Totally Toxic by Zoe Quinn

the meeting started.”
    It got very quiet inside the closet.
    “Em?”
    She didn't poke her head out this time. “I thought you said you had to hang around at the meeting to help.” There was a note of accusation in her voice.
    “I was going to, but then …” I fiddled with the embroidery on my shirt.”… something came up.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like … something.”
    Silence.
    My forehead was perspiring; I felt like I did when I stood on the high dive at the Sweetbriar pool, deciding whether to jump (not that that would ever be an issue again, after my training session the day before). The point was, I felt like I was on the verge of making a huge decision.
    She's my best friend. I should tell her.
    But the rules say I have to keep the secret.
    But she's hurt. She thinks I'm keeping things from her.
    I am keeping things from her.
    Man, I hate this!
    “I had to go out to get something,” I said. “For the meeting. We were running low on supplies.”
    Emily came out of the closet holding my navy blue shoes, which she placed at the foot of my bed.
    “You bailed on Josh? You went away and left him here just because you ran out of snacks?”
    “Activists love their snacks,” I said lamely.
    Emily considered the situation. “Personally, I wouldn't have left this house for anything less than chocolate torte.” She gave me a sympathetic look. “So you didn't get to hang with Josh atthe meeting, but hey, you've got lunch plans, so it's not a bad trade-off.”
    “True.”
    “Zoe,” my mom called from downstairs,”Emily's father is here to drive her home.”
    “Okay,” I called back.
    Emily looked me up and down. “One final adjustment,” she said with a grin. She walked back to my closet and pulled out a pair of brown suede boots that came up to my knees. “Try these.” I quickly pulled on the boots, then turned back to the mirror to check the effect. Perfect! “Looks great!” Emily declared. She started out the door, then turned back with a grin. “Oh, and if the school cafeteria runs out of coffee cake tomorrow, do me a favor and choose something else. No abandoning Josh for the sake of dessert!”
    I laughed. “Don't worry, I won't. See you tomorrow.”
    I looked at myself in the full-length mirror and smiled. Something told me if the Federation ever got a good look at my best friend, they'd recruit her in a hot second.
    I wasn't sure she'd be any better at saving the universe than I would, but I knew one thing for certain: if Emily had superpowers, the world would definitely be a more fashionable place!

that evening—after I'd called Grandpa and he'd explained that the Fast Freeze Feature was the backpack's way of keeping intruders from getting at the contents (it was a recent update he'd forgotten to mention earlier)—I settled down to quiz myself on the superhero training manual.
    Seeing how great I looked all decked out in the supersuit had really motivated me, and I was slammin' through the questions like some kind of genius.
    What factors must a superhero consider
when determining whether to
apprehend a villain in a public place?
The number of innocent bystanders in the immediate vicinity
b. The weather conditions at the time of confrontation
c. The distance to a local incarceration facility
d. All of the above.
    Well,
duh! All
of the above. The bystander thing and the location of the nearest jail were no-brainers. The weather-conditions consideration was a little trickier, but I was prepared for it. Because I'd studied the manual thoroughly and had reviewed the footnotes in chapter four—and because of a particularly exciting Lightning Girl comic strip I'd read the month before—I knew that some villains had the ability to influence atmospheric conditions. If the prevailing weather was right, they could manipulate wind speed, barometric pressure, and air temperature to their advantage, increasing their chances of escape. Not to mention the fact that several of the nastier villains had