Attack of the Tagger

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  Bubba Bixby.

  They started walking. And I started trailing them! I hid behind a trash can. A bench. A tree. I scooted from one to the next to the next, following the five of them toward the red dumb-baby. When they finally stood still, I aimed my camera between the slats of a bench and bzzzzz, click! Bzzzzz, click! Bzzzzz, click! I got pictures of them laughing. Of them giving each other high-fives and low-fives. I got lots of pictures! And the minute they took off to walk through Old Town, I took off for home.

  Shredderman had work to do!

  CHAPTER 7

  Fighting Back

  I rode home even faster than I’d ridden there. Pump, pump, pump, I was cranking those pedals! Maximizing those gear ratios! I even hopped a curb for the first time in my life.

  Wa-hoo!

  When I came in through the garage, Mom acted like I’d just come home from war. “Where have you been? What took you so long? I kept looking out the window but didn’t see you go by once!”

  “Mo-om!”

  “Don’t Mo’Om me!” She followed me to the fridge. “Honey, what’s gotten into you?”

  I slurped another juice box dry. Didn’t even close the fridge.

  “Honey?” She took off my helmet. “You’re sweating!”

  Hmmm. Did superheroes sweat? Not that I’d ever seen

  I swatted her off. “Mo-om! I just went riding, okay? Quit making such a big deal out of it.” I jabbed a straw through the next juice box and headed down to my room. “Gotta do my homework,” I told her. “And there’s a ton of it!”

  She just stood there, blinking.

  I put up my Shhhhh! Concentrating! sign, closed the door tight, and got to work.

  Digital camera connected to USB port— check!

  Images loaded—check!

  Images displayed—check!

  I zoomed in on the two sixth graders I didn’t know, then got my yearbook down.

  At first I just sat there with my yearbook on my lap. Of all the books in the world, this was the only one I hated. Not because of my picture—it was just as good as anyone else’s, and a whole lot better than Ian McCoy’s! His eyes were half closed and he looked like he was about to sneeze.

  But my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Ankmeyer, had let us have a signing party where we all got to sign each other’s yearbooks. And while I was writing stuff like “Have a cool summer" and “Remember: E=mc2—you’ll need it in 5th grade!” and “I hope we’re friends next year,” some kids were writing nerd jokes in mine:

  “You’re so nerdy, you’d probably trip on a cordless phone!”

  “You’re so nerdy, you’d bring a spoon to the Super Bowl!”

  “You’re so nerdy, if you threw a rock at the ground, you’d miss!”

  I actually cried when I got home. Why did they have to be mean like that? Did they really think it was funny? Why didn’t anybody like me?

  Mom wanted to talk to Mrs. Ankmeyer about it, but I told her not to. It was embarrassing enough without her making a big deal out of it. I just put the yearbook away and tried to forget about it.

  Of course all that happened before I became a cyber-superhero. And now that I was, well, superheroes don’t cry.

  They fight back.

  I opened up the yearbook and started flipping through the pages. All four of the sixth graders I’d seen in Old Town had been in Mr. Green’s fifth’ grade class last year. There was Ryan Voss, Carl Blanco, Manny Davis, and A. J. Penne. They all looked nice. Like they could be anybody’s friend.

  Even mine.

  Then I remembered: Bubba was hanging around with them. Scratch that friend idea!

  But what was Ryan Voss doing with Bubbal He was the principal’s son! The sixth-grade class president! He was really popular! Did his mom know he was riding around town with Bubba? And why did Bubba get to ride with a bunch of sixth graders, anyway? Were they afraid of what he might do if they didn’t let him hang around with them? Was he blackmailing them into being in the group?

  I scanned the yearbook pictures of Ryan, Carl, Manny, and A.J. into the computer, then downloaded the pictures I’d taken at Old Town.

  Then I just sat there, thinking. I felt like I had a Super Soaker filled to the brim but didn’t really know where to start spraying. What I had so far didn’t prove anything. So Bubba had bragged to Max and Kevin that he knew who the Tagger was.

  Bubba lied like crazy!

