Superhero Squad Read online

  Mum and I have both been trying to work out for ages what my extra skill might be. I was hoping it would be something like being able to fly, but I tried jumping from one sofa to the other last week and ended up falling flat on my face.

  “You’ve got this warmth,” Mum had said, when I asked her for the billionth time when my extra powers were going to start showing. “I don’t know, Aurora, I can’t explain it. There’s something special about you, which I can’t put my finger on yet. You just dazzle everyone.”

  Which sounds like one of those parenting cop-outs if you ask me.

  Anyway, as cool as it is that Mum can run quick as a flash, it’s kind of annoying when she leaves before you can finish your sentence.

  “Aurora, there you are,” Georgie said, bustling through the door. She was holding up a dress on a hanger in one hand and a pretty top in the other, with a pair of jeans slung over her elbow. “I’ve just come from wardrobe. These are the options I’ve picked out for you. What do you think?”

  “Uh…” I glanced from one to the other. “I prefer the jeans.”

  “I agree,” Georgie said in her most grown-up voice, handing them over to me. “They’re very you. Throw these on and then they can get your microphone sorted.”

  “Aurora, are you ready to come through?” Jennifer asked, poking her head round the door as I finished getting dressed.

  “She’s almost there,” Georgie informed her, tweaking the sleeves of the top, before standing back to get a good look.

  “Cool trainers!” Jennifer grinned, admiring the glitter on my Lightning Girl shoes.

  When Georgie was satisfied with my look, I followed Jennifer into the main studio, gawping at the cameras dotted EVERYWHERE around the room.

  “Why do they need so many?” I asked Kizzy, swallowing the lump in my throat.

  “To get different angles. Just ignore the cameras and focus on having a nice chat with the presenters.”

  Kizzy giggled and nodded towards a corner of the studio. Suzie was doing a handstand in front of the presenter Susannah Reid, who was clapping enthusiastically.

  “It’s so easy!” Suzie told her. “You want to try? I can teach you if you like.”

  There was a loud cackle from the other side of the studio, where Fred was standing with one of the props team.

  “Ever since we got here, Fred and the Head of Props have been sharing tips with each other about how best to play pranks. Fred just showed me his backpack and it is now full of bottles of fake blood,” Kizzy said, rolling her eyes. “And Georgie is busy in the costume department.”

  “I’m aware. The Bright Sparks seem to have taken over the show.”

  Kizzy grinned. “Speaking of which,” she said, pulling some headphones on, “Jennifer has appointed me an honorary producer, so I better get into position. You head over to the sofa and they’ll get your mic ready.”

  Feeling like a dazed child, while all my friends were completely in control, I wandered over to the cream sofa and sat down, waiting patiently as the sound woman fiddled with the wires of my microphone, attaching it carefully to my top.

  I was a bit starstruck when Susannah Reid and Piers Morgan swanned over to shake my hand and sit down on the sofa with me. I had seen them so many times on television, it felt weird to have them here right in front of me in person. I suddenly felt really shy, but they were very nice and funny, telling me how excited they were to have me on the show.

  I was just trying to form the words to say how pleased I was to be there, when suddenly the lights changed, the cameras swung to face us, and everyone seemed to be busy, rushing around doing last-minute checks. Someone was standing in front of me, giving me an overview about how the interview would play out but I couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying and then they didn’t have time to repeat any of it.

  My hands were becoming very clammy.

  “Are … are we about to go on?” I asked timidly as Piers Morgan finished some vocal exercises.

  “Aaaaaaaaand,” a loud voice boomed across the studio floor, “three … two … one … ACTION!”

  Sitting behind the cameras, Kizzy gave me a big thumbs-up as the show started and I was introduced as “the amazing Lightning Girl, the nation’s favourite superhero.”

  The mixture of nerves and tiredness made me feel as though I was on auto-pilot, attempting to mirror the presenters’ warm smiles. I felt a bit dizzy under the bright studio lighting as I tried my best to concentrate on their questions, wondering how they could possibly be so natural with all the red lights of the cameras blinking at them. I kept tripping over my words awkwardly and repeating myself, forgetting what I’d already said.

