by Stan Kirby
After that, the trio had packed away their superhero outfits and done a few more runs on the hill. They had even taken turns giving Meredith their sleds. After all, since there was no evil to fight today, Meredith wasn’t really Little Miss Stinky Pinky.
“So . . . what do we do now?” Charlie asked as the kids climbed out of the car.
Eugene thought to himself for a moment.
And then he saw it!
“Into the bushes!” Eugene shouted and tackled Sally and Charlie into a hedge.
“Are we reenacting the scene from Cricket Hill?” Charlie whispered as they peeked out from the bushes, covered in snow.
“No!” Eugene whispered back. “Look at our snowfriend! He looks . . . different!”
Sally and Charlie stared at the snowfriend.
“Different like less snowy or different like less friendly?” Sally asked.
“Less friendly and more supervillainy!” Eugene replied.
“Hmm . . . ,” Charlie said, staring hard. “He does look a little meaner now that you mention it.”
“A little more frosty,” Sally added.
“Guys! That’s it!” Eugene gasped. “It’s as plain as the snow on the snowfriend’s face! That’s no ordinary snowfriend! That’s the Frostbiter!”
“I’ll bet he’s sending out evil brain-freezing icicle waves to freeze everyone’s brains so they’ll hate snow and stay indoors!” Sally cried.
“And that’s why none of our friends will come out and play!” Charlie realized.
“And he’s here!” cried Eugene. “In my front yard! The freezing-est freeze villain to ever freeze a freezing freeze!”
“To the Sunnyview Superhero Squad’s top secret ultra-superhero base!” Sally called out.
Okay, team. We need a plan,” Eugene said. He, Sally, and Charlie were sitting in the tree house in Eugene’s yard that doubled as their top secret superhero hideout.
“He may be the greatest evil we’ve ever faced!” Charlie proclaimed. Then he added, “But why don’t we just push him over? His arms are made of sticks.”
“We can’t touch the Frostbiter,” Eugene explained. “He’ll freeze our brains and then we’ll hate snow, too.”
Charlie shuddered at the thought. “It’s already getting colder in here,” he said.
“So we have to find a way to defeat the Frostbiter without touching the Frostbiter,” Sally added.
“Yeah. There is no way I’m giving up my love of snow or cheese,” Charlie said. “You know, just in case he has those powers, too.”
“But if the Frostbiter is freezing everyone’s brains, why was Meredith still outside sledding?” Sally asked.
At first Eugene was at a loss for an answer. Then he realized something more horrible than if the comic book store had been sold out of the latest Super Dude issue before he got there.
“It’s as plain as the coal in the Frostbiter’s eyes!” Eugene said. “Little Miss Stinky Pinky is working with him! She wanted everyone out of the way so she could sled down Cricket Hill by herself!”
“The only thing worse than having no place to sled is having to wait in line to sled!” Sally said with a gasp. “And with all the other kids staying inside, she had Cricket Hill all to herself!”
Eugene gasped too. “And what if she purposefully crashed her sled so we’d have to waste time helping her? That just gave the Frostbiter more time to freeze everyone else’s brains!” he cried.
“Just when I thought evil couldn’t get any more evil, there it goes doing the evilest thing ever eviled,” Charlie said.
“Squad, Super Dude didn’t fold up his umbrella when the Sand Witches used their super sub sandwich to torpedo his beach picnic in Super Dude No. 99. And we’re not going to give up, either!” Eugene cried.
“What’s the plan?” Sally asked.
“We’re going to fight snow with snow,” Eugene replied. “But first, let’s hero up!”
BACKPACKS!
UNZIP!
HERO UP!
Minutes later, Captain Awesome, Supersonic Sal, and Nacho Cheese Man were in their superhero outfits in Eugene’s front yard. They snuck into the bushes. Across the yard stood the enemy: the Frostbiter. And in front of them was the ultimate weapon against his brain-freezing icicle waves: the biggest pile of snowballs anyone had ever seen.
I’ve got a stack of snowballs that say there’s snow way the Frostbiter is getting away,” Nacho Cheese Man said.
“We may not get out of this without our brains being frozen, so I want to tell you it’s been an honor fighting the forces of badness with you,” Captain Awesome said to Supersonic Sal and Nacho Cheese Man.
The three heroes gave the Sunnyview Superhero Squad Super Salute and then Supersonic Sal picked up a snowball. “Let’s make that lump of snow wish it was summer!” she cried.
Captain Awesome, Nacho Cheese Man, and Supersonic Sal leaped from their hiding place and threw snowballs like they were eight-armed octopuses dressed as superheroes.
SPLAT!
SPLOTCH!
SPLOOCH!
The Frostbiter was smacked by super snowball after super snowball, but the frozen menace would not fall!
“AHH!” Nacho Cheese Man dropped to the ground. “I can feel frozen icicles freezing my brain! I . . . feel . . . like . . . I’ve . . . got . . . to . . . go . . . watch TV!”
“Double AHH!” Captain Awesome yelled. “My brain’s turning into an ice cube! Must . . . get . . . inside!”
Supersonic Sal was the only one left! She wound up and let another snowball fly, but it sailed over the Frostbiter and hit someone who was walking by.
And that someone happened to be Meredith Mooney, who was walking home with her older sister, Melissa. Their sleds were tucked under their arms.
“Look out, Meredith! It’s a surprise snowball attack!” Melissa laughed. She made a snowball and threw it.
Melissa’s snowball plopped down into the snow next to Supersonic Sal, splattering Captain Awesome and Nacho Cheese Man at the same time.
Captain Awesome gasped. “I can feel my brain again! The snow splatter blocked the Frostbiter’s icicle waves!” Captain Awesome cheered.
