Carly had a friend she could stay with, and Anna would be at the hospital for a while, so Randy, Mr. and Mrs. McGrath and I were staying next door with the Stilianos. Randy got Ellen's room, and my parents slept on the couch in the living room. So that meant that Ellen, Gwen and I were squeezed into Gwen's room. It was certainly an experience because I'd shared a room all my life, but Gwen hadn't for the past three years, and Ellen never had. It was amusing listening to their bickering, but once they fell asleep, I found myself all alone.

I couldn't sleep. I had just watched virtually everything I had go up in flames, almost including my sister. What bothered me most were the faces. I couldn't get them out of my head. Why had everyone been staring at me like that? I hadn't done anything that no one else there would've done, had I? Did they mean to tell me that I was the only one out of those fifty or so people with the guts to do what I did? No one else would go a little out of their way to save the life of a family member?

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, and had the same dream I had every night since I arrived at the foster home, but could never quite remember. It was the one with my parents, and some guy named Magneto. That was all I ever remembered. I don't know how, but I know that Magneto was responsible for my life. It was his fault, somehow, that I had been put in the foster home with no hint of my life before that. So even though I didn't know him, I knew that I hated him.

The next morning, I woke up screaming, only half from the dream. It was partially because I heard a rooster, which was really weird in the suburbs. It scared me because I usually woke up to the radio when it's time to wake up.

Gwen stretched and looked at me. "C'mon Rina! Can't you just once wake up without screaming your head off?"

"What the heck is that?"

"My alarm clock. Like it?"

"Gwen," I paused to think of what to say, "Only you."

We all got dressed and brushed our teeth, and did all the usual morning stuff, and then realized that we were about to miss the bus, so we ran downstairs and each grabbed a bagel as we ran through the kitchen. My mom and Mrs. Stiliano were sitting in the living room talking to some pretty strange-looking guests, but I was too late to worry about it.

"Rina, wait a minute!" said my mom.

"Sorry, mom. Don't want to be late for school. Bye!" and I was out the door before she could say another word. We only just caught the bus. I was kind of glad I didn't wait to see what Mom wanted, but I was a little curious now that I wasn't in one of those "Uh-oh-I'm-going-to-be-late" frenzies. Oh well.

I started dreading what the day at school was going be like that day. I was willing to bet that everyone in the school knew about the fire, and would be on my case all day about it.

The bus pulled up in front of the school, and I got off, went to my locker, went to homeroom, all that stuff. In homeroom, my teacher, Miss Shannon held up the morning paper and made an announcement. "It looks like we have a celebrity in our class."

She passed the paper around, and everyone looked at me as they saw it. When it got to me, my eyes went wide when I saw it. It was a picture of me coming out of the burning building with Anna in my arms. The headline was "GIRL HERO: Local girl saves sister from burning building."

Someone read the entire article over the announcements. I was so embarrassed! Everyone probably thought that I was a psycho, even though they were all being nice and congratulating me. I wished everyone would stop making such a fuss over me. It wasn't that big a deal. Okay so it was, but it didn't need to be as big as everyone was making it.

We even had an assembly about it. They went over all these fire safety rules, like "never go back into a burning building." I felt my face flush, and then at the end of the assembly, they called me up to the podium and gave me a plaque. I didn't bother to read it. They made me answer a lot of questions that the faculty, student body, and firemen had for me. I answered all of them, but the only one that sticks in my mind to this day came from a boy named Jared. "How could you have been in there for ten minutes and not have gotten burned or anything?" It was also the only one I couldn't answer.

When the assembly finally ended, I walked out of the auditorium and across the hall to the gym. Gym was by far my favorite class. And the one I was best at. I could do football, gymnastics, track, soccer, and basically anything that wasn't volleyball or swimming. But that wasn't just any gym period. I was just glad that we happened to be doing gymnastics that day!

I was the first one out of the auditorium, and I thought that I was the first in the gym. I walked in, and the door slammed shut behind me. I jumped nearly out of my skin, and turned around to look. A huge metal bar fell across the door with a loud bang. I tried to move it, but it was too heavy. I couldn't get out, and no one could get in. It was useless, so I decided to do what I did in the fire: Stay calm, and look for another way out. I took a deep breath to keep from panicking, but the attempt became futile the moment I turned around.

In the gym were about 20 or so people, all looking at me with weird expressions. Some were more normal-looking than others, but they were all freaky. There was one in the middle who was sort of hovering above the others in black armor and a red-and-purple helmet and cape. He seemed to be the one in charge. "Hello there," he said.