Super Nobody (Alphas and Omegas Book 1) Page 2

  Nobody was applauding him, or screaming his name. He wasn't a hero to anybody. In those few seconds, Michael had gone from pitied target to shunned, crazy outcast.

  Chapter 2 - Super Awkward

  And that was how fifth grade ended, with him going home to his grandfather and explaining that he'd broken the e-reader and he would pay for it out of his paper route earnings. Beating the tar out of Trent Millickie had slipped his mind in the furious storm roiling in his head over the thing he enjoyed most in the world.

  He had been so looking forward to a summer of reading and reading and reading that he was physically shivering by the time he arrived at his grandfather's house.

  The house looked like every other one on the block, a tall and pointy thing that didn't seem as wide from the outside as it actually was once you got inside. The sparkling emerald grass, the blocky hedges and the slate gray, almost bluish siding on the house only made it seem like a quaint, perfect suburban gem.

  Michael's grandfather, Harold Washington, was seated where he always sat: at a rocking chair on his low porch, slowly puffing on a pipe and poring over the news on his tablet. He noticed Michael approaching and set the pipe down, tapped out some sort of code on the tablet, and put it aside too.

  He was a very old man, Michael knew that much. Grandpa didn't have any of his own teeth, just the neat rows of slightly coffee-stained dentures, and he had a little gizmo in his ear (a hearing aid, and it was the only one Michael had ever seen), and a whole bunch of liver spots. Grandpa never seemed to have a bad word to say about anybody, and he was so old and sure of himself that it seemed he didn't mind being alone all the time.

  "Well hey there kiddo," he said. It took a few more moments for Michael's condition to register. "Seems like you're a bit late. What brings...what happened? Let's get a look at that hand now."

  Michael's chest was so constricted that he was squeezing out tears when he tried to talk. Grandpa had to take hold of him and murmur quietly to him that he was going to be fine, that the world wasn't coming to an end.

  In halting, shaky breaths, Michael got out the story of his e-reader under Trent's boot, but didn't even bother with the part about the fight. As far as he was concerned, there wasn't anything else to fight about. The reader was broken and school was over. Trent and Davey and school teachers had disappeared into a sort of summer fog, where only Michael and his thoughts and the few blocks around his house existed at all.

  "Let me get this straightened out," Grandpa said. "You paid this kid twenty bucks today?"

  Michael nodded. Speaking was giving him all sorts of trouble he didn't want to deal with, so he stuck with the basics.

  "And this ain't the first time. No, I can see it ain't. You been payin him ever since you got that paper route, haven't you?"

  Michael nodded. The reproach and surprise in Grandpa's voice had clenched the fist around his chest again. He had never heard his grandfather sound angry. Ever. Then the tone softened, and Grandpa put an arm on his shoulder. Michael's guts didn't stop squirming. He couldn't get over the feeling that he'd somehow let his grandfather down.

  "You got that paper route just so you could pay him, huh?" When he nodded again, Grandpa said, "We'll just see about that. He's that little Millickie kid ain't he? Yeah. You go on inside and grab yourself a root beer."

  Michael didn't know what Grandpa was up to, but he saw the old man pick up the tablet and make a complex set of touches to the screen before he headed inside and found the IBC in the fridge. When he returned, Grandpa wasn't reading the news on the tablet, he was talking into it.

  "...he's been payin this bully twenty bucks every week or so for the whole school year. That sort of nonsense can't stand here. Specially not here. And this Millickie kid busted up library property. Well let me tell you, that snot had no idea who he was messing with."

  "Grandpa no!" Michael blurted.

  "Just have some root beer there, chief," Grandpa told him. "This fiasco's gonna be sorted out before you can get to the end of the bottle, mark me."

  Sudden terror flashed through Michael. He couldn't just let Grandpa take care of these things for him. It wasn't that Trent and his goon squad were going to beat him up every day. He could take that. It was the insults he wouldn't be able to bear. The humiliation was already spreading through him, up his ears and over his cheeks. Grandpa's boy. Gramp's little baby boy, couldn't handle himself.

