Nikki Powergloves- a Hero is Born Read online

  NIKKI POWERGLOVES

  A Hero is Born

  David Estes

  Copyright 2012 David Estes

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is dedicated to kids all over the world,

  for dreaming BIG,

  believing in superheroes,

  and loving reading!

  Chapter One: The man-eating porcupine-beaver

  Nikki Nickerson hated her name. Not so much her first name, Nikki was fine, but when combined with Nickerson it was dreadful! What were her mom and dad thinking? The only thing that saved her from constant teasing at school was a boy named George George. His name was definitely worse than hers, but having the second worst name at school was still nothing to be proud of. When she grew up, one of the first things she would do would be to change her name to something cool, like Shakira or Elektra.

  Nikki was also bored of being nine-years-old. Nothing exciting ever happened in her life. She hated to complain, because her life wasn’t too bad as far as lives go; she lived in a small, but nice house, with a small, but nice family. Without any brothers or sisters, Nikki had to entertain herself much of the time during the long summer holiday from school.

  First, she tried playing with friends from school, but all the girls ever wanted to do was try on their moms’ makeup and pretend that they were older than they really were. When she asked the boys if she could play with them, they refused; building forts and wrestling was far too difficult for a girl to do, they told her.

  Next she tried TV, but her mom said, “That stuff will rot your brain, Nikki. Go outside.”

  So outside she went, ready to explore the world! After two hours, she realized that there wasn’t much to see in her little town of Cragglyville. She visited the old museum, but when she tried to touch one of the Native American exhibits, the security man said, “No touching. Get lost, kid!”

  She wanted to get lost. At least getting lost would be more exciting than her life, but instead she decided to go down to the old mill on the river. That proved to be even more boring than the museum; she wasn’t allowed inside, and watching the waterwheel churn the muddy water was only cool for about the first five minutes.

  She left the mill and went back to town to see if she could get into trouble there.

  Like Nikki’s house and family, the town of Cragglyville was small, but nice. The roads were kept clean by a weekly street sweeper and the sidewalks were tended to by Old Man Smithy, the local litter collector. The layout of the town was basic; the flat topography allowed a grid pattern to be used, with one main street running down the town center—the name of the road was Main Street, no joke—while various cross streets intersected it at one block intervals. The town had a rustic feel to it, like it had never been touched by the Industrial Revolution. At any second, one might expect a gang of outlaws to ride up on their black horses and start a gunfight with the local sheriff. Surprisingly, there were no tumbleweeds bouncing along Main Street, but mainly because Smithy was so good at his job.

  The town had one of each of the basic necessities: a post office for snail-mail; a Town Hall for government functions; a bakery for tasty treats; a diner for coffee, flapjacks, and gossip—the coffee and pancakes were good, but the gossip was the tastiest of all—a police station to keep order; a hospital for bumps, bruises and the flu; and a bank, of course, as an alternative for keeping your money in a piggy-bank or under your mattress.

  Nikki had just walked past the old bank, which was on the corner of Main Street and Rooster Road, when she stopped and scratched her head. Robbing a bank could be exciting, she thought. She could be like Jessie James and Billy the Kid. An outlaw, always one step ahead of the law! No way, the much wiser part of her brain said, your parents will ground you for a month if you rob a bank.

  So robbing a bank was out. That left what? A whole lot of nothing, that’s what. Nikki decided to head for home to see if she could find a tree to climb or a bike to ride.

  Upon reaching Plantation Road, she cut across the street and off of the sidewalk, opting to take the “short” cut, along the edge of the woods and around the cornfields. In reality, this route wasn’t really shorter, but Nikki found it far more interesting than walking on the same roads, past the same houses.

  While she walked along, Nikki picked up a sturdy branch that had fallen from a tree overhanging the fields. Using it as a hiking stick, she imagined that she was a famous explorer discovering the land for the first time. “Discovering what?” she asked herself out loud. A bunch of cornfields, she thought, not very exciting at all. She needed to find an adventure to have!

  Nikki stopped and gazed at the endless rows of corn marching into the distance. She hated corn—the look, the taste, the feel. Yuck! Turning in the other direction, toward the woods, she peered into the gloom. How could it be so dark in there when it was so bright outside? The sun rose high above her and she was hot and sweaty from trudging all over town. The forest looked cool and quiet. A light breeze wafted through the crisscross of branches, slowly moving them up and down, as if they were inviting her into their world.

  There was a rumor going around school that the forest was haunted. By what, no one knew, but the kids were sure that it was dangerous. Maybe something dangerous is exactly what I need, Nikki thought. “No, Nikki,” the responsible part of her mind said. “It is far too dangerous and your parents would not want you to go in there.”

  “Be quiet, why can’t I have any fun?” Nikki muttered to herself. She took another long look at the forest before allowing the cowardly part of her brain to win the argument. Just as she began to walk away, she heard a loud cracking sound from the trees behind her.

  She froze.

  Slowly turning her head, she looked to see what had caused the noise. That’s when she saw the path. It was not some small, overgrown trail that you might expect to see leading into a forest, but instead, was a wide, clear corridor. Nikki had passed by this way a hundred times before and had never seen this path. Where had it come from?

