The Astounding Broccoli Boy

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  The minute he said ‘secret headquarters’ we both went quiet and glum. How could we find a secret headquarters if we were locked in a fish tank where everyone could see everything we did and we couldn’t even speak because they could hear us over the intercom? Unless . . .

  ‘Tommy, think about this. We’re in a room, high above a big city. No one knows we’re here. No one can get in or out without a code. This is our Secret Headquarters. It’s so secret that even the people who come in here – the doctors and nurses – even they don’t know it’s a secret headquarters. Because it’s cunningly disguised as an isolation ward in a hospital.’

  Tommy-Lee looked around the room for a while. There’s not that much to look at – two beds, two bedside cabinets, a desk and chair. ‘It actually looks different once you know it’s a secret headquarters,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Especially the map.’

  ‘What map?’

  ‘The map you drew.’

  ‘It’s not a map. It’s just a picture.’

  We were both looking at it. It had everything on it. ‘That dark bit must be the zoo where we were last night. This is Chinatown. That’s the river.’ I wrote the names on with a Sharpie. It made the room feel like the Centre of Operations.

  ‘It is a good map, isn’t it?’ said Tommy-Lee proudly.

  ‘Maybe cartography is one of your superpowers. You could be the navigator.’

  ‘I want to be the treasurer really.’

  ‘We don’t have any treasure.’

  ‘I’ve got thirty quid that those ladies gave me.’ He showed me three crumpled ten-pound notes. ‘Plus a mobile phone that someone gave me to take a picture with just before we ran away. So I’ve got treasure. That makes me the treasurer. So you’re the secretary. You need to write an agenda.’

  SECRET AGENDA

  ITEM 1: SUPERHERO NAMES (WE NEED SOME).

  ITEM 2: SUPERHERO EQUIPMENT.

  ITEM 3: SUPERHERO MISSION.

  ITEM 4: SUPERHERO STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES.

  TOP SECRET – EAT AFTER READING

  After he’d read it, Tommy-Lee said, ‘Eat what after reading?’

  ‘The secret agenda.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To keep it a secret.’

  ‘I’ve only just had breakfast.’

  ‘OK, I’ll eat it.’

  He passed me back the paper and I chewed it to a pulp. ‘So item one . . .’

  ‘What was item one?’

  ‘Tommy-Lee, you just read the secret agenda.’

  ‘I only read the bit about eating it. It got me so confused I forgot to read the rest.’

  Item 1: Superhero Names.

  ‘We’ve got to be called “green something”,’ said Tommy-Lee.

  ‘There are too many green things already. Green Hornet, Green Goblin, Green Lantern, Green Knight . . . We don’t have to call ourselves green something just because we’re green. Think of Hulk or She-Hulk.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She-Hulk. She’s a part-time member of the Fantastic Four.’

  ‘There were five people in the Fantastic Four?’

  ‘She’s like a substitute. Four Fantastics and one on the bench.’

  ‘Who’s the Green Knight?’

  ‘Not really a superhero. Just a knight. But if his head got chopped off, he could pick it up and put it back on again. So he was sort of invincible. It’s in King Arthur. Let’s be logical – Batman is Batman because he hangs around at night. Spider-Man is Spider-Man because he was bitten by a radioactive spider—’

  ‘What about Robin?’ said Tommy-Lee. ‘Was he pecked by a radioactive robin?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Catwoman . . . ?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Frogs are green. We could be called Frogman.’

  ‘That’s not a superhero. That’s a job.’

  ‘Tommy-Lee is a good name.’

  ‘What superhero uses his first name?! Imagine that. “Hello, I’m Bruce Batman and this is my friend Peter Spider-Man. Oh, and here comes Dr Bruce the Hulk.”’

  ‘Frog-Boy?’

  ‘Sounds like a trainee frogman.’

  ‘I’m definitely sticking to Tommy-Lee.’

  ‘If you use your own name, your enemies might be able to trace your true identity and maybe kidnap your little sister or something.’

  ‘I haven’t got a little sister. It’s just me and Mum.’

  ‘Kidnap your mum then.’

  ‘Have you met my mum?’

  I thought about Tommy-Lee’s mum kick-boxing. If anyone did kidnap her, they’d soon regret it.

