Hard to tell.
“Okay.” I nodded.
I tucked the receipt in my shoe (a.k.a. the best place to store your most important paperwork), gripped the crinkly plastic stack, and started toward the door.
“Because here’s what I was thinking,” I said. Casually. Like I was tossing ideas at him on my way out. “It might do a lot for your business. You know, provide just one more service no other comic book shop provides.”
Not that Caveman was big on service in the first place. But still.
“Dude.” Another lick. Another page. “I’m not delivering your comic books. You can come down here and buy them like everybody else.”
I stopped. A whole sentence. Two, actually.
“But see?” I said. “That’s the beauty of it. These deliveries—they wouldn’t be to me. They’d be from me. You’d hire me to be your comic book delivery man. On my bike.”
With Beecher on the handlebars if I had to.
“Not happening.”
I blinked. “Okay. But think about it because—”
“Not happening.”
“Okay, but if you change your mind—”
“Tucker,” Noah whispered. “I don’t think it’s happening.”
I sighed. When Noah and I rule the world, comic book delivery will be mandatory.
Noah headed for the door. I trudged after him, the crinkly sack rustling against my leg. We wound our way through tables and racks and shelves, all groaning under the weight of the world’s greatest superheroes: H2O and Batman, Superman and Spidey. American and Japanese.
We passed a small rack squeezed in between NEW RELEASES and GOLDEN AGE CLASSICS. One of Caveman’s signs was thumbtacked above it, black marker on a scrap of dusty poster board:
Most people came in looking for the latest X-Men and didn’t know these were here.
But I knew.
Because these weren’t like the other comic books in the store. They weren’t written by famous comic book writers and drawn by famous artists. They weren’t printed in color on shiny paper and shipped out by the millions every month by Marvel or D.C. or Dark Overlord or some other behemoth comic book company.
Mostly they were black-and-white Xeroxes, carefully folded and stapled, printed a handful at a time, probably at the copy shop over by the university.
But they were here. Real live comics in a real live comic book store.
I pulled one out. Ran my hand over the grainy cover.
“So, hey. Caveman,” I said.
He may have grunted. Or maybe not. The Cavester was a man of few words.
“Have these indie comics started making any money?” I said.
And sometimes no words. He didn’t even glance up.
“Yeah. I know. Not as much as it costs the artists to print them. But I thought I’d ask. Just to see if anything had changed. I guess it hasn’t.”
I slid the comic back into the rack. Ran my hand over it one more time. One day that would be me. One day my comic books would be for sale. And not just here at Caveman. Across the country.
Across the country? Heck, around the planet. I’d be the most famous comic book artist ever, world-renowned for creating . . . well, I didn’t know what. Yet. But he (or she—you can’t be raised by my mother and not consider the very real possibility that the world’s greatest superhero just might be a girl) would be amazing. The most amazing comic book hero ever.
I’d go to all the big comic book conventions, and the line of fans waiting for my autograph would stretch out of the building and around the block. Which would be exciting, but it wouldn’t give me a big head. I’d still be humble. I’d still be Tucker MacBean from Wheaton, Kansas. I’d still talk to everyone who came up to me and thank them for the excellent things they said about my—
“Tucker.” Noah tapped his watch.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m with you.” I turned away from the indie rack. I’d have to be famous later.
Noah and his bassoon leaned into the glass door. The afternoon thunderstorm had fizzled out, but a leftover wind swirled in from the stairwell and spit drizzle at us.
I pulled the collar of my jacket up around my ears. Glanced back at Caveman.
“Thanks,” I called back to him. “See you next month.”
“I doubt it.”
I doubt it? What did he mean? I was his most loyal customer. I bought at least one comic book a month. Every single month.
I was as dependable as Noah’s watch.
And I told Caveman so.
“I always come in. The very day the new H2O hits the stands.” Next month especially. The episode I held in my hand, Episode Nine, contained a secret that would rock the H2O universe. Episode Ten would be the epic showdown that changed that universe forever.
Caveman licked his finger and turned a page. “Yep.”
That was all he said.
I shot a funny look at Noah, who was still standing in the doorway, the wind whipping specks of rain against his glasses.
“What does he mean?” I said.
Noah rolled his eyes. “Who ever knows what he means? Let’s just go.”
“It’s got to mean something.”
“Tucker? Hello? It’s already”—Noah bent his elbow into a crisp ninety-degree angle so his watch was at eye level. He clicked through various cities (Tokyo, London, New York) till he finally got to us here in Wheaton—“three nineteen.”
Case File: The Spoonster
Status: Sidekick
Base: Basically, the Earhart Middle School band room
Superpower: Preventative action. (Noah always arrives early, always carries Kleenex, keeps four quarters, two spare pencils, an extra pair of gym shorts, and a tiny screwdriver—to fix his glasses and jimmy open my locker—in his bassoon case, and never leaves his homework till the last minute. Preventative action comes in handy more often than you’d think.)
