“Quickly, quickly, Kyle, we’re leaving!” Ma’s voice came from her bedroom where she was finishing putting on her make-up. I was in the next room, my bedroom, finishing up my costume for the day. I stood back and admired myself in the mirror; clean, white tekkies, perfect for running; dark, navy-blue trousers, for disappearing if necessary; a bold, crimson shirt with a dragon decal on the front, for striking fear into my enemies and to pull it all together a deep emerald cloak, to make me look super. I felt super.

“I’m leaving!” came Ma’s voice again, but this time accompanied by the jingling of her keys. I zoomed out of the room and flew down the passage, past the lounge with the same deep emerald curtains as my cloak and into the entrance hall where Ma was holding the door open for me. She began to close the door behind her in slow-motion. I bolted for the closing gap and dived through just in time. Ma locked up and we climbed into her Beetle. I strapped myself into the Super-booster-seat at the back so that I could keep watch out of the window for any enemies that could be following us.

“What happened to the shorts and T-shirt I put out for you?” asked Ma glancing at me, “It’s going to be forty degrees today. You are going to melt.” I sighed. Ma doesn’t understand; superheroes would look silly if they wore shorts and a T-shirt. My cloak protects me from the evil rays.

Eventually we arrived at Ma’s shop, Photoquick. It was a small building on the main road that looked a bit like a house to me, but without a garden to play in. There was another one just like it next-door but I think that was a house, not a shop.

I zoomed inside and stopped only briefly to greet the-lady-with-the-funny-name and then zoomed around the back of the counter. I grabbed a handful of empty spools from the bin as smoke-bombs and took my silver gun and golden boomerang from the pile of sample-frames. Now fully equipped, I flew through the backdoor and into the alley between the shop and identical house next-door.

There was a gate in the alley that leads into a small courtyard of the next-door house. I sat down at the gate and waited for the girl who lived next-door to come out.
I pick up and start to examine a particularly large dust-bunny in the corner of the gate.

“Tra la la!” I look up at the girl who appeared behind the gate. There is something different about her this time; she has the same techno-coloured hair-bands in her jet-black, wiry hair, the same pink Barbie T-shirt she wears every day, but today around her shoulders she wears a green towel, which I think she is pretending is her cloak.

We smile at each other and she sits down on the other side of the gate and begins to pick up dust-bunnies. I decide not to tell her that she isn’t wearing a real cloak, or that she should change her outfit if she wants to look super. I wonder if she ever leaves her house.

She bends down to pick up another dust-bunny and her strange, wiry hair touches the gate. I wonder what would happen to the dust-bunny in my hand if it touches her hair...

I balance the dust-bunny gently on top of her head.

She notices immediately and shouts angrily at me in the code she sometimes speaks in and runs inside. I don’t understand most of what she said, but I do know what the word “Ma” means. It means trouble. I hesitate only a moment before my super-speed kicks in and I flee the scene of the crime, never to return.