  I didn’t have to look at Kizzy’s face to know that this interview was not going very well.

  “So, when you’re ready…” Susannah Reid smiled, looking at me expectantly.

  I’d been too distracted to hear the question.

  “S … sorry?”

  “In your own time,” Piers nodded. “We can’t wait to see these superpowers in person.”

  “Oh.” I glanced at Kizzy in a panic. “I … uh…”

  “It’s perfectly natural to be nervous.” Susannah chuckled, gesturing at the row of cameras. “You can imagine what it’s like trying to remember which one to look at!” She smiled at me warmly. “Whenever you’re ready, Lightning Girl.”

  The whole studio was silent, watching me expectantly. I felt bad going against what Mum had asked but at the same time, I couldn’t NOT do it now. It was live television. It felt like the whole world was watching me.

  “OK.” I nodded.

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, lifting my palms.

  It all happened very fast.

  I only meant to bring out a soft light beam. I’ve done it a hundred times before.

  But I couldn’t focus properly. The studio lights were too bright, my eyelids were too heavy and my head was too muddled with nerves. I mustered all the energy I had left into shooting out the light beams, but I had no energy left to control it.

  As I lifted my hands, it was as though the full force of my power came exploding out of them. The energy blast whooshed across the studio so powerfully, it was as though a lightning storm swept through the room.

  The producers and cameras crashed to the ground, glass shattering everywhere, and the main sofas tumbled backwards, sending myself and the presenters flying across the studio floor.

  I curled myself up in a ball and the light blast vanished. My hands tingled with heat, a spark every now and then shooting from each fingertip. I cautiously sat up, looking around me in horror at the devastated studio.

  Susannah Reid appeared from behind the upside-down sofa. Her hair was frazzling.

  “Uh … thank you very much for joining us, Lightning Girl,” she said, plastering a smile on her face as she directed her remarks towards a camera lying sideways on the floor, its red light still blinking. “We’ll be right back after this quick break.”

  4

  There was a knock on my door.

  “Aurora?”

  I heard the door open and Alexis’s footsteps as he walked over to my bed. He prodded me gently through the duvet. I didn’t respond, curling up tighter into a ball.

  “Aurora,” he said, nudging me again.

  I still didn’t say anything.

  Nothing happened, so I thought he had given up and was leaving my room but instead there was a long pause before my cosy duvet was yanked away from me.

  “HEY!” I cried out, grappling to take it back as Alexis held it out of my reach triumphantly and then threw it to the other side of the room.

  “You have to get out of bed. It’s five p.m.”

  “Go away, Alexis,” I grumbled, hugging my knees to my chest.

  “You’ve spent two days hiding away in your room. You can’t do the same today.”

  “It’s none of your business. I can stay here all day if I want to. You shut yourself in your bedroom all the time and you LIVE
in your smelly pyjamas.”

  “Yeah, but I’m the eldest and a legend, so I can do whatever I want. Plus, I’m not hiding from anything like you are.”

  I frowned. “Give me back my duvet and leave me alone.”

  “Nope, not going to happen.” He yawned, checking his phone. “I’m not leaving this room until you’re up.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why are you being so annoying?”

  “Mostly because it’s fun to annoy you. Your ears do this funny twitching thing when you’re annoyed.”

  My hands flew to my ears. “They do not!”

  “Yeah, they do. Why else do you think I always hide your shoes? Dad and I have a bet on about whether or not your ears will twitch when you come and ask us if we’ve seen them.”

  “WHAT? You and Dad have a bet about my ears? And I always thought it was Kimmy who was hiding my shoes!”

  He shrugged. “Guilty.”

  “Ugh,” I said, picking up my pillow and throwing it at him. “You are the WORST.”

  “But also a genius,” he said, and grinned. “So, are you going to go take a shower or what? Because no offence, but you’re not looking your best.”

