Dull Boy (18 page)

B
y the time we ring the bell at Nicholas’s house, it’s after midnight. I know he either has a key or snuck out earlier and left a window open, but he doesn’t seem to care about subterfuge. It’s almost like he’s daring the night to blow up in his face.

His dad opens the door in sweatpants and a NAVY FOOTBALL T-shirt, towering over us, his mouth wide and disapproving. He’s
nothing
like my dad. Mr. Brighter is six-four or six-five and barrel-chested, with a dark, weathered tan: the kind of guy who eats steak for breakfast. My dad’s like a totally different species: mild-mannered, eats chocolate ice cream and plays along with game shows, wears actual plaid pajamas.

I’m used to placating angry moms, not dads—but Nicholas’s jaw is set. Looks like I’d better learn how, fast.

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Mr. Brighter’s voice is low and gravelly, like a gym teacher from hell.

“Yes. Yes, we do, sir. Sorry for disturbing you. It’s my fault we’re out late. Nick was helping me TP our coach’s yard. It’s, like, a tradition on his birthday. The whole team does it, so it was kind of like . . . an initiation.”

“Team?” Nicholas’s dad barks—like he found the word in a bowl of alphabet soup and just chomped it in half.

I take in his NAVY FOOTBALL T-shirt, versus Nicholas’s antisocial all-black trench coat. I’m no Darla “Einstein” Carmine but I know conflict when I see it. You know why? My dad bird-watches. I’ve lived this from the other side.

“Yeah, the football team?” I say. “I’ve been trying to talk Nick into trying out next year. I think he’d be a killer QB.”

If Nicholas had laser eyes, my brain would be leaking out a hole in my head in a sizzling stream of ooze right now.

“Huhn,” Mr. Brighter grunts. “Coach must love you bastards. Supposed to rain tomorrow morning. Gonna be a bitch to clean up that toilet paper.”

I laugh. “We’ll probably get roped into helping if we don’t want to get benched. He’s got to look at it with pride, though: teamwork at its finest. Although I don’t know if his wife’s as impressed.”

“Doubt it.” Mr. Brighter cracks a rough smile, probably flashing back to his troublemaking days. “You two ready to crash yet? I’m getting sick of standing here.”

“Yeah, thanks,” I say quickly.

Nicholas and I shuffle in, kick our shoes off in the entryway.

“You need sleeping bags? Camping stuff’s in the basement,” Mr. Brighter says. He snorts and then clears his throat. “I’m going to bed.” Nicholas’s mom makes a brief appearance, half asleep and wearing a puffy robe. Waves and then disappears into her room.

We raid the kitchen for Cheetos and ice-cream bars and soda, then carry our loot to the unfinished basement: all cinder-block walls and exposed ducts, a cement floor with a scrubby scrap of carpet placed seemingly at random, a weight bench and heavy bag. Posters of sex-bomb girls busting out of their bikini tops are taped up next to the weight bench, for inspiration.

Nicholas rips the Cheetos bag open along the seam. “You know how much worse it’ll be when I
don’t
try out for football now?”

“Dude, you have to live in the moment when you lie,” I say. “I can’t worry about everything adding up for the future—I needed to get your ass out of the fire
now.
”

“You don’t even
play
football,” Nicholas goes on. “Didn’t you used to wrestle?”

“Uh, yeah,” I say. “And if your dad had been wearing a wrestling shirt, I would’ve milked that instead. The point is: if I’d left it up to you, you’d be getting your ass chewed out and I’d be walking home right now, using my mad lying skills to break into my own house.”

Nicholas sighs and paces the floor. Not sure if I’m getting through to him yet, but at least he’s calming down. I hunt down the Brighter clan’s musty camping gear and unroll two camouflage sleeping bags, set them up next to our little junk-food altar so the melty ice cream bars are within easy reach. Stop a sec to admire the artwork.

“Those are my brother’s posters, by the way. Before you say anything.”

“Sure. That’s what you tell Darla, right?”

He shrugs. “I don’t have to explain pervy posters to her. We’re just friends. Unlike some people.”

