by R M Scotford
“Of course, I’ll be there. I already told you twice. I’ll see you tomorrow, bye Maggie.”
“Bye, Douggie.”
CLUNK
CLUNK
This is not PowerMan!
Douggie was yanked out of his sweet dream by a blood-curdling yell. Stanley was screaming the house down. Half asleep, he jumped out of bed and ran out of his room. His tearful brother, who was now bawling uncontrollably, met him at the bottom of the stairs.
“What’s up, Stan? Did you hurt yourself?”
Douggie knelt down and looked into Stanley’s bloodshot eyes. Between gulps of air Stanley tried to speak. Thick yellow snot hung precariously from his little nose. Every time he breathed and tried to speak, the snot bounced in and out of his nostril like a gooey yo-yo. Mesmerized, Douggie watched the snot bob as Stan continued to sob. Finally, Stan gave an all mighty sniff, and the thick gloopy snot shot down his throat like a bullet. Stan wiped his nose with his sleeve, swallowed and smiled.
“No PowerMan,” he whined.
“What? What are you talking about, Stan? I picked up the DVD yesterday. Is it broken?”
Douggie said softly while wiping tears fro Stan’s tomato red cheeks. Stan’s bottom lip trembled as he broke into another flood of tears. Douggie gave his brother a big hug,
“Come on Stan, no crying now. Let’s go check out the video. It’ll be fine.”
Douggie picked up his brother and carried him into the sitting room. The TV was blaring and there were toys strewn everywhere. He glanced at the TV. It wasn’t PowerMan.
“What are you watching Stan? This isn’t your video.”
Douggie searched around for the remote control. After turning down the sound, he fumbled through the mountains of Stickle-Bricks trying to find the DVD box. Finally he found it. It was empty. Douggie knelt down and peered into the DVD player. It was definitely the disc he had picked up yesterday. However, instead of, ‘PowerMan Punches and Laser Zaps’ it was some old guy with a baldhead and a thick grey moustache. By now, Stanley had lost interest in the TV and was busy pulling out more toys. He seemed happy enough now that Douggie was out of bed and in the same room. The old man on the TV had a handful of screwdrivers and spanners. Suddenly, the man stepped to one side to reveal a nursery nurse. It was Brigitte. She seemed to be asleep. Douggie’s attention was captured,
“What’s this old geezer doing to Brigitte?” he asked Stan.
He reached for the remote control and turned the volume up. Douggie couldn’t believe his ears. He listened to the entire recording with his mouth open. Once it had finished he played the video again. He sat on the edge of the sofa pulling tightly on his small tufty dreads. He had to show the others.
Scanner Kidz
It was the first official meeting of the new gang, and everyone was excited. Even Abu and Jimmy were eager to be there. As usual, it was Maggie who wanted to take control and get everyone organized.
“Ok guys, can you all listen and stop what you’re doing for five minutes?”
Reluctantly they looked across at Maggie.
“Douggie has a few things to say. So, could you listen to him? It’s important.”
Maggie pointed at Douggie, clapped her hands and gave him a confident wink. Douggie shuffled to his feet,
“Erm, erm...I thought of a name for our gang. So I thought that maybe we should discuss whether it’s suitable. If anyone can think of a better name, then that’s cool, but I think we should discuss it.”
“Get on with it Douglas. What’s the name of the gang?” shouted Abu.
Douggie blushed, he suddenly felt unsure of himself. Maybe the name he’d thought of was no good. Maggie noticed that Douggie was struggling and jumped in. She was always bubbling full of confidence.
“Douggie thinks we should call our gang ‘Scanner Kidz.’ I think it’s a great name.”
She clapped her hands again. Now that Maggie had said the name Douggie felt a lot better. He wanted to explain why he had thought of it. He stepped into the only clear space in the loft lab so everyone could see him,
“Yeah, I once saw this movie with these guys who could fight using their minds and, and...
Jimmy interrupted, “Oh, oh, oh, I know, I saw it too. Those guys had crazy mind powers. They were tel-ee-fat-ic or something?”
