SuperZero (2 page)

I guess I should tell you how I landed up in this stupid school. It was all because of a woman . . . with worms.

I don't know when exactly it all started but as long as I can remember, I was a little weird. I mean, I did a lot of things no one understood—okay, that I never understood either.

Like I remember being really afraid of the dark. And what did my mom do? Say ‘Good night, Cookiekins. Sleep well!' and put off the light! Uncool, huh? Now, get this, my dad got it into his head that all dads should read their kids stories. So he'd read out stories from this dumb book called
The Noddy Bedtime Book
, which had scary creatures like talking bears and goblins. And every night, after he left and Mom switched off the light, I'd shiver and think of the mean goblins, with their long toes and pointed noses, crawling around. Help!

One night (when I was maybe around four), I heard a whisper at my window.
Hsssst hsssst
. . . I'll never know if it was a goblin or a snake or just the wind whistling in
from a gap in the shutter, but I was terrified. I began to feel really hot in my head, like my head was boiling. Then all of a sudden, the lights came back on in the room.

And get this—it happened every night!

Sometimes, my dad came in at midnight and mumbled, ‘That's weird. How does she expect the poor kid to sleep with the light on his face?' And he'd turn it off again and leave.

My folks didn't realize what was happening. They just kept saying ‘It's weird' and blaming it on each other. Till
one night, Gra came in while the light turned on and off. He called my folks and insisted that I was doing it. From then on, oh man, I was watched like a TV screen. Every move I made!

Something else happened when I was about seven. (I was in a normal school then.) We had tons of homework to do one day, and I did what anyone with tons of homework would do—I went to sleep. Then Mom came in and saw me sleeping, and boy, did she holler. She began to say horrible things like how she'd confiscate my rollerblades and stuff. I was so miserable about my piles of homework and my mom screaming and my rollerblades being taken away that I put my head down on my arms and began to howl. And then that strange hot glow in my head started and Mom's jaw dropped.

All my homework papers started rising up, in what she said was a revolution, and flew off into the air and out of my window. Maths goes to heaven, haha!

Now, you ask me how I did all that? Not a clue.

Maybe it was just a windy day, right? Maybe it was just a faulty light switch? But no, my mom would have none of that.

‘He's special, my boy!' she told the woman in the supermarket queue.

‘Mine's special too. He can say “Humpty Dumpty” backwards,' said the woman back to her. Of course he could! Every mom thinks her kid is special. IT DOES NOT COUNT! I HAVE NO SUPERPOWERS!

But my mom—she kept trying to prove that I had superpowers. She tried to get me to climb walls and fly off tables and all I ever got for my pains was a bump each time.

Finally, last month, she hid a ball of wool in her hand behind her back and said, ‘Use your super eyesight, Potchkins, and tell me what's in my hand.'

I closed my eyes and pretended to think really hard, but I kept guessing wrong. She got me really annoyed, and as she went on ranting at me, my hot head became hotter. I wanted to annoy her right back. ‘Worms!' I said.

‘No, TRY AGAIN!' And then she really screamed. And screamed. Because she pulled out her hand and there in her fist, the long strands of wool had turned into long strands of squiggling, squishy worms! She washed her hands for half an hour after that.

My dad's pretty cool, and wise and very sorted. He thinks I should become a basketball player because I have big knees (okay, so put it that way and he doesn't seem very wise either). Also so I can earn many millions and buy him this sports bike he keeps looking at.

Dad wanted to send me to Sports Academy, and Mom wanted to send me to Superhero School—and of course, Mom won! Whaddya think?

So there I was in this school where every superkid came by teleporting or speed-travelling—except I had to come by Mom's car because the school had to be in our stupid neighbourhood. And every other kid, of course, seemed to be superness in small format, except . . . you guessed it, me!

Anyway, I was thinking bitterly about the worms incident, when Masterror suddenly banged on my desk. ‘SuperZero, what is the one food that can boost your super sight?'

‘Worms!' I shouted, taken by surprise.

The class burst out laughing again.

That's the schedule for today. So we started with Focus Hocus-Pocus. We all had to focus on things and make them do other things. Like make spoons bend. Spoons don't like to bend, of course.

Masterror made us hold a spoon in front of our noses and stare at it. Try it—staring at a spoon is more boring than maths multiplied by history multiplied by 144.

‘Focus, focus, fooow-cussss!' Masterror kept mumbling for so long that I began to yawn.

‘Feel that strong lump of power in the middle of your forehead,' he said. As I dozed off, I fell forward and hit my head on my desk. Ow! Now I really do have a strong lump on my forehead for everyone to see.

The class started laughing, and Masterror yelled at me, ‘SuperZero, wake up! Or I will exchange you for the spoon!'

‘Focus, focus, focus . . .' again!

Lizzie Lizard got her spoon to stretch. Huh!

Slime Joos's spoon began to melt.

Blank's spoon vanished.

I stared at my spoon. I stared. I stared some more. My eyes began to water. I saw dots and criss-crosses. I saw my own reflection with my angry lump in the spoon. But nothing happened to it. I stared at it in panic. Nothing!

Other spoons were beginning to turn into knots and
other shapes. I had to get my spoon to do something!

