Sakkara

“Hi, Brian…How’s it going? Hey, were you just watching the news?”

“Yeah! That’s why I’m phoning. Kid Titan looks just like you!”

“I know. Now everyone will think I’m a superhero!”

Brian laughed, then said, “You’re not, are you?”

“Oh, I wish!”

“You’re going to have everyone bugging the hell out of you now! Still, maybe some girls will finally notice you!”

“Oh, thanks a bunch.”

“Not that you need to worry on that score,” Brian said after a short pause, “you’ve had a hot babe living in your house for weeks. Pity she’s your cousin.”

“I don’t think of her as a hot babe, though,” Colin said. “Just as someone who eats all the biscuits and forces us to watch girly movies.”

“You know,” Brian said slowly, “she does kind of look like Diamond.”

“Brian, I think I’d know if my own cousin was a superhero!”

“I suppose. Anyway, I’d better go. I just phoned Danny but his mum wouldn’t let me talk to him. He’s been grounded or something. See you tomorrow, right?”

“Sure,” Colin said. “See you.” He hung up. Maybe Ishould have told him ages ago. He wouldn’t have told anyone else. Probably.

The phone rang again. Colin hesitated for a second, then picked it up. “Hello?”

“Colin? Is that you?” A girl’s voice asked.

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“It’s me! Judy Morris! Don’t tell me you don’t recognise my voice!”

How could I recognise it? Colin thought. You’ve hardly ever looked at me, let alone talked to me! He could hear whispering and giggling in the background.

“So listen, we were just watching television and guess what we saw?”

“You saw someone who looks like me. Yeah, you’re not the first one to let me know. How did you get my number, anyway?”

“Adam Gilmore told me. So it’s not you, then? Kid Titan, I mean?”

Colin resisted the temptation to say that the name was Titan, not Kid Titan. “What do you think? That I’m secretly a superhero? I wish I was.”

“He does look a lot like you, though. And we were thinking, OK, that he hangs around with that girl superhero Diamond, and she looks kinda like that girl staying with you.”

From the sitting-room, Colin could hear his mother’s mobile phone ringing. “Judy, it’s just a coincidence that Kid Titan looks like me.”

There was a brief pause. “If you really were him, you wouldn’t tell me anyway, would you?”

Damn it! Colin thought. “Probably not. I mean, I barely even know you.”

“Well, that’s because you never talk to anyone. You’re too shy. You know my friend Emma? The short one with red hair? Well she fancies you!”

Another voice squealed, “Don’t tell him that!”

Despite the seriousness of the situation, Colin couldn’t help being drawn in. “Really?” He’d seen Emma around and had always thought she was sort of cute.

Behind Judy, Emma was saying, “Oh my God! Oh my God!”

“Yeah,” Judy said. “You could actually try talking to her sometime. Hold on, I’ll put her on.”

Colin began, “No, wait…” but it was too late.

Emma came on. “Erm…Hi, Colin.” She was almost drowned out by a loud burst of giggles.

“Hi,” Colin said, thankful that he was on the phone and she couldn’t see how much he was blushing.

At that moment, the sitting-room door opened and his father stepped out. “Hang up the phone.”

Colin covered the mouthpiece. “In a minute!”

“Now, Colin!”

With his father standing there watching him, Colin said into the phone, “Sorry, Emma, I have to go.”

“Oh. OK then.”

“Bye,” Colin said, then hung up and instantly regretted it. I should have said that I’d see her soon or something like that! Now she’s going to think I don’t like her!

Mr Wagner reached out and unplugged the line from the phone. “We’ve been talking, Colin. We’re all going to have to leave here. It won’t be long before someone figures out that Renata must be Diamond. Then someone will realise that your mother and I used to be Energy and Titan.” He shrugged. “If that happens none of us will be safe.”

“There must be something we can do to sort things out!”

“There’s nothing. There’s no going back. I’m going to phone Joshua Dalton, tell him to arrange transport out of here and somewhere for us to stay. Ever since California, he’s been asking us to go and work for him.”

“What does he do, anyway?”

“I’m actually not sure. Some kind of top-secret work for the US government.”

“So…We’re going back to America?”

Warren nodded, then smiled. “Yeah. But at least this time we’re not being kidnapped.”

After much badgering from Danny, his mother had finally agreed to allow him to take Niall to see Façade. She laid down the rules: “You are not to stay for more than an hour. You are to go straight there and come straight back. Do not invite him for Christmas dinner – I don’t care how lonely he seems! And don’t go telling him that everything will be all right and that I’ll give in eventually!”

Having agreed to all the rules, Danny and Niall pulled on their winter coats and set off for the bus stop.

Danny was thankful that the bus was nearly empty because Niall couldn’t stop talking about his discovery that Colin Wagner and Renata Soliz were superheroes.