The Unlikelies

 

Table of Contents

Chapter 1— Expect the Unexpected

Chapter 2—Exposed ?

Chapter 3—Let The Heroics Begin

Chapter 4—Only the Beginning

Chapter 5—A Villain in Ghetto Clothing

Epilogue

 

~*~CAST~*~

Wybie—Alias ‘Y’.   He is faster than the speed of light, a wheelchair bound hero, due to spinabifida.

Arno—Alias ‘R’.   A human calculator.   He can win any argument, ‘Bugs Bunnys’ people without them knowing it and Jedi mind tricks himself and his friends out of sticky situations. 

Carmella—Alias ‘Cannon’.   She has a prosthetic arm that shoots lasers and can supply useful items during fights. 

Mrs. Dolores Otto—Alias ‘Rebato’.  A speech teacher who has Downs Syndrome.   She can slow enemies down to a snail’s pace or even conk them out using lullabies.

Suzy—Alias ‘Shock’.   Has Tourette’s.   Her ability leaves a villain in stasis.

Dr. Aloisius ‘Al’ Snood—Alias ‘Shrink’.   He is Symphony Junior High’s counsellor, grief management and all-around sounding board.   He can psychoanalyze a villain to completely avoid fighting them.  

 

Chapter 1—Expect the Unexpected

Wybie Rhodes was more eager to return to Symphony Junior High this year.   Unlike last year, he and his best friend Arno Grunge were heading back as sophomores.   This time they would only have to endure possible torment from the juniors and seniors.    Neither of them knew just how much their entire lives were about to change when they met their speech teacher and their unbelievably cool guidance counselor.  

                Wybie didn’t let much keep him down.   Although he had been born with spinabifida, he chugged right along in a wheelchair and could keep up with many of the more able-bodied students at Symphony.    Arno was a bit socially inept because of his phenomenal brain power.    He could do any math problem in his mind, even the more complex trigonometry or high-level calculus that required machines for others to arrive at the correct answers.        

                Wybie got to know a cute new girl at Symphony named Suzy Quinto.    Quinto had Tourette’s, which meant sometimes she swore when she shouldn’t have, but she never meant anything mean by it.   She had other verbal ticks that were actually quite adorable but some of the students teased her because of it.   Suzy was tough so she never revealed to her haters just how terribly they wounded her.   Wybie just told her that crying was fine but to never let the mockers see her tears.    Suzie took that to heart.  

                Then there was a Hispanic girl named Carmella Miranda.   She had lost her dominant arm to a freak diving accident when she was pearl diving for friends and got caught in a cavern.   She learned how to become ambidextrous and loved freaking people out with her prosthetic.   It was obvious that Arno had the hots for her.  

                Class was about to begin.   The eponymous music typically reserved for a new class year was replaced with high energetic EDM that really got the class moving.   In came a rather spritely, vivacious twenty something Downs Syndrome blonde wearing a hot tamale tank top and khaki pencil skirt, encouraging the whole class to move.   She wasn’t like Wybie and Arno’s usual teacher.   It seemed the whole class fell in love with her the moment she stepped into the classroom.   Soon, she captured their attention.        

                ‘Greetings and salutations, class !   Sheesh, it seems that the summer has come and gone in the blink of an eye.   The typical first assignment I would have assigned you is for you to give me a speech about something you did over summer vacation, but that is far too conventional, boring and cliché.   What I’m asking for is different.   I want you to persuade me, or even just one other person in this classroom, about something you like or loathe.   Maybe convince me of a conspiracy theory.    It doesn’t really matter what it is.   This assignment will be done in teams, so pick you partner with precaution.’, Delores said. 

                Wybie wasted no time in rolling in his wheelchair over to Arno.   The two exchanged their typical secret handshake and Arno proposed his idea.

                ‘I think we should try to convince everyone to take a trip to Twisty World.   The last time we were there, we were only hitting double digits !’, Arno explained.   The amusement park wasn’t too far from where either of them lived and it was wheelchair accessible.   Plus, the duet hadn’t savored the park since it had changed owners a few years back.   

                Delores spoke up again, letting everyone know that they would be taking their first of many field trips this coming Friday to their local power plant.    Some of the students were a bit horrified, believing that the voyage would be horribly mundane, worse than watching paint dry.    Wybie and Arno were eager.   This had been a place neither of them had seen and both had been secretly fascinated by it.    The new girls, Carmella and Suzy, were looking forward to going as well and both of them had begun to form friendships with Wybie and Arno, respectively.   It seemed all of them were starting to feel something more than just friendship, but they would have to get to know these ladies to see if the butterflies they felt around their female friends was anything more than pheromones and chemistry. 

 

Chapter 2—Exposed ?

                The new guidance counsellor, Doctor Snood had come along on the Symphony Junior High students’ adventure just in case there were any elements of the trip that might be triggering to some.   In all honesty, Aloisius wanted out of his office, and he felt more comfortable being around the students versus behind his desk all day.    Besides, few people actually came for his council and being out in nature, he felt that he was more among his element and more at ease to be a bit more authentic with his younger peers.

