The Super Awful Superheroes of Classroom 13 Read online

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group

  CLASSROOM 13 is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Cover and interior art by Joelle Dreidemy.

  Cover design by Véronique Lefèvre Sweet.

  Cover copyright © 2018 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

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  Visit us at LBYR.com

  First Edition: March 2018

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Lee, Honest, author. | Gilbert, Matthew J., author. | Dreidemy, Joelle, illustrator.

  Title: The super awful superheroes of Classroom 13 / by Honest Lee & Matthew J. Gilbert ; art by Joelle Dreidemy.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2018. | Series: Classroom 13 ; book 4 | Summary: After being struck by purple lightning, Ms. Linda and her students gain superpowers and in an effort to save the world, they nearly destroy it.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017011806| ISBN 9780316501095 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316501125 (paperback) | ISBN 9780316501101 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316501088 (library ebook edition)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Superheroes—Fiction. | Ability—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Humorous stories. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Humorous Stories. | JUVENILE FICTION / Action & Adventure / General. | JUVENILE FICTION / Readers / Chapter Books. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Friendship. | JUVENILE FICTION / Readers / Intermediate. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.L415 Su 2018 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017011806

  ISBNs: 978-0-316- 50109-5 (hardcover), 978-0-316- 50112-5 (paperback), 978-0-316-50110-1 (ebook)

  E3-20180210-JV-PC

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1 Not-So-Super Ms. Linda

  Chapter 2 Super Ms. Linda

  Chapter 3 Fatima

  Chapter 4 Teo

  Chapter 5 Ava

  Chapter 6 Mason

  Chapter 7 Chloe

  Chapter 8 Santiago

  Chapter 9 Yuna

  Chapter 10 Jayden Jason

  Chapter 11 Preeya

  Chapter 12 Mark

  Chapter 13 The 13th Classroom

  Chapter 14 Lily

  Chapter 15 Ethan

  Chapter 16 Isabella

  Chapter 17 Hugo

  Chapter 18 Mya & Madison

  Chapter 19 Jacob

  Chapter 20 Emma

  Chapter 21 Benji

  Chapter 22 Sophia

  Chapter 23 Dev

  Chapter 24 Earl & Touch-down

  Chapter 25 Ximena

  Chapter 26 William The Incredible Bulk

  Chapter 27 Zoey

  Chapter 28 Liam

  Chapter 29 Olivia

  Chapter 30 Superheroes versus Super-Villains: Classroom of Justice

  When unlucky schoolteacher Ms. Linda LaCrosse woke up Thursday morning, she hoped it would be another beautiful day. You see, in recent days the weather had been perfect—sunny skies with a crisp, cool breeze.

  But not today.

  Ms. Linda opened her curtains to see a terrible thundercloud rolling over the neighborhood. The cloud was black and red, and crackled with purple electricity.

  Mumbling and grumbling to herself, Ms. Linda got ready for the day. She put lipstick around her eyes and mascara on her lips. She put a necklace in her hair and a bow around her neck. Then she put her skirt on top and a sweater on the bottom. As she left the house, she whispered, “I feel as though I’m missing something.… Oh, yes, my umbrella!”

  Ms. Linda then realized she had also left her keys inside the house. “I’m locked out of my own home—again,” she said to herself. You might be thinking to yourself, That Ms. Linda sure is forgetful. This is true. But so are most people with a lot on their minds.

  Ms. Linda had hidden a key somewhere in her yard. But she couldn’t remember where she’d hidden it. In fact, she had done this dozens of times. (She needed to remember to write it down—but of course, she’d forget this, too.)

  Not wanting to be late for work, Ms. Linda hurried along the sidewalk. With no keys and no umbrella, she couldn’t drive or protect herself from the rain, so she had to be fast. As she walked along quickly, she felt as though the scary storm cloud was following her. But that was unlikely…

  …wasn’t it?

  The strange cloud crackled with purple electricity and then went KRAK-KA-BOOM! It shot a bolt of lightning right at Ms. Linda. It missed her by only a few inches.

  “Yikes!” the teacher yelled, running as fast as she could.

  As Ms. Linda ran into the school, she saw her boss. “I know, I know, I’m late!” she said.

  The principal said, “No, you’re not. You’re actually early for once.”

  But Ms. Linda was still running. She ran down the hallway and into Classroom 13. She locked the door and closed the windows. The thundercloud was still outside. She was sure it had followed her. So Ms. Linda did what any sensible person would do—she pulled down the blinds and pretended the cloud did not exist.

  A few minutes later, there was a knock knock knock at the door.

  “Ms. Linda, may I come inside the classroom?” Olivia asked from the hallway. “I would like to learn today.”

  “Oh! Yes, yes, of course, come in!” Ms. Linda said, unlocking the door.

  “Why did you lock the door?” Olivia asked.

  “A storm cloud followed me to school,” Ms. Linda explained.

  “That is highly unlikely,” Olivia said.

  “What’s unlikely?” Mason asked, following Olivia into the classroom with his cow, Touchdown.

