Villainous

by Matthew Cody

  “I know that,” snapped Mollie.

  “Right.”

  “So, what’s your club called?” she asked.

  “We’re the Nobles. Get it? The Nobles of Noble’s Green.”

  “Hilarious,” answered Mollie.

  “Yeah, well, it wasn’t our idea,” said Drake. “Anyway, now it’s your turn. Why are you here?”

  Daniel thought he’d better take over before Mollie got them in any more trouble. He decided, once again, to go with the truth.

  “Someone vandalized Mr. Lemon’s ice cream shop,” said Daniel. “We wanted to ask Clay if he knew anything about it.”

  “What are you?” said Drake, laughing. “Some kind of kid detective who solves neighborhood crimes? Daniel Corrigan and the Case of the Ice Cream Vandals!”

  “Well, we just wanted to ask a few questions,” said Daniel, and he hated the defensive tone in his voice. When Drake put it like that, it did seem kind of silly.

  “And I guess that makes you his sidekick?” said Drake, winking at Mollie.

  Daniel felt Mollie tense up, and he took her hand and gave it a warning squeeze. They didn’t need trouble. Not out here.

  “Hey, Clay,” said Drake. “You know anything about a busted-up ice cream shop?”

  “No,” said Clay.

  “Well, there you have it,” said Drake. “Guess you can go home now.”

  And just like that, Daniel knew that Drake was lying. The giveaway was just how quickly the conversation stopped. Drake had been enjoying the game up until then, taunting them and even flirting with Mollie, but now they were dismissed, fun time over. It had happened so fast that they had to be hiding something. Still, considering how outnumbered they were, Daniel thought it best to take Drake up on his offer. It was time to get out of there.

  “Right. Let’s go, Mollie.”

  Luckily Mollie was as ready to leave as Daniel was, but as the two of them turned to go, Mutt moved in front of them, pacing back and forth on all fours.

  “Sniff, sniff,” he said, staring at Mollie with those watery eyes of his.

  “Uh-oh,” said Skye with a fake smile. “I think Mutt wants to play first!”

  “Growl,” added Mutt, and he leaned forward on his hands.

  “C’mon, Mutt,” said Drake. “I told them they could go.”

  “But they’re peasants,” said Skye. “Mutt doesn’t get to play with peasants much, does he?” She was using a super-annoying baby-talk voice, as if addressing a puppy.

  They couldn’t go any farther. Mutt blocked the way out and Skye was now standing right beside Daniel.

  “What do you mean, we’re peasants?” asked Daniel, not taking his eyes off Mutt.

  “You see,” said Skye, leaning close to him until she was practically whispering in his ear, “we Nobles can do things. Amazing things. That’s why we’re, like, nobility. Born to rule. And peasants are everyone else. Like you, an ordinary little peasant.”

  Mutt crept up close and bared his teeth in a snarl. Mollie backed away.

  Skye squealed. “Look at her face!”

  Clay called over to her, “Hey, watch out! Mollie’s not—”

  Mollie moved so fast that if Daniel had blinked, he would have missed it. One second she was backing away from Mutt and the next she was standing behind him, her foot planted firmly on his backside. All it took was a little kick to send him face-first onto the garbage-strewn ground.

  “Hey!” said Skye, but Mollie was already back at Daniel’s side.

  “Now we’re leaving,” she said.

  But Mutt was up on his hands and feet again. He spit out a mouthful of garbage as he shouted, “Gonna get you for that!”

  With a real growl this time, he lunged forward, leaping into the air like an animal. But as impressive as Mutt’s speed was, he was no match for Mollie. She’d shoved Daniel out of harm’s way and literally flown over Mutt’s head before he’d even landed. Then she was behind him again, and this time she wasn’t satisfied with a simple kick. She reached down, grabbed the back of Mutt’s pants, and delivered what Daniel supposed was the world’s first super-wedgie. Mutt’s growl turned high-pitched and girl-like as his underwear was yanked up to his neck at super-speed.

  Out of the corner of his eye Daniel saw the boy called Hunter start forward, his hands balling into fists. His eyes narrowed like he was concentrating on something.

