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Chapter 93 – School DayAlex reacted instantly by going silvery, even if she didn’t get her flaming clothes into the morph. If she hadn’t fought Cready, or she hadn’t felt a Mark 77 go off, she might not have changed fast enough, and she might have gotten badly burned. But she did react, and then she flew right at the fire suppression system.
The system went off. The alarm sounded. The CO2 blasted all over her. The Halon shot out of another vent at whatever the system thought needed some quick fire suppression. None of the foamy stuff squirted out, so that was probably a good sign.
She turned in mid-air so she got some more CO2 blasted all over her, just to make sure her clothes weren’t still on fire somewhere. Then she looked around the room to make sure there weren’t any other fires or anything.
Charlie was sitting up in bed, crying hard. “Ohmygod ohmygod! I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
Alex went normal and flew back to Charlie. Charlene. Not Charlie, Charlene from now on. Crud, she had to remember that.
Even though her pajamas were burnt and covered in frost from the CO2 blasts, she hugged Charlene and rubbed her back. “It’s okay, honey, it’s okay.”
“But I burned you, like I burned Mommy! I’m a bad person!”
“No, honey, you’re not a bad person, and I’ll be okay.” Alex didn’t let go of Shar, she just used her TK to turn the alarm off for the fire suppression system. But Charlene didn’t stop crying.
“Is everything okay?” her dad asked from the doorway.
She turned her head. Both her folks were there, in bathrobes and looking worried. She said, “Shar had a nightmare about her dad being murdered in front of her, and she had a little … reaction.”
Her dad said, “I heard the system go off. Is there anything we need to check in case it’s still smoldering?”
She admitted, “Umm, maybe just my pajamas. But I got them pretty well sprayed already.”
Her dad squawked, “Your pajamas?!”
Her mom insisted, “Let me help Charlene while your father gets you some burn cream.”
She started to say she was okay, but she realized she wasn’t. Now that her adrenaline wasn’t spiking through the roof, she was feeling like she had a bad sunburn in a lot of places. She gave Charlene a little squeeze and gently murmured, “I’ll be back in a few minutes in some clean pajamas. Okay?”
“You don’t hate me?” a tiny voice worried.
“No honey, I don’t hate you. I’m not mad at you. I just … I need to change my clothes and put some burn cream on a few places.”
Shar burst into tears again. Alex let her mom hug Shar, while Alex grabbed a clean pair of pajamas out of the drawer and floated into the bathroom.
She saw herself in the bathroom mirror. Ooh. That didn’t look good. Her pajamas looked like someone hit them with a flamethrower. They were burnt all over, and there were big holes burnt right through the front. They were definitely ruined. Crud. So much for her fave pair of pajamas. And she was showing parts of her she didn’t let anyone look at. Crud. That was most of one whole breast that was showing through the biggest burned hole. Okay, that hole went from above her breast all the way down to her navel, so that wasn’t so much a ‘hole’ as ‘the whole front of her pajama top’.
Her dad knocked on the bathroom door and slid one hand in with a tube of the burn cream Scooter’s staff was working on for FDA certification. He said, “Here you go, honey. The room’s okay. Charlene’s really upset, but the room is cooling off again. We’ve got a little smoke damage I think we can fix by scrubbing the ceiling, and I vacuumed some burned material off the floor with the lab vac. But everything’s okay except you and Charlene.”
Alex thanked him and smeared the stuff all over her reddened areas. She would have had some really nasty burns if she hadn’t gone silvery so fast. She put on new pajamas and gave her old ones to her dad to throw out, because there was no way to save them. Then she hurried back to see how Shar was doing.
Alex’s mom was just holding Shar and stroking her hair and generally being a great mom. Alex didn’t want to think what she would be like if she’d lost her mom when she was in first grade. She’d probably be a lot less like Shar and a lot more like Jo Baker.
And Alex wondered if they would ever get to the end of the list of little kids that Maggie Walsh had done horrible things to.
Even after Alex’s mom let Alex take over on the hugging, Charlene still cried for a long time, until she was completely exhausted. Alex was pretty tired by then, too. But Charlene didn’t want to let go, so Alex sort of snuggled into Shar’s bed and held Shar until they both fell asleep.
