I stared into space for I don’t know how long.

Ali had been covering for me? How could I not have seen that?

I felt like a complete moron. I felt like Bill Jackson must have felt anytime he sat in a science lesson. Or any lesson, I supposed.

“So...you are my friend?” I ventured cautiously.

Ali looked me in the eyes. “Yes!”

“And...you believe I have superpowers?”

She smiled at me through the tears that now broke and rolled down her cheeks, and sniffed. “How could I not?”

“And...you don’t think I have mental health problems?”

Our faces were quite close now.

“I’m your friend, Gonzalo…”

I leaned forward and kissed her.

Only I didn’t kiss her because she stood up off my bed and held her hands up and I fell forwards onto the duvet, getting a tongueful of quilt.

“Woah!” said Ali. “Easy, tiger! What do you think you’re doing?!”

It was my turn to be apologetic. I had done a complete emotional three-hundred-and-sixty in a matter of moments and my head was spinning. I stood up. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry… I’m just so glad you were only covering for me and don’t actually think those things about me and I...I got a little carried away…”

Ali crossed her arms over her chest, blinking away her tears. “Well I may be your friend, but I’m not that kind of friend, Gonzalo! I’m not your girlfriend!”

Yet, I added in my mind, as was my habit. The spark of her explanation had rekindled the flames of my romantic hope.

“I’m going to be a superhero!” I said out loud. “I’m going to a superhero school under the United Nations headquarters!”

I just said it. I didn’t think about it; I just said it. Oops, I wasn’t meant to tell anyone else about that. I guess I wanted to impress her and cover up as quickly as possible after my failed smooching attempt.

Ali put her hands over her mouth. “What?” she said through her hands. “That’s… that’s amazing Gonzalo...” She fell back down to sit on the bed.

“Yeah…” I sat down next to her, sweeping some comics out of the way so we could both fit on the bed with a reasonably polite distance between us. I’m sitting on my bed with a beautiful girl and she doesn’t think I’m a poor little boy with mental health problems. “I’m not really supposed to tell anyone else, actually… But you won’t tell anyone, will you?”

Slowly, she shook her head.

“You’re so great Ali. You always believed me, even from the start. I’m...I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s OK…” she said slowly. “I get it… I’m… I’m a very good actor, and I didn’t have the chance to tell you what I was doing…” She reached out and put a hand on mine. I looked down at it. It was still wet from her tears, but thankfully those had stopped flowing. I considered trying to kiss her again, then remembered what had happened the previous time and decided I might still be misjudging the mood.

Instead I said “It only makes sense that I’d tell you. You were the first person at school I told about my powers. I’m sure they’ll understand. But it’s still probably better if you don’t tell anyone else...at least for now.”

“Gonzalo, who’s ‘they’?” Ali asked. “What happened to you after that night at Sam’s party? Where have you been these last few weeks?”

I filled her in on what had happened when I got home from the party, about the attack on my apartment, about meeting Abram, about my being recruited to Miracle Force, my training. Her eyes stretched wide and she kept on putting her hand back to her mouth, then back on top of my hand again. This confused me. Was she expressing sympathy for me, or was she communicating physical affection for me that she wanted me to return? Did she want me to kiss her again? I decided that she didn’t. For now.

“So...what do you do at this secret underground UN base all day?” Ali asked me when I had finished explaining. “What’s it...like?” This time she didn’t ask excitedly, but tentatively, as if she was unsure whether I would actually tell her or not.

She was my confidant. My best friend. One day my girlfriend. There was no use keeping secrets from her. I told her. “Well, it’s not all day, actually. In the morning I stay home and do schoolwork. Our teachers have been sending me stuff to do so I don’t fall behind. They think I’m recovering from an operation I had to have after I was hurt at Sam’s party. Then, in the afternoon, a minibus picks me up to take me to The Base--not a limo, a minibus, so as not to attract attention. There’s a load of other kids on it--kids with special needs, disabled kids, stuff like that--but that’s just a cover.” Cover. That was a good word. I liked it. I had gotten it from Ali. “I’m the only one who gets off at my stop. I walk into the UN headquarters and have to go through a retina-recognition scanner and then use this special keycard”--I took out the ID pass with my face printed on it but didn’t let her get too close a look at it as she wasn’t supposed to see it--“to get in the secret entrance to Miracle Force HQ. It’s called ‘the Base’.”

