dress this small when she’d saved Hannah in the school parking lot.

“Girls, you’d better hurry. Your dates are here.” Nan’s voice echoed through the paper-thin walls as if she was right next to them, not all the way in the living room.

“We’re going as friends,” Emma shouted.

“I told you to hold still while I do your makeup.” Ollie pinched her chin even harder. “And they won’t recognize you.”

Emma held still while Ollie finished whatever she was doing to Emma’s mouth.

“Done and super hot.” Ollie wolf whistled, making Emma roll her eyes. “And, I thought you said Johnson and the commission already know about you. That’s why we’re all taking his self-defense class in the fall, right?”

Emma caught herself chewing her newly lipsticked bottom lip and instead dug her nails into her palms.

True, Johnson had hinted he knew about her, but it almost sounded like he as keeping her identity a secret from the commission. “I guess.”

Then again, Johnson hadn’t known about Connor, and had cursed when the radio had crackled news of Connor’s escape—he’d busted the handcuffs and broken the door. Who knew where Connor was now?

Ollie shoved a green dragon mask into Emma’s hands.

Emma pushed it back. “I can’t wear this.”

“Come on. Half the girls are going as Dragon Girl. There are dozens of these masks floating around. You’ll be fine.”

Frowning, Emma pulled the mask on over her new glasses. Somehow, the commission had pulled some strings to get her new glasses right away. “How come you get to wear a suit and I’m wearing this tiny thing?”

“Because you have an actual date. Alex can’t go with his special someone.” Ollie shrugged.

“Wait, what?”

Ollie dragged Emma down the hallway. “It’s a secret.”

Sebastian, his mom, and Alex crowded into the trailer’s living room. Sebastian clutched a small box of flowers. Alex laughed and waved. His outfit matched Ollie’s. Both were the Phantom—without the tux. Sebastian’s mom snapped pictures of them all.

“Man,” Alex high-fived Ollie. “You look perfect!”

“Dude, you too!”

Nan met Emma’s gaze and shook her head. “You look just like her.” She sat forward in her recliner, folding the footrest in with a loud pop.

“I what?” Emma stammered. Had Nan just recognized she was Geek Fire?

Nan rose to her feet. “With that mask covering your father’s eyes, you look just like your mom. Beautiful. Elegant.”

Emma stared down at the floor, blushing, not knowing what to say or how to respond.

“She is beautiful and elegant,” Sebastian said grandly.

“Right?” Ollie said, elbowing Emma.

She blushed as Sebastian grabbed her hand and fumbled the corsage onto her wrist.

The elastic band seemed beyond him, but she couldn’t figure out why. They’d been friends forever. “Thank you.” Emma struggled with her words and stared at the flowers on her wrist. Green and black ribbons twirled together around a gold carnation.

When Sebastian’s hand brushed against her fingers, things deep inside her clenched. Embarrassed, Emma stayed rooted to the spot.

“We’d better get going if you kids don’t want to miss your dinner reservation.” Sebastian’s mom snapped a couple more pictures.

“Sure thing.” Emma scurried towards the door, stumbling in her heels.

“Em, don’t forget your purse.” Nan held up a dark green clutch she’d found at the Outlet.

As Emma grabbed the bag, it vibrated with a new message on her phone. She paused as everyone rushed out the door around her and read it. It was from Andres.

I need your help.

“What’s it say?” Sebastian asked.

“Nothing important.” Emma shoved the phone back in the bag. If Andres was going to set limits on who he helped, so could she. “Let’s go eat.”

About the Author

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this book. Join my Super Readers get free exclusive content.

Hi! I’m Mel Woodburn and I write about geeky superheroes. Growing up, I started my superhero obsession with the Ninja Turtles in the first grade. Even though I loved Michelangelo, I’m really more of a Donatello.

If you like your superheroes with an extra dose of geekiness, you’ve come to the right place.

Find more at MelWoodburn.com/list

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Book 2: Super Gone

High school sophomore, Emma Edgin, was taking a break from being a superhero to learn how to be a better one and not get herself killed. With a huge focus on the not getting killed or kidnapped part. So, it shocked her when a small part in the school play led to her battling a corrupt government institution.

That was one way she never expected to be like her nemesis, Ice Queen. Also like Ice Queen, her efforts got her locked in a secret government prison with a bunch of other supers. Unlike Ice Queen, she didn’t deserve it.