* * *
When the alarm clock went off, Alex couldn’t remember why it was on the wrong side of the room. It took her a moment to realize she was the one on the wrong side of the room. She turned it off with her TK, just as Shar sleepily murmured, “Is it time ta get up?”
Alex realized her arm had fallen asleep under Shar’s weight. It felt all pins-and-needles-y as Shar moved off Alex’s arm and the blood flowed back in. Alex figured it was a good thing she had telekinesis so she didn’t need her right arm to get things done for the next minute or so.
She got Shar up and into the bathroom for a quick shower, then she used her TK to help Shar get her hair dried and styled, while she did a quick shower. Shar said, “Could I get my hair short like yours?”
Alex smiled. “Sure. You’d look really cute in a pixie cut or a bob.”
Shar told her, “But I don’t wanna have brown hair, because I want to stay a blonde like Mommy. Is that okay?”
“Sure it’s okay,” Alex assured her. “Come on, let’s get our robes on and go eat breakfast before we put on our nice stuff and go to church.”
Shar stopped cold. “I don’t think I have anything nice enough. And maybe I shouldn’t go.”
Alex lifted Shar up with her TK and hugged her. “It’s okay, honey. This is California. You don’t have to dress like the richest person in New York to go to church. And maybe you could say a couple prayers for your mommy and daddy.”
Shar’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know any.”
Alex hugged her tighter. “You can read, so you can use the ones in the book. Or you can just make one up. It’ll be okay.”
But still, Alex had to hold Shar’s hand the whole way to church, and then the whole time during the church services. Shar didn’t relax until they were out of the church and back in the car.
They were halfway home before Shar nervously asked, “Do you think Daddy will be mad at me for going to church and saying a prayer for him and Mommy?”
Alex was pretty sure her mom was crying in the front seat, but her mom still said, “Oh, honey, I’m sure your daddy’s really happy you’re okay, and you have a place to live, and you love him enough to want to do something like that.”
Then Alex’s dad told her, “And anyway, the hard part will be tomorrow.”
“Why?” asked Shar.
“School,” he said. “You’re going to be the new kid, and you’ll be meeting a whole bunch of children for the first time. And then, after school, we’re going to start you at the local Boys and Girls Club so you can meet even more kids.”
Shar’s hand slid over and nervously grabbed Alex’s hand again.
In Alex’s bedroom, while they were changing out of their nice clothes into overalls, Shar asked, “Alex? What if the other kids don’t like me?”
Alex sat down and thought for a second. “You know what? Some of them will like you, but some of them won’t like you. There were kids who didn’t like me. There were kids who didn’t like Willow and were really mean to her. No matter how great you are and how awesome you are, there’s always going to be some jerkheads who don’t like you. If you’re really smart, some of the smart kids will want to be your friends, but some of the smart kids will feel threatened, and some of the dumb kids will be intimidated enough to try and bully you. If you’re one of the pretty girls, some of the kids who think they rule the grade will feel threatened, but some will want you to be in their clique. But if you’re not pretty, mean girls will pick on you. If you’re really athletic, you can be popular but lots of kids get bullied by some of the jocks and they won’t like you until they get to know you and find out you’re not like that. And there’ll be some kids that maybe you think don’t like you, but really they’re just totally shy or they don’t think you would like them so they like you but you’ll have to be nice to them first. So, no matter what, there will be someone who doesn’t like you. And if they give you any trouble, just report ’em to the teacher. Don’t face off against ’em unless you’re sure you can do it without showing your powers. And tell me and Mom, because I’m not gonna let anybody get away with being mean to you.” Alex thought a minute and told her, “You know what? When I get my black belt in a few years, I’m gonna teach you some martial arts, so you can deal with the playground bullies if they try anything. But for girls, mainly it’s some mean girls saying mean stuff about you.”
Shar asked, “So how do I know who likes me and who doesn’t?”
Alex explained, “It’ll be pretty obvious. The girls who like you will want to play with you and will want to invite you over to their house and stuff like that. The girls who don’t like you will say mean stuff to you and spread lies about you behind your back. But Mom and I are gonna go talk to your teachers and your principal tomorrow, and I’ll pick you up from school so you can learn all about the Boys and Girls Club.”
“What’s that?”