“What’s tel-ee-fat-ic?” Abu snorted, slapping Jimmy on the back of the head, hard.
“It’s not tel-ee-fat-ic, Jimmy. You’re such a dork. It’s telepathic.” Maggie said knowingly.
Before anyone could ask, she told everyone what it meant,
“It means we have mind powers. We can use our minds to affect things without touching them. We can even fight using our minds. Most kids can’t do this. For some reason, we all have this power. Well, nearly all of us. Jimmy doesn’t seem to have any powers, yet. In fact, I don’t even think Jimmy has a brain.”
The others laughed at Jimmy, who looked very uncomfortable.
“So, do you like the name?” Douggie shouted above the raucous laughter.
“Scan means to beam because — we can beam our minds across distances.” Douggie stretched out his hands and wiggled his fingers as though he were beaming something through the air
“So why don’t we call ourselves The Beam Kidz?” Maximus hollered.
The laughing stopped as everyone considered Maximus’ suggestion.
“Beam sounds too much like bean,” suggested Kimiko. “People might get confused and call us ‘The Bean Kidz.”
Jimmy erupted into laughter,
“Yeah, everyone will think that all we do is eat beans and fart a lot.”
Abu cried out,
“That’s exactly what you do everyday anyway, Jimmy. Maybe you should be the gang leader?”
Once again, they all descended into chaotic giggles.
“I think Scanner Kidz is an excellent name. Who’s for it? Raise your hands if you like the name,” shouted Maggie.
As one, they raised their hands. The Scanner Kidz Gang was formed.
The Kiddy-Care Conspiracy
The first meeting wasn’t over. Douggie had deliberately saved the best till last — something dangerous, important and exciting all at the same time. He picked up his bag and reached for the all-important disc,
“There’s one more thing I want to share with you guys, but before I show you, everyone has to swear not to tell anyone else outside the gang.”
Everyone looked at each other. This seemed really serious.
“What is it, Douggie?” Maggie asked.
“Yeah, what’s the matter?” the others said in chorus.
“I just want you to watch a video, that’s all.”
Douggie held out his hand in a sign of warning.
“But, you guys can’t tell anyone what the video is about. It’s a secret. OK?”
Abu stepped forward,
“What’s on the video Douggie-Boy, I bet it’s —”
Douggie clapped his hands to stop Abu from talking,
“It’s not what you think, so don’t try and guess. Maximus do you have a DVD player?”
“Of course I do, I have everything. Why is the video so important? Do you want me to burn a backup copy?”
“That’s a great idea Maximus,” said Douggie. “It’s important we make copies of this video straight away.”
Maximus took the DVD from Douggie and went to place it in the player. As he held the disc, his mind was filled with images; he saw an army of pink robots, a big fat woman, a crazy scientist and huge explosions.
“Oh my —” Maximus said.
Quickly, he pushed the disc into the machine and pressed play. While he fiddled with the DVD copying machine, the others cleared away spaces in the multitude of junk and gadgets so they could sit or stand in front of the TV. Wide-eyed, everyone gazed at the TV wandering what all the fuss was about. As the video came on, Douggie implored everyone once more,
“You can’t tell anyone. It’s a gang secret, OK?
Everyone
muttered in agreement as the first images appeared on the bright plasma screen.
The DVD clicked as the video came to an end. They stared silently at the now blank, blue screen. Finally, Jimmy piped up,
“I don’t get it.”
Douggie shook his head,
“You don’t get what? What isn’t there to get? It’s obvious,” he insisted, standing up. ‘Who else doesn’t get it?”
There was a long pause. Kimiko raised her hand, timidly. Maggie and Abu raised their hands too. In desperation, Douggie glanced at Maximus.
“Don’t look at me,” Maximus said, “I get it. It’s obvious.”
Douggie rubbed his face in his hands in frustration,
“OK, I’ll explain it to you. Maximus help me out, will you?”
Maximus shrugged his shoulders. “Sure thing, Doug.”
