The Amazing Magnificent Stupendous Incredible Outstanding Unbeatable Exceptional (and Humble) Rubberband Boy

by Jonathan Neuman

  Baldini roared with fury. John stretched his body across the room and hovered in front of Baldini’s face. John stuck out his hand, squeezed Baldini’s nose, and yelled, “Honk!” Baldini screamed and swatted at John. John noticed that the more energy Baldini expended, the browner his teeth – and weaker Baldini – seemed to become. Baldini took a few more wild swings, and then staggered forward, sweat pouring off of his shiny head. John contracted back across the room, grabbed two rubber bands, and fired them at the evil duo, but a sudden yellow blast of energy from Baldini’s head vaporized the bands.

  “Foolish boy,” he bellowed. “Insolent wretch. Even in my weakened state you cannot possibly hope to defeat me!”

  John shrugged.

  “My dentist did tell me once that I try to bite off more than I can chew, but then he gave me a smiley face sticker and a cool new toothbrush, so I thought that it was a good thing.”

  John grabbed a handful of rubber bands from his pouch and fired off a barrage, but Baldini blasted them all.

  “Clip Kid, any ideas?” John called out. Baldini and Lich were starting to advance. John was trying to keep them at bay by firing off as many rubber bands as he could, but Baldini kept on blasting them into oblivion.

  Dave thought for a second.

  “Yeah,” he replied. “While you were in la la land, Baldini mentioned something about his energy reserves and his teeth.”

  “I wasn’t sleeping, I was being mind controlled!”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “There’s a huge difference!”

  “I don’t see much of a difference.”

  Baldini edged closer.

  “Clip Kid, focus! Task at hand!”

  “Right, good point.”

  John placed his index finger over the center of his lower lip and rubbed his thumb underneath his chin in thought. Baldini was about twelve feet away.

  “Hmm … his teeth, eh?” A light bulb flashed in John’s head. “Quickly Clip Kid, toss me some ammo.”

  “Huh?”

  “Clips! Toss me some clips!”

  Dave obliged. In one swift motion, John caught the clips, hooked them onto the backs of some rubber bands, and fired them at Baldini’s mouth. When Baldini blasted the rubber bands, the rubber bands disintegrated, but the clips continued to soar right through the ensuing smoke. The clips collided with Baldini’s front teeth, causing small cracks. Baldini yelped in agony.

  “More, Clip Kid, more!”

  John fired his makeshift Rubber-Clips (patent pending) as quickly as Dave could toss them. Baldini attempted to blast the clips, but he was in too much pain and his blasts were way off the mark. Three more high-velocity clips smacked into his teeth, and were accompanied by a shattering sound as Baldini’s teeth crumbled. John had another rubber-clip ready to be fired.

  As his broken teeth fell to the floor, Baldini fell to his knees and shouted “NOOOOOOOO!!!!”

  “Need the number for my dentist?” John asked.

  Light began pouring out of Baldini’s nose, and then shot out from his mouth. John and Dave covered their eyes as the bright light filled the room and increased in intensity. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of immense light, and then the light disappeared completely. The boys, keeping their hands over their eyes, slowly spread their fingers apart, and watched as Baldini collapsed onto the floor.

  John felt winded, but there was still one more thing to do. Turning his attention to Lich, who was cowering in the corner, John fired one more elongated rubber band. Without Baldini to protect him, Lich was powerless. Dave ran across the room to help their classmates out of the constricted rubber bands. John fell to one knee and hunched over, putting his hand on the floor to stabilize himself. He felt very weak, and it took all of his strength just to keep from collapsing.

  “Oh no!” John heard Dave suddenly cry out. “John, they’re not better! They’re still zombies!”

  John struggled to get to his feet. His breathing was very heavy and labored.

  “I told you …” he said slowly as he stumbled from one desk to another. “Call me … Rubberband Boy.”

  The zombified kids all groaned.