I throw a handful of Cheetos at him. “Subtle. No, really—is it that obvious? Did Sophie say anything?”

“I don’t know if I’d be able to tell if she did. Sophie likes everybody.”

“Even soulless ice boys.” I make a face.

“You ever wonder why Jacques never talks about his mom?” Nicholas says suddenly.

“Um, no. Do you hear me talking about my mom?”

“It’s different. Cherchette has powers. She’s the only adult we know who does, and she has years of experience—she’s probably mastered her powers by now. She knows what we’re going through, and what we still have ahead of us. She’s the only person we might actually be able to turn to for advice. And she’s invited us to
live
with her, you know? We’re all in this together somehow . . . so it’s weird that it never comes up in conversation when he’s around. Sometimes I’ve wanted to ask him stuff, but I knew Darla would freak out.”

“What exactly do you want to know?”

He shrugs. “I just want another point of view. Cherchette says she wants to help us, but I still don’t get why it’s so important to her. And Darla’s good for digging up dirt, but—”

“Dirt?” I raise my eyebrows. I can’t believe Darla’s been holding out on me.

“It’s probably blown out of proportion.” Nicholas picks up the melting ice-cream bars, tosses them in the trash. “She found out that Cherchette’s parents died of exposure—they froze to death during a blizzard. It’s a little suspicious, considering her powers . . . but that doesn’t mean Cherchette killed them. Maybe it was an accident.”

I nod, thinking it over. “Maybe that’s why she wants to help us.” Was Cherchette out of control once, too? Does she feel, like, a bond with Nicholas because of that?

“Maybe.” Nicholas drags an extra blanket out of the closet and sets it on top of his sleeping bag. “I just wish there was some way to know without leaving everything behind.”

That makes two of us. How many times have I lain in bed and had that same thought? It’s complicated, though—because I have friends now. Real ones, people who are important to me and who make me feel at home in the middle of all this weirdness. And so running away now would be like leaving one sanctuary for another, in a way.

I crawl into my sleeping bag, worn out from tonight’s excitement. Nick’s seriousness is making me nervous. I’m not ready for him to leave us, to even consider it, really—so I try to distract him with a joke. “Well, I know what you’d be missing if you did leave: more awesome superteam missions. Plus if you left, Darla would be so mad she’d build an evil robot clone of you and send it to kill you.”

“That’s old news.” Nicholas yawns and switches off the light. “My evil robot clone is in the closet. He’s tied up with electrical tape.”

“Uh . . .”

“Don’t worry. He probably won’t escape. But if he does, you can fight him off, right?”

I close my eyes and burrow deeper into the sleeping bag, grumbling incoherent threats into my pillow (“I’ll kick that robot’s ass . . .”) as my body relaxes and my head grows heavier.

B
efore I know it, I’m waking up in the dark, my muscles stiff from sleeping on the floor, bleary-eyed and confused. It takes me a few seconds to remember I’m in Nicholas’s basement.

I check the time: 5 A.M. Time for me to leave if I want to sneak into my room successfully. I nudge Nicholas awake so he can let me out. Rain’s already pounding down, blurring the windows. I sprint through a few soggy backyards on my way to a more secluded takeoff spot. The streets are deserted, and my body aches to be off the ground. I haven’t flown in over twenty-four hours.

I push off; shoot quickly into the rumbling, black-gray sky, crossing my fingers that I don’t get taken out by a sudden lightning bolt. My clothes are drenched, weighing me down. It’s not a huge hindrance, but it’s annoying. I don’t feel graceful, powerful; I feel like the earth is trying to shackle me. It makes me that much more determined to stick it out.

By the time I get home and get cleaned up, the rain’s hammering in earnest and I’ve got my second wind, fueled by the memory of last night’s rush. We were
heroes
last night—and it’s only going to get better. I’m running on next to no sleep, but I’m way too energetic to be cooped up in the house. I want to share it with someone.

“What are you doing up?” my mom says, surprised.

