Secret Identity

by Wendelin Van Draanen

She smiled. “Hey! I forgot to measure you. You've got time, come here.”

  “No, Mom! I've already got my shoes on! It's not like I'm going to shrink or anything. I've got to get to school!”

  “Okay, tomorrow then.” She grabbed my head and kissed it and called, “Nice job on your hair!” as I beat it out the door.

  Brother. Superheroes don't get kissed on the top of their head!

  I did my power-walk and got to school fast. And the same two kids who said, “Slow down, Nerd!” before were hanging out on the steps and they said it again.

  I was two power steps past them when all of a sudden I stopped, turned around, and went back.

  Their eyes opened a little in surprise.

  “Hi,” I said. “My name's Nolan. What's yours?”

  “Uh, Eddie.”

  “Uh… Matt.”

  “Hi, Eddie. Hi, Matt. Please don't call me Nerd anymore, okay? My name's Nolan.”

  Eddie laughed. “But, dude, you do that funky walk. It looks so geeky.”

  “But it's fast!” I said. “Don't you ever have to get somewhere fast when you're not supposed to run?”

  They both shrugged.

  Then Matt said, “But no way I'd walk like that.”

  “Well, it may look funny, but it works great. Anyway, call me Nolan, okay?”

  “Sure,” they both said.

  I blinked. Wow. They said “Sure.” No “Nerd” added at the last second, just “Sure.” I smiled at them and took off.

  I might have been able to throw a few handfuls of confetti around before we had to go to class, but there were two reasons why I didn't: One, I didn't want just a few papers here and there— I wanted papers everywhere! And two, I couldn't risk anyone seeing me.

  Anyone.

  I looked around at all the kids. At all the classroom windows. How was I ever going to get my confetti everywhere without being seen?

  The breeze was still blowing. If only I could get my confetti into the wind! If only I could get it to sail across the playground and scatter everywhere!

  But how?

  I looked up. If I could get on the roof of a portable classroom, the breeze would carry my confetti much farther than if I just scattered it at ground level.

  I checked the direction that the breeze was blowing. If I wanted the confetti to blow across the playground, I'd have to climb onto Room 17 or 18, or the computer lab.

  But how was I going to get on the roof? The portables all had ramp rails and downspouts, but I'd never make it. It was too straight up.

  I ran behind the portables. Same story. But Mr. Hoover's pickup truck was parked behind the computer lab—

  I moved closer.

  I could climb on Mr. Hoover's truck and then… there was a power panel box on the computer lab wall! Plus a pipe coming out of the power panel and going up. And then there was the backside of the air conditioner… and a big floodlight, too! If I could get up to the air conditioner, I could get on the roof!

  Or at least, Shredderman could.

  The last bell rang, so I ran to class. Was I really going to do this? Could I really climb a roof? I had trouble climbing little trees and monkey bars. A roof1.

  I couldn't pay attention in class. All I could think about was, could I do it? Would Mr. Hoover move his truck before I could try? What if I fell and no one found me?

  What if I got caught?

  Then, in the middle of watching a scorpion battle a rat on a nature video, I put up the signal for having to use the bathroom.

  Mr. Green saw me and gave me the nod.

  I snuck through the dark with my backpack, and out the door.

  I looked all around.

  The coast was clear.

  It was time for Shredderman to climb a roof!

  CHAPTER 10

  Confetti Hits the Fan

  Mr. Hoover's truck was still there.

  Wa-hoo!

  I strapped on my pack, jumped in the back, and climbed on the cab roof. The metal buckled a little under my feet.

  Oops.

  I lifted one foot onto the computer lab's power panel.

  I grabbed the pipe.

  I pulled myself up!

  Then I just stood there, flat against the wall. If the truck wasn't there, I'd be in trouble. It was a long way down!

  Okay, I told myself, get moving.

  I reached for the air conditioner with one hand and held on to the pipe with the other. It was farther away than it looked from the ground. Higher up, too.

  Don't look down, I told myself. Don't look down.

