Chapter Five

"Mayday, Harry, do you really have to talk while I'm explaining electron shells?" Ms. Garcia sighed, turning from the dry erase board and flipping her black braid over her shoulder. She raised an eyebrow cynically.

Harry and I snapped up straight in our desks. "Sorry, Ms. Garcia," I said embarrassedly.

But as soon as her back was turned, Harry turned around in his seat again."Yeah, anyway, you won't believe this. Aunt Beth and I went to see the place. It's huge! Right in the middle of Manhattan! And the car! Bentley! It's a Bentley!"

"Er...what exactly is a Bentley?"

"Big fancy car. It's ugly as heck, but rich people use it to show off their money..."

Harry had been grinning from ear to ear ever since he had gotten on the bus this morning. He must have changed his mind about inheriting the house, and he must have been just bursting to tell someone.

"Yeah, there's this thing about some old lab my dad owned too," Harry continued. "And—"

"A-hem," said Ms. Garcia pointedly, looking over her shoulder. Harry turned around and hunched over his notes, looking a little guilty. I couldn't blame him. Chemistry class was one of the only decent science classes most of the people in my year had had in high school, and Ms. Garcia really was a great teacher. Even so, it was common knowledge that the attendance in chemistry was so high because most of the boys had crushes on her.

I noticed an edge of red fabric peeking out from beneath my sleeve and moved my arm. It had been two weeks since I had started fixing the costume, two harrowing weeks of suddenly having to stuff it under the bed or fling it into my closet as soon as Mom or Benny came in. But, finally, it was done!

The mask and gloves were safely hidden in my backpack. I had been practicing my webshooting as secretly as I could at night in the garage, eventually overcoming the nausea accompanying feeling lines of spider web blasting out of my wrists. I had also figured out how to scale the wall of my bedroom and crawl across the ceiling.

I grinned inwardly from my secret. Just let something happen. I was ready! What could possibly go wrong?

Well, other than the fact that I had never actually leaped from a skyscraper, rescued anyone, or tackled a psychotic criminal.

Harry was finally orced to turn around in his seat and start scribbling answers to questions about electrons. I bit my lower lip, staring blankly at the open page of my textbook. Harry was my best friend. Could I...nah. But...

No, no, no! This was a bad idea. Even I had read enough comic books to realize that you should never tell anyone your secret. I figured there was a good reason for that, even if it was someone you trusted. But Harry was my best friend.

Could I tell him?

"Hey, you know that group project we've got to do for social studies? What do you think about doing the report on Spider-Man?" I asked in what I hoped was a casual way as Harry and I shoved through the crowds out to the bus lane after school had ended.

Harry stopped dead and I narrowly avoided crashing into him.

"Spider-Man?"

"Yeah," I replied carefully. "He's a good topic, and..." I trailed off as I caught the expression on Harry's face. I felt an odd, persistent tingle beginning inside my head, the same, tense feeling I had felt the first day two weeks ago.

Harry turned to face me, struggling to keep his face impassive. "Why Spider- Man?"

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" Harry snapped. "Mayday, I've gotta go. See you." With that, he reshouldered his backpack and disappeared into the crowd.

I blinked after him, astonished. What was that all about? Glancing at my watch, I stared up at the skyscrapers jutting up around Midtown High School. I wasn't supposed to be home for at least another two hours.

Hmm...

I stared after Harry, but he was nowhere to be seen. Shaking my head in confusion, I turned and made my way through the crush of students in the opposite direction. The day was partly cloudy, not too bright, and pleasantly warm. No one looked twice at me as I sidled into an alley between two hotels.

"Okay, Mayday, are you ready for this?" I muttered. I sneaked another look at the passing people, all stuffed into business suits and barking into cell phones.

I slipped behind a tall pile of empty boxes stamped with faded fruit labels. Taking a deep breath, I pulled my sweatshirt over my head. Underneath my outer clothes was the costume. Red, blue, and black, with a thin pattern of raised black spider web. An eight-legged, spider design stretched across my chest.

I stuffed my outer clothes and shoes into my backpack and pulled on the matching gloves. They connected almost seamlessly from the end of my sleeves. Then, taking another breath of the sooty air around me, I quickly flattened my hair with one hand and pulled the mask down over my head.

Instantly my vision was clouded in a whitish haze. The cloth plastered itself against my face like a second skin. Breathing slowly, I turned to face the wall. It was about eight stories tall, first bare concrete and then smoothing out into glittering glass and steel.

Well, here I was in costume. I didn't feel particularly heroic or adventurous. I just felt like me. Just Mayday Parker with a mask on.

I set my jaw, tensed my legs, and leaped straight upwards, landing with the tips of my fingers braced against the concrete fifteen feet up the wall. Hand over hand, I crawled straight up the wall, my confidence growing, a feeling of wonderful exhilaration making me smile beneath mymask. I was doing it!

I scaled the skyscraper, passing several offices and causing a poor businessman to spit his coffe out all over his desk as I stopped to enjoy the view on the wall outside his window.

I grasped the very edge of the roof and vaulted over, astonished at my own strength. I was now eight stories above the swarms of buses and taxis on the streets below.

"Time to see if all of that practice payed off," I said out loud.

I pivoted on the balls of my feet, raised my right hand, and slowly aimed it at a spot on the next building over, just below the roof. I turned my hand palm up, straightened my fingers, then bent my middle and ring fingers in towards my wrist.

Thwip!

I rocked backwards slightly as the line of web jetted from my wrist. I snatched hold of the end just as it connected with the building opposite. I gripped the web with both hands, gulped, and jumped.

"Aaaaaaaaaahh!"

The ground rushed up at me at a dizzying speed. My arms were jerked up over my head. People yelled and pointed up wildly as I swung meters above their heads, breezing back up into the sky.

Almost instinctively, I let go of the line before my brain realized what I had just done. I started to fall, until my left arm whipped up and slung another line of web and the next building, swinging again down the street, Tarzan-style.

I laughed giddily, or maybe hysterically. This was no dream. I could do it! Me! Mayday!

I headed south, dropping down to hop rooftops in Chinatown and springing back into the air into what seemed to be a neverending rollercoaster around Manhattan. I swooped to a rooftop by the water and paused for breath, just across the street from the brand-new bridge that was opening today. There was news covereage, and two helicopters circled around like huge bees.

I turned to get ready to webswing again, when a strange sound from the direction of the bridge caught my attention. It was one of the helicopters. It wobbled in the air, shaking from side to side. I heard a murmur start up from the people on the ground below.

The helicopter wobbled drunkenly again, and I gasped as it began to take an inclined nosedive straight towards the support pillars of the bridge and the water below. I shut my eyes automatically, not wanting to see what I knew was about to happen. A deafening impact assailed my ears as I squeezed my eyes shut and gritted my teeth beneath my mask.

Below, I could hear the police officers below screaming into their walkie- talkies. "Mayday! We've got a helicopter down! I repeat! Mayday!"

I didn't have time to think about weird coincidences. The helicopter had slammed into the bridge with a deafening shriek of twisting metal. Even from my height, I could see the two pilots waving wildly for help, smoke billowing ominously from the cockpit.

My heart leaped up into my throat as I stood there, frozen. Then, I finally understood. This wasn't a joyride. This wasn't a "let's-play-superhero" game. This was real. Real people were down there in the crash that had taken place before my eyes. Real people were trapped in that helicopter, faces twisted in panic and terror. Real, living people with homes and families and hopes and dreams were on that bridge, clambering out of their cars and running for their lives.

I took a running dive off of the roof, somersaulting in midair and swinging towards the scene of water and fire below, hoping, praying that I could do what I needed to do.