  Item 2: Superhero Equipment.

  ‘We need capes at least,’ said Tommy-Lee. ‘And masks.’

  ‘What’s the point in wearing masks? The super thing about us is our distinctive green appearance. Why cover that up with a mask? Plus, you can’t really pick a costume until you have a name. It just creates confusion. Imagine Spider-Man going around in a bat cape. Or Batman dressed as a spider.’

  ‘That is true. But Batman’s got a Batcave, a Batcycle, a Batmobile and a butler. What have we got? Hypoallergenic pyjamas. We should have a vehicle at least. Like a Batmobile.’

  ‘Or an interplanetary surfboard like Silver Surfer.’

  A glum look came over Tommy-Lee’s face. ‘That’s not going to happen,’ he said. He lay down on his bed with his back to me, the way he used to when I first arrived. ‘I can’t go running around London in pyjamas and bare feet. My feet are important to me. They’re my weapon of choice. What’s the point in being superheroes if we don’t have Superhero Transport Options? Even if we had one, we couldn’t drive it.’

  Everything that had happened to us was hard to believe. It was hard to believe we’d turned green. But you could see that was true by looking in the mirror. It was much harder to believe that we’d changed inside too. We both knew we felt different, but if you thought too much about what kind of different – it seemed daft. All we could do was hold on to the feeling and see what happened, and not think too much about it. Like when you’re playing Star Wars when you’re little. You know that you haven’t got a real light sabre, but as long as you keep making the noises and acting like you’ve got one, it doesn’t matter. So that’s why I said to Tommy-Lee, ‘I can drive.’

  ‘No, you can’t.’

  ‘I can. My cousins live in Ireland. We go every summer. They let me drive a tractor.’ Tommy-Lee sat up. I said, ‘A tractor’s probably harder to drive than a car because it’s high up.’

  ‘So if you can drive a tractor, you can probably drive anything.’

  ‘Think about it, Tommy-Lee. What’s Batman’s superpower? He hasn’t got one. He’s just got loads of kit. Cars and boomerangs and super-lightweight climbing equipment. Which he bought because he’s so rich. Batman’s superpower is cash.’

  ‘That’s not really a superpower at all.’

  ‘Exactly. We are actually more super than Batman.’

  Item 3: Superhero Mission.

  Some people become super by accident – like being bitten by a spider or blown up by a Gamma Bomb. Some people are chosen to be heroes – for instance Hal Jordan, who became Green Lantern. The Green Lantern was part of the Green Lantern Corps, whose mission was to keep the universe safe from supervillains such as Sinestro.

  ‘Was his name really Sinestro?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So unfair.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, if you’re actually called Sinestro you’re hardly going to turn out to be good when you grow up, are you? I hate it when parents give their kids stupid names.’

  ‘The point is, the Green Lantern Corps uses the Central Power Battery to fight evil throughout the cosmos. They can turn bombs into water. He was chosen for the job because he was good and fair and could help people. What I’m saying is, we weren’t bitten by spiders, or blown up by Gamma Bombs, so maybe we were chosen to be green. For a purpose.’

  ‘Yeah, but I’m not good or fair. I�
��ve got anger-management issues . . .’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘. . . also kick-boxing skills.’

  ‘Anger-management issues plus kick-boxing skills is a terrible combination.’

  ‘The worst.’

  I wrote down, ‘Purpose of Mission – to be confirmed after further discussion.’

  Item 4: Superhero Strengths and Weaknesses

  All superheroes have strengths and weaknesses. For instance, the Green Lantern has the power to create physical objects out of nothing – that’s a strength. On the other hand, he can’t stand to look at anything yellow.

  Superman’s strength is . . . well, strength. He’s really strong. Except when there’s Kryptonite.

  Our strengths were: Tommy-Lee can kick-box and open locks in his sleep, I can slightly teleport and have a 200-per-cent brain. We have jumped off a high building without getting hurt and survived a close encounter with a male silverback gorilla.

  ‘What are our weaknesses?’

  Tommy-Lee said he didn’t have any. I pointed out he had a severe nut allergy.

  ‘That’s true. What about you?’