Alex said, “It’s an after-school thing. You can do schoolwork, or play with other kids, or meet new kids, or sit around and talk, or whatever. I don’t know all the stuff they have now, but I know they have basketball courts and pool tables and foosball tables.”
“I don’t know how to play any of those. I mean, I’ve seen basketball, but that’s about it. I don’t know how to shoot and dribble and that kind of junk.”
Alex told her, “Okay, important lesson time. Guys that don’t know how to play have to get their dad or their older brother to teach them so they don’t look stupid and have other guys make fun of them. Girls can play the ‘cute and helpless’ card. You go over and smile at the boys and say ‘wow, you’re really good, can you teach me to play?’ and plenty of guys will just say yes. Third grade’s about when boys start figuring out girls don’t really have cooties. Some third grade boys will be all ‘girls are icky’ but others will be totally ‘hey, there, good looking’ even if they’re so not smooth. But just don’t laugh at ’em when they’re like that, and they’ll fall all over themselves to teach you. And boys can be great friends. My best friend when I was little was a boy named Ray. Now he’s my boyfriend, and he’s awesome at basketball. I have a bunch of friends who are girls, but I have a bunch of friends who are boys. And the girls who tried the hardest to be Miss Popular and were mean to other girls to do it? Hardly anyone likes them now, even if they’re both really pretty. I don’t get how you’re supposed to be Miss Popular if you’re mean to everyone except maybe half a dozen people.”
Shar just stared at her like she was a super-genius font of wisdom or something. “Wow. How do you know all this stuff?”
Alex shrugged. “I lived through it. I know all the mean girls and smart girls and pretty girls. I know what I did when I was your age, and now I can look back and see what I should’ve done. And one thing I should’ve done was try harder to get really good grades. Being popular is a huge waste of time until you’re like college age or older. Getting the top grades in high school and college? Big bennies for that, only later on. And anyway, Mom and Dad are gonna expect you to get good grades. And I’m gonna expect you to get all ‘A’s because I know you’re really smart.”
* * *
After lunch, Alex drove Shar over to Ray’s house. She kind of figured Ray’s parents wouldn’t yell at her too much for skipping on Ray’s birthday party if she had a little kid along with her.
Ray was hard at work, playing basketball against Tony and Jackson. Tony was over half a foot taller than Ray, but not as fast. And Jackson was two inches shorter than Ray, but bound and determined to take the shot every single time. Alex privately thought Ray was going to have to be the point guard for the team, because if Jackson was the point guard, he’d just take try and take every single shot every time the team had the ball, and that would be bad.
They even had Alex’s gift — the big basketball-catching net — set up across the end of the driveway. Now that it was up, Alex could see that the bottom edge was weighted so a basketball couldn’t just roll underneath it and get away. That was a good thing.
Ray blocked a shot Jackson tried to take by driving the lane, and knocked it off into the front yard so he could run over and say, “Hi, Alex! I’d give you a hug but I’m all sweaty.”
He looked pretty good all sweaty, but she was not gonna say so. Especially not in front of Shar. Or in front of anybody.
“Ray, this is my little cousin Shar. Shar, this is my boyfriend Ray. Shar’s coming to live with us, and I’m going to be sharing my room with her, at least for a while.”
Charlene stared up at him and finally said, “Wow, you guys are tall.”
Ray grinned and introduced her to Tony, who was about 6'10" or 6'11". “Shar, this is Tony. We use him as our weatherman, because the rain hits him several minutes before it gets down to everyone else.”
Tony started to say something, looked at Shar, and dropped it. So Alex figured it would have been sort of rude. Because guys talked like that to each other, even when they were good friends like Ray and Tony. Instead, Tony knelt down and smiled. “Hi, Shar. I’m Tony. And we have to be nice to these guys because they’re too dumb to think up any new jokes about my height.”
Shar covered up her mouth and giggled.
Alex explained, “Our high school’s team has Tony as our center, Jackson as our shooting guard, and Ray as our point guard. And Mike and Jerrold are probably gonna be our starting forwards.”
Jackson disagreed. “Heyward really grew over the summer. I think he might knock Jerrold out of that spot.”
Alex asked, “Ray, are your folks home? I wanted to apologize for missing your birthday. We had to go back east and help Shar out.”
