Geeks, Girls, and Secret Identities

by Mike Jung

  I’m a shrimp, four foot eleven and praying for a growth spurt, but even George (who’s five six) would look way up at Stupendous. If a pro football player and a Russian army tank had a baby, it would probably look like Captain Stupendous. He practically blotted out the sun. His arm was thicker than my whole body, and you could have made a decent tent out of his cape. I thought his costume would be spandex, but it was rubbery-looking.

  My first time seeing Captain Stupendous up close! It should have been really, really cool, you know? Instead it was just strange, and the more he talked, the stranger it got.

  “I hate those helicopters,” he said. “Let them out of your sight for one second and they fly right in front of you! It’s like they’re trying to get killed!”

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” I said. I couldn’t believe Captain Stupendous was complaining to me about helicopters when there was a bad guy on the loose!

  “I just saved your life,” he said. “You’re welcome.”

  “You have to go back!” I said. “There’s a bad guy on the loose! You know, that Professor Mayhem person?”

  “What about Professor Mayhem?” Stupendous held his hands out with the palms up. “Why is he my problem?”

  “YOU’RE CAPTAIN STUPENDOUS!” I yelled. “It’s your job to catch people like him!”

  “I don’t know whose job it is, but it isn’t mine,” he said.

  What was that supposed to mean? Did somebody hit him in the head with a crazy stick?

  “Didn’t you hear what he said? He’s got some kind of evil scheme in the works, we—I mean, you have to find out what it is!”

  Stupendous tilted his head and pursed his lips.

  “We have to find out?” he said, with a tiny, little smirk.

  “I said ‘YOU’! When a villain says he’s got something planned you have to take it seriously! Why aren’t you fighting him right now? You didn’t even try a Meteor Strike!”

  “A what?”

  “A Meteor Strike! It never fails!” I said. “It’s one of your signature moves: You fly really high up, come down like a meteor, and strike with both fists! You’ve been doing it forever!”

  Boy, you really can’t tell how intense his eyes are unless you’re right there looking at him. His eyes were really, really bright blue, and when he scrunched his eyebrows together his eyes looked like they were glowing.

  “You think that would work?” he said.

  “It’s how you beat Cyclotron, remember?” I said.

  Cyclotron, aka the intelligent robot from the Betelgeuse system. Powers: flight, laser cannons hidden in his arms, magnetism control.

  “No, I don’t remember that,” he said.

  “You could have done the Corkscrew Maneuver too,” I said.

  Stupendous grabbed at his head with both hands.

  “I don’t know what that is,” he said.

  “It’s when you fly in a spiral and—”

  “Okay, stop,” he said, with a funny quiver in his voice.

  “But why—”

  “Shut up,” he said.

  “I’m just gonna—”

  “SHUT UP!” His voice echoed around the rooftops, and I shut up. It’s unusual to get yelled at THAT loudly, you know? Anyone but a psycho supervillain would have shut up.

  He took a deep breath, expanding his chest to about six feet across. Then he sat down cross-legged, which I did not expect. Everything I’ve watched or read about Captain Stupendous shows him standing in a relaxed yet powerful pose, chin sticking out heroically, sunlight glinting in his thick black hair. Even in Stupendous on Stupendous (the only documentary I’ve ever watched all the way through without falling asleep) he always stands up. But there he was, like some kind of monk, probably sitting on pigeon crap, shoulders drooping.

  He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand.

  “That meteor thing, how’d you know that?”

  “I watched Stupendous on Stupendous like everybody else. And I’ve read all the books. Plus I’ve seen every one of your fights that’s been caught on video.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “Everything. Why?”

  “Why do you know so much?” he said, ignoring my question.

  “I’m a founding member of the Captain Stupendous Fan Club.”

  I puffed up my chest, which was a little hard since I’m not exactly Mr. Universe.

  “You’re one of those guys funded by the Corwin Foundation?”

  Big sigh.