  The ground was almost completely free of branches and leaves, like it had been swept clean by a caretaker, or maybe Smithy; it was as smooth as the marble floor in an art gallery. And sitting directly in the center of the path was a large, fat animal, resembling a cross between a porcupine and a beaver. The furry mammal was sitting atop a broken branch, having fallen from the trees high above. So this was the source of the cracking sound, Nikki realized.

  The animal growled, its mouth opening wide to reveal several sets of razor sharp teeth.

  Chapter Two: The disappearing path into the haunted forest

  Nikki ran harder than she had ever run. She tripped once, scrambled to her feet, and tripped again. Her legs felt like jelly. Lying face down on the ground, she waited to be torn to shreds by the savage beast. Twenty seconds passed, and then thirty, but the attack never came.

  A million questions rattled through Nikki’s brain like, “What if the animal is just really slow and is still coming after me?” or, “I wonder what it feels like to be dinner for a man-eating porcupine-beaver?”

  Wanting to find out whether she was still being chased, Nikki rolled over onto her back and sat up, pulling her legs under her to sit cross-legged on the ground. She looked back toward the woods wher
e the path had first appeared. Scanning the tree line, she couldn’t see the opening anymore. She would need to take a closer look.

  Nikki marched bravely back to the forest and crept along the edge, watching for any signs of movement. After she had tiptoed about a hundred steps or so, she realized that the path into the forest had disappeared.

  ***

  Later that day, Nikki lay on her bed staring at the ceiling. Her mind raced back to the cornfields, to the cracking noise, to the mysterious disappearing path, and finally, to the strange animal with the shark-like teeth. Had she imagined it?

  A low whine sounded from under her arm. She jumped, startled by the noise. “Oh, Mr. Miyagi, I’m sorry. I forgot you were there.” Mr. Miyagi was Nikki’s dog. He had been hers since she was five-years-old and so, for the last four years, they had grown up together. The playful and obedient Scottie was named after the famous karate instructor from the movie, The Karate Kid. As she gently stroked the fur of her black Scottish terrier, she wondered again whether the events of the day had just been a particularly imaginative daydream.

  Nikki’s mom regularly told her that she had an especially overactive imagination, and that sometimes she needed to focus more on what was real. Nikki wished that her best friend, Spencer, was with her, because he could’ve been a second witness to the unbelievable story.

  Nikki had known Spencer Quick her entire life. He lived on the same street, went to the same school, and liked doing the same things as she did. Sadly, his parents had divorced three years earlier and so, each summer he spent a month with his dad, who lived in New York. He had only been gone for a week so far, but Nikki already missed him very much. She needed to tell him what had happened.

  Grabbing her cell phone from the bedside table, she found Spencer’s name in her address book and pressed the CALL button. The satisfying chirp of the phone ringing clucked in her ear. After three rings with no answer, Nikki began muttering, “Pick up, pick up, pick up. C’mon, Spencer!”

  On the fourth ring, she heard the call connect and a voice say, “ET phone home! Hi, Nikks.”

  Frustrated, Nikki said, “What took you so long to answer, Spence?”

  “Oh, sorry about that. I was just watching ET on TV with my dad. I can’t stay on for too long, we’re having an intermission so he can scoop some ice cream for us while I talk to you.”

  Nikki’s stomach growled. Ice cream sounded good. She had barely touched her food at dinner, because she was too worried about what had happened, but now her appetite came roaring back at Spencer’s mention of her favorite cold treat. “That’s okay, Spence. But listen, I have an emergency here that I need your advice for.”

  “Okay, shoot.”

  Nikki rushed through the story and waited for his reply. She heard him humming to himself. Spencer always hummed whenever he was thinking hard about something; he said it was his way of concentrating. In the background, she heard a voice yell, “Spencerrrr! Come on back down now, your ice cream’s melting!”

  “Oh shoot, I gotta go, woowoo!” he said. “Listen, don’t do anything until I get back to Cragglyville. We can figure things out together.”

  “Spence, that’s three weeks away, I don’t think I can wait that long!” Nikki practically shrieked.

  “Just try, okay? Gotta run. Over and out.” Before she could respond, he had hung up and she could hear the monotonous drone of the dial tone in her ear.

  “Well that just stinks,” Nikki complained to herself. She slumped down on her bed and flipped over onto her stomach to think things through. Surely there couldn’t be a dangerous animal roaming freely in their little forest. Nikki had never heard of any animal attacks in Cragglyville. “I don’t care if Spencer wants me to wait for him,” Nikki mumbled, as a plan began to form in her head.

  Chapter Three: Nikki and Mr. Miyagi go on an adventure

  The next day, Nikki jumped out of bed at seven o’clock in the morning, threw on some clothes, brushed her teeth, made her bed, and bounded down the stairs with Mr. Miyagi hot on her heels. She hadn’t felt so excited for the start of a new day since summer began two weeks earlier.

  “Aren’t you an early bird today,” Nikki’s mom said when she saw her daughter practically burst into the kitchen.

