Somehow, Emma made it through the rest of swim practice without any more gleek-sneeze fireballs or levitation. When they did their long warmup swim, she’d contemplated what Ollie had said about having a developmental disorder being like having asthma. She didn’t know if she bought it. Her frustration sloughed off as she glided through the water. The easy rhythm of the swim relaxed her.
She made it through the workout and then it was time for sprints. They spread out across the pool, leaving their normal lane assignments to sprint with those in their lane. She, Sebastian, and the others in the fast lane fanned out across the blocks on all eight lanes of the pool, Sebastian to her right and Ollie to her left.
Emma dove, terrified she’d reveal herself as a super by flying instead, but nothing happened. She pushed hard, her arms and legs working together, moving in perfect harmony. Her feet churned the water and she zipped across the pool. She nearly kept up with Sebastian and left Ollie and the other girls in the dust.
The sprints left her feeling strong and ready to take on the world. Maybe Ollie was right. Despite her asthma, Emma was athletic. She just had to use her inhaler first.
After the last sprint, she swam a slow fifty breast. But when she pulled herself out of the water, Emma caught sight of Hannah’s pink Escalade parked in the bus turnout lane.
Leaning against the passenger door, Hannah glared at her watch. She looked bitchy and perfect in her jog skirt with not a hair out of place in her bun.
Emma groaned. Monday night meant dinner at Aunt Beth’s.
“How come swim practice always runs late and track never does?” Hannah hollered from the bus turnout, so the whole swim team could hear as they climbed out of the water.
No way could Emma get out of the family dinner. She couldn’t argue she didn’t feel good since Hannah had just seen her do her best sprints ever. Besides, that would be a lie.
Emma wrapped a towel around her waist, then pulled off her cap and goggles. Her eyes felt like they were bugging out of her head from the sudden lack of pressure. “I’ve got to get my things from the locker room and grab my bike. I’ll be right out.” Emma practically ran around the pool, not wanting to draw any more attention to herself. She changed into her dry sweats and threw a towel around her hair. Hannah didn’t appreciate getting any water on her leather seats.
Sebastian unlocked his bike beside her, a smile on his face, and a duffle bag slung across his shoulders. “Need any help with your stuff?”
“No, I got it,” Emma said. “Stupid family dinner tonight.”
“Gotcha.”
Emma’s cold fingers fumbled with the key for her bike lock. Ollie had already taken off since she could just pull sweats over her wet swimsuit and jog the block or so to her house. Most of the other kids caught rides home after practice or even drove themselves. Neither Sebastian or Emma were so lucky most days. Not to mention riding with Hannah was the opposite of lucky.
“That tree catching fire was crazy,” Sebastian said. “I can’t believe no one saw what happened.”
Emma grunted noncommittally and the lock sprung open. “See you tomorrow.” Emma left Sebastian as he climbed onto his bike. Feeling super awkward, Emma pushed her own bike to Hannah’s car with her backpack slung over one shoulder, the duffel bag over the other.
Hannah stared at Emma from top to bottom, taking in Emma’s baggy sweats, flip-flops, and the towel wrapped around her hair. “You’re such a mess.” Hannah made no offer to help as Emma tried to get her bike into the back of the oversized SUV.
Emma wanted to tell Hannah to stuff it and she’d bike home like she always did. But if she did that, she’d wind up in trouble for making Hannah wait for nothing.
When Emma finally managed to lift the bike up into the back of the Escalade, the towel fell off her head and into the gutter. She wanted to scream but was afraid another gleek-sneeze would come out and another blast of whatever-the-hell that fire had been. Besides, Hannah wouldn’t take that and Emma suspected she’d drive off with the bike, leaving Emma to walk the three miles home.
Emma just clenched her mouth shut and dropped the duffel bag beside the bike. She put her hair back in the towel, grabbed the extra dry towel, and headed to the passenger door, where Hannah waited to inspect her to make sure that she wasn’t too wet to get into the car.
“I suppose you’re dry enough.” Hannah stopped blocking Emma’s door and headed to the driver’s seat. “Just put some dry towels down.”
Hannah started driving even before Emma shut her door, forcing Emma to slam it. She buckled herself in as fast as she could.
“How’s Kyle?” Emma asked, not really caring about the answer. She shivered, despite the warm night. With her wet hair and Hannah having the AC turned up to high, she was freezing.
“Don’t give me that crap. You’re failing English and now you’re dropping out of band, and you’re getting a second chance to do your project. What gives?”
Emma gaped. Of course Hannah knew. Hannah wasn’t stupid, and she also knew that Emma wasn’t getting failed out.
“I—”
Ms. Ngo had told her the perfect lie, but she wasn’t a liar. Could she say it? Ms. Ngo said it wasn’t technically a lie because the program was just for her, the only orphan at the school. “They’re taking me into a special program for orphans.” The words tasted dirty on Emma’s tongue.