  “Mason, what have I told you?” Ms. Linda said. “Touchdown has to stay outside. We already have a class pet. His name is Earl, and he is a gerbil.”

  “You mean hamster,” Olivia corrected Ms. Linda.

  “Is there a difference?” Ms. Linda asked.

  “Gerbils have long furry tails. Hamsters do not,” Olivia said. She was a bit of a know-it-all.

  “Pleeeeease let me bring my cow inside,” Mason begged the teacher. “There’s a scary storm cloud outside, and Touchdown is scared.”

  “Fine,” Ms. Linda said. “Touchdown may stay, as long as she does not disrupt class.”

  “How could a cow disrupt class?” Mason asked, rolling his eyes.

  When the bell rang, the rest of the students rushed in to take their seats. Of Ms. Linda’s twent
y-seven students, all twenty-seven were present. Ms. Linda counted again to make sure that was correct. She asked, “Santiago, are you well enough to be in school?”

  “Yes!” He sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve. “I refuse to miss another exciting day of school just because of a dumb little cold.” Santiago was so pale, he was the same color as the chalk. When he sneezed, huge strands of neon-green snot came out of his nose.

  “There’s nothing exciting about school.” Preeya yawned.

  “There is in this classroom,” Santiago said. “This class has won the lottery, made magic genie djinn wishes, and become famous!”

  “And then we lost all of it,” William reminded him. “I bet we’re cursed.”

  “Being cursed would be exciting,” Emma said.

  “Well, it looks like we have a full day of class,” Ms. Linda said. “We should probably get started. Today we’ll be learning about—”

  “Hold on. I’d like to return to our previous conversation,” Olivia interrupted. She was smart, but she was also quite rude. “You said that the storm cloud outside the school followed you to work. Could you please explain how and why a cloud would follow a person?”

  “I have no idea. I’m a not a weather forecaster,” Ms. Linda said. “But it did.”

  “Ms. Linda, really,” Olivia said, shaking her head. “It’s not like that thundercloud is hanging around outside the windows waiting for you—”

  Triple J interrupted as he peeked outside. “Actually, it is.”

  The students rushed to the windows to see. “Students, no! Return to your seats at once!” Ms. Linda cried. But it was too late.

  KRAK-KA-BOOOOOOOOM!

  A huge bolt of purple lightning crashed through the window and struck everyone in Classroom 13.

  It was lucky for Olivia that Ms. Linda was not the kind of person to say I told you so. Because if she was that kind of person, she could have—and she would have been right in doing so. But Ms. Linda wasn’t that kind of person, so she didn’t say I told you so. (Though I, your honest author, Honest Lee, certainly would have.)

  What’s that? Oh, you want to know what happened to everyone? Don’t worry. No one was hurt. Not yet, anyway…

  “Is everyone okay?” Ms. Linda asked, rubbing her head.

  “Ms. Linda! You’re flying!” Fatima said.

  “And Santiago is on fire!” Ms. Linda screamed.

  “I’llputhimout!” Teo said—but he said it so fast, no one understood. Teo grabbed the fire extinguisher and ran around Santiago sixteen times in one second, squirting him with the white powder.

  Somehow, Santiago was still on fire—but he wasn’t hurt. In fact, Santiago was laughing. Teo asked, “WhyareyoulaughingandwhyamIsuperfast?”

  “I’m on fire, and it kind of tickles,” Santiago said.

  “¿Qué pasó?” Hugo asked.

  “EW! A GIANT SPIDER!” Preeya said—except when she spoke, it was so loud, it shook the whole classroom like an earthquake.

  “I’ll kung-fu kick it!” Triple J said, rushing to the rescue. He was about to kick the eight-legged creature when it spoke.

  “Don’t kick me!” the boy-spider shrieked. “It’s me, Dev!”

  “What happened to everyone?!” Ms. Linda asked.

  “Is it not evident? It certainly is to someone with my level of genius hyperintellect,” Olivia said. Her brain was so huge it pushed out of her skull and glowed. “Caused by an alien solar flare from outer space, the electromagnetic storm cloud was filled with radioactive gamma rays that struck and transmuted our physical bodies into a higher form of energy-processing systems.”

  Everyone said, “Huh?” at the same time—that is, everyone except Fatima.

  Fatima smiled bigger and harder than she’d ever smiled before. “Oh my gosh… can it be?… It’s not possible… but it is!… It just happened.… It’s finally happened!”

  “What happened?” Ms. Linda asked.

  “It’s just like Peter Powers’s origin story in Crazy Cool Comics issue number eighty-nine,” Fatima explained. “Some people get bitten by radioactive bugs, others are aliens who crash to Earth, and some—some are struck by weird lightning and get powers!”

  “What on earth are you talking about?” Ms. Linda said.

  Fatima took a deep breath and then shouted, “We all have superpowers!”

  “What a silly notion!” Ms. Linda said to herself as she walked home after work that day. “Sure, suddenly Ava can read minds and Benji can change size and Sophia can control the weather, but that’s likely a coincidence. Being struck by lightning probably caused us to see things. Yes, that’s it. It was all in our heads. Superpowers? Ridiculous! Fatima has been reading too many comic books.”

