Feeling like a complete moron, I stood up and focused as hard as I could on my closet door. No matter how hard I stared, no laser beams. I even tried muttering “laser” under my breath, but nothing.

That done, I gave a few experimental hops, trying to see if I could levitate even for a second. When that didn’t work either, I briefly considered trying to jump out the window, but then I remembered Mom’s expression when she’d found me in the pool.

So no lasers, no flying, but superstrength and an ability to kick some major ass. That was something.

I sat back down on the floor of my closet and turned to my computer. I had a couple of tabs open, and when I went to close the one about superheroes, a boldface paragraph caught my eye: “Perhaps the most defining characteristic of the superhero is a willingness to sacrifice for the good of others, even to the point of laying down his or her own life.”

A shiver went through me. Mr. Hall had done that, apparently. And I knew that whole spiel about great responsibility coming with great power, but dying . . . that didn’t seem worth a few measly superpowers. Even laser beam eyes weren’t worth getting gutted by a scimitar-wielding history teacher.

But, I reminded myself, technically Mr. Hall hadn’t been a superhero. He’d been a Paladin, and that was . . . different, right? And what—or who—had been his noble cause?

What was mine?

The next morning, I woke up early and drove to the library, checking out a bunch of DVDs. I spent the rest of the weekend holed up in my room with all three Spider-Man movies, the new Superman, and X-Men 1–3. I already owned Batman Begins, so I watched that, too.

Bee and Ryan both called my cell, and while I talked to Ryan, telling him I wasn’t feeling so hot, I let Bee’s calls go to voice mail. I felt awful doing it, but it was too risky to talk to her. Lying—okay, not lying, exactly—to Ryan was one thing, but Bee was tougher. She’d bought my whole “I got sick” thing Friday, but I’d been lucky. Normally, her Best-Friend Sensor was a lot more finely tuned than that. Besides, it might be too tempting to spill everything, and until I had a better handle on what was going on, that didn’t seem like the best idea.