The Super 4 : Dark Death (7 page)

Jake smiled. His cheeks turning slightly pink.
“Oh, and sorry Harrison for being a jerk.”

I punched him in
the shoulder. “It’s OK! You’re not
completely
useless!” He laughed. A
sound I hadn’t heard for a while. Darryl laughed as well. Soon, we
were all helpless with laughter. A knock ended
that.

“
Harrison? You in there?” It was
was my sister.

“
Yes, Tessa, I’m here.” I said.
“And so is Jake.”

At the mention of Jake’s name, my sister
popped in excited. She jumped up and down. Her cinnamon-colored
hair bouncing up and down. Her hazel eyes, wide. Jake rubbed his
now pink neck and smiled, embarrassed. “Hey Tessa.” He said. Tessa
squealed in response. Her caramel skin turning slightly pink. She
stared adoringly at him.

“
Well Tessa, we were just about to
go swimming!” I said, “You could join us if you want!”

“
I’ll be right down!” She squealed
excitedly as she exited my room.

Jake turned to me annoyed. “Carly go see if my
sis has a spare suit.” I interrupted before Jake could yell at me.
I gave each of them a swimsuit. “The bathrooms are there and there.
I’ll be in here.”

They left. I smiled.

Carly flipped into the pool. I went in via the
zip line. Tessa dived in from the diving board. Darryl did a
cannonball.

Jake went into the pool slowly. In the shallow
end.

We laughed.

Jake blushed.

“
Come on in Jake! The water’s
great!” We teased.

His face turned redder than a tomato. He went
into the deeper water slowly. Jake’s biggest secret was that he
never learned how to swim. This was how I decided to repay him for
being mean to us.

Carly gave him a mischievous grin. “I know why
don’t we play catch. I’ll be it!”

Carly gave us to a count of twenty, and then
we spread out to the furthest edges. For a while, Carly pretended
to chase us. Then with an extra push of her powers she swam towards
Jake. Jake panicked and started splashing around in the shallow
area. Not thinking for a second to use his powers. Carly stopped
right in front of him and said,

“
Tag you’re it!”

Jake groaned.

He counted to twenty and opened his eyes.
Tessa had stopped right in front of Jake. And I had no doubt that
Jake knew about it. Jake made a fake swing for her and she dodged
giggling.

While she was underwater Jake used his super
speed to doggy paddle to the end of the pool. He tagged me and gave
me an innocent smile.

We were drying off when Mum came into my
room.

“
Hi boys! Hope you had fun!” She
smiled at Jake as she placed the tray of snacks on my living room
table.

I stifled a laugh.

When she left I let it burst. Darryl joined
me. We laughed for five minutes straight. When we wiped the tears
from our eyes and picked ourselves up from the floor.

We were still smiling as Carly walked in with
Tessa. “What’s up guys?” They chorused.

“
Nothing much.” We replied in the
same three-part harmony.

“
Cool.” Carly said, “Hey! Can we
have some of those chips and salsa in your living room
Harrison?”

I had forgotten all about the snacks Mum
brought in. “Sure.”

“
Thanks” she replied. We all went
to my living room to eat. To put it short it was terrible. After
our first bite we all swallowed and then excused ourselves to the
bathroom.

We vomited for a minute. Then we decided what
to do with the salsa. Jake suggested to feed it to the dogs. Carly
quickly reprimanded him for even thinking about it. Nursing his
hurt wrist he deftly apologized. Tessa suggested burying it six
feet underground. I said make it two feet. In the end we went along
with Tessa’s idea. We took shovels and Tess carried the salsa down.
A couple of times we had to hide from mum.

We finally arrived in the middle of the
forest. A good distance away from the tree house. Carly, Jake,
Darryl and I each took our shovels and began digging, while Tess
looked around. “Cool! I want a tree house here! It could be
purple!” We sighed and resumed our digging as Tess went on
daydreaming about her perfect tree house. We both knew that she
would get her tree house when she turned eleven.

