Super (3 page)

But no sign of Eric.

Daniel wasn’t a great diver, but he managed to hit the water safely. Under the surface it was chaos as the sinking Porsche churned up the dark creek silt, and as the escaping air from the car bubbled and roared all around him like a whirlpool. Daniel was only an average swimmer, but his arms cut through the water with a strength that surprised him. Fueled by concern for his friend, Daniel managed to swim through the muddy water until he spotted a shape down there other than the sinking car. Eric wasn’t moving, and when Daniel got close enough, he saw that his friend’s leg was trapped beneath the vehicle. The farther the car sank into the soft bottom, the more stuck Eric would become.

Surprisingly, the car rolled easily off Eric’s leg when Daniel gave it a shove. It hadn’t had time to settle into the mud and silt, and Daniel pulled Eric out of the muck and kicked for the surface. They came out of the water near the shore, and Daniel grabbed a fistful of reeds with one hand as he pulled Eric’s limp body behind him with the other. Someone was there to grab him and help him onto the bank. Daniel saw a face, the pale one in the car window. A boy a few years older than Daniel.

“Here, let me,” said the boy, and he began to do CPR on
Eric. It didn’t take long before Eric coughed up a lungful of green water and replaced it with a groaning breath of air. He was alive.

“You … you saved his life,” said Daniel, but the boy shook his head.

“No, you saved him. You pulled him out of there.”

“Eric?” said Daniel. “You okay?”

Eric nodded and rolled over onto his stomach. He vomited up a little more creek water and moaned.

“He’ll be all right,” said the boy. “He just needs a minute.”

“Really,” said Daniel. “Thank you.”

“Theo,” the boy said, holding out his hand. “Theo Plunkett.”

Daniel started to return the handshake but froze when he heard the last name.
Plunkett?

“You all right there?” asked Theo. “Still shook up?”

“Uh, yeah. Sorry. I’m Daniel … Corrigan.” Daniel had trouble getting out his own name. It stuck there in his throat.

Plunkett?

Theo looked back at the water. Daniel turned and saw a rather stunned-looking Rohan watching them from the far bank. The Porsche was gone. Lost on the bottom of Tangle Creek.

“Man, my dad’s gonna kill me,” said Theo, staring at the bubbles rising to the surface. “That’s the second one this year.”

O
n August 13, at 2:53 p.m., summer ended early for the Supers of Noble’s Green. A new Plunkett was in town.

That evening, an emergency meeting was called at the tree fort to discuss the disturbing development. Nearly everyone was in attendance, and invitations were even sent to super-bullies Clay and Bud (who didn’t show, of course). Eric, Mollie, Rohan, Louisa, and Rose sat together in the dark, and by flashlight and candlelight they debated what should be done.

Meanwhile, Daniel was at home babysitting his little brother.

When Daniel’s parents announced that they were reviving an ancient tradition known as the weekly date night,
Daniel had at first been thrilled. This meant that once a week he’d have his evenings free while his parents went to dinner and a movie, and that in turn meant more time to sneak away to the tree fort. What he hadn’t taken into account was the unthinkable possibility that his mom and dad wouldn’t be taking his little brother, Georgie, with them. Apparently, date night was just another excuse to invoke the slave labor clause of parenting, which read:
The older child shall, from time to time, be drafted into all manner of unpaid, onerous tasks. Such as, but not limited to, scooping the cat’s litter, mowing the lawn, and guarding a three-year-old
.

It confirmed what Daniel had long suspected: parents had second children just to make sure they got their money’s worth out of the first.

Bath time with Georgie was the worst, by far. Getting him to eat dinner was a pain, but Daniel refused to get caught in the same trap as his parents. If Georgie refused to eat his vegetables, Daniel didn’t push it. He just scooped the broccoli off the plate and went straight to dessert. He’d figured out long ago that successfully babysitting a three-year-old required a careful combination of threats plus bribery, and handing Georgie an ice cream sandwich was more potent than a brown paper bag full of cash.

But after dinner came bath. Ever since Georgie had learned how to get out of the tub on his own, he’d adopted a new game, the rules of which were aggravatingly simple—Daniel turned his back for two seconds and Georgie would leap out of the bath and run, dripping, down the hall at full
speed shouting, “I’m a stinker!” all the way to the living room. Daniel would then spend the next ten minutes cleaning wet, soapy footprints off the floor and wet, soapy baby-butt prints off the sofa.