  So Bubba had been at Old Town with a bunch of sixth graders slapping around high-fives. So what?

  Maybe they just thought the dumb-baby was funny.

  Or maybe they just didn’t like Mr. Green.

  “No-lan! Din-ner!” my mom called up the hallway.

  I saved everything quick, then clicked off my monitor in the nick of time. “Nolan?” Dad was peeking in my room. “Hey, champ, it’s dinnertime.”

  “Coming!” I tripped all over myself getting out of the room before he could wander in. “How’d work go?” I asked, then led the way to the kitchen. “Did they find out who sprayed the graffiti?”

  “Not yet,” Dad said. “But the Tagger’s been busy. I suppose you know that he sprayed your teacher’s van?”

  “The Tagger?” Mom asked, putting a platter of chicken on the table. “Is that what they’re calling him?”

  “That’s right,” my dad said as we all scooted up in our chairs. “My headline tomorrow reads: TAGGER HITS OLD TOWN. But he’s hit two other places now, too.”

  “Two other?” I asked, grabbing a chicken leg.

  “Mr. Green’s van, and the Cedar Creek Bridge.”

  I was paying attention, boy! I asked, “All dumb-babies?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Wait a minute,” Mom said, serving me carrots. “Dumb-babies? What do you mean? Did they say anything?”

  I pulled a dumb-baby face. “Du-uh!”

  “Nolan!” she scolded.

  Dad laughed. “’Du-uh’ is exactly what they all say, Eve. And that’s pretty much what they look like.”

  I chomped down on my chicken, ripping meat off the bone like a caveman. “Were they all red, Dad?”

  “The one on the bridge is purple.”

  I was gobbling food like mad! “They don’t have any idea who did it?”

  “Just some punk kid causing trouble, I’m sure. The police are on top of it, but they don’t have much to go on. They’ve started questioning places that sell spray paint, but that’ll take some time.” He looked at me and said, “Good grief, Nolan, slow down!”

  “Milk, please!” I said through my chicken. “More carrots, too!”

  Superheroes need strong bones. And good night vision!

  Dinner was barely over when Dad got a call. And when he hung up, he grabbed his coat and said, “The Tagger struck again. I’m going to go check it out.”

  “But, Steven!” my mom said, then threw her hands in the air. There was no sense arguing with him, and she knew it.

  “Can I come?” I asked.

  “I thought you had a mountain of homework,” Mom said.

  “I do, but I’ll get it done!”

  Dad said to my mom, “I think it’s great that he’s showing interest. It’d be fun to have him along.”

  Mom shrugged. “Okay.”

  “Yes!” I cried, then raced down to my room to collect my Shredderman gear.

  CHAPTER 8

  Along for the Ride

  The police were still there when we got to the toddler park where the Tagger had been. It was a little neighborhood park with two swings, a tube slide, a giant tic-tac-toe game, and a big ship with about ten steering wheels.

  And now it also had a whole family of dumb-baby faces. They were sprayed on a tall fence that was between the park and some houses.

  The police had some big floodlights lighting up the night. And all those dumb-baby faces looked kind of creepy. The paint went from one to the other to the other. It looked like a string of big purple ghosts with buckteeth!

  “What a moron,” one of the policemen was sa
ying. He was shaking his head good. “What’s the deal with the ‘du-uh’? Is he saying he’s dumb?”

  Dad shook his head, too. “I think he’s saying he thinks whatever he’s spraying is dumb.”

  The policeman snorted. “Well, he’s sure got that backward.”

  Another policeman came over and shook hands with my dad. “Glad you could make it, Steven.”

  “Thanks for the call.” Dad pulled me in by the shoulder and said, “This is my son, Nolan. Nolan, this is Sergeant Klubb.” He looked at me and added, “You’ve heard me talk about my friend Sarge, right? Well, this is him.”

  Sergeant Klubb gave me a crooked smile and said, “So you’re Nolan.…I’ve heard tales about you, too. Can you really count by nine and a halfs?”

