I had decided
I needed to practice my kinda-sorta flying, to show Angela what I could do next
time we met up. I already had it in my head that just going up and down, or gliding,
wasn’t good enough. Maybe she could help me figure out how to fly like Superman.
I found a sheltered spot at the far end of the field where the older kids played
baseball and soccer, in the thick clump of trees enclosed by the fence encircling
the orphanage grounds. I rose as high as I could get before I got scared and then
hung there until the ground started to look a little fuzzy before I came back down.
At five years old, twenty feet off the ground was the equivalent of Mount Everest.
I had just worked up the nerve to try some sideways shifting when Kurt walked into
the little clearing where I was practicing, and looked up at me. Fortunately, I
was wearing shorts, rather than a skirt. Skirts were for church and school.
"You
hum really loud." He was grinning at me.
"No I'm
not." I was indignant, because I knew enough to keep quiet so the kids who
might make fun of me wouldn't see me.
"Yeah,
you do, but it's not the kind of humming that people can hear."
"That's
stupid. How can you hear it if people can't hear it?" I came down a little
faster than I intended and my knees wobbled when I hit. Kurt steadied me, and a
funny buzzing sensation kind of shocked me where his hand touched my bare arm.
"Like
that." He grinned wider, gray eyes sparkling, and rubbed his hand on the front
of his t-shirt. "It's okay, I hum too."
"Are
you laughing at me?" I had already run into the two chief bullies, Ricky and
Donny. They had overheard Miss Abby talking with another houseparent about my reading
ability, and came running to inflict their new nickname on me: Lanie Brainy.
"Nope.
We're superheroes."
"Huh?"
That was my introduction to the amazing world of comic books and superheroes and mutants and superpowers and saving the world.
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