The five of us met in the middle of hallway on the first floor. Matt learned he had a new superpower: he could make time stop for three minutes.
“That was awesome, Tony.”
“I just wish I could have seen the look on Barry’s face,”
“So, is the robot like a ‘Transformer” parked outside?” Riley asked.
“It’s in me, like Ultraman, and I can shrink it down or mega size it.”
“That’s sweet, man,” Matt said as he looked around, “I should have added that to my list of powers. Flight test is still on for this afternoon.”
“What about you, Ty?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
“Why did your hair grow?” Riley asked.
“It went like long or something?” Matt asked.
“Yeah, during PE.”
The others looked at me and I felt afraid to say anything.
“Oh, I got it: Slash. You were going to wish to be a kick ass rock star!” Matt performed a slide on an air guitar. “Seems a little basic, but if it makes you happy.”
“I had thought about that,” I lied. “So, all of you have revealed your powers to everyone. What happens now?”
“I mind-wiped everyone in the school to forget everything that’s happened in the past hour, us not included, of course.”
“Our powers are still a secret to be revealed again, cool.”
“What about Riley?”
“To everyone’s recollection, Riley’s always been buffed.”
“What about Barry’s truck?” Riley asked.
“I want to be in the parking lot when he sees it,” Tony replied.
“Oh, hell yeah!” Matt exclaimed he gave Tony a high-five.
I wanted to feel disgusted at what they were doing, particularly with Matt, but I decided to stay calm. “Okay, guys, you need to swear to me that you’re not going to let this go to your head. Remember, we can’t hurt anyone.”
“I think she meant we can’t kill anyone because in about,” Tony looked at his watch, “sixty minutes or less Barry’s going to know about his truck.”
“Time’s almost up,” Matt motioned as he put his arms out.
“Remember, nothing crazy.”
“How about one more crazy, and then we go incognito?”
“I can always clear their memories with a ‘poof’” Chris said as snapped his fingers.
“Fine,” In replied.
“Doc Brown ain’t got nothing on me,” Matt replied as bursts of energy came out of his hands and everyone started to move around us.
“We need a team name. We need to think of a formidable team name,” Tony said as we broke away to go to our seventh period classes.

My final class of the day was American History. It was a boring class and due to what had happened I was happy for a dull hour. I looked at everyone around me, knowing things they didn’t. I noticed Shelly wearing a green sweater; my mind went back to Matt’s words, and I tried not to think anything more about it. She was beautiful, but she also had no interest in any guy. Maybe she thought all the guys at our school were stupid idiots. Still, she was hot. She looked good in green.
I looked back at my books, feeling bad that Matt had spied on her without her knowledge. I had to wonder if he had used any other of his powers on her. I didn’t want to think my friend may have done something to her besides looking. He couldn’t have, as Matt lived by the Stan Lee mantra: ‘With great power comes great responsibility.”
“What the Hell!” A guy yelled as they looked at the parking lot. “What happened out there!”
Everyone got up and went to the window to see multiple police cars, a fire truck and Barry ranting and raving. Several police officers had to tackle him to ground as he grabbed a section of his truck’s broken tail pipe and swung it around.
I sat back down and signed.
“What happened to Barry’s truck?” Shelly asked.
“No idea,” another guy said.
“Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Shelly replied as she sat back down. “I’m glad someone finally hit him where it hurts.”
I wondered what Shelly’s animosity towards Barry was. We didn’t like him as he bullied Matt. Maybe Shelly was aware of that.
“They got SWAT out there!” Someone yelled.

After school, four of us met on the baseball field but we did go by to see Riley starting his new life of playing on the football team. Riley had no idea how to run a play, but Coach ordered him to just run through the line and take out the quarterback. It took a few plays before coach made him the quarterback as the others had been put out of commission. No one wanted to approach him due to his size and the control of Chris’ telepathy.
“How much is it Riley’s skill and the other you controlling the others, Chris?’ I asked.
“It’s not really control. I’m able to plant an idea in their sub-conscious. If I want, say, Carter there,” Chris pointed to a hulk of a senior who looked like a sumo wrestler, “to think he’s a chicken for a few minutes I just need to think about it.”
We looked to the field to see Carter flapping his arms and shouting “cluck”. The other players looked at him, except for Riley who looked in our direction and gave a thumbs up.

“Okay, this is flight test number one.”
We stood at the pitcher’s mound on the baseball field. The field was out of the way from the school and the football field to avoid any crowds.
“Do you need to run a few feet, or yards to build up speed?” Tony asked.
“Not sure. I could try both.”
“Do you need pixie dust?” I inquired as Matt laid his backpack on the ground.
“Think happy thoughts,” Chris added.
“Maybe all of the above. Okay, shut up everyone as I concentrate on flying high.”
We stood on the side as Matt closed his eyes and started moving his arms like he was re-creating a scene from “The Karate Kid Part Two.”
He then jumped into the air, and swiftly landed back on his feet.
“Okay, we’ll try the running jump.” Matt ran fifty feet away from us and called back, “Okay, ready!”
“I’ll bet you a Taco Bueno supreme he falls on his face,” Chris said to Tony.
“I’ll take that bet.”
Matt ran several feet and then jumped into the air, only to slam his body into the infield and land where second base would have been.
“Safe!” Chris yelled.
“I owe you a taco,” Tony replied.
“You okay, Matt? I asked as he got up and wiped the dust off his clothes.
“Everything else was so simple. I still need to check on the laser beam eyes thing.”
“I could throw you into the air and see if you can float down,” Tony said as he cracked his knuckles.
“That my work. I need to feel the need to fly. Like life hangs in the balance if I don’t.”
“If Tony throws you into the air, then yeah, your life will hang in the balance,” I replied as I looked into the sky.
“Good point, but super problems require super solutions. Throw me, Tony.”
Tony nodded as his body changed to a cybernetic, silver being. He held onto Tony like they were going to perform a cheerleading stunt.
“Okay, Tony, on three. One, two...”
Tony launched Matt into the heavens.
“Three!” Matt wailed before he soared out of sight.
“Can you catch him? Chris asked.
“I’ll try, if I can see him,” Tony replied.
We all looked up, but the sun’s glare made it almost impossible to find him.
“Does anyone see him?” I yelled.
“No!”
“Nah-ah.”
How were we going to explain Matt’s death to his grandmother? “I’m sorry, Mrs. Williamson, but we threw Matt into the air thinking he could fly like a turkey dropped over Cincinnati.”
“He should have landed by now,” Chris yelled. “How far did you throw him up, the Mesosphere?”
“No, man, that would be fatal and he’d be crashing down like a popsicle.”
We looked at Tony and then back to the sky.
“I’ll tell his Grandmother he just did something stupid. She’ll believe that,” I said as a red beam fired down from above and cut into the earth, making a one foot trench between second and third base.
We hit the ground, rolled to our sides, and covered our heads with our backpacks.
“Lasers! Awesome!”
I looked up to see Matt floating in the sky with his arms crossed.
“Successful test. Thanks Tony.”