IT WAS A Thursday in October, early afternoon. Normally at this time, Colin Wagner would be hiding behind the boy sitting in front of him, because Thursday afternoons were what his teacher liked to call "Discussion Time". This was when Mr Stone would pick a topic he found interesting and do his very best to make sure that none of the students would ever find it interesting again.
The previous week, Mr Stone had shown them a five-minute video about how birds build their nests and then proceeded to lead the class in a discussion about birds, nests and why he believed that starlings were more evil than magpies. But today, for a change, Mr Stone had picked an interesting topic.
Today they were talking about Mystery Day.
Mr Stone waited until everyone had settled down, then said, "So... Tomorrow it's Mystery Day, exactly ten years since the disappearance of all the superheroes. When this all started, nine years ago on the first anniversary, it was supposed to be a day of remembrance. But somehow over the years it's turned into a bloody holiday! So instead of the heroes being honoured for giving up their lives, we get balloons and parties, and people setting up stalls at the side of the road to sell knock-off Titan action figures and T-shirts."
Mr Stone picked up his newspaper and showed it to the class. "See this?" He pointed to the headline, which read, "Where Are They Now? A Decade Without Heroes."
He picked up his chalk and began to write on the blackboard.
Titan, he wrote, and underlined it twice. Poder-meninas, he wrote next, but he only underlined that once. He followed that with a series of other names: Paragon, Apex, Impervia, Thalamus, Thunder, Inferno, Energy, Quantum and Zephyr.
Then he picked up his red chalk and wrote Ragnarök. Underneath that he wrote Rayboy, The Glyph, Terrain, The Shark, Slaughter, Dioxin and Brawn.
"Right..." Mr Stone turned around to face the classroom. "Superheroes," he said, pointing to the words written in white. "And supervillains." He tapped at the words in red. "Who were they? Where did they come from? Where did they get their powers?"
"Nobody knows, Sir," Colin said.
"Weren't the powers inherited?" Brian McDonald suggested.
"That would certainly explain The High Command: Max, Josh and Roz Dalton," Mr Stone said.
Malcolm O'Neill put up his hand. "I heard they all came from another planet."
"Speculation," Mr Stone said. "Pure speculation. Let's just stick to the facts, shall we? Their capabilities. Their powers and strengths. Titan, who could fly and had the strength of a hundred men. Energy had the ability to absorb and then release almost any kind of energy. It's said that Quantum could move so fast he was easily able to out-run a super-sonic jet. Ten years ago at least twenty-five superheroes and upwards of a hundred villains were involved in a battle just east of Pittsburgh. Ragnarök's huge battle-tank caused massive destruction as it rumbled towards New York City. Three whole towns had to be evacuated. There are reports of a huge explosion and then... nothing. So what happened to the superheroes? Colin?"
"They disappeared, sir."
The teacher nodded. "Disappeared. Vanished. Where to? Danny?"
"Nobody knows," Danny Cooper replied. "But it wasn't just the heroes who disappeared. The villains did too. There weren't any bodies were found in the wreckage. It was probably all covered up by the government."
"They went back to their home planet," Malcolm O'Neill said.
Adam Gilmore laughed. "Give it a rest, Mal! They were probably just vaporised in the explosion!"
"They can't have been," Colin said. "Brawn or Impervia would have survived any explosion. Energy could have absorbed the blast. Quantum could have just out-run it."
"Right," Danny Cooper said. "Max Dalton and the rest of The High Command survived."
"Yeah, but they weren't there," Adam said.
Mr Stone said, "Mr Gilmore raises an interesting point. Despite what some witness claim, the official word is that the Daltons were not present during the attack. As far as we know, they are the only superhumans to have survived Mystery Day. Every other superhuman - whether or not they were present during Ragnarök's attack - has disappeared." He shrugged. "Tonight Max Dalton will give his first interview in ten years. The first time he's ever spoken in public since he retired." The teacher walked around to the front of his desk and leaned back against it. "Anyone want to guess what he's going to say?"
Danny said, "He might explain everything about what happened on Mystery Day."
Brian turned around to look at Malcolm O'Neill. "Hey, Mal! Maybe he's going to tell us that he's going to take you back to your home planet!"
Everyone laughed at that, then Mr Stone said, "Right, Brian... You've just won the right to set today's homework for the rest of the class."
"Seriously?"
"Why not?"
Brian glanced around the room. Every other boy was staring at him with the same expression, doing their best to send Brian the same telepathic message; make this easy on us or you're a dead man!
Under his breath, Colin muttered, "No homework! No homework!"
The teacher said, "Mr McDonald?"
"I think that for our homework we should all have a good think about what it would have been like to be a superhero."
"A good think?"
"Yep," Brian said, nodding vigorously.
"Perfect. You all have a good think about it and then, when you're done thinking, write down those thoughts in the form of an essay."
Everyone groaned. Someone shouted, "Oh, well done Brian!"
"It won't be that bad," Mr Stone said. "There's no school tomorrow, so you have a three-day weekend in which to get it done. Four pages should be enough. And I want normal-sized paper, too! No more essays written on bloody Post-It notes!"
 

