Superheroes Don't Eat Veggie Burgers by Gretchen Kelley

showing me her canine teeth. I take a step backward.
    â€œYou okay?” My dad looks down at me. “You’re shaking like a leaf.”
    â€œMaybe I’m coming down with something,” I tell him. “I don’t feel so good.”
    My dad puts his arm around my shoulders.
    â€œWell, something must be going around. The way your sister’s been acting tonight, I’m pretty sure she’s caught something, too.”
    You don’t know the half of it, I think as we walk back toward the house.
    *   *   *
    That night, after dinner, I take the phone to my room.
    She answers on the first ring.
    â€œFranki?”
    â€œYeah?”
    Relief washes over me. “Your phone. It’s working.”
    â€œYeah,” she says. “Aunt Carol saved the day again.” Franki’s aunt lives in Boston with her girlfriend and a bunch of foster dogs. She’s always helping Lila out of jams.
    â€œYou don’t sound too good, Chuck,” Franki says. “What’s up?”
    It feels good to be talking to Franki again. I decide to tell her about Coach.
    For a long time, she doesn’t say anything. When she finally does, her voice is softer than normal.
    â€œYou know what I sometimes wish?” she says.
    â€œWhat?” I press the phone closer to my ear.
    â€œI wish that someone would invent a machine that could suck up all the jerks in this world and shoot them into outer space, far away from the rest of us.” She pauses. “Charlie?”
    The sound of her voice is making my eyelids heavy. “Yeah?”
    â€œWill you do me a favor?”
    I lean back on my pillow. “Okay.”
    â€œMake us a machine like that, will you? When you become a scientist?”
    I close my eyes. “Sure. First thing I’ll do when I get my own lab.”
    She giggles. “It’ll probably make you famous.”
    â€œI’ll get the Nobel Prize.” I giggle, too. “When they give it to me, they’ll say, ‘To Charles Michael Burger … for ridding the world of worthless and unnecessarily mean, air-sucking scumbags.’”
    She really cracks up at that, but then her voice gets all muffled, like she’s holding her hand over the receiver. A second later, she’s back, sounding like her regular Franki self.
    â€œI’ve got to go.”
    â€œNow?”
    â€œYeah, now.”
    â€œOkay. Want to go to the beach on Saturday?”
    â€œCan’t.” She sighs. “I’ve got to babysit Rose. Lila’s doing hair and makeup for a whole wedding party. She’s going to be at the shop most of the day, and I have to make sure Rose stays out of Carl’s way.”
    â€œOh,” I say. “Hey, Frank?”
    â€œYeah?”
    I pause. “Do you believe in magic?”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œJust curious.”
    She takes a deep breath. “I guess I used to. When I was a kid.” I hear someone call her name. “I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”
    â€œYeah, in the morning,” I repeat, but she’s already gone.
    I reach over and pick my science journal off my desk.
    I think about Coach and the things he said to me on the field today.
    I think about Franki and her machine.
    I think about magic.
    I start to write.

    October 1
    Episode 4: The Cockroach Gets Creamed

    The rumor was spreading quickly. Planet Splodii was about to be invaded by the grossest of creatures. Its ability to survive under the most impossible conditions gave it an advantage over most of the universe’s inhabitants.
    His name was Croach the Cockroach. But he wasn’t just a cockroach. He was head of all insects throughout the galaxy, and his mission was to travel the universe looking for humans whose organs were considered a delicacy among oversize invertebrates. Once he found them, he’d stun them with his poisonous spit, then transport them back to his home, where their stomachs, livers,