Chapter 8 – Judgment Day
After my visit to the office, the next few classes went by without incident. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had set in motion events that I could no longer control. Chandler and I talked about it under our breath in Chemistry class as we pretended to work on a lab assignment. Well, Chandler did the lab assignment while we talked, and I mostly focused on the problem at hand – namely, staying alive and avoiding Bruno for the foreseeable future.
“So you got busted and still didn’t get disciplined for it? Sweet.”
“No, you don’t get it. The fact that I got off scot-free is probably going to make Bruno even madder. He has to run extra laps after practice every day for a week. This is not good.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“The plan? I have no plan unless you call possibly skipping school every day for the next week a plan. I can’t possibly engineer having Faedra follow me around between classes like she’s shepherding some helpless dweeb who’s afraid of his own shadow. This was supposed to be a surgical strike, but it’s looking more like a protracted land war.”
“You could always talk to Faedra about it, you know. That might, in fact, work. I mean, you two are best friends. Remember?”
“I’m not so sure anymore. I mean, if she can hide this from me, maybe we aren’t such good friends after all.”
Professor Chan looked at us from the front of the room and then started walking over toward our lab table.
“Red alert, start talking lab stuff,” I warned.
“So, the temperature measures 36 degrees Celsius,” Chandler said, raising his voice slightly as Professor Chan approached.
“Got it,” I replied, dutifully writing down the measurement in my notebook and hoping to God that Professor Chan didn’t ask me what exactly we were measuring.
“Everything going okay over here, boys?” the professor asked.
“Yes, sir,” I replied, “we’re making good progress.”
“Goooood,” he replied, letting the word draw out like he normally did right before he was about to ask a question. If he asked me, we were sunk. Just then, mercifully, the bell rang.
“Okay, class, remember we have a quiz tomorrow over chapter nine,” the professor warned as we all packed up our books and started filing out into the hall.
In today’s class rotation, Chemistry was the last class of the day, so it was utter chaos in the halls as everyone was jockeying for position to get out of the building. Chandler and I took our normal route out the back door closest to our classroom and headed for the back parking lot, where Chandler’s truck was parked.
We took up our conversation where we had left off right before Professor Chan had interrupted us. We were walking slower than the other students, who all pulled ahead of us in the mad rush to get home, leaving us trailing behind. Suddenly, I felt something grab the back of my shirt, and my heart leaped into my throat as my feet came off of the ground. I knew even before he started speaking that it was Bruno. I had an equally compelling thought that I was about to experience some serious bodily harm.
Bruno started walking off the main sidewalk, heading between two trailers that were used as overflow classrooms while holding me off the ground with one hand and Chandler off the ground with his other hand.
“Well, super-not, I guess you know why you’re here. I’m going to be doing extra laps the rest of the week because of you. I noticed you didn’t seem to get into any trouble at all, so I thought I’d give you a little something to think about while I’m running laps.”
There was a nice-sized tree behind the trailers. Bruno walked over to it while he was talking and lifted Chandler up to a broken branch, hooking the backpack he was wearing on it so that Chandler was suspended about two feet off of the ground. I had a suspicion we weren’t the first visitors Bruno had brought to this location. With Chandler taken care of, Bruno turned his full attention back to me. I glanced over at Chandler, who was feverishly typing on his cell phone. I just hoped whoever he was texting would get there while I was still conscious.
Bruno tossed me towards the trailer. When my feet hit the ground, I stumbled and fell into the building, hitting my shoulder hard against the metal siding. That’s going to leave a bruise, I thought to myself.
Bruno squared off, facing me as I recovered my balance.
“Now, Bruno, think about this. You hit me too hard and I could end up in the hospital. Who’s the first person you think they’re gonna suspect? Your dad wouldn’t be too happy about that, would he?”
“Oh, you don’t have to worry about that. I’m not going to hit you too hard. Just hard enough.”
I didn’t know if he saw me glance over at Chandler or not, but he looked at him just then and saw him texting away. This just kept getting better.
“Hey, geek-boy, put that down!” He grabbed me by the shirt and dragged me along as he walked over and yanked the cell phone out of Chandler’s hand. Staring down at the screen for several seconds, he scrolled through the messages. Then he laughed.
“You have a chance to save your friend, and you’re texting Faedra for help? A super-not girl? You really aren’t as smart as they say you are.” With that, he tucked the phone into his pocket and turned back to me.
