by Joe Mosher
Coming in 2017!
Chapter One
Superheroes don’t cry.
Sidney Raine slumped in her seat, biting her lip and wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her black hoodie. The math test on her desk swam out of focus as fresh tears coated her eyes. She blinked, wiped her eyes again, and tried to concentrate. She read problem number seven again, for what seemed like the five-hundredth time, but the words on the page were drowned out by the worries in her head.
The holiday break was coming up in two days, and her parents had told her something awful had happened to her favorite aunt, and her best friend was mad at her for something she had no control over. With all of that buzzing in her head, how could she be expected to calculate the square footage of some imaginary farmer’s weird triangle-shaped wheat field? In what universe would figuring out something like that help her fight crime?
“You have ten more minutes to complete the test,” Mrs. Darkholme said.
Sidney glanced up at the clock, then looked at her teacher. Mrs. Darkholme stood with her back to the class as she pinned up a poster that read Keep Calm and Do the Math. Her voice was soft but easy to hear; the only other noises in the room were the scrape of pencil lead on paper and the quiet fidgeting of a dozen sixth-grade students.
In the front row, three seats ahead of Sidney, Paige Bender put down her pencil and folded her hands in front of her, apparently finished. No surprise there; she had probably also gotten every question right. Sidney envied Paige a little, but was also proud of her friend. She wished she could tell Paige that, or at least apologize for messing up their plans. She wished Paige would turn around and look at her, even if just for a moment. They couldn’t talk until the end of class, but maybe if she just saw how bad Sidney felt, she would understand that it wasn’t her fault.
And it wouldn’t take more than a glance to see how bad Sidney felt. The tears were welling up again, blurring her vision, and her bottom lip would not stop trembling even when she clamped her teeth on it.
No, Sidney thought. I will not cry in class. Superheroes don’t cry.
Not that it would make a difference. Paige hadn’t turned around and it didn’t seem like she was going to any time soon. Sidney couldn’t see her friend’s face but she could tell by Paige’s stiff upright posture that she was still angry.
Sidney looked down at her desk again. Beneath the test was a plain sheet of paper intended to be used for figuring out problems longhand. Sidney had written nothing on it yet, but now she picked up her pencil and scrawled three short sentences of four words apiece:
Believe me, I tried. My parents said no. I’m really, really sorry.
Sidney tore the note from the bottom of the scratch paper, folded it twice, and held it in the open palm of her hand. She glanced up at Mrs. Darkholme again, who still had her back to the class. She also stole another glance at the clock. Six minutes left in the period. Some days that wouldn’t seem like very long; today it seemed like forever.
Closing her eyes, Sidney took a deep, slow breath. She didn’t just pull in air: she tasted it, smelled it, felt every little molecule of it. It tasted clean but slightly metallic, because the school building was itself hidden inside a much larger structure designed to look like a volcano jutting out of the sea, so every breath had traveled through two different ventilation and filtration systems before reaching her lungs. There was a lot of moisture in the air, making each tiny breeze just a little slower and heavier than it would otherwise be. Around her feet, the air was a degree or two cooler than what she felt against her face, and up near the ceiling the air was a couple of degrees warmer.
She could feel all of that, but more importantly, she could control it. Even Sidney could not quite describe how she did it, but when she wanted the air to move, it did.
Keeping her eyes on Mrs. Darkholme, Sidney concentrated on a small area around and above her hand. She wanted a breeze that would blow in small tight circles, sort of a mini tornado, and so that was what happened. The note in her palm fluttered as its edges caught the wind, and then it lifted and danced as if controlled by a puppeteer. Mrs. Darkholme had finished with the poster and was now erasing an earlier lesson from the board. Sidney kept the teacher in her peripheral vision as she willed the vortex to carry her note between the rows of desks toward Paige. The folded paper jumped and hopped as it moved along.
One seat behind Paige, Hunter Maximus casually reached out and snatched the note from the air.
“Dude!” Sidney hissed. Her voice was just above a whisper, but too loud in the quiet room.
Mrs. Darkholme turned away from the board and looked at Sidney with one eyebrow raised. “Is there something you would like to share with the class, Miss Raine?”
