Super Nobody (Alphas and Omegas Book 1) by Brent Meske Page A

child
in each beefy arm. She was a solidly built woman with long rust
colored hair and faint smudges of paint on every part of her body.
One of the children was fast asleep, and the other was bawling at
the top of his lungs.
    “Sorry about this!” she chuckled. “Total
opposites, these ones are. I'll be right back with you. Feel free
to come right on in.” She called as she disappeared back into the
house.
    “Oh no, we couldn't-” Michael's mother said,
but he was already inside.
    It was like someone had shot a toy-filled
missile at the place. There were action figures hanging from the
ceiling fans and vehicles peeking out of the potted plants. Michael
had to catch himself before he tripped on several balls, a NERF
gun, and finally some sort of castle playset that probably didn't
belong to any of the action figures, but had been taken over by
them anyway. Charlotte laughed and went over to scoop heaps of
Legos back into a huge plastic bin. Soothing jazz music drifted out
from somewhere in the distance.
    “Sorry about the mess,” she said. “The twins
are little hurricanes. The property damage is somewhere in the
trillions.”
    “Everyone's an artist, I see,” Mrs.
Washington said, eyeing some crayon artwork on the wallpaper. The
crayons had mostly been snapped in half and left where they could
be safely stepped on when coming in the door.
    Charlotte laughed again, no trace of
nervousness. Michael felt his cheeks flame with embarrassment.
“They want to be just like their mom.”
    There was more crying, even louder now. “Come
now,” Charlotte's mom said. “Enough of that now. You got no reason
to cry and you don't want me to give you one. I brought you in this
world, boy, and I tell you, it was painful. It's gonna be just as
painful taking you out.”
    Michael watched his mother's face stay
carefully stony neutral, just taking in more and more and more
information as the seconds passed. He didn't even want to consider
what was going on in her head, or how many people she would call
about this just as soon as he and Charlotte stepped out of the car
to head into the gym. Susanna Washington, the gossip grenade.
    Well, there wasn't much he could do about it,
except. “Mom, let's head out. We're gonna be late.”
    “I haven't had a chance to talk to Mrs.
Sulzsko,” she said.
    “She's pretty busy,” Michael said.
    “She'll be out in a minute,” Charlotte told
them. “No problem.”
    But she wasn't. The boy continued screaming,
and Charlotte's mom continued in her sweet death threats, reminding
him that if his brother woke up, he wasn't just going to die a nice
and painless death in his bed, she was going to string him up by
his big toes and poke him a million times so he couldn't sleep for
weeks. Then he'd die stark raving mad, and she'd make another one
just like him, only better behaved. She delivered all this as if
she were sharing a cinnamon roll recipe with an eager neighbor.
    It must have been too much for Michael's mom,
because her lip started to twitch and Michael saw her folding her
hands together and wringing them. Finally, after another five
minutes of awkwardness and screaming, she broke.
    “Maybe we should come back,” she said. “After
all, I'll need to pick you up when the Ball's over.”
    “Sure!” Charlotte chirped, and bounded
towards the door. “Bye mom!”
    “Bye honey!” came the reply, over the
screams. “Have a good time.”
    Michael expected the questions to start
again, but his mom was mercifully silent the whole five minute
drive to LADCEMS. It was a thick, awkward blanket she threw over
them, but thankfully it was over as soon as he'd started to feel
really terrible for Charlotte. They arrived at the Ball.
    Someone must have swapped out a nightclub for
their school. There were a pair of huge, kid-diameter searchlights
cutting the night into big chunks, and a red carpet leading into
the gym. They had those velvet ropes from movie theaters at either
side of the red carpet, and