“What I am saying is that I am officially announcing my candidacy for Mayor of Superopolis.” Professor Brain-Drain shouted with great fanfare, “Citizens of Superopolis! Give me power, and I will return yours!”
I could tell he was expecting a huge roar of support from the audience, but instead all he got was a skeptical silence.
“Haven’t you attempted to destroy all of us a dozen times?” asked one man.
“You obviously haven’t been keeping count,” the Professor responded indignantly. “I’ve tried to destroy all of you on seventy-eight different occasions.”
“So why help us now?” asked a female hero wearing a jeweled turban.
“A fair question,” Professor Brain-Drain admitted. “The truth is that there is no challenge in conquering a city of powerless individuals. Anyone could do that. My goal is to return your powers—as well as my own—so that I may renew my quest to destroy you all.”
“Well, that thar makes sense,” responded a hero known as the Cowpoke. “It’s downright refreshin’ to hear a politician respond honestly.”
“Professor Brain-Drain’s plans may ultimately lead to my complete destruction,” proclaimed another woman, “but I can’t help but admire his unflinching devotion to his beliefs.”
“Are you all crazy?!” I finally erupted as the crowd parted so that everyone could see me. “Professor BrainDrain is a convicted criminal—not to mention an evil genius.”
Thankfully, this caused the crowd to pause and think.
“That’s right,” someone pointed out, “I’ll bet the Professor thinks he’s smarter than us.”
“Are you one of those people who think you know more than the rest of us?” another man demanded of the Professor. “We don’t need any self-styled genius to manage the complex functions of the most essential aspects of our government.”
“Vote for me! I don’t know anything,” blurted out Mayor Whitewash in a pathetic attempt to regain the support of the crowd. Everyone ignored him.
Professor Brain-Drain smiled cryptically. “You’re absolutely correct in your skepticism of smart people. What have the few of them in our society ever done for us other than create our technology, produce our art, and unlock the secrets of science?”
“Exactly!” harrumphed the man in the fez.
“Fear not,” Professor Brain-Drain continued. “Neither of this lad’s scurrilous charges is true. First of all, I have never been convicted of a crime nor spent a moment in jail.”
“How could that be?!” I accused.
“Look it up. You’ll see that it’s true,” he dismissed.
I turned to a reporter from The Superopolis Times, who was standing right next to me. “Are you going to investigate that claim?” I asked.
“I don’t need to.” He shrugged. “The Professor himself just said it was true.”
Even as my mouth dropped open in astonishment, Professor Brain-Drain continued. “Second, with the loss of my power, I have also lost much of my intelligence,” he lied. “In a way it is a blessing. I now see the world from the perspective of a typical ignoramus and I can finally see how wrong it was for me to assume that my massive intelligence somehow made me smarter than you—the decent, painfully average folk of Superopolis.”
“Hooray for Professor Brain-Drain!” someone in the crowd began to shout. To my surprise, the chant was picked up, and little by little it spread through the crowd.
“He’s just like us,” asserted a woman wearing a costume made of bird feathers.
I noticed a grimace appear briefly on the Professor’s face, but he quickly caught himself and gave his best grandfatherly smile.
“So true. So true.” He beamed as he looked directly at me. “Never trust a smart person. In fact, I suspect we will ultimately learn that an intelligent person is somehow responsible for the disappearance of our powers. Come to think of it, I know of one such person who would have everything to gain by the elimination of all superpowers.”
I got a queasy sensation in my stomach.
“After all,” he continued, “who could possibly benefit more from everyone becoming ordinary than a young man named Ordinary Boy?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tongue-tied
It’s scary to think what might have happened if my friends hadn’t been there. Egged on by Professor BrainDrain, the crowd turned angry—and ugly—fast.
“O Boy! This way!” Stench yelled as he pulled me toward him. He may not have been in full possession of his power, but he still had the size and bulk to knock away the nearest members of the mob who were pressing their way in my direction.
