Outbox: sewing needle

Sender: Brook Haupenstaat
To: Chelsea Haupenstaat; Deena Markowitz
Subject: sewing needle

Hiya girls,

One week mark, huh? Hope you’re not feeling homesick. Thanksgiving’s a weird time to be in a new place… I know it was for me. How about you? Supers eat turkey same as everyone else though (unless there are vegetarian supers where you are), so you must have had a good meal.

Sorry I haven’t written much. I thought I’d send a longer update this weekend while I was at my friend Ira’s house, but then something came up and I got seriously distracted. No homework, no emailing, just.... Well, some stories I’ve got to save for in person. ;-)

Besides, you don’t need to hear what I’ve been up to. It snowed a couple of inches. It always snows a couple of inches at Thanksgiving, so big deal. I’m writing papers. You know how the play went already, so I don’t need to write to you about that.

One bit of news I do have is that this week, with no fairy costumes to repair, I went all masochistic and started my NEXT sewing project—your suits. I think I got the measurements right for the skintight undersuit, and what I’ve got so far works with the boots we picked up the weekend before you left. I’m trying to work the chest area so that it’s protective without being bulky, sexy without screaming “jailbait.” It’s a hard line to walk, and it’s probably going to take me a few more days.

I am committed though, and by the end of the week I’ll have a pair of prototypes to mail you—along with some Christmas candy. No, shoot, Deena—you’re Jewish. I’ll send a couple dreidels too. And some of those chocolate coins, right? Is there anything else you want that you can’t get at the T.C.?

Let me know by this, um, Thursday, okay? I really need to be on top of this project, so I can start finals with a clear mind after I send it off. And don’t be afraid to be brutally honest when you get the outfits, k? You complain, I improve.

Take care of yourselves,

Brook

ps—okay, I can’t keep it in after all. I’m dating someone—and he’s uber awesome! Gorgeous, funny, very good with his hands. But I’ll tell you more when you get home.

(See who else is getting everything under control.)

Outbox: Special reconnaissance

Sender: Brook Haupenstaat
To: Kati Foster
Subject: Special reconnaissance

I am writing to you from the inner chambers of the Blatt family household. My attempts to infiltrate the clan appear to be successful, and soon I will join their special ritual meal in honor of the last Thursday in November.

Lol, j/k. I was all ready for Ira’s family to be all crazy weird because of how secretive he is about them, but so far everyone is just normal weird, the way that families always are. (I feel like his brother is just a little bit more than normal weird, but that could just be a really off 1^st impression. I haven’t decided.)

We got in at about 11 this morning. The ride down was nice—listened to a lot of music, sang along, played road trip games. I think Ira’s still a little mad that his mom invited me to Thanksgiving without asking him, but he’s trying real hard not to be rude about it or make me feel like he doesn’t want me there. You know, being his usual nice-guy self.

Ira’s fam lives in the suburbs of Northern Chicago—nice houses built in the 70’s-ish, big yards, all that. We pull into his driveway and there’s this guy—Ira’s brother—shooting hoops at the end of the drive. Ira mutters something like “Here we go,” when he cuts the engine. Absolutely dreading me meeting the family. Really cute. ;-)

I got out of the car just as the brother was about to throw the ball, but I guess I distracted him enough that he aimed too high and accidentally threw it onto the garage roof. He sort of stared at me like an idiot for the next couple seconds, until the ball bounced back on the pavement and Ira got out of the driver’s side.

Ira’s bro is really cute, btw. He looks a lot like Ira, but he’s just a little more buff with some extra sexy on top. (Don’t tell Ira I said that. I’m sure he would hate being told that he’s an unsexy version of Jason!) But when I got out of the car it looked like the guy was just going to stare all day unless I said something to distract him, so I said, “Hi! You must be Jason.”

For some reason he looked surprised by that, like it wasn’t normal that I would be able to guess who he is or something. But it also managed to get him to snap out of whatever was going through his head, because he grinned and he said, “I am Jason. And what’s your name?”

I told him that my name was Brook, and by that time he had walked over to me so he was close enough to shake my hand. He said, “Brook,” in this weird way, like he was testing how it sounded or something. He looked like he was going to burst out laughing any second (playing sports is really good for the endorphins, I guess), and then he said “it’s a pleasure to meet you” in a way that made it sound like he really meant the words. Totally had his flirt on.

Ira groaned from back by the trunk of the car. Next Jason asked something like, “Ira—why have you never introduced me to your friend Brook?” I thought he was laying it on a little thick. I mean, I’m fabulous and all, but this was silly. Ira mumbled something about it not being his job to help Jason meet people, and then they gave crazy eyes to each other for a few seconds before Jason rushed forward and offered to carry my stuff to the guest room.