Douggie raised his hands in the air and then paused for a second to gather his thoughts,
“Ok, it’s like this—”
He glanced at the others, who were hanging on his every word.
“The Kiddy-Care Company is not what you think it is. What you just watched was a security video from the local Kiddy-Care Centre.”
“How did you get the video?” Maggie interrupted.
“It doesn’t matter,” Douggie waved away the question. “I’ll explain that later.” He wiped his brow. He was feeling quite tense,
“The important point is that ALL the nursery teachers in the Kiddy-Care Centre are all — what?”
He stared at the sea of confused eyes staring blankly back at him.
“Come on it’s easy. They’re all —”
“Women?” interrupted Kimiko.
“Yes, but NO. Not the answer I was looking for.”
He would have to spell it out for them. The sun was burning brightly through the open skylight. He wiped his brow and spoke in a slow, determined voice,
“All the Kiddy-Care nursery teachers are all — ROBOTS.”
“Not only are they Robots, or K-BOTs, as they called them on the video but they’re soon to be exploding robots. Highly dangerous,” added Maximus
Maggie raised her hand,
“So, the nurse on the video was actually a robot?” She twisted her hand round her long, wavy, brown hair as she spoke.
“YES,” shouted Douggie. He punched the air.
Maggie spoke again,
“And the bald man in the video was actually fixing the robot or nurse-thing?”
“YES, you got it, Maggie.”
Douggie continued to explain,
“So, the woman you could hear on the video, but not see, was Mrs. Hobbs the owner of Kiddy-Care and the old man was her husband. Now their plan is to put these exploding robots into every one of their Kiddy-Care Centres. Then they’ll demand billions of dollars from all the governments of the World and if the governments don’t pay up the robotic nursery teachers will blow up.”
Kimiko sprang up out of her seat, making all the children jump,
“But, if the robots blow up, then all the small children who attend the Kiddy-Care Centre will be blown up too!”
“EXACTLY.” Douggie jumped up and down. “Now you’re getting it.”
Maximus stepped in front of the TV and said,
“Fortunately, these robots don’t seem to be that good at the moment. They keep breaking. But, as the scientist explained in the video, they’ll soon be ready. So, they’ll upload them with their final piece of deadly detonation software at their annual conference. It would seem that this software is kept on the scientist’s laptop. Once the robots have received this, it looks like nothing will be able to stop them from carrying out their explosive and deadly plan.”
“This is terrible,” cried Maggie.
Douggie and Maximus nodded. Finally, the other members of the gang understood. Abu raised his hand,
“I still don’t get it.”
“What? What don’t you get now?”
Douggie was amazed that Abu was still in the dark.
Meltdown
Abu stood up and slowly adjusted his beanie hat. He slowly looked around the loft lab,
“I don’t get what this has got to do with us.”
“What, what do you mean?” Douggie shook his head in complete frustration.
Abu swaggered in front of the TV,
“OK. I get the video. I understand all the robot thing, blah, blah, blah.”
He made talky movements with his hands to emphasize his point.
“What I don’t get is what this has got to do with a bunch of kids like us? Just take the video to the police and let them deal with it. That’s their job. Why would we want to get mixed up with exploding pink robots.”
“Yeah, yeah, he’s got a good point. We’re just kids. This is none of our business,” Jimmy said while shrugging his shoulders.
Some of the others murmured in half-hearted agreement. Douggie shook his head in disbelief. He could not believe what he was hearing.
“Don’t you guys get it? This is exactly why we have our superpowers, to help people. To make this world a better place to live in — like Batman or Spiderman, right?” He gazed pleadingly at the others.
“No way,” scoffed Abu. “I’m not a superhero. And I’m not interested in being one. If you want to run around in your underpants, then you can do it on your own, but leave me out of it.”
He waved his hand close to Douggie’s face. Angrily, Douggie smacked Abu’s hand away,
“Get your hand out my face,” he snarled.
Abu took a step forward and squared up to Douggie, puffing out his shoulders to make himself look bigger.
“You wanna piece of me?” he growled, shoving Douggie.
