“‘Captain Nobody?’”
“Where did that come from?”
“You don’t like it?” I asked.
“Oh, no, it’s brilliant!” shouted Cecil. “‘Captain Nobody’—a hero like no other.”
“I love it because it sounds mysterious,” JJ gushed. “It’s as if you once had another identity, but now some tragic event has wiped out your memory, and you are . . . oh!” She suddenly stopped, realizing what she had said. “Not that what happened to Chris is a tragic event, or anything,” she stammered. “I mean, we don’t know whether he’s . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“It’s okay,” I said, patting JJ on the back. “Chris is going to be fine.”
Cecil coughed and looked away. He’s usually the one who breaks through the awkward moments and gets us back on track, but at that moment, nobody knew what to say.
Without even thinking about what I was doing, I clapped my hands (the way Cecil always does) and shouted “So!” (like JJ).
They both jumped.
“Since my memory has not been wiped out,” I announced, “I distinctly remember that we were on our way to score some major stash.”
And with a mighty whoop, we ran off in search of candy.
The night was incredible. Our costumes drew gasps and oohs from other trick-or-treaters and from all the people who answered our knocking.
“Astonishing!” they said. “Bravo!”
And we bowed.
As the evening wore on, a strange thing happened. With every house we went to and every doorbell we rang, I felt less and less like Newt. At first, when anyone asked, “And who are you supposed to be?” I would answer, “Captain Nobody,” and they would laugh or compliment my style and imagination. But after the first hour or so, I started to answer differently.
“I’m not ‘supposed to be’ anyone,” I corrected them coolly. “I am Captain Nobody.”
The candy-givers would agree, “Ahh,” and nod respectfully. They didn’t ask if I had special powers. They didn’t demand to see me perform an amazing feat. There was something in the way I announced myself that told people Captain Nobody was the real deal.
Whatever that was.
We trick-or-treated far later than we ever had in the past. By the end, it was too late to go back to my house and examine our haul, so, after porch lights had been shut off and we had run out of front doors to knock on, we stood on a street corner and took a long, final moment to appreciate each other’s costumes.
“We were not ignored tonight,” Cecil said.
“Yeah,” JJ sighed. “I wish we had a camera.”
I didn’t speak. I felt like any wrong word would pop the bubble of happiness I was floating in at that moment.
“And you—wow! What happened to you tonight?” Cecil asked me.
“Why?”
“You were just so . . . weird. But in a supercool way.”
I tilted my head. “Oh?”
“Yeah,” JJ said. “Every time you spoke, you sounded less like Newt, and more . . . like . . .”
“Like what?”
Her eyes glowed in the light of the streetlamps. “Like Captain Nobody.”
When I got home, Mom’s car was in the driveway. But even though the lights were on in the kitchen, she wasn’t there. Instead, she had left me a note on the counter, which read:Dear Newt, did I forget Halloween again??? One of these years I’ll remember, and then won’t you be shocked? Ha-ha! I hope you had a good time with your friends. I’m going to bed, so I can get up early and trade places with your dad at the hospital. Don’t worry about Chris. He’s resting comfortably. And don’t forget to brush your teeth after eating all that candy. Love, Mom.
There was so much about the evening that was memorable that when I looked down at my Halloween sack, I actually felt silly. What use could Captain Nobody possibly have for all these gum balls and Pixy Stix? I pushed my bag of candy down into the kitchen trash and trudged upstairs.
I was a little disappointed, because I hoped I might get home in time to show Mom my costume before I finally took it off. Oh, well.
Still dressed as Captain Nobody, I brushed my teeth. In my bedroom, before I got ready for bed, I turned out the light. Maybe if I undressed in the dark . . . maybe if I didn’t see myself without the mask and costume . . . maybe I could make the spell last a little bit longer.
And before I dropped off to sleep, I said it one last time: “I’m not ‘supposed to be’ anybody. I am Captain Nobody.”
10
IN WHICH I MAKE A WILD WARDROBE CHOICE
“Newt? I’m going!”