  “Da-ad!” I said, and turned redder than the dumb-baby on Mr. Green’s van.

  Dad ruffled my hair and said, “Sorry, champ.” Then he nodded at the purple dumb-babies and said to Sarge, “It’s too late to make the morning paper, but we’ll get it in Wednesday’s. Any leads?”

  “No witnesses so far. No help from the stores yet, either. We’ll catch him, though. I’m not putting up with this junk in Cedar Valley. They want to tag? Let ‘em go to the city, where they call it art.”

  “Hey, Sarge!” a policeman called from inside the tube slide. “There’s a slew of them in here!”

  We followed him over and looked inside the slide. There were rolling eyes and buckteeth all over the place! And at the bottom a great big Du-uh!

  Sarge was mad. “What a punk! Like he paid for this equipment?” The radio on his belt crackled. He pushed a button and said, “Klubb here.”

  A voice on the radio said, “We’ve got a five-ninety-four at five-twelve Highland.”

  “Copy that,” he said. “In progress?”

  “Negative,” the voice on the radio answered.

  “On my way,” Sarge said, then turned to Dad. “Another tagging about five blocks away. Since it’s too late for tomorrow’s paper, how about I leave whatever turns up tonight on your voice mail?”

  “Sounds good,” Dad said. “I’ll help out any way I can.”

  Sarge nodded. “See if you can’t rally a community watch. That would really help nail this guy!”

  When we got back in the car, Dad said, “So, what do you think?”

  I scooted my backpack between my feet. I hadn’t had the chance to take any pictures. Hadn’t really had the chance to do anything. And what was the point in trying to help when the police were doing a fine job without me? They’d figure out who the Tagger was way before I could.

  I felt kind of stupid. I’d thought I was a superhero.

  Ha.

  “Nolan?” Dad was driving but looking more at me than the road.

  I shrugged. “I didn’t know there were so many police in Cedar Valley.”

  He nodded.

  “I also didn’t know you were a policeman’s helper.” I looked at him. “It’s pretty cool that you do that, Dad.”

  He smiled real big at me, and right then I wanted to tell him how I was trying to help, too. How I wasn’t just a boy who fumbled and stumbled and tried to toast peanut butter. I was a cyber-superhero! And I’d been working the whole day on figuring out a way to trap the Tagger.

  But I couldn’t tell him. Mom and Dad were the last people who could know! They wouldn’t understand why Bubba’s Big Butt had to be on the World Wide Web. They would start worrying. Start making me change things.

  It would be the end of Shredderman.

  But… maybe I could help my dad and the police without giving away my secret identity.

  “Dad?”

  “Yes?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Sure….”

  “There are four sixth graders at school I think you should have Sarge look into.”

  “There are?”

  “Uh-huh.” My heart was beating like crazy. “I, um… I heard some kids at school talking.”

  “You did? What did they say?”

  “They were laughing about the dumb-baby and giving each other high-fives and stuff. From the way they were acting, I think it might be one of them.”

  “Hmmm.” He glanced at me. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

  I shrugged. Then I said, “Don’t tell anyone I told, okay?”

  He eyed me. “I understand. YouVe got enough troubles at school without being labeled a rat, am I right?”

  It seemed like a really good excuse, anyway. So I nodded and said, “Can you just say that you got an anonymous tip?”

  “Sure. So who are they?”

  “Carl Blanco, Manny Davis, A. J. Penne, and Ryan Voss.”

  He was writing like mad on his dashboard paper pad but stopped when I said Ryan’s name. “Ryan Voss Your principal’s son?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  He sort of frowned at me.

  “I know, but he was with them.”

  He took a deep breath, held it, then wrote down Ryan’s name as he let it out. “Anonymous tip, huh?”

  “Yeah. Maybe say it was on your voice mail at work?”

  “Okay—” He snapped open his cell phone and punched in a number.

  “Who are you calling?” I asked.

  He had one eye on the road, the other on me. “Sarge. Might as well get this ball rolling tonight.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Mapping Out Evidence

  That night Dad came in after I was already in bed. He whispered, “You awake, Nolan?”