“Stay in between us,” Tadpole hollered, suddenly at my right side. A moment later, Halogen Boy appeared on my left.
“I’ll watch the back,” Plasma Girl added as I felt her hand on my shoulders pushing me forward. “Let’s get out of here!”
With Stench plowing a way through the crowd, and the rest of my teammates acting as a protective cordon, we worked our way outward. But the mob still pressed closer. I was worried that even Stench wasn’t going to be able to help us, when suddenly the ground began to rumble. Tremor Park was living up to its name. The shaking threw Stench to the ground just as he was about to block the Cowpoke, who was swinging a rope and rushing right toward me. I felt the rope brush against my head as I was yanked away at the very last second.
“I’ll get you out of here.”
I don’t know how she did it, but Plasma Girl had grabbed my arm and was leading me effortlessly through the crowd even as people all around us fell to the ground in confused heaps. The earthquake seemingly had no effect on her.
“I may have lost my power,” she said, answering my unspoken question, “but I still have a lifetime of experience maneuvering in a jiggly, joggly, wiggly way.”
She was right. No one knew better how to ooze her way through a tricky situation then Plasma Girl. Only a moment later we reached the edge of the park, which came out at the back of the Opera House, and we came to a halt.
“You sure know how to make friends,” she said between gasps of breath.
“This time it was hardly my fault,” I protested. “Professor Brain-Drain is trying to make me the fall guy for everyone’s loss of power—and they’re all upset enough to believe him.”
“Well, we need to get you even farther away,” she said, looking past me as her eyes widened in alarm.
I swung around and saw Tadpole, Stench, and Hal, running right toward us. But it was the mob directly behind them that got my legs moving again.
“Don’t wait for us,” I heard Tadpole yell as he passed us by in a blur. A second later, I had caught up with him, and all five of us were running for our lives.
I never would have thought that a bunch of out-of-shape adults could have kept chase. But I guess the opportunity to transfer their confused rage onto an innocent target gave them that extra burst of energy. They stayed pretty close for the first four or five blocks, but then, one by one, our pursuers began to fall by the wayside. Finally, after a few more blocks, I turned around and saw the last of them screech to a halt. Their faces had gone white, and without warning they turned and ran in the opposite direction.
“What’s . . . that . . . all about?” Plasma Girl asked between breaths.
“They just realized they were no match for us,” Tadpole boasted.
“No,” I corrected him, “I don’t think that was it at all. Look where we are.”
“Uh-oh,” Halogen Boy said softly as we all looked up at the east entry gate of the Superopolis Zoo.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of.” Tadpole snorted. “They’re just a bunch of dumb animals.”
“Yes. Animals with powers,” Plasma Girl hissed.
“She’s right,” I agreed. “They have powers while you all don’t.”
“Uh, guys?” Stench was pointing behind us.
We turned slowly and discovered we were being watched by a group of five aardvarks. None of them was over a few fee
t high, but the menacing expressions on their faces made all of us feel nervous. Well, almost all of us.
“HA.” Tadpole let a single guffaw burst from his throat. “Look at these ridiculous creatures. What kind of stupid power do they think they can threaten us with?”
Before the words were even out of his mouth, five tongues snaked from the elongated snouts of the aardvarks. Loop after loop of wet, squishy strands wrapped around us until we found ourselves trapped in at least twenty feet each of aardvark tongue.
“Well, you were right about them having a stupid power.” Stench glared at Tadpole as the aardvarks began pulling us into the zoo.
The next thing we knew we were being dragged down the main path. It should have come as no surprise who we were being taken to meet. Sure enough, only a few minutes later, the aardvarks deposited us at the feet of the velociraptor, Gore.
“Welcome to Zooperopolis.” His face lit up in a razor-toothed grin. “That’s what I’m calling the place now. Clever, no?”
“Yes,” I admitted as the last bit of tongue unwrapped itself from me and was drawn back into the snout of the aardvark that had dragged me here. “But why have you taken us prisoner?”