“Oh, so Nan pulled the orphan card and now you’re getting off scott free even though you didn’t do your project. That’s rich.”
“That’s not exactly what happened.” Emma shook her head, trying to find words. The words already felt dirty, but she sure didn’t need Hannah knowing she was broken. Autistic.
“Bull. The rest of us work our butts off so you can just skate through because Nan raises hell. You just say, ‘Poor me. I’m an orphan,’ and boom, all of a sudden you get a whole class period extra to work on your freshman project.”
Emma kept her mouth shut. What could she say that wouldn’t be a lie? What could she say that would stop Hannah from haranguing on her?
“You’re an orphan, but your parents died when we were kids. Do you even remember them?”
Emma shook her head. She wasn’t sure what were real memories and what were just impressions she’d gotten from the stories Nan told her. She wished she could really remember her parents. Nan talked so highly of her mom and, while Nan was clearly not the biggest fan of her dad, even he seemed like a fairytale.
If only they were still alive and were raising her instead of Nan. Maybe this whole fail thing wouldn’t have happened.
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“Of course not. You were just four.”
Emma didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want this conversation. She didn’t know what it meant to be autistic—just that her parents and everyone else had decided she wasn’t normal. The school shrink, Ms. Range, Mr. Wale, Ms. Ngo all believed it. Ms. Range was nice about it. Ms. Ngo seemed to be. Emma wasn’t sure about her yet.
Mr. Attwood had been playing with his phone through half the meeting. Not on it, just touching it, putting it away, taking it out.
Emma stared at the goosebumps on her arm. “I’m cold.”
“Are you even listening to me?” Hannah stopped a bit too hard at the stop sign on Woodson Road.
On the other side of the freeway, they’d pass her trailer, then head around the corner to Hannah’s side of the winery. The rich side. And Emma would be stuck at another awkward dinner. Aunt Beth would ask her about school, and Emma would start talking about what they were learning, then everyone would tune her out or ask her to shut up, or Aunt Beth would interrupt her and ask if any boys had asked her to the dance. Hannah would go to prom with Kyle of course.
“Are you?” Hannah asked again.
“Yeah. I guess.” Emma picked at her nails again. She drew the nail of one thumb under the nails on her opposite hand, cleaning out the gunk.
“You get this free ride on so many things because you’re an orphan. You might be smart on paper, but you are just so weird all the time.”
“Hannah, no more please.” She couldn’t do this anymore. She was already shutting down. If she wasn’t careful, she might lose control again like she had that afternoon. Words started to play keep away, and she didn’t need another sneeze-gleek of fire.
What a stupid superpower. It wasn’t like the comics at all. She sprayed something from under her tongue and something else through her nose, making something like Greek fire—two chemicals that when mixed ignited.
“What? Is this conversation bothering you?” Hannah asked. “Not like you feel anything anyway.”
“Stop saying that,” Emma shouted. “I have feelings!” To distract herself, Emma looked out the window, staring at the grape vines—staring at the holes between the rows of grape vines and the angles they seemed to shoot off from each other. The main row straight down the middle and angling out in companion rows.
It would be better if she could turn off like a robot.
“Do you?” Hannah glanced at her. “You never act like it.”
Emma didn’t say anything. Instead, she focused on breathing slow and steady through her nose. She kept her mouth clamped shut. What could she say to that? How could she defend herself? Of course she had feelings. She was human after all.
When Hannah finally parked at the end of the long driveway, Emma bolted from the car. She yanked her bike and bags out of the back, then leaned the bike against one of the thick white columns supporting the balcony. She lugged her heavy bags inside. Hair in a towel again, Emma checked she wasn’t dripping on the marble entryway, but she was good.
How dare Hannah talk to her like that? Saying Emma got to pull the orphan card for no good reason when Hannah lived in a mansion like this. Emma’s house was nothing but an old worker’s trailer on the edge of Hannah’s parents’ winery.
Emma stared up at the double staircases heading toward each wing of the giant house and shook her head, at least she didn’t have to climb those—though now, if no one was around, maybe she could try levitating up them.
No. No. No. She couldn’t use her powers. She had to hide them.
She ground her teeth and discovered the ache in her jaw had disappeared. The sneeze-gleek fire-blasts had cleared away the pain that had been building all week.
Nan and Aunt Beth’s voices echoed from the living room of the enormous house. Emma prayed Nan hadn’t told Beth about her diagnosis and everything that had happened that day. She stumbled out of the entryway and into the living room, weighed down by her duffel bag and her backpack full of textbooks.
