see it for real."
Jack nodded, silently.
"We've got to at least try..."
"You're right," Jack agreed. He looked up at his mother, his sister, and the triplets. "What do you guys say?"
"Oh, we're all for it," Ethan said, speaking for himself and his brothers, who nodded in full agreement.
"Honey, this is entirely up to you," Alison said to her son. "I know your dad would have loved to see the day you got into Hero High."
"It would be awesome," Rosie approved.
Jack smiled and pulled his little sister near for a hug. "Yeah, it would be, wouldn't it? Well, how about first thing tomorrow, I call Audrey."
Ethan, Ty and Caleb punched the air and whooped.
Bella couldn't help herself: she hugged an unsuspecting Jack tightly and squealed.
"This next week is going to be fantastic!" she declared.
4
Audrey's heart skipped a few beats when her phone rang.
She glanced, sideways, from the passenger seat at Rust.
He rolled his eyes. "Just answer it," he said.
Audrey knew he didn't share her excitement. She knew he was probably praying the phone would never ring so he wouldn't have to deal with the kids, with the global director... with the human race.
Grappling with the phone to flip it open, she shakily pressed the little green button.
Audrey resumed her professional manner. "Hello?" she said.
"We'll do it," Jack said, resolutely.
If Audrey had been driving, she would have stomped on the brake pedal out of sheer delight.
Holding the schoolgirl squeal inside, Audrey smiled, though the teenager couldn't see it.
"I'll send you the necessary details via email," Audrey informed, professionally. "Thank you," she said before ending the call.
She couldn't hold it inside any longer. She punched the air and squealed. "Floor it, Rust," she said, electricity flooding her veins. "We're getting the team together!"
Rust sighed. As if getting disturbed at a late hour, shot in the leg with a tranquilizer dart, kidnapped and threatened into training teenagers wasn't bad enough; he also had to put up with a bipolar college graduate.
Jack didn't know how Audrey knew his email address, but within an hour, the electronic letter arrived.
It simply contained a brief thank you note, a map of the state, with one freeway in particular highlighted, and a town enthusiastically circled in red marker.
Then Audrey attached a concise description of what had been arranged and what was left for the kids to do.
I have highlighted the town in which the school is located, the email read. I have booked accommodation for you, so as not to overcomplicate matters. The West Coast Motel, situated just off the freeway. I have booked enough rooms for everyone. Take care, and we hope to see you soon.
Audrey Jones
Everything after the reading of the email happened so fast, no one can actually remember it in detail.
They spent the rest of their Saturday explaining what was happening to Bella's family and the triplets' parents, arranging various things and packing the jeep.
After a long two hour parent conference, it was decided that Alison would go along (Rosie, too).
Alison would take care of the kids and make sure everything was under control.
Then, it was just figuring out who was going to drive which vehicle. Summer Valley was a good six-hour drive from Crashton.
Eventually, it was decided that Ethan, Ty and Caleb would take turns driving the jeep, Alison would drive with Bella and Rosie in the little maroon Toyota and Jack would follow on his motorcycle.
They agreed to meet up with each other at every gas station, for safety.
By Sunday morning, they were off.
It was fun, riding along the open freeway, the summer air rushing in through the open windows, the radio playing a good driving song and everyone singing along.
Town gave way to countryside. On one side of the road, you could see the ocean, and on the other side, undisturbed woodland.
They stopped, at least once every two hours, at a gas station and met up with each other.
Bella, the last teenager of the lot still on a learner's permit, didn't drive as much as the others. However, she did give Alison a break at the halfway mark.
It was dark by the time they arrived at the West Coast Motel.
Audrey had booked two rooms: one for the triplets and Jack, another for Alison, Rosie and Bella.
The motel was modest and neat, literally just off the freeway, next to a diner and a gas station.
The rooms were just the right size, not cramped at all and right across the hall from each other.
The rooms each had four, neatly made single beds; a bathroom; a two-seater couch in front of a small TV; a closet with a safe bolted into the floor; a small kitchen equipped with a kettle, a toaster, a small stove and a short fridge.
