Sidekicks (4 page)

Louis pulls up to Harbinger Preparatory School, the
most exclusive school in New York City. The brass plaque in front proclaims that the school was built in 1910, but with its ivy-covered stones, the place looks like it's been here forever and they built the rest of Manhattan around it. A bunch of kids are gathered outside, waiting for the day to start. It's a sea of plaid and khaki, of laughing, chatty, good-looking faces. Every morning looks like a cover shoot for the school brochure.

Harbinger is the perfect place for me to go to school. My classmates are the sons and daughters of celebrities and dignitaries. It's the kind of place where, even if everyone knew I was Bright Boy, I might not stand out. As it is now, I've turned not standing out into an art form.

“You got anything going on after school today?” Louis asks as he pulls over to the curb. “Maybe a club meeting or something?”

I give him a sarcastic smile. “Do I ever?”

He smiles back. “Nah … but I keep thinking that one of these days you're gonna get sick of talking to just me.”

“What do you mean ‘one of these days'?”

“All right. That's it. Get out of my car.”

“Hey, maybe I'll join the fashion designers club,” I
say as I climb out. “Maybe
they
would make me a new costume.”

Louis pauses. “Do you want me to talk to Trent?” he asks.

“Really?”

“Yeah, but I can't promise anything. You know how he feels about it … says it makes you an icon.”

“Yeah, I know. Except it's also making me a joke.”

“I'll see what I can do.”

“Thanks, Louis.” I'd hug him, but I don't want to risk going from “invisible guy” to “parking lot hugger guy.”

“Good-bye, kid,” Louis says, then shoots me a wink and drives off.

I head for the school entrance, feeling a little better than I did before. The welcome chime hasn't sounded yet, so most kids are still hanging around outside. I haven't even gone three steps when I hear the laughter.

“Did you
see
him?”

“Forget him! Did you see
it
?”

“Oh my God! It was—”

“I know! How can he—”

“I know!” They all laugh.

I put my head down and walk. I try to tell myself
that they're not laughing at me, but I know that's not true. They are—they're just not laughing at the me who's in front of them right now.

Inside the scene is the same. EVERYONE is talking about my “issues” from last night. Harbinger is a K–12 school, so it's good to know that my ridicule is universal across all age groups. Even the kindergartners, the one group left that still looked up to me, seem sad and confused.

“HA! What a freak!” some girl yells.

“Total perv!” a guy says, then breaks into a series of snorting laughs.

“I know, right?!” comes the response from someone in the crowd.

“So gross!” another kid chimes in.

As I'm walking to my locker, some kid runs past me holding the front page of the newspaper over his head. “Bright Balls!” he yells. The whole hall-way erupts in laughter. I rub my eyes. Gonna be a long day …

It wasn't always like this. When I first started out as Bright Boy six years ago, every kid in school would have traded places with me in a heartbeat. I was Bright Boy! Sidekick to Phantom Justice! I had super-speed, super-strength, and a whole bunch of cool gadgets! I knocked
the snot out of criminals! And I had the coolest costume! All the girls thought I was cute; all the boys thought I was awesome.

I used to get a huge thrill from this, being the main topic of conversation without anyone even knowing I was listening. I used to take in all of this adoration from a distance, not wanting to get close to anyone for fear that they might discover my true identity. Also, I just loved knowing that I had this giant secret. I could listen in on everyone as they shared fantasies about being Bright Boy, or becoming friends with Bright Boy, and having no idea that Bright Boy was right there, standing next to them.

A lot of things were different then. For starters, we weren't called plus/pluses like we are now; we were called supers, and there were a lot more of us around. For some reason, the name
supers
made us more lovable to the public. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because supers sounds so heroic, while plus/plus sounds so cold and mathematical.

Then, several years back, a national scientific journal ran a report called “Science of the Supers: Explaining the Extraordinary.” The basic gist of it was that scientists believe we have some slight variations to our DNA that allow us to use more of our body's potential than regular humans.

The reports said that we can have one of three extra abilities that they labeled pluses: strength, speed/reflexes, and intelligence. Having one plus is most common; in some very rare cases people have two, like me and Phantom Justice. But there has never been a documented case of someone having all three.

The scientists believe that plus speed is at top potential from day one, so I'm not going to get any faster as I get older. Plus strength is different. I'm as strong as about five full-grown men right now. Supposedly, when I turn thirty, I'll max out at fifteen men. Plus intelligence, which is the least common, works the same way: Older equals smarter. I'm not friends with any plus intelligences to know if that's true or not. The only one I even know of is a villain, Dr. Chaotic, and it's not like he and I are meeting up to have long talks over ice cream.

So being a plus/plus hero used to be awesome, but the past few years, things started to change. First of all, the plus/plus population started to dwindle, and no one was sure why. Phantom's theory is that the supers that disappeared either got “seduced from their responsibilities by the peace of a normal life” or became “cowards who succumbed to the fear of evil.” I've looked on the Internet for information, but it's mostly just people with crackpot
theories. One guy thinks that most of the pluses moved underground, formed a hidden network, and are now trying to root out some great evil. Another guy thinks that all the pluses are actually aliens, and the ones who disappeared were just “called home.”

But really, my own hero image had been changing for a while; I just hadn't noticed. The younger kids were still huge fans of Bright Boy, but everyone else from third grade up made fun of him … me. They laughed at the outfit. They started thinking of him/me as a freak of nature (and not in a good way).

