Super Frost: Confessions of a Teenage Superhero

My dad turned into Doctor Dad when I left the hospital wing. My mom couldn’t stop showering me with praise. I swear, mom was all like, “Ohhh, my baby’s got her powers! And she’s finally a woman! Ohhh I have to hug you!” If that wasn’t enough for your parents showering you with love when you get your last stage of puberty, you should see mine. Mom was completely ridiculous, patting me on the head, stroking my hair, and smothering me with hugs and kisses. For the whole weekend all she wanted to do was bake cakes and cookies for me, knowing those desserts would make her physically sick if she ate any.

And dad went, “Now honey, don’t get too excited, she’s still sick and needs plenty of rest. Vi honey, when we get home I want you to have a hot bowl of soup and start wearing gloves from now on.” For the whole weekend, dad almost confined me to my bedroom as if I was under quarantine from a swine flu or Ebola infection.

“No!” mom exclaimed as we walked to the car. “We’re going out to a nice restaurant for dinner to celebrate our daughter’s new powers and she can have anything she wants. How about we go to Blue Jay’s Burgers? I’m definitely craving some North Shore.”

“Sweetie, she needs bed rest,” dad contradicted, getting in the driver’s seat when we got to the car. “Her fever’s not down yet and her hands are still too cold.”

“Just get her a sweater, she’ll be fine!” mom exclaimed, shutting the door as I seatbelt-ed myself. “I don’t know why she has to wear those gloves on the way home, or even after she goes home.”

“The doctor said she needs gloves for everyday protection.”

“So what does she do when she needs to use her powers?”

And thus it went. Do I have the most awesome parents or what? They’ve even compromised that they’d take me to Blue Jay’s on the night I’d feel better, perhaps a Friday. Blue Jay’s is my favorite burger place on Earth and it beats out The Cheesecake Factory every time. The North Shore Burger is mine and mom’s favorite, for we always get it with extra teriyaki sauce for our fries. And when the teriyaki marinated burger’s well done and the pineapple is grilled, the whole thing is one beefy Polynesian treat that needs no dessert. The burger is the dessert, loaded with cheese, lettuce, and tomato on a seedless bun.

As soon as I got home, my hands were still freezing to the touch. Dad made me a bowl of chicken soup while my brother ate dinner in the living room while punching dad’s heavy bag. Only seven years younger than me, and my brother Charlie developed dad’s super-strength. By the time he would turn fifteen, he might kick the bag through the wall. When I finally reached my room to rest with my covers, pillows, a compress, and a teddy bear, my phone rang for the first time since I left elementary school.

“So you ok, Jen?” Alice asked from the other end. “What happened?”

“You heard about what happened in my history class?” I said.

“Yeah, my teacher got a text from the principal and tried getting us into Code Red positions, but then I heard it was coming from your classroom, so I bolted.”

I sat down on my bed for a moment, my head still floating. Thinking my hands would suffice as a compress, I put one of my hands to my forehead to cool it down.

“So what happened?” Alice continued.

“Did you see what was going on when you came in?” I asked.

“All I saw were some of the guys in your class milling around and there was a great big patch of ice on the wall like someone froze it,” she said. “Do you know how that happened or did you see it for a second and faint? I saw you when you were unconscious, it was like you had seen a ghost with your hair turning white, but…”

“Al…” Despite the principal’s warnings of, ‘Don’t tell your friends, don’t tell them anything about being a superhero in training,’ I thought it would be the best to go ahead and tell the truth. She already knew about my parents after all. “Do me a favor and don’t tell anyone in class, ok? Because technically, I’m not supposed to tell you at all, since you’re a civilian.”

“Just say it,” she said. “I’m tired of what the government keeps telling me what I can’t and must do. It’s good to be a little rebellious now and then.”

I took a deep breath and let it out. “I got my powers today.”

“Your powers?” she said like she didn’t believe. “There was ice that froze the chalkboard there and you fainted.”

“No, I froze the board and Mr. Kent while I had a meltdown because I could hear everyone thinking,” I told her.

“Wait, metaphorically, you heard everyone thinking and you made everyone stop to look at you, right?”

“No, literally, I literally heard everyone’s thoughts, which made my headache worse, and then I encased my teacher in an ice cube while everyone stared at me.”

