After wolfing down two more rolls than should've been humanly possible for someone my size to eat, we cleaned up the table and went our separate ways. My parents disappeared to do some work they'd brought home with them, and Mateus and I sojourned to our bedrooms to finish up projects, papers or study for upcoming tests at school.
By the time I'd taken out my borrowed copy of Catcher in the Rye to do some reading for English class, I could no longer concentrate. Not on Holden Caulfield and his angsty boy drama, anyway.
I grabbed the laptop off my bedside table and placed it on top of the book that now lay closed on my lap. Holden was the perfect barrier between my cool legs and hot computer.
Who said the classics weren't good for anything?
Opening up a new browser, I Googled Cain Institute for Heroic Studies.
Within seconds I was staring at a clean black screen with a few simple white words written on it.
WHAT WILL YOUR LEGACY BE?
With no other information on the page, I took a chance and clicked on the single sentence floating amongst the dark background.
Suddenly, bright colors began to flash across the screen, moving like they were being sucked into an invisible hole in the middle of the page. I briefly wondered if I'd stumbled onto a virus and cursed, thinking about the lectures I'd get from my parents about safe cyber use. But finally, the jumble of colors slowed to reveal a more standard academic screen with the University's name strewn across the top and a collage of pictures below it.
All the way to the left was a photo of some old-looking buildings. In the corner was one of students lounging on a patch of grassy lawn. There were a few generic ones of students in the classroom, too. But the picture in the middle drew my attention to it like an invisible magnet.
In it, a girl just a few years older than me, was holding a pose not unlike the ones my characters would be drawn in. She looked strong, her muscles long and lean as she punched one arm toward an unknown assailant. Across her chest was the phrase: I am a HERO.
A tingle of excitement crawled across my skin. What McKayla had said was true. There was a place out there where people could train to be heroes.
It was real.
My heart started to race as I remembered what my parents had said about not letting fear keep me from doing the things I thought mattered. And this mattered. But could I really do it? Me? Unremarkable Kida Allen. Training to be like the characters in my comic books?
I slammed the computer shut.
Who was I kidding?
I was no hero.
YOU ARE READING
Unsung
Teen FictionA comic book nerd joins a hero school and discovers that villains are much scarier in real life than in the books she reads.
