Biking to school the next day, I met up with Eva and James in the parking lot, just as they were being dropped off by Eva’s mom. Eva and James had been neighbors all their lives and they usually came to school together. They lived about five miles from the school, in the Royal Oaks community. I’m not sure how royal it was, but it did actually have some nice oak trees. I lived two miles from school, in the opposite direction, in the Aspen Ridge community. No aspens, no ridge. It did sound nice though; always made me want to go skiing. Not that I’ve ever skied before, but it was fun to daydream about it in August, when the heat was melting you into a puddle and just breathing made you sweat.
We said our hello’s and talked about our weekends. I was dying to tell them about yesterday and my new ability, but I didn’t. Before finally falling asleep last night, I decided that I was going to keep it a secret for now. Of course, that decision didn’t mean that keeping quiet would be easy. Except for two topics, Eva and I shared our lives freely with each other. We never discussed any intimate details of her relationship with James and we never discussed my mother. The former because I didn’t want to know the details and the latter because mom’s disappearance was a sore spot for me.
With exams coming up, most of the classes this week were review classes or designated study sessions, where you study whatever you wanted, as long as you kept quiet, and the teacher was available to answer any question. I spent my time reading my book and texting with Eva. Lunch came and went and then we were all in History class. Mr. Chandler was a pretty decent teacher. He couldn’t make history fun, but he did try to connect it to present day if he could. I really liked his lesson explaining how colonialism and triangle trade let to the creation of suburban malls or how McDonald’s, with a little help from President Ronald Reagan, totally destroyed the old Soviet Republic.
With 15 minutes left in class, Mr. Chandler cleared his throat to get our attention. “As this is our last class together this year, I just wanted to take a few minutes to talk about next year’s Economics class. For some of you, I’ll be your teacher for Economics. Others will have Mrs. Dawson or Mr. Rigel. However, all of you will be participating in the Junior Stock-picking competition.” James, Eva and I turned to look at each other and nodded affirmation. This was not new to us. James told us all about it a few months ago.
“In the past, students have told me that this contest was the highlight of their year.” Laughter from the class caused him to backtrack, “Well, one student told me that, but I’m sure that others felt the same way. In any case, it can be a lot of fun, if you take it seriously. Many of you complain that much of what you learn in school doesn’t have any use for you in real life. This competition will help prepare you for real life. You’ll all be starting with a budget, you’ll set goals, you’ll research companies and you’ll purchase stock, from the teacher, and you’ll keep track of your portfolio to see how you’re doing. The contest runs all year and trades can be made on Monday to Friday when the American markets are open. You’ll make trades by emailing your teacher a trade order and the trade will be recorded as having taken place 15 minutes after time of the email. To make things interesting, the top ten students with the most amount of money at the end of May will get to drop their lowest test score of the year and the top three students will get cash prizes. O’Donnell and Sons Financial Services has graciously agreed to donate a total of $6,000 to our grand prize winners. First place gets $3000, second $2000 and third $1000. They’ll also be providing the tracking software that you’ll be using to track your trades.”
Mr. Chandler let that sink in and continued, “We’ve been having this competition for 22 years now and I’ve seen students try all sorts of strategies. Some students barely put any energy into it, choosing to pick some blue-chip stocks and sit on them all year. Some students decide to trust to luck and get into penny stocks, where they can win or lose big very quickly. However, the ones who have consistently excelled at this competition are those who not only spend a few hours a week doing research on the companies that they invest in, but also look at history to better understand where that company’s industry has been and where it seems to be going. At the very least, those students that put in real effort into this competition will learn a lot in an environment where they have nothing to lose. On that note, I hope you all have a wonderful summer. I’ll be fishing! Class dismissed.”
We packed up our books and filed out of class. “What do we have next?”, I asked James. “Nothing! Mrs. Pataski sent an email a few minutes ago. Free study period in the library. I think she’s taking the rest of the week off. We had our Biology test last week and she knows there’s no point in having any more classes. Everyone’s in summer mode already. Are we still meeting up at Conrad’s after school?”
