Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Five: Schoolyard Fight

Early light filters through the gymnasium's high windows. Watery shadows splash the orange-brown floor. Kids squirm on the squeaky bleachers, legs kicking, chin tucked into hands.

"And that," Persephone Jaimson finishes with a polite smile, "is why you should vote for me."

I crane my neck. I'm leaned against the whitewashed wall on the far side of the gym, thrumming my fingernails in the wall's ruts. My knees are curled to my chest, chin propped up on my knees. The pressure behind my eyes is building.

"Speech... speech... speech." I groan, digging my fingers into my scalp. My throat is scratchy and dry, hands clammy, pulse pounding in my wrists. I volunteered for this. Last year, last day of school. The school counselor asked for tributes.

"Yeah," I said, cheeks stuffed with homemade donut. "Sure. Show me the clipboard." And I scrawled my name in the 'Vice President' column, because shoot for the moon, am I right?

Persephone, or Percy, strides across the gym, heels clicking the polished floor. She's going to win. Students are clapping. They never clap for student council electees. Most of them have other things to worry about, like the aforementioned "wings of crushing adulthood," or how gawky the geek kids running for student council look.

Percy smiles down at me. She's pretty in your salt-of-the-earth kind of way, freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks, red hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, heart-shaped face. She's a cheerleader, and a popular girl, but she's never been mean to me, if that's what popular cheerleader girls are supposed to be. Her presence still makes me squirm, though, like I should bow or step aside or ... something.

"Good luck."

My hands are trembling. Worse than last night, even. I give Percy a little smile and she thumbs-up me back. I clench my shaky hands around the hem of my hoodie. All half-glazed eyes are on me. I swallow back the lump in my throat and step up to the middle of the gym, surrounded on all sides by bleacher-bound bored kids.

A stand-up mic is hooked in the center of the floor. Thick wires race from the corners of the gym, taped up to the mats. I step up, thumping my fingers on the mic-head, scanning faces. Anyone could be Masquerade. Anyone could be out to get me.

"Um." The mic squeals and makes an angry shriek. I pat it the way you'd pat a snarling dog. Kai is playing poker in the back row over an open binder with a couple of his bored friends. Finn is asleep in the front, face tucked into a girl's shoulder.

"Look," I say. I'm a reporter. I specialize in the truth. "You don't care. I get it. The student council doesn't affect your life, except maybe picking out the themes for Prom and the homecoming dance, which you guys probably don't care about all that much either. So, I should probably shut up and let you guys go about your way more interesting day, but—" I suck in a shaky breath.

My knees are knocking as I fly, baby, fly through the rhetoric. But? But what? I draw up another long breath, which I hope will look like a dramatic pause to whoever cares enough to listen. "I promise to, uh, cut the bullcrap, and represent you guys, I guess. And, I don't know, figure out where Red Comet went? Great. Great. Thanks, bye."

I do a little princess wave and step away from the mic. Finn is awake now. And laughing. In fact, so are some of the kids. But not in an excitable way. More in an awkward harr-harr-harr way of sleepy kids drowning in their own drool. And the teachers don't look all that impressed either. Mr. Branders leans on his pool cue, which I guess he carries around with him like a security blanket, locking me in a dead-stare that tells me I'm on his delinquent list. For life.

School hasn't even been in session for three hours. I settle beside Finn's friend and lean back on the bleachers.

"Nice," she says, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder. Finn jolts and sneezes when her hair tickles his face. She's a cool person to look at. Two piercings in her left ear and one in her eyebrow. Her blonde bangs frame her face in a way that only works in the magazines, and she offers me her hand like she's the politician of the exchange.