She nods.

“But I want to do some real digging. Later I’m going to sneak into the locker room and spy on some conversations. You think you can cover for me?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks.” The band’s tune changes to a marching beat, and the football team runs out.

Laila claps her hands and whispers, “Duke’s almost here.”

After our team runs through a banner and the tunnel of cheerleaders to loud cheers from the crowd, Lincoln High’s football players barrel out. Duke runs to midfield, points up at the stands like he’s some sort of rock star, and then bows. Bows!

“Oh, brother,” I mutter.

“Not a fan?” Trevor asks.

“Not at all.”

“He’s actually a pretty nice guy.”

My head whips toward Trevor. “You know him? I mean, off-the-field know him?”

“Yeah, we were both at this All-American awards banquet thing. They sat us at the same table. We spent like four hours together making fun of all the awards. To ourselves, of course.” He nods down to the field. The teams are now at their own benches, getting ready for the first play of the game. “He’s really good. I understand why he’d bow.”

No amount of greatness can make me understand that level of cockiness. “Did you ever bow?”

“I was never that good.”

“But you were at the same awards banquet. You must’ve been one of the best. Maybe this year you would’ve been better than him.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t help to waste my time thinking about would’ve-beens.”

Laila whispers, “He says to the girl with a mind full of them.”

CHAPTER 23

in-com-PA-RA-ble: adj. unequaled in greatness My dad looks older than I remember him looking. Tired. Even his smile seems strained. “Hi, baby. I’ve missed you.” He gives me a hug.

“Is everything okay?”

“Work is just keeping me busy.”

I tilt my head, trying to decide if “busyness” is a good enough excuse for the stress he’s trying to hide with a smile.

“I’m glad you’re here.” He turns me sideways and grabs my blue strip of hair. “So this is what has your mom worried?”

“Yeah,” Laila says, coming up the walk with our bags, which my dad immediately takes from her. “Isn’t it awesome, Mr. C?”

“Awesome isn’t exactly the word I was thinking of, but it’s far from Future Crime Lord.”

“Exactly,” I say with a sigh. “She grounded me over it.”

“As she should’ve,” he says with a smirk, making me know he just has to say that as a responsible adult but doesn’t really mean it. I’ve missed him so much.

“We hate to show up and then run, but we’re going to catch the football game.”

“No worries. I know you came for the game. You’re all mine tomorrow though.”

“For sure.”

He shows me to a room that looks more sterile than a hospital and says, “I know it’s kind of plain, but it’s yours for whenever you visit, so feel free to put up your comics pictures and stuff.”

“Thanks, Dad. I will.” He starts to leave, and I stop him with, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

He chuckles. “I’m fine, Addie.”

As Laila and I get ready in front of the cramped bathroom mirror, she asks, “Did you and Duke do any more surveillance last night at Poison’s house?”

“No, we didn’t have time. Why, did you?”

“Yes. But it was nothing different from last time. Just druggies going in and out. Is it weird to you that half the druggies are teenagers?”

I go over my hair with a straightener, wondering if I should’ve reverted back to curls for the wetter air. It’s already a little frizzy. “I know. I found that odd as well. I don’t know why, but I guess I thought our classmates were smarter than that.”

She adds some black eyeliner under her eyes. “You know what it has confirmed to me, though?”

“What?”

“That we’ve been worried over nothing. Duke feels the same, right?”

“Yeah, he does. There is nothing but extreme-brain-cell-deterioration going on at Poison’s house.”

At the game, I wish I had brought an extra layer of clothing—it’s pretty cold. I blow on my hands and then rub them rapidly across my thighs. Laila is bouncing up and down next to me, and I can’t tell if it’s in an effort to stay warm or if she’s excited. She solves the mystery when she says, “I don’t believe we’ve never been to an away game before. What’s wrong with us? This is fun.”

“Yeah, exciting.”

“The Norms seem so … normal.”

“Here they come.” I point to where the team, led by Duke, runs out of the tunnel as the announcer says a drawn-out version of our school name.

Duke runs to center field and bows.

I sigh. “I wish he wouldn’t do stuff like that. It makes him seem more cocky than he is.”

“It’s just Duke having fun. If we were closer, you’d see the teasing twinkle in his eye.”

Teasing or not, the whole stadium probably thinks he’s full of himself. Why doesn’t that bother him? To our left is the other team’s student section. I notice Laila looking over.

“What?” I ask.

“Norm boys are pretty cute.”

I scan them as well. They seem like the guys I see on a daily basis at my own school.

“We should mess with their minds.”