  Dave went from kid to kid, shaking them as hard as he could, but nobody woke up from their zombie trance. John was struggling to hold onto a desk, about to collapse back onto the floor. He had no energy and everything felt heavy. He pulled off his mask, undid the knot holding his cape around his neck, and unclipped his rubber pouch. It did little to alleviate his situation. “Dave …” he called out weakly as he slumped to the floor. Dave, who was busy shaking Cayden, didn’t hear him.

  “Oh, Captain Cayden One-Eyed Willy Nickname Cyclops Sir, why won’t you wake up?! What will we do without you?!” he cried as he hugged Cayden and shook him harder. Dave started to fake sob, but suddenly he felt Cayden pushing against him.

  “I told you not to call me that!” barked a very angry Cayden.

  A stunned Dave looked at Cayden and his face lit up.

  “Captain Cayden One-Eyed Willy Nickname Cyclops Sir! You’re alive!” Dave yelled as he hugged him again.

  “Get off of me! Of course I’m alive,” Cayden replied as he shoved Dave off. “What’s the matter with you? And where are Mr. Lich and that kid? Is detention over?”

  Dave wheeled around and looked at the floor, where just moments ago both Baldini and Lich had been lying, incapacitated. They were both gone.

  “Umm … yeah … umm … you fell asleep and they said that I should wake you up … that’s what I meant by you’re alive. Ha ha, funny right?” Dave asked as he smiled sheepishly.

  A grumpy Cayden pushed past Dave and ran out of the room, yelling, “I’m going to miss the bus! Igor is going to be so mad!”

  Dave breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the sweat off his brow.

  “Yeah, like that would be a first,” he said, rolling his eyes.

  Dave went to each kid, trying various nicknames and phrases until he had roused them from their zombie trances. For example, Jack woke up after, “Jack be nimble Jack be quick, Jack tripped and fell in some poo,” which had actually happened in the second grade, and was a rather sore memory for him. Other kids proved harder, but Dave eventually woke them too.

  The excuse that Dave conjured up for Cayden worked for the other kids as well. Dave was able to keep each kid from noticing the others by first bringing them to the door, and then quickly shooing each one out once they had been snapped out of the trance, telling them that they were about the miss the bus. After each insult, Dave would shriek like a girl, wince, and cover his face, expecting to get hit. Nothing happened until Dave woke up Caroline, who immediately clobbered him.

  “Ow! That hurt, why did you hit me?” Dave whimpered, rubbing the back of his head.

  “Why did you shriek in my ear like a girl?!”

  “I thought you were going to hit me.”

  “That’s why I hit you,” Caroline said in a huff, as she turned around and headed toward the bus.

  Dave stood where he was, utterly confused. After a few seconds, he gave up trying to comprehend what had just happened, and went back inside the classroom.

  One by one, Dave woke all the kids, until Duh was the only one left. As Dave stood before him trying to think of something to say, Duh looked up at him.

  “Duuuh, that was the best detention ever. You and John and Mr. Lich are great actors.”

  Dave started to panic as he realized that Duh had been awake the whole time.

  “Wait, what? You weren’t a zombie? You saw the whole thing?”

  Dave hadn’t noticed it then, but now that he thought about it, he realized that Duh had not been throwing any zombie slime.

  “Duuuh, yup.”

  Dave’s mind was racing.

  “Umm … what you saw, with the uh, costume, and the umm, the stretching, was uh … uh …”

  “Duuuh, that was great special effects. I didn’t know that you and John were in Film Production class. I thought we couldn’t d
o that until sixth grade. I never knew detention could be so much fun.”

  Dave was at a loss for words.

  “Umm, yeah, special effects. Film production. Fun. Riiiiiiight. It was all special effects. We were just making a movie.” Dave’s brain was scrambling furiously as he tried to play along.

  “Duuuh, the only thing that I was sad about was that you guys let everyone else have a part in the movie, but not me,” Duh said sadly.

  “W … what?! No, no! Of course you were in the movie! We didn’t tell you because we wanted to get some real-life emotion. We wanted to get your surprise and suspense. You did great!”

  “Duuuh, really?” Duh said, his eyes lighting up.

