“Is everyone okay?” Ms. Linda asked, rubbing her head.

“Ms. Linda! You’re flying!” Fatima said.

“And Santiago is on fire!” Ms. Linda screamed.

“I’llputhimout!” Teo said—but he said it so fast, no one understood. Teo grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran around Santiago sixteen times in one second, squirting him with the white powder.

Somehow, Santiago was still on fire—but he wasn’t hurt. In fact, Santiago was laughing. Teo asked, “WhyareyoulaughingandwhyamIsuperfast?”

“I’m on fire, and it kind of tickles,” Santiago said.

“¿Qué pasó?” Hugo asked.

“EW! A GIANT SPIDER!” Preeya said—except when she spoke, it was so loud, it shook the whole classroom like an earthquake.

“I’ll kung-fu kick it!” Triple J said, rushing to the rescue. He was about to kick the eight-legged creature when it spoke.

“Don’t kick me!” the boy-spider shrieked. “It’s me, Dev!”

“What happened to everyone?!” Ms. Linda asked.

“Is it not evident? It certainly is to someone with my level of genius hyperintellect,” Olivia said. Her brain was so huge it pushed out of her skull and glowed. “Caused by an alien solar flare from outer space, the electromagnetic storm cloud was filled with radioactive gamma rays that struck and transmuted our physical bodies into a higher form of energy-processing systems.”

Everyone said, “Huh?” at the same time—that is, everyone except Fatima.

Fatima smiled bigger and harder than she’d ever smiled before. “Oh my gosh… can it be?… It’s not possible… but it is!… It just happened.… It’s finally happened!”

“What happened?” Ms. Linda asked.

“It’s just like Peter Powers’s origin story in Crazy Cool Comics issue number eighty-nine,” Fatima explained. “Some people get bitten by radioactive bugs, others are aliens who crash to Earth, and some—some are struck by weird lightning and get powers!”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Ms. Linda said.

Fatima took a deep breath and then shouted, “We all have superpowers!”

“What a silly notion!” Ms. Linda said to herself as she walked home after work that day. “Sure, suddenly Ava can read minds and Benji can change size and Sophia can control the weather, but that’s likely a coincidence. Being struck by lightning probably caused us to see things. Yes, that’s it. It was all in our heads. Superpowers? Ridiculous! Fatima has been reading too many comic books.”

(Dear reader, please note: There’s no such thing as reading too many comic books. Comic books are fantastic fun.)

Suddenly, a mugger tried to snatch Ms. Linda’s purse. Yet no matter how hard he yanked, he couldn’t pull the purse from Ms. Linda’s grip. “Stop that,” she said. “This is my purse.”

“Give it to me, old lady!” the thief growled. “Or else!”

“Old lady?!” Ms. Linda gasped. She only meant to slap the mugger for saying something so rude. Instead, she knocked him all the way across the street and into someone’s car, smashing it.

The mugger fell to the ground and started crying. “That really hurt!”

“I didn’t mean to slap you that hard,” Ms. Linda said. She rushed over to help the mugger. She took his hand to help him up, but when she gripped it, she crushed every bone in his hand.

“OWWWWW!” the mugger screamed.

“Oh my!” Ms. Linda said. She tried to pick up the mugger and put him back on his feet. Instead, she tossed him into the air. “I didn’t know I was so strong! I’m only trying to help.”

“Stop helping!” the criminal cried. “What are you—some kind of superhero?!”

The teacher picked the mugger up with one hand and held him overhead. He was as light as a feather. “I guess I am,” said Ms. Linda.

“Put me down!” the mugger screamed.

Ms. Linda didn’t put him down until she was at the local police station. The cops clapped for Ms. Linda. “We’ve been trying to catch this guy for weeks. Thanks for the help!”

Classroom 13’s resident teacher was not used to such praise—but she liked it. When Ms. Linda got home, she made herself a mask and a cape. That night, she went on patrol—which meant she went looking for trouble. When she found it, she fought it with her super-strength and stopped criminals from committing crimes.

That’s when Ms. Linda began her double life. If she’d had her own comic book, it would have been titled: Teacher by Day, Superhero by Night.

Unfortunately, Ms. Linda had so much homework to grade, she could only be a superhero on the weekends. And by the time Fridays rolled around, Ms. Linda was too tired to do superhero work. You see, teaching kids is a lot of work. After all, it is a huge responsibility and requires a lot of energy. So does being a superhero. In fact, they’re pretty much the same thing. (Except instead of battling aliens and monsters, teachers battle bad grades and peanut allergies.)

So Ms. Linda had to make a choice—she could be a teacher or a superhero. She couldn’t be both.

Ms. Linda thought long and hard. Finally, she decided to save her strength for her students. After only a few weeks as a superhero, Ms. Linda hung up her cape. Instead, she stayed home on the weekends to grade quizzes, watch Netflix, and eat cheese.