“That’s how we can stop the Frostbiter’s brain-freezing icicle waves!” Supersonic Sal said. “We need to have fun in the snow!”
Supersonic Sal grabbed a snowball and threw it at Melissa, but the snowball missed Melissa and hit Meredith instead. Meredith’s face turned pinker than her new sled.
“You did not just throw a snowball at me!” Meredith fumed. She made a snowball and threw it wildly. It smacked a laughing Captain Awesome.
Jake Story appeared on the sidewalk. “I saw you guys having a snowball fight from my bedroom window. Can I join in? I love snowball fights!”
“Yeah!” Melissa said and threw a snowball at him.
Jake Story laughed and threw one back.
Snowballs flew in all directions and laughter filled the air. Within minutes, Wilma Eisner, Olivia Simonson, Gil Ditko, Neal Chaykin, Jane Romita, Howard Adams, Ellen Moore, Stan Kirby Jr., and Dara Sim had joined in the fun!
Snowballs splattered, plopped, and spattered. There were no teams. There was no good versus evil. There was no universe to save or villain to defeat. The TVs would still be there later. So would the video games and the tablets and the computers and the cell phones. But at that moment, they were all a million miles away. Instead, there was just a group of friends . . . and Meredith . . . out in the snow having fun, the way kids were meant to.
And that’s just how it should be on a snow day.
History would remember it as the Great Sunnyview Snowball Fight, but the kids who ran out from their houses that day to join Eugene, Sally, and Charlie in the snow remembered it as the
MOST SUPER,
MOST AWESOME,
MOST FUN SNOW DAY EVER!
When the last snowball was thrown, not a single person went back into their house. Dara Sim and Gil Ditko started making snow angels, while Neal Chayki
n, Jane Romita, and others decided to build a snow fort. Wilma Eisner and Howard Adams made more snowfriends, while Stan Kirby Jr. attempted to make an igloo.
And no one was happier than Eugene, Sally, and Charlie.
“The day ended exactly the way we wanted it to start!” Eugene pointed out. “All our friends ended up outside playing with us after all!”
“Nothing beats a good snowball fight!” Sally added.
“And we owe it all to the Frostbiter!” Charlie realized. “If we hadn’t tried to blast him back to the North Pole with snowballs, none of this would have happened.”
“Which kind of makes him a . . . good guy?” Sally asked, unsure.
“Guys! It all makes sense now!” Eugene pointed at the snowfriend. “That’s not the Frostbiter! That’s his superhero cousin, Captain Freezy McFreeze!”
“You mean this was all a case of frozen identity?” Charlie gasped.
“We owe him an apology,” Sally said.
The trio gave Captain Freezy McFreeze a Sunnyview Superhero Salute.
“Sorry for trying to blast you back to the North Pole with snowballs,” Eugene said.
“And thanks for helping us make this day snow awesome!” Sally cried.
“THREE CHEERS FOR Captain Freezy McFreeze!” Charlie shouted.
The trio cheered as loudly as they could, then they raced off to play with their friends. As Eugene flopped down to make a snow superhero next to Ellen Moore’s snow angel, he could only think of one word to describe the day . . .
MI-TEE!
But for now it was perfectly quiet at Sunnyview Elementary. No kids running down the halls, no teachers giving out pop quizzes, no second-grade students reaching into Turbo’s cage—
Oh, who’s Turbo, you ask? He’s this little guy here.
If you couldn’t guess, Turbo is a hamster. His fur is mostly white, but he has a big brown spot on his back. He has little pink ears and buck teeth.
And this—er—palace is Turbo’s home. Here in the corner of Ms. Beasley’s second-grade class.
Turbo, you see, is the official pet of Sunnyview Elementary’s Classroom C.
And even on a day like today, when the school was closed for snow, Turbo took his job as classroom pet very seriously.
He made sure to do all his regular classroom pet things.
He drank some water. GLUG, GLUG, GLUG.
He ate some pellets. MUNCH, MUNCH, MUNCH.
And he ran on his hamster wheel. SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK.
When he was finished, only a few minutes had passed. Now what? Usually Turbo liked when the kids went out to recess and he got some peace and quiet. But today it was almost too quiet.
Suddenly, it wasn’t quiet anymore. Turbo was sure he heard a rustling coming from the cubbies. Straining his tiny ears, Turbo listened as hard as he could.
“There is definitely something there,” Turbo said to no one in particular. “I’m the official pet of Classroom C, and so it is my duty to find out the source of this mystery sound!”
Finally, Turbo got to where the noise seemed to be coming from. And then he saw a tail and it belonged to a terrible, awful, frightening . . .
When STAN KIRBY was six years old, he tied a beach towel around his neck and became Super Commander Beach Boy. He tried his best to protect sand castles from the waves, keep seagulls away from his french fries, and keep the beach clean. When Stan’s not creating the awesome adventures of Captain Awesome, he loves reading comic books, eating okra, and hang gliding (but not at the same time).
GEORGE O’CONNOR’S cover—as a mild-mannered clerk in one of Gotham’s most beloved children’s bookstores—was completely blown when his first picture book, KAPOW!, exploded onto the scene. Forced to leave the bookselling world behind, he now spends even more time in his secret Brooklyn, New York, hideout—where he uses his amazing artistic powers to strike fear in the hearts of bad guys everywhere!
Little Simon
Simon & Schuster · New York
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LITTLE SIMON
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division • 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020 • www.SimonandSchuster.com • First Little Simon hardcover edition November 2016 • Copyright © 2016 by Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. LITTLE SIMON is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and associated colophon is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or [email protected]. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. Designed by Jay Colvin. The text of this book was set in Little Simon Gazette.
Cataloging in Publication Data for this title is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-1-4814-7816-8 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4814-7815-1 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4814-7817-5 (eBook)