  I sat up. “Did they catch him?”

  “No.…” He sat on the edge of my bed. “I’m afraid those names you gave me didn’t turn up much.”

  “Nothing?”

  He sighed. “Just some indignant parents.”

  “They were mad?”

  He nodded. “Especially the Vosses.”

  I lay back down and hooked my big stuffed gecko in the crook of my arm. “Oh. Sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” He ruffled my hair. “Good night, champ.” He ruffled my gecko. “Good night, gecko monster.”

  “His name’s Sticky, Dad, and he’s not a monster!”

  “I know that,” he laughed. “Now get some sleep.”

  Sleep. Ha. He’d just riled my brain all up. Was I wrong about the sixth graders? I tried to remember everything Bubba had said in the bathroom. Had he just been talking big to show off to Max and Kevin? Or did he really know who had tagged Mr. Green’s van?

  Call it superhero sonar, I don’t know. But by now I was clicked into Bubba and his evil ways. And I was pretty sure he hadn’t just been talking big to Kevin and Max.

  And so what if none of the sixth graders had helped the police—since when did villains volunteer information to the law? No, I still thought one of them was the Tagger.

  But which one?

  I started picturing all the places dumb-baby faces had shown up. I tried to put them together in a mental map, but I kept getting lost in my own head.

  So I crept out of bed, turned on my computer, and dialed up the Internet.

  Maps, click!

  Enter address—I typed in our zip code—click!

  A map of half the state appeared on the screen.

  I zoomed in until it was just Cedar Valley.

  I covered my printer with my comforter.

  Shhh!

  I clicked on Print and wraaaaang, wraaaaang, wraaaaaang, wraaaaaang!

  It was still louder than anything!

  I flipped off the monitor, grabbed the printout and my comforter, and jumped back in bed.

  Nobody showed up.

  So I got out of bed again, flicked on my flashlight, and started putting X’s on the map. One where the school was, one on the bridge, one at Old Town Square, and one at the toddler park. Then I went back to the computer and typed in the address of the latest tagging that had come in on Sarge’s radio—512 Highland. And when I knew where 512 Highland was, I added the last X to my printed map.

  Hmmmmm.

  If only I k
new where those four sixth graders lived.

  I cracked open my door and listened for noise from my parents’ room.

  Not a peep.

  I tiptoed down to my mother’s desk, found the phone book, and sneaked back to my room.

  Shhhhhh!

  I started looking up names. And pretty soon I figured out that I couldn’t figure out a thing! I didn’t know any of the sixth graders’ parents’ names. Except for Dr. Voss—hers was Ivana— but there weren’t even any Vosses in the book!

  So now what?

  Maybe I could hack into the school’s computer database and find out where they lived that way.

  Or hey! Why didn’t I just call my sidekick? He’d had all four of them in class before.…

  I dug through the Greens. There were lots of Greens living in Cedar Valley, but only one “E. Green.”

  I checked the clock. 10:45—way too late to call.

  Unless, of course, you’re a superhero, and then it’s never too late to call your sidekick, right?

  But how was I going to call without being heard? The phone on Mom’s desk is a corded one. The portable one is in Mom and Dad’s bedroom.

  Then I remembered—I still had Mom’s cell phone in my backpack!

  I dug it up!

  I flicked it open!

  I punched in Mr. Green’s number!

  On the third ring, I realized what I was doing. Aaaargh! I was calling my teacher! At 10:49 at night! He was going to kill me!

  Before I could hang up, someone answered, “Hello?” The voice didn’t sound sleepy. It sounded jumpy.

  “Uh…Elmo?” I said, just in case there was another “E. Green" living in Cedar Valley.

  “What’s that?” Then I guess it registered because he said, “Yeah. Who’s this?”

  “Shredderman,” I whispered. “Sorry it’s so late.”

  There was a moment of silence, then, “What’s the square root of twenty-two thousand eight hundred one?”

  “One fifty-one,” I shot back.

  “Well, hello, Shredderman,” he said. “You take this pretty seriously, don’t you?”