Mid-September.
Lunch.
In the meantime, I turned back to my other ongoing investigation: discovering why Dexter and Vic had been in the forest the night we arrived at the academy. I spied on them all week, but I still had nothing.
My only observation was how tired they were all the time, but nobody would bust them for that.
The sky was crystal clear as Penny and I headed to Brock’s statue for lunch.
‘You notice how all the adults are acting weird this year?’ I asked. ‘Like, they’re super cheerful all the time.’
‘They’re acting like last year didn’t happen,’ Penny said. ‘They think students are freaked out, so they’re pretending everything is all sunshine and rainbows.’
‘Most kids don’t seem freaked out, though.’
‘Then maybe they’re pretending to make themselves feel better.’
‘Oh … That’s wicked deep.’
As we walked up, we saw Coach sitting by Brock with a crumpled cupcake wrapper in his hand. Two untouched cupcakes were beside him, one with a burned-down candle.
‘He would’ve been forty-four today,’ Coach said. ‘I always have a cupcake with him on his birthday.’
He was talking about Brock.
Obvi.
‘You gonna eat those two extra cupcakes?’ I asked, eyeballing the sweet treats.
‘Go ahead.’ Coach smiled. ‘They shouldn’t go to waste.’
Penny held out her hand as I grabbed both cupcakes and set them on my lap.
‘Oh, cool, they’re both for you,’ Penny said sarcastically. ‘Enjoy both of your cupcakes, Scrooge.’
I made a ‘whatever’ face before handing one over.
‘Did you know him?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t,’ Coach said. ‘But I knew his sister.’
‘He had a sister?’
Coach nodded. ‘Angel Blackwood. She came here in 1994, a year after my twin sister, Olivia, and I started. Three years before that was when Brock turned to stone. Angel would eat lunch with this statue every day, a lot like you did last year, Ben.’
‘Oh, I saw a picture of her!’ I said. I looked down at my cupcake. ‘She looked like the saddest girl in the world.’
‘Probably cuz she was eating lunch with the stone-dead body of her brother,’ Penny said. ‘That’s dark. Like, dark dark. Like, mess-you-up dark.’
‘What if Brock’s not dead?’ I asked, hopeful.
‘If he’s not, then I hope he’s asleep,’ Penny said. ‘Or else he’s trapped in a nightmare – turned to stone but able to see and hear everything?’
‘That’d be the worst,’ I said.
‘Nah,’ Coach said, standing. ‘Nobody really knows what happens when you die, but there’s worse in life.’
‘Worse than turning yourself into a statue?’ I asked.
‘I believe the worst thing to happen when you die would be meeting the person you could’ve become.’
‘How’s that worse?’
Penny thought for a moment. ‘Hmm, how can I put this into nerdspeak? Okay, Clark Kent is Superman, right?’
‘Right,’ I said.
‘So what if Clark Kent didn’t know he could be Superman? And he was just a boring farmer until he died of old age. And he never became Superman.’
‘Right, but it’d be lamer if Superman showed up right before Clark Kent died and was, like, “Hey, dude, you could’a been me, but now you’re dead. LOL. Too bad, so sad. Hashtag, sorry not sorry.”’
‘Superman’s a jerk in your lesson,’ I said.
Penny took a bite of her cupcake. ‘He sure is.’
Coach chuckled. ‘Angel Blackwood’s power was similar to yours, actually, Penny, if not identical.’
‘Descendants can have the same powers?’ I asked.
‘It’s rare, but it happens,’ Coach said. ‘Usually it happens between siblings. My twin sister and I both had superstrength.’
FYI – Coach’s sister died a long time ago.
‘Angel controlled animals with music,’ Coach continued, ‘but she didn’t use a ukulele. She used her voice. She sang, and animals listened.
‘Your power probably works like hers did,’ Coach said. ‘We all have some kind of energy inside us, keeping us alive. A soul, a spirit, whatever. Angel could manipulate her energy – her spirit – and use it as a weapon by projecting rays of pure energy. But a side effect of her power was that she could transfer a small part of it into another living being, basically turning them into a mind-controlled slave. It’s what you do to mice.’
‘Are you saying I’ll be able to shoot energy blasts someday?’ Penny whispered excitedly.
‘The academy would frown upon that,’ Coach said with a smirk. ‘I’m saying that controlling mice isn’t your real power.’
A red flag suddenly snapped in my head. ‘Abigail said she was working with someone who could mind-control people! What if Angel is who she was talking about?’
‘Not possible. Angel died in 2008.’
‘How do you know she didn’t fake her own death?’
‘Because my sister died with her.’
‘Ohhh … kay, then,’ I said, feeling stupid. ‘Sorry.’
Coach continued. ‘Angel always had a cupcake with Brock on his birthday even after she graduated. She would make a trip to the school just for that. Sometimes my sister would go along, too. One night, Angel and Olivia were at the end of their trip. Angel drove all day, fell asleep at the wheel, and veered off a bridge close to here.’ Coach took a slow, deep breath. ‘Her car exploded when it hit the ground.’
Coach was quiet for a moment.
It was one of those sad, awkward moments you always read about but never experience.
‘Throw those wrappers away when you’re done, okay?’ he said, leaving Penny and me alone with the statue.
We spent the rest of lunch eating in silence.
