Rivals

School was becoming a hassle. Brent couldn't ride the bus anymore - reporters kept trying to sneak onboard, for one thing. For another he had to keep an eye on Matt Perkins. He had to walk over to Perkins' house every morning before Matt even left for school, and at the end of the day he had to follow the bully all the way home. Occasionally the kid's abusive dad came out onto the porch and yelled at Brent to leave his son alone, but really, there was no option. The very next day after Brent's original confrontation with the bully, Perkins had tried to shake down Ryan Digby again. The only way to stop that was to always be there whenever the two of them met.

"I don't think I can do this forever," he told Lucy. She had started patrolling with him, usually while riding on his back. It was nice at least not to be alone when he rambled all over town like this. They were walking home from school along a busy side street, just off the highway. A news van with a satellite dish on top was crawling along behind them, holding up a lane of traffic, and he had to raise his voice over all the honking horns. "And anyway, he's just one bully. There are others out there and I'm not doing anything about them. A lot of freshman have been leaving notes in my locker asking me for help - but I can't be in two places at once. If only Maggie was still around she could help me."

"You're kidding, right?" Lucy asked, leaning her head over his shoulder. "She would probably organize the bullies and hold the whole school up for protection money."

"Hey!" he said. "She's still my sister."

But he was getting used to it, unfortunately. Nobody believed in Maggie anymore. Nobody wanted to give her a second chance. The newspapers had been merciless after she destroyed the Hunt house. They claimed that she had been trying to kill Mandy. It didn't help that Mandy seemed to think so too, and had told every reporter she could find just how awful her ordeal had been.

The police were pretty clear on the fact that they were going to arrest her as soon as they found her. Weathers had said there was nothing he could do. But Brent knew there was still some good in her. Before Mom had died she had been a pretty cool sister. Even afterwards she had always looked after him. She had saved him from the green fire - didn't that count for anything?

"If I could just talk to her," he started, but even to himself he felt like a scratched CD skipping over the same line over and over again. "Maybe, then - "

He stopped because he saw two girls standing at the street corner ahead. It was Jill Hennessey and Dana Kravitz, and it looked like they were having an argument. Or at least - Jill was having an argument, and Dana was just agreeing with everything she said, her head bowed as if she deserved whatever nasty things Jill had to say. Jill was holding on tight to Dana's arm and Brent wondered if he should intervene.

But no - that wasn't right. That wasn't what he was supposed to be doing. Dad wouldn't have wanted him to intrude on everyone's personal lives, he was pretty sure. "When I saved Mandy Hunt I didn't have to think about it," he told Lucy. "I didn't have to wonder whether I was doing the right thing. I didn't have to calculate what would happen every time I broke through a wall or kicked a pile of bricks out of the way. I just did it. If every problem was so clear-cut this would be so much easier!"

"But they can't be, Brent. The world is complicated, and that's why heroes are so rare. Superheroes have to make the right decision every time, and - "

"Hold on," he said. Something looked wrong. Out of place. There was a line of cars coming toward them. Dana and Jill had a DON'T WALK light. But they were stepping out into the street, Jill's hand on Dana's back, right between her shoulder blades.

"Jump down," he told Lucy, and felt her weight fall off his back. Then he was off like a shot, sprinting toward the two girls. They weren't looking where they were going, and the cars were getting awfully close -

He could see them perfectly as he ran. It was as if time had slowed down. Jill still had one foot on the curb. She had turned slightly to face the oncoming traffic and it looked like she was about to jump back. Dana, on the other hand, was all the way out in the street and was falling forward, her hands out to catch her. She was going to land on all fours right in front of the cars.

The car in front had already slammed on its brakes - the driver saw Dana. But Brent just didn't know if it would stop in time or not.

He dashed up between them, one foot forward sliding across the asphalt. He started turning sideways before he'd even reached them and momentum took him the rest of the way. He saw the news van coming up behind him, swerving hard to pass a car that had stopped short in the middle of the crosswalk. Brent reached out one hand and pushed Jill, as gently as he could, backward, back onto the sidewalk. Dana was just about to fall.

He wasted a fraction of a second thinking about the best way to grab her, the way that wouldn't involve touching her anywhere inappropriate. Then, one hand scooping low under her stomach, the other wrapping around her shoulders, he picked her up and then kicked hard to launch them both across the street, toward a patch of green grass that looked like it would soften the impact.

The news van hit him in the shoulder, hard enough to make him see stars. He twisted around to take the impact across his back, protecting Dana as the van's grille buckled under his weight. The blow knocked him sideways, but only a little, and then he was falling, rolling, and time sped up again, became a blur -

Then he was sliding on his back across the grass, Dana on top of him as if she were riding a sled. They came to a stop just like that, with her lying full length on top of him, her arms wrapped tightly around his neck.

He was a fifteen year old boy so he noticed at once how soft her body was, how perfectly she fit into his arms. He was also Brent Gill so the thought embarrassed him enough to make him blush.

"How's my hair?" Dana whispered. It was the first thing she'd ever said to him.

"It's beautiful," he said, honestly. Then he looked over her shoulder and saw a portable video camera staring back at him. He tried to smile. Then he tried to sit up, thinking he would gently roll out from under Dana and get back on his feet.

Instead she clutched him hard. He could feel her shaking and he realized she must be terrified - she could have been killed back there.

"It's okay," he said. "You're safe now." There were reporters everywhere, and people with cell phone cameras, and a man carrying a garden hose - Brent thought it must be his lawn they'd landed on. It was all happening so fast. He saw Jill come running up, and Lucy pushing her way through the crowd, her eyes wide.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted Dana off of him and set her down in the grass. She was breathing very hard, almost hyperventilating.

The reporters all started talking at once. "Brent! Brent! Do you have some kind of super senses, that let you know when danger is near? Brent! How does it feel to save a pretty girl? Is she your girlfriend? Does Brent have a girlfriend? Is she going to kiss him anyway? Mr. Gill - could you just look this way and give us a thumb's up?"

"Get back!" Lucy shouted. "Let him breathe!" Then she grabbed the garden hose and put her thumb over the end so she could spray any reporters who got too close. Soon she'd cleared a circle maybe twelve feet wide around Brent and Dana. "Get back, all of you! Give him some room!"

Brent got to his feet and brushed off his clothes. He was covered in blades of freshly mown grass. He looked down and saw Dana still sitting there, hugging herself. He reached down and gave her a hand up.

"I don't have a date for homecoming yet," she blurted out.

He opened his mouth but he had no idea what to say in reply.