Sneak Peek Wednesday: The Supervillain and Me by Danielle Banas

My dad arrived home just as Connor hopped out of the shower. The sound of their conversation drifted from the front hall to the kitchen, words like assault rifles and disaster reaching my ears. I could picture my father, all salt­-and­-pepper hair and glasses, running a hand over his jaw before jotting down notes from Connor’s after­ noon escapade on the cell phone that never left his person. Once he even dropped it in the toilet because he refused to put it down.“I’ll take care of it,” I heard Dad say. “We’ll wipe all the crime from this city yet, you mark my words.”

The stairs creaked as Connor disappeared upstairs to his room. “Abby, I have something for you.” Dad kicked his shoes off on  the mat by the back door and pulled a beer from the fridge. A hos­ tage situation so similar to the one that killed his wife undeniably shook him, but he didn’t show it. Benjamin Hamilton wouldn’t be

Morriston’s favorite mayor if he did. “What is it?” I asked, a little skeptical.

My phone buzzed on the table, and Dad grinned, gesturing at the screen. “I sent you a new self­-defense video. This one is about escaping choke holds.”

“Oh. That’s . . . great.” This was self­defense video number ten in the past three days alone, otherwise known as my dad’s attempt to teach me how to defend myself without superpowers. I’d insisted years ago that I was too athletically challenged to attend karate les­ sons, and so this was the agreed­-upon alternative. Gouging eyes, throwing elbows, escaping zip ties—you name it, Dad found a video tutorial and sent it to me. I understood his reasoning for wanting to protect me from dangerous Morriston criminals; I probably under­ stood better than anyone. And so I watched the videos to appease him, nothing more. Fighting crime was Connor’s hobby, not mine.

Dad took a long swig of his drink, then sat across from me. “So how was school?”

I was about to answer when Connor returned to the kitchen. He had changed out of his costume and was now wearing faded jeans and an old Morriston High PE shirt, making him look less like a supernerd and more like the average college student.

Smirking, he dropped a packet of calculus homework on the table in front of me. He’d only completed one problem, and it took me two seconds to realize the answer was wrong.

“I got an eighty ­one percent on my history paper,” he announced proudly. Rolling my eyes, I fixed the math problem he’d butchered with a stroke of my pen, then threw the packet at his chest. Connor had received his 81 percent solely because of the three closing para­ graphs I wrote for him after he’d lost interest in typing and deci­ded to rush downtown to help the victims of a car accident on the Morriston Bridge instead. But I didn’t tell Dad that.

“I got a hundred on mine,” I said instead, pulling the paper on British literature out of my bag and sliding it underneath my dad’s elbow.

He glanced up, smiling. “Really?”

“Really, really. The English department is going to feature it on the school’s website and everything.”

“That’s great!” He actually put his phone down. I beamed. Win­ ning his attention with my brother in the room was never an easy feat.

“And Principal Davis told me that—”

“Oh, Connor, before I forget, I’m thinking of setting up another press conference for you,” said Dad. He shifted forward, and my paper slipped off the table and fluttered to the floor. When I picked it up, it was covered in last night’s pizza crumbs. Awesome. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I loved him to death, but everything with Connor felt like a competition, a giant game that I never agreed to play.

I’d grown used to it. Connor was Connor, and I was just happy he hadn’t gotten hurt in his life of fighting crime. After Mom died and Connor became a hero, I worried constantly, but I’d eased up in the years since. Connor was a superhero powerhouse, and I needed to worry less about how many criminals he was punching and more about how often I was rehearsing my lines and lip trills if I wanted to be successful too.

But . . . I still waited up for him to come home more nights than I cared to admit.

Connor reached for my English paper and brushed away a few of the lingering crumbs. He presented it to our dad with a flourish and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.

“I got you,” he whispered to me. Then he grabbed a bag of chips from the pantry and floated—yes, floated (it’s like flying but with a bit more hover)—through the air, landing in the chair next to our dad.

Connor grinned cheekily and shoved a handful of salt­ and­ vinegar chips past his lips.

Once a supernerd, always a supernerd.