“And...what do you do there?”

“I train. There’s a supergym that me and Mute work out our powers in--”

“Mute? Who’s Mute?”

I realised I had given something else away I probably shouldn’t have. But it was OK. It was only a codename. I didn’t even know his real name. “Oh, Mute’s my other teammate. He’s cool. He’s this British kid with telepathic mind powers. He’s even more awkward than me, if you can believe it... There’s only two of us right now but Commander Abram says more people will be added as they’re discovered.”

“Is that right?” said Ali. She sounded particularly interested by this. “How do people get discovered?”

“Well, they get found by their governments in one of the different UN member states, and the government sends them to Abram to be recruited into the Miracle Force. That’s what happened to me and Mute. The British government discovered him fighting crime by himself in London and sent him over here for training. There’s a secret international agreement that if any country finds someone with superpowers they’ll send them here to the UN for training. That way they can be used for good and for everyone’s interests, rather than just the interests of any one particular country.” I stopped. Yet again I’d said more than I should have. “Look, you can’t tell anyone about this, OK?”

Ali let go of my hand and stood up from the bed, turning away from me to put her hands on my desk and lean over it, blowing out her cheeks in a sigh. “Pffffft.”

“What is it?” I asked. “Don’t you believe me? Should I not have told you?”

She ran a hand through her dark hair, still facing away from me. “No, no, it’s really amazing Gonzalo. Really amazing. I’m really happy for you. It’s just...a lot take in all at once. It’s a little overwhelming, that’s all. Hey, what’s this?”

I got up too, nearly tripped over one of the wires from my games console, and joined her at my desk to see what she was looking at.

“That? Oh, that’s just an English project I’ve been working on. Like I said, the teachers at school have been sending me stuff to do as I’m away. Mrs Dean set me a project of writing a story to hand in during Summer semester. I decided to write about what’s happened to me with my powers, since she won’t believe it’s real anyway. It’s a way of sort of...processing it, you know?” I tried to gauge Ali’s reaction, but she was lost in fascination at the document open on my laptop screen. “Maybe it’s a bad idea,” I said. “I’ll write something else as well and hand that in to her instead. It’s probably too risky. It’s dumb, really…” I moved to shut the laptop screen.

“No, it’s not dumb at all,” said Ali, breaking out of her trance and putting out her hand to hold open the screen. She turned to look at me. “Gonzalo, do you mind if I have a copy of this to read?”

I was taken aback, but I kept my composure. “Oh. Really? Sure! If you’d like I can add your email to the permissions for the cloud save. That’d be easier. That way you can keep reading it on your own computer as I update it. I’ve just finished the part about me joining Miracle Force and meeting Mute, and I’m still going. How does that sound?”

“That sounds great. Here’s my email address.”

She reached down and typed it in, right at the bottom of the same document so I wouldn’t forget to add her to the list of addresses that had permission to access it. The letters appeared on the screen, automatically underlined as a blue hyperlink. Yes, I’ve got her email address! I thought. One step closer to ‘in a relationship’ status.

“Thanks,” she said. “I’ll look forward to reading it and finding out about what’s happened to you in more detail.” She took some bread and hummus from the plate on my desk and went and sat down on my bed again, munching.

I took some too but this time I sat down at my desk again. We were doing a strange kind of dance with where we sat in the room and I didn’t know the steps. I didn’t completely understand Ali. It was really nice of her to come round to see me. She really was my friend. But was she really that interested in what had happened to me that she wanted to read my account of it?

You silly Weakling, I thought, calling myself by my superhero name. Have you forgotten again that you’ve got a clever, kind, knockout girl in your bedroom? Talk about something else interesting, for God’s sake, or she might leave!

“How’s everything going at school anyway?” I landed on. Urgh. So cliche. So mundane. But it was something, at least.

