The Adventures of Beanboy

by Lisa Harkrader

  Will H2O escape? It’s up to you. Until now, H2O has battled alone, alienated by his freakishly aqueous body, unwilling to let anyone get close.

  But a lone warrior is a vulnerable warrior. And this time, H2O needs help. Without it, he will not be able to save himself or Planet Earth from Madame Fury’s vengeance.

  Will H2O—and ultimately the planet—survive? The answer depends on you.

  Me? If the planet depended on me, Earthlings were in big trouble.

  H2O—and the H2O Submerged series—cannot continue without your help. To save H2O, create an original superhero sidekick.

  H2O’s sidekick must possess the true heart of a hero. Reach deep within yourself, find that heroic heart, and create a sidekick who can rank among the greatest sidekicks in comic book history.

  The winning sidekick will become H2O’s partner against crime in all future H2O episodes, beginning with the final episode of the H2O Submerged series, which will be published—

  Published. Like a real comic book. That people would read. Not just people here in Wheaton. People across the country. Across the country? Heck, around the planet.

  —which will be published next year.

  Huh. So that’s what Caveman was grunting about. I couldn’t come in to buy H2O next month because there wouldn’t be an H2O next month.

  The winner of the contest will receive a full college scholarship.

  College scholarship? I blinked. One thing we could use around here was a college scholarship.

  Five

  I didn’t need a college scholarship.

  Eventually I would need one. But not for another six years, assuming I survived middle school and high school.

  The person who needed a scholarship—immediately—was my mother. With a scholarship, she could quit her job at the bank (the whole reason she’d gone back to college in the first place), go to school during the day (like a normal person), be here at night to order our pizza and make sure Beecher brushed his teeth (more of a bonus for me than for her), and actually get a decent night’s sleep once in a while (because really, besides vampires—and Batman—who stays awake that many nights in a row?).

  I don’t know why I never thought of it before, especially with Rosalie and her pitiful scholarship budget living two stairways below us. A scholarship could be the answer to everything. So many pieces of our family had been peeling off and spinning into space lately. Dad only existed in e-mails. Mom wasn’t much more than a sticky note. And now somebody had planted flowers in our tire swing. It felt like one day we were just going to spin away into nothing. And no matter what I did, I couldn’t catch the pieces as they flew by.

  Until now.

  I ordered a large cheese pizza, with just enough pepperoni slices to make a happy face: two for the eyes, one for the nose, a row of slices for the mouth. Luckily, we’d ordered enough pizza that Pizza Rocket didn’t even ask anymore. As soon as they saw our number on caller ID, they started lining up the pepperoni. I dispatched Beech to the kitchen to wait for the delivery guy and carried H2O down the hall to my room.

  My room, a.k.a. the Batcave.

  Outside, the streetlight cast a foggy yellow glow. Wind rattled the windows. Rain snaked down the glass. Out there, the world was cold, gray, a little dangerous. But here, inside, my room was like a fortress: snug, dry, sealed away from danger.

  My H2O action figure gazed down on me, his Genuine Crystal-Luxe muscles flexed, ready to blast any slimeball who dared infiltrate the Batcave.

  I checked my text messages, not expecting to find much, except maybe from Noah, covertly sent between homework, bassoon practice, and whatever brain-enlarging extracurricular activities his parents had signed him up for this week.

  Nothing.

  I fired up my computer and found an e-mail from my dad. Which I kind of wanted to open (because it was from my dad) and kind of didn’t (because it was from my dad).

  Because here’s the thing about my dad: He hardly ever e-mails, and when he does, it’s not just to check in and see how we’re doing or to tell us what the weather’s like in Boston or to forward some stupid Internet joke.

  No.

  My dad e-mails when he has Something on His Mind.

  I clicked OPEN.

  Tucker,

  What’s this about wanting money for your birthday instead of a gift? Is your mother having some kind of financial crisis? Because if she is, she needs to take care of it herself. She shouldn’t expect you boys to give up your birthday gifts. Don’t worry. This isn’t something you need to concern yourself with. I’ll call and straighten her out.

  Call her?

  NO.

  No, no, no, no, no.

  That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

  How it was supposed to go was:

  1. Dad opens e-mail from me.

  2. Dad thinks: Great! Now I know exactly what to give my son, and it won’t even cost that much to mail.

  3. Dad sends money.

  That was the plan.

  It was a simple plan.

  Can’t anyone follow a plan?

  He’s my dad and everything, so I would never say this to him, and I feel bad even thinking it, but if he would’ve just followed the main plan in the first place, and stayed here in Wheaton instead of taking his big hot job in Boston, and if he and Mom would’ve figured out how to stay married to each other, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

  We for sure wouldn’t be having it in an e-mail.

  My fingers started typing.

  Dad,

  No need to call. Seriously. Mom’s fine. We’re all fine. No financial crisis here. I only asked for money because I thought it would be easier. Because of how busy you are. And because last year you said the cost of postage was getting out of hand, and the post office was robbing you blind. But if you want to go shopping, that’s fine. Great, in fact. But you don’t need to call Mom. Really.