  “No, that’s the Official Captain Stupendous Fan Club,” I said. “We’re the Captain Stupendous Fan Club, period. Not official, not unofficial, we’re—”

  “Okay, okay,” Stupendous said. “How many members do you have?”

  It always came down to membership. Oh, there are only three of you? And you hang out all the time even if you’re not having club meetings? And your headquarters is in your mom’s garage and you’re really just a bunch of losers? Well, you’re not a real club, are you? I guess it was predictable that the next person to shoot down our fan club would be the guy we formed the club to be fans of.

  “Three.”

  I crossed my arms and waited for it—fake politeness, staring, or plain old laughter, I’d seen it all. But Stupendous didn’t do any of that stuff. He rubbed his chin with one glove-covered hand. He stood up, and there must have been some nonfighting mojo in that superhero body, because he did it in one quick, slippery motion. It was like watching a dance move, only with more potential violence afterward. Then he said the last thing I expected him to say.

  “Have you done … school reports about Captain Stupendous?”

  I blinked. First of all, bizarre question. Second, Stupendous wasn’t one of those heroes who liked to talk about himself in the third person.

  “Yeah. About a hundred of ’em. How did you—”

  He waved off my question. “What do you know about my secret identity?” he said.

  Aha, he was testing me. Bring it on, Captain Rubberpants.

  “I don’t know anything for sure, but all human superheroes get older and fatter and uglier, except you,” I said. “You look exactly the same as you did twenty-six years ago. I think this is your superhero form, but you also have a regular-person form when you’re not saving the world.”

  DING! Oh. OH. Regular-person form.

  “Something’s happened to your regular body, hasn’t it? It’s like you forgot how to fight, or find out where you’re needed, or use your powers. You don’t brag and talk into the news cameras anymore.”

  I paused and sucked in a breath.

  “What happened to you?” I said. “You’re … different.”

  “Do you think?” he said with a sneer.

  “What, do you have a new secret identity or something?” I was kind of joking when I said it, but I was actually on the right track!

  “NO,” Stupendous said, but he made it sound like “no” had three syllables, “nuh-oh-wuh,” and his voice got really high. It sounded like he was lying, in other words.

  “Oh wow, you DO have a new secret identity, don’t you?”

  “Maybe.”

  Dude, something really crazy must have happened.

  “There’s this book, The Stupendous Paradigm,” I said. “You should, you know, read it—it talks all about the popular theories about your secret identity.”

  Stupendous put his hands behind his head and walked in a circle, his cape swirling.

  “Can I trust you?” he said.

  My palms itched, and I felt something like an electrical shock start at my stomach and run up into my hair. Captain Stupendous was about to tell me his secret identity!

  “Yes.”

  “This might be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” he said.

  I literally bit my tongue.

  “But I need help.”

  “I can help,” I said. Sweat ran down my temples.

  Who would the original Stupendous have picked to take over? It was probably a scientist or doctor,
or someone with crime experience, like a cop. Or a college guy who didn’t get a chance to do any training. Somebody old, in other words.

  Stupendous muttered something and disappeared in a globe of blue fire. It was like watching a sorcerer cast a spell. Then the light disappeared, leaving a glow in front of my eyes. I pressed my knuckles against my eyelids and opened them up even though little blips of light still floated around in my vision.

  ?!

  What?

  I was wrong on all counts. Not a scientist, not a cop, not a college guy. And not old at all. Actually it was someone closer to my age. Really close. Like, also-twelve-years-old close.

  And a girl.

  Standing there in front of me was Polly Winnicott-Lee.

  Captain Stupendous was a girl!

  There are fifty-two known superheroes in the world, including nineteen women. La Femme Invincible operates in Paris—she wears a REALLY tight costume and is extremely snotty. In Guatemala City there’s La Cucaracha, one of those borderline-crazy superheroes who like to hurt bad guys more than necessary. And Gigawatt City has Hummingbird, who kicks booty with nothing but natural fighting ability, handheld weapons, and her group of anonymous sidekicks, the Hummingbird Network.

