The Case of Bad Breath

“Jenna, Jenna, Jenna. What do you think you’re doing?” someone wanted to know from behind.
Jenna spun around to see Tara and Ashley behind her, eyeballing her reproachfully.
“Practice.” Jenna shrugged, pointing at the feather on the table in front of her.
“What? Trying to make it levitate again?” Ashley scoffed “Like what are you doing at Super Hero School anyway?”
“Same as you. To become superheros.”
“Pfft who do you think you are?” Tara laughed “You’re a loser!”
“Leave her alone!”
It was the teacher.
“Looks like it’s your lucky day!” Tara breathed, turning with Ashley to face the wrath of Mr. Canon.

10 Years Later

It was the day they had all waited for. Graduation day.
The students of North Cumberland Super Hero High had learned quite a lot over their eleven years of schooling. They had been coached to rescue old women from burning buildings. Rescue cats stuck up in the trees. Defeat bank robbers at their own game. Fend and capture escaped convicts. Yes. They were ready.

The students had all arrived to the graduation ceremony. They were currently, patiently waiting in their seats to be called up to the podium. Everyone was quite nervous. Who wouldn’t be?
Finally the big speech was made and everyone threw their hats up in celebration. They had graduated! The day they had waited for, for so long had finally come!

*******************

“So what are you doing after tonight?” Ashley asked Tara
“They were at the graduation party, at one of the jocks houses. It was the biggest bash and celebration of all time. Everyone, no matter their social status were there.
“I’m thinking of going to France for a year. I still have that money I won last year for that writing contest.”
“Wow I’m so jealous, that sounds amazing!” Ashley gushed “I think I’ll be joining the Super Hero Committee.”
“Change the world for the better?”
“Hell yes!”
The door bell rang it was just barely heard over the blasting music. Moments later a flood of more fellow graduates burst through the door. Screams and whoops of delight rose from the crowd. The music changed to some hard rock and everyone started thrashing and grinding against each other. Total chaos

*******************
Jenna stood outside Mason’s door. Everyone who had graduated were inside. It was a complete riot.
Jenna wasn’t surprised when she didn’t get invited. It was an open invite but of course the plastics had to get their way and had passed out the invites through HeroBook. Somehow Jenna wasn’t on that endless list of names. At first she was hurt by it, crying herself to sleep the week before. But then she decided to do something about it. She needed to take it upon herself to let everyone know that she was so tired of being bullied. So she spent the next week coming up with a new concoction.
What was everyone’s fear when it came to getting close to the opposite sex? Bad breath. So Jenna made her concoction and stuck it in her dip for the chips she had brought with her.
Getting people to eat what she’d brought was the tricky part. So she made the dips recipe a hundred times stronger. This made the aroma that much stronger and so much more irresistible.
So Jenna stood outside, in a party dress, looking amazing. Her brown hair was sleek and silky, pulled back with a barrette. Her chip and dip tray held in both hands. She opened the door, and slipped through. Like school, she was completely invisible.
But the aroma of her chip and dip tray was so strong she soon had a swarm of people behind her, as she made her way to the snack table. As soon as she put it down, the tray was attacked, nobody sparing her so much as a glance.
Soon, the tray sat empty. The party goers went back to dancing.
“What are you doing here?” Tara wanted to know.
She and Ashley stood together, hands on hips, feet slightly apart.
“What’s it look like?” Jenna threw back.
“Exactly what it is. You crashing a party you’ve no business being at. You did something to that tray too. No one’s every been that excited to eat your tragedies.” Ashley said frowning.
As the accusation came out of her mouth, there were horrified squeals. Looking around, they saw all the graduates panicking, rushing to the kitchen for a glass of water or some food to cover up their stench.
“Really?” Tara said completely exasperated “Bad breath! That’s how you attack our classmates? By giving them bad breath!?”
“Isn’t it brilliant? Now no one will get close to another person as long as they live!” Jenna exclaimed, her face lit up with excitement.
“Till as long as they live?” Ashley repeated. Her face drained of blood and seemingly paralyzed.
“Absolutely. Making it last for only a year was too easy. Not long enough.” the girl explained.
“But... Don’t you realize what you’ve done? You’ve gone and destroyed any chance of the next generation of Super Heroes!” Ashley shouted but she was barely heard over the screams of horror.
Jenna heard. But she didn’t care.
“There will be next generations from the next generations.” she said simply
“But no one will want to save anyone with bad breath! They’ll be too embarrassed!” Tara whispered. Somehow Ashley and Jenna heard.
“Oh!” Jenna exclaimed, her happy balloon burst. The consequence of what she’d done was sinking in.

*******************

“There’s only one thing we can do now!” Ashley exclaimed
“What’s that?” Tara wanted to know. They now stood alone as Jenna had gone off to enjoy her work of evil, having decided she really didn’t care after all.
“It’s time for me to start being a hero. It’ll be my first mission!” Ashley was quite excited by the idea “You could start a year early too if you want to help.” Ashley added, pleading with her eyes.
“Gah. Fine, I’ll do it. I guess there’s really no choice at this point is it?”
“Nope.” Ashley jumped in excitement “Let’s get to it!”
“So what do we do?” Breath mints?”
“Not just any breath mints. Listerine Super Powered Breath Mints!”
“I’ve never heard of those before.”
“Now you have.” Ashley said as she whipped a pack of the special mints out of her pocket.
“Oh wow!” Tara exclaimed, “That’s enough to cure a dinosaur of bad breath!”
“Absolutely!”

