Hidden Heroes || Peter Parker [ON HOLD]

Chapter Six - Face to Face

"Ally, relax. You have nothing to worry about." I say to Ally, who is currently freaking out about the competition in about an hour.

The bus rides over a bump and my backpack falls off of my lap. I sigh and reach down to grab it.

"Hey, have you seen Peter?" Harper asks.

I sit up and look around the bus.

"He isn't here," I say. Ally bites her lip.

"Where could he be?" She asks. Harper shrugs. I scoot down in the seat, deep in thought.

Where could he be?

"Oh, god. We're here. We're here," Ally says.

"Hey, calm down. You'll do fine. You're super smart." Harper tells her. I sit up as the bus pulls into a parking spot and stops. The door slides open and students start to file out.

"I'm going to do terrible. I'm going to give the wrong answer. I'm gonna-"

"We'll go out for ice cream when we get home. How about that?" I say, standing up and leaving my backpack on the bus. I slip my phone into my pocket and follow Ned down the aisle.

"Okay. Okay, yes. I can do this." Ally says as we get off the bus. I reach over and straighten the end of her yellow decathlon blazer.

"You look good in yellow." I say.

"Whatever." she replies as we start to follow the crowd inside.

Harper and I sit in the crowd next to Ned and a few other students that aren't on the decathlon team. Peter still isn't here.

"It's so quiet," I whisper. Harper casts a glance over at Ned, who is nervously tapping his foot and keeps checking his phone ever ten seconds.

"You good?" She asks him. He looks up at her and quickly stops tapping his foot.

"Yeah. Fine." He says quickly.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to introduce Midtown school of science." The announcer says. Harper and I both give Ally wide smiles as the competition begins.

***

"And our final question to break the tie," the announcer states. "According to the modern synthesis, a change in allele frequencies in a population is called...?"

"C'mon, Ally." I hear Harper murmur. I sit on the edge of the seat, my elbows on my knees.

After a bit of discussion, Ally takes the microphone.

"The change is called the gene pool." She says.

"That is correct."

Harper and I stand up and cheer, and the whole team erupts into cheers for Ally. The rest of the crowd stands up, cheering for the team. She smiles the biggest smile as Liz Allan takes her hands and jumps up and down, and as Flash takes the trophy that the announcer hands to the team.

"See? You didn't do terrible. You did great," Harper says with a smile.

"My motivation was the ice cream." She says, flashing us a pretty smile. I chuckle as we step up into the crowd at the Washington Monument, the place our field trip is being held at.

"Peter, where have you been?" I hear somebody say. I turn around, and it's Liz Allan. She's holding her phone up to her ear.

"Okay, well, you missed the entire competition. We won, by the way. We're at the monument now," she says. "Yes, fine. Okay. Bye."