  Worse than that, he didn't want Trent's little posse showing up at Grandpa's house, ever. He didn't want them toilet papering it, he didn't want them to throw rocks at it. Trent and his gang would think those sorts of things were just hilarious. He couldn't believe anyone would ever hurt his Grandpa, but he could believe Trent's gang would harass Grandpa. He'd seen a few movies where stupid kids did stupid stuff like that.

  "Please Grampa, don't," he said. Something in his tone must have struck Grandpa the right way, because he put the tablet on hold and looked up.

  "What's the matter chief?"

  "I...I hit Trent today. After he...and my hand...he had to go to the hospital."

  A couple of wheezy laughs escaped Grandpa. "That so?"

  Relief flooded through his body, and Michael realized that he wasn't in trouble after all. Grandpa wasn't disappointed in him, he was furious with Trent. Michael broke into a huge smile. "I think I broke his nose."

  "And you don't want your money back out of this turd?"

  Trent was a turd, and Michael had the sudden idea that Grandpa could, and would, flush him. He giggled, then stopped. "No...I can take care of it."

  After all, school was out and Trent was lost in the not-from-his neighborhood mist that enveloped everyone but a few kids he could have called friend until the beginning of fifth grade. Only now, he had to deliver his papers. And at the end of that route was Lily. At the end of that discussion with Lily, however terribly it was going to go, was the ache in his chest. She would never entrust him with another e-reader after this. But it had to be done, just like the papers had to go in the mailboxes and screen doors of the people who still wanted things printed on old-fashioned, get-ink-all-over-your-fingers type newsprint.

  He liked the paper route basically because he could be alive in any little universe he wanted to. Mostly these days he was walking from place to place with his nose buried in the e-reader, clicking page after page as he strolled up in his silly white bag with the bright orange, swerve-to-avoid-me trim, which was bigger than he was.

  When he didn't want to read, he could always just have phantom conversations with whoever he chose to, like Trent, or Lily, or his mom or dad. This was just as well, since he couldn't actually talk to any of them, least of all his dad. Dad was always off on some sort of business trip thing, something that took him all over the world and left him home several days a month.

  As his route neared the end, and he was coming up on the Van Buren light, Michael reviewed how the conversation with Lily was going to go. He knew it was going to start with her face all twisted up in horror, then a look of fury, and it would end with her hands on her hips.

  “Oh Michael,” she would breathe, and not in the way he wanted her to. He didn’t know how he wanted her to say it, and didn’t even know that he wanted her to say his name in a certain way. But the way it played out in his mind was a big sigh of disappointment.

  “I'm really sorry...” and his shoes were fascinating. The concrete beneath his feet was fascinating, with the irregular lumps of rock forever sunk into it like quicksand. Like that part in Jumanji.

  “Sorry won't put the screen back in the e-reader,” she would say, and maybe add a 'buster' on there. She seemed like the sort of lady who wanted to swear but always stopped herself because it wasn't proper, and it definitely wasn't proper in front of an almost sixth grader.

  “I can...I can pay you back for it,” he would say.

  “Good luck. Those things aren't cheap you know. As a matter of fact, forget about the whole thing. We'll just stop our subscription. You won't need to
come out here and possibly wreck the whole building.”

  Though he saw the conversation going another way, possibly. She would be so distraught over his hand that she would lead him back into a little office, strewn with all sorts of books, and fawn over the injury. She'd tell him how brave he was, and not to worry about the e-reader, the library was going to give him another one. No, they weren't just going to give him another one, they were going to give him a special present. An award for bravery, and a complementary e-reader with all the books he could stuff onto the thing. He would have to charge the thing's battery every day.

  And then she would look up into his eyes, and smile at him. It would be a cute, unsure smile, and then they would both realize her hand was on his knee...

  “Yuck,” he said aloud, and then realized he wasn't alone. A cyclist was relaxing nearby at the the corner of Van Buren, waiting on the light. The man gave him half an amused grin, and zipped off as soon as the light changed. Michael headed across the street and down the block toward the library, towards destiny.

