Zora’s First Day of Super School
by
Elise Johnson, age 7
Kaleigh Thomas, age 7
Leah Johnson, age 9
The silver and gold door of Super School is daunting as Zora pushes it open. She looks all around her at the other students heading to classrooms. Oh no, she thinks, no one else has pointy wings! Zora notices that the walls and the floor are made of glass. To her surprise, she sees a boy with blue hair sink right through the floor. Another student, a girl with striped wings, begins to walk up the wall and onto the ceiling. Zora hears a girl with pink curls say, “I think I’ll take Invisible class.”
Zora wants to take the Invisible class, too, so she can start to learn all the powers Super School has to offer. She walks into the classroom and sees Coach Viz. She notices his bald head and thinks that maybe his hair is invisible. She sees her friend Rola and sits down next to her. Coach Viz says, “Okay! To be invisible, you have to pass a test. First, you have to snap your right hand, then clap, stomp your right foot, snap your left hand and turn around.” The class gasps as Coach Viz disappears. Zora and Rola look at each other. Coach Viz says, “And that’s how you do it. But you have to use the power you were born with and believe that you can be invisible. Okay?”
Everyone tries to succeed in the weird combination. Nothing happens. No one disappears. Rola and Zora look at each other in confusion. Coach Viz says, “Believe. Try harder. Imagine you are invisible. Try!”
Rola and a few others turn invisible and disappear. Zora tries again and nothing happens. Zora’s wings droop and she holds them, not knowing that they have turned invisible.
Coach Viz says, “Thank you, Zora! You have shown us how to turn individual parts of the body invisible.” Everyone turns to Zora.
Zora notices a girl in the class glaring at her. Rola whispers to her, “That’s Vina. She’s not nice. Vina has the power of flame. If you are not careful, you will become hot all of a sudden.”
Zora says, “Oh! At least she can’t joke about my ugly wings if no one can see them.”
“Your wings are not ugly,” Rola says. “They are actually better than a lot of other people’s. You can probably fly faster because they’re pointy.”
Zora shrugs.
Coach Viz asks Zora to demonstrate again. He turns her wings visible with a flutter of his fingers and Zora tries again. She snaps, claps, stomps, snaps, and turns around. She looks up and sees everyone frowning at her.
“Sorry,” she says, seeing that her wings are still visible.
Vina says, pointing her finger, “You didn’t touch your wings.”
Just then, Vina demonstrates the combination and her wings disappear. Vina looks around the room before turning her nose up at Zora.
Zora tries again. She stands in the middle of the room and puts on a confidant smile, straightens up, and she does the combination steadily. Keeping her eyes closed, she touches her wings, then hears Coach Viz say, “Good job, Zora. Now you have the power of invisibility.”
When they leave the class, Vina walks over to Zora and Rola, who have gotten their lunch trays and are sitting at a table in the lunch room. Just as Vina walks by, she sticks out her elbow and knocks Zora’s tray off the table. Her chocolate pudding splatters all over her invisible wings, so there are chocolate globs floating in the air beside her.
“Hey, my wings!” Zora yells. The chocolate goop drips to the floor. She pulls her wings toward her shoulders to hide them.
Vina says, “Oops, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I would help you, but I have to get to class.” Vina turns her chin and flicks her hair. She smiles, but her nose crinkles and her eyes narrow.
Rola says, “That’s Vina for you. You’re lucky you didn’t get fried.”
“She makes me want to hide in a hole,” Zora says.
Rola and Zora go to the girl’s bathroom, where Rola helps Zora clean up her wings. As she does, Zora’s wings start to appear again.
“It’s okay, Zora,” Rola says. “No one will laugh, at least I don’t think so.”
In gym class, Coach Im breaks students up into groups of two. “All right everybody, we’re going to have a tournament.” The gym is made of glass but there is no ceiling. The coach instructs everyone to fly up in the sky as high as a plane can go. Everyone in the class floats in the sky, fluttering their wings.
Rola and Zora are put in the same group. Vina is placed in a group with Michael, a senior with long hair to his feet.