Still, if she hadn’t been in the play, none of this would ever have happened. Sebastian would never have joined the stage crew, which meant he never would have cut his hand building the set.

In self-defense class, Emma’d been admiring Sebastian’s broad shoulders and tapered waist as he climbed to his feet, when he asked what they were doing after school that day.

Before Emma answered, Ollie snatched Emma’s right hand and dragged her towards the middle of the wrestling mats.

“I’ve got rehearsal.” Emma couldn’t keep the pride out of her voice as she dug in her heels.

“Rehearsal for what?” Alex asked.

Instead of answering, Emma used her free hand to pry up Ollie’s pinky and twist. Then, Emma slid her right hand down to Ollie’s elbow and pushed, forcing Ollie onto her knees in an arm bar for the dozenth time that class period.

“If I get ringworm on my knees from these gross mats, I’m blaming you.” Ollie stood and dusted off her knees.

“I’m sure they clean the mats.” Alex yanked Sebastian’s hand.

“I’m so over this class.” Ollie squared up across from Emma. “Johnson’s not even a real teacher. He just makes us sprint at the track, and then do the same moves over and over again.”

“That’s so they’re automatic if we ever need them.” Sweat trickled down Emma’s back. Didn’t Ollie listen? Johnson had told them that on the first day of class.

“That’s right,” Johnson said from right behind Emma.

Emma spun. Johnson, Super Commission Agent and ex-soldier, stood right behind her. His familiar brown eyes stared straight into hers. Eyes watering, she turned her gaze to her bare feet.

The big man laughed. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You need to work on situational awareness.”

Emma’s cheeks burned. Ollie was half right. Johnson was teaching two periods of self-defense on an emergency credential until the school found a legit PE teacher to teach the class.

“If you ever need these skills, your attacker won’t wait while you sit there and think of how to escape.” Johnson patted Emma on the shoulder. “By practicing them repeatedly, you’ll do them without thinking.”

Johnson didn’t stick around for an answer. As he walked off, Emma saw sweat soaked through the back of even his shirt from the lack of good air conditioning in the new gym’s second story.

“Suck up.” Ollie ran a hand through her short, spiky hair.

“I’m not trying to suck up. I’m trying to learn.” Emma grabbed Ollie’s wrist.

“That’s even worse.” Ollie made no move to defend herself.

Em yanked Ollie close and hissed in her ear. “You know why I need to learn this.” No one but her bestie needed to know Emma was a super. “Valerie Virgo said Chloroshot was arrested.”

“I thought you hated her. Or is that only when the news makes fun of your uncle’s office?” Ollie leaned so close to Emma that her breath tickled Emma’s ear, making her heart race. “Besides, Chloroshot does plants, not fireballs. You’ll be fine. He doesn’t even fly.”

Emma’s stomach tightened. Her eyes shot wide open, and she stepped back from Ollie, looking to see if anyone had overheard.

“Give her a break, Ol.” Alex climbed back to his feet after Sebastian had arm barred him to the ground again. “Ms. Range kidnapping her last year was pretty freaky.”

If Alex and Sebastian hadn’t heard, she was good.

“Self-defense wouldn’t have kept her from being frozen solid,” Ollie said. “This class blows. I wish I hadn’t signed up.”

“No one made you.” Emma rolled her eyes. “I told you not to unless you were serious about learning self-defense.”

“Rehearsal?” Sebastian asked before Ollie started complaining again.

“I—uh—I got a part in the play.” Emma beamed at him. Thank goodness he’d changed the subject.

“Girl, that’s awesome.” Alex leaned back as Sebastian yanked on his arm. “You’re one of the best speechies we’ve got. I bet you got the lead.”

“Just a small part.” Emma choked on the compliment. No way she was one of the best actors on the speech and debate team. She struggled to remember her lines, and her acting could be better. Heck, her real life day to day facial expressions could be a lot more normal.

“Why didn’t they give you a big part?” Sebastian asked.

“Only upperclassmen who’d been in a play before got big parts. I think Attwood wanted to see I could handle a small part.” Truth was, Emma hadn’t wanted a big part. Besides, it was a wonder Attwood had given her a part at all since she’d almost failed his class last year.

Besides, the biggest roles were Abigail Williams, the vindictive ex who led the witch hunt and accused everyone who ever hurt her feelings. No thank you. And, as for the reserved Elizabeth Proctor, Emma didn’t want to play the jilted wife either.