  What ended up happening at the library wasn't either of the scenarios he’d thought up. Lily was waiting for him, her beautiful features pulled into a sad smile.

  “Your grandfather called a little while ago,” she said. “He told me what happened. I'm really sorry Michael.”

  He handed the reader over silently.

  “I wish I could give you another one,” she said, “but I'm all rented out right now. That kid who broke it is a real jerk, right? But you laid the smackdown on him huh?”

  “Yeah,” Michael said, embarrassed and flaming pink at the non-compliment. He shuffled his feet, wanting to stay and talk with her, but terrified of what he would say.

  “Well don't tell your mom and dad I said so,” she said, lowering her voice and looking about to make sure she wasn't overheard, “but sometimes a-holes like that Trent kid deserve to get punched right in the kisser. You did a great thing today, Michael, and you did it on your own. Great job.”

  He felt a thrill shoot through him, that she would swear in front of him. He felt all grown up for a few moments. Then she held up her hand.

  “High five,” she said.

  Oh yeah, he felt eleven again. But he gave her a high five anyway.

  He headed home after waving goodbye to Lily, and not to Grandpa's house either. Dread swept over him again as he thought of his mother's reaction to the bloody bandages wrapped around his hand. But he needn't worry about being grounded or screamed at. Apparently that was what his father was for.

  The strangeness started the minute he walked through the door. Michael's mother Susanna was the bedrock of the Washington household, the type of woman who looks like she may be made of bone china but is actually reinforced titanium with a brilliant shine. She had a razor tongue, most especially for baggers who weren't paying attention to what was going on in the supermarket, the people who sent bills in the mail, and for Michael's father. She wasn't much taller than Michael, and the common joke around the house was that when Michael hit his growth spurt she was going to be the baby of the family. Still, Susanna Washington's hips were shaped to have her fists balled on them, and her eyebrows had that soft arch that could travel up in concern, or turn wicked at any time.

  She rushed straight up to him just as soon as the front door opened, making baby noises at him.

  “Ooh, there's my widdle Michael...are you alwight?”

  “Mom, I'm not three,” he said. She ignored him, pulling up his bandaged hand and inspecting the job the school nurse had done. He could see the dressing go through the inspection process. If it wasn't up to snuff, she would be on the phone, leaking acid into the ears of his school administration. She had transformed into a demon when Mrs. Richardson had checked a mistake as right on his third grade spelling test.

  “Did they get all the glass out?”

  “Yes mother,” he whined. “I'm fine. Really.”

  “And who is this...this bully?” she spat the word.

  “He's just some kid at school.”

  “And you've given him hundreds of dollars for no good reason, is that it?”

  No, he wanted to tell her, he did it so Trent would keep smiling instead of following him home and punch him in the guts every day with his band of merry idiots. He did because the paper route wasn't difficult. It was an hour and a half a day, seventy houses and the library, and he did it because he got the chance to talk to Lily several times a week. He couldn't tell her any of that though. She wouldn't understand. Susanna Washington wasn't the sort of person who just listened and nodded. She listened while coiled, ready to get on the phone or in the car, and make someone's life miserable until she got what she wanted. Michael had worked hard at this Trent thing, and though he was sort of proud of himself for beating the snot out of him, it wasn't what he wanted to do. There were a lot of Trent's shadows around, lots of them in fifth and sixth grade. They were vicious, they liked to smash bottles and leave the shards under peoples' car tires. They liked to let the air out of the tires in the entire bike rack, and grab peoples' lunches in the morning, just so they could shake up the cokes until they burst and rocketed across the ground. Beating up Trent wouldn't put them off his scent. They would swarm him every single day after school.

  “Mom,” he sighed. She didn't understand, wouldn't understand. She wasn't built like him.

  “I'm waiting for an explanation, young man. You know perfectly well that your father and I are here for you. We put clothes on you, I feed you three meals a day. We put a roof over your head. I carried you in my body for nine months, and I will be-”

  Oh great, the nine months thing. This was her favorite guilt trip. He phased out of her rant, where she talked about feeding him and burping him and playing with him for years and years. Duh mom. Who did she expect birthed him and raised him?