  “Seriously, why did Mum send you to try and lure me out of my room?!” I asked. “You are not very good at this.”

  “Mum didn’t send me. I took on this challenge myself out of the goodness of my heart.”

  I sighed. “Please can I have my duvet back? I’m freezing.”

  “No, you cannot. If you want to get warm, you’ll have to get up and shower and then get dressed. Sorry,” he shrugged, “those are my rules.”

  “Have you forgotten the time you stayed in your room for THREE DAYS? Dad had to leave meals outside your door!”

  Alexis smiled smugly. “That was for a VERY important project. I was hacking into some top-secret software and every second mattered. You, on the other hand, are sulking.”

  “I’m not sulking,” I muttered. “I’m just…”

  “Feeling sorry for yourself?” He raised his eyebrows. “You almost destroyed a television studio and took out famous presenters live on air. So what? You should be used to embarrassing yourself by now. Have you met you?”

  I threw my other pillow at him as he laughed at his HILARIOUS joke.

  “Come on, Aurora,” he coaxed. “It will blow over.”

  “It will NOT blow over. It hasn’t blown over. Every time I go online, it’s there, plastered across all the video channels with thousands of comments all about how I’m the worst superhero ever.”

  “Nah, not all of the comments say that.”

  I looked at him hopefully. “Really?”

  “Sure. Some of the comments are about how bad you are at interviews. Oh and there’s a couple about your hair. It didn’t look its best after the light beam explosion to be fair. The frazzled look, if you will…”

  “ALEXIS!”

  “Who cares what people are saying?” He laughed, dodging the biro I threw at his head, now I’d run out of pillows. “They don’t know you. You shouldn’t read those comments anyway.”

  My bedroom door swung open and Clara appeared in the doorway holding a stack of books.

  “Hey, Mum and Dad mentioned you still won’t leave your room,” she said, coming in and plonking the pile on to my bedside table, knocking all my stuff off it in the process. “I thought these might cheer you up.”

  “The Complete Guide to Physical and Theoretical Chemistry,” I said, reading the title across one of the spines aloud. “This is what you’ve brought to cheer me up?”

  She blinked. “It works for me.”

  “Oh. Well. Thanks. I guess. That’s very … thoughtful of you, Clara.”

  She nodded and then glanced around my room before wrinkling her nose. “What’s that smell?”

  “That would be Aurora,” Alexis answered gravely.

  “I see.”

  “HEY! OK, FINE, I haven’t had a shower today … or yesterday … but it is NOT that bad and you’re both very annoying and PLEASE can you leave my room!” I instructed, pointing at the door. “Leave me to wallow in peace, ALONE!”

  “Actually, psychological studies have shown that isolation is unhealthy,” Clara said matter-of-factly, climbing up on to my bed to sit cross-legged next to Alexis. “Perhaps you would like to discuss your feeling of failure?”

  I buried my head in my hands. “WHY didn’t I get NORMAL siblings?”

  “Oh, yeah, we’re the abnormal ones.” Alexis snorted. “You literally shoot beams of light out of your hands.”

  He had a point. But, still.

  “So,” Clara prompted, “do you want to talk about it?”

  I let out a long sigh. “Not really. There’s not much to say. I let everyone down and now there’s press surrounding my house, bothering my family, and I’m a total national embarrassment.”

  “International,” Alexis corrected, winking at me.

  I nodded glumly. “Right. International embarrassment. I don’t deserve to be Lightning Girl.”

  “Says who?”

  “Says the world, Alexis.” I felt hot tears prickle behind my eyes. “Everyone thought I was someone I’m not. And now they’ve seen the truth.”

  Clara reached out and took my hand in her little one. “You’re the best big sister in the world. That’s who I think you are.”

  “Exactly,” Alexis agreed, as I smiled gratefully at Clara. “You can’t let yourself get down about what everyone else thinks of you. All that matters is what I think of you, because, let’s face it, I’m the most important person on the planet. And I think that there’s obviously room for improvement, but when it comes down to it” – he grinned mischievously – “you’re not too bad.”

