Captain Nobody

by Dean Pitchford

  “Thanks,” I whispered.

  “And now I’ve got a question,” he said as he stood. “Do you go to sleep dressed like that?”

  “Dad.” I rolled my eyes. “Of course not. Even Captain Nobody needs to rest once in a while.”

  “And does Captain Nobody ever give his dad a good-night hug?”

  I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed real hard. “Tell me if I’m crushing you.”

  Dad laughed for the first time all night.

  I dropped off to sleep and dreamed about the Big Tackle again, only this time, I came to my brother’s rescue. Just as Chris was diving over the goal line with both teams stampeding behind him, I raced into the end zone dressed as Captain Nobody, held up both hands and shouted, “Ollie ollie oxen STOP!” All twenty-one players froze, some of them in midair. Once Chris had a chance to walk off the field and was safe, I snapped my fingers, and they all dropped in a heap on the ground. Then I yelled, “Pizza for everyone!” About a thousand pizzas got delivered, and everybody in the stadium got a slice.

  I don’t really understand that last part.

  14

  IN WHICH CERTAIN THREATS ARE MADE

  It’s kind of amazing how quickly people can get used to new ideas. The next day at school, you’d have thought I’d been Captain Nobody since kindergarten. I still got a few stares in the hallways, but nobody made fun of me on the playground. When I raised my hand in class, Mrs. Young called on me by saying, “Yes, Captain Nobody?” And nobody snickered.

  At noon, on the playground, I came up behind Cecil as he was explaining to JJ how to operate her walkie-talkie.

  “You push this button here, you talk into here, and all you have to say is ‘Come quick, Captain Nobody!’”

  “Wait a minute!” I interrupted. “What are you calling me for now?”

  “It’s just in case,” Cecil explained.

  “I’ll only call if it’s a real, true emergency,” JJ said. “I swear.”

  “If it’s a real, true emergency,” I said, “you’d better call 911.”

  Cecil scowled. “Anybody can do that.” He held up his walkie-talkie. “The three of us have our own, highly specialized communication network. Speaking of which, what’s up with yours, Captain?”

  I pulled the unit out of my backpack. “Nothing. Why?”

  “Last night when I called? It sounded like you were at the bottom of the ocean.”

  “I don’t know.” I shrugged innocently. “This morning I turned it on, and it’s good to go.”

  “Great!” he declared. “So, now we gotta check that we’re on the same channel.” He pointed to two corners of the school yard. “Let’s spread out and run a test.”

  I leaned over to tell JJ, “And be sure to say ‘over’ when you’re done talking, otherwise Cecil gets very upset.”

  JJ laughed, but Cecil just smacked me on the shoulder. “Get out there!” he ordered.

  JJ went to one end of the playground, and I headed to the other, where a football game was in progress.

  My walkie-talkie crackled. “Cecil, can you hear me?” It was JJ, who quickly added, “Over.”

  “I read you loud and clear,” Cecil answered. “And Captain Nobody? Are you hearing this? Over.”

  I pressed the button and was about to respond when suddenly a football boinked! me on the back of the head. I dropped to one knee.

  “Ow!” I complained, rubbing my scalp.

  “What’s the matter? Aren’t you supposed to be tougher than steel?”

  I looked up. A hulking seventh-grader glowered down at me. Under one massive arm he held the football that had just bounced off my skull. Behind him, a posse of his classmates stood, arms crossed.

  My heart was pounding as I got up, but I looked this guy straight in the eye and asked, “Who wants to know?”

  “Ricky Ratner. Name ring a bell . . . Newman?”

  Startled, I blurted out, “Are you related to Reggie Ratner? Over at Merrimac High?”

  “Reggie’s my cousin.”

  Although this guy had just beaned me with a ball and his cousin had supposedly knocked out my brother, I couldn’t help but gasp, “Man! Your cousin is one awesome defensive end! He played against my brother’s team on Frid—”

  “Yeah. Friday,” Ricky Ratner said bitterly. “And you know what’s been happenin’ ever since?”

  I gulped. “I’ve heard.”

