Read Secret Supers in Space – Chapter 1 Enjoy this free chapter on the 17th day of Advent. All through Advent I’ll give you a gift per day!
In Secret Supers in Space, four seventh graders with four different disabilities and four different superpowers go to a space camp for the summer. They learn all about the space program. But they didn’t expect to be hijacked into outer space. Merry Christmas to all!
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Read Secret Supers in Space– Chapter 1 – Space Camp
“What are you doing, Jeremy?”
Startled, I looked up from my computer and turned around in my wheelchair. My best friend, Dan, had slipped silently into my lab. I still thought of it that way, but we’d made it into the Secret Supers clubhouse almost a year ago. Dan’s round, brown face smiled down at me while his tall, wide frame loomed behind me. His dark glasses hid his blind eyes.
“I didn’t hear you come down the elevator.”
“I took the stairs. Your mom made cookies, so I came over. I could smell them from my house.”
“You mean, you could smell them from my mom’s thoughts?”
“And your’s and your dad’s. You were all excited, so I couldn’t help myself from taking a sniff from your mom’s nose. I didn’t snoop any further than that.”
“I know you respect everyone’s privacy with your mindreading power.”
“Except maybe yours. You did permit me to read yours anytime. But I haven’t read your mind about what you’re concentrating on. C’mon, tell your old friend Dan.”
“Don’t tell anyone. I want to surprise the Secret Supers.”
“Of course not. Now I’m dying to know!”
“I’m applying to Space Camp.”
“What’s Space Camp? I can hear the capital letters in your voice.”
I spun my wheelchair around to face him. “What’s Space Camp? It’s the greatest camp there is! We’re all bored out of our minds now that August has started and we want to do something. Space Camp teaches you all about our space program. You learn about astronauts and rockets. You go on a centrifuge and experience zero-g and moon gravity.
Part 2
“Sounds fun and cool. I can see them accepting you, Jeremy, but how about the rest of us? I guess Kayla would make it, but Aubrey and I are just average students.”
“As far as I can tell, there are no qualifications, just an interest in space and rocketry.”
“I sure got more interested in space after our adventure chasing the villain in a rocket at the coaster park this summer. What about the money?” Dan sat down in the chair so I didn’t have to look up at him.
“Mom and Dad have been saving the royalties from Secret Supers and Villain’s Vacation for you, Kayla, and Aubrey, and you can use that for the camp.”
“Well, count me in!” Dan’s huge hand engulfed mine. I felt like a little kid—which I was. I didn’t usually think about how small I was until Dan was right next to me. Or Aubrey, who was also Dan’s size.
“I just thought of a problem.” Dan frowned, his brows hitting his dark glasses. “What about my parents? And Kayla’s and Aubrey’s?”
“Mom and Dad have already been in touch with them ever since our royalties from the books have been coming in. They all agreed to divide them. Everyone’s just waiting on me to tell all the Secret Supers.”
“Now I know, so we might as well let Kayla and Aubrey know.”
I glanced at my screen clock. “Ten thirty. I can call Kayla, but Aubrey’s at her summer baseball practice.” I speed-dialed Kayla.
“You don’t have to put her on speakerphone. I can read her mind.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 3
I laughed. “You read my mind. I was ready to do that.”
Hello, Jeremy. Kayla’s voice sounded in my mind. Kayla had spinal meningitis and could no longer talk or walk without a walker. I felt sad when I heard her high mental voice, sounding just as she used to talk before losing it.
“Hi, Kayla. I’ve got big news for you and Aubrey: the Secret Supers are going to Space Camp!”
Sounds like fun. I assume it’s all paid for and our parents are on board?
“Right. I researched it, then my parents contacted yours, Dan’s, and Aubrey’s, and everyone agreed. Just now, I applied and got approval. We’ll be gone for a week.”
When?
“The last week in August, just before Labor Day.”
Now I have something to look forward to, instead of another sweltering day. How long does it last?
“A week. We arrive on the last Sunday of the month and leave on Friday.”
Is Dan there?
“Yeah, I’m here Kayla.” Dan leaned over my shoulder.
“How’d you know, Kayla? Dan snuck up on me as I was applying to the camp online. Are you mind reading now as well as sending thoughts?”
No, just sending, like always. I just know you, Jeremy. You don’t give up secrets until you have to. I figured Dan would be there. He sees you about every day. Say, where is this Space Camp?
“Huntsville, Alabama. We’re driving down there the day before in our big van. It’ll take us about twelve hours, dad said.”
Part 4
I suppose you want me to tell Aubrey. I’ll give her the message to come over to our Secret Supers room, and we’ll all surprise her when she comes in.
“Great idea, Kayla!” I grinned.
Dan’s head snapped up from the phone and then he leaned back down. “You can tell her now. Her practice was canceled because of a thunderstorm. Boy, is she grumpy!”
“Baseball’s the love of her life,” I said. “A new adventure will cheer her up.”
All right, I told her to meet us there. She’s riding her bike straight from practice.
Dan placed his hand on his head like he does when he’s listening telepathically. “Uh, oh, Kayla, you’d better hurry. She’ll beat you here.”
I didn’t think of that. Mom’s busy at work. I can’t interrupt her, and I can’t bike anymore.
I straightened in my wheelchair. “Let me give you a lift—literally.”
Now you’re reading my mind, Jeremy. I was just about to ask you for help. Are you sending your flying car?
“Nope. Just put on your Secret Supers outfit and I’ll fly you over.”
“I’ll put on mine. It’s here in my backpack.” Dan slid it off his shoulders.
I hadn’t noticed Dan’s backpack. I turned to my phone. “We’ll make it a full club meeting. This’ll be the first time we’ve worn the new costumes your mom made for us, Kayla.”
I modeled mine for Mom. They fit a lot better than the store-bought ones we had, and they’re much sturdier. The old ones were pretty scuffed up.
“Something about fighting ten-foot robots does that.” Dan grinned.
Kayla laughed, in their heads. Ha! Not to mention flying at a hundred miles per hour chasing speedboats and rockets.
Part 5
“Are you ready, Kayla? I can picture your front porch in my mind and pick you up there.”
Just about. Let me get my boots on. There. I’m ready.
I imagined Kayla standing on her front porch. I exerted my telekinesis.
Okay, Jeremy, can you pick me up another fifty feet? Then I’ll be clear of any telephone or power wires between my house and yours.
“Sure.” I pulled her toward my house at a steady rate.
All right, I’m right over your yard, Jeremy. That was something! I felt like a flying superhero. But carrying my walker.
“But no cape.” Dan grinned as he talked into Jeremy’s phone.
Right, Dan. The best superheroes –don’t have capes, and we don’t either. But we do have masks.
The elevator came down. Dan and I greeted Kayla as she got out in her walker. My parents had installed the elevator when I got my first electric wheelchair in first grade.
“Sorry, Kayla, I should have helped you walk like I usually do.”
No problem, Jeremy. You won’t always be around to help me. I still have hope I’ll be able to regain my strength and balance if I keep working at therapy. And your mom gave me a chocolate chip cookie on the way. Kayla pulled out a warm, soft cookie from the purse hanging from her walker.
I liked seeing Kayla’s pretty features face-to-face. Her dark eyes were framed by the black mask and her black hair rested on the scarlet tights. Still, she had a handkerchief in her hand. She tended to drool because she couldn’t control her muscles.
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 6
“Uh, I’m the only one not in uniform. I’d better change.” A uniform flew out of the cupboard as I rose from my wheelchair and flew into the bathroom.
“You’d better hurry, Jeremy. Aubrey’s coming here at full speed! She’s keeping up with traffic on her bike. She’s using her super strength.” Dan called after me from the other room.
“Ha! Dan, I’m almost as fast as any superhero. Kayla, did you tell Aubrey to wear her uniform?” I yelled from the bathroom as I dressed telekinetically, pulling the tights over my legs twisted by a lifetime of cerebral palsy. It did fit better than the old uniform. Even the boots went on better. I loved the material I selected. It was completely air tight and waterproof. It fit beautifully with the other secret enhancements I’d put in. I wondered when I should tell the others about them.
Of course—
THUMP! THUMP! Ba-DUMP!
I don’t need to read minds to know that’s Aubrey. No one else pounds as she does down the stairs.
The door to the clubroom burst open. “TA-DA! I’m here. I came here at the speed of light, on a bicycle.”
Coming out of the bathroom, I saw Aubrey’s tousled blond hair peeking out of her baseball cap. Sweat beaded her broad forehead. Her black mask and red Secret Supers uniform clashed with her green ball cap. Instead of black boots, her prosthetic legs went to her knees.
I smiled at her. “Aubrey, did you notice how much better these new uniforms fit?”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 7
“Yeah, it doesn’t bind me at all when I run or bike. I could wear it all the time. It’s easy to get on and fits nicely around my stumps. Now tell me what the big news is, Jeremy. Kayla wouldn’t tell me anything!”
“The big news is we’re all going to Space Camp later this month.”
“Woah! Will we learn to be astronauts?” Even talking normally, Aubrey was loud. She sat on a chair and crossed her prosthetic legs. She’d lost both legs in an auto accident. After melting one prosthetic leg while rescuing Dan’s family from a house fire, I had a pair made using a 3D printer. The black, carbon-fiber latticework blended perfectly with her red tights. Everyone else had black boots.
“Kind of. Here’s the agenda.” I cast the Space Camp website to my wall-mounted monitor. They read:
- Train like an astronaut on the 1/6th Gravity Chair and the Multi-Axis Trainer.
- Design, build, and launch a team rocket and safely recover its payload.
- Discover the role the International Space Station plays in our global community.
- Prepare for every contingency as you go to Mars on an extended-duration mission simulation.
“Man, Jeremy, you didn’t tell me all that!” Dan looked in Jeremy’s direction.
“Well, you could have read my mind.”
“My dad is really strict about that. He doesn’t want me mindreading without permission or if something is life and death. I did borrow your eyes to read it.”
“You always have permission with me.”
And me.
“Me, too, if you can find anything in there. My science teacher says I’ve got nothing up there.”
“Aubrey, wait until you tell your teacher you went to Space Camp. The session can count for college credits.” Jeremy tried to encourage her.
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 8
“Right, but what if they give me some formula I don’t know? I’m not good at math, let alone algebra.”
We’re always here to help you, Aubrey. Kayla carefully transferred from her walker to a chair.
“I do okay at science, but nothing like you and Jeremy. I’ll help you as well as I can, Aubrey.” Dan’s dark glasses met Aubrey’s blue eyes. They were of the same height and build but as different as night and day.
“That’s why we’re a team, Aubrey. You don’t expect a weightlifter to be a genius, do you?”
“Are you calling me a muscle-bound weightlifter, Jeremy?”
“Uh, no, I was just making a comparison of contrasts.” Oh, no! I felt my face glow as red as my uniform. I had a secret crush on Aubrey and didn’t want to offend her.
She grinned. “I’m just pulling your leg, Jeremy. I identify with weightlifters. I like lifting and smashing things. It’s my natural gift!” She made a bicep the size of grapefruit.
I tried to butter her up. “Well, you’ve saved the whole team with your strength.”
Like when you pulled the steel net off us as the robots shot at us with machine guns.
“Thanks, guys. I know you’ve got my back. And I’ve got yours.” Aubrey looked at the floor under my computer table. “Hey, what about Dancer? He’s coming isn’t he?” She bent down and picked up my pet hamster, the Secret Supers mascot, out of his cage. He’d crawled into his uniform. It was a red vest with a black elastic belt and a backpack for his cell phone.
“Where’s your cell phone, Dancer?”
The hamster pointed at the floor by his cage and then gestured, “Bring it.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 9
Aubrey grabbed it and set it before the hamster on the big work table. Dancer began to furiously type. Dancer was a super hamster, with genius-level intelligence. He remembered everything he read or heard, and he read all the time.
I cast Dancer’s text message app to the screen.
“whew. I thought i’d never get a word in. my phone fell out of my cage and my door was jammed shut.” Dancer was great at texting, but he had trouble typing capital letters or any shift-key character.
“Sorry, Dancer. I didn’t notice.” My face reddened again.
“bad timing, jeremy. yesterday as I conducted my circumnavigation of the yard, I noticed some corvids with metal yarmulkes.”
“I know a yarmulke is a Jewish religious cap, but what’s a corvid?” asked Aubrey.
“I don’t know either,” Jeremy and Dan said together.
It’s a crow, Kayla thoughtcast.
“cor·vid – any of a family -corvidae- of stout-billed passerine birds including the crows, jays, magpies, and the raven. i didn’t know which species it was, so i just said corvid.“ Dancer’s message appeared on the screen.
“So it had a metal yarmulke, just like the chipmunks we found last spring spying on us. Those were cyborg chipmunks. A cyborg crow! That’s not good. Are cyborg mambas next?” I frowned.
Right. That means our villain Becky Robinson that we defeated at Coaster World is on the move and is spying on us.
“Or someone from her gang. We’d better tell the NSA.” I sighed.
“And our parents. Remember, we promised we would let them know the next time we heard of danger.”
“Right, Aubrey. Let’s go upstairs now and give them the bad news.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 10
Dancer never stopped typing. His new message appeared. “wait. before you go, i’ve got to say it may not be a good idea to go to space camp at all.”
“Dancer, we fought off that gang twice before and won.” Aubrey petted his back as he continued swiping at his phone’s keyboard.
“i say this because you’ll be away from home and the villain can plan an attack.”
“Aubrey’s right, Dancer. That’s just what happened at Coaster World. We came out okay, and Becky was taken away in zip ties.” Now Dan patted Dancer. He didn’t stop typing.
“obviously she’s escaped and is probably coming back with reinforcements.”
“That’s logical, Dancer, but we can’t live our lives based upon what might happen. Maybe they’re planning to attack us at our home and will be completely thrown off if we go to Alabama?” I held Dancer in my lap as the hamster typed on the cell phone.
“okay. you’re humans, and i’m just a little hamster. what do i know?”
* * *
“Hi, Loretta. Are you all refreshed from your Paris vacation?”
I looked at my wall-sized monitor in my home. My boss and grandpa John Smith smiled genially at me. He might call me any time, day or night, but he always knew where to project his image so we could have a video conference. He stroked his salt-and-pepper pompadour in the bright sunlight. I could see the sea in the background. I knew his hideout was on some island. From the angle of sunlight I could calculate the time—but I had to answer him first.
“Hi, Papa Smith. Yes. I had a lot of fun waterskiing on the Riviera. I also cheated the casino in Monaco out of a million bucks.”
Read Secret Supers in Space – Part 11
“Of course.
“But now I’m refreshed and bored. I haven’t had a job since I left for Coaster World.”
“I’m glad to hear you say that. I’ve got a challenging assignment for you—the Secret Supers.”
“Ugh! I sure want to get back at them. But they’re backed up by the NSA. I’m not eager to tackle them and the US government.”
Papa stroked his hair. “The best cure for falling off a horse is to get back on. How about if I get a partner for you?”
“They’d better be awfully competent. I can’t really work with anyone who’s incompetent, or average, or merely a genius.”
“How about if you and I work together?”
I gasped. Papa Smith had raised me. He’d been very vague about what happened to my parents, so he was the only parent I’d known. I’d dreamt of working with him in the family crime business, but I hadn’t seen much of him once I went to college and began teaching, over fifty years ago. He was the one person I was pretty sure was smarter than me. Or at least he knew more.
“That’d be wonderful! I’ve got some ideas I’d like to try out on our little red-uniformed friends.”
“Me too. I’ve got some news too. They’re going to Space Camp. Jeremy just applied today.”
“So are you intercepting their internet signals?”
“And cell phone communication. It’s easy as pie once you’re in their wireless network.”
“Let’s do this!”
One Last Thing
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