  Tucker

  I hit SEND, transmitted a few brain waves along with it to help convince my dad, then reached into the dusty space behind my monitor. In the back, hidden under an old H2O poster, sat our pickle jar. I lifted it out and gave it a swirl. Dollar bills swished around the pennies, nickels, dimes, and occasional quarters that jingled in the bottom.

  Ever since Mom started back to school, Beech and I had been saving our leftover pizza money—plus my bike rental fees and our recycled pop can earnings and the change Beecher dug out of the coin return slots at the Laundromat—and stashing it all in the jar. Every time I plunked money in, I recorded it on a sheet of paper I’d taped to the front. Our goal: Save enough money for Mom to quit her job.

  If Caveman would’ve gone along with my comic book delivery plan, I could’ve added my earnings to the jar.

  If my dad would’ve gone along with the birthday money plan, I could’ve put that money in, too.

  And that would’ve been a lot. A lot, a lot. Because I knew what he was going to get me. The same thing he always got me: a baseball bat. A really expensive big-barrel aluminum alloy bat. To replace the really expensive big-barrel aluminum alloy bat he sent last year and said I’d probably outgrown.

  (Which I may have. How do you know when you’ve outgrown a bat? Luckily, my dad knew. For him, I think the bats were like magic beans. He was hoping if he kept sending them, maybe one day he’d look out his window and see that I’d sprouted into an athlete.)

  I rubbed my thumb over the paper. Grand total so far: $48.63. I sighed. Forty-eight dollars and sixty-three cents didn’t make much of a rattle in a gallon-sized pickle jar. It sure didn’t rattle enough for Mom to quit her job. It barely rattled enough for her to take an afternoon off.

  Beecher tottered in balancing the pizza box, the change from the twenty-dollar bill wadded in his bony fist. He set the pizza on my bed and handed me the money—four crumpled dollar bills and a handful of change. I plunked it into the jar along with the five dollars I’d retrieved from the spokes on my bike and added the new total to the paper: $58.38.


  Beecher watched, his face rumpled in a hopeful scrunch. “Mom no tuddy job now?”

  I shook my head. “Not even close, Beech-man.”

  “Oh.” His shoulders slumped.

  “Don’t worry.” I gave Beech a little punch in the arm. “I have a plan.”

  He looked up. “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Beech burrowed down on my bed, opened the pizza box, and spun it around till the happy face was turned the right way. He couldn’t eat if the face was upside down.

  I slid the jar back behind my computer and covered it with the poster, rubbed H2O’s Genuine Crystal-Luxe head for luck, and burrowed down into my desk chair.

  I couldn’t protect mankind. I couldn’t defend the planet. I couldn’t even save my own comic book from Sam Zawicki. But create a kick-butt assistant for the world’s greatest superhero? This I could do. This I was born to do.

  And I wouldn’t have to Xerox my black-and-white drawings at the copy shop and beg Caveman to put them in the INDIE section of his store. If I did this right, if I created the best superhero sidekick the Overlord universe had ever seen, I could be in comic book stores everywhere. In full, glossy color.

  My mom would have a scholarship. Beecher wouldn’t have to get his kisses from a sticky note.

  And I’d have fans. Millions of fans, across the country. Heck, around the world.

  Maybe even at my own school.

  I stared at Episode Nine. At my own school. Wouldn’t that be . . . weird?

  Because, let’s face it, up to this point I hadn’t exactly been winning the popularity wars at Earhart Middle. I wasn’t a complete dork. I don’t think anyone actively hated me (except now, suddenly, Sam Zawicki, but she hated everyone). I was pretty much known as the kid with the comic books, and on the sliding scale of middle-school coolness, comic book obsession hovered somewhere between geography club and the math team. It wasn’t social suicide like, say, chronic B.O. But it sure didn’t lift me up to the ranks of the basketball team’s starting five.

  But what if it could?

  I opened Episode Nine to the contest and read through the instructions once more, careful not to miss any rule or requirement that would get me disqualified.

  Entry had to be postmarked by midnight, October 15—check.

  Judges’ decisions were final—check.

  Winner authorized Dark Overlord, Inc., to publish the winning entry in comic book form—well yeah, that was the whole point, duh, check.

  Prize couldn’t be redeemed for cash—bummer, but okay, check.

  And then the final rule. I read it. And stopped dead in my desk chair.

  This prize is nontransferable.

  Nontransferable. Meaning . . . what?

  I looked it up in my handy desktop dictionary.

  nontransferable (adj.): not able to be transferred.

  For a reference book, dictionaries seemed to go way out of their way not to include much reference.

  But I had something way more reliable than a dictionary. I turned back to my computer. This was too big to fit in a text message.

  To: BassoonMaster

  From: SuperTuck

  Subject: Hypothetical Question

  Noah,

  What if I entered a contest and wanted to give the prize to, say, my mother. But what if the contest rules said the prize was “nontransferable.” What would that mean?

  Tucker

  I clicked SEND, then gnawed on a slice of pizza till my computer dinged.

  To: SuperTuck

  From: BassoonMaster

  Re: Hypothetical Question

  Tuck,

  I don’t know what you’re doing, but if a prize is nontransferable, it’s yours. Your mom can’t have it.

