Eighth-Grade Superzero by Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich

shrugs and rolls her eyes. “Do you have to be such a sheep?” she says. “What was I saying a minute ago? Must’ve had a brain leak.”
    Whatever.
    Joe C. walks up to the lockers. “So, today, right?” he asks, opening his locker and pulling out his portfolio.
    “Today is the day Mialonie Davis spoke to me,” I say, grinning. Joe C. high-fives me.
    “Sweet. Pretty soon you guys will be double-dating with me and Maria.” He goes on: “Anyway, I meant, are you coming with me today? Or do you have to do stuff with Vicky?”
    “Sounds good,” I say. I’m remembering how Mialonie’s eyes look like chocolate.
    “Hello? Earth to Reggie,” says Joe C.
    “Huh? Yeah, um … what?”
    He laughs. “You said you would let me know about going over to the mall, remember? Or do you have to do some campaign managing?”
    Ruthie snorts.
    “The mall sounds good,” I say. “I want to stop by the public radio offices first, though, since they’re right next door. They toldme that I could pick up some equipment for the homeless shelter thing.” I look up and down the halls. “Come on, let’s get out of here before Vicky tracks me down.”
4:00 P.M.
    When I brought my cousin Grace to our neighborhood mall, she almost fell down the escalator stairs, she was laughing so hard. The malls up where she lives in Westchester are like palaces, with giant fountains and free samples everywhere you turn. Our perpetually broken escalators and Not-Even-Close-to-Super Target can’t compare. But we’re happy to have a place to hang out, and there’s McDonald’s. My uncle Terrence says that mall fast food offerings are part of “the White man’s genocidic plan to oppress us.” Sometimes Uncle Terrence is like an adult Ruthie on drugs, and I guess that’s not too far off. Pops is always telling him how he is such a disappointment to the family, but then he tells Mom that the Ivy League and the Navy killed Uncle Terrence’s spirit. He seems pretty spirited to me; every time I tell him that I looked up one of his words, like “genocidic,” and couldn’t find it in a dictionary, he says I shouldn’t be conned by the wordplay of the White man. Uncle Terrence is pretty cool, though, if slightly scary.
    Joe C. needs to buy dog food at Target, but we stop for some school supplies first. I pick up a giant three-ring binder. We had a Very Special Health Class last week where we got divided up and the guys went to the gym with Coach Conners (we have no teams at our school, but still, it’s “Coach”). He told us that “strong” guys who are “secure in who they are” don’t need to “engage in, er,um … sexual activity before the, er, um … appropriate time.” But if we’re inappropriately weak, we should “protect ourselves responsibly.” He also said the binders were good to carry around for those “unexpected moments of spontaneous excitation — even when there’s absolutely no discernible cause.” His exact words. I feel stupid getting the binder, but I don’t want to get caught out there. Joe C. gets one too. I don’t say anything, and neither does he.
    As we weave around shopping carts and escaping toddlers, we enter the world of grooming. I stop to get some deodorant.
    “Have you ever tried this stuff?” I say, picking up a black spray can.
    “Perfume for men?” says Joe C., raising his eyebrows, which always seems like a lot of work because they’re so bushy. “Are you kidding me?”
    “What, you never heard of guys wearing cologne?” I say.
    “Yeah, but that’s different,” he says, and then before I even have to ask how, he picks up a can himself. “Let me take a look at this … ‘Get your freak on'?” He laughs. “Good thing I’ve already got my mojo. I’m a strong man, secure in who I am.”
    “Don’t act like you don’t need help,” I say. Maybe this stuff is like a magic potion: spray on sex appeal and self-confidence. Nobody else is around, so I take the cap off and spray a little