Other People's Heroes (The Heroes of Siegel City) Read Online Free Page A

wadding all over the place like mint and purple Silly Putty. As he stretched up onto the roof and solidified, we managed to place him as another of the Spectacle Six, DoubleGum Man.
    “You people shouldn’t be up here,” he said. “It’s not safe. Get back inside the building and let us handle it.”
    “Right,” I gasped, feeling that same old rush and, at the same time, feeling my knees turn to jelly -- literally. “We’ll... we’ll get downstairs.” I grabbed Sheila and headed for the door, just as DoubleGum bounced away towards the rumble. Once we were back inside, the door slammed behind us. I dared to test my limbs, flexing all my muscles and waving my arms around. They were solid. I was normal.
    “Josh, what’s going on?”
    “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” I shouted. “Sheila... it’s happening. I’ve got super powers .”
    “But so many ? Teke-bursts and fire and stretching and... Josh nobody has powers that diverse, they say it’s impossible. ”
    “That’s not it, Sheila, don’t you see? I don’t have any of those powers.”
    “I just saw you stretch.”
    “But I can’t do it now . And I could only do the teke-burst while Dr. Numbskull was in the room, and that fire thing only worked while Flambeaux was right outside the window . Don’t you get it?”
    “Get what? ”
    “ That’s my power. I can duplicate other people’s powers, so long as they’re nearby. It’s like I’m... I don’t know, picking up on ambient energy or something. Man... if I could get around a big, mess of heroes at once I’ll bet I could do anything. ”
    “Well... what are you going to do?”
    I felt another rush this time... not the one that meant I had powers welling up on me... one of pure adrenalin. And I gave her a smile to indicate I knew exactly what I was going to do.
    “You’re going to get yourself killed,” she said.
     
    CALLING HOME
    I spent the rest of the day shopping, getting materials together for my uniform and facing more than a little ridicule from Sheila in the process. I was ready to put the whole thing together, but there were a few things I was more than a little curious about -- and for all my reporting skills there was always one method of information gathering I turned to when all else failed.
    “Hey, Mom, it’s me,” I said when she finally picked up her phone.
    “Joshie! How are you, sweetheart?” she asked.
    “Not bad--”
    “If you’re calling to remind me of your birthday next month, I’ll have you know I already got your present, so you can just stop hinting around, mister. And no, it’s not as good as the Defender footie pajamas you got when you were seven, so you’ll just have to lump it.”
    “Nothing like that, Mom.” I had her on speaker phone so I could work with the laces and accessories I’d bought while I talked. “I was just sort of wondering about... things.”
    “What sort of things, honey?”
    “Well... I had a normal childhood, didn’t I?”
    “Let’s see, your father was creep, you nearly died in a fire, you were saved by a Cape... I guess you’d call it normal in a ‘Daytime Talk Show’ sort of way.”
    “No, I mean... did anything really bizarre ever happen to me? Or did I ever do anything really bizarre?”
    “You used to pour 7-Up in your chicken soup before you ate it. Does that count?”
    My cat, a plump tabby, tried to hop up into my lap as I spread out my tunic. He looked up at me with big, wondering eyes (wondering, no doubt, if what I was working on was food and, if so, how was he going to get some). I called the cat Achilles. To this day I don’t know what he called himself, but he certainly never responded to his given name.
    “Down boy,” I said.
    “What?”
    “Not you, mom. I can’t really say that’s what I’m looking for. I never... I dunno, started to float around the room or got bathed in some kind of highly-experimental radioactive fluid, did I?”
    “Josh--”
    “Mom, I’ll cut to the