by Mark Crilley
When the final bell rang at the end of Monday’s last class, Billy grabbed his backpack, hopped on his skateboard, and headed for Marvy Marv’s, his skateboarding supplier of choice. He’d only just gotten off school property when a familiar voice called after him.
“Yo, Clikkmaster Flash!”
Nelson, thought Billy with a groan. Leave it to him to wreck an otherwise good day.
Nelson Skubblemeyer shuffled over to Billy, wearing his usual wannabe-trendy baggy pants and football jersey. Jake was right behind him. Here we go. Today Nelson looked even more ridiculous than usual, since whoever had rebleached his hair over the weekend—Jake, no doubt—had totally blown it, leaving him looking like a platinum-furred dalmatian.
“Clikkmaster, what’s the big rush, my man?” Nelson pulled his shades down just enough to peer over them with his beady eyes. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you were tryin’ to avoid me.”
“Dude,” said Jake, “we got a job for you.” He was wearing the same ensemble Nelson was, only three or four sizes bigger and considerably more wrinkled, as if he’d slept in it (a very real possibility, knowing Jake). He was holding a rolled-up stack of loose-leaf with red marks all over it.
“Check it out, Clikkmaster,” said Nelson, nodding in the direction of the loose-leaf and pushing his shades back up in front of his eyes. “My man Jake here has a sit-uation,” he added, drawing the last word out to create an unnaturally big gap between sit and chewation.
“Yeah,” said Jake, as if he were clarifying something. “A situation.”
“He’s got this paper he wrote for Mrs. Dembinski’s class,” said Nelson. “I helped him rewrite it, but the lady must’ve been confused or something ’cause it came back with a worse grade than what he started with.”
“Now it’s your turn,” said Jake, thrusting the paper into Billy’s chest. “You get good grades. You know all about writing and stuff.” He said it as if it were a disease Billy suffered from.
Billy kept his hands at his sides. Taking hold of the paper would be seen as an acceptance of Jake’s demand.
How can I get this guy to back off? Permanently.
“Take it, man,” said Jake, stepping to within a foot of Billy’s face. Billy stopped breathing through his nose. Too late: he now had ample—and very much unwanted—evidence that Jake’s snack du jour had been Cool Ranch Doritos.
“Take it,” said Jake. Now the loose-leaf was unrolled and raised to within an inch of Billy’s chin, like a knife to his throat.
“Clikkmaster,” said Nelson. “You’re a smart guy. You’re not going to give Jake any trouble …” Nelson lowered his shades again and gave Billy a brotherly wink. “… are you?”
Billy took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was so tired of backing down. He wanted to put Jake in his place, but how could he do it without breaking AFMEC rules? He couldn’t. That was all there was to it.
“I’m not going to ask you again,” said Jake, as if the phrase “Take it” had been a question.
“Listen, Jake,” said Billy. “If I rewrite that paper for you, Mrs. Dembinski will see your writing suddenly get better overnight. Then she’ll get suspicious.”
Jake frowned and drew his unibrow down over his eyes. Nelson shook his head with a pained expression on his face. He cupped a hand to one side of his mouth and whispered, “Don’t do this to yourself, man. You haven’t seen the kind of damage Jake can do.”
“Let me finish,” said Billy, keeping his eyes on Jake. “See, what you need is a series of papers, not just one. You need a series of papers that get better and better. That way it looks like you’re improving naturally.”
Nelson and Jake stared and said nothing, unsure of where Billy was going with this.
“Yeah,” continued Billy, raising a finger to signify that he had now hatched the perfect scheme. “What we’ll do is have me start rewriting all your papers from now on.”
Nelson did a double take worthy of a corny TV sitcom. He squinted at Billy, trying to decide if he was joking. Jake just grinned as if he’d expected Billy to cave all along.
“I’ll bring this one up to a C,” Billy said. “Okay, maybe a C-minus,” he added, making it sound as if he were able to work Mrs. Dembinski’s grading system with surgical precision. “Then with the next one I’ll get you into the high Cs. After that a B-minus won’t seem so weird. Then I’ll have you coast along with B-pluses for a few months before I turn in your first A.”
