A/N: I do not own any superheroes or Mario.

Chapter 9: Kurt

I didn't see Burt for a long time after that night but I still knew that Mom went to go get coffee or lunch with him a lot. It had been almost three weeks since their first date and my mom seemed really happy. I know it sounds really mean but I hated how happy she was and how she didn't get that he was just like the rest of the crazy ex-boyfriends. They would go out for a few months, she would be happy, and then he would all of a sudden up and leave her. It was crazy of Mom to think that this would go any other way. Sure I at least tried to like her old boyfriends, just in case one of them ended up being my dad, but I was sick of watching them hurt my mom over and over.

I was in class playing on the floor with my two new friends named Sarah and Maxwell. Maxwell didn't like being called that though so everybody called him Max. We were playing 'Save the Princess' after we'd found a bunch of Super Mario Brothers action figures. I was Mario and Sarah was the Princess and Max was all the bad guys like the turtles and Bowser. He was mostly Bowser.

Max had the Princess hanging by her ankle over a fake lava pit and I had to get past him to rescue her.

"Taste my fire, Mario!" Max yelled and threw a bunch of rolled up red pieces of paper at my figure as fireballs.

I paused the game because Max got something wrong. "Wait, fire doesn't hurt Mario, he can shoot fireballs too. Ever played Mario Kart?"

Max rolled his eyes. "Duh I've played Mario Cart, but your wrong. Fire does to hurt Mario. Every time Bowser shoots fire at me in a game, I always get hurt."

I looked over at Sarah who was spinning the Princess around on her string and looked bored.

"What do you think Sarah?" Max asked.

It wasn't fair that Max go to ask Sarah because everyone in class knew that Sarah and Max had known each other since they were born but Sarah was kind of mad at Max for stealing all of her paint during craft time so I thought he was stupid for thinking she would side with him.

"Kurt's right," she said, not taking her eyes off of the Princess.

"What? Why is he right?" Max asked, pointing at me like it was my fault that I was right.

Sarah sighed. "Well, Max is really right, but I'm still mad at him and Kurt just needs to hurry up and save me. I'm really bored."

The rest of the game went pretty fast after that. I don't think Max was trying as hard to protect Sarah because he was mad at her.

"I win! I win!" I shouted, jumping around with the Mario and Princess figures in my hands.

"Whatever," Max said, crossing his arms and sticking his bottom lip out, "It's a stupid game anyway. Let's play superheroes."

"I call Spiderman!" I yelled.

"Fine, I get Superman," Max said and than turned to Sarah. "What about you, Sarah? Who do want to be."

"Forget it, I'm not playing any more stupid boy games with you two," she said, standing up and brushing off her skirt.

Max and I just turned to each other and shrugged. Girls sure could be weird sometimes.

I ended up winning the superhero fight but only because I got Max to believe that the green Lego I had was really a piece of Kryptonite. I guess I always kind of won games because I tricked people. I couldn't do that all the time though, or people wouldn't want to play with me anymore. I mean, who wants to play someone who wins all the time?

After school when I got home Burt was there. I didn't even say hi to him. I just saw him and started walking up to my room. I was almost all the way there but Mom called me down before I could get away.

"Kurt. I have to go to work for a couple of hours so I thought that Burt could watch you. It would give you two a chance to get to know one another."

This was not happening. I was not being forced to spend an entire night with this guy.

"Fine," I said and kept on walking upstairs.

I heard Mom call for me to come back down. I didn't want to see the jerk man though so I kept walking. Then I got an idea, I walked back downstairs, went to the doorway of the kitchen and listened to what Mom was telling Burt.

"I just don't understand why he doesn't like you," Mom said. "I mean I'm sorry he doesn't like you. He just isn't normally like this."

"I guess I'm just special," Burt said sarcastically.

I heard Mom sigh. "I think it's the move," she said, "and from what I can tell he hasn't been able to make that many new friends. I should talk to him tonight after I get home. God, I feel like a terrible mother."

I felt bad when I heard Mom say that. She was the awesomest mom ever and I loved her. It wasn't her fault, it was Mr. Sesame Street's fault for showing up in our perfectly fine lives.

"Hey," I heard Burt say, "You are not a terrible mother. I know you aren't." He paused for a moment but then started talking again. "However, I do think that you might want to leave for work now if you want a job to support Kurt."

"Crap! I'm going to be late!" Mom exclaimed loudly and Burt laughed a little.

"Kurt!" Mom called.

I walked into the kitchen. "Yeah, Mom?"

"I need to leave right now. Um, you should tell Burt what you want for dinner. I just went shopping so we should have everything. I love you, bye."

She ran down the hall and grabbed her purse and coat.

"Bye!" Burt and I called at the same time. I gave him a mean look for that but I don't think he noticed. Then I heard the door slam and all of a sudden it was just Mr. Jerk and me. All alone.

Peace, Love, Glee

Julez