‘It's flying!' I yelled and when I had everyone's attention, I kind of flipped it over with my thumb and it went sailing up into the air to . . . (guess where) . . .

. . . hit Masterror right in the middle of
his
forehead. Now BOTH of us have powerful lumps.

When me and my angry lump went home, Mom said, ‘Oh smoochie poochie, a lump! How brilliant! You're beginning to look like a superhero already. Does your lump do anything?'

Yeah, it sends out signals to Mars. Huh! Yes, Mom, my lump does something. It HURTS!

Dad took his chance and began to shout, ‘That's it! He's got no superpowers at all. And now his brains have begun to ooze out!'

‘I'm learning to bend spoons,' I grunted.

‘End soon, what? Will the world end soon?' asked Gra, who was totally deaf.

‘Bend spoons!' shouted my mom.

‘Oh, mend soon. What should I mend soon? Don't tell me his duckie briefs have a hole already!'

I gave up. What a family! I wanted to hit my head against the wall, but then I'd have two angry lumps.

C'mon, superpowers! Where are you?

Every day, I sat in class and tried desperately to bend spoons or stare through walls or feel powerful focus points in my head, but all I felt was sleepy. So I talked to Blank.

SuperZerrro!' Masterror yelled. ‘Are you talking to yourself?'

‘No, to him,' I said, pointing to Blank, who, of course, had turned blank. So then I looked like I was talking to myself.

The only person in the class who's undeniably awesome is Anna Conda. She's epic! She can stretch herself fabulously long and slide up walls and under doors and stuff. So basically anything she says I listen to real well, smiling non-stop at her and opening my eyes wide—almost as wide as Lizzie Lizard's. I'd give up my eyelids for Anna Conda, I would! Sigh.

‘Hey SuperZero,' she said today, ‘Spiderman got his powers when he was bitten by a spider. Maybe you should get bitten by something.'

‘Yeah, like by a crocodile,' said Slime Joos, who can spurt slime on demand.

I didn't want to get bitten by anything, but I wanted to act all brave in front of Anna Conda, so I said, ‘That's cool. I'm ready. Who's afraid of a little bite, ha!'

Swosh!
Lizzie Lizard's tongue swiped all over my face. Ugh!

‘Tell me where to bite,' said Vamp Iyer. ‘I'm supposed to bite people, but I don't really like how they taste.'

I was getting a bad feeling about this already.

Who can bite me, and who cannot, and why

1. Something scary and evil. Not squirrels and sparrows (imagine being Sparrow Boy).
   
2. Tiger Boy would be cool. (But what if the tiger didn't stop at biting and tore my head off?)
   
3. Worms. (You know, because they seem to be the theme of my life!)
   
4. Snakes—yes! I could be Cobra Boy. (Anna Conda and Cobra Boy would be super perfect! I was a little scared though. I may just faint with fear on top of the cobra and crush it.)
   

Brave attempts at getting bitten:

1. Walked around the streets patting random stray
   dogs and trying to push my hand into their jaws. All the strays acted totally cute, wagging their tails crazily and jumping all over me. Collected lots of saliva, lots of dog fur, lots of paw marks. No bites.
   
2. Stood under spider webs in Gra's old garden shed. No bites. Pushed face right into webs in desperation. Started sneezing wildly. Still no bites!
   
3. Patted cows, goats, horses, buffaloes, ducks, hens wherever I saw any. Got chased halfway home by a huge angry goat with big horns. Didn't want to get butted. Just bitten. No bites!
   

And the next morning . . . I woke up with BITES!

I'd left my windows open all night and when I woke up I had big red mosquito bites on every square inch of me. Would that make me Mosquito Boy? Maybe I could fly? Maybe I could suck blood? I was so excited I went charging down the stairs . . .

Only to trip over my cape and . . . !!@&*%

Ow, and no—I couldn't fly! All I could do was hurt from the fall and itch from the bites.

Today,
finally
, we had a promising day planned. The class was taken out for a field day—to practise ice cream cone melting just by staring at it. (Huh. Even I could do that. Just hold it in the sun long enough, and superstare or not, it would melt.)

But get this. I was EXCUSED! And sent home SICK! Because of the bites. Grrr.

I itched and itched and itched all through the night.

Dad, sitting down for breakfast the next day, said to me: ‘You know, you would make a great sportsman. How about going to Sports Academy instead?'

Mom, burning breakfast, to me: ‘You are going to Superhero School already.'

Dad, spilling coffee, to me: ‘You could make a great lawyer. Or doctor. Or . . .'

Mom, dropping pan, to me: ‘Or superhero.'

Dad, banging spoon, to me: ‘There is no such thing as a superhero!'

Mom, walking out of room, to Dad: ‘There is no such thing as a free breakfast. Make it yourself!'

Me, still itching: ‘Why's everyone shouting? Who's deaf?'

Gra: ‘Who's dead?'

Itch . . . itch.

P.S. The spoon that Dad banged has bent double. Hey, cool! Maybe
he
is an undiscovered superhero, and I've got his supergenes. I think I will get him angry enough to bang and bend some more things and take them to school so I can pretend I've bent them myself.

Itch, itch.