Super by Matthew Cody Page A

Hook’s
JollyRoger
had been wrecked upon the branches of two great trees.
    Eric and Mollie were perched in the crow’s nest, waving as Daniel approached, and he spotted Rohan in the topmost window, his face in a book. Rohan wasn’t a flier, but he would have been the first to arrive, regardless. He was just like that. His powers meant that he was easily distracted, but though he might not know where he was at any given time, he always got there early.
    Once inside, before any official business could be sorted out, each Super had to sit through Rose’s story of how she had surprised Daniel. She told it to everyone, individually, and each time a new detail appeared. By the time she got to Mollie, Rose had Daniel screaming like a girl and running away. While everyone else rolled their eyes at Rose’s little embellishments, Mollie simply nodded, and said, “Yep. Sounds like Daniel.”
    The Supers ran their meetings informally, and really only Rohan and Eric still insisted they be called meetings at all. Not too long ago, they had opened each meeting with a reading of the Rules—a set of commandments supposedly handed down from the first superhero, Johnny Noble. But Daniel had discovered that the Rules had actually been planted by the Shroud as a way of controlling the Supers. He’d used fear and a false history to keep the kids in line.
    Since that discovery, the Rules had been abandoned, and now each meeting began with a simple
hello
.
    “Hi, everyone,” said Daniel. “Thanks for coming.”
    Daniel cleared his throat as he talked. The Supers were spread out before him, sitting on old beanbags, crates, or rugs on the floor. Even speaking in front a group of friends gave him a small case of the jitters. Louisa and Rose were up front, and Louisa’s staring wasn’t making it any easier on Daniel’s nerves. So he chose to focus on Eric in the back, who gave him a supportive thumbs-up. The two hadn’t talked about Daniel’s powers problem since yesterday, and Daniel wasn’t planning on bringing it up here either. He’d called them together for another reason altogether.
    “So, uh,” began Daniel, “I guess you already know that we’ve got a new kid in Noble’s Green and that he’s a Plunkett.”
    “Plunketts are bad,” said Rose. “They’re scary.”
    “Shh,” said Louisa. “Let him finish.”
    “That’s okay, Louisa. Yeah, Rose, Herman Plunkett was scary. But this isn’t Herman. It’s his grandnephew, Theo.”
    Mollie stuck her tongue out at this and started to say something, but Eric caught the move out of the corner of his eye and kicked the crate she was sitting on. Mollie, faster than lightning, must’ve thumped him, because one minute Eric was grinning and the next he was rubbing his nose, which was already turning an angry red. Eric liked to keep the meetings orderly, but this earned him more than the occasional punch from Mollie.
    “We don’t have any reason to believe that Theo is as dangerous as his uncle was,” said Daniel, pausing for effect. “But he is dangerous.”
    That got their attention.
    “But you were defending him yesterday!” said Eric.
    “That was yesterday morning. He stopped by for a visit later that afternoon, and I now think that he could pose a serious problem. He’s onto us. I think it’s only a matter of time before he finds out about the Supers.”
    The room was quiet while he told them about their trip back to the Tangle Creek Bridge. As he talked, he knew they were all thinking the same thing, because they all shared the same fear—if their secret got out, there was no telling what might happen. Men in black cars coming to take them away, scientists who would want to study them like lab rats. Daniel had to be careful not to create a panic. He knew he needed to be a bit dramatic, if for no other reason than to get them to be serious for ten seconds, but he also didn’t want this to get out of hand. Theo was a Plunkett, but he wasn’t the Shroud.
    Luckily,