Nelson was now nodding with a grin of his own. Billy’s straight-faced delivery had left little doubt that his proposal was meant to be taken seriously.
“Clikkmaster,” said Nelson. “You are the man with the plan. You hear that?” he said, turning to Jake. “He’s gonna start writing all your papers. All of ’em!”
“Maybe I was wrong about you, dude,” said Jake to Billy, folding his arms like a Mafia boss granting a promotion to one of his underlings. “You’re all right.”
“Deal?” said Billy, extending his right hand.
“You kidding?” said Jake, laughing and throwing a can-you-believe-this-guy glance at Nelson. “Deal,” Jake said, and slapped his hand into Billy’s.
Billy closed his fingers around Jake’s and smiled, shaking his hand slowly and firmly. He closed his fingers more firmly still and kept shaking. The handshake went on and on.
“All right, dude,” said Jake with a pained smile. “You got a strong handshake. I get the idea.”
Billy closed his fingers even more tightly around Jake’s. Several months of AFMEC hand-to-hand-combat training had given Billy a formidable grip.
“Dude,” said Jake, trying to pull his hand out of Billy’s. It was impossible. “Let go of my hand.” Jake was trying to sound tough, but a hint of pleading had come into his voice.
“Have to seal the deal, Jake,” said Billy, tightening his grip yet further. “We’re talking about a very long relationship here, you and me.” Billy’s eyes locked onto Jake’s. “An understanding.”
Jake dropped the loose-leaf on the ground. Nelson stood slack-jawed and speechless, amazed by the sight of someone standing up to Jake for what was probably the first time ever.
“So tell me, Jake,” said Billy, speaking with the offhandedness of someone who could stay like this all day if necessary. “How soon do you need me to rewrite that paper for you?”
Jake paused to weigh his options, then mumbled, “Forget it. Forget about the paper, man.”
“Are you sure, Jake?” Billy relaxed his grip ever so slightly. He sensed his message was now coming through, loud and clear.
“Yeah,” said Jake, allowing his fist to open and grow limp.
All at once Billy released his grip altogether. Jake rubbed furiously at his red and pink right hand. Billy leaned down, picked up Jake’s paper, and handed it to him. “You dropped this.”
“Thanks,” said Jake, now unable to look Billy in the eye for anything but the briefest of glances. “Come on, Nel. Let’s get out of here.”
Billy watched as Nelson and Jake slouched off down the street. He then jumped on his skateboard and sailed off to Marvy Marv’s.
The following Saturday, Ana and Billy, along with Billy’s parents and Orzamo, hopped an AFMEC-sponsored flight to Guatemala, where they were treated to a lovely afternoon meal at the García family home in the seaside town of Champerico. It was a glorious sunny day, hot and dry with a nice steady breeze blowing through the palm trees. Ana’s father put on a Ricardo Ajorna CD, and Ana’s mother made a sumptuous meal of arroz con pollo chapina, which turned out to be chicken with rice, olives, capers, and a whole bunch of other mouthwateringly good stuff.
“Tasty,” said Ana, “isn’t it?” She and Billy were seated on folding chairs on the patio, eating off colorful ceramic plates, while their parents ate and chatted indoors. Orzamo lazed beside them in the shade of a papaya tree.
“Delicioso,” said Billy, his mouth half full of rice. “A few more days here and I really would start to pack on the p
ounds.”
“Me too,” said Ana with a grin.
It was strange how much Billy’s thoughts about Ana had changed during the past few days. He’d started off wanting never to go on another creatch op with her. Now he found himself wondering if they would get teamed up again.
Bing bong
“That must be our guests,” said Ana’s father as he rose to answer the front door.
“Guests?” said Billy to Ana. “You didn’t say anything about—”
“Heeeey,” came the booming sound of a familiar Sicilian accent. “Where’s my little bambina?”
Luigi Bonaducci and Mei Jun strolled into the living room. There were hugs and kisses all around, and Ana’s father had to turn the music up a little for it to be heard over the boisterous conversations that ensued. Eventually everyone moved out to the patio to eat dessert and watch the sun go down over the Pacific Ocean.
