The Normals

Chapter One: Marianne Averrige

Everybody knew a story about Fantastic Man. Some of them were even true.

They didn’t tell you any stories about Fantastic Man, of course. Nobody told you. You either knew them or you didn’t. There was only one taught in school, and that one was so boring and plain that nobody counted it as a real story, really, at all.

The one thing they taught in school about Fantastic Man was that he had founded the city, Fantastic City, way long ago on some date that the students never remembered, just like Amazing Man had founded Amazing City to the north and Wonderful Woman had founded Wonderfulville to the east and Awesome Man had founded Awesomopolis to the south. To the west of Fantastic City was the ocean, and where the ocean met the beautiful bustling shore was the gleaming white statue of Fantastic Man himself, fist raised with nobility and the words “The Power of Justice” engraved firmly upon it.

That was all they taught in school, and then they segued into a discussion of Supers and Normals and who was who and who protected who from what, and that was the part everybody usually fell asleep during, because they knew it all from TV already. Normals screamed a lot and were often dreadfully oppressed until they got saved by Supers. Supers led glamorous lives full of secrets and deception and crime, and occasionally they saved Normals.

Marianne Averrige was going to be a Super some day. That was what she said, every time the teacher asked everybody what they were going to be when they grew up. “A Super,” she would say. And the teacher would smile oddly and say, “Well, Marianne, you need to consider the possibility that you might be a Normal.” And Marianne would say, “No, I’m going to be a Super when I grow up.”

Marianne never fell asleep in class when they talked about Supers, especially not when they had those class discussion imagination exercises, which everybody loved. They got to talk about what powers they would have if they were Superheroes.

Marianne’s best friend, Nicole Starr, said that she would have the power to make pretty dresses whenever she wanted to.

Nicole’s twin brother, James Starr, said that he would have the power to make girls shut up just by pointing at them. James thought girls were icky and gross.

A boy in the back of the class named Roger said he wanted every single power there was in the whole wide world, but the teacher told him to be realistic and the class told him to shut up. Roger was pudgy and weird-looking and nobody liked him very much.

Marianne said, “It doesn’t matter what power I have, as long as I have one and I can use it to help people.” Her teacher told her to have a little more imagination than that. She said, “Okay, then I want every single power like Roger.” Her teacher pursed her lips and moved on.

During recess time that day, the whole class was still talking about it. Nicole had changed her mind about the power she wanted at least five different times by then, after Marianne talked her into realizing that making pretty dresses was a kind of useless power.  “I guess,” she said sadly. “As long as I get to wear pretty dresses, I’m fine.”

“That’s a stupid thing to say,” said James, who thought that girls were so icky and gross that he had to follow them around all recess to remind them. “You can’t wear a dress if you’re a Super.”

“You can too,” said Nicole.

“Nuh-uh,” said James. “Supers have a dress code. They're only allowed to wear tights and other really flimsy stuff. You couldn’t wear a long skirt.”

Nicole stuck her tongue out at him.

Marianne pointed at the monkey bars. “Nicole, you like to climb those, don’t you?”

“Of course,” said Nicole.

"Well, you couldn't climb them in a dress."

"Whatever."

“I’ll beat you to the top!” declared James, and the twins took off laughing. 

Marianne stayed behind just long enough to fold her arms and sigh in annoyance. But she was a smart girl, and she realized quickly that this wasn't going to win her any tactical victories, so she shook off the mood and raced after her friends.

It wasn't as if Marianne Averrige didn't like to have fun.

The three of them were almost tied. Marianne was getting ready to say that she had won, when Nicole put her hand down on the top bar in front of her. James yelled, “No!” and slapped her hand.

Nicole snatched her hand away. She teetered on the bar. Her eyes widened in shock, and then she was falling backward.

“No!” screamed James again, this time in fear, and he tried to catch his sister but she fell out of his reach. He and Marianne squished their eyes shut, not wanting to hear her hit the ground.

They never did. After a few more very long, very silent seconds, they opened their eyes and looked at Nicole. She was still below them, just above the ground. Everyone was staring at her.

She was hovering five inches above the ground.

That day a black car pulled up to the school. Everybody was sitting quietly, their backs up against the wall, except for James. Nobody could find him. 

Two men in black suits got out of the black car and came up to Nicole, and started asking her lots of questions in low quiet voices that everybody tried to listen in to but nobody could hear. One of them held a walkie-talkie up to his ear and said something into it. A few minutes later, somebody came up to them, holding a struggling James by the arm. How they had caught him, Marianne never knew, because the last she had heard he had been running around the school so fast that he didn’t look like anything but a blur of color.

The two men in black suits talked to James and Nicole in their low, quiet voices for a few more minutes, and James and Nicole looked up at their faces and then sideways at each other and then back up at the men’s faces again, and they looked terrified. Then one of the men in the black suits gestured to the car, and James and Nicole nodded and went inside.

Marianne stood up. Her teacher said something to her, but she didn’t listen. She marched across the playground asphalt and tapped one of the men in the black suits on the arm and said, “What about me?”

The man looked down at her in surprise.

“What about me?” Marianne said again. “I’m going to be a Super too. Don’t I need to come with you?”

The man in the suit gave her a condescending look, and then he said, “Little girl, you are not a Super.”

“But I’m going to be,” said Marianne. “Just ask my friends. Just ask James and Nicole. I’m going to be.”

Then her teacher came up behind her and took her arm, and the man in the black suit shook his head and got in the car, and Marianne saw the door close and heard the engine grumble into life. “I’m going to be,” she yelled. “So what about me?”

The car started forward. The sun shone off of it with a weird glistening black and white light, and years later Marianne remembered looking at that, that stripe of white glare from the sun shining off the side of the car taking her best friends off to be Supers without her.

“What about me?” she screamed as it drove away.

“What about me?” she screamed as it disappeared around the next corner.

Her teacher tried to say something nice to get her inside, and Marianne knew she was making a scene, but she wasn’t going to stop. The entire class was staring at her as she screamed. But she wasn't ever ever going to stop.

“What about me? What about me? What about me?”