  A glob of zombie slime that was hanging from the ceiling slowly oozed down past Dave’s head, where it fell and splattered onto the floor. Dave glanced up, his eyebrows raised and his lips contorted in disgust, and then quickly looked down at the slime that was now near his shoes. The mucus seemed to have lost its corrosive effect. Dave carefully kicked at it. It seemed safe.

  Dave bent down and shuddered in disgust as he scooped up some of the slime with his hand. He swallowed hard as he felt his lunch starting to come back up.

  “Yeah, you were so great that we want you to have this as a token of our appreciation,” he said, stretching out his hand toward Duh, silently wishing that Duh would take the slime from him as quickly as possible.

  “Duuuh, oh thank you, thank you!” Duh exclaimed as he lunged at Dave and gave him a bear hug. As Duh lunged to give the hug, he accidentally knocked Dave’s extended arm up, causing Dave to smack himself in the face. Dave’s hand smooshed the slime into his eyes, nose, and mouth. Dave felt sick as he pulled his hand away, thick globs of green slime dangling from his fingers in front of his face.

  “Uuuuuuuhhh, you’re crushing my lungs,” Dave gasped.

  Duh released his grip and grabbed a handful of slime off of Dave’s face just as Dave started to take in deep gulps of air, accidentally pushing some slime into Dave’s open mouth.

  “Duuuh, don’t want to forget this,” he said as Dave screamed and then began coughing and sputtering behind him.

  Duh started to turn around to head toward the bus.

  “Wait …” Dave stammered, still spitting out slime. “But you can’t ever tell anyone about this, because we weren’t supposed to have help from teachers, but Mr. Lich said he would help us anyway. So if anyone ever found out, then Mr. Lich would get in big trouble.”

  “Duuuh, I wouldn’t want him to get in trouble. He’s such a nice teacher. Only wants to help people. I want to be just like him when I grow up.”

  Dave stared at Duh. The thought of a Duh-version of Mr. Lich was a very scary one indeed. Dave began to think that maybe it was time to consider early retirement. Perhaps he could move down to Florida. He heard Boca was nice this time of year.

  “Um … we’ll see. But anyway, you’ll never ever in a million billion years mention any of this to anyone, right?”

  “Duuuh, nope.”

  Dave breathed a huge sigh of relief.

  “Okay, great. Go to the bus before it leaves without you.”

  Dave watched as Duh grabbed his knapsack and left the room.

  “Whew, that was a close one, wasn’t it?” he asked John, wiping the last of the slime off of his face.

  John didn’t answer. Dave turned around and noticed that John was crumpled on the floor, not moving. “John!” he cried out as he ran over. Dave knelt beside John and lifted John’s head.

  “Dave … you’ve got to get us out of here,” John said softly.

  “John, we’re safe now. Baldini and Lich are gone. I don’t know what happened, but they’re not here anymore. One second they were lying on the floor, and the next I turned around and they were no longer there. I didn’t see anything, but—”

  “Dave,” John cut him off. “You’ve got to get us out of here before the janitor comes to find out who messed with the lights and sees us here.”

  “Oh, right,” Dave said, fumbling for thoughts. He looked nervously at the door and helped John up. John grabbed his costume and held onto Dave’s shoulder for support. Dave staggered out of the building toward the bus, John limping beside him. Dave was trying to think up of an excuse as fast as he could, but Igor was too absorbed with his “borscht in bottle” to notice anyway. Dave helped John to a seat in the back, and sat down next to him.

  John was fast asleep before the bus even took off. The whole ride, Dave quietly watched over him. John’s house was the last stop. When Igor got to Dave’s house, Dave told him to keep on going. When they got to John’s stop, Dave helped John off the bus and into his house. Dave quietly closed the door and helped John up the stairs to his bed. John looked terrible.

  “Maybe we should tell someone?” Dave asked, concerned.

  John tried to muster some energy. He sat up as much as he could and weakly put his hand on Dave’s shoulder.

