It hadn’t.
I tracked down the janitor’s cart to see if maybe when she’d dragged her industrial-size dust mop through the cafeteria after lunch, sweeping up used napkins and dirt, she’d accidentally swept my page up, too.
She hadn’t.
I even picked through the garbage in the big trash bins in the lunchroom. Not my proudest moment. I found lots of beans. Cold, dead, boiled-to-mush green beans, scraped from lunch trays and clinging to crumpled milk cartons like an invasion of limp larvae.
But no Beanboy. My genius idea was just . . . gone.
The door banged open behind us and a clump of fellow middle school students barreled in. Noah and I scuttled off to the side to keep from being mowed down.
The clump giggled its way down the hallway. One of the girls stopped, tugged on her friend’s coat sleeve, and pointed at something on a locker. The whole clump stopped and stared. Moved in for a closer look.
For a minute I couldn’t move. A chill snaked through me.
“Noah,” I whispered. “Look.”
Noah squinted. “What—how—?”
I shook my head. “No clue.”
Because up and down the hallway, in both directions, taped to lockers, walls, doors, bulletin boards, the windows of the middle school office, the janitor’s closet, were copy after copy of . . .
. . . my Beanboy page.
The page I’d stuck up by the cafeteria. The page nobody had gotten a chance to see.
Now they were seeing. Not everyone. Most people were digging books out of their lockers and rubbing sleep crust from their eyes and scrambling toward first hour so they wouldn’t be late.
But a few clumps of students, here and there, had stopped to look.
Which was kind of cool. Exactly what I’d wanted.
But also kind of disturbing. Now that people were actually looking at my page, actually reading it, well, it was like I’d accidentally shown up at school naked and it was too late to go back and put on pants.
I hiked up my backpack, Noah hiked up his bassoon case, and we plunged into the crowded hallway. As we jostled our way toward our lockers, I cast stealth glances at the clumps reading my comic book page, and it seemed like they actually . . . didn’t hate it.
My ears perked to pick up random comments:
“Wow. They’re everywhere.”
“I wonder who did it.”
“I never thought about it, but saving the world would be pretty exhausting.”
And then the one I really liked:
“Where’s the rest of the story?”
Someone wanted more. At least one person wanted to read more.
And then the one I liked best, from Owen Skeet, a quiet, lanky kid. He stared at my page, his face wrinkled into a thoughtful frown.
“Invisible,” Owen mumbled to himself. “Yeah.”
Twenty
As Noah says, middle school attention spans are frustratingly short. By the time the bell rang for first hour, everyone seemed to have forgotten all about my comic book page.
Then I ambled into Art Club after school . . . and was hit by a mob.
“Dude! Genius!”
Spencer tried to give me a chest bump and got his new knitted scarf (Great-Aunt Bernice had been busy again) caught in the strap of my backpack.
“Nobody expected that,” he said as he untangled himself. “We were all pretty glum about the whole pep assembly incident, but you—you thought of a whole new way to get people interested. Awesome!”
Gretchen Klamm nodded. “Completely.”
“I couldn’t believe it.” Martin Higby shook his head. “Copies were everywhere!”
“Who needs a bulletin board when you can use the whole school?”
“Excellent idea!”
Their compliments draped over me, warm and fluffy like a blanket.
Except, said a pesky voice in my head, you don’t deserve it.
The pesky voice had a point. Yeah, I’d drawn the comic book page. But I sure hadn’t been the one who plastered the school with it. Plus, while Art Club was all “Awesome!” “Excellent!” about my new plan, I didn’t mention the other part, the part where I lined them up in the gym so bigger, stronger kids (a.k.a. Wesley Banks) could hurl dodgeballs at them.
Mrs. Frazee gave my shoulder a squeeze. “You’ve really embraced performance art, Tucker. You’ve turned it into a true event, become part of it—a secret artist, bringing his artwork to the people like a phantom in the night.” She clapped her hands together in pure art-teacher delight. “Zorro with a copy machine.”
