She held open the front door. Safety was a few paces away. Thanking her for a lovely day, I scooted past, relieved to be out of there in one piece.
“Monday,” Lara barked, “after school. You and I are finally going to unmask Star Lad.”
Before I could object, she had turned on her heel and I was left staring at the closed door.
I’d squeaked through today. Monday didn’t look so promising.
14
WITH ONE BOUND
“Her bedroom?” quizzed Zack.
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Fine. Then don’t.”
“Her actual bedroom?”
It was later that evening. Zack tripped after me around the kitchen as I gathered ingredients for a milkshake. He had been going on like this for about an hour. I rolled my eyes. It wasn’t as if I’d been to Superman’s Fortress of Solitude or the Batcave. “I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s just a bedroom.”
“No, no it isn’t. It’s Cara Lee’s bedroom.” He stood in front of me, blocking my way. “So?”
I dodged round him and hopped up on the counter. “So what?”
“So … what was it like?!” he snapped.
“Perfume-y,” I said. “Oh, and she has posters of that singer. Billy Something.”
“Dark?” There was a wisp of disappointment in his voice. “She likes Billy Dark?”
“That’s the one. Didn’t you say you hated him?”
Zack cleared his throat. “I don’t think I said that I hate him. Hate is a very strong word, Luke.”
I slid off the counter top, confused. “But I remember the conversation we had. We were watching that video of him with the sad giraffe and the hat. Can’t stand him, you said. With his ridiculous stubbly face, terrible songs and stupid hat. Miserable, tuneless twit. Then you said that actually when you came to think about it, you positively, absolutely hated him. With a passion.”
“Yes, well.” Zack squirmed. “Maybe I was … hasty. Cara really likes him?”
“Two posters. Right over her bed.”
“What else?”
“Nothing much.” I shrugged. “Although it did get interesting when she walked in on us.”
If Zack had been a cartoon character, his eyes would have been out on stalks. “She was there?!” His face flushed scarlet, much as it had that time I slipped raw chillies into his cheese and pickle sandwich. “Did … did she mention me?” he asked haltingly.
Cara had indeed mentioned Zack. I believe her exact description of him was “that weird kid who stalks me at school”. I decided to spare him the truth.
“Yes, she did,” I said. “You’re very memorable.”
Zack’s face glowed with happiness. “Memorable? She said I was memorable?”
Not as memorable as Matthias the Viking, I thought. But kept my mouth shut.
As Zack mooned about the kitchen mouthing “memorable” and grinning to himself I whipped up a couple of chocolate milkshakes to my own recipe. Eight scoops vanilla ice cream. Splash of whole milk. Mini marshmallows, lightly microwaved. Plenty of whipped cream. And chocolate powder. Not the cheap stuff; I only use Mum’s really expensive Colombian chocolate powder that she keeps in the locked cupboard above the bread bin. I’m not supposed to go near it, but really, can a grown-up truly appreciate a chocolate milkshake the way a kid can? No, of course not. So, you see, it’s not me doing anything wrong, it’s her rule that’s misguided in the first place.
I plugged in the hand blender and mixed up the ingredients in a large bowl. Most of the mixture stayed in the bowl, although a fair amount ended up spraying the tiled splashback. But then, isn’t that what splashbacks are for? I poured two mugs to the brim and fished out four straws from the drawer. You need two straws in each mug to maximise sucking efficiency. I handed a mug to Zack and sat down at the kitchen table.
I knew that I should tell him about Crystal Comics and the missing video footage. There was a good chance that whoever had it already knew that Zack was Star Lad. That was something he should be made aware of, if only to prepare himself for the likelihood of being exposed. I was just waiting for the right moment to speak up. But somehow, ever since I’d got home from Lara’s, the right moment had failed to present itself. I knew it was stupid, but I worried that Zack would blame me, since I was the one who had talked him into visiting the comic store in the first place.