“Oh, you know,” said Ali in between mouthfuls. Her delicate face looked oddly undignified when she spoke with her mouth full. “School’s school. Same old teachers, same old lessons. It’s a lot of work.” She grinned at me little cheekily. “The football team’s not been the same, but other than that most things are as usual.”

I felt myself blush. Oh yes. The football team. I had written up that episode a few nights ago. It had been very difficult to do. “Are they back at school?”

“Most of them.” Munch munch. “They got in a lot of trouble after that night, though. Donny’s still suspended for the meantime. I think he might get fully expelled.”

“Trouble?!” I said. That didn’t seem fair, even to me. I was the one who should be in trouble. I was the one who had beaten them up, in the end. “Why did they get in trouble?”

“Oh.” Ali paused, food still in her mouth. “Well I know you have powers and everything, but they did...try to beat you up, Gonzalo. And lots of people saw it as well...as far as everyone else is concerned, they saw you getting beaten up. They don’t know about your--what’s the word? Invulnerability. Like I do. So at first they just saw you getting beaten up...you know, before you fought back... I guess once word got back to school about the fight, especially what with Bill being on a warning from the last time you got in a fight, they all got suspended. I guess it is a bit weird that they haven’t talked more about what you did to them, isn’t it?”

“I’m not worried about that. I told you, Commander Abram told me that they paid off the football team and the witnesses and their families so they wouldn’t tell anyone else about what happened or sue.” A thought occurred to me. “How’s Bill?”

“Bill? Oh yeah, he’s well. We hang out sometimes.”

What? I thought.

“What?!” I said.

She paused mid-much and waved a hand with what seemed like fake nonchalance. “Oh, not hang out hang out, just, you know, like ‘hang out’ as in ‘hang around with the same people sometimes.’”

What was that supposed to mean?

“Don’t look so freaked out,” said Ali. “It’s totally normal. After all, he’s still going out with Sam, and Sam’s my friend now... Anyway, Bill’s not that bad once you get to know him a bit. The macho male thing’s all just a big act. Did you know he has two Dads, instead of a Dad and a Mom? Sam says she thinks he tries to overcompensate…”

The room had started to swim just a little. I felt all at sea, as if I had been tied to an anchor and someone had just cut it. For the second time that day, I felt like Ali was a traitor. Bill Jackson? How could she say that Bill Jackson was ‘not that bad’? After everything he had done to me? And after how racist he had been to her?

Ali must have noticed I was struggling because she swallowed the last of her pita bread, got up off the bed and said “I should probably go...”

Argh, she’s going to leave, do something to keep her here you stupid Weakling! I stood up. “Oh, you don’t have to go…” I shoved the feelings of betrayal deep down somewhere into my stomach. It was just hanging out with mutual friends. I could live with that. Couldn’t I? “You can stay longer if you want. Do you want to…” I looked around my room desperately for something. “...play some videogames or something?” I didn’t know where to put my hands. In the end they just rested palm down on my thighs. I must have looked so self-conscious. Weakling.

Ali giggled. Was that endearment or pity? “Thanks, Gonzalo, but no thanks, it’s OK. I really should be going anyway. I’ve got to go home and write up an experiment for Mr Oswald. But this has been...nice. We should do it again sometime.”

Now the flames of hope were like a burning sun flaming incandescent in my chest.

“Yes!” Too strong. “I mean...yeah, sure, if you like… That would be nice I...guess.” I shrugged like I didn’t really mind either way. I hoped it didn’t feel as fake to her as it did to me.

“Cool,” said Ali. “I’ll come round again sometime then. Maybe we could go out for another coffee.”

I almost started jumping up and down for joy but I restrained myself. “Cool,” I managed. Will you marry me? I added in my mind.

“Well, see you next time then,” said Ali.

I had to stay calm. I couldn’t do anything stupid to sabotage the end of this. Don’t mess this up. “Yeah, see you soon,” I said. “I mean--see you next time.”

There was a pause. Ali was still standing in front of me. I realised that she was expecting me to do something. What? Kissing her hadn’t worked before. Oh, was I meant to open the door for her?

