The OK Team (11 page)

Please regard Alison kindly as she has no control over her complete inability to tell the truth.

Yours,
Dr Marvin Haywire
&
Ms Gwendoline Nomdeplume.'

We all read the letter four times.

‘Lying as a superpower . . .,' Cannonball says, removing his helmet so he can better scratch his head.

Alison adjusts a sleeve of her purple costume and then produces a nailfile and starts rubbing a fingernail.

‘So, you can't tell the truth?' Yesterday begins.

‘That's wrong,' she says.

‘You have to lie, no matter what,' Torch adds. ‘You can't help it.'

‘Wrong again,' she nods.

‘And your name is Alison Nomdeplume.'

‘Yes.'

‘Aha!' says Cannonball, looking pleased with himself.

‘You just told the truth, after all.'

She gives him a dismissive gaze. ‘Actually, I don't call myself Liarbird when I'm not being a Hero. And Alison Nomdeplume is certainly not a false name anyway.'

We all digest this.

‘Also, did you know that if the world spun the other way, women would have beards?'

We're still staring.

‘Look, I don't want to be in your gang so please don't tell me whether I'm in or not.'

‘Give us one moment,' I say, pulling Cannonball by the shoulder to the other side of the room.

We go into yet another huddle.

‘It's ridiculous,' I say.

‘She looks familiar somehow,' says the Torch.

‘All good hero teams have a babe!' grins Cannonball.

‘Oh, please!' says Yesterday, rolling her eyes. ‘How could she possibly be helpful? Excuse me if I've got this wrong, dear brother, but weren't you the one who argued against Super Dead Kid only five minutes ago, because he was useless?'

‘That was completely different,' says Cannonball, looking shifty.

‘How?'

‘Well, she's alive and she doesn't freak us out, for starters.'

‘She still can't actually help us,' says Torch, ‘not that my opinion means anything.'

‘She can handle public relations and media.'

I laugh. ‘That's brilliant. But really, she shouldn't be part of the team.'

Cannonball looks crushed.

‘I'm sorry,' I say to Liarbird. ‘We're not sure your powers could be of any use to us.'

Just saying it almost kills me.

‘I've got lots of money,' she says. ‘I can pay for a decent headquarters, and a car for the team to get around in.'

‘None of us have our licence. We're too young,' says Torch.

‘I'll hire a driver, and buy in fast food when we need to work through meals.'

‘That would be good,' I say.

‘You know what else?' Liarbird continues. ‘I'm close personal friends with lots of Triple A Heroes so I can get us all sorts of advice and introductions.'

‘That's good enough for me,' I say.

‘Yep,' says Torch.

‘You bet,' says Cannonball.

Still fuzzy, I shake her purple glove. ‘Congratulations, Liarbird, you're in.'

‘Oh no,' she says, smiling.

‘You do realise that everything she just said, about money and contacts and free food, were lies, don't you?' Yesterday scowls.

‘Yeah. Whatever,' her brother says. Torch just grins like an idiot.

Yesterday shakes her head sadly. ‘You guys are truly pathetic.'

CHAPTER 14
THE OK TEAM

D
own a back street of Northcote we walk, side by side, united as a team, the sun glinting off our magnificent costumes. The yellow and red flames of Torch, then velvet, slinky, purple Liarbird, my silver and the light blue of Yesterday. Black helmeted Cannonball is stalking along on the outside.

I can't help but smile happily. I have no idea if we are any good but at least I have a team.

‘Did you know that in Vietnam, they have dogs with eight legs that can chase nine balls at once? They keep them in igloos made of mud.'

‘Fascinating, Liarbird. I'm sure they do,' says Yesterday. We've all come to know that Liarbird's habit of telling interesting facts allows her power to shine.

‘And the Great Wall of China was built in three hours!'

‘Interesting,' Yesterday sniffs. ‘Now, back to the matter at hand. What about the Fantastic Five?'

‘It's kind of almost taken,' I say.

‘The Brilliant Five?'

‘We don't know if we're any good yet, Cannonball.'

‘So your idea is that we should call ourselves the Untested Handful, is it?'

‘No, but I don't want to oversell ourselves. If we call ourselves the Amazingly Super Duper Incredibly Great Team, and then we don't win, we'll look like idiots.'

‘I'm with Focus,' says Torch quietly. He rarely offers an opinion, too insecure to voice his thoughts. ‘I think we should just hope that I'm OK and you're OK when it matters.'

‘Have you read that book?' I ask him.

‘Huh?'

‘
I'm OK – You're OK
.'

‘No,' says Torch, looking mystified. ‘Sorry, boss. Should I?'

‘Hey, who says he's the boss?' Cannonball wants to know.

‘The Hopefully Not Too Bad Team?' says Yesterday. ‘I sense that will be great.'

‘Oh yeah, wonderful,' says Liarbird.

‘I agree, Liarbird,' I say, edging closer to her. ‘It's no good.'

We all stop. Unconsciously, we gather into a loose circle.

‘What do we, in our heart of hearts, want to be?'

Cannonball asks. It's a good question.

‘We don't want to suck,' says Torch finally.

‘Yeah, but we can hardly call ourselves that. The “We Hope We Don't Suck Team”.'