Why weren’t the others talking? Were they waiting for her to say something else?

“Goode Nurse is the right part for me,” Emma said, releasing Ollie who still hadn’t defended herself from Emma’s fake attack.

“If you say so,” Alex said.

“You should come hang out with me and Ollie at rehearsal,” Emma said. “I should have plenty of free time since it’s a small part.”

“All right, class, just a few minutes left.” Johnson’s voice boomed above all the conversations.

“I can’t. I’ve got things to do.” Was it her imagination or was Alex blushing?

Emma struggled to focus on her friends’ conversation, but Johnson started his demonstration of tomorrow’s drill. He made a nearby student pretend to grab his hair. Quite a feat considering the military buzz cut. “If someone grabs you by the hair from behind...”

“—things to do are busy until like five.” Ollie waggled her eyebrows. “When practice is over.”

Practice for what? Emma wondered, but then Johnson’s voice cut into her thoughts.

“You grab their hand where it is on your hair.” Johnson caught his volunteer’s hand.

Alex’s face glowed tomato red. “—promised you wouldn’t tell.”

Johnson kept talking, his words mushing together with Ollie’s.

“I just in-SIN-u-ated.” Ollie broke the word into syllables. Neither Ollie or Alex were religious, so sin Emma seemed a strange syllable to emphasize.

“When you pull close, you can—”

“You seeing someone?” Sebastian asked.

Emma’s attention swung back to the demonstration.

“Elbow your attacker.” Johnson pretended to elbow his volunteer in the gut.

Alex mumbled something, but Johnson’s voice drowned out whatever Alex was saying.

“Arm bar them.” Johnson twisted his volunteer’s arm.

“You are!” Sebastian gasped.

Emma’d thought Alex and Ollie would be a thing after they’d gone in matching costumes to the spring masquerade last year, but they’d insisted they were just friends.

“Poke them in the—” Johnson jabbed his fingers at the student’s face.

“—not official or any—” Alex ran a hand over his face.

“Knee them in the—”

“—like each other, okay? I can’t tell anyone yet.”

The bell rang, cutting off Johnson’s explanation. Emma’s shoulders drooped. Bouncing between Johnson’s demonstration and her friends talking had made her feel like a ping pong ball.

“Ooh, a mystery girl.” Sebastian grinned, flashing white teeth against olive skin.

Ollie snorted.

“I’ve got to figure out who she is,” Sebastian said.

“So, rehearsal, Goode Nurse.” Ollie threw her sweaty arm over Emma’s shoulders.

“Yeah.” Emma freed herself from Ollie’s stinky grasp. “I don’t even know what I’ll do half the time I’m there. Homework, I guess.”

“Guys, she says she’ll do homework.” Ollie laughed.

Emma clutched the handrail as they made their way downstairs.

“Homework. While you’re out from under Nan’s thumb?” Sebastian asked. “Like we’d let you do homework.”

“What else would I do during rehearsal?” Emma asked. They hadn’t said they’d come visit her. They’d gone off on the tangent of Alex’s mystery girl.

“We better visit you and find out, huh?” Sebastian said.

“Well, I’ll already be there. I’m stage crew and we can always use more hands.” Ollie put her arm over Emma’s shoulders again. “Even Alex can help until his ‘things to do’ are free.”

Alex missed a step, but Sebastian reached out an arm and steadied him.

“Thanks,” Emma said, matching steps with Ollie.

“And don’t worry about that plant guy.” Ollie’s breath tickled Emma’s ear. “I bet he turns up in Canada in a couple weeks. Even if he doesn’t, Johnson knows about you, and you haven’t disappeared yet. The Commission isn’t going to steal you away.”

Ollie released Emma, but her whispered reassurances had the opposite effect on Emma than intended.

Emma glanced behind them. Johnson nodded at her as he followed the last students down the stairs. Her mouth went dry.

When he arrested Ice Queen, Johnson had insinuated he knew she was Geek Fire. Even though it was his job to arrest supers, he hadn’t arrested Emma. He’d even been the one to push that the school needed a self-defense class after Ice Queen kidnapped Emma and her cousin Hannah.

He’d arrested other supers for using their powers. So why hadn’t he arrested Emma? What was keeping her safe from the Super Commission?

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