Right then I decided that the footage was my problem, not his. I’d find it and get rid of it and Zack would never need to know.
“So, what did you do today?” I asked him.
I could tell that he was still distracted by thoughts of Cara. “Oh, nothing,” he said with a dismissive wave. “Went to speech and drama this morning. Then in the afternoon stopped a runaway train.”
“Underground?”
“Main line.”
I nodded and sucked a mouthful of milkshake. Zack had only been a superhero for a short time, but was already nonchalant about the whole thing. Grown-ups are always complaining about young people having short attention spans, and when you come across a fourteen-year-old boy bored of his superpowers after just a few weeks you can’t really blame them.
“Oh yeah,” he added. “Almost forgot. I discovered another new power today.”
I choked on my milkshake. Now, this was interesting. “X-ray vision? Energy blast? Precognition?”
“What’s precognition?” asked Zack.
“It’s when you can see into the future,” I explained. “Not like years into the future, but seconds. And usually it’s not that clear, more like a feeling in your gut, so you can sense imminent danger. Is that it then?” I said excitedly. “I know – we’ll call it ‘Star-sense’!”
“No, it’s not that.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. “Then what is it?”
“Well … I went for a swim at the sports centre,” he began, settling himself in the chair across from me. “It’s a fab pool. Huge. Fifty metres long.”
I didn’t care. I knew how big the pool was. But I knew too that if I interrupted him this story could go on until I was old enough to leave school. I nodded, and let him get on with it. This is what I heard.
“Blah blah blah. Excellent shower facilities. Blah blah blah. Delicious chicken sandwich. Blah blah blah. I can breathe underwater. Blah blah—”
“What!?” I leapt up from my seat and scampered round the table. I stood directly behind him in order to study the back of his head.
“What are you doing?” he asked, craning his neck to see what I was up to.
I poked at his ears. “Checking for gills.”
“Get off!” He pushed away my finger. “I am not a haddock!”
He was right. There were no gills behind his ears. “That doesn’t make sense,” I puzzled. Gills extract oxygen from water and then poo out carbon dioxide. It’s how fish breathe. I folded my arms, baffled. “How can you breathe underwater without the correct equipment?”
“I don’t know,” said Zack in a bored voice. “Maybe it’s magic.”
I supposed it could have been magic. Plenty of superheroes’ powers had supernatural origins. Off the top of my head I could name Hellboy, Zatanna, Constantine and Doctor Strange.
So, Zack could magically breathe underwater. I wondered how that fitted in to his upcoming battle against Nemesis? Maybe Nemesis would turn out to be half-shark, half-platypus, or have tentacles instead of arms. Maybe the battle to decide the fate of the world would take place in the 50-metre pool at Crystal Palace Sports Centre. That would be great for me, since I had a season pass.
Noisily, I drained my milkshake and headed out of the kitchen. It was getting late and I had to prepare myself for Monday and another day with the hazardous Lara. I’d need plenty of sleep. I was halfway across the kitchen when a light pulsed outside the window. Looking out across the houses I saw a beam of light spearing into the sky, turning the underside of a cloud brilliant white with the giant letters “S” and “L
”.
“Uh, Zack?” I turned to him.
“Oh yeah, that’s for me,” he said, rising from his chair. “It’s new. When the council needs me they shine that searchlight.”
I gazed at the light in awe. “The Council? Of Elrond? The Jedi Council?”
“Bromley Council,” said Zack. “The light’s on the Civic Centre roof.”
“What if it isn’t cloudy?”
“What?”
“If there are no clouds in the sky, then where do they shine the light?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t discuss it.”
“Maybe you should bring it up at the next meeting.”
“Yeah, I’ll do that,” he said, but in a way that told me he had no intention of doing so. “I have to go now, Luke.” He bounded out and I followed him into the hallway. When I got there he was plucking his hoodie from the coat stand and pulling open the front door.
“Zack?” I called after him. “Can I come with you?”