“Time for payback super-not,” he said as he drew back his fist to hit me. I closed my eyes and winced to prepare for the impact. This whole thing had been a very, very bad idea. I wished I had just talked to Fae instead. Now I might not be able to talk to her for quite a while.
“I don’t think you should do that,” a voice said.
It was Faedra! I opened my eyes to see my five-foot-six-inch best friend holding Bruno’s arm with one hand so that he couldn’t hit me. Talk about David and Goliath. The look on Bruno’s face was priceless.
“What the..?!” Bruno said, staring at his arm and then back at Faedra. He made a motion like he was trying again to punch me. I could see his face turning red and the veins bulging out on his neck with the strain, but his arm didn’t move. Faedra’s smile never wavered. She didn’t even look like she was making much of an effort.
Bruno released me and grabbed Faedra’s arm with his other hand in an attempt to pry himself free from her grasp, but without success. I scrambled a safe distance away and watched in awe as Faedra released Bruno’s arm and grabbed two big fist-fulls of his shirt. As he desperately tried to break free, she lifted him off of the ground, levitating above the earth several feet. She had stopped smiling.
“Look at me, Bruno,” she commanded. Bruno stopped struggling and stared at her face. I could tell he was terrified. This was too good.
“If you try and hurt my friends again, I’m going to do something worse to you than tape you to a volley ball pole and put the video online. Do you understand?”
“Uhhh... yeah,” Bruno responded nervously. Even though I had known Faedra could fly and was super-strong, I was still standing there with my mouth open as I watched what was happening.
“And another thing,” she continued, pulling Bruno a couple of inches closer to her face. “If you tell anyone I’m a super, I will be your worst nightmare.”
Bruno’s head started shaking up and down even before the words started coming out of his mouth. “Okay... sure, whatever you say...”
The smile I was used to seeing came back onto Faedra’s face as she slowly came back down to earth, letting go of Bruno’s shirt when his feet touched the ground.
“Good. I’m glad we understand each other,” she said cheerily as she came back down to mother earth.
Bruno just stood there looking down at her, not moving.
“Better head off to practice. You don’t want to keep Coach Delaware waiting, do you?”
When Faedra mentioned Coach Delaware, it was as if Bruno came out of a trance. He turned in the direction of the football field and began running, not looking back once as he rounded the corner and went out of sight. She turned and looked at me. I must’ve been rubbing my shoulder because she asked how I was doing.
“I’m okay. Thanks,” I replied. I was having to work up being angry at her for her deception, but at the moment I was just glad to have avoided a trip to the hospital courtesy of Bruno. She looked around, I suppose to see if anyone else was nearby, and then levitated up to the branch where Chandler was still hanging by the straps of his backpack. She gently unhooked him and lowered him to the ground.
“That was sooo cool,” Chandler said once he was back on the ground.
Faedra’s countenance changed, and she looked worried. “Look, you guys, you can’t tell anyone about what you just saw, okay? Nobody can know I’m a super.”
“Yeah, sure, no problem,” Chandler replied. I shot him a dirty look. “What?” he asked defensively.
“What’s the matter, Dylan?” Faedra asked.
“What’s the matter? You – my best friend since third grade – are a super.” I’d dragged the word ‘super’ out like it was a curse word, and then I remembered Chandler was a super, so I added, “no offense, Chandler.”
“Yeah... no... I get it,” he replied.
“What’s so bad about that?” she asked.
“What’s so bad about that? I’m a member of the most despised and reviled people-group on the planet that practically everyone looks down on because we don’t have superpowers like everyone else, and you were one of the few people I thought understood me. You were someone I thought I could count on. Now I find out that you’re a super. So not only do you not understand what it’s like to be a super-not, but you’ve been lying to me for who knows how long!”
From the contorted look on her face, I thought she was about to cry. Her arms were crossed, and her face was turning red. I could tell I was practically shouting by the end, but right then, I didn’t care.
“You don’t have to worry about your little secret. I won’t tell anyone,” I spat. I turned to Chandler and said, “I’m not riding with you today, I’m walking home... alone.” And with that, I grabbed my backpack off of the ground and started walking off.
“Dylan, wait!” Faedra called after me. “Let me explain!”
I just kept walking.