Rewind Hero

Chapter 12

The rest of the week came and went until Saturday thankfully arrived. I'm not ashamed to admit I had trouble sleeping the night before because of the excitement;I even woke up early on a Saturday to get ready. I headed downstairs to sit and watch tv until it was time to go. Mom was already up in the kitchen reading the paper, she looked up from the newspaper, concerned.

"Danny? Why are you up so early? Are you ok?"

I paused in confusion before answering

"Uh, yeah? Why?"

"You're never up this early on Saturday, is all. Kinda surprising."

"Oh, you know me, I'm full of surprises."

"Yeah, no. You have five pairs of the exact same black pants. So why are you up so early?"

She's too clever for me, I managed to pull a few over on dad my lifetime, but never mom, she always sees right through me.

"You got me, I got a date."

She set down her newspaper and lit up with joy.

"Oh! With that nice Sharda girl? That's great. But why so early?"

"Well, considering how we got robbed last time we went out at night, we figured it would be better to go during the afternoon when all the muggers are asleep."

"Danny! Don't joke about that, I still get nightmares, you could've been killed!"

Her anger wasn't genuine, just standard mom disapproval, so I figure it'd be safe to get off a couple more jokes.

"Oh come on mom, don't be so dramatic. If he had shot me, we would've finally found out if I'm bulletproof or not!"

"Daniel, that's not funny."

"What? They tested me for all the other powers except that one. And why not? Super tough skin and the like are super common."

"Daniel, you don't have invulnerability. Remember when you were seven and went outside barefooted, after I told you not to, I recall, and you got a nail stuck in your foot?"

"Maybe that's my Kryptonite, rusty old nails."

She let out an exasperated sigh and I decided not to torture her anymore. I went over to the living room and flicked on the TV. Dad has left it on the news again and so I was greeted with the heavily battered face of The Knight of Saint Bernard. He was giving an interview after stopping some jewel thieves early this morning, or so the graphic on the tv told me.

"...and so I would like to let all the citizens of Saint Bernard know that, so long as the graceful light of God shines upon me, I will use it to banish the dark." His voice came in raspier than it actually is on the tv and it managed to somehow make him even more repulsive to me, I even vocalized as much.

"Ugh, what a lame line."

"Hey! I wrote that line!" A freshly awake dad shouted from the kitchen. He came into the living room in his bathrobe carrying a mug of coffee and a look of indignation.

"Sorry dad, but not even you can make that old loon sound cool."

"Come on Danny, we worked on that for three weeks. And what are you doing up so early?"

"He's got a date." Mom called form the kitchen

"Oh, with Sharda, eh? Nice work, son. But why so early?"

"They don't want to get mugged again!" Mom again shouted from the kitchen

"Mom, you know I'm not mute, right? I can answer for myself."