But the first thing Caleb noticed...
"Whoa, cool! They gave us seashell shaped soaps!"
Rosie rolled her eyes and joined the excitable teen. "Silly... they didn't just give us seashell shaped soaps... they also gave us fish shaped ones!"
Alison flopped backwards, landing perfectly on a bed, claiming it as her own. "Who's making dinner?" she said, "because I refuse to even move."
"We'll just get something from the diner," Bella offered. "We can walk there. Who's coming?"
Caleb and Rosie were too busy playing with soaps and towels to respond, let alone listen.
"We'll come," Jack said, speaking for himself, Ethan and Ty; the only ones not engrossed in mucking about with complimentary motel items.
5
Sleeping that night was hard. Besides Alison and Rosie, who slept like kittens, no one slept for more than five hours.
Bella glowed, faintly, light from the headlights of cars driving along the freeway flashing through the thin curtains and darting across the room.
She was used to noise at nighttime. She had six brothers and sisters, five younger than her. Over the years, she couldn't remember a single night when a baby wasn't crying.
She sighed. The whole upheaval hadn't sunk in completely yet, but she was beginning to miss her crazy house.
As she closed her eyes, she could see, hear and smell the commotion she was so used to living in.
Eighteen-year-old Mark playing drums on her bedroom door to wake her up in the morning, thirteen-year-old Amos reading quietly on the couch, ten-year-old Josephine playing dolls with Rosie, eight-year-old Irene attempting to help their mother with the cooking and cleaning, and four-year-old Cody sneaking worms into baby Timothy's crib, making him squeal.
Bella, in all honesty, had no idea how long this was going to take. Of course, she was going to see them again. This was not going to last forever.
And as much as she missed her family, the very thought of learning and training at Hero High was enough to get her heart racing.
Tomorrow was going to be exciting... she could feel it.
Everyone was up at the crack of dawn and in the girls' room, sitting around the small kitchen table, eating toast and leftovers from the night before, as no one had been able to do grocery shopping yet.
Audrey had included in the email a highlighted route to the school as well as the simple line: Be there by eight-thirty.
"Okay, so you five are off to Hero High," Alison said, narrating the day to come. "I think I'm just going to hang back here, get settled in. Rosie, anything in particular you want to do?"
Instantly, Rosie whipped a tourist guide out her pocket. "Well, I was thinking..."
Jack laughed and ruffled his sister's short chestnut-brown hair. "Sounds like you're going to have fun," he said, smiling at his mother, who rolled her eyes good-naturedly.
Jack checked his watch. "We better get a move on or we're going to be late."
The teenagers hurriedly swallowed the rest of their breakfast, glugged down the remaining orange juice and darted
out the house.
Excitement buzzed inside the jeep as the five teenagers scrambled to buckle their seat belts and get going.
Eight minutes and they were there, parking the metallic blue jeep in a parking lot filled with normal, everyday cars.
That was the first thing the teenagers noticed when they stood, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the large, metallic letters spelling out "Summer Valley High School."
The place was so normal looking.
It was your standard high school structure: double storey with cream-coloured bricks, large windows, big double doors and concrete steps. It was neat and tidy, but not sterile. A gardener was mowing the lawns as students tramped across it, oblivious to his hard work.
The teenagers were the same as anywhere else: milling around in their jeans, skirts, shorts and colourful T-shirts or summer dresses.
If you had simply stumbled upon this place by sheer accident, you would never know that the greatest heroes in the world had trained at this very school.
"This must be the place," Jack said, referring back to the printed map in his hands.
"Here goes a big, fat nothing," Bella said, the first one brave enough to take a step forward. The boys followed and together, the five of them walked up the concrete steps and into their new school.
Blue lockers lined the hallways, a large message board dominated one whole wall by the entrance, a handful of teachers congregated around a water fountain and the corridors were littered with teenagers laughing, chatting, running around and mucking about before class.
However, the "normal" impression ended there.
The five teenagers were barely five feet across the threshold when two girls flew past, flying like jet planes and kicking up stray papers into the air, making Bella's curly brown locks