I blinked. Zorro with a copy machine. I liked it.
“I just want you to know”—she leaned in, her voice low—“I spoke to Mr. Petrucelli about it this morning.”
Oh, man. Mr. Petrucelli. I hadn’t even thought about him.
“I pointed out the many signs and posters we put up for other clubs and teams,” said Mrs. Frazee. “I let him know that this comic book page is part of our Art Club activities.”
Wow. Mrs. Frazee had my back.
Not just yours, said my pesky voice. While you’re standing there listening to how awesome you are and letting your head swell up like a dead fish, don’t forget: Someone in this room knows the truth.
Another good point. One that had been gnawing on my brain all day. As Mrs. Frazee handed out the face paints and brushes we’d need for our booth at the school carnival, I watched the Art Club members, who cheerfully snatched them up.
One of them had to be the Phantom Photocopier. Had to be. Who else would care if anyone saw my comic book pages?
Not the Kaleys. Not Wesley Banks or the Sundances. And sure as heck not Mr. Petrucelli.
Nobody.
Except Art Club.
“So.” Spencer sidled up to me. He peeked over his shoulder. “We took a vote and it was unanimous. Nobody in Art Club will reveal your true identity as the comic book artist.”
I eyed him. Was it Spencer? Was all that “Dude! Genius!” stuff just a big cover for his own clandestine activities?
“So.” He hiked up his jeans. “When are you putting up another one? I mean, you are putting up another one, right?”
No. I couldn’t picture it. I couldn’t picture Spencer Osterholtz—with his knitted cap and his gangly, stumbling feet—stealing through Earhart Middle, taping up comic book pages without anyone noticing.
He was looking at me, expecting an answer.
“Well,” I said, “I’m still working on it. I want it to be a . . . surprise.”
Twenty-one
When I popped out onto Polk Street, I found Sam and Beecher lying in the yard.
Sam had bundled Beech into his winter coat, gloves, and boots, his hood tied tight, his scarf wound around his neck all the way up to his nose so the only part you could see of him were his two eyes blinking out from behind all that bundling.
Sam was zipped tight, too, and the two of them were sprawled on their backs in the snow, beside Joe and Samir’s shoveled piles, flapping their arms and legs.
Making snow angels.
Which was really weird since snow totally freaks Beecher out (he’s terrified he’ll slip and fall) and since an angel was maybe the last thing on the planet I thought Sam Zawicki would ever want to make.
But there she was, sliding her arms and legs and laughing about it with Beech, her giggles puffing out in little white clouds above her.
Beecher’s voice floated across the snow. “Tell Mrs. Hottins,” he said.
“Your teacher?” said Sam.
“Tell her we do angels.”
I made my way up the front walk.
“So . . . hey,” I said.
Sam stopped flapping and sat up. She pushed the sleeve of her parka up to check her watch.
“Crud,” she muttered.
She carefully stood and leaped across the snow, to keep from messing up her snow angel with footprints, I guess. She leaned down and helped Beech up too. Lifted him out so his angel wouldn’t get messed up
either.
She set him down on the walk and grabbed her satchel off the porch step.
Then she stopped. She studied Beecher’s snow angel.
“Does he need a cape?” she asked him.
Beech shook his head. “Not superhero.”
“You sure? He looks like a superhero.”
Beech shook his head again. “Not superhero.”
Sam let out a breath. “Okay.”
She hoisted the satchel onto her shoulder and bolted off down the walk. About knocked me into Joe and Samir’s shoveled piles.
“Glad to see you too,” I said as I swirled my arms to regain my balance.
Beech and I watched as she disappeared down Polk Street.
I shook my head. Who knew what was up with her lately? I mean, first she goes all grizzly bear defending the bulletin board, and after that it was like she couldn’t stand being on the same planet as me.