He’d just finished mopping up the last of tonight’s collateral bath damage and gotten Georgie into bed when Daniel heard a familiar tap-tapping at his attic bedroom window. Mollie had insisted they create a secret code—a special rhythm to the tapping that would identify it as her. When Daniel had sarcastically asked just how many other people in Noble’s Green could fly up the three stories to his window, Mollie had answered him with a punch to the arm. And so the secret code was born.

The tune Mollie had chosen was the Darth Vader theme from
Star Wars
. Mollie added her own lyrics. They went, “Daaaaaniel is a butt-head, dum-da-dum, dum-da-dum.”

“It’s unlocked, Mollie,” Daniel said, interrupting her before she could make up a second verse.

Mollie floated into the room like a gently blown leaf, settling with a plop on the edge of his bed. She’d really mastered the graceful entrance. So different from her first trip through that window, over half a year ago, when she’d crashed into his room, exhausted and terrified. Of course, that had been the time of the Shroud, when fear had been a constant among the special children of Noble’s Green.

“Your room’s a total mess,” said Mollie, eying the stacks of books and unfinished-model pieces littering his desk and bedside table. Daniel and Rohan had recently gotten into World
War II era battleships and were trying to create a complete model of the Pacific fleet. But as summer arrived, the two spent more and more time outdoors and less and less time on their plastic armada. Now every patch of space that wasn’t already taken up with detective books and comics was being used for bits of the U.S.S.
Independence
and H.M.S.
Nelson
.

Mollie idly kicked at the flight deck of the U.S.S.
Intrepid
and made a face.

“It’s a work in progress,” said Daniel. “So tell me what you saw. Did you get over to Plunkett’s house?”

Mollie nodded. “We did a flyby, but we couldn’t get too close without being seen. Nothing to report, really. At least nothing freaky. There are moving vans parked out front and a big black limo. No other cars.”

“Well, their Porsche is going to be in the shop for a while, I suspect. Once they drag it out of Tangle Creek.”

Daniel thought about this for a few minutes, chewing the inside of his cheek and tapping his fingers on the Sherlock Holmes–style pipe that sat on his desk. His mom had found it at an antiques store and picked it up for Daniel as a surprise. He liked to hold it, to imagine that it helped him focus in the way that his hero Holmes focused. But he didn’t like to put it in his mouth, because the tip still tasted like bitter tobacco.

“I gotta say I’m surprised that Plunkett had any family at all,” said Mollie.

“He was an orphan. Theo must be a great-great-grand-cousin or something. I didn’t have much time to interrogate him before the fire department showed up.”

Herman Plunkett had officially disappeared over half a year ago. Though a missing-persons investigation was ongoing, the Noble’s Green sheriff’s department hadn’t mentioned foul play. Nor had anyone connected the dots between Plunkett’s disappearance and the mysterious collapse at the Old Quarry around the same time. No one suspected that Herman Plunkett, aka the Shroud, lay buried under that mountain of rock and rubble.

“Well,” said Mollie, “hopefully they’ll pocket the silverware and Plunkett family portraits and be on their way. Eric’s totally freaked out—he wants to keep an eye on them around the clock, like a stakeout or something.”

“Yeah, we have great luck with those,” Daniel said.

“But Rohan said that we’re all overreacting. He said there’s no reason to suspect that Herman’s family has anything to do with the Shroud.”

“He’s right about that,” said Daniel. “It’s not like I’m worried about a family of Shrouds moving into Plunkett’s old house, but I am worried.”

“What about?”

“You said that they were probably just here to pick up the family heirlooms and stuff, the valuable things. That’s what scares me.”

Mollie was up on her feet, pacing the room. She was always full of nervous energy. Daniel worried at first that she would tromp all over his model pieces until he noticed that her feet weren’t actually touching the floor. She was hovering
about four inches above the mess. She was literally walking on air.

“So you think that there’s something in the Plunkett house that’s dangerous?” she asked. “Some secret about … well, about us?”

Daniel looked at the girl floating in his bedroom. He thought about Eric, flying high over the Plunkett house, spying from the safety of the night sky. There were certainly a lot of secrets in this town to discover.

