A Guide to Being Super

Rule #6

Rule #6: Keep your parents from knowing ANYTHING. Parents freak out and ruin everything, enough said.

I should have known that something was up as soon as I woke up that morning.

By this point, I was about two weeks into my superhero training and things were going the same as ever. I'd go to school everyday, maybe go over to Dan's after school (depending if our parents were home to notice our absence or how big our homework load was), and then go home for dinner to keep our parents from getting too distracted. Then, if I hadn't gotten enough training in that afternoon, I would sneak out that night. Sometimes Rachel would come with me but usually I went alone.

This system had worked perfectly so far, neither my mom or Ron had suspected anything. But that morning, one of the few mornings I actually got to sleep in, something was off. Usually the house was filled with noises of everyone bustling around on the weekends, mostly because Rachel had no idea how to be quiet, but that morning everything was silent. And it wasn't like no one was home, everyone was home.

Of course, I didn't notice any of this. I just silently rejoiced that everyone was quiet for once and went down the hall to go to the bathroom. It was when I was leaving the bathroom that tragedy struck: my mom was waiting for me in the hall. I had just barely pulled up my pants and washed my hands when I saw her (good thing I actually washed my hands). She was waiting for me with no expression on her face, arms crossed over her chest. Everything about it screamed trouble. But I was still half asleep so I just said good morning like the idiot I was. And what did she say?

"Come downstairs," she said. Then she just walked away! That was when I finally understood that something was wrong. I considered running to my sister's room to see what was going on but my mom yelled that I should hurry up so I didn't have the time. All I could do was go downstairs.

When I got into the living room, my mom and Ron were sitting on the couch side by side. There was a single chair in front of them. My chair. The chair they would kill me in. (Not really, but let me be dramatic for a second.) They both looked up when I walked in and I sat down without saying anything. I figured that I might as well get this thing over with, whatever it turned out to be.

"Matt, we need to talk to you about something very serious," my mom said.

"Honey, we agreed that we wouldn't consider it serious until after we talked to him," Ron interjected.

"Well I think it's serious so I'm considering it serious now."

"Whatever you say. Matt, listen to your mother." You could tell that Ron was only on his first cup of coffee, he still had sleep lines around his eyes. He wasn't going to be very enthusiastic about anything until after he finished his cup.

"What's going on?" I asked.

"You know damn well what's going on," my mom snapped.

"Actually, I don't."

"Don't use that tone with me."

"Honey..." Ron said.

"Fine, I suppose he might not know what's going on."

"I'm confused," I said.

"Matt, your mother is concerned that you are not always where you say you are."

"Meanining?"

"Meaning she thinks that you're sneaking out at night to go who knows where."

"She does?"

"Yes."

"I don't think that he's sneaking out, I know, that he's sneaking out," my mom said.