I have absolutely no idea what would happen if I went to another solar system, or found a ring that would Summon the Power of Will, or got bit by a radioactive spider. If I had any weird mutations--
Oh wait. I do. I have two really exceptional qualities: I can read really fast. Naturally. And I'm pale. Like, I'm fairly sure that the fact that I was born ten days early means that I missed out on the gene that gives my skin pigmentation.*
*Realistically, I'm pretty sure that's not how that works developmentally, but I am really pale. . . and my mom is as ghostly as I am, so it's definitely genetic.
If you know me, you know I'm really proud of the fact that I started reading early. I owe this to my parents, because they were extremely vigilant and read to me often, but I was by all accounts a weirdly attentive baby. Anyway, the story my mom tells is along these lines:
I was about three. My mom had been reading some developmental book, and she was currently perusing the section about how to tell if your kid has started to read. . .and she realized I had been doing a lot of the things on the list.
I think I was laying on the floor with a picture book when my mom came up to me and asked me if I could read it.
Me: Yeah.
Mom: Show me?
So she had me read from Ramona the Pest--which is not a picture book. It's a kid's chapter book. And I read from it with only a few hiccups.
Mom: How long have you been doing this?
Me: A while.
It's a comfort to me to know that I've been a smart-ass since age three.
I should get that on a t-shirt. Smart Ass Since 1994. It's catchy.
Anyway. So I was good at reading since the beginning. And it sort of just took off from there. I've been freaking my dad out by finishing whole books in the space of an afternoon and newspaper articles in about two minutes since I got out of kindergarten. Natural speed-reading. I've always wanted to learn how to actually speed read just to see if I could get even more freakishly quick at reading. And that sums up superpower #1.
Superpower #2:
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| For you Firefly fans out there: I may not be able to kill you with my mind, but: I can blind you with my body. And not in a "whoa, she's hot" kind of way. |
I'm pale. Flesh toned ANYTHING under $50 is a pipe dream for people like me. And there are a lot of us in my family on my mom's side. I think it comes from being part Irish or something. Apparently there are a lot of pasty people in Great Britain--reason number 2,456 why I would fit in in England.
It's got to the point that my GERMAN GRANDMA has wondered why I'm so pale in photographs. My tan--on the rare occasions when I do tan and don't turn lobster-red is my cousins' winter shade. I'm fairly sure that if I was a member of the X-Men, I wouldn't be Scarlet Witch like I want. Nah, I'd be someone's shield. Kind of like Medusa.
Perseus, once he had beheaded Medusa, gave her head back to Athena, who put it on her shield, because apparently Ancient Greek Gods could do those kinds of physical impossibilities. It's a pretty clever idea, putting something that could blind enemies on the front of her shield--Athena wasn't the goddess of wisdom for nothing.
You can see where I'm going with this, can't you?
Medusa was able to blind people by making eye contact with them. I'm able to blind people when they look at me. She had snakes for hair, my hair is curly. The similarities are endless.
So--if I could conceptualize my superhero look, I'd probably be wearing a tight spandex leotard to optimize blindingness ability, and I'd carry a large book that could double as a missile. I'm not sure what situations I could get in that would require me to speed read to save my life, but superheroes are called on to do some weird stuff sometimes. Who knows?
If anyone has ideas for the name of a ridiculously pale, book-loving superhero, do, please let me know. I've run out of pithiness at the moment.
xo,
Hilary
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