Diary of a Teenage Superhero

  Chapter Fifteen

  Brodie and Dan stare at me in astonishment.

  “That’s awesome,” Dan says, his jaw dropping open. “Do it to me! Make me fly too!”

  “Hold on, hold on,” I reply. I’m about a foot off the ground and I’m already terrified. I remember that I don’t like heights. Having nothing under your feet is a disconcerting sensation. I don’t know how the astronauts handle it. There’s no way I’m taking any passengers.

  Not yet, anyway.

  Looking down, I can see the same transparent bubble under me, lifting me up off the ground. Now I focus on making it lift me even higher. Within seconds I’m about six feet off the ground and rising.

  “Pick up a rock,” I tell Brodie. “And throw it at me.”

  She picks up something about the size of a coin and hurls it at me. I form a shield and it bounces off and hits Dan on the head.

  “Ouch!”

  “Sorry.”

  So that’s how Brodie and Dan were kept safe when the guns opened fire. I formed some sort of solid wall of air between the bullets and them. The physics of it is beyond me, but even air can be compressed so tightly that it’s impenetrable.

  Air. Who would have thought it?

  I’m Air Man.

  Hmm, might work on the name.

  The sensible thing now would be to descend from my lofty perch. Instead, I can’t help but feel so elated by the experience that I want to keep going. My fear of heights seems to be evaporating by the second. I hear a sound from below and realize it’s Brodie calling to me. She looks terrified.

  “I’m okay,” I call back to her.

  She yells something out, but I can’t hear her.

  Now I work on changing my direction. I imagine a bed next to me and then I try lying on it. Well, it seems like a great idea, but instead I find I’m leaning against a wall of air.

  Okay, so then I imagine extending the platform under me. I kneel down onto it and then lay down flat. Straight down beneath me I see Dan and Brodie staring up at me in astonishment. They’re not half as surprised as I am. Or as frightened. I can feel the platform beneath me. I can even see it shimmering slightly. But I’m still floating in mid-air. It’s a strange combination of elation and terror.

  I stick out an arm over my head.

  Okay, it’s corny, but it works for Superman.

  I will myself forward. For a few seconds I think nothing’s happening. Then I realize I’m slowly moving away from the clearing. I head toward a cloud. The wind tears at me as I fly higher. It gets colder by the second. Mist whirls around me. I should be concerned, but I’m momentarily beyond fear.

  I’m flying.

  Looking down, fear comes back with a vengeance. Actually I almost die of fright. I’m so far off the ground I can no longer see Brodie and Dan. The park is a maze of shapes. Green ovals. A pond. A river. The suburbs surrounding the city are a patchwork quilt. The city rises in the distance, a cathedral of steel and glass.

  I fall.

  It happens so suddenly that I’m not aware of it for a few seconds. Then I realize the bubble that has been supporting me has disintegrated into shards. I force my eyes shut. It’s the last thing I feel like doing, but it helps me to focus. When I open my eyes again the platform has regained its integrity.

  I decide to go higher. It’s crazy because I don’t know anything about my powers. I might run out of oomph a thousand feet up, but I don’t care. My fear of heights has disappeared, replaced by an unhealthy confidence. As I zoom straight up, the air continues to get colder and thinner. There is a strong cross wind and I’ve got to say it isn’t the pleasant experience I was expecting.

  I veer toward the city.

  It would be insanity to be seen. I can imagine the headlines. Boy Spotted Flying Over City! Air force Shoots Down Flying Boy! Autopsy Reveals Drug Use! Those sort of headlines, I don’t need.

  I’m determined to stay fairly high up. I’m still hundreds of feet above the tallest buildings. I can see a number of helicopters cruising across town, but I stay well away from them. I have no intention of scaring any chopper pilots. The city below me is a complicated network of streets and unfamiliar landmarks. I don’t recognize anything at all until I catch sight of the Hudson and the East River. They start to put things into perspective.

  That’s when I hit the blimp.

  One second I’m focused on working out the relationship between the streets. In the next, I’m aware of an odd droning sound and a big silver wall cuts across in front of me. The helium filled balloon is advertising Toto’s Donuts. I slam into it at an angle and the whole thing wobbles uncontrollably. Even its engine whirrs erratically.

  Fortunately it’s automated. No one’s in the gondola that hangs beneath, but the episode is enough to makes me realize I’m acting stupidly. These things are made for people to see from ground level and I’ve positioned myself right next to it.

  Real clever.

  I zoom up higher again and follow a main arterial road out of the city. More out of luck than design I locate the park and start to descend. Once again, I find it incredibly difficult to orientate myself. Finally I see our little clearing. Dan and Brodie have taken refuge under a tree.

  I’d like to say that I gracefully descended like a God from the heavens, but that would be a lie. Actually I come in too fast at too steep an angle and I land sideways, my legs skimming along the ground for several feet. Finally the rest of my body hits the grass and I roll over several times to disperse my momentum.

  Brodie and Dan race over to me. To their credit, they don’t give me a hard time about the landing. They’re impressed I can do the flying thing at all. They help me to my feet and brush me off.

  “You should have seen Dan after you took off,” Brodie laughs. “He thought he might have a latent flying ability. He kept on leaping up and down like a jumping bean.”

  “Did you get anywhere?” I ask him.

  “Naaa,” he shakes his head. “I’m earthbound.”

  I glance at Brodie.

  “I’m a landlubber too,” she says. “But something did happen while you were away.”

  “What?”

  “I had those voices in my head again,” Dan says. He actually looks a little sick at the thought. “They were screaming again.”

  “They’re being tortured,” Brodie says. “Somehow, we’ve got to –”

  I hold up a hand. “I’ve got a plan.” On the way back down to the ground I noticed the weather was changing. Good. It will work in our favor. “We’re going back to Ravana’s building, but this time we’ll be prepared.”