Ben Braver and the Incredible Exploding Kid

by Marcus Emerson

  ‘Wait, what? I don’t speak Spanish!’

  The ceiling suddenly crumbled above us, and down came a squadron of moon soldiers, pinning my wife to the ground.

  I was heartbroken.

  She was an intergalactic assassin … but I loved her.

  A girl slid down a rope and landed in front of me.

  It was Millie.

  I opened my eyes, staring up at my friends. Millie was there, too. I was back at the academy. I must’ve zonked out when I fell from my window.

  Millie had one hand on my forehead and the other on my chest.

  ‘He’s fine,’ Penny said, annoyed. ‘You can stop touching him now.’

  ‘How’d you do that?’ I asked.

  ‘That’s my power,’ Millie said with a soft smile. ‘I can visit other people’s dreams.’

  Jordan sat up straight. ‘So that was actually you visiting me in my dream last night?’

  Millie made a face. ‘Uh … no. That wasn’t me.’

  ‘Daaang!’ Penny said, slapping Jordan’s back. ‘How super awkward for you!’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Noah asked. ‘I totally would’ve flown out the window to catch you, but, y’know … no beef jerky. You’re lucky these bushes were here to break your fall.’

  ‘Right.’ I groaned. ‘Lucky.’

  ‘Did you do it?’ Penny asked. ‘Did you plant my phone?’

  ‘Yup,’ I said. ‘Now all we have to do is wait.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  11 p.m.

  My dorm.

  Five hours of waiting.

  Nothing.

  To stay awake, my friends started killing time by making fun of my not having a power, but subtly, since Millie had joined our stakeout, and she didn’t know I was powerless.

  ‘But Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark are rich,’ Noah said. ‘You’re not a billionaire.’

  ‘Yet,’ I said.

  ‘Why would you need to be a billionaire?’ Millie asked.

  I scrambled for an answer, but Penny saved me.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he wanna be a billionaire?’ Penny said.

  Millie nodded with an Mmm sound. That answer was good enough.

  ‘Becoming a billionaire is easy,’ I said. ‘All it takes is a couple of good inventions to get there.’

  Noah laughed. ‘Name one good thing you’ve ever invented.’

  ‘The tooth-plunger!’ I said.

  Millie shuddered. ‘Is that something that sucks your teeth out?’

  ‘Ew, no!’ I said. ‘It’s a combination toothbrush-plunger! It’s a two-in-one thing!’

  ‘Whaaaaaat?’ Jordan said. ‘That’s brilliant! I wanna get in on the ground floor of that, okay? Hello, Shark Tank? One billion dollars, please!’

  ‘Nerds of a feather,’ Penny whispered.

  She refreshed the Phone Finder app for the millionth time. ‘Stakeouts always sound more fun than they are. Dexter’s still just sitting there.’

  ‘We need to wait a little longer,’ I said.

  ‘But boredom is the worst way to die!’ Penny whined.

  ‘What if he leaves at three in the morning? That’s when I saw him last time.’

  Penny shut her laptop. ‘I’m not staying up that late!’

  ‘You can’t give up! What if he leaves right now?’ I whined.

  ‘We’ve got class in the morning, duuude,’ Penny whined right back.

  ‘It’s not all night,’ I said, taking Penny’s computer. ‘Just half the night. Take a nap or something. I’ll keep watch.’

  I looked at the map on the screen, but I wasn’t sure what to do. An overhead shot of the school showed a green dot for Penny’s laptop, but I didn’t see the dot for her phone – the one in Dexter’s backpack.

  ‘How do I work this?’ I asked. ‘What’s Dexter’s dot look like?’

  Penny yawned, stretching out on my bed. ‘It’s the red blip right next to the green blip.’

  I refreshed the screen, and suddenly Dexter’s dot pinged. Both dots were there, but they weren’t next to each other. The green one was in my dorm, but the red one was in downtown Lost Nation.

  ‘It says he’s in the city,’ I said.

  Penny grumbled as she pried her eyes open to see the screen. She blinked. And then she blinked again. ‘The app’s confused. It glitches when the signal gets lost.’