‘We want to do OK,' I say.

We look at one another.

‘The OK Team,' says Yesterday.

‘I don't agree,' shrugs Liarbird.

‘Not that my opinion matters but I like it too,' says Torch.

‘Nicely understated.'

‘I sense we might have our name,' Yesterday says, fingers to temples, eyes shut.

Cannonball is staring at us, disbelief all over his face.

‘People! You've got to be joking! The OK Team? Just OK?

We're superheroes. Some of us have capes! We have powers – well, not Yesterday, but you know –'

‘Hey!' says Yesterday.

‘If we aim low, we'll end low. What about the Cannonball Squad? Aiming for the sky.' Cannonball strikes a pose, and yells, ‘Let's fire the cannon!' and then launches himself dramatically into the air. He slams into a wooden fence about twenty metres away, helmet dislodged.

‘Oww.'

I turn back to the team. ‘Let's be fair about this. We'll put it to a vote. Who votes for calling ourselves the Cannonball Squad?'

Cannonball staggers to his feet and raises an arm. The only other arm in the air is Liarbird's.

‘I'll take that as a vote for no, Liarbird,' I say. It takes some work but I'm slowly getting the hang of catering for her ‘power'.

‘In Venezuela, when they hold an election, only the squirrrels get to vote,' she says.

Yesterday glances at her brother, her arm half in the air and then drops it back to her side.

‘My own sister won't vote for my choice!' Cannonball says in disgust.

‘I knew you'd be mad,' she says.

I ignore them. ‘So, who votes for the OK Team?'

Yesterday, Torch and I raise our arms, even if my vote is almost void because I momentarily blur out of sight.

Liarbird crosses her arms, which I count as a positive vote.

‘Sorry Cannonball, but the vote stands.' I take a step towards my little black-suited friend. ‘Come on, mate, at least we've got a team, hey?'

Cannonball sighs and shrugs. ‘Oh well, I'm OK with that. The team name is about as important as a tail on a dog.'

‘Is that important?' whispers Torch. ‘I think it is, but maybe it's not? Has anybody got a dog? With a tail?'

Cannonball says, ‘You know, I'll probably get too good for you losers anyway, and then it would be embarrassing if the team was named in my honour.'

‘Yeah, lucky really that we went for the OK Team, now you think about it,' I say politely.

Newly named, the OK Team walks the streets for the first time. After a couple of kilometres, we haven't stumbled across the remotest sign of any crimes.

‘Hey candle boy, I have a question.'

‘I don't know much, Cannonball. I probably won't know the answer,' Torch replies.

‘How do Heroes find bad guys mid-crime?'

‘Oh, well, I have some idea about that, although I might be wrong. Apparently, once you're a Triple A Hero you have some kind of super-pager, but the rest of us just have to cruise, keeping our eyes open.'

‘Are you serious? Man, this could take weeks.'

Yesterday stops to check a blister on her heel from all the walking. ‘And Torch, if Heroes are top secret and everyday people aren't allowed to know they exist, how come we can wander the streets in full view of everybody?'

Torch blushes, peeping out from under his hair. ‘Well, again, I could be wrong and you're not going to like it if I'm right . . .'

‘Just answer the question, he of the wondrous finger. Sheesh.'

‘Well,' says Torch. ‘Apparently, at this stage, Gotham can deny all knowledge of us. Until the OK Team starts recording some results, we're just a bunch of kids in Halloween costumes. If a member of the public claimed we were superheroes, they'd be laughed out of town.'

‘Well, that doesn't suck,' says Liarbird. ‘It reminds me of Spain, where at Halloween, children wearing superhero costumes are strung up by their thumbs between flagpoles and have bananas thrown at them.'

We roll our eyes at another ‘Liarbird Fact', but agree that it is depressing. We trudge away from the main street and towards the school.

And that's when we hear the glass break.

CHAPTER 15
MEET THE BAD GUYS

‘H
oly tinkle!' says Cannonball. ‘Did you hear that?'

I'm staring at him. ‘Holy Tinkle?'

‘I was just trying to set the mood.'

‘I might be wrong but I think it came from the school,' says the Torch.

‘It's probably nothing,' Liarbird says, peering through the fence.

‘OK,' I say. ‘This is what we've been waiting for, team. Let's get over that fence.'

We climb awkwardly, scrambling up the wire diamonds to scale the two-metre-high fence. I'm halfway up when it occurs to me exactly what I'm doing – climbing a fence to physically challenge my first genuine bad guys. I can't see Golden Boy turning up to a broken window at a school. This one's up to us. At which point, my body dissolves with fear and nerves and I fall clean through the fence.

Cannonball tries to fly over, but has barely finished shouting, ‘Let's fire the cannon!' when he smacks nastily into a brick wall on the other side of the road. He staggers back and, after two more tries and collisions, grudgingly climbs the fence.

Another crash comes from the far side of the school. Whoever is doing the damage is still there. We look at one another with wide eyes behind our various masks.

‘Is everybody ready?' I ask in a shaky voice. I'm still fluctuating wildly in my visibility.

Cannonball nods. Yesterday gulps. The Torch lights a finger.