He gave a half-amused, half-apologetic laugh. “Sorry, little brother, but this looks like a job…” He squared his shoulders, cloaked himself with the hoodie and growled, “for Star Lad.” With that he bounded out into the night.
I hadn’t noticed until that moment, but Zack barely walked anywhere these days, instead he bounded all over the place. I hurried into the driveway in time to watch him disappear along Moore Street, his swift, shadowy figure a flicker beneath the streetlamps’ orange glow, as he headed off on another exciting adventure.
Without me.
15
BUS RIDE TO MYSTERY
Mrs Tyrannosaur’s English lesson was almost over. That’s not, strictly speaking, her real name. We call her that because she’s prehistoric, walks around with her elbows tucked in and roars a lot.
She stood at the front of the class, waving her stubby arms and thundering on about the book we were reading. It was The Railway Children by E. Nesbit. A classic. If you like that sort of thing. I’d read it years ago, assuming it would be a story about a bunch of child geniuses who transform themselves into half-human, half-train cyborgs. Sort of Transformers with timetables.
It’s not.
Spoiler alert. The climax of the story involves the children having to stop a train. And how do they do this, you may ask, if they have no superpowers or strength-enhancing exoskeleton suits? I’ll tell you—
“Psst,” a voice hissed behind me. I turned my head to see Rupashi Singh clutching a small, folded note. “From Lara,” she whispered, thrusting it into my hand and making a kissy face.
I glanced across the classroom. I sit at the door, Lara Lee sits next to the window, as far away from me as it’s possible to be. A good thing, in my opinion. Especially since I’d been trying to ignore her throughout the lesson. I was hoping she’d forgotten about our arrangement to meet up after school. She stabbed a finger urgently at the note. I unfolded it with a weary sigh. It was the home address of Christopher Talbot, owner of Crystal Comics and Lara’s prime suspect in the case of the missing Star Lad footage. Clearly, she hadn’t forgotten our rendezvous.
“Luke Parker!” roared Mrs Tyrannosaur.
I dropped the note in alarm and blurted out, “They wave their red knickers!”
A gale of laughter billowed across the classroom. Serge laughed so hard he had to take a puff on his inhaler. Mrs Tyrannosaur seemed less amused. The latest scientific research suggested that unlike other large carnivorous theropods the T-rex had excellent binocular vision. So did Mrs Tyrannosaur. She eyed me beadily. Thankfully, the incriminating note had fallen into my lap, out of her sight. She lumbered over to my desk.
“To stop the train,” I continued in a shaky voice, “the children wave their pants at it.” I mimed the pant-waving action, which was probably a bit unnecessary.
Mrs Tyrannosaur stood over me, red-varnished talons clawing the air, digestive juices dripping from her slavering jaws.
“Their petticoats. The children remove their red petticoats and flag down the train,” she corrected. “But yes, Luke, you are substantially correct in your description of the climactic scene of the novel. I am gratified to see you were paying attention, after all.” She bent down and I could smell her breath, a mixture of rotten meat and cups of tea. Her bony nostrils flared and she snarled, “And not swapping love letters in my class.”
I felt my cheeks burn and heard the rest of the class chuckle at my expense. All except Serge, who I could see regarding his English classmates with deep confusion. I think the French must be a lot more relaxed about all that kissy stuff.
The buzzer sounded for the end of the lesson and the school day. I had narrowly escaped the scaly clutches of my teacher, but I knew I wouldn’t be so lucky with Lara Lee. There was a scraping of chairs and a clatter of shoes on the wooden floor as class was dismissed.
“OK, Romeo,” whispered Lara as she breezed past me. “We have a date with Christopher Talbot.”
On the bus she explained that once she’d found his address and phone number she’d called him up pretending to request an interview for the school newspaper. He’d happily agreed and invited her to tea.
“Why did you pretend?” I asked.