Conrad’s was short for Conrad’s Comix, our local purveyor of all things superhero. I liked comics and I knew all the mainstream heroes, but James and Eva were super-nerds. They would have long arguments about which superhero would win in a fight and they would spend hours hunting down and reading rare comic books from all over the world. Although they were both ‘purists’ and insisted that physical comic books were the best, comic book torrent sites and comic book apps had let them seriously up their game. James was working on finalizing his archive of every comic book ever created by both Marvel and DC, as well as a bunch of other lesser-known publishers.
“Sure! I’ll take the batmo-bike there.”, I answered. James groaned, “That was lame, Abby.” I grinned. It was fun teasing James about comic related stuff. He took it all so seriously. Then again, he took most things seriously. He had a sense of humor but felt that there was a time and place for it. I never could figure out exactly when he made time for it though.
Going to Conrad’s meant that I was in for at least an hour of geek time with the super-duo, but sometimes you have to make some sacrifices for your friends. Besides, I don’t know if I would have even met James and Eva if it weren’t for comics, so I figured I was just paying back a debt to comics in general.
In our first week of middle school, I sat down in the cafeteria in the table next to theirs. I had just transferred to Edmund’s from across town and I was still getting used to the new school. I was alone, trying to read my book, but their insistent voices kept distracting me. They were having a heated discussion and I stopped trying to read and looked at them. Eva was a pretty girl, with her long brown hair up in a ponytail and was dressed in track pants, a t-shirt and sneakers. She looked ready to go play soccer. James didn’t look sporty at all. He was dressed in slacker casual; jeans and a hoodie, with shaggy black hair and although he didn’t look like he had an ounce of fat on him, he didn’t seem to have an ounce of muscle either. He was cute, in a geeky kind of way. Suddenly, Eva turned around to me and asked, “I need your help to settle an argument. Can you please tell James here that Wonder Woman is a way better hero than Batman?!”.
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Despite being taken completely off guard by the topic, my comic book education at the hands of Uncle Magnum finally came in handy. “Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by better. They’re very different. Batman doesn’t really have any powers at all, yet he keeps up with everyone else who does. He uses his brain, and his money, to make up for his lack of powers and he’s incredibly focused. Sometimes you see him leading the team, even though he’s the physically weakest member, because he’s organized and has the planning and resources that they need to win. But he’s not fun. He’s not someone you want to hang around with. He’s kind of scary really. Meanwhile, Wonder Woman is like a force of nature. She’s super strong and she kicks ass. She doesn’t take any shit from anyone. At the same time, she’s genuine and caring and someone that you’d love to meet. She’s a real role model for women everywhere. She inspires people. But she’s not subtle. She won’t knock you out from behind. She attacks head on.” I took a breath and finished, “So it depends on what kind of hero you want, really. One that sneaks up on the enemy from behind or one that will bust down the enemy’s door?”
I remember Eva and James just staring at me for a bit and then Eva turned to James and said, “See, I told you that Wonder Woman was better!” and then she invited me to join them and we talked about superheroes for the rest of lunch. Neither Eva nor James ever won their debates, but we all had a good time anyways.
A few week after that first meeting, sitting with the two of them at lunch again, I reached into my schoolbag and gave them each a wrapped gift. “What this for?”, Eva asked me as she ripped open her gift. She pulled out two matching metal arm bracers. Each bracer was about six inches long and was embossed with the Wonder Woman logo. “Oh my God! These are beautiful. Where did you find them?” She put the bracers on and started pretending to block bullets. “I didn’t. I made them. Open up yours James.” James was busy staring at Eva being Wonder Woman. “James? Hello?”, I called him back to reality and he opened up his present. “I wanted to make you something that you could wear, like I did for Eva, but I couldn’t think of anything as cool as the bracers, so I decided to make two things for you. It’s fair, I suppose, because Eva did get two bracers.” James wasn’t saying anything. He was looking at the metal belt buckle with the embossed Batman design that I’d made him and then he picked up the Batarang. He was just quietly staring at them and so I blathered on, “The Batarang can actually be thrown. It’s weighted evenly so that it’ll spin properly while in the air and I can sharpen up the sides, if you want to try it on a target.” I wound down and James said, “These are incredible! Thank you.”
