Free Firegirl by Tony Abbott Page A

when was the last time any kids came to visit her? And she just said her parents yelled a lot. She stayed in her room all the time. Plus, her sister, who she probably at least hung out with, was gone and everything.
    “Well,” I said, “I mean, Superman has super everything. X-ray vision and super strength, and he can fly. It’s sort of too much power, if you know what I mean. He can do pretty much anything he wants. It’s not real.”
    “It’s a comic book.”
    I snorted a laugh. “I know, but still. You shouldn’t have all those huge powers. It makes everything too easy. Who’s going to stand in your way? You’d win every time. Small ones are better.”
    Was I going
there?
Why was I going there?
    “What do you mean?” she asked. “Small ones?”
    I fidgeted. “Small powers. Never mind. It’s too stupid to talk about.”
    She said nothing, but sat there waiting for me to go on. Just like Mrs. Tracy had waited for me to say I would bring the homework.
    “Small powers?” she said.
    I laughed. It was a nervous-sounding laugh; I knew that. But I tried to make it sound natural. “It’s dumb. But it’s just that, you know, you have the ability to fly and X-ray vision and superstrength and stuff. But sometimes I think it’s probably better to have a really dumb power.”
    “A dumb power,” she repeated.
    “Something really dorky and useless, like, I don’t know, having one indestructible finger or something. I think that would be really cool.”
    Oh, man, was I really saying this?
    She looked down. “A finger? Why just a finger?”
    I sat forward in the chair. “Because otherwise it’s like asking for too much. If you want to be immortal or to fly or to control people’s brains or something, it’s like you think you deserve this huge ability. But if you’re regular in every other way, but just have one indestructible finger, who would ever say no to that?”
    “So you don’t ask for too much.”
    “That’s right. It’s just something small and cheap, what no one else would ever think of. It’s so much better that way.”
    “Something nobody else wants,” she said.
    “Right,” I said. I realized then that I had never said any of this out loud before. I wasn’t sure why I was telling her then, except that maybe I thought it didn’t matter. Who else would she ever tell? Even if she made fun of me, it would be okay because it would end here. “But maybe the best part,” I said, “is thinking how you could turn that really small dumb power into something completely awesome.”
    She scratched her arm as she thought. “What could you do with an indestructible finger?”
    I shrugged wildly. “I don’t know. Maybe you could stop an attacking animal or a runaway airplane just by sticking your finger out. Or scratch into the earth with it and find something you need, or poke right through the door of your enemy’s hiding place. Stuff like that. The more you think about a little power, the more big things you come up with. Pretty soon, you find you could do anything.”
    “What would they call you?”
    I laughed. “I don’t know. Superfinger?”
    “Power Pinkie?”
    I laughed again. “Or what if your power was that you could whistle really loudly? You aren’t that strong and you can’t climb buildings, but you go in there and tell them they better stop or you’ll whistle very loud. It’s so dumb your enemy just laughs at you. While he gets ready to use his vapor vision on you, you whistle so loud his eardrums hurt, and he gets an instant headache. Then you move in on him because his hands are up here —” I put my hands over my ears and screwed up my face as if I were in pain.
    She nodded like she understood. “Uh-huh.”
    I laughed again and found myself leaping to another idea. “Or what if you could skip really, really fast?”
    “What would you do? Just skip around?”
    “I don’t know, yeah. People would be stunned by how quickly you could get to them.
Whooosh!
You’re