Tony softly asked, “So Shar, what happened that Alexandra the Great had to ditch Ray’s birthday party?”
Alex winced, but Shar just said, “Our house burned down and Daddy died.”
“Holy fuck.” Tony winced. “Hey, pretend I didn’t say that. I’m not supposed to curse, especially over at Ray’s house. I’m really sorry about your daddy.”
Shar started sniffling, so Alex picked her up and hugged her some. Alex sighed. “It’s not your fault. There’s no way you could’ve known. But her mom got killed in a home invasion a couple years ago, and they couldn’t stand to be in that house anymore, and they moved away, and now she’s lost everything. So she’s having a horrible time, and she really needs us.”
Ray just said, “And you’re really good at the doing-what’s-needed deal.” He looked Alex in the eye. “Let me run in and give my folks an FYI so they don’t put their foot in it. And maybe you could beat the snot out of Jackson at HORSE while I’m inside so he’ll get a little humility.”
Jackson gave Ray a little ‘ghetto’ swagger, even though Jackson was a regular middle-class kid, and insisted, “It ain’t bragging if you can do it.”
Tony made fun of him by doing a John Wayne kind of imitation and saying, “No brag, just fact.” Jackson flipped him the bird even though Shar was right there.
Alex watched Ray dash into the house and grinned. “So what’s the longest shot you’ve made today?”
Jackson pointed way over at the driveway-protecting net. “Five feet in front of the net.”
Alex set Shar down and walked around the net until she was halfway across the street. Then she stood with her back to the net and tilted her head back until she could see the basketball hoop. She’d practiced this shot lots of times before, just to give Ray a hard time when he wanted to play HORSE. She took the shot, using her TK to guide the ball a little so it swished through for a goal. Shar jumped up and down and cheered. Alex walked back onto the driveway and gave Jackson a smile. Tony just couldn’t stop laughing at the stunned expression on Jackson’s face.
It wasn’t that Alex was being mean. Well, she was pretty sure she wasn’t being mean. She just really thought Jackson would be a way better player if he didn’t act like he had to take the shot every time. Ray was a really great point guard because he always looked to see who was open or could get open, and he fed them the ball. Your team just made more of their shots if you had a really great point guard, because he got them the ball when they had better shots they could take. That seemed totally obvious to her.
She also thought Jackson needed to do more than shoot hoops all the time. Alex knew Ray was doing these leg and torso exercises the basketball coach said they could do on their own over the summer, and Ray’s vertical jump had gone up two inches just since May. It looked like Tony was jumping a little higher, too. Jackson needed to do all the basketball stuff, not just shooting.
Ray hopped back out the front door. “Go on in. They’re in the den. Better hurry, because Dad’s gonna start music practice pretty soon, and you know what that sounds like. I told ’em what not to ask about.”
So when Alex went in, Ray’s folks oohed and ahhed over Shar, and got her some cookies and a glass of milk, and talked to her about how she liked Alex and Alex’s parents. Shar was really good at the ‘secret cover story’ thing. And that just stunk, because nobody Shar’s age should have to be able to maintain a cover story. Life had not been nice to Shar, or to Hanna, or to a lot of people, and Alex didn’t see why she couldn’t fix things here and there. Plus, Shar was the cutest thing ever. She pretty much had Ray’s folks wrapped around her little finger by the time they left. Alex figured Shar could have asked for a huge bowl of ice cream right before dinner, and Ray’s mom would have fetched it for her and asked if she wanted sprinkles on top.
When they got home, Shar helped Alex fix dinner, which pretty much meant doing the safe stuff like standing on a chair and tearing up salad greens, and peeking in through the oven window to say when the ‘timer’ on the turkey breast popped up so the turkey was done. Alex also let Shar pick out the vegetable to cook in the microwave and put it in a microwave-safe bowl and set the timer on the microwave, so they were having green beans.
Over dinner, Alex’s mom and dad explained to Shar that she was going to have to do what they said, and they would give her chores they were sure she could do, and not the hard stuff like baking bread or mowing the lawn. And Shar would have to help in the mornings so everyone could get off to school or work on time, with Alex driving Shar in to Roosevelt Elementary School, over on Roosevelt Drive. Alex added, “But tomorrow will be different, because Mom and I are gonna drive you in to school and get stuff all set up for you.”