  I glued my eyes to the air conditioner. My right hand had a good grip over the top of it, and I was about to go for it when I felt something tickling my hand.

  It was creepy.

  Crawly.

  And the next thing I knew, a big black spider was dive-bombing me from the air conditioner.

  “Aaarrgh!”

  I swatted, I shook. I panicked, I slipped. And when it was all over, the spider had disappeared and I was hanging on to the pipe, scared out of my mind.

  One toe was wedged onto one of the brackets that held the pipe to the wall. The other foot was dangling around looking for something to grip on to.

  I tried to reach the air conditioner, but I couldn't.

  I couldn't go back to the power panel, either.

  Could I pull myself up the pipe? Maybe if I got higher, I could get my foot on the air conditioner.

  Inch by inch, I pulled myself up, wishing I could climb walls like The Gecko. I used muscles I didn't even know were there. I grabbed toeholds that didn't even look as big as a toe. I cut my hand on a bracket. I learned what sweating bullets means.

  But I did it. I got myself onto the air conditioner.

  I stood on it for a minute, catching my breath. Shaking.

  Shredderman was definitely not The Gecko. Or Spider-Man.

  But there I was. My head was above the roof. All I had to do was get the rest of me up there.

  I reached up, swung my foot to the floodlight, pushed off, and pulled up.

  Two seconds later, Shredderman was on the roof.

  Wa-hoo!

  I hunched over and tiptoed across the middle of the roof, trying not to make any noise. It seemed like such a long way from the back to the front!

  When I was almost there, I dropped down on all fours and crawled. At the edge, I peeked over.

  A kid was going into Room 20.

  The door closed.

  I looked left.

  I looked right.

  No one else was around!

  I peeled off my backpack and dug out the Ziploc bags. I started flinging handfuls of confetti into the air. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

  I went into speedy mode and scattered the rest of the first bag.

  I shook out the second bag!

  Purple and yellow paper fluttered up, down, out… it was flying everywhere!

  It was beautiful!

  Awesome!

  Amazing!

  I felt like throwing both my arms in the air and shouting, “Shredderman lives!” Instead, I grabbed my stuff and ran across the roof, back to the air conditioner.

  And when I looked down, Mr. Hoover's truck was pulling away.

  Uh-oh.

  I stood there a minute, not knowing what to do. Superheroes don't call for help. They are the help. And I had to get down from there fast.

  So I took a deep breath and lowered myself over the roof and onto the air conditioner.

  I sat down on the air conditioner and reached for the pipe, telling myself, You can do this. You can do this.

  I grabbed the pipe with one hand, held on to the air conditioner with the other, then let myself down, with one foot pushing against the side of the air conditioner, the other against the pipe.

  When I got a toehold on a pipe bracket, I pushed off of the air conditioner, hung on the pipe for a second, then swung over to the power panel.

  So far, down was much easier than up.

  And if the truck ha
d still been there, it would have been all over. But the truck was gone and now I only had one choice.

  Jump.

  One, two, three! I pushed off and flew to the ground.

  Guess what. Shredderman is not Superman, either. I landed hard, fell over, and scraped both hands and an arm.

  Everything hurt, but nothing was broken. So after a few seconds of shaking off the pain, I got up and dusted off. Then I snuck around the building and back to class.

  The video was still going, so I squeezed through the door and slid into my seat.

  Mr. Green was talking with a student over in the corner. The kids at my table were watching a snake swallow something with a really long tail. No one even seemed to notice I'd been gone.

  Mission impossible, not so impossible!

  And as I sat there catching my breath, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd just done. How being Shredderman was making me do things that I'd only ever dreamed about before.

  Maybe I was banged up and scraped up, but I felt good.

  No, I felt great!

  And for once I had something in common with every other kid at school—I couldn't wait for recess.

  CHAPTER 11

  Dr. Voss Comes Knocking

  When the recess bell finally rang, I waited until almost everyone else was out the door. And when I did go outside, all my beautiful, awesome papers were just lying there.