I crouched over my desk in the Batcave—a stealth comic book genius hunkered down in his secret hideaway. I gripped my pencil. Steadied my hand. Took aim at my sheet of Bristol board. And drew . . .
. . . nothing.
I sank back in my desk chair.
I let out a sigh.
I couldn’t draw. My brain wouldn’t let me.
I pulled my health notebook from my backpack, turned to an empty page, and scribbled out a list.
I stared out the window. It had to be someone in Art Club. But who? Not Spencer. He had the enthusiasm, for sure. But the skills? No.
Plus, if Spencer had done it, all the photocopies would have little knitted picture frames.
So who? I sifted through the members of Art Club in my head.
Gretchen Klamm? Too timid.
Martin Higby? Too disorganized.
So who?
Who could get into the school when nobody else was there? Who could plaster the halls with copies? Who could make all those copies in the first place?
I stopped.
One person could do all that without anyone noticing, not even Mr. Petrucelli. I studied my list again.
I gripped my pencil and scribbled the name across the middle of the page.
Twenty-two
Noah and I crept through the early-morning gray of the hallway, comic book page, winter coat, and Scotch tape at the ready.
When we reached the hall outside the lunchroom, I whipped out the page, Noah wrangled his coat in the air for cover, and I taped the page to the wall.
When the lunch bell rang, I darted from math class, made my way toward the lunchroom, and stretched to get a better view of the wall.
Once again, it was empty.
But this time, I didn’t trudge into the lunchroom, cursing the universe.
This time I did a little fist pump.
Twenty-three
The next morning, Noah and I heaved open the thick metal door and stepped into Earhart Middle.
And saw approximately six gazillion copies of my comic book page plastered up and down the halls of Amelia M. Earhart Middle School.
And clumps of fellow Earhart students, here and there, reading them.
Noah wiped his mitten over his glasses.
“I believe,” he said in a low voice, “that this time there are even more.”
I peered down the hallway. Copies of Beanboy taped on every vertical surface—lockers, walls, doors, windows. “More pages?”
“No,” he said. “More people.”
He was right. The clumps of Earhart middle-schoolers reading my page had grown. And multiplied. That weird naked feeling started to creep over me again.
Noah hiked up his bassoon, I hiked up my bookbag, and we pushed our way down the crowded hallway, ears tuned to pick up what the clumps were saying:
“Hey, look. It’s another one.”
“This mad scientist lady must be the bad guy.”
“Really bad if she doesn’t want kids to be happy.”
“I wonder what she’s going to do next.”
Noah and I thumped each other a covert fist bump. Earhart Middle was starting to catch on.
And not just the students. Standing in the middle of the hall, kids darting around him like a river flowing around a big stuck log, was Coach Wilder, squinting at a Beanboy page and rubbing a big sausage hand over his bristly chin.
When I walked into the art room that day after school, I was greeted by a drawing on the chalkboard:
Spencer scuttled over to greet me. He hitched up his jeans. His chalky fingers left long white marks on his legs.
“That was my idea.” He tipped his head toward the chalkboard. His stocking cap puffed with pride. “I mean, it was your idea originally, of course, but it was my idea to get here early and write it in big letters. Mrs. Frazee says we can keep it there. You know, for motivation.”
“Wow,” I said. “That’s just—wow.”
And it was. Art Club had always been smart. No question. But now, as Art Club members drifted into the room, talking and laughing, their own faces were, well, bright, and I realized they also seemed happier lately. And yeah, more self-confident.
Art Club really was the home of happy, self-confident, smart people.
Sure, muttered my pesky voice. They’re happy now. But you haven’t told them about the dodgeball tournament.
“I will. I’m going to,” I muttered back. “When we get enough people.”
Spencer gave me a weird look. “What?”
“Oh—nothing,” I said. “My stomach’s just grumbling. I think I got a bad corn dog at lunch.”
