Let me tell you something about being a hero: It’s really a lot of fun. You walk around feeling great all the time. You have this terrific sense of purpose. You feel like John Travolta at the beginning of Saturday Night Fever, only minus the can of paint. Once, when I spotted two ninth graders having an argument outside the cafeteria, I walked up to them and very calmly told them that this was no way to settle their differences. “Are you the guy who won the wrestling match against Little Falls?” one of them asked. I told him, somewhat sheepishly, that I was. “Now, go on and shake hands, then go your separate ways,” I said. And, to my surprise, these two kids actually listened to me. Only later on did I learn that they met up again at the bike racks after school, where they had traded blows until a social studies teacher spotted them and broke it up.
You know what? Forget that. That was just one isolated incident. There is, after all, only so much that The Hero can do. Walking the halls of the school each day, my back was slapped so often that the skin on my shoulders was bright red. “It’s him!” people would shout. “It’s The Hero!” “Here he comes!” “Make way for The Hero!” One night, while sitting at home and watching television with my family, the phone rang. I picked it up. “Hello? Hello?” I said into the phone. No one was there. Then I heard what sounded like girls giggling. “WE LOVE THE HERO!” they screamed into the phone, then hung up.
Like I said, if the chance to be a hero should ever present itself to you, by all means, take it. You will not regret it.
At the start of the school year my mother had purchased a collared shirt for me from a nearby department store. I hated the shirt for two reasons: one, because it was the color of the soft insides of a muskmelon, the world’s worst-tasting melon; and two because it had the words BILL BLASS emblazoned on the front pocket.
She was forever badgering me into wearing it with her I-paid-good-money-for-that-shirt argument, which was, to her mind, the most airtight argument anyone had ever made. Maybe this was purely my imagination, but a couple of days after I’d worn the BILL BLASS melon shirt to school, I noticed that a few of the 10th graders were wearing the exact same shirt–same muskmelon coloring, same BILL BLASS logo.
Everyone, it seemed, wanted to be like The Hero.
All of this continued for three, maybe four days, tops. Then, to my chagrin, it all began to simmer down. Things went back to business as usual. The back-slapping slowed, then ceased altogether. The evening phone calls from girls stopped. The cries of “Here comes The Hero!” stopped. I was, I realized, in danger of becoming a mere mortal again.
The next team we wrestled against didn’t have a heavyweight. At the end of the night, after all the other matches were over, I quietly walked out onto the mat to collect my forfeit. As the ref raised my arm skyward, one lone voice went up in the silent gym. The voice said, “YEAH, HERO! WOO!” That was it.
If I was going to retain my Hero credentials, I needed to do something heroic again, and right quick.
Level 3-7. Today’s level features two tiers–upper and lower–with a gap in the lower tier that leads to a murky sub-tier which is filled with water, and where a couple of fish are swimming. Whatever you do, do not go down to that sub-tier. I went down there once, just to see if there were any bonuses to collect. There were no bonuses down there and all I did was wind up dead.
The big key is located behind a locked barrier on the upper righthand side of the screen. There are two levers for me to pull: one on the top level, near the key, and another on the lower level, at the far end of a squeeze-me-through narrow corridor, the sort of corridor that I’ve only been able to pass through in the past by having a Knight’s Helmet shove me the length of it from behind.
Of course, there are two Knight’s Helmets patrolling the area, one on the upper tier, the other on the lower tier, just above that aforementioned narrow corridor. The one on the lower tier is stuck on a small ledge. What do we do when an enemy is stuck on a ledge, class? That’s right: we set him free. But, without a portable bridge power-up to deploy, I do the next best thing: I climb to the top of the level and pull the lever up there. Sure enough, this triggers a bridge next to the stuck Knight’s Helmet, freeing it/him. Once he’s off the ledge and on the bridge, I pull the lever a second time. Poof, the bridge retracts, vanishing beneath his feet and he plummets to the narrow, squeeze-me-through corridor below.
Perfect.
I climb down to his level, jump over him in the double-height section of the corridor, then, once I’m at the entry point for the narrow section, I crouch and wait for him to make his turn and come after me. Sure enough, applying his shield to my backside, he shoves me through the passageway in my crouched position like pork through a duck.
Once I’m on the far side, I pull the lever, which, as expected, raises the barrier on the upper level next to the key. I deploy the makeshift ladder power-up, using it to climb back up to the top tier of the level. I grab the key, make my way to the locked door, and today’s level is over. Only 24 hours until the next level. I can’t wait.