I shrug, like I’m up to greet the sun every day of the week. (Well, most days I am.) “Seizing the day?” I pop her toast out of the toaster and butter it and even shake cinnamon and sugar on it. She watches me with a wry smile—she knows I want something. But I don’t think she minds. “Can I get a ride somewhere?”

“What? The company here isn’t good enough?”

“It’s too good. I don’t want to overdose on you guys and start to take you for granted.”

“Uh-huh.” She shakes her head with a smile, amazed to have such a charming son—I’m sure. “All right. Where is it you want to go this early in the morning?”

The one place that’s open: Roast.

 

CATHERINE LOOKS SHOCKED
to see me when I flag her down. I’m like the only person here not reading the paper or doing the crossword puzzle. I spill my drink on the table so she has an excuse to come over.

“I can’t believe you’re missing Saturday cartoons for me,” she says.

“You’re just that special.”

She rolls her eyes, wipes at the tiny juice puddle with slow, exaggerated circles. “So what’s up?”

“I think you should become a hero with me.”

“Hmm . . . I’m sorry, did you save the world while I wasn’t paying attention? Stop a meteor from crashing into the earth or something?”

“You really don’t read the paper, do you?”

“Apparently not the one that follows your escapades. Spill your juice again?”

I lean in, lower my voice as I dribble more OJ onto the table. “Remember I told you I met some people? With powers? Last night we got together and caught that guy who’s been mugging joggers in the park. Like, we used our powers as a team and took him down.”

“He saw you?” she hisses. “He knows that you can fl—”

I hold my hand up to stop her. “No, not that; nothing that couldn’t be explained some other way. I just restrained him, and then . . . um, this other girl used a weapon, and this one guy created some ice and cold effects, but there’s no way the mugger can prove that. The ice melted; there’s no evidence.”

“Ice?” She stops wiping. Squeezes the rag in her fist.

“Yeah. That guy’s a freak, though; don’t worry about him. Anyway . . .” So I tell her how it went down, embellishing some stuff and skipping the part where I got pepper-sprayed. “I want you to be part of it. Like, it’s incredible—but it’s not the same without you.”

“I don’t really play well with others.” She’s back to wiping now, head down and hair hanging over her face—but the tops of her cheeks are pink. A chink in her armor? I aim for it.

“You don’t have to play well with others—you’re a badass army of one. Just think of the others as backup. And besides, you play okay with me. I could be your trusty sidekick.”

She laughs. “Oh yeah, you’re really sidekick material.”

“If you hated the team, you could stop.” She’s not saying “absolutely not,” so I push on. “It wouldn’t mean revealing yourself to anyone new, if you’re worried about that. They already know about you; they’ve known about us longer than we’ve known about each other. That’s why Darla was always bothering you: she was trying to get close enough to invite you without freaking you out.”

“Darla’s part of this? What’s her power? Annoying anyone within a fifty-foot radius?”

“Nooo, Catherine. She’s the brains of the operation. The organizer or whatever. But her friends Sophie and Nicholas are like us. You’ve probably seen them here with her.”

Catherine wrings out her juice-soaked rag, then knocks the rest of my juice over so that the floor next to my table becomes a slippery danger zone. “Be right back.” I jog my foot nervously until she returns with a mop, pushes it around as aimlessly as ever.

“So what’s the point?” she says finally. “Besides entertaining yourselves? I don’t really have time to goof off. I have plans.”

“Like what?”

She scrunches up her nose like I just asked her what color underwear she’s wearing. “Since when do I tell you stuff like that?”

“Um, since we’re friends? I know that’s a weird concept for you, but you
can
tell me about your life.”

“None of your business,” she says. “Hurry up and answer my question. This floor is freaking spotless. I need to get back to work.”

I sigh. I don’t intend to go home anytime soon, and now I have to buy another juice while I wait for her to go on break. That might not seem like a huge deal, but my allowance has been put on hold for, like, the next eight hundred years—and getting money the way I’ve been getting it (selling my old toys for chump change to the entrepreneurial eBay kids down the street) is just embarrassing. This friendship is getting expensive.