I would have rather just grabbed it myself, but he got to the trunk before I did and pulled out my suitcase. He carried it like it was full of packing peanuts instead of textbooks. While we were walking to the house Jason said he wanted to “talk” to Ira later, in a way that made it sound like Ira was in trouble. Ira just looked annoyed.

Have I mentioned lately that boys are weird?

Btw, Ira’s house is really cool. His mom collects the most beautiful lawn statues—gnomes (of course), but also a bunch of replicas of woodland creatures that practically look real. There was a stone badger right near the porch that actually made me jump when I saw it. Well, I guess she collects a lot of sculpture in general because inside there were a bunch of pieces on shelves too, a lot of different styles but the best were these incredibly fluid marble pieces that just swirled and undulated in ways you wouldn’t think marble could. When I met her (she’s about 50, very assertive and friendly, my 1^st impression is that she’s nothing like Ira) I asked about the sculptor—because someday when I’m an art dealer, I want this guy’s stuff in my gallery! She wouldn’t tell me anything besides that a family friend made them, and that it’s just a hobby of his. She said that he doesn’t want his name getting out because he doesn’t want to do it for profit. I have got to get in good with this woman and learn more.

I didn’t get to talk to Ira’s mom much so far because Jason has been trying to talk to me and ask me about myself nonstop since I got here. I practically had to sneak away to write to you. Now I’m going downstairs to see if Marsha (Ira’s mom) needs any help getting dinner ready. (I will learn the identity of her sculptor friend!!!) Wish me luck!

I’ll try to write more tonight.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Brook

(What's his deal, anyway?)

Inbox: Thanksgiving dinner

Sender: Marsha Blatt
To: Brook Haupenstaat
Subject: Thanksgiving dinner

Dear Brook,

We’ve never met before, but I’m Ira’s Mom Marsha. Ira doesn’t know that I’m writing to you, but I saw your email address on a list when he sent out the email this summer to me and to all of his friends about taking the trip to San Francisco.

Like I said, Ira doesn’t know that I’m writing you. He had mentioned to me that you don’t have any plans for Thanksgiving, and your family is all going to be out of town. Nobody should be alone on Thanksgiving, so I’m inviting you down. We live in Dearfield Illinois, just north of Chicago. It’s not too far a drive from Minneapolis, and if you keep as busy as Ira it might be nice to get out of the city for a couple days. Ira’s driving down on Thursday morning and going back up on Saturday, so you could ride with him.

Ira said he didn’t want to invite you because he didn’t want you to feel obligated to come if you didn’t want to, but I’m sure you’ll say yes or no depending on how you feel. I know that Ira wouldn’t mind if you come—he’s always mentioning you when he calls, and I know that the two of you are good friends.

There’s always too much turkey, and we’ve got a guest room with your name on it. I won’t pressure you, but since it is just five days away I’m sure you’ll decide pretty quick just to know what your own plans are. I hope you can make it.

Marsha Blatt

(Keeping everybody informed...)

Inbox: Welcome to the club!

From: SecretKeepers (a division of the NSC)
To: Brook Haupenstaat
Subject: Welcome to the club!

Dear Brooklyn,

We are currently in the process of reviewing the data you sent us regarding your specialized knowledge about your sister, Chelsea Haupenstaat.

Good news! Your paperwork is complete! We will contact you within 8-12 business days with further information and instructions. In the meantime, please look over the attached literature to better understand how you can do your part to protect the safety and privacy of your sister.

If you have any questions or would like more information, don’t hesitate to email us at secretkeepers@nsc.org, or call the National Super Hotline any time, day or night, and ask to be put through to a SecretKeeper representative.

Thank you for doing your part.

Attached: welcometotheclub.pdf

Welcome to the club!

If you are reading this, it’s probably because you have recently learned that someone in your life is a super. Maybe it’s someone you’ve known forever, or maybe it’s someone you just met last week. Maybe you’ve always known there’s something special about this person, or maybe they seemed completely ordinary until the moment you learned about their powers. Whatever the situation is, you now know that this person is different—and you probably have a lot of questions.

Questions like:

What is a super?

How did this person become a super?

Is it dangerous to be around this person?

Why didn’t s/he tell me about these powers?

Why do supers keep their identities secret?

What do I do now?

What a lot of questions! Let’s take them one at a time.

Q: What is a super?

A: According to the NSC definition, a super is any individual capable of performing a feat, unaided by technology, that would have been considered outside the bonds of human capability before the Great Awakening in 1978. Many very different skills are contained in this definition—everything from causing broken bones to mend with a thought to launching energy flares that can light up the night sky as bright as noon! Some supers have big, showy powers that are hard to disguise, while others can do things so subtle that you might never notice them (things like x-ray vision, or altering sound vibrations so it’s impossible to sing off-key around them). But something that all supers have in common is that underneath what they can do they are ordinary people, with loves and fears and dreams—just like the rest of us.

