Captain Superlative!: Chapters 7–11

I felt like I was the only living soul in the universe, along with my heartbeat and my breathlessness and my single, solitary purpose.

These were the fiction shelves. But there was another, smaller shelf sitting beside the librarian’s desk, with the yearbooks from every class as far back as the school went, from last year all the way back to the black-and-white years. I swiped the yearbook with the red cover, the timber-wolf logo of our school emblazoned across the front. Last year’s design.

Letting out a slow breath, I started to flip through the back pages of the yearbook, the ones that had candid photos of students just being students.

“I know you were following me yesterday.”
The voice interrupted my sulk so abruptly that ! gasped, coughing on my own breath. I looked up, turning my head left and then right. The aisle was deserted. But I knew who it was. I knew her voice.
I knew Captain Superlative was there.

That made me angrier. “How do you know what kind of person I am?” It came out snappish and demanding. “How do you even know my name?” Especially, I realized resentfully, when I had been struggling so much to come up with hers.

It all coalesced into a single word: Why? But that made no sense. It meant too much, it was too big. And I was frustrated that I couldn’t collect my thoughts. She’d laugh at me, anyone would. Better to keep those thoughts to myself.

The library was deserted again, just me and my frustration.
Fury.
Fixation.
Fascination.

I grabbed books from my locker, shoved them hard into my backpack, and made a beeline for the door.

Dagmar appeared from around the trophy case, like a supervillain popping out of a cloud of smoke, brimstone swirling around her. Without preamble—or evil laugh—she slammed her hand down on Paige’s books, sending them flying across the floor.

It was a more vicious and physical attack than I was used to seeing. It shook me out of my self-pity.

“You know you can’t win, right?” Dagmar stared at Paige as if she were some kind of maggot or beetle.
“Win?” Paige was bewildered. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m going to be top of the class this year. Not Jennie Li. Not Ben Wesson. And definitely not you.”

They locked eyes for a moment. I thought Paige was going to fight back. She had a perturbed look to her. Instead, she knelt and started gathering her books. “I don’t want to fight with you, Dagmar,” she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper.

Dagmar folded her arms across her chest, a deep scowl wrinkling up her face, making it look like the craggy slope of a volcano.

She didn’t give it back. No. Dagmar Hagen didn’t really seem to know the meaning of “subtle” today. She made her intentions quite clear, holding the paper up sideways, her fingertips gripping either end. When she ripped it apart, she moved slowly and deliberately, milking the noise of the tearing papers for everything she could.

For as long as I could remember, she’d mocked and humiliated Paige, scattered her things, taken cheap shots at her shoes.

“Dagmar,” I said, “you are incredibly mean sometimes.” Understatement of the century. “Just stop. Stop picking on Paige.”
Dagmar’s upper lip pulled back from her teeth, and she growled. “Or what?”
“Or we’ll stop you,” Captain Superlative said simply.

“Jane.” She said the name with a hushed reverence. “You are going to be my sidekick.”
“What?!”
“Every good superhero needs one.”

Captain Superlative threw her arms around me, pulling me into a tight embrace against her chest. For someone so little, she had a powerful hold. And she smelled like toasted almonds. It reminded me of an old bottle of my mother’s perfume that my dad kept on the nightstand in his room. Sweet, but not cloying. Sort of light. Warm.

“I wish everyone would just forget about it.” I tried to say it bashfully, laughingly. Like it was no big deal. Just a little joke. A funny little story that would fade away soon enough.

My dad finished folding the sheet by himself, adding it to the growing pile of linen on the coffee table. “Seems like you’ve lost some of that anonymity you loved so much, Janey.”
“Maybe.”

“She says she’s going to start training me.” I could only shake my head. “I wonder what that would involve.”
“Oh, all the important things a superhero’s sidekick needs to know how to do, no doubt.”
“Like what?”
“Like...rescuing intrepid reporters.”

“There are other skills to hone too, of course.”
I couldn’t help myself. “What else?”
“Learning to knock the metal tab off of a can of pop with a bow and arrow, without spilling a drop! Just like in the movies.”

From his hip, he drew an imaginary sword, wielding it in a flowing arc over his head.

“Hello!” she said, hands on her hips, chin raised, smiling wildly at me from behind her mask. Captain Superlative. In my home. My brain couldn’t exactly reconcile it.

Uncomfortable silence followed, until my dad cleared his throat. “Say hello to your guest, Janey.” It was the same tone of voice he’d used when I was six and had to be goaded into giving Aunt Stephanie a kiss on the cheek.

I looked over at my dad, desperate to get him to share in the joke and show that he understood my plight.

I looked over at my dad, desperate to get him to share in the joke and show that he understood my plight.

He dropped the neatly folded sheets in the laundry basket, hefting it up on his hip.

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” he said.
And with that, my dad sauntered out of the room, whistling the same old song he’d been humming before.

“We have so much work to do!” Captain Superlative was already wiggling out of her downy coat, revealing the cape, swimsuit, and tights underneath.

It was bad enough she was here and wasn’t listening to me. But now she was just patronizing me. I felt my skin crawl. “I know how to open doors,” I said, my teeth grinding together.

She grabbed one comic book after another, opening to pages of monsters and demons and supervillains in brightly colored spandex, with maniacal grins and elaborate devices and thought bubbles with jagged, sharp edges.

I pulled away, uncomfortable with the closeness, with the intimacy of the question. Looking to one side, I saw Selina poke her little black face through the doorway, letting out a gentle, inquisitive mew.

“You’re a prodigy, Janey.” She sounded proud, if not a little wheezy. “You jumped right into the deep end. Without even knowing it.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll bet you get that from your father. He seems like a super-duper, first-rate sort of guy.”

What would have happened to Paige? Vignettes appeared in my mind each time I blinked. I saw Paige getting shoved headfirst into a locker. I saw Paige getting kicked with the squeaky plastic of Dagmar’s Blue Shoes. Paige curled up in tears on the floor. Or huddling in a corner of the bathroom, hugging her books to her chest, her beauty hidden by welts or bruises or swollen eyes, silently praying for the earth to open up and swallow her.

What would have happened to Paige? Vignettes appeared in my mind each time I blinked. I saw Paige getting shoved headfirst into a locker. I saw Paige getting kicked with the squeaky plastic of Dagmar’s Blue Shoes. Paige curled up in tears on the floor. Or huddling in a corner of the bathroom, hugging her books to her chest, her beauty hidden by welts or bruises or swollen eyes, silently praying for the earth to open up and swallow her.

"...If everyone said it wasn’t their place to stand up to Dagmar, then nobody would stand up to her at all. And people like Paige?” She shook her head solemnly. “They wouldn’t have a chance.”

“It doesn’t help that all the teachers love Dagmar,” she added. “It makes it feel almost impossible to tell the truth about her.” Her voice grew subdued, quiet. Normal, really. And sad. “There’s nothing worse in the world than realizing that no one can help you.”

I wasn’t sure she was talking to me. She’d gone somewhere else, somewhere inside, I think. But in the next minute, she was back again, the confidence bolstering her tone once more.

Our conspiring began over brownies, comic books, and study guides for the social-studies test.