Eujean Merrit. Who?

“Eujean Merrit.”  “Who?”

          “One day, Todd, one day…”  I thought to myself while watching Todd Manly and his group of delinquents eat theirs, and everyone else’s lunch.
          I’m Eujean, Eujean Merrit.  I’m a sophomore at Mount Vernon High school.  I have no friends, and I usually have no lunch.  Today is a rare exception however.  I cleverly avoided Todd, which, to be honest, isn’t that hard, but whatever, I did it, and the result is that I get to eat lunch for the first time in two weeks.  My mom is always pushing me to meet new people, and to get my head out of comic books, but I like it better in comic books.  The nerd, like me, is usually a super hero in disguise.  I wish I was a super hero. But, alas, I am not.  And I suppose that this wish is what makes me a nerd, the biggest nerd at Mount Vernon in fact. 
          “Hey Jeanne! Come here for a second,  Jeanne?!”  Todd called to me.  I could hear his voice over all the noise in the large, sound carrying cafeteria.  “Jeanne! Don’t make me ask again!”  His voice was angrier now.
Sighing, I walked over to him, lunch in hand.  “Yes, Todd? What can I do for you today?”  Todd patted the chair next to him, inviting me to sit.  I had second thoughts and a feeling that if I did, I would never be able to leave the chair, and that if I did manage, somehow, too actually leave, my shorts would not be coming with me.
          “Sit down Jeanne. We wouldn’t want to be rude, now would we?”  Todd said with a chuckle in his husky, “manly” voice.  I sat down hesitantly.
          “…Yes Todd? What-”
          “SHUSH!”  Todd cut me off with his “superiority”.  “I just wanted you to meet my newest friend.”  Todd wrapped his arm around me, as if we’d been buddies for years, and he had never shoved me into his locker, or thrown me into the dumpster.  “Jeanne, this is Richard.  Rich for short.  And Sir, to you.”  Todd laughed, and high fived Jody Custer, his right hand man.
          “…And why do I have to meet him?”  I asked slowly and quietly, head down, waiting for the smack from Todd’s hand.  There was none.
“Because, he is one of my friends, and so are you, little buddy.  And I just want all my friends to know each other.”  Todd said, pulling me closer to him.  His voice had a hint of…mocking whenever he said “friend” or “little buddy”.
        “Oh… okay then. It’s nice to meet you, Rich- I mean Sir.”  I glanced up over my black framed, too big for my face glasses to sneak a peek at Rich.  He was big, as in built, like he could squash me like a bug in two and a half seconds at any given point and no one would even notice.  Rich was staring at me, like he was about to make me eat the floor, or become part of it.  He had something…almost timid about him… something in his eyes that made him seem like a big softy… but maybe I’m delusional.  It’s a good possibility.  My mother tells me of days where I’d act like I was someone else and when she asked me about it, I’d just say,  “Well you were there. Why don’t you remember?” and then everything would be just fine in a minute or two. I bet I am a nut.
          Todd slapped my back then, sending me on a trip out of the chair and into the chest of Cydney Lockafeller.  Needless to say, Cydney screamed like it was a zombie apocalypse, and cursed at me like a sailor would to his shipmate. 
        “Watch were you’re going, Nerd!”  Cydney screamed at me as I scrambled away.
Todd knows just how to get me to feel like I’m two inches tall.  He always has.  Ever since he found out that my dad left my mom and me, he’s paid an incredible amount of attention to me.  My mom says it’s just because he’s a bully and to not worry about it, “after all its just high school”.  I hate when she says that.  She wouldn’t last a day at my school, in my shoes.  I’m surprised that I’ve lasted this long.  I’m just a joke.  Just a big joke to the whole freaking school. Even my teachers laugh when Todd picks on me in class.  I hate my life. I wish I was something else…someone else…

