Aliens, Critters, and Dinosaurs

Far From Being a Super Hero

A fourth grader is not living up to his heritage -- at least not yet . . .


Writer's Cramp prompt:Only one of your body parts has Super Hero powers. What is the one part and how does it affect your every day life?

Far From Being a Super Hero

Only one of my body parts has Super Hero powers, and I guess that would be okay, especially since I have no control over changing it – except it drives me nuts. You see, it switches all the time, and so, I’m never sure what to expect.

When I need a burst of speed because the neighbor’s dog is out to taste my ankle, I hope and pray that my legs will become dynamos, but as often as not, at that moment it will be my tongue that’s spinning faster than a lawn sprinkler’s gauge, and my legs will be a fourth grader's legs -- all awkward and tripping over things.

Sometimes, I need a boost to my thinking skills so the teacher won’t write down another “F,” but, of course, that’s the day the power finds my fingernails. Then I get in trouble for clicking the desk and for making scratches on the plastic.

It just isn’t fair the way my body plays such tricks. My father, Super Man, never has this situation. He can rely on his arms to scoop him up into the sky. But what if his arms were normal one day, and it was his right toe that was super-powered? Imagine how crooked he’d look as he took off into the sky. I bet he wouldn’t be able to fly very fast. But that never happens to him – just me.

I’ve spoken of the situation to my uncle, Spider Man. We were discussing webs. But he’s never had my problem either. He says it’s totally impossible for silk to shoot out of the nose, but not so for me. Francine laughed when it happened at school. She told the teacher I was blowing my nose at her. But I wasn’t.

Then one day the silk tickled my nose so bad I sneezed, and that was enough to set off all the fire alarms. It isn’t fair that this revolving power thing keeps causing me so much trouble.

My brother says that it will all be okay by the time I reach his age. He can put out fires just by winking at them. He never had my problem. I can tell even though he won’t admit it.

What if my power never decides to stay in one place? What if I never follow the family into the Super Hero business?

Grandma and Grandpa tell me everything will be fine if I just eat more ice cream. They say that will stabilize my powers, but I ate an ice cream cone for three days -- morning, noon, and night until my tongue was half-frozen and turned bubblegum blue. You know what happened? The power ran back and forth from my knees to my hair at supersonic speeds. And it blacked-out the whole town.

My mother is Bat Woman. She says that my body’s just adjusting. I suppose she should know, but that doesn’t help me much right now. The cats float whenever I get near, and yesterday, a horse jumped into a tree. And it was all my fault because my forehead was zapping instead of my left elbow.

At school on Wednesday, the power funneled into my ear, and I heard everyone speaking at once all across the world. I couldn’t stand that. It gave me a super headache. Then the principal called me into his office just because I yelled, “Everybody be quiet!” in the middle of our school assembly.

Oh, when will my power choose which body part to stay in? How can I help anyone if an eyebrow has all my power?

I tried to workout, hoping muscles might help me, but all I developed was a super tooth that sang opera whenever I opened my mouth. That wasn’t at all what I wanted, but I thought at least that it might impress my teacher, so I ran all the way back to school, but when I got there, the tooth didn’t work because the power had slipped into my stomach.

Because my stomach was rumbling like a cement truck, the teacher thought I was starving. She got out some crackers and handed me one, but by then all the power was inside my foot, and when I stepped forward to take the cracker, I burst upwards, right through the roof. I’m afraid she wrote down another “F” in her book.

Oh, what am I going to do?

It’s the same every day. No matter what I try, I feel like I’m buzzing. Then I’m suddenly rumbling. My head spins about. My palms turn elastic. My ear sets the computer on fire. My fingers expand ‘til they’re seven feet long. Then they shrink to the size of a hair.

I’ve been pondering over these problems I have. Kryptonite isn’t my danger. Maybe I'll never find anybody to save, or things that need getting done. But, I’m awfully worried that my future looks bleak if my body keeps on fighting itself.


830 words