  But whatever he was preparing to do, he was stopped by Drake. “That’s enough!” Drake shouted, and as he did so, a puff of smoke and fire escaped from his mouth and nose. Daniel hadn’t imagined the smoke after all. Drake was some kind of fire-breather.

  Hunter relaxed and Skye backed away, her head down and eyes staring at the ground. She looked like a child who’d just been given a time-out.

  “Well,” Drake said, regaining his composure, although wisps of smoke still trailed out of his nose. “If you’re all done playing.”

  “I tried to warn you,” said Clay.

  “Shut up,” answered Drake. “We’re done here today. You two run along home before I change my mind.”

  Daniel didn’t have to be told again. He grabbed Mollie’s arm and the two of them ran for the broken fence. She let herself be led along, though she could’ve simply flown away at any time.

  The last thing Daniel heard as they escaped the junkyard was Drake shouting for someone to help get Mutt free from his underwear.

  Chapter Seven

  The Unusual Suspects

  “Academy kids, all of them,” said Daniel. “But there is, like, zero information on the actual academy online other than press releases and their shiny new website. Luckily, we live in the age of the social network. Voilà!”

  Daniel swung around in his seat and allowed Mollie to get a look at the computer. Onscreen was a picture of a teenager with coal-black hair, dressed in his lacrosse jersey and holding a trophy. He looked like he had an easygoing manner with just a hint of cockiness in his pose.

  “ ‘Drake Masterson,’ ” Mollie read over his shoulder. “Former student at Holy Cross—that’s why we haven’t seen him around before. Says he’ll be in the tenth grade next year. He was captain of the lacrosse and debate teams.”

  “Now he’s a hoodlum who hangs out in junkyards to score stolen beer,” said Daniel. “I guess that’s what an academy education will get you, huh?”

  Daniel scrolled through Drake’s profile on the computer screen. It had taken a while, with only a first name and approximate age to go on, but after searching enough social networking sites filtered by area, he was finally able to bring up this profile. Their new fire-breathing friend.

  “Look there,” said Mollie, pointing at the corner of the screen. On Drake’s photo page was a group shot of what looked like a canoe trip. Drake and a bunch of his friends were in their life jackets, goofing off for the camera and making faces. A handsome African American boy stood next to Drake. He was smiling as he made rabbit ears behind Drake’s back.

  “That’s that Hunter kid,” said Mollie. “He’s a lot better-looking when he smiles.”

  Daniel decided to let the comment about Hunter’s looks pass unremarked. He sat back in his desk chair and rubbed his eyes. They’d been staring at the computer for hours now, scanning literally hundreds of profiles of kids in their area. Dinner had been a reheated frozen pizza on paper plates, devoured while sitting on the hardwood floor of Daniel’s attic bedroom. They told their parents that they were working on a project for Mr. Smiley, but the truth was they hadn’t touched their history books. With their final getting close, Daniel felt a bit guilty about that. Mollie in particular should be using this time to study, but then again he was as anxious to learn who these kids were as she was. Characteristically, Mollie told him not to worry, and that they’d hit the books extra hard tomorrow. As if this mystery could be solved in one day.

  Daniel copied the picture of Drake and Hunter together and printed it out. He’d cleared the corkboard next to his desk of all his little comic strips and carto
ons, and was now using it to assemble his own wall of suspects. Beneath each picture he’d written a name and a power.

  “So, let’s go over what we know so far,” said Daniel, pointing to the photo of a girl in a red convertible. She was blowing a kiss at the camera. “We know Janey Levine, aka Skye. I haven’t watched her TV show, but from what I’ve read online, she has some kind of telekinesis.”

  “She uses it to put on her makeup in the car. Twit.”

  “Then there’s this Hunter kid, the good-looking one.” The emphasis was for Mollie’s benefit, but she didn’t seem to notice. “No full name, but I think we can assume he went to Holy Cross with Drake, even though we don’t know what he can do.” Hunter got a question mark on his card where his power would normally be.

  “That’s two of them,” said Mollie. “Still nothing on Mutt?”