                The field trip went about how one might expect it would.   Though all the highlights of the trip were fascinating, nothing really went awry until  a routine check-up went horribly wrong.   One of the usual maintenance custodial staff had forgotten to switch a key modulator on and his substitute had not shown up.   Sadly, he had forgotten to call in, so no one was alerted to the problem.    Suddenly, the system began to fail, and everyone had to evacuate quickly.   There had been a bit of a leak.    Delores happened to have a Radia code on her to check her whole student body but any radiation they could’ve contacted would’ve been next to nothing, so she wasn’t worried.    It wasn’t until later in the day that she and the others began to feel a little ill and with the permission of Snood, they were allowed to have a sick day.    They would make it up later in the week far before fall break, but all of them would have a day to recuperate from whatever sort of sickness they had contracted. 

 

Chapter 3—Let the Heroics Begin

                It was a typical weekend.  Arno and Wybie were spending time together in the local park while their new friends Carmella and Suzy were getting used to the neighborhood.   At this point, Carmella and Wybie were an item, Suzy, and Arno were dating, too.   Even though they were young, the four of them knew that they had found their soulmates and someday knew they would be marrying once they graduated.   They couldn’t plan any further ahead than that, but they were happy enough simply being in each other’s presence, savoring their ‘halcyon days’.   

                Suzy could hear someone getting mugged.   In seconds, Carmella had contained the perpetrator with a net she had shot from her prosthetic, Suzy and Arno had tripped him as he tried to escape and Arno had him hog tied with the rope Suzy and Arno had used for skipping to keep the mugger at bay.    The mugger was irritated, shouting insults at the teenagers as the police took him away.    The lady who had been mugged, however, was grateful for the kids’ involvement.   

                ‘That was incredibly brave.’, she said, thanking them for the umpteenth time.   She had been on the way to pick up her mom from dialysis and thankfully, she wasn’t going to be late due to Wybie and his friends’ intervention.  

                ‘Do you think our speech teacher and the guidance counselor obtained any abilities ?’, Carmella wondered aloud.  

                ‘Come on, what are the odds ?   That seems unlikely.’, Suzy said, skeptically.    What none of them knew was that their new talents would be required of them because wherever light was present, there was bound to be an element of darkness.   

 

Chapter 4—Only the Beginning 

                It was subtle at first, but the kids developed a name for themselves whenever trouble reared its ugly head.   They called themselves the Unlikelies.    It was catchy, clever, and unexpected, just like they were.   

                The so-called ‘exposure’ from the field trip had been forgotten.   It seemed that the leak that had occurred wasn’t that dire or dangerous.    The sickness that the class had contracted was here and gone and nothing seemed unusual or odd about it.   Life continued its daily course, but the Unlikelies had become vigilantes within the rural community.   

                No one knew about the aliases of the close-knit friends other than themselves but that was how they preferred it.    Each crime they solved only increased their notoriety, but the perps they were busting were only small-time thugs.    All of that, however, was about to change when an evil mastermind turned his thoughts into overtaking the entire tri-state area, thinking his actions would never be stopped.

 

 

Chapter 5—A Villain in Ghetto Clothing

                It was near the end of the school year and the friends had completed their school report.   While most students were reporting on technology, others were writing on video games, movies or TV programs that had captured their attention, Wybie and Arno had written on Twisty World and knew their pitch was irresistible.     The two of them had created a detailed Lego diorama to prove their point and everything was going well until the lights in the neighborhood went off. 

                His name was Doctor Dastardly, and his invention had caused everyone to rely solely on candles for light.   Also, Wi-Fi had been shut off and the internet was no longer usable.   Most people were losing their collective minds, but the Unlikelies discovered how Dastardly had accomplished his goal after school and although no one recognized them, they were thanked for their rapid response and had been able to finish their report the next day without any incident or suspicion.  

                ‘A fundraiser is a perfect idea.   In fact, the principal agreed to it and we’re starting a bake sale this weekend at the local rummage sale to start earning our tickets for entry.’, another one of the teachers said after enjoying Wybie and Arno’s elaborate presentation.   Though Dastardly was a shadow in the background, he would plot something else while drafting a terrible scheme.    Presently, he was sore over losing to a bunch of junior high kids, but he hadn’t yet begun to fight.    For the moment, he mused, those ‘meddling twits’ had won.  

 

Epilogue

                Everything the students had accomplished had been a soaring success.   Wybie and Arno’s peers were impressed with how persuasive they had been and how easily it seemed that they had all earned enough money to have a blast at Twisty World.     Of course, all of this came with the obligatory permission slip from parents in case of any trouble, which rarely occurred.

                Delores was amazed, especially at herself.   She couldn’t believe that the radiation had given her the ability to lull delinquents into deep sleep without harming anyone, including themselves.   She was astonished at how well the Unlikelies worked as a team and watched them as they enjoyed their well-deserved reward, riding every last roller coaster and amusement ride that Twisty World provided.  Something told her, however, that this was only the beginning of their crime fighting era and although they were hidden in secrecy the community would be forever thankful that the Unlikelies kept delinquents in check and that the long arm of the law would always bring criminals to justice. 

 

To Be Concluded…