York: The Shadow Cipher

CHAPTER SIX

She clapped. He was so surprised, he looked around to see if anyone else was looking, if this was a joke. Most kids thought his drawings were okay, but nobody had ever clapped for them before. So he drew her a picture of Iron Man. Captain America. The Falcon. The Falcon when he became Captain America. The Morning Star, whose powers came from a malfunctioning Lion battery. Storm. Sunspot. And then, because she sort of reminded him of her, Kitty Pryde.

"Tess Biedermann!" the teacher barked. "Are you done with your workbook page?"

"Yabes!" "English, please."

"Yes. I finished the whole book." "You . . . excuse me?"

Tess said, "It was kind of fun. So I kept going." Tess grabbed her workbook and held it up, smiling.

The teacher was not smiling. The teacher stared at her; then her eyes slid to her brother in the back of the room. "Theo? Did you do your whole workbook?"

"Nabo," he said. "English!" "No."

"Did you finish your page?"

"No," he said.

"Why not?"

"The directions don't make sense." "You didn't understand them?"

"I understood what they wanted me to do, but they weren't clearly written. I thought I should read this book instead. It's about nuclear fusion. Harnessing the power of the stars."

The teacher slumped at her desk, covering one half of her face with her hand, so that one eye was visible through the V between her pinky and ring finger. It made her look a little like a pirate, and a little like a really annoyed third-grade teacher. "What about you, Jaime? Are you reading about nuclear fusion?"

"No," he said. "I finished my page. I'm drawing superheroes."

"What else would you be doing." This was not a question.

Jaime said, "Tony Stark uses cold fusion. For his Iron Man suit."

"Even if you could create a reactor that small, you'd still have storage problems. And side effects," Theo said.

"He does," said Jaime. "Hmmm," said Theo.

The teacher rested her elbows on her desk and put both hands over her face. "I want everyone in their seats. Those who have not completed their worksheets, finish them now. Everyone who has completed their entire workbook can sit quietly and practice meditation."

Before she sat down, Tess Biedermann leaned down and whispered, "You should create your own superhero.

A brand-new one nobody's ever seen before." "I am," he said, wondering how she knew.

Later, when his grandmother found him scribbling away, drawing one superhero after the next—different outfits, different talismans, different powers—she asked him what he was doing. He said, "I am trying to find the right beginning." Mima clucked her tongue and told him that he was clearly a cuckoo boy, because anyone could see he had already begun.

Now Jaime sat on a bruised butt in the gallery of the Liberty Statue holding a letter about a letter, a letter about so many things, and had the strangest feeling that this was its own kind of beginning.

"Jaime!" Tess stomped her foot. "Sorry, what?"

"The letter! Are you going to read it or not?" said Tess.

The twins squeezed next to him on the bench and peered over his shoulders as he read aloud: