Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities

by Mike Jung

  “I already know how to fight, and I don’t care about any of the other stuff,” Polly said.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t know, because it SUCKS?” Polly said. “Because I don’t LIKE fighting giant robots? Because my life is already full of crap I’m SUPPOSED to do, instead of stuff I actually WANT to do?”

  “I don’t get it,” George said. “Who wouldn’t want to be Captain Stupendous?”

  “Her, obviously.” Max pointed at Polly with his thumb.

  “He didn’t ASK me!” Polly said, her eyes closed into angry slits. “He always … he …” She took a deep breath and her eyes suddenly drooped down at the corners. “He always asked me about stuff, instead of just telling me to do it. But this time he didn’t ask, he just did it.”

  “But … but what about keeping the city safe?” I said. “You heard Professor Mayhem, he’s planning to spring some kind of surprise attack! If you quit, who’s gonna stop him?”

  What would I do if Captain Stupendous wasn’t around anymore? Seriously. Being a Captain Stupendous fan was pretty much my whole reason for being alive.

  Polly’s forehead crinkled up, and she clenched her jaw.

  “Somebody else,” she said.

  I wondered if the transfer of powers caused brain damage or something.

  Max held his arms open and gave a really broad smile, like he was a game show host greeting the crowd.

  “No worries, I’ll do it,” he said. “Give the powers to me.”

  George started jumping about three feet straight up. He pumped his hand over his head at the top of each jump, and his mouth was open in a perfectly round O shape.

  “No, no, me, me!” he said. “Give ’em to me!”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “It can’t be one of you guys, SHE was handpicked by Captain Stupendous to be his successor!”

  “Well, dude, we know it’s not gonna be you,” Max said. “Have you ever seen yourself try to punch somebody? It’s embarrassing to watch.”

  “Shut up, Max,” I said. I punched him on the shoulder, but he just flicked at me with the fingers of his other hand, like he was brushing away a mosquito.

  “See?” Max said.

  “You do hit like a girl, Vincent,” George said.

  “WHY ARE YOU GUYS BEING SO MEAN?” I yelled—I mean, it was like BAM, somebody’d just poured a bucket of angry juice over my head.

  Max and George both leaned away from me, George with his mouth open and Max with his mouth puckered up and his eyebrows bunched together.

  “What’s going on?” George said to Max.

  “I dunno. What’s with you lately, Vincent?”

  “What’s with me lately is how you guys have been ganging up on me! What’s your problem?”

  “Dude, calm yourself,” Max said. “We don’t have a problem.”

  “I should just beat up all three of you,” Polly said, and that broke the tension because she sounded pissed off enough to actually try. “Do you know how to do it?”

  “How to do what?” All three of us said it at the same time.

  Polly grabbed her hair with both hands.

  “GET RID OF THE POWERS,” she said.

  “No,” I said.

  “We didn’t even know it was possible,” George said.

  “Mr. Zazueta did it right in front of you, didn’t he?” Max said.

  “I DIDN’T HEAR HOW HE DID IT,” Polly said. “The only thing he actually told me how to do was to say ‘stupendify’ to change back and forth. Were you dummies listening to anything I said?”

  “I guess you’re stuck,” I said.

  “What a rip-off,” George said. “It should totally be one of us, guys are just stronger than girls—no offense.”

  “What?” Polly said, with a squinty-eyed look.

  “I said, you’ll get more respect as a man than—OW!”

  Polly punched George twice in the arm at lightning speed, POW, POW. They weren’t just regular punches either, there was something Enter the Dragon and chop-socky about the way she balanced herself and made fists with both hands. George rubbed his arm and looked at Polly like a kicked puppy, with his eyes all big and droopy at the corners.

  “You hit pretty hard for a girl,” Max said, with new respect in his voice. George turned the kicked-puppy look on Max.

  “I can hit harder than that,” Polly said, cracking her knuckles. “I’ve been taking karate for six years. I can kick three boards in half.”

  “THREE?” Max said. “Wow! Vincent can’t even open a jar of pickles by himself!”

  I tried to kick Max in the shin, but I, um, missed.

  “Thanks,” I said, hoping Polly couldn’t see how red my face actually was. “Thanks a lot, Max.”

  “Vincent, you gotta lighten up, I’m just messing with you.”

  “Right. Just messing with me.”

  “Could you hit a guy in the solar plexus if you had to?” George said, looking a little less mopey. “I hear you can kill somebody that way.”

  “Yeah, I know where the solar plexus is,” Polly said.

  “Huh,” George said. “Maybe you actually could take on Professor Mayhem.”

  Polly sat down on a rock and put her hands on top of her head.

  “Why would I want to do a stupid thing like that?” she said.

  “You have to,” I said. “You HAVE to, Polly.”

  “I don’t HAVE to do anything.” Polly put her hands on her knees and gave me a dirty look. “I have enough people thinking I’m a freak without turning into a DUDE IN SPANDEX.”

  “We’ll teach you how to be Captain Stupendous. You have to do it,” I said in desperation.

  “Seriously, Polly, supervillains are really big on warning superheroes about their evil plans,” Max said. “It’s like they all have a disease that makes them brag about all the details of their plans ahead of time.”

  “My mom would probably say it’s a personality disorder,” George said.

  “If Mayhem says he’s got a surprise for you, he’ll definitely spring it soon,” I said. “You gotta be there to stop him.”

  “What about other superheroes?” Polly said. “Atomic Aardvark or somebody like that.”

  Atomic Aardvark, secret identity unknown. Powers: flight, radiation control, radiation resistance. According to witnesses he’s kind of a jerk.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m not friends with Atomic Aardvark,” Max said.

  Polly and I stared at each other, eyeball to eyeball.

  “This is like fate or something, isn’t it?” George said, looking at Max and cracking his knuckles. His voice went way up on “isn’t it?”

  “It’s like destiny,” Max said, with his arms crossed and his head slowly nodding. He was also giving Polly another really wide smile. Max does not smile that much in regular life. I shook my head, and—AHA!—thought of the PERFECT thing to convince Polly.

  “What do you think Mr. Zazueta would say?”

  Polly crinkled up her forehead and looked away. “I don’t care what he’d say, but he’d probably say something like you have to do what’s right for everyone, but only if it’s right for you.”

  “Every man for himself, huh?” George said. “Mr. Zazueta should hang out with my dad.”

  “Dude, no,” I said. “That’s not it at all.”

  “No, it’s not.” Polly actually agreed with me! Ha! “He wasn’t like that. I told you, Mr. Zazueta was cool.”

  She took a couple of steps back and looked at me again. “What would you do?” she said.

  “I know what I’d do, I’d—” Max started, but Polly cut him off.

  “I’m asking Vincent.”

  Well, now, that was interesting. Of course I’d dreamed about being Captain Stupendous like every other kid in Copperplate City, maybe in the whole world.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I’d do it.”

  “You guess?” George said.

  “Why do you say ‘I guess’?” Polly s
aid in a hard voice. She put her hands on her hips.

  I was figuring out what to say as I said it, so I talked real slow.

  “Because … it’d be a big deal, right? Not just because of the responsibility and stuff, but because it’s, like, you knew him! As a regular person, not a superhero. It’s … I don’t know, it’s different because of that.”

  “I don’t get it,” George said.

  “But I’d still do it. Because the world still needs Captain Stupendous.”

  There were two beats of silence, then Max reached over and clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “Okay,” Polly said. “Tell you what, I’ll give you a chance to change my mind—ONE chance—but only on one condition.”

  I didn’t let out a sigh of relief or anything—the situation was still twenty-two varieties of messed up—but I felt better knowing Polly wouldn’t just cut out the center of my entire existence. Or, you know, let Professor Mayhem destroy the city or whatever.

  “Name it.”

  “Don’t try and recruit me to join your little club.” Polly crossed her arms. “I don’t join stuff. Got it?”

  Well, what a pisser. Why wouldn’t she want to join us? Still, it was better than having her brush us off completely.

  “Okay.”

  “So what do we do now?” George said.

  “I better go home,” Polly said. “My mom’s showing a house at three, and she’ll freak out if I’m not there when she gets home. She’s been really twitchy since the robot-almost-killing-me thing.”

  “Can’t you tell her you’re hanging out with us?” I said. “Tell her about the club.”

  Polly hooted. “Oh yeah, that’s not gonna freak her out.”

  “Let’s meet up at club headquarters tomorrow, then,” Max said.

  “Yeah, let’s … I was about to say that.” I didn’t exactly give Max a mean look, but it wasn’t a friendly look either.

  Polly changed into Stupendous form and flew off.

  “What’s your deal, Vincent?” Max said as soon as Stupendous was gone. “You’re being superpissy, it’s bumming me out.”

  “Me too,” George said, standing slightly behind Max.

  “I’m bumming you out?” I couldn’t believe my nubby little ears. “You guys have been all ‘oh, we went to the beach without you,’ and ‘oh, Vincent’s being so touchy,’ and ‘oh, let’s just do this and totally ignore Vincent again.’ Why are you being so bossy about everything?”

  “I’m not being bossy.” Max crossed his arms and knitted his eyebrows, which of course made him look totally bossy.

  “You are being a little touchy,” George said to me.

  “I AM NOT BEING TOUCHY.”

  We made the long ride back to my house in silence. When we pulled into my driveway there was a cop car parked there, which instantly made things less tense—after superheroes, nothing gets the conversation going again like cop cars.

  “Is that your mom’s boyfriend’s car?” Max said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “She said he was coming over for dinner.”

  “Do you think he’d let us do a ride-along sometime?” George actually pressed his forehead against the window of the cop car as we looked in.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Probably not.”

  “Your mom would lose it if you rode along in a cop car,” Max said.

  “Well, you know, peace, love, and understanding and all that crap. Unless she’s breaking up with a boyfriend or girlfriend—then it’s like global nuclear war,” George said. Max patted him on the back, but in a gentle way, not in his usual violent way.

  There weren’t any handcuffs or shotguns or anything good in Bobby’s car, so we stopped looking. George and I leaned our bikes against the house while Max just let his fall over with a crash. We went straight to club headquarters for a debriefing session.

  “What are we gonna do tomorrow?” George said, flopping into a chair.

  “We should totally show Polly some battle clips,” Max said. “To, you know, make her understand how awesome Captain Stupendous is.”

  “What about Cloudsplitter?” I said.

  “Nah, we gotta start with Cyclotron,” Max said. He sat down and put his feet up on the table. “Giant robot then, giant robot now. Totally makes sense.”

  I resisted the urge to slap my forehead at the continued bossiness.

  “Yeah, but the battle with Cloudsplitter was more cool,” George said. Thank you, George! “We have to show her how cool it is to be Stupendous, don’t we?”

  “We don’t have enough time for that,” Max said.

  There was a knock on the door, and like usual, Mom opened it without waiting for an answer.

  “Hi, boys,” she said.

  “Hi, Ms. Keller,” George said.

  “Hi, Vincent’s mom,” Max said in his new manly-man voice, sounding … okay, he actually did sound older. Dumbest way ever to say hi to somebody’s mom, but Max thinks it’s funny.

  “Mom! How about waiting for us to let you in?” I said. She completely ignored me, of course—no reason why she should be different from anyone else; she’s only my MOTHER.

  “Bobby’ll be back with dinner any minute, Vincent, it’s time to get ready.”

  “Okay, Mom. How about waiting for us to let you in? Hello?”

  Mom ignored me and shut the door, and Max and George dragged themselves out of their chairs reeeeeally slowly.

  “What are you having for dinner?” George said, with hope in his voice.

  “Sorry, guys. Mom specifically told me this is family only.”

  “Bobby’s not family,” George said.

  “Yeah, well, when you start dating my mom you can call yourself family.”

  “I would totally date your mom,” Max said, with a grin.

  “AAAAAUUUGH!” George and I said in unison.

  “Dude, that’s my mom you’re talking about! Cut it out!”

  “And stay away from my mom,” George said, with a shudder.

  “Is your mom even home tonight?” Max asked George.

  George shrugged. “It’s not like I don’t have a key. You sure we can’t stay, Vincent? Maybe I could get Bobby to take us for a ride!”

  “Sorry, dude. Mom’s really big on having Bobby and me, you know, bond.” I actually was sorry, but not too much since, except for Mom, I’d have Bobby to myself. “Tomorrow, guys,” I said. “We have to get Polly on board with being Stupendous, and fast.”

  For a long time my least favorite four-word phrase was “dinner with Mom’s boyfriend,” but Bobby broke that streak. I usually find out pretty quickly how lame Mom’s boyfriends are, because I’m forced to hang out with them. Bobby isn’t creepy, he doesn’t try to be like a dad, and he gets to carry a gun. He is actually kind of cool, unlike Mom’s ex-boyfriend the dentist, who tried to get me to like him by giving me free toothbrushes.

  I ran out into the yard, up the back steps, and into the house. Mom was closing her laptop on the kitchen table when I came in. She brushed a little bit of hair off her forehead. In my baby pictures her hair is all the way down to her shoulders—it looks really blond in those pictures—but she was just a teacher back then. She got one of those old-people-style haircuts when she got her first job as a school principal. Someone once told me my mom looks young for her age, but it was one of my teachers, who was probably even older than my mom. Old people like to talk about how young other old people look. Mom gave me a hug, and I let her do it.

  “Where’s Bobby?” I said. “His car’s in the driveway.”

  “He wanted to get some exercise, so he walked over to Excelsior Pizza. He’ll be back any minute.”

  Score! Detective Bobby Carpenter was getting a head start on racking up brownie points. “Hey, Mom, did you know Mr. Zazueta at my school?” Who DIED right before school started under mysterious circumstances? I thought they were mysterious, anyway.

  “I did, actually,” Mom said. She rubbed her eyes with the back
of her hand. “Miguel was a good man.”

  “Were you, like, friends or something?”

  “We weren’t terribly close, but, yes, I considered him a friend.” Mom sighed. “We went to high school together, you know.”

  I didn’t know that! “So Dad knew him too?”

  “Yes. It’s probably been hard for you at school with him being gone.”

  Uh, no, not really …

  “I guess.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mom said. “Anyway, this Professor Mayhem is bound to fail, Vincent. Captain Stupendous will handle it.”

  I wasn’t so sure, and I could tell by the crease in her forehead that Mom wasn’t either, but I didn’t get into it.

  “Sure,” I said. “Is Bobby working on the Professor Mayhem case?”

  “Bobby’s part of the team handling it, yes,” Mom said. “He has experience collaborating with superheroes. Did I tell you he was involved in the capture of Jane Don’t?”

  Jane Don’t, aka Geraldine Holtz. Powers: sonic shriek, superspeed, the ability to spit daggers. Seriously, when she spits, it automatically turns into a tiny, sharp dagger. She was only caught because Hummingbird is really good with daggers.

  “I already knew,” I said. “That’s so awesome that he worked with Hummingbird.”

  “I’m glad you think so,” Mom said. “Bobby was the police department’s liaison with Hummingbird—I think he has similar hopes for working with Captain Stupendous.”

  REALLY, NOW. Veddy interrresting.

  “Bobby likes you, you know.”

  “That’s cool,” I said as the doorbell rang.

  “Speak of the devil,” Mom said.

  I headed for the dining room while Mom went to the front door. I heard the sound of her and Bobby’s voices getting closer as they walked through the living room, then Mom came into the dining room with Bobby right behind her. He had a big, flat box from Excelsior Pizza (not as good as Spud’s, but not bad) in his hand, and it smelled tasty—the box, not his hand.

  “Hi, Vincent,” Bobby said. He stuck out his hand. “How are you?”

  “Hey, Bobby,” I said. Mom gave me a stiff-fingered ninja poke in the back, and I stuck out my hand too. Bobby grabbed it, squeezed once, and let go. Mom poked me again.