Superweapon: His huge brain. (Noah is like the smartest kid ever. It’s not his fault. His parents don’t allow him to be stupid. They’ve enrolled him in every extracurricular activity invented, from music lessons to anthropology camp. Now he knows everything, including how to play ancient Korean folk tunes on the bassoon. Which goes over big in the seventh grade.)
Real Name: Noah Spooner
“Three nineteen? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did. We’re veering dangerously off schedule here. I have bassoon practice. And homework. And a firm bedtime. And if you miss Beecher’s bus, your mom’ll ground you.”
“Ground me? Are you kidding?” I headed out the door. “If I miss Beecher’s bus, she’ll kill me.”
“She’ll kill you first. Then she’ll ground you.”
Two
Caveman Comics lay halfway below street level, tucked beneath a bike shop and an Internet cafe. Steps led up from the door to the sidewalk, past the sputtering neon sign that flashed CAVEMAN, past the single dust-caked window carved into the bricks of Caveman’s front wall. It really was a cave. A den. A secret hide-out for comic book geniuses like me and Noah.
Not a place for our arch nemesis.
But when we scuffed up the rain-soaked steps, there was Sam Zawicki: arms crossed, shoulders rigid, combat boot practically drumming a hole in the sidewalk.
And okay, so technically Sam Zawicki wasn’t our personal arch nemesis. Technically, Sam Zawicki had way too much arch-nemesing power to waste on a couple of flyweights like me and Noah. Technically, Sam Zawicki was too busy trying to arch-nemesis the entire seventh grade, most of Earhart Middle School, all of Wheaton, and, possibly, the universe.
Technically, Sam Zawicki was arch nemesis to the world.
She was standing in front of the display window of Weaver’s Department Store on the corner, under the red canvas awning, a stream of rain dribbling off the canvas behind her. She was glaring at the mannequins in the display. Practically glaring a hole through the glass. Like she was itching for a fight. Like she was just waiting for those mannequins to start something.
Like she was ready to take ’em down.
And I don’t know if it was from Sam snorting her hot breath out into the damp air, or if it was just steam rising off her army surplus jacket, but her head—with the straggly brown hair and the chin jutting out—sort of rose from the fog that swirled around her.
Which, I have to admit, added a nice touch to the whole arch nemesis business.
She never really messed with me and Noah much as long as we stayed out of her way (except for one humiliating third grade bathroom incident that I don’t really want to talk about).
This worked out pretty well for everybody, since staying out of the way was the main thing me and Noah were really excellent at.
See, Noah and I had developed the power of invisibility. The trick was to stay quiet, stay low, and not wear anything in the lavender, pink, or magenta color families. Invisibility could be lonely, but let’s face it, when the third guy in your posse is a bassoon, it might just save your life.
“What are you looking at?” Sam Zawicki’s croaky bark shot down Quincy Street.
I jumped. Because: 1) Sam Zawicki’s voice is like a smack in the head, and 2) I realized I was staring at her. Or at least, staring at her reflection in the glass of the Weaver’s Department Store display window, under the sign that said NEWLY ARRIVED! FALL DANCE DRESSES. I hadn’t meant to, but there I was, staring Sam Zawicki in the eye.
And she was staring back.
She fired a look over her shoulder, past Weaver’s, down the next block.
I glanced that way, too, to see what she was looking at. Probably her big lump of a brother, Dillon. He’s not real bright, but when you’re as big as Dillon, you don’t need that many brain cells. But I didn’t see him. Luckily. The whole Zawicki experience was miserable enough without throwing Dillon into the mix.
“Hey!” Sam’s voice smacked me again. “Beanboy.”
Yeah. Beanboy. It was the kind of thing you had to deal with when you were born with a last name like MacBean.
“Quit looking at me.” She turned to face us.
“I wasn’t. I just—”
“Quit following me. Quit breathing my air. You got that?” She pulled her backpack close and wrapped her arm around it, like she was guarding it.
From me, I guess. Like I was a big threat.
Sam was shorter than me, and her arms and legs were just plain spindly. Her combat boots were actually smaller than my sneakers. I’m no hulking maniac, but I hoped I at least looked like I could hold my own against a sixty-pound girl.
Right.
I took a step back. Her combat boots had steel toes.
Noah gave his watch a covert tap. I nodded and angled sideways, trying to dodge Sam and her boots.
She stepped in front of me, cutting me off.
“Look,” I said. “I’m not following you. I do have to, you know, breathe, but I wasn’t looking at you. I mean, I was, but I didn’t know it was you. I just thought you were, I don’t know, some girl.”