“I haven’t.” Gore pulled back, genuinely hurt by my accusation. “I was on my way to Tremor Park to once again attempt a meeting with the mayor. So far, he’s run screaming every time I’ve come close to making contact. Anyway, I was barely off the zoo grounds when I saw the trouble you were in. So I sent the aardvarks to drag you out of danger. I knew no one would venture into our domain, and the aardvarks’ power seemed particularly useful for getting you to safety.”
“See”—Tadpole stuck a finger in Stench’s chest—“it is a useful power.”
“So you’re not going to eat us?” Hal asked. All our ears perked up the way they tend to do when your status as a meal is being discussed.
“Of course not,” Gore replied indignantly. “Do I really seem like a monster to you?”
We glanced at his three-inch incisors, the saliva dripping from his mouth, and his razor-sharp claws.
“Oh, fine,” he said with a sigh. “So I guess I do. But you should learn to judge individuals by their actions, not their appearances. Are you aware of anyone I’ve consumed since I’ve gained the power of speech?”
“Well . . . no,” I admitted, “but you are a carnivore.”
“So are you,” he shot back. “Yet how many creatures have you ever hunted down and consumed on the spot.”
“I caught a fish once . . .” Tadpole started to say, but shut up the instant I shot him a dirty look.
“We haven’t,” I said, ignoring Tadpole’s fishing story.
“I’ll admit that I do have a taste for meat,” he said as he began to pace around. “It’s a fundamental part of who I am, just as it is true for you. However, an interesting thing happened when I gained the ability to understand all other creatures. In knowing their language it was impossible for me not to know them.”
“But you’ve always been aware of other creatures, haven’t you?” I asked.
“Aware, yes,” he agreed. “I was aware of them as a source of food. The amazing thing about speech is that through it you gain understanding. When you truly know another being, it makes it far more difficult to enjoy them as a meal.”
“So what do you do for food?” Plasma Girl asked.
“I haven’t abandoned meat completely,” Gore continued, “but I can honestly say that no creature has died specifically to provide me with a meal.”
“Then what is the main part of your diet?” I pressed.
“Why the same thing that the zoo began feeding us about a week ago,” Gore explained. “In fact we’re down to our very last bags.”
My eyes went wide with shock as the velociraptor opened a cabinet to reveal dozens and dozens of jumbo-size bags of Dr. Telomere’s Potato Chips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
All the Chips
The answer hit me like . . . a sack of potatoes! Everyone’s powers hadn’t gone away because they had started eating Pseudo-Chips. They had gone away because they had stopped eating Dr. Telomere’s. And when no one wanted them anymore, they brought them all here to feed to the animals. Dr. Telomere’s potato chips were the cause of everybody’s superpower!
It didn’t seem possible. Yet the pieces all fit. The chips went away and so did everyone’s power. The animals got the chips and began developing powers. And then I remembered something from the very first time I met Professor Brain-Drain. He had served us refreshments—cookies and lemonade, but no potato chips. When Tadpole asked him about it, he replied that he never touched them. No wonder his power was gone.
My mind was awhirl. I had just stumbled on the biggest secret in the history of Superopolis! I knew I had to keep it to myself.
“Wow,” I said with only a hint of the excitement I was feeling, “Dr. Telomere’s! Would it be possible for me to take some of these? I ran out of my own just yesterday.”
“Certainly,” Gore replied without hesitation. “As we’ve used up this supply of potato chips, the animals have begun finding food sources of their own. Regrettably, this has included scavenging as they’ve roamed through your city. By doing so, they’ve made my eventual conversation with your mayor a more difficult one.”
“I’m sorry about that,” I replied. “But thank you for offering us some of what you have left, anyway.”
With the help of my friends, I gathered up a dozen bags of the potato chips. Gore himself then escorted us to the front gates of the zoo and then bid us farewell.