“Hey, Dad,” said Billy. “Any chance of another family funeral this week? I’ve got a math test I’d really like to get out of.”
“No dice, wise guy,” said Jim Clikk as he finished off his bowl of baked bananas. “You miss that math test and the only funeral you go to will be your own.”
Billy smiled. He knew he probably wouldn’t get out of school again anytime soon. Still, there were more creatch ops coming, that much was certain. He looked around at his parents, Mr. and Mrs. García, Ana, and Luigi. They were all full-fledged Affys.
Billy knew he had a lot of work to do before he’d be allowed to join their ranks. How long would it take to complete his training and graduate to full Affy status? Three years? Five? There were no guarantees. He might be out of college by the time he finally passed all the tests and got the official thumbs-up from Mr. Vriffnee. His training was bound to be long, hard, and full of setbacks.
He wouldn’t trade it for anything, though. Not in a million years.
Find out how Billy became an Affy-in-training.
CREATCH BATTLER
CHAPTER 1
SKEETER GIG. BACK LATE, DONT WAIT UP. DINNERS IN THE FUDGE. LOVE, MOM & DAD
Billy Clikk read the Post-it again.
“Fridge. She meant fridge.” Crumpling up the yellow square, Billy chucked it at the garbage can and watched it fly in and then bounce out onto the kitchen floor. It was the third time this week he’d come home from school to find his parents gone, leaving him to heat leftovers in the microwave, do his homework, and put himself to bed. At this point they could just leave a note reading THE USUAL and he’d know exactly what it meant.
There was an upside, though: Billy was now free to kick back and watch his favorite TV show, Truly Twisted. He dashed into the living room, leaped over the couch, grabbed the remote, and switched on the TV.
Truly Twisted was the one program his parents said he must never, never watch. These guys took extreme sports to a whole new level: they once snuck into a church, climbed up the steeple, and bungee-jumped right into the middle of some guy’s wedding. It was pretty awesome.
When Billy got to the channel where Truly Twisted was supposed to be airing, though, there was nothing more extreme than some lame college tennis championship. “Oh, come on!” Billy cried. They’d bumped the best show on cable for a couple of scrawny guys knocking a ball back and forth.
Billy shut off the TV and slouched back into the kitchen. He yanked open the “fudge,” pulled out a brown paper bag, and peeked inside. Cold chicken curry: carryout from the Delhi Deli, an Indian restaurant down the street. Billy used to like their chicken curry. Back before he’d eaten it once or twice a week, every week, for about three years.
Billy pursed his lips, made a farting sound, and tossed the bag back in the refrigerator. He slammed the door a lot harder than he really needed to and stared at the floor. There, next to his foot, sat the crumpled-up Post-it note.
“Are pest problems getting you down?” he said, suddenly doing a superdeep TV-commercial voice. “Then you should pick up that phone and call Jim and Linda Clikk, founders of BUGZ-B-GON, the best extermination service in all of Piffling, Indiana.” He leaned down and picked up the wadded note, and as he straightened up, he added a tone of mystery to his voice. The TV commercial had turned into a piece of investigative journalism. “What makes the Clikks so busy? What drives them to spend their every waking hour on extermination jobs—’skeeter gigs,’ as they call them? Is it really necessary for them to devote so much of their time and energy to saving total strangers from termites and hornets’ nests? Is it just for the money, or is killing bugs some kind of a weird power trip?”
Billy took aim with the Post-it and had another shot at the garbage can. This time the note went in and stayed in.
That’s more like it.
Billy changed his posture and pivoted on one foot, transforming himself once again into a reporter.
“And what of Jim and Linda’s son, Billy? How does he feel about all this?” Billy went on, clutching an imaginary microphone as he strode from the kitchen back to the living room. “Well, let’s ask him. Billy, how do you feel about all this?”
“You want the truth?” said Billy, switching to his own voice. “I think it stinks. I think it’s a lousy way to treat a devoted son who is so bright, well behaved, and good-looking.”