  ‘I definitely don’t have any weaknesses.’

  ‘You’re weak. That’s got to be a weakness.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘I could teach you kick-boxing. Then you wouldn’t be so weak.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘And then we can go out and kick bad guys to pieces as a team.’

  Hurting people takes more skill than you’d think. Even superheroes turn out to be not that good at it. ‘Look at Spider-Man in this picture,’ said Tommy-Lee, opening the old annual I’d taken from the waiting room. ‘Pulling your hand back like that and taking it all around the houses. He’s more likely to break his own wrist than the Green Goblin’s jaw. Here. I’ll show you.’

  We put our duvets on the floor to stop us being injured if we fell over. Tommy-Lee asked me what I wanted to do first. ‘Kicking or boxing? Kicking is best.’

  ‘Kicking then.’

  The first lesson in kick-boxing is Tommy-Lee gets hold of your foot and tries to get it to go higher than your head, while you try to stay standing up. But you fall over. The second lesson is pretty much the same. Plus also the third and fourth are completely the same. The fifth is similar but it takes longer to fall over and hurts more.

  According to Tommy-Lee, learning to fall over is very important.

  ‘Good job, as I’m getting loads of practice. I could end up World Falling-Over Champion.’

  When I fell over for the ninth time, he fell on top of me and we were both laughing. Rolling around on the floor laughing with Tommy-Lee is not something I ever expected to do in this life.

  When I got up off the floor, I noticed something on the glass. A smudge of foundation make-up. It didn’t take a 200-per-cent brain to work out that this meant Dr Brightside had been watching us.

  Somehow this made me feel uneasy.

  When she came to call, we tried to act less bouncy so she wouldn’t be suspicious. She was unusually bouncy herself. ‘Guess what – I’m going to give a lecture about you! That’s how interesting you are.’ She took loads of photographs of us for her PowerPoint presentation. ‘No, no. Don’t smile. You’re supposed to be sick, remember.’ We folded our arms and tried not smiling. ‘Wow,’ she said. ‘Fierce!’ She showed us the pictures on her camera screen. Neither of us said anything at the time, but we were both thinking the same thing – we looked like Invincible Fighters of Crime and Injustice. After that it was the usual – blow in a tube, blood test, wee in a bottle, stand next to the colour chart. ‘It’s a breakthrough, Tommy-Lee,’ she said. ‘That’s the very first time you haven’t asked me if you were getting any less green.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Tommy-Lee. ‘And are we?’

  ‘Not even a little bit.’

  ‘Oh well. Never mind.’

  ‘I thought you did mind. A lot.’

  ‘I mind less now that Rory’s here.’

  ‘Still, it must be boring for you both stuck in here. Shall I see if I can get you a PlayStation or something?’

  ‘Weights,’ said Tommy-Lee. ‘A bench press would be good. A punchbag. Anything to kick or punch really.’

  ‘There might be health-and-safety issues with some of those things, but I’ll see what they can spare down in physio.’

  In his bed that night, Tommy-Lee flicked through the old Spider-Man Annual. ‘Who would win,’ he said, ‘in a fight between the Green Knight and the Green Lantern?’

  ‘The Green Knight only has swords and armour, whereas the Green Lantern could use his ring to create an armour-piercing bazooka if he wanted. On the other hand, if you chop the Green Knight’s head off, he can put it on again.’

  ‘Yeah, but,’ said Tommy-Lee, ‘what if you chopped his arms off first?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you met the Green Knight and he was threatening you, all you’d need to do is chop off both his arms quick, before you chopped off his head. Then he wouldn’t be able to pick up his head to put it back on. See? Strategy.’

  ‘That is actually quite good.’

  ‘I’m a warrior. We could be called the Green Knights.’

  ‘That might be good too.’

  But Tommy-Lee was asleep.

  When I was on my own in the dark, I noticed something glowing on the floor. The phone that Tommy-Lee had stolen. It was warm in my hand, and the first thing I thought was – I could ring my mum. The second thing I thought was – I don’t know her mobile number. Or Dad’s. I rang the house phone instead. No one answered but it was good to hear Dad’s voice on call minder saying there was no one home just now but there probably soon would be. Then I noticed that the battery was only at thirty-nine per cent and, as we didn’t have a charger, I turned it off and went to sleep.