I heard Alice take a deep breath, feeling like she found it hard to take in. For a long while, there was absolute silence.

“Als? You there?”

“Unbelievable, un-be-leaf-able,” she mustered.

“Is that all you can say?” I said.

“I’m sorry… Steve and I kept thinking this was all a rouse, but now we know it to be true. I just… damn.”

“Did anything weird happen at school today? Did everybody have to go home early?”

“No. One of the adjunct teachers took over the history class that day; it was really weird. Oh, but I will tell you everyone made up a name for you today. Steve’ll probably tell you.”

I sat up. “What name?”

“There were a whole bunch of them, I can’t remember them all.”

“Just tell me.”

She did: Miss Freeze. Elsa the Snow Queen. Frosty the Snow Girl. Vanilla Ice. Ice Cube. Ice Woman. Someone even started calling me the “Ice, Ice, Baby” song. There were dozens of names for me in the next five hours, and Alice had a very hard time getting all of those names down on paper. She started a whole list for me that day, but she insisted Steve had the bigger list.

“Well, I guess news travels fast at a small high school,” I said.

“Yeah, or at a high school with a lot of students and a tiny campus,” she returned.

“So, is someone going to explain what really happened tomorrow morning during the announcements?”

“Are you even allowed to talk to me about any of this?”

“Good point, but seriously, is the principal going to talk on the intercom to explain what happened yesterday?”

“He made an announcement at lunch saying it was just an accident and you were removed from class. He said you were suspended until further notice.”

“He meant expelled.”

“Not expelled, suspended.”

I stood up for a moment. “Look, Alice, I’ve already talked to the principal of another school, a school for superheroes. She’s kind of like a female Professor Xavier, if you know what I mean, only she has workable legs. She told me point blank that I was going to her school, my parents’ school. I have no choice but to go. So I’m not coming back to Generic.” I started feeling dizzy again and sat down.

“I’m really sorry, honey,” Alice said. “I guess we’ll see each other after school, right?”

“You don’t even know where I live!”

“But I can find out. Send me a message online and I’ll get a hold of your address, ok?”

“What are you talking about? Dad won’t let me online for anything since he’s so busy discovering new scientific stuff and mom won’t let me use hers because it has no internet.”

“So, go to the library!”

“Mom’s against the whole social networking thing due to cyber bullying.”

“So what are we supposed to do to keep in touch? Trace your phone calls?”

I laughed. “That might be a good idea. I just hope I can see you guys soon. Just don’t tell anybody about what really happened.”

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she said. “I really want to come over to see you.”

“If only I could fly.”

“Well, look at Elsa in Frozen. She could fly in that movie because she had freezing powers like you. She was kind of like Storm in a way.”

Still dizzy, I put my feet up and lied down on my pillow. “That’s an awesome analogy, but I don’t think I’d be anything like Storm or the Snow Queen.”

“Still, since you washed out of the superhero school, haven’t you wanted to know what it’s like to be one of them? Besides, this would be a great time to control your powers in order to become a hero and maybe learn to fly. What do you think?”

I couldn’t think of a reason or a decent thought. Sure, I could learn how to control my powers—it was in my curriculum. But when it comes to flight, there was no way I could see myself doing what I’ve dreamed of. I had countless dreams where I felt weightless: on a space station, in a city, in the clouds with a mystery guy, and even in a shopping mall like Kim Catrall in the movie Mannequin where she’s hang-gliding in the department store. Since I was little, I wished and prayed that I could inherit the power to fly. But it seemed that I ended up inheriting the power of invisibility to go with my telepathy and the cold, cold Midas touch.

Well, the only upside to all of this was the absence of my brother. My invincible little brother with arms of steel treated me like someone with some infectious disease, too scared to come anywhere near me. He kept changing his reasons around every time, starting with the words “But you’ll give me”: swine flu, Ebola, leprosy, measles, hepatitis, E. coli, salmonella, cancer (oh please!), some-incurable-disease-that-I-know-will-kill-me-because-I-know-you-want-to-kill-me, and the big one, herpes. I had to hand it to him, he had an awesome imagination.

I mean herpes? Me, really? Thank god for that, because that whole deal lasted an entire week.