Superhero Silliness

by Tony Abbott

  Don’t miss

  GOOFBALLS #1

  The Crazy Case of Missing Thunder

  GOOFBALLS #2

  The Startling Story of the Stolen Statue

  EGMONT

  We bring stories to life

  First published by Egmont USA, 2012

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Text copyright © Tony Abbott, 2012

  Illustrations copyright © Colleen Madden, 2012

  All rights reserved

  www.egmontusa.com

  www.goofballsbytonyabbott.blogspot.com

  www.greenfrographics.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Abbott, Tony

  Superhero silliness / by Tony Abbott;

  illustrated by Colleen Madden.

  p. cm. – (Goofballs; 3)

  Summary: The Goofballs are invited to a superhero masquerade to stop a mysterious figure from stealing a priceless collection–

  eISBN: 978-1-60684-368-0

  [1. Mystery and detective stories. 2. Collectors and collecting–Fiction. 3. Masquerades–Fiction. 4. Stealing–Fiction. 5. Humorous stories.] I.

  Title.

  PZ7.A1587Sup 2012

  [Fic]–dc23

  2012025672

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  v3.1

  To my family,

  the superheroes in my life.

  —T.A.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1 First of All

  2 Invitation to a Mystery!

  3 How Superheroes Are Born

  4 The Big House

  5 In the Secret Room

  6 The Dutchman’s Henchmen!

  7 The Lure of the Lawn

  8 The Opposite of Dutch

  First of All

  ’m Jeff Bunter, and I’m a Goofball.

  A Goofball who loves mysteries.

  But it’s no mystery how I became a Goofball. I’ve been one since the beginning of me.

  First of all, I didn’t cry when I was born.

  I burped.

  Second of all, when I was two, I got Sparky, my pet corgi. He barks like this: “Goof! Goof!”

  Third of all, on my first day of preschool, I decided I was a dog and ate my lunch on the floor.

  “Why don’t you sit at your desk like everyone else?” my teacher asked me.

  “I can’t wag my tail when I sit down,” I said.

  “But Jeff, you don’t really have a tail,” my teacher said.

  “Sure, I do,” I said. “It’s the tale of a boy who decides he’s a dog and eats his lunch on the floor!” The class laughed at that.

  “Very goofy, Jeff,” the teacher said. “Please take your seat.”

  “Where should I take it?” I asked.

  The class laughed even more.

  “Take it to the front of the class and tell us your tale!” said the teacher.

  “Goof! Goof!” I said, and the class laughed even louder!

  As you can imagine, I made lots of friends that day. I’ve been making them ever since.

  But only three of them are as goofy as me. First of all, there’s Brian Rooney. He’s an inventor of crazy stuff that doesn’t always work but looks cool.

  Then there’s Kelly Smitts, who has curly blond hair and is very suspicious and very serious.

  Finally, there’s Mara Lubin, who is as skinny as a stick, wears big green glasses, and loves disguises.

  They are the nuttiest friends in the world. Which makes them perfect Goofballs.

  Together, we solve mysteries.

  Super-mysteries.

  Like the one yesterday.

  We were at the beginning of a long line of hungry people outside Pizza Palace, waiting for the big clock on the library to strike 12:00 noon. At noon, the doors would open.

  It was a big day at Pizza Palace, and it was a big day for the Goofballs. Exactly one year ago, Luigi the baker had named a pizza after us.

  The Goofball Pizza has cheese, garlic, pineapple, and peanut butter.

  Just listing the toppings makes me hungry.

  For the first anniversary of our special pizza, Luigi promised us a new mystery topping.

  It was so mysterious, even we didn’t know what it was.

  “Brian, what are you doing?” asked Kelly.

  Brian was stretching his jaws open as wide as he could. He looked like a lion ready to swallow his own head.

  “Exercises,” Brian said. “To see how many slices of pizza I can chew at the same time.” He measured his mouth with a ruler he took from his cargo shorts, where he keeps all his inventor junk.

  “My record is three slices at once,” Brian said. “But today I’m going for four. Tomorrow? Who knows?”

  “I do,” said Mara. “The hospital!”

  The mayor of Badger Point was in line, too. He wore his official top hat. Principal Higgins was also in line. So was Mrs. Bookman, the librarian. It was a long line.

  Behind us stood our classmate Billy Carlson with his sister, Millie.

  She is the captain of the middle-school gymnastics team.

  Billy and Millie. Their names rhyme.

  They also have the same red hair. I mean that their hair is the same color red. Not that they share one head of hair. That would be hard, since they go to different schools.

  “Mara, what are you doing?” asked Kelly.

  Mara was squinting into the window of Pizza Palace, first without her glasses, then with them, then without them, then with them.

  “Maybe she’s trying to discover the mystery ingredient,” I said.

  “No,” said Mara. “I want to see what I look like without glasses. But I need my glasses to see what I look like, so it’s not working.”

  I shook my head. Brian laughed. “That reminds me of the time I tried to look at the back of my head. But I couldn’t turn around fast enough. The front of my head was everywhere I looked.”