Billy drew his eyebrows into an expression of great sympathy: he was the reporter again. “Tell me, Billy, do you think it bothers your parents that you have to spend so many evenings at home by yourself? Do you think they feel the least bit guilty that you have to eat takeout night after night rather than home-cooked meals? Indeed, do you suppose—as your parents dash madly from one skeeter gig to another—that they even think of you at all?”
Billy stopped, stood between the couch and the coffee table, and let out a long sigh. He dropped the imaginary microphone and the phony voice along with it.
“I don’t know.” Billy flopped onto the couch. “Probably not.”
It hadn’t been so bad the previous year, when Billy’s best friend, Nathan Burns, was still living in Piffling. Nathan was the only kid at Piffling Elementary who was as obsessed with extreme sports as Billy was. They used to spend practically every weekend together, mountain-biking the cliffs that led down to the Piffling River, skateboarding across every handrail in town (they both had the scrapes, bruises, and occasional fractures to prove it), and even street luging on their homemade luges, which was apparently outlawed by some city ordinance or another. The only thing Billy and Nathan hadn’t tried was sneaking a ride on the brand-new Harley-Davidson Nathan’s father had stashed away in the garage.
They would have tried it eventually, for sure. But then Nathan’s family moved to Los Angeles for his father’s work. There were other kids at Piffling Elementary who were into extreme sports a little. They just weren’t willing to risk life and limb the way Nathan was. Billy soon realized that finding a new best friend was going to take a while. In the meantime, it was looking like it would be THE USUAL for many months to come.
Piker, Billy’s Scottish terrier, lifted her head from the recliner on the other side of the room, snorted, and went back to sleep.
BACK LATE, DON’T WAIT UP.
Billy had never been able to figure out why so much of his parents’ work was done at night. Exterminators didn’t normally work at night, did they? Were they trying to catch the bugs snoozing? Kids at school thought he was lucky. “If my parents left me alone at night like that,” Nelson Skubblemeyer had said just the other day, “I’d be partyin’ like nobody’s business. I’d be, like, ‘Yo, party tonight at my place.… ’ ” (Nelson always said the word party as if it rhymed with sauté: in spite of his name, he’d somehow convinced himself he was the coolest kid in the sixth grade.)
Billy had never thrown a party while his parents were out on a skeeter gig. He wouldn’t have been able to get away with it even if he’d tried. There was someone keeping an eye on him.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
Leo Krebs, thought Billy. Right on schedule. Billy normally didn�
�t let the phone ring more than twice before answering. But when he was pretty sure it was Leo, the high school sophomore down the street who “looked after” him whenever his parents were gone at night, he had a policy of screening calls.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
Billy leaned back into the couch and did his best Leo impersonation: “Dude. Pick up. I know you’re there.” Doing a good Leo meant breathing a lot of air into your voice and ending every sentence as if it were a question. Like Keanu Reeves, only more so.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
Billy’s voice had begun to change the previous summer, greatly increasing the range of impersonations he could do (which had been pretty impressive to begin with). “Duu-ude. You’re wastin’ my time here.”
DRRIIIIIIINGG
One more ring and the answering machine would kick in.
DRRIIIIIIINGG
There was a plick, then a jrrrr, then: “Your pest problems are at an end …,” Jim Clikk’s voice said. Billy jumped in and recited the words right along with the answering machine, creating the effect of two Jim Clikks speaking simultaneously. “… because you’re seconds away from making an appointment with the extermination experts at BUGZ-B-GON. Just leave your name and number after the tone and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.”
DWEEEEEP
“Dude.” It was Leo, all right. “Pick up. I know you’re there.”
Billy grabbed the remote off the coffee table and clicked the television on. When dealing with one of Leo’s check-in calls, it was essential to have every bit of audiovisual distraction available.
“Duu-ude. You’re wastin’ my time here.”
Billy reached over, grabbed the cordless phone from one of the side tables, and pressed Talk.
“Leonard,” he said, knowing how much Leo disliked being called by his full name. Well, at least he hoped Leo disliked it. Billy didn’t exactly hate Leo, but he wasn’t too crazy about him either. Part of it was Leo’s I’m older than you and don’t forget it attitude. Most of it, though, was Billy resenting the whole idea of being baby-sat at all. He was old enough to take care of himself.