I made to open the door just as she gave up waiting and went for it too, and we bumped arms, then both pulled back

“Sorry…” I mumbled.

I finally managed to open the door to my bedroom. God, why was that such an achievement? As I turned the doorknob and pulled the door inwards, my Mom half-stumbled into the room, crashing into me and then bouncing straight off my invulnerable chest to stumble backwards a couple of paces.

“Gonzalo!” she exclaimed. “Excuse me; I was just doing some dusting!”

To her credit she did have our bedraggled grey feather duster in her hand, but I was under no illusion that she had actually been dusting my bedroom door.

I shot her a death stare. It was lucky for her that wasn’t one of my powers.

Lucky for me, Ali found this funny too, raising a hand to her face to stifle another giggle. “Nice to see you, Mrs Lopez,” she said to Mom as we walked past after she had recovered herself.

“Oh, nice to see you, young lady,” Mom said. For once she was embarrassed. She didn’t bother to correct Ali for getting her second name wrong. She never did.

I showed Ali to the front door, glaring at my Mom as we walked past her, much more familiar with the door-opening procedure this time.

“See you soon,” Ali said on her way out, as if to give me a final confirmation that the promise of another meeting had been real.

“See you soon,” I echoed. I shut the door gently then turned around.

Mom was still standing at the other end of the corridor. She had a stupid grin on her face.

“Mom, you were listening to us!” I fired off straight away, furious with her.

She held out her hands in front of her, gesticulating with them as she spoke which she always did when she was excited. “My little baby boy is growing up!” The feather duster wobbled in the air. “Meeting with girls in his bedroom!” Was she getting weepy? “And such a pretty girl, Gonzalo!” she repeated herself from earlier.

I marched past her back to my bedroom. She can’t have heard me talking about Miracle Force to Ali or she’d be telling me off, as I wasn’t meant to talk about it to anyone else except her. Maybe she had actually been dusting for a bit before she started eavesdropping?

I stopped in my doorway and turned back to her. “Don’t listen in on me, Mom, or I won’t meet her here any more! It’s rude!”

She kept giving me that dumb beaming smile like she wasn’t paying any attention to what I was saying. She had followed me down the corridor with it.

“Oh, Gonzalo, I always knew you were going to be a--what do they call it?--a ‘late bloomer’. I’m so happy for you! But I mean it, by the way: No monkey business in this apartment.”

To try to get her to stop I decided to use my secret weapon. I hadn’t used it yet because I had wanted to forget about it. But I couldn’t forget about it forever.

“Stop it, Mom!” I said. “I heard you with someone when we spoke on the phone the first night Abram picked me up! I know all about your secret little ‘dates’! Don’t think you’re protected from having your private life poked around in! And don’t think I haven’t noticed when you’ve been back from work later than usual or been walking with a spring in your step this last month! Or that you’ve suddenly had double the number of ‘writing groups’! I mean, who even wants to discuss contemporary Hebrew poetry at all, let alone twice a week?”

Mom’s face dropped. She looked at the floor, then back up at me. “Gonzalo…” she said. “I was going to tell you soon…”

I’d gone too far. I’d made her feel ashamed, which I hadn’t wanted to do.

Eventually I said, much more softly, “It’s OK, Mom… I’m sure you would have told me eventually. It’s just, if you want your privacy, give me mine too.”

Judging from the weaker, less cheeky smile that she showed me I had hit the perfect note of righteous indignation and moral reprimand. I slipped into my bedroom and shut the door behind me, leaving Mom to stew in the after-effects of my having outed her clandestine activities.

I lay down on my bed and looked up at my ceiling, which was cracked and slightly mouldy. Ok, so Mom really did have a secret boyfriend. I had been mostly sure, but not a hundred percent until now. And ok, so sometimes Ali hung out with Bill Jackson; or at least hung out near Bill Jackson.

On the other hand, I had powers, I was part of a fledgling superhero team, I didn’t have to go to regular school anymore, and I had just spent time with a cute girl in my bedroom for the first time ever, who didn’t think that I was a poor little nerdy kid with mental health problems! And she had talked about coming back sometime!

Things were looking up.