Free Super (Book 2): Super Duper by Princess Jones

people
actually doing the work!”
By now Miss Fine was a bright red and she was shouting
as loud as I was. “I know that you aren’t Super material. You
botched this test tonight and you still haven’t paid your dues!
It’s been years since you were current, if ever.”
The Council dues had always been a challenge for me.
Between my personal expenses and my inability to keep a
job, I just never could catch up. But I had made some progress
earlier that year. “Hey, I paid off a big chuck this summer. I’m
more paid up than I’ve ever been.”
In the meantime, Miss Fine had regained her
composure. She smoothed her hair down, adjusted her
trench coat, and secured her pen to her clipboard. “None
of that matters. There are two options on the forms: Paid or
delinquent. And you’re delinquent. Good night, Audrey.” She
turned her back to me and started to make her way through
the rocky shore and up to the walkway.
I waited for her to disappear from sight. Only then did
I start to walk home, wet, tired, and defeated.
Chapter 10
    That night, I dreamed that I was chasing flying dollar
bills down the street with a net. For most of the dream, I
couldn’t catch up with them but I eventually caught a few.
But as soon as I did, a big black monster ran up behind me
and ripped them from my hands. When I screamed in terror,
the monster yelled back at me “DUUUUUUEEEESSSSS!!!”
    I didn’t need to pay a psychiatrist two hundred dollars
an hour to tell me what that was all about.
I woke up with dry mouth, wild hair, and feeling like I
had been hit by a truck. It was two thirty before I tumbled out
of bed and remembered the disaster of last night. I fed Crash
and remembered that I didn’t have any food for me to eat.
And I needed to talk to my dad.
When I was a kid, my parents were still doing Super
work. Their assignments gave them mostly office hours but I
remember that they worked a lot. Mom was assigned to the
New York Public Library, which suited her and her knowit-allness just fine. And Dad was embedded as a firefighter.
When I realized that I had inherited my power from him,
I thought maybe I would follow in his footsteps. That was
before I realized how much running he had to do.
They retired around the same time and Mom started
doing volunteer work and committee stuff, which kept her
just as busy as when she was working. Dad, on the other
hand, treated retirement completely different. He spent most
of his time hanging out with old buddies, watching TV, and
just doing whatever he wanted.
As usual, Mom was out and about and Dad was
watching some show on the History Channel about weapons.
“Dad,” I heard myself say. “Do you ever think it’s weird that
we do all of this work as Supers and spend our whole lives
in service to the Council and we don’t even get paid for it?”
“No.”
I glanced at him from the side of my eye. “Just no?”
“No, because it’s not about money. And we’re not
doing it for the Council. We’re doing it for all the people who
can’t do it.”
He was repeating things that I had heard all my life.
Justice. Order. All of that. But I wasn’t in the mood to hear it.
“But civilians don’t even care that we do it. They don’t even
know about it.”
Dad sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not about those
things. If it were, it would be a job. But it’s more than that. It’s
a calling. You do what you can. You win some and you lose
some. And then when it’s your time, you move on. It’s not
that complicated, Audrey.”
Easy for you to say, I thought.
He stood up and stretched. “You want a sandwich?”
Maybe he could hear my stomach growling. I followed him
into the kitchen and watched him put the food together.
“How much money do you need?”
I frowned. Sure, I was there to borrow money. But I
wasn’t ready to admit that yet. “What do you mean?
Dad rolled his eyes as he added an extra piece of
cheese to my sandwich. “Come