  They’re all grown-up women, though. None of them are girls. And none of them are as cute as Polly Winnicott-Lee.

  “Hey,” Polly said. “You’re in my history class.”

  “Uhhh … uhhh …” I said, sounding like the dork of the century.

  Polly looked at me with a squinty, lips-pressed-together expression. She was about my height, maybe even a little shorter. She wore jeans with a couple of rips in the knees, a couple of earrings on both ears, and a black Radioactive Freaks concert T-shirt.

  She was so cool. I’ve never even been to a rock concert.

  “You’re the one who does all those reports on Captain Stupendous, you’re … Francis?”

  Ouch.

  I cleared my throat. “I’m Vincent.” I managed to say it without squeaking. “So, am I right? Are you not the original Captain Stupendous?”

  “Yeah—no—I mean, yeah, you’re right, and no, I’m not.”

  “So how did … what did you …”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She rubbed her eyes, and I noticed they were a little red. If Captain Stupendous got smacked in the face by a robot, did Polly get bruised? Her face didn’t look bruised. I didn’t know how it looked. Frustrated, maybe. Or lonely.

  “How do you know about our club?” I said.

  “Well, there’s that T-shirt.” She pointed at my chest. “And all those reports were a pretty good clue.”

  “And you know about the Official Captain Stupendous Fan Club too.”

  Polly snorted.

  “It’s hard not to know about them, especially now that Scott Fanelli won’t quit stalking me.”

  I felt a little stab of jealousy, like I’d just been poked in the side with a fork. Scott Fanelli, you are now my sworn nemesis.

  “We’re way better than them,” I said. “We can totally help you—”

  “How are you any different?”

  “We study Captain Stupendous,” I said. “They don’t know anything about you! A lot of kids only join that club because they do stuff like go to baseball games. We sat behind a bunch of the Officials at the Bouncing Boy Diner once, and one guy didn’t even know who Killjoy is!”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know either.”

  I slapped myself on the forehead.

  Killjoy, aka Giuliano DeShields. Powers: flight, super-strength, laser vision, emotion manipulation. His specialty was busting up happy occasions like weddings and birthday parties.

  “He’s one of the worst bad guys anywhere,” I said. “They’ve been duking it out for years.”

  I stuck my hands up in the air, the same way the bad guys always do when they get caught.

  “We’ve read every Stupendous book ever written, we’ve looked at every picture and every video, and I’ve written eleven reports on him for school! You think those airhead Stupendites have done that?”

  “We go to school with a couple of the Stupendites,” Polly said. “You know Carla Bing? And Lucy Sakai? They are airheads.”

  “Exactly,” I said. Carla Bing and Lucy Sakai were actually evil cheerleader airheads. In sixth grade they started a rumor that I had lice—for no reason—and everybody believed it. It was like they’d passed out a candy-flavored brainlessness potion that the whole class chugged at once.

  Polly had a gap between her front teeth, which I found myself staring at. It wasn’t huge, like somebody who had a tooth knocked out; it was just a skinny little gap that a toothpick probably wouldn’t fit through.

  It was kind of cute, actually.

  “Are you looking at the gap in my teeth?” she said, with her arms crossed.

  Rats.

  “Uh, no, I, um … hey, do you want to meet the other guys in the club?” I said.

  “No.”

  I blinked a couple of times. “Why not?”

  “Look, I’m not interested in joining your little fan-boy club, okay? I just need some help figuring out what to do about … you know, this superhero thing.”

  Max and George would kill me if I didn’t get them in on the action. Well, not George, but definitely Max. Besides, this was HUGE. No way would I try to fly solo on something this big.

  “We can totally help you, but we can help you more if it’s all of us,” I said.

  “Well, I—”

  “I know, the reports and all that, but the guys, they’re like, my partners, you know? We work together.”

  “I only—”

  “Plus this has never happened before, right? You want all the help you can get, right?”