*******************

“You’re not going to get away with this.”
The girls spun around. It was Jenna. She looked absolutely livid.
“Jenna. This isn’t a game we have to go.” Ashley said
“No. You’re not going anywhere. Not at all.”
“Jenna-“
”Shut it. This is my pay back for all those years of being bullied all those years of being nothing, just because I sucked in class. You never had any idea of what I was capable of outside that classroom. I was a God damned Ninja! But no one even bothered to know. So tonight I am proving you wrong. I am proving you that, I am capable of so much. I will CONQUER!” Jenna screamed.
Tara and Ashley had stood frozen throughout all of Jenna’s speech. Every moment they had bullied Jenna or had even witnessed another bullying the girl came to mind. They felt absolutely horrible.
But they both knew it was way too late to say anything that could possibly make any kind of a difference.
“Jenna look. You’ve done serious damage. We need to fix this.” Tara tried to reason
“How about I fix YOU!”
Before anyone could react, Jenna dived at Tara, tackling her to the ground.
Tara let out a scream.
“Ashley watched, rooted to the spot as the two girls wrestled on the ground, before her. She snapped out of it moments later, getting her head back on straight.
Ashley pulled the girls by the hair to pull them apart.
“Snap out of it!” she screamed. Her next move shocked both of them. Ashley snapped her fingers and both Tara and Jenna were thrown across the room. They crashed into opposite walls. But unlike Jenna, Tara hit the wall like it were a cushion. Jenna hit the wall with a sickening thud and slid down the wall, seemingly knocked out.
“Could you have gone any harder?” Tara cried
“Oh stop whining, let’s go cure some bad breath!”
The girls ran to the kitchen door, where a few of the graduates were still trying to free themselves of bad breath.
Ashley divided the packs of the strong breath mints between the two of them.
“So the plan: hunt every graduate who ate Jenna’s dish and give them a mint. They’ll be too desperate to question. After everyone’s got a mint and are cured Jenna will be taken back to the Academy and be brought to justice.”

*******************

It was easy hunting the stinky graduates down. Most were still in the kitchen while others had fled and gone downstairs to the rec room. Everyone standing as far away from each other as possible, guzzling water and rinsing with Listerine. No one had left the house.
Jenna hadn’t made an appearance since being knocked out, so they assumed she still was.
One by one Ashley and Tara got everyone to take a mint. It was as easy as Ashley had predicted. Everyone was so desperate to get fresh breath. After ten minutes of covering the first floor, people were gathering around calling out for ‘Mint Girl’ and ‘Crazy Chick’.
It wasn’t long before all the graduates were lined up accepting mints as if they were five years old trick-or-treating.
Suddenly Ashley and Tara had ten people each in their lines when Jenna came storming down the stairs, a ball of fury. No one had seen anyone so angry before.
“Stop!”
The remaining grads in the line turned to Jenna.
Screams issued out among them Tara was suddenly reminded of Voldemort’s great battle at Hogwarts.
“Catch!”
As if reading each others minds, Tara and Ashley flung the remainder of the mints to the crowd.
It was complete chaos as everyone dived for their share of mints.
“It’s too late Jenna, YOU ARE DEFEATED!” Tara cheered, “D-E-F-E-A-T-E-D! DEFEATED!”
Again, Ashley snapped her fingers and Jenna was thrown across the room, with a sickening crunch, she folded on the floor.
All at once the graduates cried out with glee and went back to partying as somebody blasted the music back on. It was like the last two hours hadn’t happened.

*******************

Hours later, Jenna stood in front of the Super Hero Council. She had been brought by Ashley and Tara. Jenna did not go easy though. She definitely put up a fight. Eventually however, they managed to wrangle her into the council.
“Miss Jenna, do you realize the seriousness of your actions?” the Principle of Super Hero High wanted to know.
“I guess.” Jenna shrugged, avoiding any eye contact.
“You guess?” Principle Donelly repeated
“I’m just so sick of being treated with disrespect and everyone acting like I’m less than them because my grades suck.” Jenna explained, tears welling up in her eyes.
“Boys, I think we have our verdict.” Principle Donelly said to his coworkers. “One hundred hours of community service.”
“What?” Jenna cried “But-“
”To every graduate, for those who bullied Jenna and for those who stood by and said nothing.” The principle said, cutting Jenna off “However, Jenna will not get off that easy. You will serve ten hours.”
“Fine.” Jenna said. “I’ll take it.”
“You bet you will. On a final note, as every super hero earns their name after their first mission, you now have your names. Tara, you are now to be referred to as Crazy Tara, Ashley you will be referred to as Mint Girl and Jenna, for obvious reasons, Bacteria Girl."
"Why can't we have epic names?" Bacteria Girl frowned, crossing her arms.
"Superheros don't ever choose their names. They simply earn them, therefore defining them."
"Well I love mine!" Crazy Tara laughed, jumping up and down excitedly.

*******************

“Crazy Girl! Mint Girl!”
It was Bacteria Girl.
“Yep?” Crazy Tara asked, turning around. Her eyes narrowed when she saw who it was.
“I’m sorry for what I did. I was stupid and hurt.” Bacteria Girl apologized.
“You’re sorry?” Crazy Girl scoffed
Mint Girl poked Crazy Tara in the ribs and said, “Jenna, no, we’re sorry. We were complete jerks all those years at school. We weren’t your worst problem we know, but we are sorry. I’m not sure what we were thinking, perhaps we were just jealous. But really we are sorry.”
“Yea, do you want to come to the mall with us?” Crazy Tara asked “It can be a peace offering.”
“With you? Hell no! I just came to say what I had to say, but your little speech reminded me of something.”
“What would that be?” Mint Girl asked, confused
“I won. I won even when you thought I lost. I am truly an evil genius. Soon. Very soon I promise you, I will conquer the world! You will be my minions!”
With that, Bacteria Girl turned on her heel and walked off, Crazy Tara and Mint Girl staring after her, mouths agape, totally stunned.
“What the hell was that about?” they said in unison.

The End