Chapter One
You’re not taping me are you? Good. Okay, cause I’m only going to tell you this once. And you have to promise to keep this between you and me. Got it? Great. Well, I know what you’re thinking... How did a kid like me, Alex Addison, end up being a superhero? It was a shock to me, too. Who’d a thought I’d like eating flies, and who’d a thought there was so much crime in the suburbs? I mean, Westlake isn’t exactly Gotham City and our shopping mall isn’t exactly the Hall of Justice. But you get used to eating flies, like you get used to your new webbed toes. I’ve learned it’s not where you are, it’s who you are.
But I need to back up a bit. I was just a regular kid who played basketball, video games and dreamed of being in the NFL. I loved farting around my older sister Libby, an eighth grade drama queen and head cheerleader. She’d scream, then my four year-old brother Sam would run up and pull my finger and I’d do it again. I’m telling you, life was pretty good. And Sam’s come a long way. He can now snort milk through his nose on demand and burp his ABC’s through to the letter F. Dad says he’s a prodigy.
My Dad, a Professor at the University of Texas, teaches Computer Science. In the evenings at home, he’s pretty much stuck in a book or trapped under a pile of papers. My mom is another story altogether.
Before she had us kids, she worked as a nurse in the E. R. So, let me just say that my first word was “911.” I was ten before I could use scissors, and that was only after I completed a scissor safety course. Implement is one of her favorite words. Chopsticks, toothbrushes, and hotdogs are all implements of danger. There is absolutely no singing in the shower, because as Mom sees it, singing leads to dancing. Apparently seventy percent of all household accidents occur in the bathroom.
Now Mom stays at home and sells seeds over the internet. That’s right, seeds, like tomato, bean and pumpkin. She decided that she could do more keeping people healthy if she started at the beginning by encouraging them to eat organic, heirloom, fresh foods. That means you won’t find Ding Dongs and Cheese Whiz in our refrigerator. Instead of wearing hospital scrubs, mom is now covered in dirt from working in her garden. Apparently our dirt is hygienic. So even though I have been banned from becoming a rodeo clown, race car driver or stunt pilot, my life has been pretty good to this point, except for Libby.
Libby has a way of pouting and flipping her hair around to get what she wants. She broke mom down to allow her to be a cheerleader, when I know for a fact that cheerleading can be just as risky as football. But will Mom allow me to play football? I think we both know the answer to that.
So how did my life become an amphibious tale of crickets and criminals? It all began on August 30, Labor Day Weekend: Surfside Beach, 11:47 a.m.
First off, I was supposed to be enjoying some quality time on my short board while Libby took her turn watching Sam at the beach. But no, little Miss Best Actress in a Drama faked a headache and flopped down on a towel to work on her tan. That left me to hold onto Sam who was splashing around in the waves on an inflatable duck. Dad was reading a computer manual under an umbrella and Mom was keeping an eagle eye on us kids and checking Libby for a heat stroke.
Eventually Libby decided she felt well enough to splash in the waves and cool off. Libby dragged herself into the surf as if she barely had enough strength to walk. That’s when I brought up fish pee. I told her that she was cooling off in a great big ocean full of fish pee.
“You are so gross! I’m telling Mom!”
“Go ahead. Tell Dad, too. He loves to be interrupted. Besides he’ll only agree with me. Oh, man.” I looked around in the waves. “Do you feel that? Something warm is surrounding us. It must mean that a fish just peed.”
“You are such a jerk,” Libby huffed and then eyed the waves for an offending fish.
“No wait, I think Sam just peed. Sam did you pee?”
Sam shook his head violently back and forth then stuck his finger up his nose.
“Oh wait. It must have been me.”
“Mom! Mom!” Libby stormed out of the surf and back to her towel to rat me out.
“Do it again. Do it again.” Sam begged, laughing.
“No, I’ll save it for later. Thanks, little man.”
Mom and Libby rolled up their towels and headed back to the beach house we were renting. Dad closed his book and called us out of the water. It was time for lunch.
Sam and Dad walked ahead of me across the sand as I followed behind hauling our enormous umbrella and beach chair. Sometimes I think my parents had me just so they would have a personal valet. I lugged my load up across a dune and was nearly to the boardwalk when I spied a strange little creature in the tall beach grasses.
