Page 37 of The Dysasters

“It’s not storms or tornadoes,” Foster realized with a sharp clap. “It’s air. We’re controlling air! That’s what she meant.” She grabbed the crook of his arm and pulled him behind her as she jogged back to the house. “I found this paper. Actually, Cora and air helped me find this paper, but that’s not the point.”

“Cora and air found a paper?” Tate asked, nearly tripping up the stairs as she practically dragged him behind her.

“Yes, but that’s not the point,” she reiterated. “The point is, that part makes sense.”

“That part of what?”

“The paper! Jeez, would you keep up?”

“I could if I understood even for a second what the hell you’re babbling about.”

Foster released Tate’s arm as she ran into the office. “Babbling? I’m not babbling. I’m just trying to tell you this very exciting, very amazing, very crazy, extremely life-changing thing that I found that you have to look at because I think that maybe, just maybe, we might have accidentally figured a part of it out,” she blurted in a rush of adrenaline.

Okay. Foster took a deep breath and sorted though the papers strewn across the desk.Maybe she was babbling.

Tate leaned against the doorframe. “Is this you excited?”

Foster held the paper out to him, pointing at the circle Cora had drawn with the arrow pointing to the wordAir.

“It’s cute.” His lips ticked with a smile as he went to her and plucked the page from her fingertips. “So is this the exciting, amazing, crazy, life-changing thing you just had to show me?”

Foster’s chin bobbed, but no words came out. And her cheeks felt all warm from him calling her cute.

Gross. He’s Douchehawk, remember?

Foster cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes it is.” She brushed back the wild section of hair that kept falling into her face. “August twenty-fifth, one A, two A—that’s us. And Cora, she already figured the A part out. I just didn’t get it until now.”

“We’re air,” Tate breathed, scrubbing his palms down his cheeks. “Not storms. Not tornadoes. We’re air. We can control air? So I wasn’t out there talking to the sky like a complete ass?” He glanced over at Foster who hid hersmirk behind the wall of hair that kept obscuring her vision. “On second thought, don’t answer that. We can control air. This is fucking nuts!”

Foster couldn’t help but join in as Tate hopped up and down. “We’re superheroes!” she squealed, happiness stretching her lips into a smile—a brief, but genuinely happiness-filled smile.

“Wait,” they stopped bouncing as Tate pointed at the page. “The other pairs, they each have different abilities.”

Foster nodded. “Water, fire, and earth.”

“The Planeteers. We’re the Planeteers!” Tate’s eyes were so wide Foster half expected them to pop in and out of his head like in a cartoon.

Foster cocked her head. “You lost me.”

“Captain Planet,” Tate said matter-of-factly.

Foster clicked her tongue. “Nope, still lost.”

“It was a huge thing in the early nineties.”

“Hello, I’m only eighteen.”

“Yeah, so am I. That’s not an excuse for not knowing anything about classic cartoons.” With an extraordinarily dramatic sigh, Tate fished the laptop out from under a stack of papers and set it in front of Foster. “Google it, Miss Millennial.”

“You are such a nerd,” Foster mumbled, typing in the password to Cora’s laptop.

“That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. You’re gettin’ soft.” Tate jabbed her shoulder playfully.

“You wish,” she grumbled, her cheeks getting obnoxiously warm once again.

So gross.

She opened the browser. The small, colorful circle spun momentarily as the last page Cora had looked at automatically reloaded, playing a live meteorological broadcast.