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That was how it had always been.
“And that’s how it’ll always be,” he muttered with a sigh. He trudged toward his locker and saw Malik nearby, surrounded by his fan club. Envy rose in Jamal’s heart. It burned but also felt somehow comforting: he was so used to feeling this way. He opened his locker and rooted around for the books he’d need for the next few classes, listening to Malik’s friends laugh at his jokes.
Suddenly, a voice startled him.
“So, what superpower do you wish you had?”
Jamal jerked his gaze away from his brother to find Riley standing right next to him. She swung her
backpack, bulging with fresh books, over her shoulder.
“Would you rather have invisibility powers,” she continued with a smirk, “or be able to fly?”
Jamal glanced behind him, convinced that she must be talking to somebody else. But nobody was there. It was just the two of them. And her eyes were fixed on him.
“Uh, what?” Jamal said, confused both by the fact that she was actually talking to him and by her strange question.
“You know, the old superhero conundrum,” she said, pointing to his shirt. The one with his favorite comic book hero on it. He glanced down at it, and his cheeks burned.
“Oh, right,” he said, mentally searching for something cool to say. Though the truth was he didn’t even have to think about it. He already knew the answer. “Obviously, I want to be able to fly.”
She frowned. “Oh, and why’s that?”
“That way everybody would notice me.”
Riley gave him a strange look. “You know, invisibility is the stronger superpower. Most people choose that one.”
“Not in my world,” Jamal said, slamming his locker shut with a deep sigh. “I already have invisibility powers. And trust me, they’re not super.”
He hurried off down the hall to his next class, leaving her standing in his shadow.
* * *
“Fine, we’ll take…Jamal,” Colton said with disgust, like he’d just been told he had to kiss a slimy frog, not pick a basketball teammate in gym class. Colton had moved to New Orleans from Texas a couple of years back and reminded Jamal of a stereotypical cowboy—tall and always tan, with shaggy blond hair and a square jaw. If he’d been cast in an old Western movie, he would have been the villain, for sure. “Not like we have a choice.”
Gym class was turning out to be even worse than science class. Despite his best efforts to stand tall and look strong, Jamal got picked last. Of course, his brother got picked first for the opposing team. He was the best player at Princess River Middle, and everyone knew it. They were identical twins. They should have been equally good at basketball, but for some reason, Jamal lacked the athletic coordination and skill that came so easily to his brother.
It just wasn’t fair.
Even so, he ran up and down the court. He hustled for every pass, but it felt like his hands were made of lead. His fingers couldn’t grip the ball. His dribble was terrible. All his shots were air balls. Meanwhile, Malik blocked shots at one end and swished the ball through the net like the opening was five feet across. He simply couldn’t miss. He made it look effortless.
Worse yet, Riley had a pass to get out of gym class, so she sat in the bleachers, scribbling in a black-and-white composition notebook. Jamal kept catching her glancing over at his horrific performance on the court. He already felt a little bit guilty for blowing her off in the hall earlier, but this just made it worse. He desperately wanted to talk to her and impress her. More than anything, he wished he could have an actual friend. One who wasn’t related to him. But if she hadn’t already thought he was a loser, he decided, then she certainly would now.
What else could possibly go wrong today?
That’s when the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the game, and he looked at the scoreboard. His team had lost 58 to 23. Jamal hadn’t even managed to score one point, while his brother had scored the most points on the winning team.
Jamal watched Malik’s teammates cheer for his brother. “You schooled them!”
They surrounded Malik and paraded triumphantly toward the locker room. Jamal’s teammates were silent, glaring at him.
“We only lost because of you,” Colton muttered. “You missed every shot. Your brother ran all over you.”
Another kid from his team bumped him. Jamal stumbled into the bleachers. His shin thumped the edge. Pain shot through his leg. “H-hey, I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I’ll do better next time—”
“The way you played defense,” Colton spat, towering over Jamal, “you may as well have been invisible.”
“I swear…I tried my best,” Jamal said. “Just gimme another chance—”