It looked like a red-eyed tree frog, but it had blue and purple spots on its back and dark green stripes on its legs. I stood there for a second just looking at it. You know, how many times have you seen a frog at the beach? But then I did what anyone else would have done. I dropped what I was carrying and picked up the frog. I held the little guy up close to check out its weird colors, when I swear to you, it winked at me. Just like that. A real wink. And then just as quick it peed all over my hand. Now I ask you, what would you have done? Exactly. I dumped him into the beach grass, wiped my hand on the umbrella which I pretended was Libby’s towel, and continued to walk toward the beach house carrying the stupid umbrella and beach chair.
Now what happened next is still under investigation and what I mean by that is...I’m still not sure that events occurred as they did because the frog peed on me or because I forgot to wash my hands before lunch like Mom asked me to. It’s really up for grabs at this point. All I know is by the next morning, my life was forever changed.
It seemed like a typical Saturday morning as I awoke to the smells of tofu bacon (yeah, that’s right, I said “tofu”) and coffee coming from the kitchen. My Dad makes awesome buckwheat pancakes and every Saturday he stacks them up alongside a plate of tofu bacon. I could hear the low murmuring of my parents talking and the clinking of a spoon as my mom stirred her coffee. Apparently my mom considers coffee a “healthy beverage” as long as it’s organic.
Sam was still asleep, drooling on a pillow. Nothing was out of the ordinary until I swung my legs out from under the covers and attempted to stand up. The next thing I knew I had sprung across the bedroom and was standing in the doorway. That’s when I heard Sam wrestling with his blanket.
“Awex, is that you?”
“Hey little man, you up already?” I tried to act unconcerned. Sam shook his head and rubbed his eyes.
“Do it again.” He grinned.
“What?”
“Do it agaaain.” Sam sat waiting on his bed.
“Do what again?”
“You know, the jumping thing.”
“You’re dreaming. There is no jumping thing.” But as I stepped out of the doorway I landed nine feet down the hall in front of the bathroom. I could hear Sam running up behind me.
“Do it again!”
“You know I’m just trying to go to the bathroom, that’s all.” Suddenly the bathroom door flung open and out popped Libby, smacking a piece of gum. It never mattered what time of day it was, her jaws were usually working over a piece of cool blue gum.
“You’re in my way.” Libby cocked her head to one side and flipped her hair. I jerked back to miss the strands, feeling confident that one day I would be able to dodge all sorts of stuff like Japanese fighting stars, bullets, and even infrared lasers. I quickly walked into the bathroom and examined myself in the mirror. I pinched my face. Yes, I was awake. This was not a dream. I stood still and bent my knees just the slightest bit so that I jumped and touched the ceiling. It was so effortless. I felt like I was floating. When I landed, I was shaking inside. This was definitely weird.
“Alex. Sam,” Dad hollered. “Come eat. The pancakes are getting cold.” When I opened the door, Sam was waiting for me. I brushed past him and he followed me to the kitchen table.
My family and I sat down to our buckwheat pancake breakfast and before I could take my first bite, there was Sam with the same earnest request, this time with a mouth full of pancake.
“Do it again.”
“Not now. Later. It’s time to eeeaaat.” I swooshed a piece of pancake through the air with my fork. It had worked when he was two, but Sam wasn’t buying it now. He just stared at me like I had grown a third eye.
“Ewwwe! Mom, make Sam stop it. He is being so gross.” Libby gagged looking at Sam but then she placed her spit-riddled blue piece of gum on the outer edge of her plate, saving it for later.
“Sam, you heard your mother. Stop being gross.” Dad said behind his newspaper.
“That wasn’t mom. That was me.” Libby poked at her pancakes.
“Sorry, dear.” Dad turned a page of his newspaper.
“Whatever. Mom make Sam shut his mouth. Like I want to see half-chewed pancake and drool.”
“Sam, chew your food.” Dad poked his head over the top of his newspaper. “And quit staring at your brother.” Dad glanced over at me, eyeing me suspiciously before returning to his paper.
After breakfast, we all took our time getting ready to head back to the beach. I was finally alone in my bedroom once again as Mom slathered Sam down with sun block in the living room. I locked my bedroom door and bent my knees and went for it. But it was the craziest thing. I only jumped about three and a half feet. That was it. I walked back to the door and tried again. Same thing, maybe a couple of inches more. I did this about twenty-seven times till Dad shouted, “Stop that racket!”
The jumping thing was gone. I got away from my family two more times that day at the beach to try jumping again, but it was no use. I was back to normal. I knew it hadn’t been a dream because of Sam. We couldn’t possibly have shared the same hallucination. Besides all he said to me that Saturday was, “Do it again!” over and over.
I went to sleep that night an average kid about to start sixth grade in two days. When I woke up the next morning, I was anything but ordinary.