  “Uh, yeah, Mom. I’m just taking your advice and getting outside to enjoy the summer,” Nikki answered tentatively—her mom could usually see straight through her lies.

  This time she didn’t though.

  “That’s great, Nikki. If you come back around noon, I can make you lunch when I get back from my book club.”

  Mrs. Nickerson was short, with shoulder-length, reddish-brown hair. An eternal optimist, she was always able to find the silver lining in even the worst situations. She was a stay-at-home mom who, once Nikki started school, began to join clubs to keep herself busy. Not just a couple of clubs, but a club for every day of the week. She had running club on Mondays, Spanish club on Wednesdays, arts and crafts club on Thursdays, dog training club on Fridays, and bridge club on Saturdays, where she played a weird card game that Nikki didn’t understand at all. She even joined a chess club that met on Sundays. Today was Tuesday, which was book club day.

  Nikki thought that her mom overdid it a bit, but her activities seemed to make her happy, so Nikki didn’t say anything. Her mom constantly invited Nikki to come along, but as a rule, she always said no. What nine-year-old girl wanted to hang out with a bunch of old people doing boring things? There was only one exception to her rule: dog training club.

  Nikki went with her mom to dog training club as often as possible. She loved watching all of the different breeds learn skills, from as basic as sitting or rolling over, to as complex as collecting the newspaper or pushing a stroller. There was even a particularly clever collie that had learned how to press the speed dial for emergency services on her owner’s cell phone. Mr. Miyagi was somewhere in the middle of his training class and Nikki hoped that one day he would be the smartest dog in the club.

  “Sounds great, Mom, but I may just take my allowance for the week and buy something in town.” Nikki tried to avoid eye contact as she poured her cereal, added extra sugar, and filled a bowl with minced beef kibbles for Mr. Miyagi.

  “Okay, sweetie, but be careful and don’t be home too late.”

  “Sure,” Nikki said, stuffing a large spoonful of Cheerios into her mouth. She crunched loudly, appreciative of the first few bites of cereal, before the milk made the small O’s too mushy to crunch. Her mom turned back to the local newspaper she was reading.

  “Hmmm,” Mrs. Nickerson murmured, reacting to something she had read.

  “What is it, Mom?” Nikki asked in between mouthfuls.

  “Nothing really, it’s just the usual problems with the groundhogs getting into Farmer Miller’s cornfields again. But the odd thing is that the bite marks on the damaged ears they found are different than what a groundhog’s teeth usually look like. Apparently they are much sharper looking. Isn’t that strange?”

  Nikki’s mouth stopped chewing in mid-bite. Sharp bite marks! Farmer Miller’s cornfield! That’s where she had seen the creature! Trying to keep a straight face, Nikki replied, “Yeah, that’s strange, Mom. Do they think it could be a different kind of animal?”

  Her mom shrugged. “They’re not sure yet, but it’s probably nothing to worry about. If the animal is eating corn, then it’s probably just an herbivore anyway.”

  Nikki’s heart skipped a beat. Why hadn’t she thought of that? If it was eating corn it must be a veggie-eater. That would also explain why the pudgy creature hadn’t chased her. It had probably just growled because it was afraid of her. Having no reason to be scared now, she became even more eager to investigate the hidden path into the forest.

  Skipping the last few bites of cereal, she emptied her bowl down the garbage disposal and rushed for the door.

  “Wait just one minute, young lady, aren’t you forgetting something?” her mom asked.

  Nikki tried to remember each o
f her chores and whether she had done them. Make her bed, check. Brush her teeth, check. Clean her room, check. Her mind drew a blank.

  Her mom gave her a clue: “Well, besides saying goodbye to me, isn’t there a certain four-legged furry creature that needs some attention?”

  Nikki’s jaw dropped, thinking that her mom was referring to the animal from the forest. Then she remembered. Mr. Miyagi. “Oops! Sorry, Mom, I forgot to walk him. Maybe I could just take him with me for the day?”

  Mrs. Nickerson thought about it for a minute and then said, “You know what, Nikks, I think that’s a great idea, just make sure you keep him on the leash and that he gets plenty of water. Here, I’ll pack you a bag of doggie treats in case he gets hungry.”

  Nikki added the dog supplies to her small backpack, kissed her mom goodbye, and held the door to let Mr. Miyagi out. He scampered through the doorway and down the stairs, and then waited obediently for her to catch up when he reached the end of his leash.

  The pair jogged down the street and past Spencer’s house. His voice from the night before rang in her ear: Don’t do anything until I get back…we can figure things out together. She tried to ignore the voice in her head and continued to the end of the block and around the corner. Once out of her neighborhood, she turned left on Plantation Road, but instead of going all the way to the end, she led Mr. Miyagi off the road to the right before they reached Farmer Miller’s place.

  Crazy Miller, as the kids at school called him, was a stern, giant of a man, who had earned his reputation for being a bit loony by chasing children out of his garden with a pitchfork. Even though he appeared to be childless, there was a rumor going around that he kept four or five kids locked up in his barn to use as manual labor for his farm. A common dare amongst the boys in her grade was to see who could get the closest to touching his barn before freaking out and running away.