Alex’s dad told everyone, “I talked to Ralph Simpson at church this morning, so things should go smoothly.” Alex knew Mr. Simpson was the Superintendent of Schools for the city, so he could probably make a lot of stuff happen pretty quick if he wanted.
Then, after they cleaned up after dinner, Shar wanted to play one of the board games from Auntie Willow, so they all played Forbidden Island, and it was really way more fun than Alex expected, because it wasn’t a game for little kids, it was just a game that kids could play, too. And it was everyone working together against the board, instead of everyone trying to beat the others to win, so they all won together, even if it was super, super close. And it didn’t take forever, like some of Mina’s games. They all decided it would be really fun to play pretty regularly. Alex decided that Willow was the smartest game-picker ever.
That night, when Shar was in bed holding Alex’s Pikachu plushie and Alex was studying at her desk, Shar whimpered, “Alex, can you sleep over here tonight so if I have another nightmare you can just … hug me or something?” So Alex ended up holding Shar like Shar was her little girl.
Alex figured that in a sense, she was.
* * *
Monday was the first day of ‘morning rush-around’ with someone else to manage. Alex was glad she got Shar to bathe the night before, so that was one less time problem. Even if Shar got into Alex’s lipstick while Alex was drying off in the shower.
Alex groaned. “Honey, please don’t use my makeup. It’s really expensive. If you want to learn about makeup and stuff, I’ll get you your own, and I’ll teach you. Okay? But not a lot of elementary school kids are wearing makeup yet. You wouldn’t want the other kids to think you’re all weird. And lipstick is a lot of work to maintain. You’ve got to learn not to chew it off by accident, and you’ve got to fix it every time you eat anything, and you’ve got to check it pretty regularly just in case. A soft mascara’s probably gonna be easier and more natural-looking. Plus, you’re already pretty.”
Shar had kind of wrecked the bullet — the part of the lipstick that was bullet-shaped and you used to apply the lipstick to your lips — but Alex just used her TK to reshape it without getting lipstick all over her fingers. It was still sort of messed up, but it was a lot better. She figured Willow would know how to fix stuff like that, and she made a mental note to call Willow and ask.
So then they scrambled to get dressed for school. Shar wanted to dress like Alex, so they were wearing matching overalls and t-shirts and sneakers for the day. Then Alex made sure Shar had a nutritious breakfast. Alex had a little backpack that was one of Annie’s old school backpacks from the attic that Alex had cleaned up, and Alex had put four notebooks and a pencil case and a box of good crayons in it for Shar.
Then they all rushed off. Alex followed her mom so she knew where to drive Shar to school every morning. Since Shar’s new school was only about a mile and a half from Alex’s high school, it was going to be easy. Hopefully. Alex knew her mom was taking time off from work to get Shar registered and everything, but her mom wouldn’t be able to do this every morning. Alex was the only one in the family not working eight to five, or in her dad’s case, maybe eight to six. Or even eight to seven, on days with a ton of meetings. Her dad would love to spend eight to seven in the lab on an interesting research problem, but eight to seven in meetings? Not his fave.
Alex’s mom led them down to the principal’s office. Mrs. Hemmings was waiting for them, since the superintendent had already called her. Mrs. Hemmings was a nice lady maybe about the same age as Alex’s mom, but a lot shorter. Even in heels, Mrs. Hemmings was like 4'10". Alex wondered if Mrs. Hemmings was so short that she could only be a principal for elementary school children, because even a lot of junior high kids would be able to stare down at her.
So Mrs. Hemmings was really friendly, and told Shar that they would do everything they could to help her fit in, and if she got really sad, that was okay, and she should tell her teacher, and come down to see Mrs. Hemmings and it would even be okay if she cried and took a rest in the nurse’s office next door. She looked over the files that Jack had given to her mom, which Alex knew were all faked. Then she gave Shar a sheet of paper and asked her to read it out loud. The first lines were pretty much ‘see spot run’, but the paragraphs slowly got harder and harder, until Shar started struggling with some big words and asked if she could stop.
