“Well,” he announced, “I guess I have another power: Bubble stuff.”
“Force field” Darryl corrected almost immediately. “It’s a force field.”
I stared at Jake and he grinned cheekily at me.
“Well,” I began, “Let’s hope that’s the last of many surprises.” We all nodded heartily, but Jake looked kind of disappointed.
“Hey,” he began. “Let’s have like superhero names. Ooh and costumes.” That wasn’t a bad idea and looking at the others faces I could tell they felt the same.
“So,” Darryl asked. “What are our names?” We thought about names for several minutes.
Finally, Harrison said, “Hey, remember those soda cans?” We all nodded. “Do you remember the names written on them? Like mine said ‘Magma’ and yours said something else. What about that for our names?” We all agreed.
After all, the names made sense. A bullet was super fast and barely anything can penetrate it, so Jake became Bullet. According to Darryl ‘tritor’ meant rubber in Latin. And since Darryl could stretch and was super smart, he became Dr Tritor. Harrison’s fire, flight and melting sort of powers gave him the name Magma. Personally I think my name is the coolest. Electric Eel.
Eels are water creatures and I can control and manipulate water. The electric parts makes you know I can do the same with electricity as I can with water; an overall awesome name.
The costume part was tricky, because everyone wanted to make different costumes. In the end we decided to create an identical costume for everyone. I was elected, along with Darryl to design the costumes. Darryl was chosen because he can make awesome things and can add additional touches. Like fireproof material for Harrison, waterproof material for me, and long-lasting material for Jake. I was chosen because I can make it look nice.
After one excruciating hour of work, Darryl and I entered the living room where Harrison and Jake were seated watching last night’s match.
“Hey, guys,” I said. They turned. “The costumes are ready.”
We spent the next few minutes looking at our costumes and admiring our handiwork. Then Harrison whispered something unintelligibly in Darryl’s ear. Darryl nodded and the two of them walked out of the room.
A few minutes later they returned holding four amulets. “They have speaking devices implanted in them,” Harrison informed us, holding out the amulets for us to examine. “That way we can always track the other.”
On each amulet was a different symbol. One had fire, the other had a picture of an electric eel, the other had a hammer and the last one had three lines of different sizes in a circle. Harrison handed out the amulets to us. It was no surprise that I got the electric eel. Obviously Harrison got the fire and Darryl got the hammer. But I was a little surprised by Jake’s amulet.
“The circle was supposed to represent the force field and the lines were supposed to represent speed, like in the cartoons.” Harrison explained.
“Oh.” said Jake. “ I knew that”
“Of course you did.” We all muttered under our breaths.
That night I reached out and pulled a thin pink book from under my mattress. That book held all my dearest secrets in it and I guarded it with my life.