  Me? I was jotting down everything in my cluebook. Things like this:

  My cluebook is a small notebook I carry everywhere. Detectives throughout history have written down their clues and used them later to solve mysteries. You never know when clues will come in handy.

  Besides that, I was working on a theory.

  I was trying to prove that Goofballs are even goofier when they’re hungry. So I wrote down what my friends were doing:

  “Kelly, what are you doing?” I asked.

  Kelly power walks everywhere, and right now she was power walking back and forth in front of the restaurant, faster and faster, her arms flying like propellers.

  “I’m trying to make time go faster,” said Kelly. “So we don’t have to wait so long until our next real mystery.”

  It was true. The only mystery we were solving was the mystery topping on the Anniversary Goofball Pizza.

  And that would be solved as soon as the clock struck twelve.

  But we never heard the clock striking twelve. Or any other number, either.

  Instead we heard something else.

  “Pssst!”

  Mara giggled. “Someone say ‘excuse me.’ ”

  “It wasn’t me,” Brian said. “I’m empty. I need all my space for pizza—”

  “Pssst!” came the sound again.

  “Maybe it was Jeff,” said Kelly.

  “Not me!” I said. “I’m busy writing.”

  Whe
n the sound came a third time—“Psssssst!”—we spun around on our heels and saw a tall, skinny man in a funny round hat hiding behind a lamppost.

  One long finger was pointing to the four of us. Then the finger curled back as if he wanted us to come over.

  And all the while, he kept making noises as if he was losing air.

  “Pssst! Pssssss-ssss-sssssst!”

  Invitation to a Mystery!

  he tall skinny man in the funny round hat turned out to be …

  “Picksniff?” I said.

  Picksniff is our friend Randall Crandall’s butler. We met them when Randall’s pet pony, Thunder, mysteriously went missing.

  “May I have a word with you?” whispered Picksniff.

  “I hope it’s a word we know,” said Kelly. “There are a million words in the English language, and we don’t know all of them.”

  The butler frowned. “Several words, then,” he said. “And I’ll try to make them ones you know. It is a matter of utmost importance.”

  My mystery-loving ears tingled. So did my fingers. I jotted down those lovely words:

  “Billy and Millie, would you hold our places in line?” I asked. Billy nodded and Millie flipped her big red hair to the other side of her head.

  We scurried over to Picksniff.

  “Forgive me for using my library voice outside,” the butler whispered, leaning close. “But I don’t want anyone to hear me.”

  I could tell that the other Goofballs were as excited as I was. “Go on,” I whispered.

  “Master Randall has an urgent request for the Goofy Children,” Picksniff said.

  “Goofballs,” said Mara, blinking through her big green glasses.

  “Ah, yes.” The butler took a tablet computer from his pocket, and when he turned it on, Randall Crandall’s face appeared on the screen.

  “Hello, friends,” said Randall from the tablet’s screen. “I’m having a party tonight, and I want you to come to it.”

  “Wow, thanks,” said Kelly. “Is that the urgent request of utmost importance?”

  Randall shook his head. “No. I think a mysterious character called the Dutchman will attempt to steal my priceless collection of rare and antique derders.”

  We stared at one another.

  “Picksniff, please turn up the volume,” said Brian. “It sounded like he said ‘derders.’ ”

  “He did say derders,” said Picksniff.

  “Master Randall’s world-class derder collection is the largest collection of derders in the world!”

  “You said a bunch of words twice,” Kelly said.

  “That’s how big his collection is!” said Picksniff.

  “Wow-wow-wow!” said Mara.

  “You can say that again,” said Randall.

  Whenever anyone says, “You can say that again,” we do Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who gets to say it again.

  Kelly won. We were all Scissors. She was Rock.

  “Wow-wow-wow!” she said.

  “Do the Goofkids know what derders are?” asked Picksniff.

  Brian practically fell down laughing. “Of course we do! A derder is the cardboard tube at the center of a roll of toilet paper or paper towels or wrapping paper!”

  Brian took a flattened cardboard tube from his cargo shorts and opened it up. “It’s called a derder because you can play it like a horn.”

  He held it up to my ear and said, “Der-der!”

  I nearly fell down. “Owww!” I said.

  “I know, right?” said Brian.

  “You Gooflings are smart,” said Picksniff.

  “We’re Goofballs,” said Kelly. “Not Gooflings and not Goofy Children. But we are smart.”

  Randall continued. “My grandmother told me legends about the Dutchman and warned me that he might be coming. He is a notorious thief who will stop at nothing to steal my priceless collection. Will you help me?”

  It didn’t take a second.

  It didn’t take a fraction of a second.

  “Yes!” we all said together.

  “Thank you,” Randall said with a smile. “I will see you at the party. For now, Picksniff will give you the details. Be careful. Over and out!”

  The screen went black.

  “Of course we’ll do it,” I said. “Picksniff, what can you tell us about the Dutchman?”

  The butler shook his head slowly. “All we have is this shady photograph that Master Randall’s grandmother took long ago.”

