And his backpack was being overloaded with homework. It seemed to Miles that the amount of papers and books that he accumulated throughout the day was directly proportional to the number of classes he attended.
At this rate, I’m gonna be buried, Miles thought.
He was tired, stressed, and generally unhappy with his situation. Miles wished again that he could be back at Brooklyn Middle right now, instead of sitting in Ms. Calleros’s class.
Ms. Calleros’s class? Oh man. I’m late!
Miles bolted down the hallway. He’d been so wrapped up in thought that he hadn’t even realized the bell had already rung. He rounded a corner, holding his backpack to make sure it didn’t fly off his shoulder. He made it to Ms. Calleros’s room and threw open the door. The room was dark, and Miles thought for a second that maybe he wasn’t late—maybe he was the first one there?
Then the lights flicked on, and Ms. Calleros said, “You’re late, Mr. Morales.”
That knocked out what little air was left in Miles’s sails. “Einstein said time was relative, right?” he said, trying to worm his way out of the situation. “Maybe I’m not late. Maybe you guys are early.”
Ms. Calleros didn’t smile. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t even respond. Miles looked around the classroom. No one else seemed to find his comment very funny, either, except for one girl, who laughed a little.
“Sorry,” the girl said, covering up her smile. “It was just so quiet.”
“Sit down,” Ms. Calleros said, turning her attention away from Miles and heading back to the front of the classroom. A student turned the lights off, and Miles started making his way to his seat in the dark, smacking into the furniture along the way.
On the whiteboard at the front of the room, a documentary started. Miles saw a title appear beneath the image of a woman in a lab coat. It said, DIRECTOR, ALCHEMAX LABORATORIES. Pausing, Miles watched as the woman tried to excite her audience.
“Our universe is in fact one of many parallel universes happening at the exact same time. Thanks to everyone here at the Fisk Family Foundation for the Sciences, I will prove they exist when I build my supercollider. All I need is ten billion dollars! Chump change, right? And who knows… maybe we’ll find other people just like us!”
Miles watched the documentary, still bonking into furniture on the way to his seat. He really was interested in the subject matter, but the documentary seemed to be more of a promotional film for Alchemax than anything else. There were many shots of the woman wearing a hard hat and riding around an Alchemax facility in a golf cart, or standing around with other people wearing lab coatsand “doing science.”
Ouch!
Miles felt his right shin smack into a desk and, as he bent down to rub it, saw that the desk belonged to the girl who had laughed at his joke. She was new. Well, newer than he was. He sat down next to her and watched her watch the documentary.
Then she looked at Miles. Busted. Miles turned away, pretending he hadn’t been staring in the first place. But when he looked back, he saw that the new girl was still staring at him.
“I liked your joke,” she whispered. “I mean, it wasn’t funny—that’s why I laughed—but it was smart, so I liked it.”
“I don’t think I’ve seen you before,” Miles said, trying to keep his voice down.
“Shhhhh!” Ms. Calleros said, suddenly behind Miles.
How does she do that? he wondered.
“After class, Mr. Morales,” she said, and Miles knew he was in for it. He tried to turn his attention back to the documentary, but he was preoccupied with the new girl sitting next to him.
“Every choice we make would create countless possible futures,” the woman in the documentary continued. “A ‘What if’ to infinity…”
Countless other possibilities? Miles thought. That means there could be, like, countless other Mileses out there right now. Weird.
“A zero,” Ms. Calleros said, her voice full of disappointment.
Miles sat across from Ms. Calleros, who showed him a piece of paper. The paper happened to be the latest quiz, and it had a big 0% written on it in red ink.
The quiz belonged to Miles.
“A zero,” Miles said, momentarily at a loss for words. He furrowed his brow but then let out a small sigh of relief. “Few more of those, you’d probably have to kick me out of here, huh? Maybe I’m just not right for this school.”
Ms. Calleros shifted in her seat, never taking her eyes off Miles. “If a person wearing a blindfold picked the answers on a true-or-false quiz at random, do you know what score they would get?”