  Noah

  I slumped in my chair.

  The MacBeans were right back where we started: recycling pop cans and scrounging Laundromat change.

  Six

  I lumbered beside Beecher, who stumbled beside Mom, who was finally more than a sticky note. It was early Sunday, so early, morning fog still snaked along the wet grass at our feet.

  So early, my eyes were barely open. But I didn’t care. We had Mom here with us finally.

  Bonus #1: She wasn’t hunched over the kitchen table, reading a fifty-pound textbook.

  Bonus #2: We weren’t hauling a month’s worth of dirty clothes to the Laundromat.

  We were almost like a normal family.

  “I hungry.” Beecher’s voice drifted out from behind his pumpkin.

  He’d fallen in love with a pumpkin the size of a minivan at the first stand we passed. And even though he could barely reach his arms around it, even though it was the most lopsided, ugly pumpkin ever grown, even though Halloween was more than a month away, no way was he leaving the Wheaton Farmers’ Market without it.

  My job was to make sure it didn’t die a gooey death on the pavement.

  I sneaked a glance at Mom. Her face glowed pink in the chill of the morning. The usual knot of worry between her eyebrows had smoothed out into regular skin. She sucked in a deep breath of crisp farmers’ market air, and the corners of her mouth curled up in an almost smile.

  She never looked like that at the Laundromat.

  “I hungry,”Beecher said again.

  “Shhh.” I flicked him on the head. “Mom’s happy. Don’t ruin it.”

  “I no ruin it.”

  “Ruin what?” Mom smoothed her hand over his hair. “You couldn’t ruin anything, Beech-man.”

  Huh. She had clearly not spent enough time with him lately.

  She looped her hand around Beecher’s shoulders, and he sort of leaned into her and buried his face in her jacket. And that’s how we threaded our way through the crowd: Mom clutching her yellow sticky note, Beech and the pumpkin sort of stuck to her rib cage, me gimping along beside, one hand hovering under the pumpkin, ready to save its life.

  A wave of warm, sweet doughnut aroma floated on the morning air. My stomach growled.

  But Mom pushed on. Doughnuts were not on her sticky note.

  First thing this morning Mom had tossed an empty cereal box in the garbage and caught sight of the other trash stuffed in there.

  “Is this what we eat?” She picked through macaroni boxes, frozen waffle boxes, syrup bottles. I think it was the microwave corn dog wrappers that finally tipped her over the edge. “It’s all starchy and mushy and”—she frowned—“beige.”

  Well, yeah. Meet Beecher MacBean, who only eats if his food is beige. With a face on it.

  Mom decided on the spot that what our family needed—immediately—was vegetables.

  Now we were winding our way through stands of veggies, fruit, organic honey, and handcrafted soap. Finally, at the end of the very last aisle, Mom stopped. She checked her sticky note, tucked it into the pocket of her jean jacket, and planted herself in front of a stand.

  I guess it was a stand. Mostly it was rickety pickup truck, more rust than paint, backed up at the end of the row. Cardboard boxes, held together with duct tape and piled high with vegetables, filled the tailgate. An old man, rickety as his truck, leaned against the fender. White stuffing wisped out from the lining of his jacket. White hair wisped up from his skull. Duct tape held the toe of one work boot together, and white socks leaked out from the cracks.

  Nothing about this outfit said healthy to me, but Mom had consulted an expert—Rosalie, our downstairs music student, who was really big into all-natural stuff—who said this stand sold the best vegetables in the market.

  It did have a pretty good crowd clustered around it, picking through shiny red apples and fat potatoes and onions. The white-haired man watched over his veggies like a proud parent. I squinted. Somehow he looked familiar.

  Mom stood with her hands on her hips, studying the duct-taped boxes. She furrowed her eyebrows. Probably it had been so long since she’d seen an actual vegetable, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

  I helped Beech lower his lopsided pumpkin to
the ground and propped it up with my foot.

  Mom reached into a box and wrestled out something round, bulging, and suspiciously purple. “So.” She held it up. “What do you think?”

  I stared at it. “Is that a . . . beet?”

  “Hey, mister.” She aimed the purple thing at me. “Beets are highly nutritious. Packed with vitamins. And beta carotene. One thing we could definitely use more of is beta carotene.”

  I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, but . . . “A beet?”

  “And fiber. Amazing amounts of fiber. And it’s not beige. You really can’t go wrong with a colorful root vegetable. It’s the whole package.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said.

  “Not doughnut,” Beech muttered.

  Mom studied the beet, then, with a sigh, set it back. “You’re right.”

  She studied the rickety truck. And decided to take the safe route: apples.

  “At least it’s something we know how to eat,” she said.

  As the man bagged our apples, he noticed Beecher crouched beside the pumpkin.

  “You got a load there, don’t you, fella?” he said. “Maybe I can help. Hang on a minute.”

  The man disappeared around the side of the truck. When he came back, he was pulling a little red wagon. At least, it used to be a little red wagon. Now it was a little rust wagon, the handle bent, the Radio Flyer emblem a ghost against the corroded metal. But the wheels moved right along, without a squeak.