Daniel shook his head. “I hope not. And I think most of Plunkett’s secrets got buried with him in that Shroud-Cave beneath the quarry. He was such a paranoid old kook that I doubt he kept anything in his home. I’m just being overcautious.”

Daniel wanted to reassure Mollie, but he couldn’t shake a certain memory. Plunkett had once shown him a hidden safe in his study where he kept a file on the Supers, complete with pictures and names. Daniel felt a sharp pang of guilt as he remembered how Plunkett had doctored one of those photos to fool Daniel into believing that his friend Eric was actually the Shroud. For a time it had worked, and Daniel had convinced the rest of the Supers too. He’d been manipulated by Herman into casting doubt on his friend. It was something Daniel would never forgive himself for. And he’d never suspect his friend again.

Daniel had destroyed those photos, but who was to say that Plunkett hadn’t made copies? And what if they were still in that house, in that hidden safe? What would someone
think when they saw those pictures of the children of Noble’s Green, soaring through the air or lifting cars over their heads? And worse, what would they
do
?

“Rohan’s probably right that there’s nothing to worry about,” said Daniel. “But I just want to make extra sure that Plunkett didn’t leave anything behind. We should’ve done this a long time ago.”

“What do you want us to do, then? Break in? I don’t trust that place. Plunkett probably rigged his home up with alarms and booby traps and who knows what!”

“Maybe. Which makes the new Plunketts a kind of happy accident, in a way.”

“How so? Spill it, Sherlock,” said Mollie. She was getting impatient with Daniel, but she was always getting impatient with someone. When you were talking with Mollie, it was hard to keep on her schedule. The rest of the world moved in slow motion compared to the fastest girl alive.

“No need to worry about security systems if you’re invited in,” said Daniel, twirling his pipe for emphasis.

Mollie stopped moving just long enough to snort. “So you’re going to just bike over there and ask for the house tour?”

Daniel smiled. The problem with his superpowered friends was that they had so much power, they often overlooked the simplest solutions. Most of life’s difficulties didn’t require super-strength or super-speed to fix. Most of the time you just needed your brain and a few guts.

“I’ll go over tomorrow to check on Theo. It’s the neighborly thing to do.”

“Theo Plunkett just totaled his dad’s Porsche! I’m sure he’s in the mood to make new friends.”

“Can’t hurt to try.”

Mollie rolled her eyes, but she didn’t argue any further. She didn’t have any better ideas, and the fact that someone was snooping around inside Plunkett’s mansion—another Plunkett no less—had them all on edge.

With that settled, Daniel sat back in his chair and tapped on his pipe thoughtfully. There was something else that had been bothering him.

“How’s Eric?” he asked.

Mollie shrugged. “He’s embarrassed. It’s not like him to mess up like that. The car was way heavier than he’d expected.”

Daniel nodded, but he wasn’t sure he agreed. Eric was strong, and getting stronger every day. And even if the car was too much, that didn’t explain why he’d nearly drowned. Eric was the most powerful person Daniel had ever met, but today he hadn’t even had the strength to swim.

Daniel was worried about his friend, and he planned to talk to Eric about what had happened at the bridge as soon as he got the chance. But for the time being he had other things to focus on. If Herman had left those photos behind where they could be found, they would all be in danger.

The Shroud was dead and gone, but would he ever stop making them afraid?

Daniel would start his investigation tomorrow. Theo Plunkett was about to make a new friend, whether he liked it or not.

T
hat night Daniel dreamed of the Old Quarry, and of the Shroud. He was fighting his old enemy again, but this time he was fighting alone. As the black-cloaked Shroud overwhelmed him, Daniel reached for the glowing meteor stone pendant around Herman’s neck. That shard of Witch Fire meteorite was the source of the villain’s strength, and Daniel had torn it from the Shroud’s neck once before, rendering him powerless. But this time, as he grasped the hunk of burning black rock, his own hand caught fire. Green flames licked along his fingers as Daniel cried out in pain. The Shroud was speaking to him, telling him how Daniel could make the pain go away by giving in to the stone’s power, but
he refused to listen. Eventually his hand burned down to nothing, and all Daniel could do was clutch the stump that had once been his hand. All the while Plunkett’s voice whispered his name.