  I was talking faster and faster, and Polly raised both her hands in the air.

  “Okay, fine—”

  “Seriously, with all of us—”

  “OKAY, OKAY! I SAID, OKAY!”

  I stopped and took a few deep breaths while Polly looked at me, hands up, leaning slightly backward.

  “Fine,” she said. “I’ll talk to you AND your friends. Just stop flipping out.”

  “Cool,” I said, trying not to flip out any more than I already had. “Club headquarters is at my house, it’s—”

  “Not at your house,” Polly said.

  “It’s actually my gara—”

  “Whatever, I don’t want to do it there.”

  “Why not?”

  “NO, okay? Not until I get a chance to know you and your friends a little more. This stuff is all too … I don’t know, private and weird. I don’t want to go to anyone’s house.”

  “Okay, where, then?”

  “I know a place.”

  Polly—Captain Stupendous—Polly Stupendous?—after Polly turned back into Captain Stupendous and took me back to school I did some thinking. The man/girl thing was way too confusing. When Polly was in Polly form, I’d call her Polly. When she was in Captain Stupendous form, I’d call her Captain Stupendous, or Stupendous, or the Big Chin, or something. The only other option was to let my brain explode.

  Captain Stupendous (not Polly) said he had to go home (Polly’s home! Oh my head), so we both stared at the ground for a little bit, then he flew off. School was mostly deserted, but Alex Cruz and a couple of his caveman buddies were hanging around in the parking lot.

  “What up, loser?” Alex yelled as I walked by. I know, so original!

  I was relieved to see that the doughnut shop was still in one piece, even if it was kind of scuzzy, but there was plenty of damage to the buildings down the block, so they’d obviously closed the place up. I got out my phone and called George, and when he picked up he sounded so excited that my phone almost blasted a hole right through my skull.

  “VINCEEEEEEENT!” he yelled. “We’re at Spud’s, get over here!”

  I rode as fast as I could to Spud’s, which was totally crowded again, of course. George practically mugged me when I walked in th
e door, and Max gave me a double high five when I got to the table. George was literally jumping up and down with impatience. A pizza with a few slices gone sat there on the table.

  “You’re alive, man, that’s awesome!” Max said.

  “Yeah, it’s better than being dead.”

  “I don’t think so, HAR HAR HAR….” a random bully said as he walked by. At least he didn’t stampede right through me, like the bullies whose names I actually know.

  “Dude! Dude! Dude!” George said, over and over. George looks incredibly goofy when he’s excited, his face is all buggy eyes, buckteeth, and eagle-beak nose.

  “Will you calm down?” I said. “Have they sent out a truancy report yet?”

  People ditching school is a very common thing during Stupendous battles—everyone gets the Stupendous Alert on their phones, and kids just bolt, trying to get to the battle scene and watch. Mom’s talked to me about it a thousand times—about a thousand times more than I wanted her to—and the school district has never found a way to stop it, because teachers aren’t allowed to actually tackle kids or anything like that. And it’s never been a problem, because Stupendous always keeps kids who watch the battles out of trouble. Not one kid’s ever been killed or badly hurt during a Stupendous battle! It’s kind of mind-blowing when you think about it.

  Of course that was when I realized how close I came to being the first, and I suddenly felt a little dizzy.

  “I don’t think they’re even gonna do a truancy report.” George was grinning like a fool. “They didn’t take attendance before closing the school, they just told everyone to go home as fast as possible!”

  “I doubt anyone noticed you were grabbed by Stupendous,” Max said. “It was crazy how fast it all went down, you know? We didn’t even know you were gone until they told everybody to go home—we waited for a while, but you didn’t show. So we came here to wait it out.”

  Max took a slurp of soda.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” George said. “AFTER HE RESCUED Y—”

  “Keep it down!” I said in a loud whisper.

  “Why?” George said. “You should tell everyone!”

  “You might even impress that girl you like, Polly What’s-Her-Name,” Max said.