When our hole was three feet big we called
Tessa. She unceremoniously dumped the salsa in the hole. When we
had finished piling dirt on top of it and were just leaving I
noticed that I had left my shovel. I told the others to go on
without me.

When I got to the clearing I noticed a blond
boy sitting on top of the tallest tree. I was about to call out to
him, when I noticed he was wearing a cloak. But the cloak was as
dark as a shadow during the brightest hour. That, and the tentacles
waving around as if they were alive. I gasped silently. I picked up
my shovel and ran as fast as I could. I could feel his eyes boring
into my back.

I didn’t say a word to the others when I got
back. I was too scared. The boy was weird, he seemed to radiate
fear and that was not natural. Not natural at all.

“
Hey, Harrison are you alright?”
Jake asked.

“
Yeah! Why wouldn’t I be?” I said
nervously.

“
I dunno. You just seem kind of
jumpy!” He replied.

“
No! I’m not jumpy! Or nervous or
scared or anything!” I said, “Ha, ha…”

“
Okay! If you say so.” Jake
said.

I tuned out of the conversation after that.
Nodding, occasionally. But mostly just watching out for that boy.
That boy, with the freaky black robes. That boy, who seemed to
bring up all my childhood nightmares. I wouldn’t sleep well
tonight!

I woke up from my fifth nightmare that night
drenched in sweat. I checked the time. Three more hours, until
7:00. This time I was too scared to fall back asleep. I crawled out
of bed and tried to do something that wouldn’t remind of my
nightmares. Anything that wouldn’t remind me of the tortures that
blond boy gave me. Anything but being slowly torn apart. Anything
but being skinned alive. Anything but being dumped in a tank full
of flesh-eating piranhas. Anything but being thrown into a pit of
nails and snakes. Anything but watching my friends die slowly.
Anything but knowing that I would be next.

Jake

X

I was so glad that everything had smoothed out
with the others. I fetched my tracking chip and put it back in its
place. Everything was back to normal. Except for Carly. I had
forgiven Harrison, but I still held strong feelings for Carly. But
she would never know. My nerve was lost.

I stifled a sigh as I listened to Mr. Wharton
tell us about scientific notation. I tuned out and imagined next
week’s basketball game. “He shoots….he SCORES!” I said to myself.
Then I felt a thousand eyes burning into my back. Turning slowly I
gave a little pathetic chuckle. “Heh-heh...heh.”.

“Well, Mr. Patterson,” Mr. Wharton said in
that horrid, wheezy voice of his. “Perhaps you would like to share
what you were day dreaming about in the middle of my
class!”

I smiled and said, “It was awesome! Mr Wharton
was this worm who could regenerate! And we kept stepping on him!”
That brought a lot of laughter! No doubt it would be all over the
school by next period.

“You know what else is funny?” He asked
sarcastically. I shook my head. “DETENTION! And thanks to Mr
Patterson, everyone can write down all the rules of Scientific
Notation!”

The class groaned. I smiled. Anything to get
out of math!

I took the little pink slip with joy. I
literally skipped to the principal’s office. He wasn’t there so I
took a seat in the waiting room. From my position, I could see the
secretary’s computer. I read the words: Gradebook. And conveniently
it was open on my name. I read it:

Report Card for STUDENT:
PATTERSON, Jake Christopher

MATH:

Teacher: Mr Wharton Grade: C+
Percent: 78 Position: 15th

ENGLISH:

Teacher: Ms Thompson Grade: D-
Percent: 63 Position: 20th

HISTORY:

Teacher: Mr Lin Grade: D Percent:
65 Position: 12th

GEOGRAPHY:

Teacher: Ms Smith Grade: C+
Percent: 76 Position: 9th

PHYSICS:

Teacher: Mr Tibbs Grade: D-
Percent: 52 Position: 16th

BIOLOGY:

Teacher: Mr Shay Grade: C-
Percent: 71 Position: 19th

HEALTH:

Teacher: Mr. Zimmer Grade: D
Percent: 66 Position: 24th

MODERN LANGUAGES SECTION FOR
QUARTER 3:

FRENCH:

Teacher: Madame Belle Grade: D-
Percent: 56 Position: 27th

PERFORMING ARTS:

DRAMA:

Teacher: Mr Russell Grade: A+
Position: 2nd

PHYSICAL EDUCATION:

Teacher: Mrs. Breedlove Grade: A+
Position: 1st

OVERALL ACADEMIC SCORE:
55%

OTHER SUBJECTS: 100%

GPA: 0.12 GRADE: D-

Your child’s academic results are
under the necessary score to pass on into ninth grade. If your
child fails to get 70% or higher by the end of the academic year he
will be required to go to summer school. If he fails to meet the
appropriate standards in summer school, he will be held
back.

Yours sincerely:

SKamininski
DougTurn

Middle School Principal:
Superintendent:

Shari Kaminski Douglas
Turner

Northview Academy

Filii hodie, et imperantes
cras!

Children today, Leaders
tomorrow!

I looked at my grades in shock. Summer school!
Whenever someone puts a season in front of school, it’s bad! But
summer. I imagined my summer marred by stacks of homework. I
shuddered. Never! I had to quit joking around and get serious. At
my school, you get a kind of mock report card, a month before the
real deal.

“
Jake?” My visions of stacks of
A’s piled around me, ended abruptly. The principal was
here.

“
Hi, Mrs. Kaminski!” I said,
putting on my best suck-up impression of Darryl. “ I have this for
you!” I handed her the pink slip of paper. Her coffee brown eyes
skimmed over it. Tucking her thick dark hair behind her ears, she
sighed.

“
Mr. Wharton said you disrupted
his class with sports comments and talked about murdering him?” I
stifled a laugh at her confusion. “This isn’t funny!” But I could
see her smiling.

“
Jake one more detention and you
could repeat! This and your grades! I suggest you buckle down and
get serious. See me at the end of the day. And bring something to
study with!”

“
Yes, Mrs. Kaminski!” I said
seriously.

I left her office.

Cell biology research investigates
the structure and function of individual proteins and the assembly
of cellular membranes and organelles, and the molecular mechanisms
of interactions between cells and between organisms and their
environment.

I struggled to stay awake as I read the
chapter. Even in super speed it took me twenty minutes to read that
first chapter.

I had eight to go.

My math wasn’t excellent, but even I could
figure out that eight times twenty equaled one-eighty. Or was it
one-sixty? Okay, maybe you do need a genius to figure that out.
Anyway, I only had ten minutes left of detention. I decided to work
on math. I spent the remainder of that ten minutes doing my
thirteen timetables. Mrs Kaminski walked into the room.

“
JAKE!” She yelled, sounding like
a prison warden. “Your time is up! You may leave!”

“
Bye Mrs. Kaminski!” She seemed
shocked by my politeness. But quickly recovered.

“
Goodbye, Mr. Patterson.” She said
formally. I left without slamming the door. Her eyes were
practically out of her head. I smiled.

As I was leaving the school, I saw a strange
short boy with a head of tangled blonde curls leaving the basement
with an eerie look on his face. He looked familiar somehow. But I
shrugged of the thought. No one could radiate evil like him. No one
could have the same green-black eyes that looked like they would
envelop you in torture. He gave me a creepy smile that seemed to
say: ‘You’ll be next!’ I shrugged it off thinking it was figment of
my imagination. I looked up at where the boy had stood. I was
completely alone. He seemed to have vanished into thin air. I
turned my hearing on, but could hear nothing other than the sound
of Mrs. Wharton’s voice and the janitor cleaning up. I
unconsciously created a force field around myself. The light blue
shield seemed to get rid of all haunting thoughts.