Mrs. Hemmings gave her a big smile and said, “Shar, that was really, really good. That’s just a quick check and not a full evaluation, but it looks like you’re reading at a fifth grade level, maybe sixth grade. Now let’s try this page.”
It was a page of math problems. And, just like the reading one, it started out with a row of super-easy ones and slowly got tougher. It turned out Shar was doing math at a third or fourth grade level already.
The last page was questions about cities and states and countries. The first ones were super easy, and they got tougher. Shar was maybe second or third grade in social studies, which Mrs. Hemmings thought was very good for a girl home schooled by a single parent who was probably not devoting enough of his time to teaching.
So Shar was put in the ‘smart’ third grade class, which was taught by Mr. Kuzuki. Alex walked Shar down to the classroom while her mom filled out forms and did all the other really icky stuff. There was probably paying bills in there, too.
Alex walked Shar in and handed Mr. Kuzuki the note from the principal. Mr. Kuzuki was really nice, too, and he welcomed Shar to the classroom, and let her sit in a nice desk, and told her what their daily schedule was going to be. Alex could see it was written on a big sheet on the wall, so duh. But it looked like reading and history and math and Spanish and science and writing and stuff, plus lunch and some time running around out on the playground. And Shar had only missed the first three days of school, so she wasn’t behind in anything.
Shar got to introduce herself, and Alex stood at the back of the room and gave her a big ‘thumbs up’ to encourage her, and she did okay. And Mr. Kuzuki had each of the students stand up and say their name and say one thing about them. Alex had a pretty good idea who the class jerks were just from where kids were seated and who Mr. Kuzuki kept a close eye on and who tried to make a few other boys laugh.
Alex just wanted to stand there and keep an eye on Shar all day, but she knew she couldn’t. So she gave Shar a little bye-bye wave the next time Shar looked back at her, and slipped out the classroom door.
Her mom was standing right there, peeking in through the little window in the middle of the door. She whispered, “How’s she doing?”
Alex whispered back, “Fine. I think we can go. I’ll meet her after school and make sure she gets on the right bus and she goes to the Boys and Girls Club, and then I’ll make sure she’s all checked in and stuff. Then I’ll pick her up at five.”
Her mom gave her a huge smile. “You’re such a good girl. You’ll make a great mom, even if you adopt. I have a feeling after watching you with Shar that you’ll have your own kids and you’ll adopt a few ‘strays’ you find along the way.”
Alex was late to school, but her mom had called in an excuse already. So she got a permission slip from Mrs. Bennis the attendance lady, and she hurried down to American Lit class which she had already missed almost all of.
When the bell rang, Ms. Walters waved her up to the front and asked her why she was late. So she ‘explained’ about having to go back east on Saturday with her folks because her little cousin Charlene, who already had lost her mom, lost her dad and her home early that morning in a big fire and so they were taking Shar in, and Alex needed to help get Shar settled in at her new school and stuff.
And math class was really great, because Mrs. McGurty explained about limits, and what she said made a ton of sense after the stuff Alex had been reading, so Alex was ready to do the homework for the section and maybe even the next two sections. And the weird notation that the book used for calculus integrals actually made sense, mostly. Even if she didn’t see why you had to have a giant capital ‘S’ that was so weird-looking and thin that you couldn’t even tell it was an ‘S’ anymore.
Apparently, most of the American Lit class had heard a lot of what Alex said to the teacher as they trickled out, so word was already going around the school. Kelly dropped by Alex’s table at lunchtime to complain about ‘Saint Alex’ and how Alex was probably milking this for Homecoming Queen votes.
“What a bitch,” Louis muttered quietly, even if it was not quietly enough.
Alex refused to let Kelly make her mad, which was probably what Kelly wanted. She just told her, “Oh, I know you pretend you’re all mean and stuff, but if your favorite cousin just lost her dad and her home and all her things in a big fire, you’d help her, too. Wouldn’t you?”
Kelly frowned at her, and didn’t answer. But Alex hadn’t expected she would. Kelly had a hard time letting people in. Kelly was probably standing there wishing she hadn’t confided in Alex that summer they were both camp counselors and they nearly got eaten by a bear.
Mina smiled sweetly at Kelly. “We all know taking in a cousin isn’t going to win anybody any Homecoming Queen votes, but that’s not what we’re gonna use to beat you.”