  I giggled, wiping my eyes with my pyjama sleeves.

  “Hey,” Alexis said, nudging Clara, “did she just laugh?”

  “Yep, she DEFINITELY just laughed.”

  “Dad owes me a fiver.”

  When I looked at him quizzically, Clara explained. “Alexis bet that he could make you laugh and leave your room by the end of the day. Dad thought you were too sad and you might need more space.”

  “I’m not sure I really had a choice about having some space for a bit longer,” I commented, looking at them pointedly. “But, I’m a little bit glad you barged in. Just a little bit.”

  “I know you’re upset, Aurora, but nobody thinks it’s your fault,” Clara said. “And Alexis promised that you could pick the film if you came downstairs for a family movie night.”

  “Did I?” He sighed. “Oh well, I’m a man of my word, so I guess I’ll just go with it.”

  “Dad said we can have whatever you want for dinner,” Clara continued. “And we won’t talk about what happened unless you want to. So, will you come downstairs?”

  I hesitated. “All right, then.”

  “Yes!” Alexis punched the air. “Dad owes me another fiver.”

  He jumped off the bed and went to leave the room.

  “Oh, and not to rub it in or anything, sis,” he said, as he got to the door, “but if you could bathe that would be great. Otherwise you’ll have to sit in the dog bed with Kimmy for the movie. We don’t want to have to Febreeze the sofa afterwards.”

  “He’s only joking,” Clara assured me as he disappeared down the stairs. “He may not show it, but he does have your back. Mum says he’s been really worried about you.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said dismissively, reaching for my laptop and pulling it up on to my knee.

  “I’ll go ask Mum and Dad to put on the popcorn,” Clara said cheerily, sliding off the bed. “They’ll be so pleased you’re going to join us.”

  “Sounds good,” I said, frowning at my computer screen as I refreshed the internet page I’d been on. “Hey, that’s weird.”

  “What is?” Clara asked, stopping in the doorway.

  “I just went online to see how many YouTube views the video of me on Good Morning Britain has. I just tried refreshing the page but i
t’s not working. It just says content not available.”

  Clara watched me curiously as I typed my name into the search engine and scrolled down the results.

  “I can’t find the video anywhere,” I told her in confusion. “It’s just … disappeared from the Internet! How is this possible?!”

  “It’s like I said,” Clara said, smiling knowingly. “Alexis has your back.”

  I stared open-mouthed at her as she left the room. I tried finding the Good Morning Britain footage one last time on YouTube but the same message appeared: content unavailable.

  Grateful tears filled my eyes as I shut the lid of my laptop and swung my legs out of bed to head to the shower, suddenly feeling a little better than I did before.

  I guess I’m OK with not having normal siblings, after all.

  5

  I woke up the next day to find an ostrich staring at me.

  “Alfred!” I screamed, batting away his beak as he started pecking curiously at my pyjamas. “When will you learn about personal space?”

  Wearing denim dungarees, he strutted to the other side of the room to start rifling through my wardrobe. I slumped back on to my pillows and pulled the duvet over my head. If Alfred was here, that only meant one thing.

  “Aurora?” a voice trilled up the stairs. “Are you up?”

  “No,” I called back.

  “Hello, darling!”

  My bedroom door swung open and Aunt Lucinda stood in the frame, dressed head-to-toe in 1960s disco gear. Mum’s twin sister was very eccentric in every possible way, including her fashion decisions and choice of sidekick.

  None of us know why she decided on a grumpy, fashion-conscious pet ostrich, but they never went anywhere without each other. Despite his tendency to steal things and create mischief, Alfred had been key in stopping Mr Mercury getting away with the Light of the World, so I tried not to let it annoy me that he’d ripped up my dressing gown last time he was here.

  And I tried not to let it annoy me that he was currently pecking at the lenses of my new sunglasses.

  And had now cracked them.