I laugh. “How?”

“Okay, pick out one of those boys and I’ll get him to come over here.”

“How?”

“He’ll think it was his own idea. You should do it too, since you’re supposed to be practicing Thought Placement. How is that going anyway?”

Not well, and I’m tired of practicing. Whenever we have free time, it’s all Duke wants to do. “I think I’m getting better.”

“Prove it. We’ll have a race. Whoever gets her boy to come over first wins.”

I roll my head to the side and groan. “Fine.”

“Okay, name your boy, so we’re not trying to call the same one over.”

This time I study them closer. “The one with his hands in his pockets. Cowboy boots. Dark hair.” He looks sort of familiar to me, but I can’t place him.

She rolls her eyes. “Of course, typical Addie boy. I pick the guy with the foam finger.”

“Which one?”

“The one jumping all over the place. Shoulder-length hair, beautiful skin.”

I zero in on him. Just when I think I’ve figured out Laila’s taste in guys, which for a while I thought was just any male between the ages of sixteen and twenty-two, she surprises me by picking someone completely different. Like this guy, for example; he’s cute enough, but thin and too dressed up for a football game. I thought Laila liked to have the upper hand in the style department.

“Ready?” she asks.

I nod.

“Go.”

Without trying to be obvious, I take several glances at my guy and concentrate. Go talk to the girl with the blue stripe in her hair, I say in my mind and then try to push it into his. He meets my eyes once and then looks away. I try again, but by this time Laila’s guy is already walking toward us. I let out a low growl, and she laughs. “Ha! I picked a guy with less impulse control. You have to look for the wild ones, Addie, not the conservative ones.”

Ah, so that was her criteria this time.

He takes a seat two rows behind us. Does he think he’s being subtle? Poor guy is being told he wants to come over here and has no idea what to do now that he’s here.

“I told him he wanted to sit by us. That’s not really by us.” Laila turns around, looks up at him, and says, “Really? Are you that much of a wimp?”

“He’s probably intimidated by you,” I say, but he walks down the cement steps.

“What’s your name?” Laila asks, when he sits down next to her.

“Rowan.”

“I’m Laila. This is Addie.”

“Hi,” I say.

“You guys here with the visiting team?” he asks.

“That’s kind of why we’re sitting in this section.”

“This is a long way to come for a game. You must be friends with some of the players.”

“As a matter of fact, that’s Addie’s boyfriend.” She points to the field, where Duke is dropping back for a pass.

“The quarterback?”

“Yeah, his name’s Duke Rivers. Have you heard of him?”

“He’s up for All-American this year, isn’t he?”

I shrug my shoulders, but Laila says, “Yes. Is he up against any of your players?”

“No. Our quarterback sustained a major injury.”

“That’s too bad,” I say.

“It really is. He was awesome. He might’ve beat Duke this year.” He points back to where he had been sitting. “That’s him right there—Trevor.”

Laila laughs, and I know exactly why she’s laughing—Rowan’s pointing at the guy I had done Thought Placement on. Was that why he looked so familiar? Had I seen his picture in some of Duke’s football albums?

“What’s so funny?” Rowan asks.

“Nothing, my friend just thought he was cute. And my friend swears she doesn’t like football players.”

“Ah, well, he’s sort of taken.” He points to a gorgeous cheerleader waving her pom-poms around down on the field. Just the kind of girl I would expect a guy like Trevor to be with.

“How can someone be ‘sort of’ taken?” Laila asks.

“He broke up with her about a month ago, but she keeps coming around, and he’s too nice to tell her not to.”

“Wow,” Laila says. “We just have to put a quarter in you, and you spit out all kinds of information.”

Rowan’s face reddens. “What about you guys? What’s your school like?”

Laila shrugs. “Just your average high school.”

“Then how come you never host sports there?”

“Because our stadium is a piece of crap. And our school would rather spend the money busing us all over the place instead of fixing it. The school is run by a bunch of idiots.” We had been trained by the Containment Committee the day before on what we were and were not allowed to say to outsiders. This is an example of an acceptable answer. Well, close to acceptable. Laila probably found the irony of her last sentence hilarious.

Rowan tilts his head and seems to be studying her sincerity.

“Wait?” she says with a gasp. “Has our real secret been blown? This guy’s good. He found out we’re all superheroes-in-training and that we’re hiding out so no one will know our secret identities.”

I barely hold back the laugh that wants to exit through my nose.

“Funny.” He laughs.

“You’re adorable,” Laila says. “I bet you’re feeling the desire to buy me a soda right about now, aren’t you?”