It was not exactly a match made in Heaven.
Gavin and Flynn, of course, did not get along at all, but there was also some bad blood between Samantha and Hannah that went unexplained. In addition, it turned out that Flynn and Hannah had a history that had not ended well. And nobody wanted to hang around Stanford and all his trash.
"Well, this sucks," said Flynn once Mr. Folly had deposited them in an empty classroom. He'd instructed them to hold their first meeting on how they were going to protect the school from whatever was going on, then left them to it. Flynn sat on the edge of a desk with his arms folded across his chest and kicked his heels against the underside of the desk in a monotonous rhythm that grated on Gavin's nerves.
"Would you stop that," Gavin snapped.
Flynn stared at Gavin but didn't stop kicking.
"Don't bother," said Hannah, disgusted, from the other side of the room. "If he knows it bothers you, he'll just do it more. That's just the kind of jerk he is."
Flynn didn't even bother to look at her.
"We're supposed to be figuring out how to protect the school," reminded Samantha. She paced in a small circle in the center of the room, letting her mind work on the problem.
"How do we protect anything when we don't even know who we're protecting against?" asked Stanford, standing in the far corner, a few empty candy wrappers swirling at his feet.
"There's a good place to start," said Gavin. "Who's attacking us?"
"Is anyone?" asked Flynn. "It's been quiet since the groundhog. Maybe they gave up."
"Or got what they wanted," added Stanford.
"If that were the case, why would they task us with the school's protection?" asked Samantha.
"Because they don't know what they're doing," suggested Flynn with a sneer. "They're totally in the dark on this."
"No, I can't believe that," argued Samantha, turning to face Flynn. "Mrs. Gruber knows what she's doing. She might be the only one here who does."
"Oh, God," said Hannah. "Will you stop with the hero worship already, Sam?"
"I dunno." interjected Stanford. "I think she's got a pretty good head on her shoulders for a cranky old lady."
"Like anyone cares what you think, Trash Boy," stated Flynn. He kicked his heels extra hard against the desk.
This is never going to work, thought Gavin. It's our first day as St. Hibbard's elite fighting force and we're already at each other's throats. "Should we just go back and tell them we can't do this?" he ventured.
"You're just saying that because you're the one behind it all and you don't want to get found out," said Flynn.
Gavin paled. "That's not true. I don't care what Mitchell says."
"I don't know," said Hannah. "It was pretty convenient that you were involved with the whole groundhog thing from the start. You were chasing it down the corridor like it had gotten away from you."
"I was chasing it because it had just kidnaped Harriet!" argued Gavin.
Flynn jumped off his desk and walked up to Gavin, trying to intimidate him. "I'm with Hannah on this one. It's yet another knock against you, Mallard."
"Don't be an idiot, Flynn," said Stanford from his increasingly-dirty corner. "Gavin's ability has nothing to do with giant groundhogs."
"No?" Flynn whirled to face Stanford. "Maybe that was your fault, then. You were digging up garbage and unearthed that monster."
"I don't dig up garbage."
"Oh, come on. You do everything with garbage," accused Flynn, a cruel smirk on his face. "I hear you even sleep with it."
Stanford crossed the room to stand toe to toe with Flynn. "Say that again, jerkface."
"You. Sleep. With. Trash."
Stanford's face grew red-hot and he reached back to slug Flynn in the face. It was what Flynn had been expecting, and he readied his own punch at the same time. The two boys swung at each other, only to have their fists stop of their own accord a few inches from their respective faces.
"Stop it!" cried Samantha, her hand stretched out toward them, invisible waves of energy pulsing outward.
"Did you just stop time around our fists?" yelled Flynn. "Seriously?"
"There she goes, butting into other people's business again," commented Hannah.
"I'm trying to keep us focused on the task," argued Samantha.
"You're trying to show off and be in control, like usual," responded Hannah.
As the argument continued unabated, Gavin sat himself down in a chair and just shook his head.
***
"An elite fighting squad?" asked Jud later that day when Gavin caught up to him after class. "And they didn't invite me?"
"Trust me, you don't want any part of this," assured Gavin as they walked down the hall. "In fact, I'm pretty sure I don't want any part of it."
"It's a hopeless task," said Jud. "We'll never know who's behind the attacks. They're just too clever."
"Not true," replied Gavin. "In fact, I think we know who's behind it. It's the kids on that list we found at Thumbledown's. It has to be."