“Seriously, Abby. These really are awesome.” Eva agreed, “How did you make these and why?”.
“Well, my dad’s a blacksmith and I’ve been helping him since I was little. He mostly works on big art pieces these days, when he’s not teaching, but he’s taught me a lot over the years. I don’t think that I’ll ever be the artist that he is, but I can make some decent jewelry pieces and even knives. I got the designs from the internet and dad helped me with some of the trickier parts of the bracers and the Batarang. Anyways, I had some time in the shop and I wanted to make you guys something. I didn’t know anyone at this school when I got here, and you guys included me as if we’d been friends forever. This is my thank you to you.”
“So, you’re an actual smith, like your last name suggests? It’s not just an alias? You’re not in witness protection?” James asked slyly. I think he wanted to diffuse the mushiness of the moment.
“Yes, my last name really is Smith. My dad’s parents were farmers, but his great grandfather was a real blacksmith. That’s where the name comes from. My dad never liked farming, but he liked fixing things around the farm. One day he needed a new door hinge for the barn door and my grandmother insisted that it match the ones already there. The hinge was a custom-made part so he drove over 150 miles to the closest blacksmith he could find and he fell in love with the trade. He apprenticed with the blacksmith, Ted Robertson, for several years before he came back here and started his own shop.”
“Well, these gifts are great. I’m going to wear the belt buckle every day and I will ask you to sharpen this Batarang. I just need to figure out where I can start practicing”. James and Eva started talking about the best places in the backyard to set up. We’ve been best friends ever since.
James still wore his belt buckle every day. Eva wore her bracers on special occasions, like when James took her out. Over the years, I’d re-sharpened the Batarang dozens of times for James. I’d even made him a few more so that he could make several throws before he had to get them from the target. He was getting really good with them. He could hit what he was aiming almost every time and usually withing an inch of his chosen target.
At Conrad’s, I curled up on the comic couch reading my book, while James and Eva checked out the latest arrivals. Apparently, there wasn’t much to get excited about, and 30 minutes later we were sharing a pizza at Big Julie’s Pizzeria just down the street. With Mr. Chandler’s earlier talk of the Stock picking competition, it was no big surprise that James was talking about his ‘Justice Foundation’. A year before I met James, his uncle had some lands that he wanted to develop stolen from him by the state. His life savings had been tied up in that land, but the city council was trying to get some grants from the state and they had agreed to build a low income housing project as part of the deal. When James’ uncle refused to sell the land, the city had the state appropriate the land under ‘eminent domain’ laws and totally shafted him. He ended up with a fraction of the value of the land and he couldn’t afford the lawyers to fight against the state. The only ones that offered to help James’ uncle were a group of non-profit lawyers. They filed some paperwork for him, but with their low level of experience and massive workload, there wasn’t much they could do for him. James’ ‘Foundation’ idea came out of the experience of watching his uncle get run over by the system. James had no interest in becoming a lawyer, but he wanted to help people like his uncle fight the system. His dream was to create a foundation that would review cases like his uncles’ and fight for them. The foundation would have experience lawyers who were well paid and had the resources they needed to win. For that, James needed a lot of money.
Initially, James was planning on starting his own non-profit charity, but after taking a look at other charities he realized that it would be a tough sell to many philanthropists. After all, his charity wouldn’t be curing infants of disease or feeding the hungry. The people that he wanted to fight for often lost their life savings, but they were still healthy and so they didn’t get the same level of sympathy. James simply wanted some justice for those stepped on by the government and to do that he realized that he’d have to self fund his foundation or gain the trust of many high-net-worth individuals whom he could convince to fund this dream.
Looking at his interests, math and computers, James managed to narrow his career path to the financial services sector. He wasn’t sure exactly how it would play out, but he was convinced that’s what he needed to focus on. That’s why this competition was so important. For him, it was a trial balloon for his future.