My friends were all lively and talkative on the way home, but I found myself slipping into a funk. Now that I finally knew what caused people’s powers, I also knew that in all likelihood I would never have one. I had eaten Dr. Telomere’s chips my entire life. Even as a baby my parents had fed me Dr. Telomere’s Potato Chip Mush for newborns.
The realization was crushing.
When we reached my house, I instructed my friends to take two bags of chips apiece. At least they would get their powers back. I kept the remaining four for my own purposes.
“I didn’t think I’d ever see a bag of Dr. Telomere’s again,” Halogen Boy said with a big grin on his face. “I wish there was more.”
“I don’t think we’re seeing the last of them,” I said. “But for now, let’s just enjoy what we have.”
Waving good-bye to my teammates, and thanking them once again for saving my behind, I turned and went inside. My parents were in the kitchen preparing dinner, but a syrupy gloom hung over everything.
“Oh, hi there, OB,” my mom said, trying her best to look cheery. But the very fact that she was getting ice cubes out of the freezer to put in her iced tea spoke buckets about her mood. “How was school today?”
“It was a disaster. Every kid in my class is powerless. When we tried to play kickball, it was like they had forgotten how to walk the way they kept tripping over themselves.”
“How’d my little hero do?” my dad asked as he held a match to a gas burner on our stove. As I wondered if my dad had ever done this before, a huge plume of flame whooshed up from the burner answering my question.
“AAIIEEE!” is the closest approximation of the sound he made as his eyebrows were singed off. “How do they expect people to use these things?!”
“I don’t think you need to bother with cooking something tonight,” I said to my dad. “I have something I think we should have instead.”
Surprise spread across my parents’ faces as I revealed two bags of Dr. Telomere’s Potato Chips. At first there was a glimmer of joy in their eyes, and then I saw the Red Menace’s power regain control.
“That’s sweet of you, OB,” my mom said, “but we have plenty of Pseudo-Chips on hand.”
“That’s right, son,” Dad added as he sat down at the table next to me and picked up the bag of Dr. Telomere’s. “Don’t get me wrong. Dr. Telomere’s makes a great product. I should know. But they just don’t compare to
AI’s Pseudo-Chips.”
“What was it like working there?” I asked as I ignored their faint protests and ripped open the bag.
“Oh, it was a huge operation—at least it used to be, anyway. On an average day, we would produce over a quarter million bags of chips—one for nearly every man, woman, and child in Superopolis.”
“People used to love these chips,” I stated as I emptied the bag into the big chip bowl in the center of our table. “What do you suppose it was about them that folks liked so much?”
“That’s easy,” my dad said. “It was the crunch! And that’s where your old man came in,” he added as he elbowed me.
“It’s true,” my mom added. “Your father heated the fryers at Dr. Telomere’s to exactly the right temperature. That’s how they were able to achieve that distinctive, delicious crunch.”
She sat down at the table and I noticed both her and my father staring at the bowl of Dr. Telomere’s potato chips.
“I’ll bet they have a far better crunch than those Pseudo-Chips could ever have,” I said nonchalantly as I nudged the bowl in their direction.
Mom and Dad stared at the golden, perfectly fried little beauties. Each one was its own unique creation—no two alike. Simultaneously, my parents reached for a chip. I watched with only a hint of trepidation as they each brought one to their mouths. The sound of a crunch on either side of me was like a symphony.
“I-I had forgotten how good these are,” my mother said with confusion lining her face. “But how could I have forgotten?”
“It wasn’t you,” I said with more relief than I had ever felt before. “It was the Red Menace. He’s brainwashed everyone into thinking that Pseudo-Chips are better.”
“But they taste awful,” my father said as he finally broke free of the Red Menace’s control over him. He shoved three real potato chips into his mouth at one time. “Nothing compares to Dr. Telomere’s.”
My parents were back to their old selves. The straitjacket of worry that had gripped me all week was gone as Mom, Dad, and I sat around the kitchen table, talking and laughing and eating chips. I ate sparingly, knowing that I needed to let my parents get the most from them.
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