Captain Superlative!: Chapters 3–6

You can’t really go back to normal after being hit by a tsunami. The landscape is never quite the same again. That’s just how it works.
But you know what they say about hindsight and all.

Maybe I had willfully forgotten about her, determined to have everything go back to the way it was.

She positioned herself directly in Paige’s path. Paige tried to veer to one side, but the book on top of her stack slid over. In trying to compensate, shifting in the opposite direction, she overcorrected and lost her balance altogether. Her books came toppling down, landing with a clatter as her shoulder hit the wall.

It didn’t escape Dagmar’s attention that Paige was looking. It was only a split second, but I could see it in her hawkish eyes. I thought she might say something, but one of the girls from the group of moths called out, “Come on, Dagmar. You said you’d help me with my math homework.”

The warning bell rang, picking up the pace of the hallway’s ebb and flow.

In social studies, Ms. Hinton talked about the ancient Greeks and their habits—applauding to silence something they didn’t like, playing throwing games with the dregs of their drinks, burning bones as offerings to gods they didn’t actually believe in—and praising Dagmar for her insightful questions.

In social studies, Ms. Hinton talked about the ancient Greeks and their habits—applauding to silence something they didn’t like, playing throwing games with the dregs of their drinks, burning bones as offerings to gods they didn’t actually believe in—and praising Dagmar for her insightful questions.

I stopped to look at myself—nothing special, just a typical girl with typical brown hair and typical brown eyes. Completely normal.
Natural.
Neutral.
Nonentity.

Over my shoulder, I noticed another typical girl like me. I’d never seen her before. New kid. Probably fresh from the fort.
Her forehead was furrowed up as she stared fixedly at the school map in her hands. Lost, I figured. The school was kind of confusing.

Decisively, she kicked the doorstop back into place, giving it a firm nod, as if to say, Ha! So there!

Half surprised, half mortified, Dagmar turned around to face her, clumsily hiding her phone behind her back. Everyone stopped and watched.

Dagmar had a knack for finding one little flaw or imperfection on a person and blowing it wildly out of proportion until it became who you were.

She had on a very bold, very stylish red sweater and designer jeans, the kind she wore when she wasn’t in her soccer uniform. Plus her Blue Shoes. Everything about her was flawless.
Faultless.
Fanciful.
Fantastic.

“Nah, she doesn’t seem interested in Tyler.” Sacrilege, if I ever heard it. “And I don’t think she wants to be Valentine’s Day queen, Dagmar,” April continued. “Even if she wanted to be, what would anyone write on the ballot? ‘Captain Superlative’? That’s not a real name.”

“Looking forward to your monologue today,” he said, bending over at the waist, offering her that Dagmar-special smile.

There was something about Captain Superlative that was dangerous.
Deviant.
Disastrous.
Deadly.

“I’m fine, Dad,” I told him for the millionth time. “I like being a loner. It gives me...”
“Mystique?”
“Yeah.” Whatever that meant.

The scenes continued to play themselves out. The time Dagmar berated two girls for sitting with Paige at lunch. The time she’d compared Paige’s hair to a mop head. What was it about Paige?

He touched his ear. “Wild.”
“Wacky.”
“Willful.”
“Wrong.”
“Wonderful.”
I faltered. “Wonderful?”
Repeating a word meant you lost. My dad gave me a triumphant little smile before standing up.

The bruise on Dagmar’s wrist was turning yellowy by the end of the week. But I noticed there was another, a little bit higher up on her arm. It looked like a centipede, a misshapen, short centipede made of small circles.

She stepped back from the sign, furtively glancing from side to side, before sneaking her cell phone out to snap a picture of the bulletin board. My guess was that the precaution was more for show. She wanted to draw attention to the fact that she was flouting the rules.

She stepped back from the sign, furtively glancing from side to side, before sneaking her cell phone out to snap a picture of the bulletin board. My guess was that the precaution was more for show. She wanted to draw attention to the fact that she was flouting the rules.

Dagmar’s lovely green eyes flicked down to Paige’s shoes, then back up. Target acquired. She had a perfectly feigned expression of surprise. “So where are your Blue Shoes, anyway?” she asked sweetly, as though she didn’t know Paige never wore them.
“I don’t have any.”

Emotion flickered across Paige’s face, from surprise to pain to exhaustion. Shoulders slumping, head drooping, she sighed an exasperated, little sigh. “Can I go?” she asked. “Please?”

Trotting along on the screen was a cartoon vagrant clown, with green curls, heavy, gray bags beneath his eyes, and oversize overalls that sagged beneath his flabby arms, with mismatched sleeves.

She was standing with her hands on her hips, chin raised at a dramatic angle. The same costume as every day that week, the same tangible confidence that wrapped around her like the cape. Her arms went up and she came zooming down the hall, everyone clearing the way for her.

“You look very pretty in your uniform today!” Captain Superlative called after her, going up on her tiptoes.
“Leave me alone!” Dagmar roared as she turned the corner.
“Good-bye!”
“Shut up!”
“See you later!”
After that, we just listened to the obnoxious squeaking of her Blue Shoes until it faded.

The rest of that afternoon, Dagmar was smoldering.

And what made it ten times worse was the reports we got about Captain Superlative’s antics. The rest of the day, in addition to her cry of “Captain Superlative is here to make all troubles disappear!” she said, “And don’t forget to vote for Dagmar for Valentine’s Day queen!”

I jumped out of my seat and shot into the hallway, as if I had somewhere to go or somewhere to be. I was still vibrating from what happened with Dagmar, Paige, and Captain Superlative. Reeling uncontrollably like a dilapidated wagon rolling down a hill.

Very, very slowly, very, very tentatively, I turned my head to the side, leaning forward to see around to the atrium.

I watched the door and felt the bursts of cool air on my face as she accommodated everyone with an over-the-top greeting and a ridiculously exaggerated effort to open the door.

And I followed her.
I don’t know where the momentum came from. The part of me that was my dad, maybe?

But as I darted from tree to tree—dark bare branches cutting into a cloudy gray sky—Captain Superlative continued to zoom down the sidewalk with her arms out, the synthetic curls of her wig bouncing against her back. She was flying.
Flaunting.
Fearless.
Free.

We ran past Sunset Ridge, where Tyler Jeffries and some of his friends were tossing a football in the mucky grass, Kevin watching forlornly from the sidelines.

Tyler clasped both hands to his chest, letting out a strangled noise. “Zounds! I am murdered by thy cruel, cruel words!” Thrashing around, he rolled over on the ground, dying in the most epic of fashions.
Kevin gave him a round of applause. “Bravo! Bravo!”

On the grassy knoll, across the street from the parking lot, there was a wrought-iron bench.

The memories of that day were blurry, like the shards of shifting glass in a kaleidoscope.

Third grade. A few days after my mother died. I came back to school to a barrage of drawings, notes, and letters from my classmates.

As Captain Superlative and her parents disappeared through the front door, I spotted it. Written out in gold letters, along the side of the post that held the box: Li. My first clue to Captain Superlative’s identity, a last name.
Li.
Jackpot!
Joy!
Jubilation!