  “Well young man? What do you have to say for yourself?”

  But he couldn't look at her. First of all, he didn't want to meet her eyes, see the confusion there, the hurt and the guilt. Second of all, he didn't want to have to try to explain something he just couldn't.

  He was ready to build his wall out of 'I don't knows' when his father walked through the door.

  “Dad?” he asked. He was supposed to be in Guatemala or something. Somewhere in South America.

  His father filled up the entire doorway. He was the complete opposite of his wife: he looked like a Terminator was trapped under his skin, but he couldn't argue with anybody. He was a marshmallow on the inside. He had those bright blue eyes that showed every single emotion he was feeling, and the intense brow didn't help in the slightest. His face could have been chiseled from granite, and Michael sometimes wondered where his neck had gone off to. He was dressed in a suit, which looked just wrong. Anything but construction clothes or overalls just didn't feel right, and the briefcase in his hand seemed like a toy.

  “Hey dude.” His father's eyes flickered from him to his mother and back. Worry creased his forehead, but disappeared as soon as Michael leaped up into his arms. He transferred Michael to one arm, forming a seat for his son, and put the briefcase down. Michael's head came close to brushing the ceiling.

  “What's going on? I heard you kicked some royal butt. Broke a kid's nose? Nicely done!”

  “Michael Edward Washington!” Mom shrieked. “Don't you dare put these ideas in his head. Fighting other boys at school? You must be out of your mind!”

  “Dude,” his father whispered. “Go on and hang out in your room. Turn up the music nice and loud.”

  He went, but no music. He'd never seen his mother blow a gasket like that before. She wasn't even going to stop long enough for him to get all the way upstairs and close the door. It started as soon as he was half way up.

  She swore like Davey, a nice circle of acidic words Michael had never heard from her before. “You need to pull your head out of your butt, Michael! You know your son can't be fighting.”

  “Susie...”

  “Don't you
give me that happy crap, Michael. It's not too early. There is no fighting over at that school. Not in this town. I don't care how they do it anywhere else, our son will not be a part of that. And you. Encouraging him. Like you left every speck of your brain back in whatever armpit of the world you just crawled out of.”

  “Now that's not fair,” his father said quietly.

  Michael didn't hear what came next. He strained to hear what his mother was saying, but they'd either moved out of the living room or she was whispering too quietly. He was about to head back down a few stairs when she exploded again.

  “You see if I don't!” she bellowed. “I will not stay in this place with a husband who's not really my husband, pretending everything is fine when it's not, and you're trying to blast apart the entire establishment just because you never played baseball when you were a kid.”

  “Sue, please...stop talking like that.” At first, Michael wasn't sure what he was hearing. His father's voice wasn't right. It was cracked and uneven. Then the light bulb clicked on: his father was choking down tears. “You're not being fair...”

  His mother's shrill and bitter tone carried all the way up the stairs. “Fair. Talk to me about fair. I swear to God, Michael, if you are still here when I get back, I'm going to your father's house and I'm finishing this entire farce.”

  Michael didn't know what a farce was, but it was probably another version of the D word. And it was that word, the D word, that Michael understood was the most horrible thing parents could do to each other. He didn't know what it meant really, or what the actual word was, but it seemed like it was worse than murder.

  The door slammed, and his father made a sound that Michael had never heard a grownup make before. It was half a laugh, and half a sob. And when Michael Senior appeared at the base of the stairs, Michael Junior got the biggest shock of his short life.

  His father's face was blotchy, red, and crumpled miserably. Tears poured down the normally stone face, and without thinking, Michael went down several stairs, level with his dad. Just like with his mother, Michael didn't have any words. Instead, his father just pulled him into an awkward hug under the wood railing. Michael felt several days worth of stubble against his face and neck. And the tears. In the middle of his chest, it felt as though something large and spiky was shifting around, until it reached the bottom of his stomach. It settled down there and had an uncomfortable nap.