  Like trash.

  Kids were walking on them. Running over them.

  Ignoring them.

  I felt like calling, Hey! Check out the confetti. Read it! Instead, I walked around with a lump in my throat.

  Then I heard one of the fourth-grade teachers say, “What in the world? Look at this mess!” She picked up a purple slip and read it.

  She picked up another.

  And another.

  Pretty soon she had a whole handful of confetti.

  A girl came up to her and said, “What is that, Mrs. Bernhart?” and picked one up, too.

  Mrs. Bernhart blinked around at the blacktop and sand. Her mouth was hanging open. She ripped the paper out of the girl's hand. Then she did a power-walk. Straight for the office.

  The girl picked another strip off the ground and read it. “Hey!” she called to a friend. “Look at this!”

  That's all it took. It spread like a cyber-virus around the playground. Everyone was picking up slips. Everyone was talking to their friends. Kids were smiling. Laughing. Giggling. Showing each other what their slip said. And they were running all over the place to see if there was more. Something on a slip they hadn't read yet. There wasn't a ball bouncing anywhere on the playground!

  I could hear their voices. “Shredderman… ? Shredderman… Shredderman…!” It was quiet at first, but got louder. And louder! Like a swarm of bees getting bigger and bigger.

  Mrs. Bernhart came back, and she wasn't alone. Another teacher, Miss Simms, was with her. So was our principal, Dr. Voss!

  Pretty soon all the teachers were in a huddle near the bathrooms. Even Mr. Green. They were talking rapid-fire, too. Hands were waving. Heads were shaking. They didn't know what to do. It was too late to stop it.

  Then Freddy came up from behind me and shoved my shoulder. “Why are you just standing here, Nerd?”

  I caught my balance, then turned and shoved him back.

  Hard.

  And before I could believe I'd done that, out of my mouth popped, “Nothing, okay, Pee-boy?”

  He blinked at me, then just stood there like I'd hit him with a stun gun.

  I took a step back and said, “You're Freddy, I'm Nolan. Got it?”

  He nodded.

  Then he followed me as I walked away, saying, “I just couldn't believe you weren't checking these out.” He handed me a purple slip. “They're about Bubba.”

  “Bubba?” I said, trying to act like I didn't know anything about it. “What's this Shredderman stuff about?”

  “I don't know! But I sure want to check it out. You think Miss Surkit will let us on the Internet?”

  I blinked at him. And I wanted to say, Us? but instead I laughed and said, “Worth a try!”

  The computer lab was open, but we didn't see Miss Surkit right away. She's really short—even shorter than most of the upper graders—so it's easy to miss her. But Freddy spotted her behind her computer.

  “Miss Surkit?” I asked. She was grinning from ear to ear.

  “Huh?” she said, looking up.

  Before she could switch back to the browser's home page, I saw my home page flash on her monitor.

  She'd been visiting shredderman.com!

  “Yes, Nolan? Well, hi there, Freddy.”

  I said, “We were wondering if we could use the Internet?”

  She raised an eyebrow and asked, “Was there a particular site you wanted to visit?” She picked a piece of confetti off her desk and wagged it at us. “I don't think Dr. Voss is going to permit visits to shredderman.com, if that's what you're after.”

  “Darn!” Freddy said.

  “Bummer,” I added, trying hard not to smile.

  As we left the computer lab, Freddy said, “Wow. If they're censoring it, it must be good.” Then he took off down the ramp, calling, “See you back in class.”

  By the end of recess, confetti was in pockets everywhere. There was almost none of it left on the ground.

  Back in class, people tried to ask Bubba what was going on, but he just got mad. “I don't know, stupid! You think I know? How am I supposed to know, huh?”

  Then, like a couple of dumbmunks, Kevin and Max said, “Yeah, how's he supposed to know, huh?”

  Mr. Green had barely gotten everyone to quit talking when Dr. Voss came into the room.

  My heart stopped.