Q: How did this person become a super?

A: Nobody knows why supers began appearing the world just after the Great Awakening—or even what the Great Awakening is! (There are theories, of course. Spend some time hanging out at the NSC—National Super Council—website, and you can read a whole page full of different theories!) There’s a lot we don’t know. But we do know that people who become supers generally develop their powers as teenagers, around the time when their bodies are going through puberty. This can often be a scary time for them. If you know somebody who is still in the early stages of being a super, make sure to give them all the love and support you can.

Q: Is it dangerous to be around this person?

A: Probably not. Nearly all supers can control their powers, and most supers have abilities that can only help the people around them. There are a few exceptions, but the supers who pose a threat to society are identified very early on by the NSC and kept in protective custody until the NSC leadership is 100% sure that they won’t hurt anybody. If there are any safety concerns about your super friend, the NSC will be in immediate contact to let you know how to stay safe around him or her.

Sidebar: That’s not fair! Some people object to the NSC keeping dangerous supers in custody, claiming that this is a violation of their rights as citizens. In 1987 the so-called “Freedom defenders” rallied around the case of Baby Bobby, an adorable toddler who had caused the deaths of three caregivers prior to his arrival at NSC headquarters by causing blood vessels in their brains to burst during his temper tantrums. Baby Bobby’s “defenders” took the case all the way to the Supreme Court, which ruled that a super who poses a danger to himself and others may be taken into protective custody—no matter how kind, gentle-natured and mentally stable he might be. Baby Bobby grew up in a special environment where he and the people around him were kept safe all the times, and when he became an adult he thanked the NSC for all it had done over the years to protect and care for him.

Q: Why didn’t this person tell me about their powers?

A: Chances are, they weren’t allowed to. For a number of reasons, most supers choose to register as incognitos. This means that nobody outside of a select few people know that they are supers. Even though supers make this choice freely, once a super has chosen to be an incognito, they must then follow special rules to keep their powers secret. Your friend is almost certainly an incognito super.

Q: Why do supers keep their identities secret?

A: Many people have falsely believed that supers keep their identities secret because they are ashamed of them, or because they want to break the law without getting caught. Nothing could be farther from the truth! Think about movie stars. You probably have a favorite movie star, and you know all sorts of things about that person’s personal life. Have you seen magazines with pictures of that person trying to shoo away photographers on the sidewalk, or read stories about him or her renting a whole tropical island for vacation—just to get away from all the reporters? Many of the “out” supers (the ones who don’t choose to be incognito) complain that they can hardly do their jobs because of all the attention they receive from the press. Also, many supers fear that if their identities were known, their loved ones would be targets for any evil individuals who might want to blackmail a super into doing bad things. But don’t think supers with secret identities are above the law. The NSC keeps close tabs on all of them—and the NSC has your safety as a top priority!

Q: What do I do now?

A: The most important thing for you to do is to keep your friend’s secret safe. This means not telling anyone that you know about this person’s power. Think about it. If you told two other people, and they told two other people, pretty soon this person’s identity wouldn’t be a secret anymore. You need to let this person know that you care for them, and prove that you understand how important a secret identity is. Don’t be afraid to ask questions—in a private setting, of course! And remember—your friend is still your friend. No superpowers can change that.

(Brook's inbox is bustling these days.)

Inbox: Plans for vacation

From: softstone@umn.edu
To: Brook Haupenstaat, forwarded from fairyqueen1111@hotmail.com
Subject: Plans for vacation

Hi Titania,

Wow, you have been to a lot of places! I’ve been out of the country a few times, mostly to visit friends and throw in some tourism on the side. I’m a little jealous that you’ve been to Manchu Picchu—it’s one of my top spots I’ve got to visit someday.

Don’t make any jokes about leaving it the way I find it when I do go, k? I had a terrible time with friends constantly teasing about that the last time I was in DC. I know it’s all in good fun, but the idea of vandalizing some of earth’s treasures just because they’re made of stone and I CAN is an upsetting idea.

(Shut up, Softstone. Don’t freak out the cute girl who seems to enjoy your company almost as much as you enjoy hers.)

Sorry. I guess I’m sort of drawn to stone monuments, tho. Makes sense, right? ;-) I thought Stonehenge was really, truly awesome, and I would love to see the Great Wall, if the NSC ever lifts its travel restrictions to China. Have you ever been there?

Sorry to hear that you’ll be alone for Thanksgiving. That’s no fun, but knowing you I’m sure that if you want to have plans then someone will invite you over. You must have a lot of friends watching out for you, right? And if you don’t go looking for plans, I’ll bet you’ll enjoy the quiet time!

Me, I’m heading out of town—weekend at home with the fam. The supes at the U all sat together and made a master schedule at the beginning of the year, and I figured I’d rather work Christmas break than Thanksgiving. So, I’m gone next weekend, but if you’re still putting up with me a month from now we can hang out together thru the new year.

