Unsung

Chapter Seventy-One

"You're lying!"

"I'm not," I insisted to Fergus and Chuck in as quiet a voice as possible. "We had to break in to see the surveillance footage."

"Our little Kida? Breaking into buildings? Yeah right," Chuck said before snorting loudly. "And did you steal the crown jewels, too?"

I shushed him as I looked around to see if anyone was listening to our conversation. But most of the students sitting at nearby tables were either too focused on shoveling food into their mouths or filling their friends in on their own gossip to listen to ours. Plus, our nerdy crew wouldn't have been considered interesting enough to eavesdrop on anyway. Sometimes the self-absorption of the Reginald High School student body actually worked in my favor.

This was one of those times.

And with the symphony of silverware tapping against plates and tabletops, mixed with the buzz of hurried conversation, a great sort of white noise was created, making the cafeteria the perfect place to have a private conversation.

Still, I didn't exactly want to announce to the world that I'd officially begun my life of semi-crime. That was a fact that I was hoping to keep close to the vest.

But Chuck and Fergus were a different story. They were the only civilians I could talk to about my hero stuff. Not that they ever made it easy. They still teased me every chance they got, and had said on more than one occasion that they thought I was making it all up. But they understood the world of good vs. evil, heroes and supervillains. And they were more likely to believe the unbelievable than anyone else I knew.

Apparently unless it involved me breaking into a building to try and catch a bad guy. According to them:

Superpowers = they could happen.

Kida being a badass = no way in hell.

"We didn't steal anything," I said, getting exasperated. "I told you, we just looked through some lockers and watched some video footage."

"To look for clues," Fergus said banally.

"Because some super villain is after you," Chuck finished up, just as unconvinced.

"Not a super villain. He's just a normal baddie. No super powers," I explained. Almost as an afterthought, I added, "I wanted to call him the Master of Villains."

"Original," Chuck said sarcastically before he could stop himself.

"Hey!" I said, hurt.

"Oh," Chuck said, giving me an 'I'm sorry' expression. "Well then, that's...no, I'm sorry. I can't lie to you. It sucks. You might as well have called him Dr. Evil."

"The others want to call him Ted," I said, grumpily.

Chuck gave me a blank stare. "You guys are horrible at this. Really. And you call yourselves superheroes?"

"Well, next time you guys take on the forces of darkness, you can call them whatever you want," I snapped, starting to regret telling them anything at all.

"Okay, okay," Chuck said leaning across the table and patting me on the shoulder. "We believe you. It's too crazy a story to be made up."

I squinted my eyes as I searched his face for a sign that he was being genuine.

"No, you don't," I responded finally.

"No," Chuck repeated. "I don't. But I do think you're becoming a better storyteller! It'll make for more interesting issues of Kid Angel. When is the next one coming out, B-T-Dubs?"