“The game is called Save the Citizen,” Coach Im says, holding a life-sized doll with the word citizen across its yellow t-shirt. “One group will try to defend the citizen and the other group will try to kidnap the citizen by taking the citizen across the middle line.” He throws a fist full of black dust that paints a line in the sky between the two teams. “Above all, each team must keep the citizen safe. Understood?” Coach Im points to Rola and Zora. “You two, defenders.” Then he points to Vina and Michael. “You two are the kidnappers.”
Vina says, “Oh, this will be easy.”
Michael says to Vina, “You have no clue what a tournament is, now do you?”
“Oh yes I do,” Vina says, but Zora can see Vina looks scared by the way her face turns red.
Coach Im says, “You can only use your natural power three times before you are out.”
Zora raises her hand. “What’s a natural power? Is everyone born with a power?” Vina laughs out loud.
“Michael can shadow travel,” Coach Im says. “Vina, what’s your power?”
“I have the power of flame throwing,” she says, glaring at Zora.
“I can freeze things,” says Rola.
“What about you, Zora?” Coach Im asks.
“I don’t know what my power is. I just learned how to be invisible, I guess.”
“Everyone knows how to be invisible after taking that class!” Vina sneers. Zora looks around and sees all her classmates floating in the sidelines snickering and staring her way.
“It’s okay,” Rola says. “Let’s play.”
“On your mark,” Coach Im says, “Get ready, set, save!”
Immediately, Vina shoots flame at Zora. Zora falls to the ground and, before she can feel the burn, Rola uses her freezing power to put out the flame. While Zora stands up, she realizes Michael traveling in her shadow toward the citizen. Before Zora and Rola know it, Michael and Vina have the citizen and are nearing the middle line.
Zora shakes off her wings, trying to get a hold of herself after having been engulfed for a moment in Vina’s flames. Rola shoots ice streams from her hands at Michael and Vina and freezes them both. Zora flies over to the citizen, while Vina begins to use her flame to slowly melt the ice off of herself and Michael. Zora and Rola grab the citizen.
As Zora and Rola fly back to their base, Rola turns and yells, “Watch out!”
Zora turns and once again feels Vina’s flame all around her. The citizen is pulled from her arms. Rola says, “I’ve got you, Zora. Don’t worry.” Then Zora feels the cold come over her again, but this time, once the flames are out, she whirls her wings back and flies as fast as she can toward Vina holding the citizen. Vina has already crossed the middle line, while Rola and Michael juggle with competing powers. Zora can hear Coach Im announcing the winner. But, Vina looks back and sees Zora coming her way, and shoots one last flame. Vina loses her grip on the citizen and Zora sees the citizen plummeting through the air toward the ground. Zora dodges Vina’s flame and flies even faster, going straight down like a diver toward the ground. She catches the citizen just in time.
The rest of the class erupts in applause.
Coach Im says, “Very good effort, teams. Very close call. Michael and Vina, technically, you have won for bringing the citizen across the middle line, but Vina you must be careful with your flame-throwing. You dropped the citizen because of your carelessness, and if it hadn’t been for Zora flying so fast to catch the citizen, the citizen most certainly would have been seriously harmed. Congratulations to both teams, but Zora, you have found your true and natural power. You fly as fast as lightning. Everyone, give Zora a flutter of your wings.”
Zora lowers her head and blushes as all her classmates swarm her with flapping wings. Michael says, “That really was amazing, Zora.”
“Thank you.”
Vina walks over to Zora with her wings bent forward. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Zora says.
“Nice playing,” Vina says.
“Thanks.”
Michael and Rola float nearby. Michael says, “Hey, let’s fly up to the sky deck and have milkshakes to celebrate.”
“Sounds like a plan. Want to race?” Zora says.
They all laugh together. “No way,” Vina says. “We haven’t earned your power yet.”
Zora stretches her wings out to the side and glances at their bold points. “I think I’ll get chocolate!”
The End
This story first appeared in The Inaugural Story Hatchery Anthology last year. The students wrote this story together as a group, experimenting with visual art, improvisation, and playwriting in the process.
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