The Superpower Project by Paul Bristow Read Free Book Online

freed itself from the rubble and was crashing towards them, bringing beams and rubble down with it.
    â€œCome on!” Megan hauled at TJ’s metal arm, pleading with him to move, but she could not budge him.
    Then, something was beside her, pulling at TJ’s other arm with the same urgency. She turned to look into the eyes of a huge silverback gorilla. It grinned at her and continued pulling.
    Trying very hard not to panic and fly away, despite the kind of day it had turned into, Megan pulled too. Finally the three of them tumbled back down the steel steps of the fire escape and out onto the streets.
    The building collapsed further in on itself (like the flan Cam made in home economics last month) then burst into flames (like the flan Cam made in home economics last week).
    Resilience was having trouble standing up under the crumbling wreckage, but it was still slowly moving torwards them. Next to Megan, TJ lay crumpled, sparkling and fizzing in a puddle.
    â€œWe have to get away!” Megan yelled towards where she’d left Cam – but he was gone.
    There was a tremendous thud and a crack, then another. Megan looked back to see that the gorilla had returned to smash Resilience with one of the girders. There was a massive square dent in the side of Resilience’s pyramid head as it crashed, at last, to the ground.
    Panicking, Megan scanned the area. She knew Cam wouldn’t have run off without her. She glanced back at the building, terrified that he might have run back in without her noticing.
    Megan turned to TJ, who was still fizzing. “Where’s Cam? Did you see him?”
    TJ didn’t speak, but a low growl from over by Resilience made Megan realise that, in addition to a broken sculpture and a collapsed building, she had another problem to deal with: What do you do with an escaped gorilla?
    The big animal was now curled amid the rubble. Maybe it was hurt? Megan was fairly sure that ‘Do not approach the gorilla as it may be dangerous’ was the usual advice in these situations. So why was she walking towards it?
    I can fly away – straight up if I need to,
she kept thinking to herself.
    Curiously, as she drew closer, the great beast seemed to shrink. Its thick black hair receded until there was no gorilla, only the awkwardly crouching body of a boy. He turned to Megan and grinned wonkily.
    â€œYou never told me you could fly,” Cam said.

Chapter 12.
Ways and Means
    Just for a moment, Cam seemed to enjoy having the upper hand. He smiled.
    Megan stared, open-mouthed and stunned. And then she punched Cam very hard on the arm. “You were a gorilla!”
    â€œI know,” said Cam, rubbing his arm. “I’m not one now though.”
    â€œHow were you a gorilla?”
    â€œI… can change into animals.”
    Megan had known Cam since they were three years old. She saw him every single day. How had she not known? “That’s… that’s really weird Cam.”
    â€œSo’s being able to fly. Or having a pet robot.”
    â€œHow do you do it?” she asked.
    â€œI’m not actually sure how it works yet,” explained Cam. “I can only do a few, and one of those is hamster. How do you fly?”
    Megan had trouble explaining this to herself, so she had no idea how to tell someone else. “It’s a bit like… the ground and everything else is falling, but I’m standing still. And I just… let it all fall.”
    â€œIt looked really cool.”
    â€œWell, you were an endangered species. Cam this is amazing. I’ve been keeping this a secret for months. I thought I was going to burst!”
    Cam nodded. “I was going to tell my dad, but he’s quite allergic to animals. Except snakes. But I can’t do snakes.”
    â€œI don’t know how, but my gran knew,” said Megan. “She left me a note with the map. TJ said she could fly too!”
    â€œYour gran could fly?