*
 

Colin, Danny and Brian lived in different areas of the town, and every day they followed the same "going home" ritual; they would walk together until they reached the north-west corner of the park, then Colin would go east, Danny would go north to the apartment blocks and Brian would go west. As always, however, they spent an hour or so sitting on the low wall, chatting, arguing and watching out for flash cars or good-looking girls.
It was while they were doing this, sheltering from the rain under the park's enormous pine trees that overhung the path, that Brian spotted his younger sister approaching on her bike, doing her best to cycle around the puddles.
"Hey, here comes your girlfriend, Danny," Brian said.
"Oh, ha ha," Danny replied.
They watched as Susie wobbled her way towards them and stopped right in front of Danny. "Hi, Danny!"
Danny muttered a greeting, but deliberately avoided looking her in the eye.
"What do you want?" Brian asked her.
"Mummy says you're to come home now and stop dawdling."
"Does she really?"
"Yes."
Brian thought about this. "OK... I'll race you. You on the bike and me running."
Susie wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to show off in front of Danny. "OK then."
"I'll even give you a head start," Brian said. "I'll let you get as far as the end of the road."
She eyed him suspiciously. "No. You'll cheat or something."
Brian tried to look innocent. "Cheat? Me? Never! Danny will vouch for me, won't you, Dan?"
"Sure," Danny said, reluctantly.
With that, Susie tore off down the road, pedalling like mad.
Brian watched her go. "Sucker." He turned to the others. "Pretty cool about the homework, isn't it? A lot better than maths or geography."
"Couldn't you have come up with something easier?" Colin asked.
"It wasn't my fault! I didn't think he'd make us do an essay!"
"I'm going to pick Thalamus," Danny said. "He's my third favourite after Titan and Paragon."
"So why not do Paragon, then?" Brian asked.
"Because he's everyone's second favourite. What about you?"
"Thunder."
Danny laughed. "He's the one with the dumbest powers! Power over rain! What use is that? You never hear stories about how he managed to use his abilities to do anything other than make a loud bang or cause a sudden downpour! Why not pick Apex? He was pretty cool."
"Yeah, but no one knows much about him," Colin said.
"That's what makes him a good choice."
Brian said, "Well, maybe you think that Thunder is a bad choice, Danny, but I've got a few ideas to make it work. Who are you going to choose, Col?"
Colin shrugged. "I don't know... I'll probably end up forgetting again and doing it when I'm having my breakfast on Monday morning." He grinned. "I seem to work better when my Dad is standing in front of me telling me over and over that I shouldn't put things off until the last minute."
"You could always write it from the point of view of one of the villains," Brian suggested.
Danny raised his eyes in disgust. "Brian, you're a moron! He said we have to write about one of the heroes, didn't he?"
"Yeah, he did. But look at it like this... Suppose that, say, Ragnarök thought that he was a hero."
Colin looked up at this. "Yeah, he always believed he was doing the right thing."
Danny nodded. "That's true, but let's face it; Ragnarök was a complete nutter. How the hell could robbing banks and holding the world to ransom be anything but the work of a villain? If you do evil things you're still evil - no matter what the reason."
They fell silent as they spotted a quartet of girls wearing the uniforms of St Mary's.
One of the girls glanced at them as she passed. "Hi Danny!"
Danny was taken aback. "Er... Hi, um..."
"Judy," Brian whispered.
"Hi Julie!" Danny said.
The girl gave him a filthy look and hurried a little to catch up with her friends.
Brian thumped Danny on the arm. "You idiot! I said Judy, not Julie!"
Danny rubbed his arm. "How was I to know? I've never even seen her before!"
Brian said, "Danny, two weeks ago she spent an hour listening to you going on about how Manchester City were the greatest football team in the world. She was all over you!"
"That was her?"
"How do you do it?" Brian asked. He got up from the wall, pushed back his sleeves and held out his bare arms. "Look at that! I've got muscles! Everyone knows that girls like muscles, but this lanky git gets more action than both of us combined!"
Danny said, "Maybe they go for quality over quantity."
Brian sighed, shook his head, and sat down again. "So what time's the party tomorrow night, Col?"
"About eight," Like many people, Colin's parents always threw a party for Mystery Day. For Colin's mother, it was really just an excuse for a family get-together. Sometimes Colin felt that his parents only wanted the party so that they could embarrass him in front of his cousins. "You're definitely coming, then?"
"Yeah, but... right, here's the thing, OK? My folks are going out and they said it's going to be hard to find a baby-sitter for Susie. So they asked me to ask you if she could come to your party."
"I'm sure my folks won't mind. And she'll be able to keep my little cousins busy."
"Speak of the devil..." Brian said.
The others looked up to see that Susie was cycling furiously back to them.
"She does not look happy," Colin said.
Susie stopped her bike in the middle of the road and glared at them. "Brian!"
"Now what?"
"I'm telling on you!" She yelled across at her brother.
Brian laughed and got to his feet. "OK! OK! I'm coming." He turned back to Colin and Danny. "Right, I'll see you tomorrow. What time did you say the party starts, Col?"
"Eight," Colin said. "You'll be there, right, Danny?"
But Danny wasn't paying attention. He was standing very still and staring into space.
"Danny?"
Suddenly, Danny screamed, "Susie! Get out of the road!"
Colin turned to see the out-of-control bus screeching around the corner. Heading straight for Brian's sister.
 

*
 
  

© Michael Carroll 2006 - absolutely not to be reproduced without permission!