I landed in our pool, which was kind of bad planning on my part. I’d jumped just a little too hard and overshot the small patch of grass between the fence and the ridiculously huge expanse of aqua water. Of course, on the bright side, I’d also missed slamming into the concrete patio.
I came up out of the super chilly water not even caring that my new, really expensive dress was ruined. There was a huge smile on my face.
I was a superhero.
“HARPER JANE!”
The smile fell from my face instantly. Oh, crap.
Mom stood just inside the back door, wearing a robe and pajamas. She would’ve had to have been right in the kitchen to have made it outside so quickly, but Mom had never waited up for me before. Why did it have to be the one night I was diving off the fence?
But Mom must’ve missed that part of the show because all she said was, “What on Earth are you doing in the pool?”
As I hoisted myself up the ladder, Mom came rushing down the steps of the deck, her bare feet slapping on the wood. “I’m fine,” I told her, climbing out of the chilly water.
“You clearly are not,” she fired back, whipping off her robe and throwing it around my shoulders. “You’re practically blue, and your dress is ruined. Have you lost your mind?”
“No,” I said, pulling the lapels of the robe closer around me. It was warm and smelled like Lancôme lotion and coffee. “I just decided to come in through the back door so I wouldn’t bother you and Daddy. I wasn’t looking where I was going, and I tripped.” I gave her what I hoped was a sheepish smile and nodded toward my heels which, thankfully, had landed on the pool deck. “Stupid new shoes, you know how it is.”
But Mom wasn’t an idiot. She frowned at me. “And what, you just . . . didn’t see the pool?”
I glanced over at it, noticing that all the underwater lights were on. It gleamed like a giant turquoise jewel in the darkness of the backyard. There was no way anyone could miss it.
“Mom—”
But she already had me by the shoulders, turning me to face her. “Harper, have you been drinking?”
“No,” I said, reaching up to squeeze one of her hands for emphasis. “You know I wouldn’t do that. I promise.”
Mom watched me for a long time. There were new wrinkles around her eyes, and in the dim, greenish light of the pool, she looked almost sickly. All the euphoria that had just been coursing through me seemed to drain out. I had almost been killed tonight. I pictured Mom, sitting at the kitchen table in her robe, waiting for me when I was never coming home, and suddenly, the whole superhero thing didn’t seem so great.
“I’m fine,” I told her again, reaching out to hug her before remembering that I was soaking wet. “Just . . . distracted and clumsy.”
I wasn’t sure how convinced she was, but she finally smiled and tucked a piece of wet hair behind my ear. “Okay. But you might want to work on that, or Mary Beth won’t be the only one taking out an entire row of debutantes.”
Relieved, I laughed. “She’ll get better.”
Mom and I walked back into the house, and I saw that the coffee pot was on and nearly empty. “How long have you been up?” I asked. It wasn’t even midnight yet, and that was my curfew. “Awhile,” was all Mom said, but then, from the doorway, I heard Dad say, “She hasn’t been to bed yet.”
Dad’s hair—what little he had left—was sticking up and his eyes were blurry with sleep. As he shuffled into the kitchen, I smiled at his familiar plaid pajama pants and University of Alabama T-shirt. “Why are you soaking wet?” he asked. “She fell in the pool,” Mom explained. Unlike her, he seemed to take that in stride. “Gotta be more careful, kiddo,” he told me, walking up to Mom. He put a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her toward him to kiss her temple.
I guess I should be icked out that I have parents who are obviously still so in love—and to be honest, sometimes, I am—but there was also something . . . comforting about it. I thought of Ryan, wondering if we got married, would we be like this in twenty years?
“So did you win?” Dad asked, and it took me a minute to remember what he was talking about.
“I did,” I told him. “But I left the crown in Ryan’s car.”
Dad squinted. “That doesn’t sound like you. Hope you weren’t distracted. Do I need to get my shotgun?”
“Ew,” I said as Mom nudged him with her elbow.
“I don’t think any firearms will be required to get Ryan and Harper down the aisle one day,” she said, winking at me.
Mom loved Ryan, especially since he’d been so great after everything with Leigh-Anne.
“So now that she’s home, will you finally get some sleep?” Dad asked Mom.
The lines around her eyes deepened as she smiled. “Sure will,” she said, but rather than heading back to her own bedroom, she walked me up to mine.
“You’re sure you’re all right?” she asked, hovering in the doorway.
“I will be once I take the hottest shower in the world.”
Mom smiled again, but it was faint and kind of sad. And then her eyes drifted to my open closet, where my Cotillion dress was hanging in its plastic bag. “It’s such a gorgeous dress,” she said softly. “I just wish . . .”
I held my breath, waiting for the tears. But this time, Mom gave a tiny shake of her head and said, “Anyway. You’ll be beautiful. Oh, and Miss Saylor called tonight. There’s an extra—”
“An extra rehearsal on Monday, I know.” Twisting behind me, I reached for the dress’s zipper. “Amanda and Abigail told me.”