  (Dear reader, please note: There’s no such thing as reading too many comic books. Comic books are fantastic fun.)

  Suddenly, a mugger tried to snatch Ms. Linda’s purse. Yet no matter how hard he yanked, he couldn’t pull the purse from Ms. Linda’s grip. “Stop that,” she said. “This is my purse.”

  “Give it to me, old lady!” the thief growled. “Or else!”

  “Old lady?!” Ms. Linda gasped. She only meant to slap the mugger for saying something so rude. Instead, she knocked him all the way across the street and into someone’s car, smashing it.

  The mugger fell to the ground and started crying. “That really hurt!”

  “I didn’t mean to slap you that hard,” Ms. Linda said. She rushed over to help the mugger. She took his hand to help him up, but when she gripped it, she crushed every bone in his hand.

  “OWWWWW!” the mugger screamed.

  “Oh my!” Ms. Linda said. She tried to pick up the mugger and put him back on his feet. Instead, she tossed him into the air. “I didn’t know I was so strong! I’m only trying to help.”

  “Stop helping!” the criminal cried. “What are you—some kind of superhero?!”

  The teacher picked the mugger up with one hand and held him overhead. He was as light as a feather. “I guess I am,” said Ms. Linda.

  “Put me down!” the mugger screamed.

  Ms. Linda didn’t put him down until she was at the local police station. The cops clapped for Ms. Linda. “We’ve been trying to catch this guy for weeks. Thanks for the help!”

  Classroom 13’s resident teacher was not used to such praise—but she liked it. When Ms. Linda got home, she made herself a mask and a cape. That night, she went on patrol—which meant she went looking for trouble. When she found it, she fought it with her super-strength and stopped criminals from committing crimes.

  That’s when Ms. Linda began her double life. If she’d had her own comic book, it would have been titled: Teacher by Day, Superhero by Night.

  Unfortunately, Ms. Linda had so much homework to grade, she could only be a superhero on the weekends. And by the time Fridays rolled around, Ms. Linda was too tired to do superhero work. You see, teaching kids is a lot of work. After all, it is a huge responsibility and requires a lot of energy. So does being a superhero. In fact, they’re pretty much the same thing. (Except instead of battling aliens and monsters, teachers battle bad grades and peanut allergies.)

  So Ms. Linda had to make a choice—she could be a teacher or a superhero. She couldn’t be both.

  Ms. Linda thought long and hard. Finally, she decided to save her strength for her students. After only a few weeks as a superhero, Ms. Linda hung up her cape. Instead, she stayed home on the weekends to grade quizzes, watch Netflix, and eat cheese.

  Fatima loved superhero comics.

  So when everyone in Classroom 13 got superpowers, she thought her dreams had come true. Ximena could fly, Dev was a giant boy-spider, and Santiago was a human torch. Ava could read minds, Benji could shrink, and Teo was super-fast. But what was Fatima’s power?

  She tried to shoot laser blasts from her eyes. Nothing happened.

  She tried to make objects move with her mind. Nothing happened.

  She tried to transform into a monstrous hulk. Nothing
happened.

  She even tried to shoot a bow and arrow with perfect aim. (It wasn’t exactly a superpower, but there was always an archer on every hero team in the comic books, so it was worth a shot.) But Fatima couldn’t hit a target that was four feet away.

  So what was her power?

  It seemed she didn’t have one.

  Fatima’s dream had become a nightmare.

  When Fatima got home from school, she was on the verge of tears. She ran upstairs and threw herself on her bed. As she screamed into her pillow, her superpower finally kicked in—she had a vision of the future.

  It made sense. She always wanted to know what happened next in her favorite comics. Now she did. But this new power also showed her something terrible.…

  All of the superpowered students in Classroom 13 were fighting against one another with their superpowers. Some were heroes and some were villains, but all of them were angry. As they fought, their powers grew stronger and stronger until…

  …they broke the world in half!

  Fatima’s vision ended. She couldn’t see anything past that.

  “They’ll destroy the planet,” she said. “I have to stop them! I have to save the world. But how?”

  Teo thought school was so slow. He was always in a hurry to get home and play video games. He stared at the clock and counted down the minutes.

  That’s when the purple lightning struck everyone in Classroom 13. Suddenly, Teo got superpowers that made him super-fast.

  “Holyguacamole,didyouseethat?IsavedSantiago’slife,exceptIdidn’tbecausehe’sstillonfirebutIthinkhe’sokay.Ithinkfireishissuperpower,” Teo said.

  “Teo, man, I have no idea what you’re saying,” Fatima said. “You’re going to have to speak slower.”

  “Youcan’tunderstandme?” Teo asked. Fatima shook her head. Teo forced himself to speak as slowly as possible. But because he was speaking slowly very quickly, it came out normal. “How’s this?”

  “Much better!” Fatima answered. “Wow. You have super-speed. Why don’t you run home and back and I’ll time you?”

  “Greatidea!Berightback!” Teo said. He ran home and then back to school again. Usually it took his mom fifteen minutes to drive him each way. Now, it took Teo only two seconds to run there and back.