  ‘So did he leave?’ Millie asked.

  ‘No. It means he found my phone and turned it off,’ Penny explained, hopping up. ‘I’m gonna get it back.’

  ‘Wait, you can’t just barge in there!’ I said as everyone followed Penny down the hall.

  ‘Why not?’ Penny said.

  ‘Because of our plan!’

  ‘Our plan was to follow him wherever he went and then steal my phone back. It wasn’t to let him keep my phone if he found it.’

  ‘But you’re just gonna walk in and grab it? Shouldn’t we sneak in?’

  Penny stopped at Dexter’s door.

  ‘Sneak in?’ she said. ‘Why? He already caught us. Have you not been paying attention? That thing’s worth more than Jordan Janke’s life, so I need to get it back before Dexter gets it greasy with his fingers.’

  ‘Wait, who’s Jordan Janke?’ I asked before I realised the big-time mistake I just made.

  All eyes were on me.

  I laughed nervously. ‘I just, um … Oh, you mean Jordan Janke! I thought you said Jordan Stanky, and I was like, who is that?’

  ‘You didn’t know my last name?’ Jordan said.

  ‘I did! Not. The full last name. Was what I didn’t. I just, I forgot it. Kind of. I’m sorry.’

  Clearly, my brain had hit a wall.

  ‘I hate you,’ Jordan said.

  Penny pushed Dexter’s door open, and the five of us ran inside, ready for the Battle for Penny’s Phone.

  But he wasn’t anywhere in there.

  Suddenly a car horn honked from the wardrobe.

  We looked at one another because it definitely wasn’t a normal wardrobe kind of sound.

  Millie went in first. ‘What if that red blip was right? What if Dexter did go into the city?’

  My heart started pounding. The investigation was my idea, but I was having second thoughts.

  We huddled together inside the wardrobe. The sound of squealing tyres came from behind a hanging bedsheet that fluttered.

  Millie pulled the sheet aside.

  Behind it, propped open by a makeshift ring of coathangers, was a portal to the Kepler garage.

  Dexter was in Lost Nation.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  11:15 p.m.

  Lost Nation.

  My Act 2 started with a single step through Joel’s portal into the Kepler garage in Lost Nation.

  The garage was dark.

  ‘Where is everyone?’ Penny asked.

  ‘We should go back,’ I said.

  ‘This whole thing was your idea,’ Penny snapped.

  ‘That doesn’t make it a good one!’

  ‘Aw, somebody’s scared,’ Jordan said.

  Millie looked at me like a worried pup.

  ‘I’m not scared,’ I said. ‘I’m just – we don’t know what we’re gonna find, and, like, I don’t want Millie to get hurt.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ Millie said. ‘As long as you’re here, we’re all safe.’

  Penny melted. ‘Yes, Ben, we’ll all be okay as long as you’re the wind beneath our wings.’

  Millie nodded, not getting that the joke was on her.

  We snuck out to the alley, wet from the rain. A trail of grimy footprints led to the run-down warehouse next door, where we could hear kids talking and laughing.

  We didn’t want to barge right through the front door, so we quickly climbed up a rusty fire escape and slipped in through an open window.

  Once inside, I realised the warehouse wasn’t a warehouse at all, but an abandoned factory that looked like a multiplayer map from Call of Duty. Years of dust covered old, rusted machinery that surrounded the empty centre of
the dark building.

  In that empty centre was a circle of kids wearing brightly coloured costumes. Standing before them was Dexter, decked out in the purple and yellow fabric I had seen in his backpack earlier.

  ‘We’re at the start of another good week,’ Dexter said. ‘We’re still under the radar, but that ain’t hard when teachers are too busy babysitting rowdy kids now that Old Man Kepler’s lost his marbles.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Just remember, these aren’t fights. This is battle training. Practising. Preparing. A real-life supervillain attacked us last year, and we were all helpless little babies, but we won’t be caught with our pants down again.’

  ‘Good thing Ben Braver was there to save us,’ someone said. ‘Will he be invited too?’

  Dexter ground his teeth. ‘That bozo got lucky, and no, he’s not invited. True descendants of the Seven Keys only.’

