Mr. Terrific (Superhero BoyxBoy)

Issue #2: "Let's Get Physical"

"There are already so many big men fighting the war, maybe what we need now is a little guy" - Erskine,Captain America

Issue #2 “Let’s Get Physical”

 Currently fixing the mistakes my blind-self overlooked.  

“Come on, Paul!” One Hurdle, “Jump higher!” Two hurdle, “Not semi-high!” three hurdle “High-High!” Four.

There were a lot of things that I disliked about my high school.

For one, the  food didn’t look or taste like food; the chairs made my butt itch; the bell rang at 3:02 instead of 3:00 and the amount of hours it took to complete homework given on a normal day far outnumbered the number of hours spent at home to complete it.

But if someone asked me to pinpoint just a single attribute of this school that was the epitome of idiocy and the object of most of my contempt, I would feverishly point my index finger(s) at just how absolutely cheap it could be. And I meant Mr. Krabbs level cheap.

Ginger Valley High’s administrative team lead by Principal Henry were too tight pocketed to do anything that was relatively any fun or did anything to boost the students' morale. No cook-outs, no real talent shows; we didn’t even have a mascot because it would take too much money to make the suit and paint it on the gymnasium wall.

But it didn’t stop there – oh no. They neglected to buy the necessary items for us to have classes. One of which was Gym. There was no tight rope or an abundance of balls – soccer, basket or otherwise. That systematically rendered the gymnasium basically useless for anything that wasn’t a mundane and tedious assembly.

That also meant that we were stuck outside under the intense scrutiny of the hot sun for the better half of an hour. They fancily called it ‘Physical Education’; which to me, was their way of saying screw you kids and your health as they sat in the teacher’s lounge with that mysteriously new coffee machine.

I also found the name a bit overstating what we did in the class as well. I had yet to learn anything in this class to legitimize the ‘Education’ part of the subject’s title besides the fact that it would probably be better to just duck the class altogether.

What was there to learn, exactly? Gym – Physical Education – only consisted of running around the track in endless circles for about ten minutes; and if you were lucky, said track would be with littered the occasional rusty, hazardous hurdle that had tetanus shot written all over it. 

“All the better to make the jump” I was told when I questioned about the obvious and imminent health issues I was concerned with on the days we used them. Today was one of those hurdle jumping days and death quite never seemed so appealing.

I huffed and puffed once I finished the final hurdle, bending to cough a little before checking my body for any signs of general contact with one of the hurdles. I had tried to jump the double hurdles. The name given to two hurdles that were close together on the track. It took a lot of power and precision to do it.

And I ate it. Big time.

I Straightened back out and slowly trudged to the side with the other boys and girls who had shared the class with me once I was clear of having to get any shots.

“Your mother must be proud of your intestinal fortitude, Paul!” Coach Adams shouted in my direction and I wondered how his voice traveled so far and so loudly in such an open field space.