“Uhh, fifty percent,” Miles said. Then it dawned on him. “Wait—”
The teacher smiled and nodded. “That’s right!” she said. “Very sharp! On a true-or false quiz, the only way to get all the answers wrong is to know which answers are right.”
Then Miles watched as Ms. Calleros reached into a drawer, grabbed a red pen, and changed the 0% on the quiz to a 100%.
Miles felt his stomach drop and fumbled to say something, anything. “Or… or it’s a statistical aberration,” he started. “I mean, at the far end—”
“You’re a very clever guy, Miles,” Ms. Calleros interrupted. She folded her hands together and leaned over the desk. “But I know what you’re doing. No one is kicking you out of this school. I want you to start keeping a journal. I’ll start reviewing it each week. And I want you to write about what you want your future to be.”
Miles slumped into his seat in defeat. So much for getting kicked out and going back to Brooklyn Middle.
CHAPTER 4
One look at the stack of homework piled high on his desk, and Miles felt like disappearing. Going anywhere, doing anything, would be better than trying to sort through that mess. He thumped the eraser end of a pencil against his lips and stared at the piece of paper.
The essay was due tomorrow, and he’d barely gotten as far as the title.
The universe hates me, he thought.
Swiveling away from his desk, he saw his roommate, Ganke, reading a comic book, with headphones on.Miles could hear the music blasting from them. He didn’t want to interrupt, but Miles also really needed a break.
“Hey!” he said, trying to get Ganke’s attention. “You finish your homework already?”
Ganke didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look up. He just sat there, thumbing through the comic, rubbing the few hairs that sat above his upper lip.
I guess it’s a mustache, Miles thought. Kinda. Sorta.
“I’m your roommate, Miles,” he continued. “Who you’ve lived with for two weeks and barely spoken to?”
Nothing.
“Kinda like I’m invisible, right? All right, cool. Good convo,” Miles finished. Then he swiveled back to his desk, shaking his head as he stared at the dreaded piece of paper. With a sigh, he looked out the dorm room window.
And then Miles Morales had an idea.
Miles was on the fire escape, peering in through an apartment window on the top floor. A guy was sitting on his couch, phone in hand, texting. So Miles took a picture of the guy with his phone.
And he texted it to the guy on the couch.
Miles could barely contain his laughter as he saw the guy look at his phone, and his face light up in a grin. The guy peered around the room and raced to the window. Miles pressed his face against the glass, pulling a silly face.
Uncle Aaron yanked open the window. “Get inside,” he said, chuckling. Miles ducked through the opening as his uncle moved to the sink.
“Speak up, Nephew. You know I can’t hear you when I’m washing the dishes,” Uncle Aaron said as he scrubbed a pot.
“Yeah, I hear the ears are the first thing to go,” Miles said. He walked to his uncle’s punching bag and took a few shots at it. It felt awkward.
“I heard that,” Uncle Aaron said. “I’m all good, my man. What’s up with school?”
Miles shrugged and tagged the bag with his left hand, then his right. “Six hours
of homework a night. When am I supposed to sleep, huh?” he said.
“You can’t tell me it’s all that bad there,” Uncle Aaron replied as he placed the pot in the rack next to the sink. “Smart girls is where it’s at. Place must be full of ’em.” He walked over to the punching bag and held it with his hands, putting his body behind it.
“C’mon, man, c’mon,” he said, inviting Miles to take a shot at the bag.
“No, there’s no one,” Miles replied. “There’s no one.”
Uncle Aaron raised a skeptical eyebrow, then released the bag. He walked over to the microwave and grabbed a box of popcorn sitting on top. He took out a bag, ripped open the plastic, and set the paper popcorn bag inside the microwave.
“C’mon, man,” Uncle Aaron said again, closing the microwave door and pressing the START button. “I cannot have a nephew of mine on the streets with no game.”
“I got game!” Miles said defensively. “There was this new girl, actually, she’s kinda into me. You know how it is.”
“What’s her name?” Uncle Aaron asked.
Miles took a seat on the couch and picked up the notebook he’d brought with him. He started to sketch while he talked. “You know we…” Miles mumbled. “This is… We’re laying the groundwork right now.”
Uncle Aaron looked at Miles and smiled a little. “You know about the shoulder touch?”
“Of course I do!” Miles said. No, I don’t. “But tell me anyway.”
“Tomorrow,” Uncle Aaron said, “find that girl, walk up to her, and be like, Hey.” Then he pretended to touch an imaginary shoulder. “I’m telling you, man, it’s science.”
“You serious, Uncle Aaron?” Miles asked. “So, walk up to her and be like… Hey.”
Uncle Aaron started to laugh. “No, no, no, no… like, Hey,” he said, sounding a million times cooler than Miles had saying the same word two seconds ago.
“Hey,” Miles tried again.
Uncle Aaron shook his head. “No. Heyyy.”
“Heyyyy.”
“You sure you’re my nephew, man?” Uncle Aaron joked.
Miles felt the phone in his pocket vibrate.
“Is that her?” Uncle Aaron teased.
I don’t think so.…
Miles stared at the phone screen and saw an incoming text from his dad: Finish that homework?
“I should go,” Miles said reluctantly. “Still got a paper to do tonight.”
If Uncle Aaron had been paying attention and heard his nephew, he didn’t let on. Instead, he walked over to the couch and looked at the notebook Miles had been scribbling in just a few minutes earlier.
“Yo, you’ve been holding out on me. You throw these up yet?” Uncle Aaron said, checking out Miles’s designs.
“No, you know my dad,” Miles replied. “I can’t.”
“Come on,” Uncle Aaron said. “I got a spot you will not believe.”
“I can’t!” Miles protested. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t…”
“I’m gonna get in so much trouble!”
The subway tunnel was dark and dank. Miles could smell about fifty different odors wafting down the tube, and none of them were good.
What was he doing down here with his uncle? He really did have homework to do! His parents would kill him if they found out he’d left campus to go hang out with his uncle in the subway tunnels. And they’d really flip if they knew what they were up to.
“Hey, man,” Uncle Aaron said. “Tell them your art teacher made you.”
They walked a little farther, until they came to a large metal fence stretching from the ground almost to the ceiling. Miles saw a sign that said ALCHEMAX—PRIVATE PROPERTY.
Someone really doesn’t want anyone around here, Miles thought.
With grace, Uncle Aaron climbed right up the fence and dropped down to the other side. He motioned for Miles to follow.
If I get caught I am so dead.
Miles climbed up the fence, not quite as gracefully as his uncle, and landed with a thud next to him.
CHAPTER 5
The darkened subway tunnel seemed to go on forever. Full of spiderwebs. They seemed to cover all the walls as far as Miles could see.
It was like some huge, weird, creepy cavern.
“Whoa,” Miles heard himself say out loud. He looked at the enormous space, and then, at the top of his lungs, yelled, “Brooklyn!”
Then he heard “Brooklyn!” echo for the next couple of seconds.
Uncle Aaron tugged at Miles’s shirt, motioning for him to follow. Miles did, and as they walked along the tunnel, Miles saw something else.
Miles couldn’t believe what he was looking at. A huge tunnel wall, tagged by who knows how many artists. It was like the world’s largest canvas, and it was just waiting for others to come along and add their story.
“There’s a lot of history on these walls,” Uncle Aaron said, his voice full of respect.
“This is so fresh!” Miles said in disbelief.
Uncle Aaron leaned down and opened the bag he had slung over his shoulder. He pulled out a few cans of spray paint and tossed one over to his nephew. Then he set out a small boom box and hit PLAY.
The tunes echoed in the subway tunnel as uncle and nephew, fellow artists, went to work.
“Now you’re on your own, Miles,” Uncle Aaron said as he started to paint. “Whoa, slow down a little.”
Miles had been moving his spray can quickly across the concrete wall. Listening to his uncle, he slowed the motion of his hand.