  It wasn’t like I was dying to join Dexter’s party, but getting singled out was still a bummer.

  ‘This is top secret,’ Dexter said. ‘And Braver almost wrecked it when he caught Vic and me comin’ out of the forest after tryin’ to find a place to do this.’

  Vic spoke up from the circle. ‘Best thing to happen to us. This old building is way cooler than the forest.

  And it’s further away from all the teachers.’

  ‘Welcome to the most epic secret tournament the world has ever not seen,’ Dexter said. ‘Welcome to the Power Battle.’

  Everyone cheered.

  Some had capes. Some even had masks.

  I understood exactly what was happening.

  They were training to be superheroes.

  Dexter’s voice boomed. ‘For our first match of the night – Balloon Boy versus Death Bunny!’

  If I wanted to get a closer look, I’d have to crawl out on one of the catwalks, but first I needed a disguise. Luckily, I had a secret mask in case of emergencies.

  A boy and a girl took the centre of the circle and powered up. The boy stuck his thumb into his mouth and blew like he was blowing up a balloon. He huffed and puffed until his fist was the size of a beach ball.

  ‘Go easy, dude!’ Vic warned him. ‘You don’t wanna make yourself explode!’

  The girl fell onto her hands and knees, transforming in front of everyone. Her clothes ripped off, and white fur replaced the skin all over her body as she grew into a buffalo-size bunny with red eyes and sharp teeth.

  ‘I wanna pat that!’ Penny gasped.

  ‘I hope she’s got extra clothes,’ Millie said.

  Death Bunny’s roar shook the windows as she charged at Balloon Boy.

  He jumped out of the way and then swung his balloon fist into the side of Death Bunny’s face. But the adorable beast wasn’t even fazed.

  She head-butted Balloon Boy, who went flying through the wall of students behind him.

  Death Bunny pounded across the factory at ramming speed.

  I couldn’t believe how hard-core the battle was. Neither one of them was holding back.

  Balloon Boy flipped onto his feet, blew his fist even bigger, and swung his arm in circles like he was winding up a punch.

  He nailed the furry white monster with an uppercut that sent her through the air, on a crash course for the catwalk I was hiding on.

  Of course.

  Everyone looked up just as Death Bunny tore through the catwalk, sending the whole thing falling to the centre of their circle.

  Kids dived out of the way as I hurtled face-first towards the ground.

  Vic stopped me midair before I kissed the concrete. She flipped me right side up and kept me floating with my feet just above the ground.

  Whispers came from the crowd.

  ‘Where’d Ben Braver come from?’

  ‘What’s Ben Braver doing here?’

  They said it just like that, too.

  Not just Ben, but Ben Braver.

  My whole name.

  Dexter met me face-to-underwear-covered-face.

  ‘You forget how undies work?’ he asked.

  ‘No. It’s my disguise.’

  ‘And you just happened to have an extra pair of underwear with you?’

  I thought very carefully before answering that question. ‘… Yes,’ I said. ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘You’re like a fly that won’t buzz off!’ Dexter said.

  ‘It’s hard for a fly to buzz off when there’s a steaming pile of turd in front of him!’ I said, my mouth talking before my brain gave it permission.

  Dexter fumed, but Vic put her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Dude,’ she said. ‘He’s in the circle.’

  A smile curled on Dexter’s face. ‘For our second match of the night …’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Dexter and I faced each other across the small circle as Vic levitated the broken catwalk out of the way.

  Penny, Noah and Millie had joined the group and were right behind me, but Jordan was nowhere to be seen, which meant he either ducked out or was still around somewhere – just naked and hiding.

  Speaking of naked, Death Bunny did, in fact, have an extra outfit she had changed into after her match.

  I should’ve walked away, but the small crowd was chanting, ‘Ben Bra-ver! Ben Bra-ver! Ben Bra-ver!’

  Millie started the chant, but it still counts.

  ‘What’re you gonna do?’ Noah asked. ‘Dexter’s not gonna go easy on you.’

  ‘Just run,’ Penny said. ‘Nobody will judge you. Not to your face, at least.’