“I hear you.” Spencer nodded sympathetically. “Deep-fried meat can be a killer.”
I nodded too. But as I glanced around the room at my fellow Art Club members, happily practicing their face-painting technique for the school carnival, I realized it was still just us. Just the nine of us. My Beanboy pages had been drumming up interest up and down the hallways, and they’d given Art Club a confident glow, but they still weren’t doing what I truly needed them to do: suck in new members.
I needed to bump up my game.
Twenty-four
By now I pretty much knew what to expect: Noah and I would arrive at school, lug ourselves through the front door, stand inside on the big mat while Noah wiped his glasses and I wiped my feet, and then Noah would hoist his bassoon, I’d hoist my backpack, and we’d pick our way through ever-growing clumps of kids reading the comic book pages that had been magically plastered up and down the hall overnight by the Phantom Photocopier.
I sure didn’t expect what we saw this morning.
My pages were there. And clumps of kids were standing and staring.
But they weren’t staring at Beanboy.
They were staring at the ceiling.
Hanging from the ceiling in the front hallway of Amelia M. Earhart Middle School, from corner to corner and side to side, over the lockers, above the lights, atop the trophy case, were T-shirts, hoodies, random socks, gloves, hats, a scarf or two, some backpacks, spiral notebooks, broken pencils, stray homework, crumpled lunch bags, earbuds, gym shorts, gym shoes—all tied together and draped above our heads like a string of Christmas lights.
I pointed to a grubby scrap of springy fabric dangling over the office door. “Is that a—”
“Jockstrap?” Noah nodded. “Yes. Yes, it is.”
Noah and I plowed through the crowd. About plowed smack into Mr. Petrucelli.
He was standing outside the middle school office, his serious principal hands planted on his hips, his serious principal lips pooched out in deep concentration. He gazed up the hall in one direction, scrutinized the string of draped stuff, then turned and gazed the other way.
Mr. Petrucelli must’ve seen all he needed to see, because he shook his head, turned on his serious principal heel, and clicked back into the office. The door rattled shut behind him.
That’s when I noticed Owen Skeet. Again. He was standing on the other side of the office. And he was maybe the only kid in Earhart Middle not staring at the dangl
ing jockstrap.
Owen Skeet was reading my Beanboy page. And nodding. He pulled his gawky body up to its full height, which was actually pretty tall once he wasn’t slumped over, squared his usually hunched shoulders, and headed off down the hall.
“Good morning, Amelia M. Earhart Middle School students.” The intercom crackled to life. Mr. Petrucelli’s voice blared through first-hour social studies.
“As I’m sure you all know, the school has been experiencing instances of, well, not vandalism precisely. Let’s call it inappropriate repositioning of property. In other words, someone has been hanging shoes, school supplies, clothing, and other items from lights, doorways, and other inappropriate places. I only hope these incidents aren’t connected in any way to the, uh, comic book pages that I’ve allowed to be placed in our hallways.”
Comic book pages? I nearly dropped my pencil.
Noah sat right in front of me. He turned around and gave me a horrified look.
“I haven’t said anything up to this point,” Mr. Petrucelli continued, “because the incidents have been small, and I was willing to overlook minor transgressions. But as I’m sure you are all aware, this inappropriate repositioning has recently escalated to a level that is distracting and interferes with student learning. To the person or persons responsible, this serves as a warning: if these inappropriate incidents do not cease immediately, you will face very appropriate consequences.”
The intercom went dead and we all thought he was done. Students shuffled their notebooks and shifted in their seats. Mr. Luzensky scratched his head and tried to find his place in our social studies book.
The intercom buzzed back to life.
“If anyone is missing a pair of gym shorts or, ah, other items, please see Louise in the office. Thank you.”
Case File: Mr. P
Status: I’ll probably get permanent detention for even thinking it, but I gotta go with my gut (and personal experience) on this one: SUPERVILLAIN. Yeah. I said it.
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