Action Figures - Issue One: Secret Origins by Michael Bailey Read Free Book Online Page B

candy bar wrappers off the coffee table. The boy’s going to be diabetic by the time he’s old enough to vote if he keeps inhaling Milky Ways like he does.
    “I have to ask: what’s his deal? This whole super-hero thing.”
    “He’s a little mental about it, isn’t he?”
    “A little.”
    “I’ve known Matt since second grade,” Sara says, “and he’s always been like this. Most little kids, they talk about becoming cops or firefighters or astronauts when they grow up—Matt wanted to be a superhero.”
    “Because...?”
    Sara thinks for a moment, then shrugs. “Usualreasons. Helping people, making the world safer. Stuff like that.”
    “What about you?”
    “I don’t know,” she says. “Never thought about it, honestly, but what else am I going to do with my powers? It’s not like you ever hear about superhumans with boring normal day jobs. ‘Hi, I’m Carl, I’ll be cleaning your teeth today and, oh, I can teleport.’ ”
    “You could go to Vegas and do a mind-reading act,” I suggest jokingly. “Or, crazy idea here, you could be whatever you want to be and just happen to have super-powers that have nothing to do with your job. I mean, you don’t think Concorde spends his day sitting around in his costume waiting for stuff to happen, do you? Super-heroes have bills to pay too.”
    “I guess.”
    “Come on, when you were a little kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?”
    Sara chews on her bottom lip, like she’s trying to decide whether to trust me with a juicy secret she’s dying to share but afraid to spill. “I wanted to be a dancer.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah,” she says with a smile I’d have to call wistful. “My mom’s a classic musical junkie, so we were always watching stuff like Singing in the Rain and Oklahoma , and I used to sing and dance along. I still know all of Deborah Kerr’s songs and choreography from The King and I . I used to take all kinds of dance classes, took a few vocal lessons...”
    Used to. Took. Past tenses.
    “Why’d you stop?”
    Again I get a thoughtful pause and a shrug. “Mybrain went weird and I started hearing people’s thoughts.”
    “You ever think about taking it up again?”
    “Thought about it.”
    “But?”
    Pause, shrug.
    “I think you should get back into it. When you’re ready,” I add so I don’t come off as pushy, even though I want to be. Sara’s latching on to Matt’s dream because she’s lost faith in her own. Been there, done that, got the souvenir T-shirt...have yet to follow my own advice...
    “Maybe,” she says, then makes a point of showing how dedicated she is to cleaning up the living room. Okay, point taken, conversation over. For now.
    It doesn’t take long with the two of us, maybe ten minutes, but my God, the girl looks exhausted from the effort.
    “I get tired easy,” she says, then she scowls. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—my control goes to crap when I get tired. I’m sorry.”
    “It’s okay.”
    “It’s nice of you to say, but I know my power scares people. It scares everyone. Even my parents are scared of me.”
    “I’m not scared of you,” I say, and I mean it. It’s definitely strange, being around someone who can overhear your thoughts, but I don’t believe she’s doing it on purpose. To her it’s like overhearing a conversation that’s going on right next to her.
    Sara gives me a thin smile. “You will be.”
    My house is dark except for a single light in theliving room. Mom is on the couch with a nearly empty glass of wine in her hand. She’s not reading, she’s not watching TV, Granddad is nowhere to be seen.
    “Hi, honey,” she says. She doesn’t sound drunk, so that’s good, but I’ve always heard it’s never good news when people drink alone. “How was the homework session?”
    “Homework happened,” I say. “The lasagna was a huge hit. Especially with Stuart.”
    “Stuart?”
    I join her on the couch. “One of the guys who was there. He