  And So Our Astounding Green Heroes Set Out on Their Mission . . .

  That night Tommy-Lee went straight to the cradle, as if he knew that something was wrong. We came slowly down the side of the building. London was waiting for us.

  A yellow light was flashing across the wheelie bins and bags of litter in our landing area. The cradle shuddered as it hit the ground. Tommy-Lee woke up.

  ‘What’s that?’

  A loud roboty voice was going, ‘Reversing . . . beep . . . beep . . . reversing . . . beep . . .’ over a grinding engine.

  ‘Look . . .’

  The yellow light washed over us, then went away, then came back. As it swept past us we saw four men. Big men with thick gloves and woolly hats. They wore white masks over their mouths and noses. They were heading for the bins.

  ‘They haven’t seen us,’ I said, crouching down in the cradle. ‘I think they must be—’

  ‘Robbers!’ said Tommy-Lee.

  ‘I was going to say bin men.’

  But Tommy-Lee had already leaped over the side of the cradle. He ran straight towards the men, going ‘Arrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!’ with his hands in the air. The men in the masks screwed up their eyes. They must have been thinking, Is it the light or is that kid green?

  Why is he green?

  Is he contagious?

  Tommy-Lee roared, ‘COME ON THEN!!! COME ON AND FIGHT!!!!’

  So the question of was he contagious didn’t matter any more. The real question was – Is he a completely crazy angry massive mutant bullfrog in pyjamas who is suddenly going to flick out a giant sticky tongue and splat one of us?!

  It’s the kind of question that makes you freeze.

  Then Tommy-Lee made the kind of terrifying noise that would make you unfreeze. And run away. Which is what they did. All four big men ran away from that one little boy. Well, one very large little boy.

  Tommy-Lee put his hands on his hips, threw back his head and did the kind of mad, Zorro-ish laugh you normally only get inside a speech bubble. Like, ‘Mwa ha ha ha ha ha haaaa! Rory Rooney, hurry up.’

  ‘Hurry up where?’

  He barged through the wheelie bins, kicked a
side bin bags and planted himself in front of a lorry. Its headlights were so bright and so many and its engines so loud and so smoky, it could have been a neatly parked spaceship. OK, it had ‘Your Bins R Our Business’ written on the side, but I didn’t want to bother Tommy-Lee with technical details. The front passenger door even made a kind of starship hiss when Tommy-Lee yanked it open.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?!’ shouted the driver. ‘This is authorized personnel o—’

  Before he could finish his sentence Tommy-Lee roared, ‘Pow! Kersplat!’ and jumped into the passenger seat. The driver took one look at him and shot out of the driver-side door into the night.

  ‘Rory, get in! We’ve got our vehicle!’

  ‘What?!’

  I clambered on board. It was surprisingly high up. There were rows of softly lit dials and switches along the dashboard that just seemed to be saying, ‘Play with me.’

  ‘Did you see? They all ran away from me! Like, whoosh. Like I was emitting some kind of force field. In fact, I think I probably was emitting some kind of force field. I think that might be my superpower.’

  ‘Your superpower is scaring bin men?’

  ‘Robbers. Didn’t you see? They were wearing masks and gloves, and they ran away. From me. And now we’ve got our vehicle!’

  ‘What vehicle?’

  He slapped the driving wheel. The horn blasted the night. ‘This vehicle,’ he said. ‘This is our super vehicle.’

  ‘This . . . oh . . . no. No, no, no, no!’

  ‘You said you could drive.’

  ‘Yeah, but this is . . . this is a bin lorry. It’s huge.’

  ‘You said you could drive anything.’ He looked so sad – like a very large little boy whose football has been confiscated.

  ‘I said I could drive a tractor. Over fields. Not on roads where you have to steer and indicate and stuff.’

  ‘You said you could drive anything. That’s why I got you this.’ He waved his hand around the cabin as though he’d made the entire bin lorry in metal-work at school as a special present just for me. He seemed so hurt I thought he might cry. Well, I thought, maybe if you’re in a big enough vehicle, indicating and steering aren’t that important. You never see the Batmobile indicating, do you?