The Candy Man Cometh (2 page)
Who, by the way, is also a total jerk.
Earlobe Lad Still Can’t Fly
“Okay, you sidekicks,” Pumpkin Pete said as he paced in front of us, holding his long, viney arms behind his back. “I lost a bet with Captain Haggis, so I’m stuck training you again.”
Spice Girl, Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy, Boom Boy, Exact Change Kid, Charisma Kid, Earlobe Lad, Spelling Beatrice, and I all stood at attention like we were eight sidekicks who were standing at attention because we were sidekicks and we were standing at attention.
And there were eight of us.
Running at 102 miles per hour, it didn’t take me long to race back to the Sidekick Super Clubhouse. Pete had already started this week’s training session and, as usual, seemed to have completely forgotten that he’d dropped me off in the middle of downtown only minutes before.
Pumpkin Pete took a step toward Earlobe Lad. Earlobe Lad staggered backward and waved his hands in front of his face. “Don’t throw me off the roof again! Please!” he gasped.
Pete’s face suddenly brightened. “Oh yeah! You’re that kid who can’t fly!”
“Yes! Yes! That’s me! I
can’t
fly!” Earlobe Lad whispered as loudly as he could, doing his best to protect his super-sensitive ears.
Pete scratched his big, fat, orange pumpkin head. “You’d think with ears that big, all you’d have to do is flap ’em a few times and it’s ZOOM! into the sky with you!” Pete wiggled Earlobe Lad’s enormous earlobe. “You ever try flapping these things?”
Earlobe Lad clutched his big ears and fell into a fetal position. “Why do all of you hate me?” he mumbled.
“We don’t hate you,” Pete assured him. “We just want you to be a little less worthless in a fight.”
A few weeks ago Pumpkin Pete had thrown Earlobe Lad off the top of the Sidekick Super Clubhouse and shouted “Fly! Fly!” The next day, King Justice, the leader of the League of Big Justice, made a new rule. When it was Pumpkin Pete’s turn to train the Sidekicks, he had to do it on the ground, in the League of Big Justice Parking Lot of Big Parking. And far away from sharp objects. And stairs. And no more bombs. Or milk cartons. Apparently the League of Big Justice’s insurance bills were high enough without Pete throwing Spandex-wearing teenagers off rooftops.
And it’s a long story about the milk cartons, but let’s just say it took Boom Boy four months before he could eat cereal without trembling.
You’re probably wondering, when does evil attack, and when do I get to punch it in the face? I ask myself that all the time, too.
See, being a sidekick isn’t always about being a hero, although there was that one time Captain Haggis called me the “hero o’ th’ dishwasher.” But that was only because I was able to scrub the crusted lamb gravy from his favorite haggis dish. Unfortunately, being a sidekick is more about paying your do’s. No, not dues.
Do’s.
At four o’clock, you gotta
do
the laundry. Then after that, you gotta
do
some vacuuming in the Pumpkinmobile, and don’t forget to
do
the ironing. That’s what Pumpkin Pete considered training me for action. “All the action of making my life just a little easier,” he always says to me.
Don’t get me wrong, even with the slave labor, I still love being a sidekick. Well, maybe not
love,
exactly, but it’s pretty cool to hang out with the world’s mightiest superheroes, even if it’s just to pick up their dirty laundry. I get to wear an awesome costume and use my super powers. Nothing feels better than using your abilities to help people and maybe make a difference now and then.
Yeah, I guess I have saved the world a few times. Sure, Pumpkin Pete always gets all the credit. “There’s only room for one superhero in this photo, and I have a big, fat, orange head. Like a pumpkin!” he’d always say to me when the news crews would rush up after we defeated some villain.
And by “we,” of course, I mean me.
But most of all, I knew that if I stuck with it, if I worked really, really hard and proved myself to be a good sidekick, one day when I was older I might be chosen as a member of the League of Big Justice itself! And then
I’d
get my own side-kick to do my laundry!
“Today, we’re going to go over a few of the rules to being a superhero,” Pete said as he stepped over Earlobe Lad and continued to pace the line. “There’re lots of rules. Lots and lots. I don’t know many of them, but I just know there’s, like, an encyclopedia full of them.”
Spelling Beatrice suddenly perked up. “Did you say encyclopedia?”
Pete ignored her and continued. “If you ever break these rules, you’ll be kicked out of the Sidekicks! So remember these rules and follow them as if they were important. Rule #1: Never, never, never tell anyone your real name, even a superhero. You must guard your secret identity as if it were a secret.” Pete spun on his heel and stabbed a viney finger at Spice Girl. She jumped back, startled. Suddenly, I could smell a thick garlic scent filling the air. She blushed.
“You,” Pete said. “What’s your name?”
Spice Girl gave a sigh of relief. “Heather Britney!”
Pete slapped his head with his palm. “You just broke Rule #1! You’re outta the Sidekicks!”
“I — mean my name is... Jane. Jane... Janemansterjones!” Spice Girl corrected herself.
“Jane Janemansterjones?! You just broke Rule #1 again!” Pete shouted.
“You can’t kick her out of the Sidekicks!” I protested. “She was just answering your question!”
