Saturday.
Mid-November.
‘Game point, sucka,’ Jordan said, bouncing a ping-pong ball on his paddle. ‘I win this, I get your bed.’
‘No, you don’t!’ I said. ‘Stop making bets at game point!’
We were in the Kepler Academy game room, which was filled with students killing time on a monumentally boring Saturday afternoon.
Noah and Penny ate popcorn as they watched from the side.
Jordan served, and I swooped my paddle, slapping the ball just right to give it a wicked spin – a move my dad taught me.
Too bad I swung too hard.
The paddle slipped out of my hand and torpedoed into the back of some girl’s head across the room.
‘Ouuuuuch!’ she howled.
It was Darla Dunn – a tenth grader who also happened to be Dexter’s sister.
Darla and I had first met in Kung Fu Club last year, when she used me to show everyone how much damage a fist can do to someone’s face.
The answer is a lot, in case you’re wondering.
Darla glared at me since Jordan was straight-up pointing at the kid who did it.
Not good.
Darla marched right up to me.
Jordan ducked under the table.
Noah and Penny continued eating popcorn.
‘You did that on purpose!’ Darla said, suddenly morphing into a giant centaur out of nowhere.
…
You read that right.
Darla turned into a half-horse woman.
It dawned on me that I didn’t know what power Darla had.
She reached for me, but I shimmied across the table and rolled off the other side.
‘It was an accident!’ I said, turning to face the centaur, but to my surprise, it was gone.
Instead, an angry leprechaun was running straight at me, green sparkly suit and everything.
‘You’re dead meat!’ the leprechaun wailed in Darla’s voice.
The leprechaun was Darla!
Darla was a shape-shifter!
She jumped off the table and tackled me.
Noah and Penny just watched, and I couldn’t blame them. I was in the middle of a beatdown, and even I was bewitched by her power!
Kids applauded as Darla transformed into a fat, hairy, heaving gorilla. She pulled me in and hugged me tighter and tighter until I couldn’t breathe, and suddenly it wasn’t so cool anymore.
‘Let him go!’ Penny said.
Jordan ran out of the room.
Noah jumped up, hungry for action, but before he did anything, a giant tentacle slammed down on the ping-pong table, breaking it in half.
Darla stopped. ‘… Wut?’
Everyone else stopped, too, staring at the girl with tentacles under her arms. She was wearing one of the ‘HERO’ shirts with my face on it.
Behind her were Arnold, Millie, and the rest of the Braver Ravers.
‘Put him down!’ Millie commanded.
Darla dropped me. ‘You want some too?’
The room was silent.
It was the calm before the storm.
And all of it was for me. How cool is that?
All at once, the Braver Ravers rushed past Millie, firing off their powers at Darla.
Arnold and Noah helped me to my feet.
‘Stay back,’ Arnold said to me. ‘If you use your power, you’ll get in trouble!’
Arnold took off and ran at Dexter’s sister.
Everyone cheered like it was a Power Battle.
Darla caught Arnold with her gargantuan gorilla hands. He twisted and turned, then finally bit down on her hairy arm.
She instantly morphed back into a human as Arnold absorbed her power. And then Arnold transformed into an oversize tiger, roaring so loudly that I might’ve peed a little.
Just then, a furious Coach Lindsay burst through the door with Jordan by his side.
‘That’s enough!’ Coach commanded.
Everyone muzzled up. Arnold turned back into a human.
Coach Lindsay rounded up Darla and most of the Braver Ravers – the ones who used their powers – and took them to detention for the rest of the day.
It took a second for it to hit me, but they were getting punished because of a stupid mistake that I made.
‘Why’d they do that?’ I said to Millie. ‘They got into trouble helping me.’
‘Yeah,’ Millie said. ‘They knew they would.’
‘Well, that was dumb,’ Penny said.
Millie glared at Penny. ‘Don’t you get it yet? Ben isn’t just a hero. He’s a living legend. We’re lucky to even be alive at the same time as him.’
Noah smiled. ‘Yeah, Pen. We’re lucky to even be in Ben’s presence.’
‘Aww,’ Penny joined in on the joke, giving me puppy dog eyes.
‘The Braver Ravers aren’t just a fan club,’ Millie said. ‘We’re a team, and Ben is our leader, and we’ll protect him no matter what.’
‘Like junior X-Men!’ I said. ‘Love it!’
‘Or like a gang,’ Jordan said. ‘Do you love that?’
Millie laughed, like, ‘You’re crazy!’
So did I.
I had to admit, having my own superhero squad sounded pretty dope.
All I’d have to do was not screw it up.
And how hard was that?