  “No, Dave. We can’t. Some really weird stuff happened today, and nobody would ever believe us. They’d think that we were trying to cover up the lights going off,” which they’ll probably pin on us anyway, John thought. “Or they’d think we were crazy. We don’t need to be in any more trouble. Even if somebody believed us, then they would just take me away and do experiments on me.”

  “But what about tomorrow? What will Baldini do to us?”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait and see.” John smiled weakly at Dave. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I just feel a little tired, that’s all. It was a long day for both of us. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay buddy?”

  Dave smiled sadly and shook his head okay. As Dave was leaving, John called out, “Hey, Clip Kid! We did a great job today. We saved our friends.”

  Dave turned around. “Yeah, but we’ll have to do something about my superhero name. No more Clip Kid. And don’t even think about Staple Lad.”

  John smiled. He wanted to laugh but he felt too exhausted. His head eased back into the pillow. John was asleep before Dave even reached the front door.

  Dave headed home, ate dinner, took a shower, and tried to go to sleep. He had nightmares about the battle all night. The next morning, he watched as an obviously upset John got onto the bus.

  “What is it?” Dave asked, concerned that something terrible had happened overnight.

  “I can’t do it anymore.”

  “Can’t do what anymore?”

  “Stretch, shoot magical rubber bands, curl up into a ball and bounce. All of it, it’s all gone.”

  Dave was shocked.

  “You tried? It’s all gone?”

  “Of course I tried. How else would I know that my powers were gone?”

  Dave thought that it would be better not to engage in their usual back and forth.

  “Right. I … I knew that, I was just testing you.”

  The boys rode in silence for a few minutes.

  “But you can still be Rubberband Boy, right? I mean, even when you didn’t have the powers to start with, you still had the notebook and the costume and the cave? Right?”

  John looked straight ahead, dejected.

  “You wouldn’t understand. It’s not the same.”

  The two boys resumed their silence. After another few moments, Dave said, “Well, at least there’s one good thing.”

  “What’s that?” asked John.

  “No more Clip Kid.”

  At first John’s expression didn’t change, but then he slowly cracked a smile. John and Dave laughed together. It felt good to laugh.

  “John, what are we going to do about Baldini?”

  John had no answer. Without his powers, they were doomed. For the rest of the ride, the two boys stared at the backs of the seats in front of them, neither one saying a word. They didn’t join in on the serenading of Captain Cayden One-Eyed Willy Nicknamed Cyclops Sir. They didn’t even groan when Igor stopped off for his fourth “borscht in bottle” of the morning.

  When the bus arrived at sc
hool, the kids were ushered into the cafeteria for a fifth grade assembly. Principal Freeman, who had traces of red paint on his face and hands, saw the kids enter the room, and he stood up and cleared his throat.

  “Now that out tardy students have arrived,” he said eyeing John and Dave in particular. “I have an important announcement to make. Unfortunately, Mr. Lich was called away on an urgent matter, and was forced to take an immediate leave of absence. The same goes for Samuel, the new student who transferred here with him.”

  John and Dave looked at each other with shocked expressions on their faces.

  “Samuel?” John whispered to Dave.

  Principal Freeman continued.

  “Until we can find another Social Studies teacher, our current reserve faculty member, Mr. Santers, will be your substitute teacher.”

  A short, thin, clean-shaven man with large glasses stood up to take the podium. He started to give some sort of introductory speech, but John and Dave were too preoccupied to pay any attention. John was elated.

  “Dave, did you hear that? Baldini’s gone!”

  “But what do you think happened?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care. We’re saved!”

  John was doing a celebratory dance. Dave was rubbing his forehead with a pained look of thought on his face.

  “Yeah, but think about it. Why would he be our teacher for just one day? I mean, they did escape, right? I turned around for a second and they were gone. They seemed pretty out of it, but I guess we only barely beat them. Why wouldn’t they want to take revenge in round two?”

  John stopped dancing.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we beat them worse than you think. Maybe they were really hurt and somebody helped them escape.”

  “Who would help them escape?”

  John thought for a moment.