Alex groaned. “Mina! I’m not running for Homecoming Queen!” All she needed was being voted into the homecoming court and then having to fly off on an SRI emergency and missing Homecoming so it would look like she was dumping on the entire school. Everyone would be so mad at her! But missing Ray’s birthday party just really rubbed in how hard it could be if you were a superhero. Well, if you were a responsible superhero who wasn’t a big jerk.
The rest of school went just fine, even if she needed to tell Mr. Hooper she was going to really rush out of the classroom as soon as the bell rang, because she had to go pick up her cousin at elementary school. He was okay as long as it wasn’t going to be an everyday problem. And Wade Stevens invited her and Mina to come talk to the first meeting of the year for the Computer Club and the Science Club on Thursday last period, which they were doing jointly because there were plenty of kids who were in both. So now Alex needed to prepare for that, too.
When the clock said the bell would ring in thirty seconds, she started putting her stuff away. When the bell rang, she already had everything in her backpack, and she took off. She cut to the front of the room, ran to the door from there so she wouldn’t get blocked in an aisle, and sprinted down the hall before anyone else got out of their classrooms. Then she dashed out to the parking lot, hopped into her car, and took off. She made sure she was pretty close to the speed limit, though, because she’d seen the police liked to patrol around the school at the end of the school day, just when teenagers were racing away and breaking the most traffic laws.
She still got to Shar’s school in time, but it was pretty close. Kids were already coming out of the building and heading for the buses, so Alex made sure she knew which was the right bus, and she walked over to meet Shar as she ran out of the school with what seemed like a flood of other kids. They just poured out in a tidal wave. Alex was really happy to see Shar animatedly chatting with another little girl who looked about the same age.
Shar waved excitedly when she saw Alex, and she ran right over. “Alex! Alex! Hi! I was worried you wouldn’t be here!”
Alex smiled down at her. “Well, if there had been bad traffic, it might’ve been a problem. But I wanted to check on you before we went over to the club. How’d your day go?”
Shar gushed, “It was good. I get to learn Spanish! Como esta usted! At lunchtime I got really sad when I had the mac and cheese and I thought about Daddy making it for me and how he wouldn’t make it for me anymore, and I had to go to the nurse’s office and cry some, but I’m okay now. And I met a bunch of nice kids, even if Petey Johnson and his pals are just assholes.”
“Let’s say ‘jerks’ instead, okay?” Alex nudged.
“Well, they’re something bad that starts with ‘a’. But they’re jerks to everyone, not just me. It’s too bad Terawatt can’t fly into the playground and give all of ’em super-powered wedgies.”
Alex insisted, “If someone is being a bully, you should report them to your teachers. And if someone asks why you ratted Petey out, tell them that your cousin Alex had trouble with a bully and the bully came back and tried to stab her with a knife, so you don’t want any bullying.”
“Did a bully really do that?” Shar’s eyes got really wide.
Alex nodded. “Yep. I stood up to her, and she got expelled, and she came back on school grounds to threaten me so she got in more trouble, and then she came back again and got arrested and put in a big jail, and then she got superpowers so Terawatt had to go beat her up.”
“Wow.”
By then, they were right at the bus that said ‘Boys and Girls Club’ on the side. Shar hopped in and went to find a seat. Alex drove her car behind the bus so she would get to the building at the same time as Shar. Then Alex led Shar in and got her registered and all that stuff, which was a lot of filling out forms, so it was a good thing she had copies of all the stuff her mom filled out for the school, so she could look at all the stuff she didn’t know, like Shar’s new Social Security Number, while she filled things out. Shar put her backpack where they stored all the backpacks, and ran off to play with some of her new friends.
Alex said to the friendly ladies who ran things, “If Shar has any problems, would you call me and my mom? I already put both our numbers down on your forms. But her daddy just died only two days ago and where they lived burned down to the ground, and she’s lost everything. So she’ll have good days and bad days, and if someone picks on her, I don’t know whether she’ll burst into tears or try to scratch their eyes out. If someone says something mean about her mommy or daddy, she might get really, really upset.” They promised to keep an eye on Shar for her.