Mom crossed the room, helping me unzip. “You know I think Cotillion is a wonderful thing, but sometimes I wonder if Saylor doesn’t take it a little bit too seriously. Before she took it over, the girls had maybe three practices for the entire thing. Now it seems like you have three a week.”
Last week we’d had four, but I didn’t say that to Mom. “Miss Saylor just wants it to be perfect.”
Mom pursed her lips, and for a second, it was like she was Old Mom again. The mom who laughed more, who had a weakness for gossip, who didn’t wait up for me before it was even my curfew. “Pine Grove’s Cotillion has been going on for fifty years, and there was never one hiccup until Saylor Stark took it over. Do you know how much mistletoe she makes the Junior League pay for? I tried to tell her that just because our town’s Cotillion takes place a month before Christmas, there’s no need to re-christen Magnolia House ‘Mistletoe Manor.’ That stuff is expensive.”
Saylor Stark, with her gorgeous clothes and her silver hair and her impeccable manners, was kind of my hero. I mean, I put up with her nephew because I liked her so much. But it was nice having old, gossipy Mom back, so I nodded in sympathy. “She’s also really strict about where we stand. That’s what all the rehearsals are about. Making sure we’re all standing in a perfect circle.”
“Ridiculous,” Mom said on a sigh. “Anyway, go take your shower and get some rest.”
“Will do!” I said brightly, waiting until she shut the door to drop my grin. As soon as I heard her footsteps heading downstairs, I shimmied out of my wet dress and dashed into the shower. Once I was out, I threw on some flannel pajamas, snatched up my laptop, and headed into my walk-in closet. There was little chance of my mom coming back, but I didn’t want to freak her out any more than I already had tonight. I was not going back to Dr. Greenbaum.
The first thing I did was Google “superhero,” but that just got me a bazillion way too detailed Wikipedia entries on Marvel comics. A search for “Mr. Hall, janitor, Grove Academy” turned up absolutely nothing, which wasn’t too surprising. What was surprising was that a search of “Michael DuPont, history teacher, Grove Academy” brought up only his faculty page on the Grove Academy website. That was weird. All of the Grove faculty are super accomplished; most of them are former college professors, and Googling any of them brings up either a book or paper they’ve published, or a lecture they’ve given at some academic conference. But there was nothing for Dr. DuPont. Almost like he hadn’t existed before he came to the Grove last year. Chill bumps broke out all over my body, and I reached up to pull a fluffy pink robe from a hanger. Wrapping it around me, I thought back to my fight with Dr. DuPont. He had called me something, some weird word I’d never heard before. “Pal” something.
I typed “superhero pal” into Google, but that just brought up some truly disturbing Batman/Robin fanfiction. So I tried “warrior pal.” That got me a bunch of World of Warcraft sites. I sighed, scrolling down, about to give up when a word caught my eye: “Paladin.”
That was it. That was the word he’d used. I clicked on the link and a definition popped up. “Paladin: an honorable knight; defender of a noble cause.”
“Laaaaaame,” I whispered. I much preferred superhero.
An hour later, I’d read pretty much everything the internet had to offer on the subject of Paladins and I was more confused than ever. The word was used to describe everything from high officials in the Catholic church to French knights to a class of warrior you could use in—ew—roleplaying games.
But even with all the definitions, one thing remained the same. Paladins were warriors and protectors, charged with safeguarding a specific person or place.
That didn’t sound particularly super. I slumped against the wall of my closet, pulling the robe tighter around me and burying my chin in it. Shouldn’t I get to fly? Or at the very least, shoot laser beams out of my eyes?
Feeling like a complete moron, I stood up and focused as hard as I could on my closet door. No matter how hard I stared, no laser beams. I even tried muttering “laser” under my breath, but nothing.
That done, I gave a few experimental hops, trying to see if I could levitate even for a second. When that didn’t work either, I briefly considered trying to jump out the window, but then I remembered Mom’s expression when she’d found me in the pool.
So no lasers, no flying, but super-strength and an ability to kick some major ass. That was something.
I sat back down on the floor of my closet, turning back to my computer. I had a couple of tabs open, and when I went to close the one about superheroes, a boldface paragraph caught my eye: “Perhaps the most defining characteristic of the superhero is a willingness to sacrifice for the good of others, even to the point of laying down his or her own life.”
A shiver went through me. Mr. Hall had done that, apparently. And I knew that whole spiel about great responsibility coming with great power, but dying . . . that didn’t seem worth a few measly superpowers. Even laser beam eyes weren’t worth getting gutted by a scimitar-wielding history teacher.
But, I reminded myself, technically Mr. Hall hadn’t been a superhero. He’d been a Paladin, and that was . . . different, right? And what—or who—had been his noble cause?
What was mine?