Mom’s knock at my bedroom door woke me from a sound sleep. It took me a moment to adjust to my surroundings, because I had just been having a dream, but not the Big Tackle dream. In this one, I—I mean, Captain Nobody—was saving a sinking ship by patching a hole in its side with huge wads of gum that I—or rather, he—had been chewing.
“Call my cell phone if you need anything, okay, sweetie?” Mom shouted as she walked away from my door.
“Wait, Mom! How’s Chris doing?” I tried to yell, but my voice was still foggy with sleep.
As I heard Mom’s car start up and pull out of the driveway, I looked over to my desk chair where I had hung the Captain Nobody outfit the night before. At that moment, in the light of the early morning sun, it looked less like a costume and more like limp hand-me-downs . I climbed out of bed, pulled on the Captain Nobody sweatpants, and went downstairs to eat some breakfast.
I was munching on my cornflakes when I noticed the newspaper Mom had left on the kitchen counter. I couldn’t believe it: three days after the Big Game and the whole edition still seemed to be about my brother. There were interviews with Chris’s teammates, pictures of the crowds in front of the hospital and letters to the editor demanding an investigation into football violence.
There was also a small item on page seven about a bunch of “Fillmore High School troublemakers” who emptied about fifty garbage cans on Reggie Ratner’s lawn.
“Fifty cans of garbage,” I said out loud. “Wow.”
That’s when I noticed how quiet it was. Without Chris waking up or my parents racing around, our house felt big and hollow. And sort of sad. So I tried to think cheerful thoughts as I looked around the kitchen: Chris will be back here in no time, sitting right over there. Mom and Dad will be eating my breakfast very soon, now. We’ll be the family we always were. But what if we’re not? What if Chris doesn’t . . .
“Stop it!” I cried out. I took a deep breath and shook myself, the way a dog does after a bath.
What could I do to distract myself now?
“Well, don’t you have school?” I asked, just the way Mom would have if she’d been there. So I put my dishes in the sink and went upstairs to get dressed.
I was all ready to strip off the red sweatpants and put on jeans, but then I stopped. Just wearing the Captain Nobody pants reminded me of the way I’d felt the night before—strong and assured. Confident that Chris was okay. Certain that Mom wouldn’t cry any more. Could I feel that way again?
I slipped on the Captain Nobody shirt with its attached cape, and slid into the silver sneakers.
There! That felt better.
I straightened up and looked at myself in the closet-door mirror.
“What are you doing?” I blurted out to my reflection. “You’re still just a scrawny kid.”
But then—just for the heck of it—I tugged the mask down over my eyes.
And, what d’you know? All those worries disappeared.
For a long moment, I stared at the boy-who-wasn’t-me in the mirror. Why would I want to be anyone else? I wondered. Did I really want to trade the specialness of Captain Nobody for the drabness of Newt Newman? Was I really ready to go back to being insignificant and overlooked when I had recently gotten a taste of being so . . . amazing?
At that very moment, I caught sight of my bedside clock. Was it really seven forty-five?
“I am so dead!” I c
ried.
Looking for something else to wear, I flung open my closet, only to find that the hangers were almost all empty. Even my dirty clothes basket was gone!
I zoomed downstairs to the laundry room, where I was horrified to discover that, while I was out trick-or-treating, Mom had washed my clothes.
But she had forgotten to dry them.
And the clock on the laundry room wall said seven fifty!
“This isn’t happening!” I whimpered as I raced back up to my bedroom, where I did the only thing I could do—I tied up the laces of Chris’s old track shoes, grabbed my backpack and dashed out of the house.
I sprinted the half mile to school, my silver sneakers stretching out farther and farther as I flew down the sidewalk, almost as if I were growing taller with each stride. As I neared the school, the first bell rang. Everyone on the playground turned and headed into the buildings, so none of the kids really noticed me as I rushed up and filed in behind them.
Once I entered my classroom, though, I got a ton of stares. And snickers.
“What a weirdo!” Basher hooted. “Don’t you have a mirror in your house?”