  He put his face right up to mine. “What you didn’t hear is that my cousin Reggie had nothing to do with punchin’ out your brother’s lights.”

  “I never said he did.”

  “But everybody else at Fillmore High School thinks he did. So, here’s what I want you to do,” Ricky said, poking my chest with a thick finger. “I want you to call off your brother’s friends and all those stupid football players who keep hasslin’ my cousin, because if you don’t . . .”

  From behind him, Cecil shouted, “Yo!”

  Ricky stop jabbing me and turned to face Cecil.

  “Yeah, you.” Cecil tried to sound tough. “Can I help you?”

  Cecil and JJ stood side by side, tiny and tall. Ricky looked them over and cackled. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “He just did,” JJ said.

  Ricky sneered. “Just did what?”

  “Made you laugh,” JJ explained. “See, you said, ‘Don’t make me laugh,’ but by that time, you were already laughing, so—”

  “How ’bout you shut up?” Ricky barked.

  “Hey!” Cecil snapped. “If you got a problem with Captain Nobody, you got a problem with us.”

  “Oh, I’m scared now!” Ricky scoffed. “I got a problem with you?”

  Cecil started to respond when, from behind him, came a new voice.

  “And us.”

  We looked up. Behind Cecil and JJ, Basher and Evan McGee and all the rest of the fourth-grade boys—my classmates!—were lined up with their arms crossed the way the seventh-graders’ were. And even though my classmates were younger and smaller, there were a lot more of them. Together they somehow managed to appear threatening.

  Cecil looked to me and raised a single eyebrow, as if to say, “How cool is this?”

  Everything was suddenly quiet. All over the school yard, kids from other grades had stopped playing and were watching the showdown. Then—all the way across the field—I saw Mr. Toomey step out of the school building, look in our direction, and fold his arms.

  Ricky Ratner saw him, too. In the next moment, he seemed to deflate.

  “Remember what I said,” he hissed at me. “You tell your brother’s friends to back off my cousin. Or else.”

  After a final poke, he turned and blended back into his crowd. Within a split second, the wall of my fourth-grade classmates had dissolved and life on the playground had returned to normal.

  I looked at JJ and Cecil and exhaled.

  “What was that?” I asked, baffled.

  “It’s happening just like we said it would,” JJ smiled broadly.

  “What’s happening?”

  Cecil threw his arms open wide. “It’s the power of Captain Nobody,” he crowed. “We’re finally getting noticed!”

  After school, I carefully scoped out the school yard, worried that Ricky Ratner and the rest of the seventh grade would be lying in wait for me. I didn’t see any signs of danger, but just to be sure, I slipped out through the faculty parking lot and headed home. I guess my nerves were still a little raw from my earlier confrontation, or else I wouldn’t have jumped about two feet off the pavement when, from out of my backpack, I heard: “Captain Nobody? It’s JJ! Do you read me? Over!”

  “Now what?” I groaned to myself.

  “Captain Nobody, I need your help!” JJ yelled. “Please come in. Or answer. Or whatever you’re supposed to say. Over.” After a pause, she continued. “I’m serious. Captain Nobody, I wouldn’t be calling if this wasn’t really, really important, and since this is the first time I’m asking for anyth—”

  I couldn’t stand it!
I ripped the walkie-talkie from my backpack and hit the button. “Captain Nobody speaking! Over.”

  “Oh, thank goodness you’re there! This is an emergency, I’m not kidding. Meet me immediately in front of Sullivan’s Jewelry Store on Duncan Street. Over.”

  “Actually, JJ,” I said, “I’m supposed to go right home today. Sorry. Over.”

  “But you don’t understand.” JJ was whining now. “The most horrible thing has happened, and, oh, my god. . . . Nooooo!” JJ suddenly screamed.

  I gasped as my walkie-talkie went dead. I shook it and punched the buttons, yelling, “JJ! JJ? Do you read me? Come in, JJ! Over,” but there was no longer any signal.

  I had no choice. I sprinted off toward Sullivan’s Jewelry Store, terrified of what I would find when I got there.

