“Will do!” I said brightly, waiting until she shut the door to drop my grin. As soon as I heard her footsteps heading downstairs, I shimmied out of my wet dress and dashed into the shower. Once I was out, I threw on some flannel pajamas, snatched up my laptop, and headed into my walk-in closet. There was little chance of my mom coming back, but I didn’t want to freak her out any more than I already had tonight. I was not going back to Dr. Greenbaum.

The first thing I did was Google “superhero,” but that just got me a bazillion way too detailed Wikipedia entries on Marvel comics. A search for “Mr. Hall, janitor, Grove Academy” turned up absolutely nothing, which wasn’t too surprising. What was surprising was that a search of “Michael DuPont, history teacher, Grove Academy” brought up only his faculty page on the Grove Academy website. That was weird. All of the Grove faculty are super accomplished; most of them are former college professors, and Googling any of them brings up either a book or paper they’ve published, or a lecture they’ve given at some academic conference. But there was nothing for Dr. DuPont. Almost like he hadn’t existed before he came to the Grove last year.

Chill bumps broke out all over my body, and I reached up to pull a fluffy pink robe from a hanger. Wrapping it around me, I thought back to my fight with Dr. DuPont. He had called me something, some weird word I’d never heard before. “Pal” something.

I typed “superhero pal” into Google, but that just brought up some truly disturbing Batman/Robin fan fiction. So I tried “warrior pal.” That got me a bunch of World of Warcraft sites. I sighed, scrolling down, about to give up when a word caught my eye: “Paladin.”

That was it. That was the word he’d used. I clicked on the link and a definition popped up. “Paladin: an honorable knight; defender of a noble cause.”

“Laaaaaame,” I whispered. I much preferred superhero.

An hour later, I’d read pretty much everything the internet had to offer on the subject of Paladins and I was more confused than ever. The word was used to describe everything from high officials in the Catholic church to French knights to a class of warrior you could use in—ew—role-playing games.

But even with all the definitions, one thing remained the same. Paladins were warriors and protectors, charged with safeguarding a specific person or place.

That didn’t sound particularly super. I slumped against the wall of my closet, pulling the robe tighter around me and burying my chin in it. Shouldn’t I get to fly? Or at the very least, shoot laser beams out of my eyes?