Then Alex had to go do the part she was really dreading. She drove over to Gloria’s to tell her that she had to quit waitressing.
Gloria smiled when Alex walked in. “Well, you’re early. Skipping school to earn tips?”
Alex frowned. “I wanted to come tell you in person instead of over the phone. I now have an eight-year-old ‘cousin’ coming to live with us. She’s a ‘picture taking’ rescue. But I need to quit waitressing so I can take care of her in the afternoons.”
Gloria looked horrified as she realized what Alex meant. “A ‘picture taking’ rescue? And she’s only eight?”
Alex nodded. “She just saw her daddy shot and killed in front of her just Saturday morning. She really needs me right now.”
Gloria gave Alex a big hug. “Alex, I knew you’d have to stop waitressing for me one of these days. Barb was talking about how hard your courses are this year and how you’re trying to get into a top-notch journalism school, and I know how dedicated you are with your ‘picture-taking’. And it’s not like I’m buried under waves of doughnut-devouring cameramen anymore. I can always advertise for an after-school waitress if I feel like it’s too much. Okay?”
Alex hugged her again. “I’m really sorry. I feel like I’m letting you down. But Mom insisted. I brought Charlene home, so I have to do a lot of the childcare and stuff.”
Gloria said, “It’s okay. Really. As long as you and your dad come in now and then for doughnuts so I can see you.”
Alex smiled. “I’ll bring Shar by so she can find out what the best doughnuts in California taste like.”
And Gloria even packed her off with a dozen doughnuts as a gift. Alex had to make herself leave them alone, because she wanted to share all of them with Shar for dessert after dinner, and Alex knew if she got started eating them, there might not be any left by dinnertime.
So Alex worked on her math homework for a couple of hours, until it was time to go pick up Shar. Now that the limit stuff made sense, she was able to get all the problems done for the whole section, even though Mrs. McGurty had only assigned most of the odd problems. But Alex had figured out last year that Mrs. McGurty liked to take the not-assigned problems, change a number here or there, and use them as most of the test questions.
Alex drove back and picked Shar up at the Boys and Girls Club. Shar looked fairly happy. She babbled about all the stuff there was to play with. She and a dozen other girls had done art projects. The boys mostly ran around like wild monkeys or played basketball or stuff like that. Some of them ran around like wild monkeys while they were supposed to be playing basketball.
Then Alex had Shar do her homework at the kitchen table while Alex fixed dinner. Since Shar was living with them now, they needed to have dinners earlier than eight or eight thirty. And since her mom got off work every day right at five, and didn’t have hours of homework afterward anymore, it would probably work. If Alex’s dad had to work late, they would just have to deal. So dinners at six thirty from now on. And Alex could help Shar with her homework, too. Not that Shar needed any help, except with a little of the Spanish. Shar was just fine in the reading and writing and math parts, so she really didn’t have much homework to get done.
And Alex showed Shar the lab stuff in the garage and warned her not to touch anything because sometimes her dad had experiments going, and some of them might not be safe to touch, and none of them would be okay if you messed something up and ruined his experiment. She told Shar that if Shar wanted to do some experiments, she should just ask Uncle George who would be thrilled to show her all kinds of cool stuff with chemistry.
After dinner, Alex did all her workouts and her martial arts practice, while she watched TV with her dad and Shar. Somehow, Shar had never seen ‘The Fuzzy Family’ so they watched a rerun, along with a new TV show Shar wanted to watch that her new friends were talking about. It had a family kind of like the Incredibles who all got superpowers. Alex liked it, because some writers had stopped and thought about what life might really be like if you had superpowers, and if you were afraid to let anyone else know you had them, and if still sometimes you did stuff with them even if looking back you could see it was a bad idea.
Then Alex let Shar take a bath and dry her own hair with the new hair dryer Alex’s mom had bought. It had a special baffle on the end and it didn’t get too hot, so it was safe for kids. And anyway, Shar could probably dry her own hair just by using her power to move some hot air around her head. Not that Alex thought that would be a good thing to experiment with while they were still inside.
So Alex tucked Shar in with the Pikachu plushie, read her a story, and then read in her American Lit textbook with a reading light until Shar was sound asleep. Then Alex moved back to her desk and prepared for the next day’s Spanish class until she was ready for bed.