  15

  IN WHICH BAD SPELLING LEADS TO SOMETHING WORSE

  I zigzagged through backyards and alleys to get to Duncan Street as fast as my silver sneakers would carry me. There I found JJ standing at the curb in front of Sullivan’s Jewelry Store, her face buried in her hands.

  “JJ!” I panted as I raced to her side. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, I don’t even know where to start,” she moaned.

  “Start at the beginning,” I suggested, trying to sound calm in the middle of what was surely a ghastly tragedy.

  She shook back her hair and cleared her throat. “Okay. It all began with that.” She pointed to Sullivan’s front window, where rows of sparkling rings and racks of colorful necklaces were on display.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “The sign!” she wailed. “That horrible, handwritten sign.”

  It read:

  ASK ABOUT OUR 24 CARROT GOLD!

  “That’s not how you spell ‘karat,’” I said automatically.

  “Exactly!” JJ practically shrieked through clenched teeth. “And don’t even get me started about the one over there.”

  She gestured to another card:

  EVERY NECKLESS ON SALE.

  “Ouch,” I winced.

  “Right?” JJ shouted. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone in there and tried to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, but do they listen? Do they correct these crimes against the language? No! They only say, ‘Thank you and good-bye, little girl.’”

  I was starting to get annoyed. “And you’re upset because of a few spelling mista—”

  “Oh, if only that were all!” she cut me off. “Even as I stood here, talking to you on Cecil’s walkie-talkie, look what Mr. Sullivan just slipped in, not five minutes ago!”

  A piece of white cardboard leaning against the opposite display window proclaimed

  ALL EARRING’S HALF OFF!!!

  “So?” I asked in disbelief. “He misplaced an apostrophe, and you screamed?”

  “Oh, tell me you’re not horrified!” JJ exploded.

  “I’m not,” I shrugged.

  “But it’s so wrong! If I have to pass by one more day and see these . . . these massacres of grammar and spelling, I’m going to have to find another way to walk to school.”

  I was speechless until JJ finally asked, “So will you talk to them?”

  “Me?” I cried. “Why me?”

  JJ threw her arms up. “You’re Captain Nobody! ‘Defender of the little guy, champion of the downtrodden. ’ Remember?”

  “Why would they even listen to me, JJ?”

  “Because,” she sighed. “People notice you.”

  At that moment, JJ—who usually comes off as being so smart and confident—suddenly seemed so . . . not those things. It’s funny how much clearer the world looks from behind a mask.

  “Hold my book bag,” I said.

  A door chime announced my entrance into the store. The square shop was bordered by glass counters, and four or five more display cases stood around in the middle of the floor. I had been there only once, years before, when Dad had a watchband replaced, but it didn’t look as if anything had changed. The counters were still cluttered with mirrors and spinning racks of gold chains and silver bangles. Music played softly from speakers in the ceiling.

  At the far end of one aisle, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan—gray-haired and proper—stood side by side behind a counter, waiting on the only customer in the store. They looked up when I entered, and their mouths fell open. I guess they didn’t get many masked shoppers wearing red sweatpants and silver shoes. The customer, however, peered at me over his sunglasses, and he didn’t even blink. He was unshaven, and he wore a zip-up sweatshirt and a baseball cap pulled low over his face.

  Once Mr. Sullivan got over the initial shock, he asked, in a thick Irish accent, “And how can I be helpin’ you, little . . . person?”

  “I . . . I . . . I can wait,” I stammered. “Or better yet, I’ll come back when you’re not so busy.”

  I spun on my heels and would have marched out, but Mrs. Sullivan suddenly cried, “No, please!”

  I turned back and looked at Mrs. Sullivan, really looked at her. Which was something new. When I’m around adults I usually spend most of the time staring at the ground under my feet. But the day before I had looked Mr. Clay in the eye as we stood on his front porch, and now I was meeting Mrs. Sullivan’s look with a steady gaze of my own.

  “Every customer is important to us,” she said with a tight smile, speaking with the same Irish accent her husband had. “What is it that you’ll be needing?”