“Halloween’s over, loser,” sneered Evan McGee, Basher’s buddy. Other kids laughed, too. But then I caught Cecil’s eye and he gave me a thumbs-up. JJ looked up from reading. Her mouth dropped open with surprise, but it quickly spread into a smile.
There was a part of my brain that realized how silly I probably appeared to the rest of the world. But, from behind my mask, I looked out and felt . . . okay.
Mrs. Young hurried in and plopped a pile of books and papers on her desk.
“Let’s settle down, everyone,” she said cheerily. “We have a lot to cover today. We have homework to review, and I want to hear all about your Halloween, and—”
She looked up and saw me.
Every head turned to follow her gaze. Twenty-nine pairs of eyes burned into me, but rather than shrinking in my seat, I sat up straight and tall.
“Uhhhh . . . hello, Newton,” she stammered.
“Good morning, Mrs. Young,” I answered.
“My. You look . . . uh . . .”
“Like a whack-job,” Basher coughed, which made a lot of kids laugh.
“Settle down,” Mrs. Young warned as she stepped from behind her desk and looked me up and down. “Let me guess: This was your costume last night, was it?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I answered.
“And is there a reason that you’ve chosen to wear last night’s costume to school this morning?”
I shrugged. “It felt right.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Young nodded.
A few kids snickered, but not as many as before; Mrs. Young’s serious tone was having a calming effect on my classmates. “I don’t believe I know this . . . character,” she said. “Does he have a name?”
I opened my mouth to answer, but Cecil beat me to it.
“Uh, hello?” he exclaimed. “Everybody knows Captain Nobody!”
“Captain Nobody?” Mrs. Young looked startled by the information. Several kids wondered, “Huh?” “Captain Nobody?” “Who’s that?”
JJ stood up. “Oh, come on! Don’t tell me you don’t recognize Captain Nobody. Defender of the little guy? Champion of the downtrodden?”
She was so passionate and convincing that, almost in unison, my classmates grunted, “Oh. Him,” and they nodded as if they had known my name all along.
Mrs. Young seemed to be giving the situation some thought. She looked at me with a sympathetic smile and asked, “Newt? How’s your brother?”
“Unacceptable!” Principal Toomey banged his desk. “The boy’s obviously toying with us.”
I sat outside his office and listened through the half-open door while he and Mrs. Young discussed me. Or, rather, Captain Nobody.
“But I’m sure you heard about what happened to Chris Newman at the Big Game,” Mrs. Young said.
“Heard about it? I was there!” Mr. Toomey boomed. “A terrible moment.”
“I agree,” Mrs. Young said. “I was there, too.”
“But what’s that got to do with this boy sitting outside my office in a Halloween costume?”
“This ‘boy,’ Mr. Toomey, is Newton Newman. Chris Newman’s younger brother.”
“What?” barked Mr. Toomey. “I didn’t know Chris Newman had a younger brother.”
“Well, he does,” Mrs. Young replied. “And I can only imagine that this weekend hasn’t been an easy one for the Newman family.”
“No, I’m sure,” Mr. Toomey mumbled. “So what are you saying?”
“I’m only saying that, with his brother in the hospital and both his parents distracted, life at Newton’s house may be a little . . . chaotic right now.”
“So you think this wacky costume that Newell is wearing—”
“Newton.”
“—that Newton is wearing is somehow a result of that chaos?”
“I do. It doesn’t worry me that he’s wearing that costume. What worries me is his state of mind.”
“Why? What’s his state of mind?”
“Well,” Mrs. Young explained carefully, “he’s asking to be called Captain Nobody.”
“He what?”
I heard Mr. Toomey pick up the phone and call Mr. Brockman, the school counselor. Ten seconds later, Mr. Brockman clomped through the waiting room. He glanced at me as he entered the principal’s office and shut the door.
Shortly after that, Mrs. Marcus, the school nurse, hurried in to join them. For about twenty minutes, all I could hear was murmuring, before the door opened and the four adults filed into the waiting room. I stood and faced them.