        Two weeks after the Cydney Lockafeller incident, I came across a trunk of stuff my dad left behind. Mom being gone, I opened the big leather chest.  What I found inside would make even her jaw drop in amazement.  Dad’s old chemistry set!  I can kind of remember when he was home and he had it set up in the basement.  He’d call me down just before dinner and blow something up, or do a cool chemical color change thing…
        I closed the lid and lugged the heavy chest upstairs to my bedroom.  I then proceeded in setting up my dad’s lab in my room.  When I finished, an hour later, part of the set sat on my desk, another sat on the trunk, and the last third was on my dresser.  All of it connected, it took up the long wall in my rectangular room.
         It was beautiful.  Absolutely beautiful.  I have always enjoyed my chemistry class, but having it set up in my room, so accessible, was just…amazing.  Having the chemistry set in my room, reminded me of my dad…it reminds me of the good times.  When he would take me out for ice-cream, and mix the flavors and call it an experiment.  I miss my day. Lately, I’ve been missing him more and more, and I don’t know why.  Sometimes I want to tell my mom that I do, but, I know that it’ll only make her angry and sad. 
         I sat for two hours, just watching the chemicals mix together, creating new solutions, and vibrant colors that have no name.  I tied to give them names, but when I did, the name I came up with didn’t seem to fit.  I continued to watch my chemistry set until my mom came home.
         “Eujean?” She called through the house, and I could tell that she wasn’t too happy. “Eujean!? Where the hell are you?!” Mom came stomping down the hall, threw my door open, and stood, angrily in my door way.
         “Hi mom. What’s up?” I said, not turning to look at her.
         “Don’t even pretend you don’t know what’s going on, Eujean Carl Merrit.”
         I turned then, looking up at my mother whose face was contorted in rage and disappointment.  “I’m not pretending… I really don’t know what’s going on.” 
         “So you’re telling me that you didn’t put your face into a girl’s chest two weeks ago?  And you’re telling me that you purposefully didn’t tell me?”  She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at me.
         “Umm…what?  I didn’t put my face into her chest.  Todd pushed me into her chest, and I didn’t tell you because I knew you wouldn’t understand.”  I turned back to my chemistry set, avoiding my mother’s glare.
         “Todd pushed you?  Really?  You aren’t lying to me to get Todd in trouble?”
         “No.  He really did.  Why would I randomly decide to motorboat Cydney Lockafeller?”
         “Well…okay then.  We’re having hamburgers from Jake’s tonight.  Jake’s going to bring them over, so wash up and clean up your room.”  Mom left then, as if everything was okay and that it didn’t matter that she didn’t believe me. 
         Sighing, I stood up off my floor and started to get cleaned up.  I bent over to pick up a pair of pants and when I was standing back up I lost my balance, and fell sideways into my chemistry set.  Screaming I tried to avoid falling into it and breaking everything and getting drenched in whatever solution my father had in the vials.  I didn’t manage to do that.  I fell, right smack dab in the middle of the set.  Both ends came crashing on to me and I was soaked.  Mom didn’t hear a thing, and if she did, she didn’t care.  The weird thing was that the solutions didn’t burn me, they didn’t do anything.  I stood up, looked at my destroyed set.  The chemicals had burned threw the chest, desk, and dresser, but not me.
         “How weird.”  I said.
         “What’s weird?”  Jake, mom’s boyfriend, walked in.
         “I just…fell on my chemistry set…and it didn’t hurt me… but look at my desk.”  I pointed, still in amazement at what had just happened.
         “That is weird.”  Jake studied the holey furniture, and crushed chemistry set.  “Are you sure you’re not hurt, Sport?”  Jake turned around, grabbing my shoulders and searching for some kind of injury.
         “Yeah, I’m sure… I’m not hurt at all.”

