Super Kid

It was the average, quiet, boring, mediocre Monday morning in the small village of Hartford, PA. It was the middle of July and we were having probably the biggest rainstorm we have had in the last 20 years. Me and my best friend, Gavin, were sitting in the back of Mr. Lynch’s math class.  Me and Gavin had the exact same schedule. That means every day we started in math class. Gavin had short brown and red hair, his hair was very raggedy like it was made out of sandpaper, but he liked that. He had bright blue eyes like cotton candy. He was shorter than I have been but had huge legs like tree trunks. He ran cross country so that’s why he had big legs. His sport was running, my sport is baseball, America’s pastime. I have been a pitcher just like my older brother Lucas. Lucas was the best pitcher for the Hartford Hearts, the high school’s team. He was so good that at every game there were at least 5 college scouts, one time a scout for the Cleveland Indians came. After the game the scout gave him an invitation to a tryout, but Lucas said no because he was still only a sophomore. I was the pitcher For the Hartford Harry’s the seventh grade team. Me and my brother would always hang out at home if he wasn’t at a practice or out with his friends. But he always seemed to make time to hang out. I really looked up to him.

    
“It was such a long game, it was twenty-two innings and it was almost eight hours long, so it didn’t end until two o’clock in the MORNING,” Gavin said with great enthusiasm
     “And they couldn’t delay the game because it was the game to qualify for the championship.” I exclaimed.
     “Yeah, I was two hours into a deep sleep, and I heard that most of the parents fell asleep too, except they fell asleep in the bleachers.’’ Me and him both chuckled simultaneously.
     “Since the game was so long almost all of the baseball players didn’t come to school today.”
     After he said that I started to think about what my brother was doing right this very minute, he might be reading, watching television, or most likely sleeping in his bed which was in the next room to mine.
      “At least we won and qualified for the state championship, I think the game is this Saturday, I wonder if my brother is going to pitch,’’ I announced as I got out a pencil I would be using for the rest of the class.
     
My favorite parts of the morning are talking to Gavin and watching the announcements. I enjoy the announcements because they look very realistic. The announcements always have one highlight from one of the previous day's extracurricular activities. Usually my brother was on it from hitting a homerun or throwing a no hitter or something like that. Plus, it was another two minutes I didn’t have to do any math. As I was pretty much running to the front of the room to get a better view of the television without missing anything It felt like my feet had kicked a tree trunk. I went soaring across the room like superman.  As I turned around to see what I had kicked I met eyes with the biggest bully in the school, Vector Vasquez, he was six foot six and had a mustache the size of a rat in a subway. He and his not so little friends broke out into a roar of laughter. I blurted out,’’ Really, was that necessary!”
    

I wanted to show Vector he wasn’t so big and bad after all. He stood up showing that he looked like a full grown pine trees and bubbled,” What are you going to do about it shorty?” Gavin probably reads my thoughts advised me to stay calm by pretending to meditate. I looked over at Mr.lynch wondering if he was going to do anything, but he was too busy playing solitaire. Pushing the thought of crushing vector like an empty can I slowly strutted up as close to the t.v. as I could without my hair popping up because of the static bouncing off the small box television.
    
The announcers started by showing a diving catch in the outfield by one of the Hartford Hearts. It was sort of funny because you could barely see the catch because it was so dark and what you could see of the players it looked like they were sleepwalking. Then the announcers said,’’ On a more serious note there was a pretty severe injury in last night varsity baseball game. Mr.Lucas Billiards,the pitcher for our team, was taken out of the game on a stretcher. We do not know the specifics of the injury all we know the ball hit him in the head.’’ Then they rambled on about the weather and what was for lunch like nothing had happened, but something had happened my brother was in serious condition and some random people knew about it before I did and I was his brother.
    
For the rest of the day in the hallway people were talking about how they feel so bad that this had to happen to him and now how are they going to win the state championship and last and probably most common, he was a good guy, they said this like he was dead, and for all I knew he was.
    
Throughout the day I had been thinking, and it made sense that he was in the hospital all night. I had been sleeping all before the game ended. I didn’t see him or my parents this morning. Right after school Gavin’s mom gave me a ride to the hospital he was at. Once I went in I asked the secretary what room he was in and she told me and  I headed in the direction of the stairs and  she looked up from her computer and informed me that his room was the other way, I gave out a groan of embarrassment and muttered,” Of course,’’ and almost sprinted in the other direction.
    
Once I got to the room, I made eye contact with my parents from which whom were sitting on two gray fold out chair across the room. They shot up from there slouchy position like they weren’t expecting me.  They both started to say something at the same time, but my dad stopped and my mom started. “ Oh, Steven, is school already out, I thought it got out at 3:30.”
    