Maximus jumped between the two boys. He tried to push the two boys apart, but the much bigger Abu swatted him round the head like a fly.
“Get out my way you little nerd,” screamed Abu.
Maximus’ glasses flew across the room and crashed into a computer screen. He looked completely different without his thick milk-bottle glasses on, and Abu let out a small snigger. Maximus glared furiously at Abu,
“I’m gonna make you regret that,” he squealed.
“Really?” Abu turned to face the half-blind, spec-less Maximus. “You and who’s army, Mole-Boy?” Abu quipped.
“I won’t need an army,” Maximus cried, hysterically.
He launched through the air towards Abu. The whole room descended into chaos. Children were holding back Abu while other children were holding back Maximus. Everyone was screaming at each other. It was pandemonium. This wasn’t going to end well...
As the two boys struggled to break free and get their hands on each other, the energy levels in the room began to rise like storm clouds brewing on a sticky summer’s day. Maximus lost control of his thoughts. He threw his head from side to side in an increasingly furious motion. Abu rose to Maximus’ challenge by lifting up his head and locking Maximus’ beady eyes with a steely, white-hot glare. The two boys smoked with anger like a couple of grumpy volcanoes. Maggie screeched at Abu and slapped him on the back of the head, but to no avail. They were going to fight. The air around the two boys shimmered with the intensity of their rage.
Maximus was the first to attack, and he blasted Abu with an invisible wave of energy that exploded in Abu’s head like a bomb, knocking Abu and the other children that were holding him across the room until they crashed into a stack of electrical equipment. Abu shook himself. His brain rattled around his head like a dry pea in tin can. There was no time to lose. Quickly, he lifted himself up off the floor and stepped over the mess of broken computer equipment, smirking at Maximus’ flustered face.
It would take more than that to stop him; he was strong and mean. Douggie and Jimmy tried to hold Maximus back but wisely jumped clear before Maximus was hit by a series of Ballistic Brain Bashers from Abu’s intense mental attack. Maximus shook violently from head to toe as he absorbed the full painful force of Abu’s potent power.
There
was no doubting it, Abu was strong, but Maximus was stubborn and determined. He brought his hands together in a thunderous clap. Suddenly every electrical socket in the room popped and the wires to all the machines danced around like headless snakes. The energy levels reached molecular melting point. The other children dived for whatever cover they could find. Abu gawped foolishly as Maximus brought the full force of all the energy in the room onto Abu’s already bruised and bashed mind. His eyes span wildly as he was hit by not one, but ten massive Mind Warping Bonse Belters. As the last mind shot bent Abu’s brain backwards, all the electrical equipment fried. The room was filled with the acrid smell of burning plastic. The others struggled to breathe. Abu’s brain had been blitzed. He hit the floor with a thump and didn’t move.
All around Maximus sparks skipped and jumped in an electrical frenzy as he sucked in all of Abu’s power. Sockets blew and screens imploded as he pulled in power like a human Hoover. Once all the power in the lab had been devoured, he shone like a brilliant ball of white light, blasting the skylight window off its hinges and shooting it a hundred feet into the air. For a second Maximus burned brighter than a star, and the others hid their eyes from the glare. And, as quickly as it had begun, it finished. Maximus shook his head, clicked his fingers — CRACK! — Then ordered everyone to get up.
“Look at this mess,” he screamed. “You see what happens if we don’t get on.”
The room was totally devastated. There wasn’t a single item in the loft lab that wasn’t ruined: plastic cups had melted like candles, electrical equipment had fused, sockets were burnt, pages were ripped from books, and the doorknobs had fallen off. Douggie looked at his feet, even his laces had been blasted off his basketball boots.
Maximus shook his head as he surveyed what was left of his lovely loft lab. His brand new 50-inch plasma screen had liquefied into a pool of goo. His numerous computers looked like soggy lumps of melted ice cream. Wires and cords were scattered everywhere, like a bomb full of spaghetti had exploded.
“This is gonna cost a fortune to replace—my allowance will never cover it,” he shook his head repeatedly.