  If I tried to battle Dexter, then the crowd would find out fast that I didn’t have a power. But if I let him kill me right away, then my secret would die with me.

  Choices, choices.

  Millie scowled. ‘Ben defeated a giant monster last year. Dexter’s a gnat compared with that!’

  Oh, right.

  Millie didn’t know I was powerless.

  ‘Yeah, you guys,’ I said. ‘Dexter’s just a gnat. A scary, man-size, superpowered gnat.’

  ‘You’re gonna die,’ Penny said as Vic announced the match.

  Dexter and I met at the centre of the circle. ‘Don’t worry, dude,’ I said, faking confidence. Maybe I could mess with his head. ‘I’ll go easy on ya.’

  Dexter smirked. ‘All I need to worry about is where to hide your body when this is over.’

  Whoooa … that got dark fast.

  ‘Battle!’ Vic shouted.

  Dexter threw his hands to his sides, palms up, and his entire body burst with steam. His skin crystallised as his eyes became empty sockets.

  I just stood there.

  A thin sheet of ice formed at Dexter’s feet as the air around him froze into sparkling particles of ice and snowflakes and Disney magic.

  And I just kept standing there.

  Dexter fired ice across the ring like he was in Super Smash Bros. I dodged it, but barely. The ice clipped my shoulder and frost-burned me as I fell to the ground.

  ‘Too easy,’ Dexter said.

  I tried scooting back, but a path of ice cut across the floor from Dexter’s foot to mine, crawling up my leg and freezing me in place.

  ‘Get up, Ben!’ Millie shouted.

  Noah pulled out a stick of beef jerky, ready to jump in to save me, but it never came to that.

  Dexter’s foot slipped wildly out from under him, and he totally ate it, ice-skater–style. He tried to get up, but his body started spinning circles on the icy floor.

  Penny’s and Noah’s jaws dropped.

  Millie cheered.

  The ice around my foot shattered, and I rolled to my feet, totally confused.

  Then a familiar voice whispered in my ear. ‘Wave your arms around like you have a power. I got this.’

  Jordan was fully invisible and battling for me!

  Which also meant he was fully naked.

  Yuck.

  Dexter came at me like a lunatic in a blizzard of snow. I threw out kung fu moves that Bruce Lee taught me himself. Through clips on YouTube.

>   ‘Foot sweep!’ I shouted, hoping Jordan would follow my lead.

  He totally did.

  Dexter tripped, landing on his face.

  ‘Did you see that?’ someone from the circle said. ‘He just used his brain to knock that kid down!’

  I sliced my hand through the air. ‘Throat punch!’

  Dexter grabbed his throat and fell to his knees.

  Millie gave me a high five when I turned to gloat.

  ‘And now for my finishing move,’ I said, curling my fingers.

  Dexter’s face turned red as his underwear was magically pulled out of the back of his pants. Jordan wedgied him so hard that he lifted Dexter off the ground for a second.

  Dexter shook himself free, grabbed his butt cheeks, and ran out of the factory crying.

  The crowd cheered.

  Penny and Noah couldn’t stop laughing.

  Millie nearly knocked me down with a hug.

  I was the champion.

  The winner of the battle.

  And I did absolutely nothing to deserve it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  12:45 a.m.

  The Power Battle was over.

  A few other battles followed, but only one was epic.

  Mine.

  Eventually the rest of the kids went back to the school, leaving me, Penny and Noah alone in the abandoned factory.

  I stood in the centre of the cavernous space, imagining how awesome I must’ve looked to everyone else.

  ‘All right, dude, it’s, like, one in the morning. Time to make like a baby and head out.’ Penny yawned, pushing her phone into her pocket. She’d snuck it out of Dexter’s bag during my match with him.

  Noah struggled to stay awake, bobbing his head every few seconds. ‘Pillows … blankets … please …’

  ‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘Still basking.’

  Penny rolled her eyes. ‘Fine, then we’re leaving without you.’

  Noah trailed behind Penny as they walked into the alley back to the portal in the Kepler garage, leaving me by myself in the dark.

  ‘No, wait up, guys! I’m done basking!’ I shouted, running to catch up.