  I got a strong feeling that it was important to her that I stay. So I stepped forward. “It’s kind of stupid,” I began, pointing over my shoulder, “but it’s about your signs.”

  “Me signs?” Mr. Sullivan sniffed.

  “The signs in the window? There’s something wrong with a few of them,” I explained, moving closer. “Little things. Spelling things. Punctuation stuff.”

  As I neared the countertop I noticed all the merchandise that the Sullivans had laid out for their customer’s approval: bracelets and watches and diamond rings, all glinting under the fluorescent lights.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I blurted. “I didn’t mean to interrupt a sale.”

  “Then don’t!” the customer growled at the same time that Mrs. Sullivan exclaimed, “Don’t be silly!”

  “Okay, it’s only three things.” I spoke very quickly. “First, ‘twenty-four karat’ is spelled K-A-R-A-T. The way you’ve got it now, it’s a vegetable.”

  The customer sighed with annoyance, so I sped up even more.

  “Second, the way you wrote ‘necklace’ out there, it’s like ‘neck-less,’ which means ‘without a neck,’ and without a neck, you’d have no place to hang a necklace, so you might want to take a look at that, okay?”

  While I was talking, Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan’s eyes kept darting between me and the merchandise and their customer. The customer was twitching with irritation, his right hand poking forward in his sweatshirt pocket as if he were holding on to something in there and pointing it at Mr. and Mrs. Sulliv—

  Holy moly! I screamed inside my head. Has he got a gun?

  I looked from the customer’s pocket to Mr. and Mrs. Sullivan, whose eyes were now huge. My mouth was suddenly bone-dry.

  “And what else?” Mrs. Sullivan’s question snapped me back to reality.

  “Huh?” I blinked.

  “What else is wrong with our signs?” Mrs. Sullivan asked. “This is very helpful.”

  “Very helpful!” Mr. Sullivan repeated. “Matter of fact, I should be writin’ down these suggestions. Now, where’s me pen?”

  He turned to a desk behind him.

  “Stop right there!” shouted the customer. But it was too late.

  Mr. Sullivan’s hand slipped under the desktop and pressed a hidden button. A shrill alarm suddenly split the air.

  In the next second, everybody exploded into action.

  Mrs. Sullivan ducked behind the display case as Mr. Sullivan shouted into a phone, “Hello? POLICE?” The customer—oh, all right—the thief swept an arm across the countertop and hugged a pile of jewe
lry against his chest. He spun around, and wham! ran smack dab into me.

  We tumbled to the floor as diamonds and watches spilled in every direction. The guy grabbed my collar and barked, “Breathe one word about this, I will hunt you down and I will hurt you!” Then he scrambled to his feet and raced out.

  I jumped up, trying not to step on all the gems and necklaces underfoot. The alarm was shrieking, Mrs. Sullivan was sobbing, and Mr. Sullivan was ranting into the phone. It wasn’t a good time, I realized, to explain about the unnecessary apostrophe in “ear-ring’s.”

  So I left.

  “What’s going on?” JJ yelled above the wail of the alarm as I rocketed past her.

  “There was a robber in the store!” I called over my shoulder.

  JJ yelled after me, “Was that the guy who just ran out?”

  I whirled around. “Where’d he go?”

  “I don’t know,” she shrugged. “The alarm distracted me.”

  In the distance, we could hear police sirens. I grabbed JJ’s hand and dragged her behind me. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

  “But shouldn’t you stay and talk to the police?” she cried.

  I reached up and took JJ by the shoulders. “That robber said he would hunt me down and hurt me if I tell anybody anything.”

  “But you just told me,” JJ said.

  I gulped. “Then we’re both in danger!” I wailed, pulling her along.

  She shook loose of my hand. “But you’re a witness,” she insisted. “You have a responsibility!”

  “And the bad guy has a gun!” I shouted.

  We both ran.

  16

  IN WHICH I DON’T APPEAR ON THE FIVE O’CLOCK NEWS

  “Captain Nobody!” Mom exclaimed when I finally got home late that afternoon. She kissed my forehead. “You’re even more handsome than your picture.”