“That’s better,” Uncle Aaron observed. “That’s perfect.”
Miles always enjoyed the time he spent with his uncle. Even if his father didn’t seem to think too much of it.
He was wholly absorbed in the process, lost in a world of his own making. Miles just went with the feeling, pouring himself into each press of the nozzle.
He was so into what he was doing that he didn’t notice it. Faint. Glowing.
A spider.
So tiny it escaped notice. It descended from the ceiling, dropping slowly, slowly, on a thin strand of webbing. At last, it dropped from its web and landed in the pile of spray cans Uncle Aaron had set on the ground.
“That’s it,” Uncle Aaron said, admiring his nephew’s handiwork. “Now you can cut that line with another color. That’s it… yeah, that’s it!”
Miles had found his groove and was thoroughly enjoying himself. He gazed upward and saw a part of the wall he wanted to paint, but it was too high. “A little help?” he said, gesturing to his uncle.
Without hesitation, Uncle Aaron picked up his nephew and whisked Miles up to his shoulders. Miles was able to reach the area he wanted to paint.
“You want drips? ’Cause if you do, that’s cool, but if you don’t you gotta keep it moving.” He showed Miles what he meant by using his own paint can to demonstrate.
“That’s intentional!” Miles said, referring to the drips in his painting.
They’re so not intentional, he thought.
A few seconds later, Miles had finished, and he jumped off Uncle Aaron’s shoulders. Together, they stepped back to take a look at the mural they had been painting.
“Wow,” Uncle Aaron said.
Miles stared at the painting, a little unsure. “Is it too crazy?” he asked.
Uncle Aaron shook his head. “No, man. Miles…” he began. “I see exactly what you’re doing here, man.”
Miles smiled at his uncle.
“Yeah,” Uncle Aaron said. “Me and your dad, we used to tag all the time back in the day.”
“Stop lying,” Miles replied.
There is no way Dad would ever have anything to do with a place like this, he thought.
“It’s true,” Uncle Aaron said. “Then he took on the cop thing… and I don’t know. He’s a good guy, it’s just… You know what I’m saying?”
The conversation was interrupted by the vibrating of Uncle Aaron’s phone. He took a look at the screen, then pocketed the phone.
; “All right, come on, man. I gotta roll,” he said to his nephew. He gathered up their painting supplies and walked out of the tunnel.
For a moment, Miles was alone. He took a step back and admired the work that he and his uncle had done that night.
That feels so right, he thought.
He got out his phone to take a picture of their masterpiece.
He didn’t see the spider until it was too late.
CHAPTER 6
The spider bite on his hand was throbbing. He tossed and turned in bed all night. It was officially the worst night’s sleep of Miles Morales’s life.
Miles didn’t really remember much after the spider bit his hand. His uncle told them they had to leave, and somehow, they made their way back through the subway tunnels and aboveground.
How did I get back to the dorm? Miles wondered.
His hand burned. He looked down and saw the place where the spider had bitten him. In the dim light of his dorm room, Miles swore that the bite was glowing.
Spider bites do not glow, right? Man, this is not cool.…
He woke with a start, only to see Ganke sitting there at his computer, working, not noticing anything Miles did.
Was he awake all night? Miles thought. Did he see me come in?
He jumped out of bed and put on his pants.
That’s weird, Miles thought. My pants… shrank?
It was true. The pants looked like high-waters—they looked like something he might have worn a couple of years ago. That’s when Miles realized the pants hadn’t shrunk. He had grown.
Overnight.
“I think I hit puberty,” Miles said.
To Miles’s complete lack of surprise, Ganke didn’t respond. He didn’t do anything except stop typing for just a second. Then he resumed, as if Miles hadn’t said anything.
I should have kept that to myself, he thought.
A little while later Miles was walking down the school hallway, trying to silence his own inner monologue, which seemed to be getting louder by the minute.
What’s going on with me?
Something weird is happening.
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse--The Junior Novel Page 2