  I could see it on her face—she knew!

  Boy, was I in deep, deep doo-doo.

  Dr. Voss whispered something to Mr. Green.

  They both looked very serious.

  Then Dr. Voss left the room, but we could see her waiting outside.

  Mr. Green said, “Okay, gang. Take out your social studies books and begin reading on page one-forty-nine. We'll be answering questions at the end of the section. Numbers one through ten.”

  We pulled out our books.

  We turned to page 149.

  We looked at Dr. Voss, waiting outside.

  Then Mr. Green moved between the tables. He was headed straight for ours! My heart was pounding. How had they figured it out? How had I given myself away? I'd even registered shredderman.com to Shredderman. I hadn't used any part of my real name anywhere!

  But Mr. Green didn't stop at our table. He walked right past me.

  Right over to Table 6.

  And two seconds later, it was Bubba Bixby, not me, who was on his way to the office.

  CHAPTER 12

  Yours in Truth and Justice

  I didn't see Bubba again for the rest of the day. But at lunch, kids in the food line were all talking about him.

  “Where's Bubba?”

  “Someone said he was hauled off by Dr. Voss!”

  “What did he do?”

  “I don't know…but he must've done something wickeder than usual.”

  “I can't wait to check out that Shredderman site.”

  “Me neither.”

  I kept my head down and my mouth shut. At the lunch tables, no one knew anything, either, but everyone was guessing.

  “I bet Bubba got suspended.”

  “Maybe expelled!”

  “It's about time.”

  “No kidding!”

  “What if he's Shredderman?”

  “Can't be. Didn't you read these?”

  “Yeah, but… what's ‘comic’ mean, anyway?”

  “Funny, stupid. Like comedian?”

  “Don't call me stupid, or I'll call you Bubba.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  I just drank my milk and tried to keep a straight face.

  It was actually pretty quiet for the rest of the day. Mr. Green seemed re
ally spacey. He even for-got our fifteen minutes of music time, and he never forgets music time.

  After school, I charged home. I didn't do my power-walk, either. I ran!

  “Have a good day, honey?” my mom asked from her computer.

  “Great!” I said, and peeled off my backpack. “The best!”

  “Really? What happened?” Then she noticed my arm. “Hey… that's quite a scrape.”

  “Yeah, I… I fell down.”

  “Oooh, your hands, too,” she said, flipping them over. “Let's clean them up, huh?”

  Do superheroes let their moms clean them with iodine? I doubt it, but there was no getting out of it. And while I cringed and hissed, she said, “So, tell me—what was so great about today?”

  “I… well, I stuck up for myself. Twice.”

  “Oh?” One of her eyebrows reached for the sky.

  “Yeah. Once when these two older guys were making fun of my power-walk, and once when Freddy called me Nerd.”

  “Really?” she said. “That's wonderful news! Good for you!”

  “It worked out fine, too. I think those sixth graders might actually try my power-walk sometime.” Then I added, “It gets you places fast.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “I know.”

  She rubbed me down with Neosporin, then kissed me on the head and said, “I'm proud of you for sticking up for yourself, honey.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  She cut me some apples and cheese, and after I'd wolfed those down, I went straight to my room.

  I booted up, loaded shredderman.com, and scrolled straight to the site counter.

  It said 27.

  Already?

  Oh, yeah!

  And there were e-mail messages for shredderman@shredderman.com! Seven of them!

  I read them all quick. Six were good, one was bad—said they thought Alvin and the Dumbmunks was the stupidest thing they'd ever seen.

  Probably sent by Kevin or Max.

  But the good ones were great! Someone said: Shredderman, you rock! Keep on shredding!

  Someone else said: How'd you catch him? I can't believe it! Who ARE you????? P.S. Can I be your sidekick?

  I answered every one and signed them all:

  Yours in truth and justice, Shredderman.

  It was more fun than Christmas.

  Then I copied the messages that didn't have bad words and pasted them into a new This Just In link, leaving the person's name off if they'd signed it.