Sidney wanted to scream, but said nothing. She let her focus slip and the vortex of air she had created to carry the note died away as if it had never existed.
“No?” Mrs. Darkholme said. “How about you, Mister Maximus? Anything to say?”
Hunter’s hand was still up in the air, and Sidney was certain the paper was still clutched in his fingers, although they looked empty. Sidney’s superpower was control over the weather, while Hunter’s power was invisibility. He could make himself invisible, or hide objects he was holding or touching, such as her note.
“No,” Hunter said. “Not a thing.”
“Then why is your hand up?” Mrs. Darkholme asked.
Hunter looked over at his hand like he was noticing it for the first time. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll just put that away.” With his other hand, he reached over and pushed down the hand holding Sidney’s note until both hands rested on his desk.
Unable to hide a hint of a smile, Mrs. Darkholme looked up at the clock and said, “Five minutes, everyone. Time to finish up.” Then she turned back to finish erasing the board.
Hunter looked over his shoulder at Sidney and grinned. Sidney gritted her teeth at him and pointed at his hand, then at Paige’s back. The message was clear: give Paige the note. Paige had still not turned around to look, but surely she knew what was happening behind her.
Hunter looked down at his hand. The note reappeared as if by magic. Taking the edges between his fingers, he started to ever-so-slowly unfold it. He glanced over his shoulder again to make sure Sidney saw him doing it.
I swear I will strike your dumb face with a bolt of lightning, Sidney wanted to scream, but all she did was clench her hands into fists and frown at him. She pleaded with her eyes: give Paige the note.
Hunter shrugged as if to say, just kidding, and reached forward and dropped the note on Paige’s desk. Then he returned his attention to the math test he now had only four minutes to complete.
Paige didn’t turn around. She picked up the folded paper with her left hand, then stretched her left arm until it was about nine feet long, and dropped the note into the trash can near the hallway door. Her arm shrank back to normal size and she once again folded her hands and sat quietly facing forward.
Sidney felt like she had been punched. Worse, actually. As a superhero-in-training, she was more than capable of taking a punch and shrugging it off. But being ignored by her best friend, especially when everything else seemed to be going wrong all at once, really hurt. She pulled her hands up inside the sleeves of her hoodie and pressed them to her eyes. Superhero or not, she couldn’t hold back her tears any more.
It’s not my fault!
It’s not fair!
Sidney clamped her lips together and pushed her face into her sleeves. She had no intention of doing the math as Mrs. Darkholme’s poster suggested, but she was really, really trying to keep calm. How much time until the bell? Two minutes? One? If she could just hold on until then …
Kevin McFarland, sitting behind Sidney, poked her gently in the back with the eraser end of his pencil and whispered, “Don’t do that.”
Kevin was a friend, but right now Sidney wanted him to mind his own business. She was already doing her best to control her emotions, she didn’t need him telling her …
“You’re getting my paper all wet,” Kevin whispered.
All at once the classroom was no longer silent. First there was a rustle as people shifted in their seats, then a few quiet grumbles, and then someone said, “Hey, cut it out!”
Sidney pulled her hands away from her face and looked up, and realized what she had done just a moment too late to stop it. Salty tears ran down her cheeks and mixed with fat drops of rain. She hadn’t just let her emotions get out of control, she set her power loose as well. Clouds had formed near the ceiling, wringing humidity from the air and drizzling over everything. A dozen sixth-graders scrambled to cover their soggy test papers. Hunter held his over his head, more concerned with what the precipitation would do to his hair than his grades.
The last seconds of class ticked away as Sidney fought to turn off the rain, and the bell rang loudly.
“Class dismissed,” Mrs. Darkholme said. “Spend your holidays studying, everyone. We will retake the test when you return.” Then she turned to Sidney and added, “Miss Raine, would you mind staying for a few minutes to chat, please?”
Sidney groaned and shot a look at Paige’s desk, but her friend was already out the door and gone.
... want to read more? Little Miss Thunderhead will be available later in 2017 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and wherever eBooks are sold. Check out this blog for more information to come!
Love the start! Can't wait to read the whole thing!
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