Nan wore a shirt bedazzled with a glass of wine, some grapes, and the words, "Wine me up!" on it. Emma blinked, trying to reconcile this shirt with the woman who was so anti-alcohol she had taught Emma to hurry down the cheese aisle in the store because the other side had alcohol and someone might think they were going to buy it or maybe the alcohol would jump into their cart and make them drink it, Emma wasn’t sure which.
“I like your shirt, Nan,” Emma said. She knew her grandmother liked sparkly things, but the wine shirt just didn’t make sense on her.
“Thanks! I think it’s so pretty, don’t you?”
Had Nan even read the shirt? The most she’d ever seen Nan drink was half a glass at a wedding they’d gone to for Nan’s great-niece.
“Hello, girls,” Aunt Beth said. “Dinner’s ready and waiting.”
“We’d have been here earlier if swim practice let out on time.” Hannah stood behind her with just her backpack slung over one shoulder, still looking perfect.
“Sorry.” Emma shrugged as her duffel bag started playing Ollie’s ringtone.
“Ignore it,” Aunt Beth said. “Let’s eat before dinner gets cold.”
Emma carefully set her bags down next to the enormous leather couch and followed her family into the dinette. On Mondays, they didn’t eat in the formal dining room. That was for special occasions, like Thanksgiving, Christmas, or when Aunt Beth hosted some ridiculous dinner where Emma never knew how to behave or what to say, and Hannah always seemed to be everyone’s favorite.
The hightop marble table was already set with four plates of salad.
Perfect Hannah seemed to deflate at that. “Dad’s not here.”
It was half question, half statement. Three weeks in a row now, Uncle Nathan had missed the Monday family dinner.
Emma felt a little bad for her. Hannah gave Emma such a hard time about not remembering her parents, but half the time, Uncle Nathan worked late.
“He’s still working on the case of that kid who got shot last month in Dredgetown.” Aunt Beth sat in her customary seat. “What was his name?”
“Jamal Robinson?” Emma climbed up onto the tall chair. She hated eating at this table, not just because it felt pretentious to eat so high up, but because her feet dangled, and the chair was too narrow sit on. By the end of the meal, her knees always hurt. At least she’d be the one to go get the plates out of the oven and then later the desserts from the fridge.
“That’s the one. They think he might be the judge on that case, if it gets that far.” Aunt Beth waited for everyone to sit before starting to eat her salad.
“That’s a high-profile case,” Nan said, picking up her fork. “Does he really want to be involved in it?”
“Not like he has a choice.” Beth shrugged. “He’d rather drop it since that Valerie Virgo keeps harassing their office about it.”
Hannah stared down at the salad on her plate as if she didn’t eat like this every night, as if her mother weren’t the most perfect housewife ever with a maid to help her keep up the house during the day. They only lacked a full-time live-in servant.
“Hannah, don’t hunch darling,” Beth said, her own back ramrod straight.
Emma’s phone rang again from the other room. Emma closed her eyes and groaned.
“What’s wrong?” Nan asked.
“It’s Ollie. This tree at swim practice caught fire, and she probably wants to—”
“What? A fire?” Nan asked. “After our meet—”
“Yeah. It was crazy.” Emma cut off Nan before she could talk bring up Emma storming out of the meeting. She didn’t want Aunt Beth or Hannah knowing about her diagnosis. “Out there in Honda Hills. Right in front of me and Ollie, the turn-around oak just burst into flames.”
“Someone lit it on fire?” Aunt Beth leaned forward.
Even Hannah stared at Emma, wide-eyed.
“We didn’t see anyone other than swimmers, and I don’t think anyone would do that on purpose.” Not a lie. Just, not answering the question.
“Maybe someone left a cigarette,” Nan said, “and the ash caught the tree on fire. It happens.”
“Or one of those supers did it,” Hannah perked up now that the conversation had turned away from her absent father. “Maybe you didn’t see them because they were invisible.”
“I think the supers are just a hoax,” Aunt Beth said.
“I hope so,” Nan put down her fork. “That sort of thing is fine in the movies, but we don’t need a bunch of freaks running around, setting fire to things, and causing problems.”
Emma choked on a bit of spinach. She started coughing. Her phone rang again. Nan thumped her on the back, and Emma grabbed her water. Eyes watering, she chugged it.
“What happened?” Nan’s mouth pinched.
“Spinach got me.” Once in a while, when Beth got the baby spinach, the long stems choked Emma.
Before, Emma hadn’t wanted to use her powers again because she’d felt so out of control. But, now, with Nan being so anti-superhero, she definitely couldn’t use her powers. First, Nan wouldn’t accept her because she was autistic and now because of this? Nan was the only person she had left. “Can I go text Ollie to stop calling me? Otherwise my phone’s just going to keep ringing all through dinner.”
She’d have to talk about the superhero thing with Ollie later.