Free Firegirl by Tony Abbott Page B

across the room! Then you skip around them and make them dizzy just watching you. Having dumb powers is like having a secret identity because no one knows you have this power until you use it. Mostly you’re fairly useless; nobody thinks you can do anything at all. Until you really need to do something; then it comes out. I mean, the more you think about it, the more you realize what cool things you can do with the lamest powers. You can do a lot.”
    I stopped to breathe and was suddenly totally exhausted hearing myself talk. I thought now that she was bored and might just be pretending to listen.
    Then she said, “If I lay really still on my bed, and if there’s a breeze, it feels like I could glide right out over the yard. Not fly really, but just sort of swim in the air. Slow.”
    “Glide? Yeah. That’s good.”
    “The wind goes through the leaves in the trees and I feel like I could move out into it. I figure if I go out far enough I’m not here anymore.”
    I looked at her for a second, then away. “Uh-huh.”
    We sat not talking for a few minutes. She was still sitting on the bed. I was in the chair, looking around her room.
    Then I remembered the reason I was there and told her exactly what the math assignments were by reading out Mrs. Tracy’s note, and showed her the pages in the book, although of course she could find them. But I found myself flipping to the pages in the book and even coming over and putting the book open on the bed next to her so that she wouldn’t have to move.
    I didn’t even want to, but while I was standing over her I sniffed in with a little quiet sniff. I don’t know why.
    She glanced up at me suddenly.
    Oh, no. Did she hear me? I stepped back —
    “Superheroes are supposed to do good things for people, aren’t they?” she said.
    “What?” I asked.
    “They’re supposed to help them, right?”
    “Help them … sure …”
    “Well, it might be hard to actually help people with just a loud whistle or skipping around in a circle.”
    I frowned. “I guess. That’s always harder to do.”
    In my daydreams I always ended up saving Courtney from some nutty enemy so she could fall in love with me or whatever. But helping?
    My mother was all about helping, too. Why did everybody have to wreck things by talking about helping people? Having small powers now seemed totally stupid and pointless.
    Time to go.
    “I better leave. I have a church thing.”
    I went to the door and out to the landing outside her room. When I turned I found her looking straight at me. She had followed me there and was standing close.
    “Uh, sorry about your sister,” I said.
    She looked right at me, not blinking. “Thanks for holding my hand for the prayer thing,” she said.
    “Oh, yeah, sure. Sorry about all that.”
    “No one really touches me anymore.”
    What was I supposed to say to that? “Uh-huh.”
    “Do you want to touch my face?” she asked.
    I felt my own face go red. My legs became icy. I think I teetered on the landing.
    “Uh …” I raised my hand a little, but Jessica pulled back from me right into her room and closed the door. I heard a brief slapping sound, like a book being closed. Then I heard what must have been the squeak of bed-springs as she lay down.

Chapter 14
    When I got to the bottom of the stairs, my legs felt like water. I turned and found Jessica’s father standing in the living room.
    “Sit down for a minute,” he said.
    Oh, man, no. Please, no. I have to leave. But I couldn’t think of any way to just get out of there. He moved over to a big chair, so I sat down.
    The corners of the room were full of moving boxes. The few pieces of furniture — a couch, three chairs, a low table — seemed placed any old way around the room as if Jessica and her family had moved in only minutes before.
    Nothing matched, for one thing. The chairs were all different fabrics and clashing colors, too big for the room, and they were old.
    Rich had said that the Feeneys were