  “Nothing,” answered Daniel. In place of a photo, Daniel had posted a blank index card with the kid’s name on it. “You ever try doing a search on the name Mutt? It’s impossible. We know he’s, well, animalistic might be a good word, so we’ll just write that down. Did you see those teeth?”

  “Only too well,” said Mollie. “So that leaves Drake.”

  “Yep,” said Daniel. “Drake Masterson. Star student, sixteen years old, and I’m guessing their leader.” Daniel pinned up the photo of Drake with his welcoming smile, the picture of a clean-cut Pennsylvania teen. Beneath that, he wrote, “Fire-breather.”

  “There they are,” said Daniel. “Students of the academy. The Nobles of Noble’s Green.”

  He’d arranged the photos in a cluster, and just off to the side he’d pinned up a picture of Clay, a scowling yearbook shot on which Rohan had once used a Magic Marker to give him missing front teeth and a unibrow. Beneath the defaced picture, Daniel wrote, “Super-strong, super-tough.”

  “We know Clay wants to join, but they didn’t seem very impressed, so let’s keep him close.”

  “What about Bud?” asked Mollie. “You think he’s at the academy too?”

  “If Clay’s there, then I wouldn’t doubt it. Bud doesn’t do well on his own.”

  Daniel pinned up Bud’s yearbook picture next to Clay’s. It was slightly out of focus, as if the cameraman had rushed the shot.

  Poor Bud, Daniel thought as he wrote “super-stink” beneath the picture. The kid couldn’t even convince the cameraman to get close enough to take a decent shot.

  “There’s our list of prime suspects,” said Daniel.

  “We’re missing one,” said Mollie.

  “Oh, not Theo again! I told you I trust him.”

  “I’m not talking about Theo,” answered Mollie, and she pinned up a blank card near the top of the board, on which she’d written a single word—Shroud.

  “He’s still alive,” she said. “And I know you said vandalizing a store is beneath him, but as far as I’m concerned, he’s always a suspect.”

  Mollie was right. It was foolish to ignore Herman, and potentially hazardous too. But while they couldn’t ignore him, there was another danger to consider. The worst thing about Herman Plunkett, from a detective’s point of view, was that with him around it was very difficult to even consider any other suspects. Daniel had made that mistake last year, when the Supers were being menaced by strange shadow creatures Daniel dubbed Shades. Herman was involved, despite the fact that he was presumed dead at the time. But the truth turned out to be more complicated, and though in the end Daniel was right about Plunkett being a part of it, he was certainly not the mastermind. The Supers found Herman helpless in his own secret lair, the Shades’ prisoner. Those creatures turned out to be the manifestations of lost memories and powers Herman had stolen with his Witch Fire pendant, a piece of the meteorite that had burned St. Alban’s to the ground. All the Shades had wanted was their freedom, but Daniel had been too obsessed with catching Herman to see the truth until it was almost too late.

  Keeping an open, objective mind while Herman was on that board was next to impossible. The Shroud was a black hole sucking up all the light.

  “Herman’s powerless,” said Mollie. “So, what do we write on his card?”

  Daniel thought about this for a moment, then took up the black marker and wrote “Really, really evil” beneath his name. Yep, really, really evil. It was important to remember that.

  Mollie had taken two more note cards and written “Tree fort fire” on one and “Attack at bridge” on another. Daniel tried to tell her that the word attack was a bit strong, but she wouldn’t change it. He could have been seriously hurt, or worse, she said. So attack stood.

  The only girl on the board was Skye, and naturally their suspicions centered on her. But if she was their mysterious laughing girl, how could she have learned about the tree fort in the first place? Another unanswered question.

  Finally, in the center of the board Daniel pinned up a new article from the Noble Herald. The headline read, “Superpowered Delinquents Suspected in Vandalism Case.” The article went on to say that because of the speed with which Mr. Lemon’s shop was vandalized, combined with the sheer amount of destruction, the sheriff’s department suspected that the culprits were “members of the town’s superpowered population.” Beyond that they had no suspects at this time.