The less popular my Bright Boy persona got, the more I realized that my Scott Hutchinson persona wasn't very popular, either. I wasn't hated or anything; I just didn't have any close friends. I sat with a set of kids at lunch, but they were all kids who didn't quite fit into school. We got along as long as no one said much, or really made eye contact.

I realized that the years of avoiding sports teams, extracurricular activities, birthday parties, and even simple invitations to “come over and play” had made me invisible to my classmates. Somewhere along the line, they started to realize that I was always going to say no—to everything—and so they just stopped asking.
And I had been so busy, that I hadn't even noticed.

Not that it mattered, anyway. Even if I had a close friend, I'd never really be able to share things with them. I wouldn't be able to have them over to Trent's house. I'd always have to run off at a moment's notice. I couldn't risk someone getting close to me and discovering who I really am. It would jeopardize everything Trent and I work for, not to mention endanger norms like Louis who are close to us. Sure, Louis can take care of himself, but that doesn't mean I want to make him hostage bait to all of our enemies.

I don't have anything in common with my classmates, anyway. They talk about movies and TV shows I haven't seen, or music that I haven't listened to … I don't even know what I'm interested in, besides running around the city at night and smacking bad guys around. So really, there's no sense in trying to have friends. I'll just wait until I'm older. Maybe when you're an adult, these things don't matter as much.

“Well, lookee who we have here … If it isn't Snot Hutchinson!”

Oh man … I was so lost in thought that I wasn't scoping the hallway, and now I have to deal with Jake Berkshire and his three goons.

“Hello, Snot!” Jake says with mock enthusiasm. His friends laugh, as if changing my name from Scott to Snot is the funniest thing any of them has ever heard. Jake and his friends are a few years older than me, but we're in the same grade. I wouldn't say they're as dumb as a bag of hammers, but only because that would be an insult to the hammers.

“I said, hello, Snot.” They all cackle again. Jake and his friends are the only kids in school who actually notice me, and they don't seem happy about it.

“I have to get to class,” I say as meekly as I can, but I'm having a hard time mustering the energy to pretend I'm scared of them today.

“Awww … poor, wittle Snot has to get to class,” Jake says. The idiots chime in with their own “Awwws.” Jake's face gets hard and mean all of a sudden. “You'll go where I tell you to go, when I tell you to go there, got it?” He gives me a shove. Part of me doesn't want to budge, but then I'm afraid Jake'll dislocate his elbow … so I let my shoulder go limp and roll with it. His friends then follow suit and push me around. So far, I'm controlling the urge to knock them all out, but it's getting harder with each shove.

Things are about to escalate when Shane, one of the idiot friends, notices Dr. White, the foreign languages
teacher, coming around the corner. “Jake! Teach!” he whispers loudly.

Jake, like the weasel he is, gets a panicked look on his face. I can't believe that my “bully” is scared to death of a teacher. It makes it so hard to fake taking him seriously. “See you around, Snot,” he says, then knocks the books out of my hands as a parting shot. I let him, but only because if I didn't, he'd probably break his hand.

I manage to grab my books and slip into my first period social studies class right before the chime sounds. Three girls walk in after me: Olivia Duchamp, Allison Mendes, and Charlene O'Malley. They're giggling about whatever it is that girls my age giggle about, and Mr. Privet tells them to quiet down, but he's got a smile on his face, as if he doesn't really care that they're giggling. And why should he? Olivia, Allison, and Charlene are model students: pretty, smart, popular without being stuck-up, walking the tightrope between good student and teacher's pet.

I've tried to build up the courage to walk over and talk to them, but it just hasn't happened yet … which is ridiculous considering what I build up the courage to do every night. I mean, really, it's not like one of them is going to throw me off a building or blast me with a laser. The messed-up thing is, it might be easier for me
to talk to them if I thought they might. But they're just regular girls … and what the heck can I say to regular girls? “Hi, I'm Scott! Any of you girls looking to hang out with a guy who can't tell you much about himself, who you can't count on for anything, who may be completely incommunicado for long stretches of time. I'll hardly ever be able to go anywhere or do anything! I'll agree to meet you places and then stand you up and not be able to give you a reason! Doesn't that sound awesome?”

Before I have a chance to pull my laptop out of my bag, the intercom statics to life. Everyone else in class pauses, too, to see if it's them getting called out of class. “Scott Hutchinson, please report to the front desk. Scott Hutchinson.”

I get up from my seat and walk toward the door as everyone else goes about their business. No one looks up at me. Even Mr. Privet doesn't miss a beat. He's already into the lesson before I reach the hallway. That's another reason this school is so perfect for me … kids of politicians and entertainers are always getting pulled out of school for one reason or another, so they don't even blink when it happens to me.

I find myself walking pretty quickly toward the front
desk … almost, but not quite, slipping into a bit of plus speed. It's funny … even with all my concerns over being a social outcast, I still can't wait to get out of here and become Bright Boy again.

I just wish I had a better costume.

the Fortress, the official secret hideout of Phantom Justice and Bright Boy. It sits underground, about a thousand feet below Trent's mansion. To tell you the truth, I'm not really sure why we even need the Fortress. It's full of all this crime-fighting equipment that Trent bought, that we never really use. The only thing we do use is the MCC, or Main Crime Computer, and that thing is a couple of years old now. I'm pretty sure I can do on my phone ninety percent of what the MCC does.