"You didn't mention this to your group?"
Gavin frowned. Why hadn't he mentioned it? If they really were supposed to be protecting the school, what better way than unmasking those responsible? Except, it didn't add up. Why were there two lists? More importantly, how were the ones responsible managing to cause the havoc they'd caused? Turning Aurelia Limpit into a tree was possible, he supposed, since they'd all been at the Hide and Seek game, but how had they turned Begonia Zahn into ice or released the giant groundhog on the school?
The obvious answer was that they'd portalled in using Ryanne Junker's ability. She'd been on one of the lists, after all. But after meeting her and talking to her, Gavin just wasn't able to see her as part of the menace facing them.
There was something else he was missing.
"No," he said finally. "I didn't mention it."
Jud waited for Gavin to elaborate. When he didn't, Jud shrugged. "Ok, then."
They ran into Jupiter and Harriet, and Gavin quickly filled the girls in on what had transpired.
"That sounds like Hell," said Jupiter. "It's like they expect us to be protected by a bunch of wailing five-year-olds. No offense, Gavin."
"None taken."
"I'm sure you'll do your best, Gavin," said Harriet. "And maybe I can help. I've done some digging and I think I can identify some of the folks on the superhero list."
Gavin perked up at this news. "How'd you do that?" he asked.
He grinned. "Research. Come on. To the library!"
Jud and Gavin followed the girls back to the library. As they entered, Mr. Bigglesbee gave them a curt nod, reminding Gavin of that other mystery he was involved with. "Are we any closer to understanding why this place used to be Thumbledown's? And why it isn't any longer? And why that's all a big secret?"
"One mystery at a time, Gavin," said Jupiter.
Harriet led them to a table and ran off to collect a book. When she returned, she plopped it down onto the surface triumphantly. Gavin gazed down at a thick volume that looked about as dull as a book can look from the outside.
"Don't tell me we have to read all that," he said.
"Of course not, silly. I already went through it. What I wanted to do was try to identify the current students of Thumbledown by superpower. It's all in here. This is last year's official listings of sanctioned superpowers. It's alphabetical, so I had to dig around to find individual listings from folks who were still students, but I managed."
Gavin was impressed. "How long have you been working on this?" he asked.
She blushed. "Since we got back from our trip. I didn't want to say anything until I had something to share."
She opened the book, flipped a few pages, and then threw her hand down onto a page, pointing at a listing. "Grendle Byers. Sixteen. Able to use words as weapons." She looked up. "That's Vocal Viper." She flipped a few more pages, then stopped and pointed at another name. "Cynthia Chase. Fifteen. Able to blend perfectly into her background."
"Chameleon," said Gavin.
Harriet nodded and flipped forward a bunch of pages, then turned back a few before finding the next name. "Liselle Munro. Seventeen. She has the ability to shoot rays of blindly-bright light from her palms. I think she's Shine." She closed the book. "There are a couple of candidates for Blaze, so I need to work to narrow them down. I haven't yet found anyone whose ability lends itself to calling themselves Nightshift yet, and I haven't found Phantom, but it's a start."
"That's great," said Gavin. "I mean, it's way more than we had before."
"Sure, but what do we do with this?" asked Jud, raining on their parade. "It's one thing to know somebody's name. But we don't know what that even means. We can't keep an eye on them since we're here, not there. What else is there?"
"We could alert Mrs. Gruber," suggested Jupiter.
"And let her know we were out sneaking around Thumbledown at night? No, thank you," said Jud.
Gavin thought for a moment, before adding to the conversation. "Jud's right. I'm not sure what use this information is, but I think it's important to have it. What would really help would be to find someone on that list who had a way of travelling undetected from there to here and back. That would give them the ability to be causing all the trouble."
"Maybe that's NightShift?" suggested Jupiter. "Like he or she uses the darkness to fold space and time. Or to 'shift' through space."
"It's an idea," admitted Harriet. "I'll start looking for superpowers along those lines."
Suddenly, a deafening alarm rang out. All four students covered their ears as lights began to flash along the ceiling.
"What is that?" yelled Gavin.
"Fire alarm!" Jupiter yelled back. "Must be an unannounced drill!"
"It's no drill!" cried Mr. Bigglesbee, startling them all. He pointed up at the skylight. "Look!"
Everyone craned their necks and looked up to see dark smoke billow past the skylight.
The school was on fire.