That is, unless you’ve got plans to go to Thailand or the moon or some other exotic place.

Softstone

(There's more to read in Brook's inbox.)

Outbox: Paperwork in the mail

Sender: Brook Haupenstaat
To: Henri Haupenstaat
Subject: Paperwork in the mail

Hi Dad,

I know we didn’t get much of a chance to talk yesterday when we called, but there’s nothing much going on here except for Chelsea’s big news. School’s fine, and since my internship fell through I’ve actually had some time to myself. I even have the time to hang out regularly with a special guy. We’re not dating—we’re more of an It’s Complicated—but that’s fine for now.

Ack! This email is supposed to be about Chelsea, not me.

This morning Mom called the NSC Discovery Hotline, and by 2:00 a couple women had shown up at the school to interview Chelsea and her friend and get a general sense of how dangerous they are to the people around them. (Conclusion: not very.)

These guys work fast, and one of them came home with Chels to talk to me and Mom (fine, mostly Mom) about what they’re going to do now. They want to take Chelsea to their center for a month-long orientation thing, and they think they’ll have that set up and be ready to take her before Thanksgiving. In the meantime, they need to do a really thorough background check on Chelsea and also less thorough ones on you, me, mom.

I asked if they could email you the stuff you need to fill out and they said that would be fine for some of it, but there are a couple of official forms that have to be on special watermarked paper and signed in the presence of an NSC notary (not only fast, but also unbelievably thorough). They need a real address to send the stuff to, obviously. I don’t know how to reach you by snail mail down there in Brazil, or even if I can. Let me know an address so I can pass it on to them (or let me know if they should just mail it to Granddad in Manhattan).

Everything all right so far? Bring me coffee back!

Love you,

Brook

(Continue with Deena's story.)

Inbox: I know this isn't your real email

From: softstone@umn.edu
To: Brook Haupenstaat, forwarded from fairyqueen1111@hotmail.com
Subject: I know this isn’t your real email

Hi Titania,

1st of all, I think this is ridiculous. ;-) I have to have an extra email account with my alias in it—it’s part of being on the campus supe team. Seriously, gorgeous. Unless you can show me your contractual obligation to keep your ID secret, I’m going to keep teasing you as much as I want. You can’t stop me.

Just had to get that off my chest. Still, if you are going to be all weird about this, thanks for setting up an account that lets me contact you. It’s been great hanging out lately, and I’ve been a little worried about what would happen if an emergency came up right when we were scheduled to meet—since I didn’t have any way to get in touch.

Sure, a phone number would be better—but I guess I can understand your not wanting to give personal information out to strangers. I’m sure your mother would be proud.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the question you asked me last week—whether I think I’m a different person with and without the mask. There aren’t too many people I can talk to about that kind of thing. It’s pretty much just my friends in the NSC, but we don’t really talk about the serious personal stuff too often. Usually when we get together we trade stories about what we’ve been up to and the crazy people we’ve met. You know, stuff like, “This girl was jaywalking across a wet street while texting, and then she yelled at me when I snatched her out from in front of a speeding car!” jk.

I think I do act a little different when I’m Softstone. I’m still me, whether I’m wearing a mask or a baseball cap, but there are a lot of little differences that probably add up to a different personality. Just as an example, I’m a lot more careful about my language when I’m representing for the NSC. It’s not like I go around cussing the rest of the time or anything. Still, even though the occasional f-bomb from some random guy on the street isn’t a big deal, do you remember all the controversy a few years back when the Velvet Avenger went on Conan? And that was late-night TV! So we’re all really careful about how we express ourselves when we’re in costume.

But at the same time, I can only use my powers when I’m Softstone—or when I’m hanging out with people who know who I am. We supers usually don’t like that phrase—“use my powers.” It’s not like we all have this extra something we have to consciously use. For a lot of us, it’s the opposite. I mean sure, I have to think about melting stone, but I don’t “turn on” the ability to benchpress 1200 pounds. So whenever I’m in the real world, I have to remember to act like things are heavy or that it’s supposed to be struggle to open a really tight jar.

;-) That’s just a couple of day to day things. Deep down, I guess I’m always me. When you think about it, being a super is just a really specialized job. Maybe I can’t put it aside at the end of the day, but then a lot of people without superpowers have careers that they live and breathe 24-7. The toughest thing about my job is probably knowing that I can’t tell most of my friends what I did at work today. (That’s a big reason why a lot of supers hang out exclusively with other supers. I think that would be kind of boring, but I can understand why they do it.)

Thanks for asking such a great question! I’ll try to come up with something to ask you this week… something insightful that doesn’t demand any personal information. Hm, I’ll have to think about that.

In the meantime, I hope your week is going great. Don’t let homework get you down!

Softstone

(Check in with everyone.)