         Monday rolled around, and I was sitting alone in the cafeteria, like always, when Todd strolled over.
         “Hiya Little Buddy!”  Todd sat down next to me, wrapped his arm over my shoulders.  “What we havin’ for lunch today?”  Todd leaned in closer to examine my lunch.
         “Its pizza Todd, are you too stupid to realize that?”  I didn’t mean to say it.  But I couldn’t not say it.  It just kinda…came out.  Like my filtering system that I’ve worked so hard to keep in check just suddenly stopped working.
         “Excuse me?”  Todd asked, just as amazed as I was.
         “I said, its pizza, are you really to simple to see that the triangular food item on my tray is pizza?”  There it goes again, shutting down.  Todd’s eyes were wide, and his mouth hung down.  “Close your mouth Todd, we are not a Cod fish, or are you?  I mean, you have the attention span of a fish, and I’m sure that if you saw a shark you’d lose control of your bowels too… But then again, I bet at night you lose control of your bowels, and your mommy has to come clean you up.”
         Todd was angry now, his face filled with rage and some other emotion that I didn’t recognize as one in Todd’s repertoire.  Todd lunged at me, his fists in tight balls of anger and rage.  He grabbed me, lifted me up off the floor, and shook me.  He then dropped me, and I landed on my feet, something neither of us were expecting. 
         “You little turd!” Todd screamed as he went to punch me in the face, but I wasn’t where he was expecting to punch.  I was on the other side of the table from him.  Then I was right in front of him, punching him over and over in the gut until he fell to the floor, and then I kicked him square in the jaw.  Todd started to cry.  People had gathered around us, and now, his buddies, who had been standing behind him, cheering him on, were now standing behind him, gapping at what they had just witnessed.
         I skipped the rest of the day.  I couldn’t deal with everyone asking questions, or staring at me like I was some kind of…of freak.  A nerd I was, but not a freak.  The freaks were those kids who wore giant rings in their noses, and had chains hanging from everywhere.  But that’s what they would have considered me.  A freak. 

         At home I sat on my couch, thinking about what had happened that day in the lunch room.  I thought of how I magically whooped Todd’s butt.  How I just knew how to fight, how I shot off my mouth.  Then I thought of the Friday before.  How I fell into my chemistry set and didn’t get burned.  Were the two things connected?  Did the chemicals give me special abilities like Peter Parker?  Am I finally a superhero?
         I decided to call my dad to find out what was in those vials.  I found his name in the only phonebook we owned.  I began to have second thoughts, on seeing his number, but then I remembered what all had happened in last the few days.  Mind made up, I dialed his number.
         “Hello?”
         “H-Hi.  Is this Robert Merrit?”
         “Yes, who is this?”
         “Eujean Carl Merrit, I’m your son.”  My father was silent, for a very long time.  “I’d like to ask you something, if you’re still there.”
         “Uhh, yeah, I’m still here, what is it you’d like to ask me…son?”  His voice was strained, like he was afraid of me.
         “What were the chemical’s that were in your old chemistry set?”
         “Why?  Has something happened?”  Now his voice was high pitched and awkward.
         “You could say that.”  I then told him everything that had happened.  How Todd had pushed me into Cydney’s chest and me falling on to the chemistry set, and me beating up Todd.  I told him everything that I thought could be related to my falling into the chemistry set. 
         “Well, that’s impossible.  The only thing that was in the vials was colored water.  Before I left I made sure that if you ever found it, that you’d not be able to get hurt when playing with it.”  He paused, and then added, “I’m sorry, but you can’t possibly have super powers.  It’s physically impossible.”  I hung up without saying good bye, and I’m sure he was left thinking my mom had raised me to be a rude child.
         I sat alone in my room, thinking of what my father said, and all the things that proved him wrong.  I took a pair of scissors from my desk and cut my arm.  The wound healed instantly.  I then punched what remained of the dresser.  It shattered.  I definitely had super powers.  It was undeniable.  I held the evidence in my hand.  I was a super hero.  It was now my job to defend the weak, help the poor, stand up for the righteous, and preserve justice.  All I needed to do now was come up with a name, which is hard to do, when you don’t know what you can do.  And it’s not like I have a whole lot of time to figure out what I can do.  Between Chess Club, Physics Club, Mathletes, and all my AP classes, I’m lucky to find time to eat, let alone figure out what kind of awesome super powers I have.  I guess finding the right name for the newest super hero is just going to have to wait.  Maybe by summer, I’ll be out in the public eye, kicking butt and taking names.