“We’re very sorry about your brother’s accident,” Mrs. Young said.
“He’s going to be okay, Mrs. Young,” I assured her.
The adults all exchanged solemn looks.
“Of course he is,” Mrs. Marcus nodded.
She shot a look at Mr. Toomey, which seemed to be a cue for him to speak. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and smiled down at me.
“And, I want you to know, young man, Captain Nobody is always welcome in this school.”
“Thank you, Mr. Toomey,” I said. “Can I go back to class now?”
“Check it out, check it out!” Cecil whispered excitedly when I set my tray down next to his and JJ’s at lunch period.
“What?” I asked.
“Don’t look now, but”—JJ giggled—“just look around.”
I craned my neck to find that most of the kids in the cafeteria were gawking at our table.
“I said don’t look!” hissed JJ.
“But you also said, ‘look around,’” I whispered out the side of my mouth.
“Y’see what’s happening?” Cecil asked. “Can you feel the electricity?”
“I just see a lot of people who’ve stopped chewing,” I muttered. “You’d think people had never seen old gym clothes before.”
“It’s not just the clothes.” Cecil rapped on the lunch table to make his point. “No! They’re diggin’ the whole Captain Nobody vibe.”
“Y’think?”
He and JJ nodded solemnly.
“So, here’s what we gotta do,” Cecil announced. “From now on, you’re gonna be Captain Nobody, and we’re gonna be your . . . your . . .” He whipped around to JJ. “What’d you say they call those guys?”
JJ quickly answered, “Sidekicks.”
“Sidekicks. Exactly!” Cecil whooped. “So, you’re gonna be the one who has adventures, and we’re gonna be the ones by your side. Kickin’. Like Batman has Robin, y’know? Or Superman has Jimmy Aspirin.”
“Olsen,” JJ corrected him. “Jimmy Olsen.”
“Wait, wait, wait, guys!” I held up both hands. “You’re forgetting: I don’t have ‘adventures.’”
“Not yet!” Cecil said. “But when me and JJ see something suspicious, y’know, and we call you on our cell phones . . .”
“But none of us has a cell phone,” JJ interrupted.
From his backpack, Cecil slid a walkie-talkie across the table to me. That’s when I began to suspect that maybe the two of them had practiced this little scene in advance.
“I still had these in my locker from a report I did on radio waves,” Cecil quickly explained. “I’ve only got one for me and you right now, but tomorrow, JJ, I’ll bring one for you, too.”
“And why do I need this?” I asked, inspecting the walkie-talkie.
“So when there’s an emergency . . . ,” Cecil started.
“. . . we can call on you,” JJ finished.
“Why would you guys ‘call on me’?” I asked.
“In case there’s . . . I don’t know . . . danger?” Cecil suggested.
“He’s right,” JJ jumped in. “What if somebody needs saving? Or some wrong needs righting or—”
“Stop!” I came very close to shouting. “This is Appleton. Nothing ever happens here. Nothing ever happens to me. I only dressed like this today because . . . because it felt good.”
“And it’s only gonna feel better,” Cecil promised.
JJ looked me in the eyes. “Look what happened, Newt . . . I mean, Captain, in just one morning. You heard how Mrs. Young talked to you. You feel what happens when you walk into a room. You see the looks on everybody’s faces.”
“But what if I wake up tomorrow morning and decide I want to be Newt?”
“Why would you do that?” Cecil was astonished.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because,” JJ almost wailed, “as long as you’re Captain Nobody, and we’re by your side, people can’t ignore us . . . ever, ever again!”
11
IN WHICH CAPTAIN NOBODY FACES A FEAR
I never would have expected the changes I saw in my schoolmates. As the day went on, I got the feeling that the theory linking my appearance as Captain Nobody with my brother’s accident had made the rounds. By the end of school, the teasing I encountered earlier had turned to curiosity and even sympathy. People who had sneered or stared bug-eyed before lunch began asking, “Howzitgoin’?” as they passed me in the hallways. A few even patted me on my cape and encouraged me to “be strong.”
Captain Nobody Page 5