“Oh, and don’t you think evil has brilliant tricks like the one I just pulled? Don’t you think an evil genius isn’t sitting in his and-or her evil basement
right now,
thinking of evil ways to trick you into revealing your secret identities; identities that should be secret like something you don’t want anyone to know!? Their evil plans are big! With lots of arrows and numbers and arrows that point to numbers and arrows that point to arrows and arrows that don’t point to numbers and arrows that don’t point to
anything
and arrows that...”
Boom Boy leaned over to me. “Last time he ranted about bunnies for at least five minutes. Wanna go get a soda?”
In the Basement of Evil
“I did it! I did it!” the Evil Genius shouted in his basement. He stood before a large blueprint, one that covered an entire eight-by-twelve-foot wall and was filled with equations, schematics, illustrations, numbers, and arrows. Lots and lots of arrows. Lots. And lots.
“I have created the perfect plan to trick those foul superheroes into revealing their secret identities as if they were
not
something they didn’t want anyone to know!” He laughed loud and hard, like an evil genius who had just devised the perfect plan to trick superheroes into revealing their secret identities as if they were
not
something they didn’t want anyone to know.
“And do you know what the key to my entire plan is, Monkey Boy? Do you?!” the Evil Genius shouted at Monkey Boy.
Monkey Boy swung from the water pipe that ran along the ceiling. He screeched loudly and tugged at the diaper that was around his waist. He dropped to the ground and gently beat his little hairy fists against his forehead.
“Wrong!” the Evil Genius spat at Monkey Boy. “It’s the arrows! The pointy, pointy arrows! Pointing at... things.”
“Darrell!” a voice cried out from upstairs. The Evil Genius looked at his giant blueprint, inspecting every last inch. He gasped, then took a black marker and drew an arrow tip at the end of a line. “Brilliant,” he whispered.
“Darrell!” a voice cried out from upstairs. The Evil Genius turned from the blueprint and talked to Monkey Boy. “First, we will try this plan on the League of Big Justice. Once I have learned their darkest secrets, it will be mere child’s play to defeat them. And then, Monkey Boy, no one will stand between me and my conquest of the earth!”
“Darrell!” a voice cried out from upstairs. “I know you can hear me!”
“What do you want?” the Evil Genius finally yelled back. “I’m busy!”
“Well, you’re not too busy to take out the garbage, do you hear me, young man?!”
“I’ll do it later!” the Evil Genius yelled back. “You’ll do it
now
!”
The Evil Genius gave Monkey Boy a pleading look, hoping his primate partner would spring into action and stop the meddlesome woman upstairs. Monkey Boy picked a flea out of his fur and ate it.
“Mom! I’m plotting to rule the world!” the Evil Genius yelled up.
“The world will still be there
after
you take out the trash!” the voice yelled back.
“Mooooommmm!”
“Don’t make me come down there!”
The Evil Genius threw down his black marker and stomped toward the basement stairs.
“And that monkey had better be wearing his diaper! I’m tired of cleaning up after that little beast!” the voice called back down.
Monkey Boy screeched loudly and rolled on the ground. He rocked up to his feet, tore off his diaper, and put it on his head like a stinky white hat.
Evil Doesn’t Brush Its Teeth
“Rule #2!” Pete said, after he’d stopped ranting about arrows.
Boom Boy ran up behind me and slipped back into line with a can of Pow! Soda in his hand. He checked his Sidekick Super Watch of Tickiness. “Hey! Hey! Four minutes and fifty-five seconds! Just like boiling an egg!” he bragged, and took a big gulp of his Pow! Soda.
Exact Change Kid’s pencil hovered over his notebook, ready to write down the all-important Rule #2.
“No matter how crazy it sounds, no matter how dangerous you think it may be, always, always do what a superhero asks you to do,” Pete informed us. “Superheroes know better than you, and the life they may be trying to save just might be their own.”
“But, but, what if you don’t want to?” Boom Boy asked.
Pete spun around on his heel. “Who said that?” he gasped.
Boom Boy raised his hand ... and pointed to Exact Change Kid. Exact Change Kid looked up from his notepad, his glasses slightly askew from the zeal with which he wrote.
“Huh?” he said.
Pete took a step toward Exact Change Kid. “So you don’t want to do what a superhero tells you to do? What? You too good for the people who save the earth every day like they’re just tying their shoelaces?”
The funny thing was, Pete didn’t know how to tie his shoelaces.
“That’s why the Russians created Velcro!” Pete once said to me as he Velcroed his shoes.
“NASA invented Velcro,” I informed him. “NASA? Is that near Switzerland?”
Pete inched closer to Exact Change Kid and gave him the Pumpkin Eye. “What’s your name, Quarter Boy?”
“Uh... well... actually ... my name’s Exact Change Kid, not Quarter Boy... .” Small beads of sweat were starting to form on Exact Change Kid’s brow.
“I mean, what’s your
real
name? Your parents didn’t put ‘Quarter Boy’ on your birth certificate, did they?” Pete pressed.
Exact Change Kid brightened and was about to answer, but then stopped, remembering Rule #1: Never reveal your secret identity, even to a super-hero.
“I’m sorry, sir, but as you taught us with Rule #1, ‘Never, never, never tell anyone your real name, even a superhero.’ ” Exact Change Kid was proud he had passed the test.