Case File: Sam Zawicki
Status: Villain
Base: Amelia Earhart Middle School
Superpower: Rage (which, I know, doesn’t sound all that powerful, but trust me, when you go around all the time so spitting mad that your hair practically stands on end, people get out of your way).
Superweapon: A guard-dog personality, really bony elbows, and steel-toed boots from Ed’s Army Surplus Emporium.
Real Name: Samantha (but no one’s suicidal enough to call her that).
Sam stood very still. Which was somehow worse than when she was flinging her bony arms and snorting out arch-nemesis fog.
“Girl?” Sam’s voice was low. “Did you call me a girl?”
“Uh—”
I cut a look at Noah, who raised his eyebrows in a kind of forehead shrug. What was the right answer here? I mean, she didn’t act like a girl. She didn’t walk like a girl or talk like a girl or dress like a girl or hit people like a girl. But technically she was, well, a girl.
“Um. Yes?” I said.
Sam narrowed her eyes. Opened her mouth to say something. Probably something I couldn’t repeat out loud, in case my mother was listening.
But somewhere up the block, a bell jangled against a glass door. Sam stopped. Shot another glance over her shoulder.
I glanced, too.
“Stop it!” she barked. “Can you just for once stop being such a Beanboy?” She poked me in the chest. Hard. “Turn around, ’cause you’re not going this way.”
“But . . . I have to,” I said. “My house is this way.”
Probably not my best strategy. Tactical Tip of the Day: Never tell a Zawicki where you live.
She snorted arch-nemesis fog in my face. “Then you’ll have to go around the block.”
“Around the block? That doesn’t even make—”
I was going to say “sense,” but I never got a chance, because here’s what she did next: She reached out and, before I knew what was happening, ripped the plastic sack from my hand. Flipped it like a Frisbee and sent it skittering behind me across the wet sidewalk.
It skidded over the concrete. Skidded over the cracks. Skidded smack into a puddle.
And for a second, it floated. For that short little second, Caveman’s plastic sack kept H2O safe and dry. For a second, I had hope.
Till she ripped my backpack from my shoulder and heaved it into the puddle. Splattered muddy water all over me and Noah. Crushed the sack and my comic book and my tiny bit of hope to the bottom of the puddle.
And I just stood there, frozen, and let her do it.
I’d spent my whole life thinking—hoping, dreaming, daring to believe—that no matter how gutless I appeared to the naked eye, no matter how . . . invisible, somewhere inside me, somewhere deep down where even I could barely find it, beat the heart of a superhero. And now, when I finally had a chance to prove it, when I could have stepped in and saved my comic book, could have stopped Sam Zawicki, could have finally become my true superhero self, what did I do?
Nothing.
Not one dang thing.
I told myself it was because she caught me by surprise. Because I wasn’t ready for her. I wasn’t expecting her to be standing there on Quincy Street, and I sure wasn’t expecting her to throw my comic book into a mud puddle. I mean, who expects that?
A superhero would. A superhero’s lightning fast reflexes would never become frozen by surprise.
I snapped out of my stupor and dragged my backpack and my comic book from the puddle. I shot a quick glance over my shoulder.
Sam was gone.
I scanned the street. Saw mostly college students. Plus one rickety old guy carrying a rickety old paper bag out of the thrift shop, with something fluffy and pink billowing out the top.
But Sam Zawicki had vanished.
I poured a stream of water from my Caveman sack. Peeled my drowned comic book from the plastic and gave the soggy pages a flap. Stale, gritty puddle water flecked my face.
All I can say is, when Noah and I rule the world, comic books will be waterproof. Also fireproof, wrinkleproof, bulletproof, and stain resistant. But mainly waterproof.
Noah wiped the splatters from his glasses. “Beecher’s bus’ll be pulling up to your house in approximately”—he clicked his watch—“two point six minutes.”
Buy the Book
Visit www.hmhco.com or your favorite retailer to purchase the book in its entirety.
About the Author
About writing the sequel to The Adventures of Beanboy, LISA HARKRADER writes: “As I finished writing and illustrating Beanboy, I realized that while part of Tucker’s (as well as his family’s and friends’) journey was coming to an end, another part was only beginning. Tucker had achieved something pretty big, especially for a thirteen-year-old, and that achievement would no doubt have a major impact on him and everyone around him. I want to explore that impact: how this new success changed his life, whether his life changed in ways he had expected, and how the people around him now
saw him.”
Ms. Harkrader has worked as a waitress, short-order cook, cable TV customer service representative, Marine Corps reservist, UPS package sorter, graphic designer, and teacher. In The Adventures of Beanboy, she combined her two loves—writing and illustrating—for the first time. She lives with her family on a farm in Kansas. Visit her website at www.ldharkrader.com.
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