  Daniel stepped back so that he could take in the entire board. All the smiling faces staring back at him. Academy students, every last one.

  The sheriff’s department had no suspects, and Daniel had too many.

  The next morning, Daniel was just finishing breakfast and arguing with Georgie over who’d get the last of the syrup for his French toast when Mollie appeared at the door, looking panicked.

  “Have you all seen the news?” asked Mollie, not bothering to ask if she could come inside.

  “Why no,” said Daniel’s mother. “Is something the matter?”

  Catching the significant look that Mollie was giving him, Daniel hopped out of his seat and headed for the living room. Georgie snatched up the undefended syrup bottle with a shout of triumph.

  The TV was already tuned to the local news, and as soon as the picture came on, Daniel saw it—an overhead shot of downtown Noble’s Green. The camera was panning over the wreck of a building: windows shattered, doors missing. Several buses in the parking lot were actually overturned.

  “Oh my,” said Daniel’s mother. “Is that the high school? What happened? Was it a tornado?”

  “There weren’t any storms last night,” said Mollie.

  Daniel looked back at the scene of destruction. One of the buses was a smoking, burnt-out shell. As the shot cut between the helicopter and a reporter standing in front of the rubble, a graphic flashed across the bottom of the screen:

  “Superpowered vandals turn to rampage?”

  At that moment they heard the shatter of a bottle breaking, and from the kitchen Georgie’s voice.

  “Uh-oh,” he said. “Mom, can I have another syrup?”

  Chapter Eight

  The Scene of the Crime

  Never had Daniel felt so slow. Since the high school was only a block away from the middle school, he had sped out of the house on his bike, hoping to get a chance to see the destruction up close and still make it in time for Smiley’s class. Mollie, of course, had simply flown ahead. Daniel pedaled like he was competing in the Tour de France and still it wasn’t fast enough. It felt like he was steering his bike through a swamp.

  As he finally neared the school, he passed streets lined with news vans and crowds of gawking people, and it became hard to squeeze through them all. In a place the size of Noble’s Green, the smallest things became newsworthy, and Daniel still remembered the controversy that had rocked the town last year when the council voted to put a stoplight on Main Street. Of course, everything had changed with the Blackout Event, and the town’s fifteen minutes of fame had finally come. But as he passed the news crews, he saw the faces of the reporters and suspected that the story of the sleepy town of superheroes had already played itself out. Video seg
ments on flying kids and profiles of the librarian who could breathe at the bottom of a lake were yesterday’s news. The public was hungry for something fresh and exciting, and this attack on the high school would be just the thing. It was a new angle on the old story, full of scandalous possibilities—the dark side of Camelot. Even the crowd of camera phone–waving tourists looked like a pack of scavengers as they snapped pictures of the vandalized school. They’d come to Noble’s Green hoping to catch a glimpse of a floating fire chief, but now were being treated to the superpowered destruction of public property.

  “Hey,” said Mollie, waving at him from a crowd of jostling onlookers. “Can you believe all these people?”

  “This might be worse than we thought,” said Daniel, panting. The ride had really worn him out, and Mollie was standing there without having broken a sweat.

  The footage on television didn’t adequately portray the extent of the damage, and for a moment Daniel actually wondered if his mom had been right—maybe a tornado had rolled through here. But once you looked closer, you could tell that this destruction wasn’t the result of a random force of nature. It was deliberate. Every window was smashed, probably because nearly all of the desks within had been tossed through them. Someone had emptied each classroom, and the broken contents now lay scattered across the parking lot. The entrance looked like it had been fire-bombed, and the charred doors still dangled loosely from their hinges.

  The headlines were right. No one without powers could have accomplished all this destruction in a matter of minutes, not without a small army. That was obvious now to Daniel, and to everyone who saw.

  “Wow,” said Mollie. “They would have to hit the high school.”

  “Huh?”

  “What about the middle school? We’ve got a final coming up!”

  Mollie’s attempt at gallows humor was admirable, but they both knew that this was a very serious situation. The stakes of their own little investigation had just escalated.

  “You know,” said Daniel, “they say that criminals often come back to the scene of the crime.”