  It was a fuzzy picture of a man in a wide-brimmed hat. All we could see of the Dutchman’s face was a long curly mustache.

  I sketched the Dutchman in my cluebook.

  “I’m afraid the Dutchman’s identity is unknown,” Picksniff said.

  I could have smirked, but I didn’t. “Nothing is unknown to the Goofballs,” I said.

  “What about the future?” asked Brian.

  “Except maybe the future,” I said.

  Picksniff nodded. “Wonderful. Now, listen. Master Randall requests that you come to his party in—”

  “A pizza box?”

  “A hot-air balloon?”

  “An old pickup truck?”

  “A hurry?”

  Picksniff shook his head. “No, no. Master Randall requests that you come incognito.”

  Mara frowned. “Is that an Italian car?”

  “Is it the opposite of outcognito?” said Brian.

  Picksniff grumbled. “No, no. Incognito is a Latin word meaning ‘in disguise.’ Tonight’s party is a masquerade!”

  Brian raised his hand. “Is a masquerade like lemonade or orangeade or limeade?”

  “To answer that, I’ll need your derder,” I said. When Brian handed it to me, I pressed it to his ear. “NOOOOO!” I yelled.

  Brian cried, “Owww!”

  “I know, right?” I said.

  “A masquerade party is one where the guests dress up,” said Picksniff. “Tonight, everyone will come as superheroes. But not famous ones. Brand-new ones. You should come dressed up to blend in.”

  Mara beamed behind her glasses. “Disguises are my specialty. We’ll use my costume shop, otherwise known as my basement.”

  “I love that place,” said Kelly. “I’m already getting ideas for costumes.”

  “Thank you, Goofnuts,” the butler said softly. “I’ll be back for you this afternoon.” Then he jumped behind the wheel of his block-long limousine and drove away.

  Suddenly, Brian gasped. “All those mouth-stretching exercises for nothing. Look!”

  When we turned, we saw that it was after the stroke of noon, the line was gone, and all the seats in the restaurant were taken.

  “We’ll be hungry later!” said Mara.

  Which was good for testing my theory but bad for testing my stomach. I tried to be strong.

  “At least now we have a real mystery,” I said. “So let’s go choose our costumes!”

  Which is exactly what we did.

  How Superheroes Are Born

  er-der! Der-der-der-derrrrrr!”

  After calling our parents to tell them what we were doing, Brian played marching music through his crumpled derder all the way to Mara’s house.

  Mara’s house looks like a normal house, but her basement is bigger than a clothes store. A weird clothes store.

  There were racks of checked pants, striped shirts, skinny dresses, and fat capes. There were shelves of hats, from top hats to baseball caps to sombreros to helmets made from coffee cans.

  “This is super-awesome stuff,” said Brian. “Where did you get it all?”

  “My mom is the costume lady for a local theater,” Mara said. “How do you think I got so fashionable?”

  Kelly grinned. “For our superhero disguises, we’ll need clothes like these to help us be super-imaginative.”

  There were counters piled with jars and sticks and brushes for makeup. There were fake beards and mustaches.

  Pretend heads modeled every color of wig.

  “Look, I’m Billy and Millie,” sai
d Brian, dropping a hunk of red hair on his head.

  I made a list of some cool superhero disguise stuff in my cluebook:

  “The party is in three hours. We’d better get to work,” said Mara.

  While Brian, Mara, and Kelly scrambled around, I looked through my cluebook.

  “We know very little about the Dutchman,” I said. “I wish we knew more.”

  “We know that he’s Dutch and a man,” said Kelly, holding up a green jumpsuit, frowning, then returning it to the rack.

  “At least we have his picture,” said Brian.

  I studied the photograph. “But is he old or young? Does he work alone or with others?”

  Suddenly, Brian yelled, “I’m ready!”

  “So soon?” asked Mara.

  Brian stood there with a big grin on his face. But that’s not all he had on. He wore a pair of puffy pants covered with dozens of pockets, a snug T-shirt, and a fuzzy wristband on each arm. On his head sat a bald cap with ridges of thick white hair over his ears.

  “Are you a superhero or a clown?” I asked.

  Brian smiled slyly. “The name is Papers. Tommy Papers.”

  We stared at him.

  “Uh … what?” I said.

  Brian grinned, then patted one bulging pocket after another. There was a crunching sound each time. “These pockets are filled with small pieces of paper. Thus the name. Tommy Papers,” he explained.

  “But why are your pockets filled with papers?” Kelly said.

  “It’s quite simple,” Brian said. “In the course of our investigations, we Goofballs could find ourselves being chased by bad guys, could we not?”

  “It could happen,” said Mara, nodding.

  “And if we’re being chased by bad guys,” Brian said, “they must be very smart.”

  “How do you figure that?” I asked him.

  “Because we’re very smart,” Brian said. “And if the bad guys are that close behind us, they must be smart, too.”

  I didn’t know if that was true, but I liked the way part of it sounded, so I wrote it down: