The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book One: The Hero Revealed (12 page)

“In fact,” the Inkblot continued, “there’s the little tyke that I sold it to, right over there.”

He pointed to a kid who couldn’t have been much older than four. He was standing near a park bench with his mother and was just opening a pack of cards. We all gasped as we saw him reveal first one card with AI on it and then a second that clearly showed Professor Brain-Drain himself. The little kid snarled.

“Professor Brain-Drain?” he growled. “I hate Professor Brain-Drain. He’s evil!”

Then, as we stood there helplessly, the kid took the card, crumpled it up, and tossed it into his mouth. That’s when we noticed that his teeth were all sharp points of metal. It only took a couple of chews before he spit the completely ground-up card onto the sidewalk.

One Professor Brain-Drain card destroyed—only two left in all Superopolis.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The Anthill of Terror

We all stood looking down at the chewed-up remains of one of the only three Professor Brain-Drain collector cards in existence. The little monster who had left it in this state was now strolling away with his mother. As I stared after him, I thought I saw a shadowy figure moving in the trees nearby. But then I blinked, and it was gone.

“We were so close!” wailed Tadpole.

“But at least it proves that O Boy’s theory is correct,” Plasma Girl added, trying to sound optimistic. “Now we just have to figure out where the next one is and get to it first.”

“Do you know where it is, O Boy?” Hal asked hopefully.

“Well, I’ve been thinking about the second type of rock, sedimentary,” I said. “You guys all remember what sedimentary rock is, right?”

“Um, sure,” said Stench. “But go ahead and remind us anyway.”

The rest of the gang nodded.

“Right,” I said, even though I could tell they had no idea. “Sedimentary rock is made up of small particles that accumulate over long periods of time. As weight presses them down, these particles, or sediment, fuse together and become rock. So the next location to check is obvious.”

“It is?” said Hal.

“Of course,” I replied. “We can’t get at the sedimentary rock that is buried under layers and layers of earth, but it always has to start out as a top layer at some point.”

“I’m not sure I’m following you,” said Stench.

“Let me give you one more hint. One of the most common types of sedimentary rock is sandstone.”

“The beach!” said Plasma Girl.

“Right,” I replied. “The sedimentary rock of the future exists right now in the form of sand all over MegaManly Beach.”

“There’s only one place at the beach that might have AI Collector Cards,” said Plasma Girl, “and that’s Aunty Penny’s Arcade.”

A boardwalk separates downtown from the beach, and there’s an entire strip of cool shops set up along it. The one we were heading for was Aunty Penny’s Arcade. You could get all sorts of neat things there. But you couldn’t buy them—you had to win them. There were dozens of different games to play to win tickets, which you could exchange for incredible prizes. Well, okay, most of the prizes were pretty chintzy. But who cares! The fun was in winning them.

The first thing we saw as we entered the arcade was the huge sign that said: THE USE OF SUPER POWERS IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. That’s what I always liked about this place. Everyone else was on an equal level with me. In fact, I usually had an advantage, because most people in Superopolis are helpless when they can’t use their powers.

The second thing I noticed was the box of Amazing Indestructo Collector Card packs that was sitting smack at the front of the prize display case. I went up to the counter to talk to Fly Guy, the manager of Aunty Penny’s Arcade. Of course, he isn’t actually a fly. In fact he looks completely human—except for his eyes. They bulge out from his head, and each one has dozens of facets that allow him to see what is going on all over the place. He also sort of buzzes when he talks, but he only does that to scare

the littler kids into thinking he really is a fly.

“How long have you had these available?” I asked, pointing at the cards.

“I just put ’em out today, kidzzz,” he buzzed. “Only thirteen prizzze tickets will get you a pack.”

“How many packs are there total?”

“Thirty-six,” he answered. “You could be the first to claim them azzz a prizzze.”

“Fantastic!” I said. “We’re going to win every one of them!”

“Just make sure you don’t use any superpowerzzz,” he added suspiciously, “or I’ll toss you out of here on your buttzzz.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Oh, there won’t be any danger of that.”

I returned to where the rest of the team was waiting and explained to them that we could get a pack for every thirteen tickets we won. Unfortunately, if the right pack was the last one in the box, it would ultimately require 468 tickets to get it.

“It stinks that we can’t just sneak a look at them and find the one we need,” Stench said.

“That’s not all that stinks,” added Plasma Girl, as she, Tadpole, and Hal began backing away from Stench.

“Sorry.” He shrugged, reaching for one of his canisters of deodorizer. “That happens sometimes when I get upset.”

“Unfortunately, we can’t get a look at them unless we win them,” I explained. “Why don’t you go over to the Anthill of Terror, Stench, since you’re always good at that. And we’ll go try some of the games over here.”

“Yeah, yeah. I can take a hint,” Stench grumbled. Turning, he stalked off in the opposite direction, fuming in more ways than one.

From a safe distance, I kept one eye on Stench as he wandered over to where an anthill rose about five feet off the floor. It had a three-foot-high plastic wall surrounding it and scary-looking neon letters mounted above that proclaimed: THE ANTHILL OF TERROR!

Stench picked up a fishing pole that had a magnet swinging at the end of its line. He dropped a quarter into a coin slot next to the game. The anthill immediately started rumbling. A few seconds later dozens and dozens of plastic ants began pouring out of the top and sliding down the sides. The ants were made out of plastic, but some of them also had a metal ball bearing inside. These were the ones that Stench was after. He swung his line over the plastic wall smack into a pile of the churning critters, then reeled it back in with one of the ants sticking to the magnet.

Lifting it over the wall, he removed the ant and quickly recast his line. Ants were still pouring from the hill, but they were also disappearing into a channel in the base. His second cast landed in the biggest pile of the tumbling “terror” ants. But each time he raised his line there was nothing attached to it. After two attempts, he only captured one more ant.

The number of ants now coming out of the top began to dwindle. Stench had never gotten fewer than five ants. He threw his line once again into a mass of the seething insects, and once again came up empty. The ants had now stopped emerging, and the ones that were still visible were quickly reaching the base and vanishing. In a last desperate act, he swung his line over one of the last remaining ants and it rose up and attached itself to the magnet.

“What’s the deal with the Anthill of Terror?” I heard Stench gripe to Fly Guy. “I’ve always gotten at least five.”

“That wazzz the problem, kid,” he buzzed. “Everyone else did, too. So I took out half the ball bearingzzz.”

“Does Aunty Penny know you’re giving her a bad name?” Stench asked.

“It wazzz her idea. She needzzz the money to pay for her new nozzze job.”

“That reeks,” Stench mumbled to himself as he dropped his ants into a box alongside the anthill. It spit

out three tickets in exchange. “At this rate it will take forever to get the four hundred and sixty-eight tickets we need.” Not to mention cost a fortune in the process, I thought.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Winner Takes None

It was a frustrated and irritated Stench who made his way back to where Tadpole and I were playing Bonk the Squirrels.

“Did you see how I got robbed?” he asked me. “I only managed to get three tickets off the Anthill of Terror.”

“That stinks,” Tadpole said. Cautiously, he sniffed the air to make sure nothing else stank. Then, winding up his arm, he pitched the large plastic acorn in his fist at a small circular opening. Inside was a flat metal plate that was painted to look like a taunting squirrel. The acorn hit the squirrel smack in the chest, knocking it flat on its back, and five tickets were spit out of a slot right next to where Tadpole was standing.

“Excellent,” Stench said as the flattened squirrel sprang back up. “How many tickets do you have so far?”

“Only ten,” Tadpole answered sadly. “That was my first five-pointer. The others have all been for only one or two tickets. O Boy’s doing better.”

He was right but only by a little. I had twelve tickets so far. Bonk the Squirrels was usually my best game, but not today. The game consists of a large wall with a tree painted on it and lots of openings cut into the bushy part. Within each circle is a squirrel. Some of the circles are large, making the squirrels easy to hit. The only problem is you don’t get many tickets for hitting those. The circles get smaller as you go higher up the tree. They’re harder to hit, but you can get a lot more points. Of course, up at the top is the smallest circle of all. It’s worth five hundred tickets. Nobody’s ever managed to knock over that squirrel, though.

“I can usually do better,” I explained as I put in a quarter and got three more plastic acorns to throw, “but they don’t seem to be falling over as easily as they used to.”

“Fly Guy probably tightened the springs,” Stench suggested, “just like he removed half the ball bearings in the Anthill of Terror.”

I pitched an acorn straight at a squirrel that was worth ten points. It came incredibly close but caught