Lara looked at me like I was stupid. “Because it isn’t a real interview.”
That seemed a shame. An interview with a comic book store owner was just the sort of thing I’d enjoy reading in the school paper. “So, if it’s not a real interview then are you going to ask him fake questions?”
“No, of course not. The questions will be real, but it’s his answers I’m interested in.”
“Because they’ll be fake?”
She sighed. “His answers will tell me what he knows about the missing Star Lad footage.”
That made sense, but I had one more important question. “So, who am I?”
She gave me another one of those looks. “Uh, are you feeling all right?”
I could see how she might have misunderstood. “No, I mean I know who I am now, here on the bus. But if you’re the investigative journalist, then who am I meant to be?”
With a smile Lara dug into her schoolbag, rummaging deep inside before emerging with a sparkly pink plastic My Little Pony disposable camera. I raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you a bit, y’know, old for—”
“I only like them ironically,” she interrupted, daring me to contradict her.
“You can be my photographer,” she declared, handing over the camera.
I nodded. “Like Peter Parker.”
“Is he your cousin?”
What?! Had she lived under a rock her whole life? No, even under-rock-dwellers would know who Peter Parker was. She must have lived under a rock on the surface of the most distant rock in our solar system, which is not Pluto but actually an object called Sedna in the Oort cloud. I mean, really, how could she never have come across the most famous newspaper photographer in the world? “He’s Spiderman.”
“Oh,” said Lara, unrolling a sweet wrapper. “Fruit pastille?”
I popped a sweet into my mouth. “If you’re going to interview a comic book store owner you have to know the basics,” I said as I chewed. She started to object, but I cut her off. “Even if it’s a fake interview. If you don’t know your Green Goblin from your Green Lantern from your Green Arrow he’ll sense that something’s amiss and clam up. Then you won’t find out about Star Lad.”
I could see her considering what I’d said. You might think it would have been better for me to let her go in to the interview unprepared. But I was in a tricky spot. I didn’t want Lara to find out the truth about Star Lad, but I had to get my hands on that video footage. It pained me to admit it, but I needed her and her reporter’s skills.
“We’ve got fourteen stops until we arrive,” she said at last. “How much can you teach me about comics?”
Fourteen stops might’ve been enough to learn about the Causes of the First World War or A History of the Kings and Queens of England, but this was comic books we were talking about. “That
depends. How much do you already know?”
Lara bit the end of her thumb as she pondered the question. “Well,” she began, “I know that Superman can fly.”
Oh. Dear.
I made a swift calculation, took a deep breath and began. “A is for Ant-Man…”
16
TALBOT
The bus grumbled to a halt and we hopped off. We had been stuck on “C” for the last six stops. Turns out there are a lot of superheroes called “Captain” something-or-other. I could tell by her glazed expression and the twitch in her right eye that Lara had probably heard enough about comics for now, so as we walked the rest of the way to Christopher Talbot’s house she changed the subject.
“Your brother fancies my sister, doesn’t he?” said Lara.
“I think so,” I said. Talking with girls about this stuff is a bit like reading a book with Mrs Tyrannosaur. Sometimes a sentence isn’t just a sentence. Apparently, some writers put stuff into their books that you can’t see. And I don’t mean like DVD extras. It’s called subtext. Like a submarine, it lurks under the surface. Actually, it’s more like a sea-monster than a submarine. A monstrous kraken. I ask you, what’s the point of that? If you want people to understand your book then why hide other meanings inside it? Comics don’t have subtext. Nothing is hidden. Everything’s on the outside, even the underwear. In a comic a kraken is a kraken, not a sea-monster with added meaning.
“Zack’s not mature enough for Cara,” declared Lara.
We had a cheddar cheese in the fridge that was mature. I didn’t know how that figured into this conversation so I said, “Oh.”
“Matthias has a beard,” she said in the same way an ordinary person would say, “I can teleport at will.”
My Brother is a Superhero Page 7