Blog of a Teenage Superhero

Chapter Eighteen: Roadtrip of Dead Ends (And the One and Only Tessa Kingston)

Sometimes a faux superhero gets desperate. From the mayor's thin leather booklet and the deranged red-inked scribblings, I find a little information. Superhero names slashed through. Red Comet. X'd. Black Ice. X'd. All the superhero names I can pull off the top of my head, x'd, x'd, x'd.

When I flip the page, 'Crown City' is printed in neat script at the top of the brown sheet, and the only name scrawled is 'Guardian.'

"Hey, Kai," I say, swiveling around on the carpet. Last night, a new twinge of pain flared in my side,  and that means Dad's making me sit this day out. It also means my friends are skipping for "moral support," though I doubt my marrow or muscle tissue care, and I doubt "Making good ol' Mo feel better" is their only motive.

"Hmm?" He's flipping through a torn comic, flopped on his stomach with his ankles criss-crossed in the air. One lock of hair is twisted around his forefinger.

"Can I borrow your car?"

He rolls over on his back. "Why?"

"To drive to Crown City?"

"No."

"No?"

"No." His eyes have gone wide and he's dropped the comic, clutching his hands to his chest. "That's, like, a hundred miles inland. Please don't make me give it to you. You already broke my car once."

"Fine." I rub my face, smearing my nose with red ink. "Finn, do you know who Guardian is?"

"Pshaw." He's chewing the wireframe of his glasses, tapping at his phone with his pinkie. The greasy remnants of a burrito lie half-wrapped in tinfoil on his lap. "And you call yourself a reporter. He's only Crown City's greatest superhero."

"Crown City has superheroes?"

Finn curls up his lip and throws back his head like an overaggressive show-pony, blonde hair flying out, green eyes rolling like marbles. He finishes the burrito, crosses the library, and flings the door open in one huff, because that's just the guy he is. 

But I know enough. My mind is churning. Another superhero. Another vault of possible answers. I bolt into my room despite the crushing pain and shove a change of clothes, my costume, and a book in my canvas bag. I'll be there for a few hours, I decide. I'll talk to Guardian, warn him, maybe learn what the heck is going on. The crying with Percy has eased my apprehension; I feel better. Even though my ribs sting, I can finally breathe.

"Monet?" Kai sways to his feet as I race toward the open door. His black eyes flutter innocently, the comic pressed against his chest. "You're leaving me alone, too?"

"If you don't see me in the next forty-eight hours, file a missing person report."

"Huh?"

I slam the door shut, drawing in puffs of the fresh ocean breeze, already speeding toward the nearest bus stop.

***

Twenty bucks can take you pretty far if you know how to spend them. In other words, I take the nearest bus. My eyelids half shut, my face pressed into the window pane, I watch as the lights expand and the buildings draw farther up and up and up. Silver Dollar is no city. It's a patchwork of shanty houses by the seashore that calls itself a city, but Crown is the real deal. Even when I lived inland I never saw such sights, towers so high they cut the clouds. As the sun creeps to its zenith in the noon sky, I swing off the bus with nowhere to go and no place to sleep.

And no plan. I had two hours at least to think of one, but I didn't. I got nothing, except to stand in a back alley and wait for someone to press a gun to my face, but even that might not work. I don't know how busy this Guardian is. I mean, I know I don't stop muggings—which I need to get on chop chop, now that I think of it. I'd hate to steal his attention from someone who needs it.