It actually got out at 2:30 and I knew she was lying about the 3:30 time because when she said it she looked at her left wrist as if she was wearing a watch, but she wasn’t. Ignoring her lie, I looked down at Lucas and then looked back at her. I didn’t have to say anything she knew what I was thinking. “ He’s in a coma, and the doctor’s don’t know when he is going to wake up.’’
    
As I looked down at him I noticed a big purple and green bruise the size of a softball. I was looking around the room and there was a whole coffee table filled with bouquets, flowers, balloons, and billions of letters. Now it looks like a small garden. The rest of the night was filled with awkward silence. I don’t know why it was awkward, it might of been because there was an unconscious person in the middle of the room, maybe because both my parents had pretty much forgotten about me and then lied about it.
    
Around 10:30 when my mom and dad were asleep, I was gleaming at Lucas’s body thinking about all of the good memories we have had. All of a sudden a gust of wind came through the window and hit one of the small pot on the table. The pot fell over and hit the ground. It woke me up a little and I looked at Lucas expecting a reaction. He didn’t budge. This is when it occurred to me how serious this was.
    
I woke up my dad and told me to take me home. He obliged and told my mom where he was going. As soon as I got home, I went straight to my room and slipped into my bed and fell asleep.
    
The next morning when I came downstairs I was surprised to see my mom sitting at the table instead of my dad. I didn’t bother to ask why because I figured that somewhere in the night they had switched places. There was a piece of toast covered in strawberry jelly, my favorite. “Thank you.”
     “Your welcome.”
    
The rain had finally stopped and the sun was shining very bright. On the way to school, I had asked if there was any new news on how Lucas was. She kept muttering,” Well, he is going to live.”
    
It was pretty average Tuesday, except there were a lot of random people coming up to me and asking how he is doing. I started by telling the first few people the specifics and then I got tired and just told people not to worry.
    
Gavin knew the specifics obviously, except he knew well enough not to ask too many questions. Right before school ended, I told Gavin to come over around 5 o’clock, I had a big plan. He said he was looking forward to it. He lived five houses down from me so we were pretty much neighbors.
   
As I was walking home, I was thinking about the dream I had the previous night. Somehow, I was a superhero. I didn’t have powers, but that didn’t matter. When I woke up, I was wondering, who is our town’s superhero? I came to the conclusion that my brother is the real hero. Except now he will be sleeping for a couple of weeks, and we need a substitute or a reliever. That person’s name is Steven Billiards.
    
As soon as I got home, I took out one of my old costumes from Halloween, Superman! In the middle of the chest, where his symbol used to be, I sewed a patch with the letters SK has written across it. Then I cut up an old bandana and put it over my eyes so nobody would know my true identity. All of a sudden the doorbell rang. I forgot Gavin was coming over. I ran down the stairs dressed as SK, the super hero, and answered the door. Gavin’s face was pretty funny. The first thing he said was,” What are you doing?” I told him to come in and I would explain. We went to the living room and sat down. I lifted my chin and said with great confidence,” I am Hartford’s new superhero.”
      He looked sort of surprised, but I was expecting that. Then he said something I wasn’t expecting. “ Can I help?”
“ Of course.” Then he left and brought back his own costume.
    
Both of my parents were at the hospital so they didn’t care where I went and Gavin’s parents were at the movie theatre. We went out and decided the first place we went was the park. On our way there we got several strange stares. As we were walking down park street we heard a little boy shrieking. We both ran in the direction of the screaming. Once we got close enough, we saw a little boy a red sweater with yellow circles across the chest. He had yellow curly hair. He was standing right next to what seemed to be the boy's mother. They seemed to be looking under the slide. When we ran up to the adult we asked,” What seems to be the problem?” I think we startled her because she jumped up and banged her head on the slide. As soon as she caught sight of us she let out a little chuckle. When she saw how serious we were she decided to be more serious. “ My son here as lost his toy lion somewhere in the park.”
    
Without hesitation we started our search. Within five minutes we had found it under the see saw. She thanked us and the boy finally stopped crying. Everyone went home and the first day on the job was a success. We did this for several weeks. We did a lot of things that got us on to the announcements, local T.V., and the local newspaper. Nobody knew who we were still but that was intentional. They called me Super Kid because on my chest it had the letters SK. They called Gavin the Magnificent Man Child because that’s what he is. Soon we were the most recognized people in Hartford. We really enjoyed the attention while it lasted. But soon Lucas woke up from his coma, he made a speedy recovery. He missed the championship game, but somehow we still won the game.And even if he was my brother, I couldn’t tell him what I had done while he was sleeping because that was an important experience for only me.
     
Once he came back Gavin and I lost a lot of attention, but that didn’t matter because we knew that we were still doing something good. And at that the end of the day that is the only thing that matters, is knowing you are doing something good.