Finch rubbed the soda from his eyes. He gazed down at his dripping shirt. He looked at his spattered friends. He couldn’t believe they’d let themselves get sucked into this.
“What happened to you dudes?” Mr. Burns exclaimed as he walked into the room. The guys were trying to dry themselves with paper towels they’d gotten from the bathroom dispenser.
“Spilled something on myself,” Finch mumbled without looking up. His Justice League T-shirt—the one showing Superman, Batman, Spider-Man, the Green Hornet, and others—was covered with dark blotches.
“Soda can exploded,” Rajiv added.
“An accident,” Kevin mumbled.
“It was volcanic cola,” Elliott muttered.
Mr. Burns shook his head. “First days can be tough. In the teachers’ room at lunch today, someone accidentally called me Slip instead of Slope. Everyone laughed. It reminded me of this kid that always called me Slippy or Sloppy when I was your age. I never thought it was funny.”
The guys darted looks at one another. They tried not to laugh. Fin could feel his ears getting red. Raj and Kev were shaking. Finally, Elliott erupted into giggles.
“Sorry, Mr. Burns,” he croaked.
Mr. Burns shrugged. “Okay, so maybe it was funny.” He grinned at the guys. “Why don’t you come over to the Critter Corner? I’ll introduce you to my friends.”
The boys followed him to the tanks on the windowsill.
“This is Lima Bean,” Mr. Burns said, pointing to a dark green turtle, “and these guys are the class goldfish. They haven’t got names yet.” He picked up a shaker and sprinkled some flakes onto the surface of the water.
“The way they vacuum up the chow, you should call one Hoover,” Elliott suggested as the fishes’ perfectly round mouths sucked in the food.
“Yeah, and the other one could be Eureka,” Kev said. “That’s the kind of vacuum we have.”
Mr. Burns laughed. “Okay, Hoover and Eureka it is.”
Finch’s glance wandered over to the third tank. Two shells were lying on the sandy bottom. Suddenly he realized that two beady black eyes were peeking at him from the brown-and-white spotted shell. They weren’t eyes in a face, either. They were eyes on the ends of stalks!
He looked at the other shell, a larger, yellowish-tan one, more closely. Sure enough, another pair of eyes on stems was watching him. A claw edged out and sort of waved.
“Weird,” Finch whispered.
“Those are hermit crabs,” Mr. Burns told him. “I named them after my brothers. The smaller one is Anthony, and the larger one is Phillip.” Suddenly the teacher got a big grin on his face. “Say, how would you guys like to be the class zookeepers?”
6
NO MERCY
Mimi opened the door with a ferret draped over each shoulder. “Mom’s not home yet. She’s meeting with a client, but she said she’ll be back early in case we need to go out for school supplies.”
Finch held his backpack in front of his chest, hoping she wouldn’t notice his messed-up shirt. “I already have everything I need,” he said, heading for his room.
“Hey, want a snack?”
Finch kept on going. “Why? You think it will make up for your sneaky little trick?”
“What are you talking about?” Mimi scrunched up her face.
“You’re a crummy actress,” Finch answered. He walked into his room and shut the door. He peeled off his stained shirt, threw it on the floor, and pulled on another one. From deep in his backpack, he hauled out his cape and dumped it into the trash can next to his desk. “Sorry, but you’ve got to go,” he murmured.
He swung his bag onto the artificial arm his dad had attached to the wall as a hook. Mr. Mundy was a prosthetist—he made artificial arms and legs that were practically bionic. Finch loved to hang out with him in his lab, but his dad hadn’t asked him to visit even once this summer. He’d been too busy.
There was a knock on the door to his room. “Fin? I made pizza bagels.”
“You’re trying to buy me off,” Finch accused.
“Why would I want to do that?” Mimi sounded innocent. It only made Finch angrier.
“You know why!”
“Okay, then forget it.”
Finch heard his sister stomp off. But the irresistible aroma of smoking cheese wafted under his door. In another moment he appeared in the kitchen. “Where’s Kelly?” he asked as he slid into a chair at the table.
“Who?”
“Doh! Kelly—your best friend.” He grabbed a pizza bagel off a plate and took a big bite.
Mimi just shrugged. “How come you’re so grouchy? Is your new teacher really mean and nasty?”
“Busted! I’ve got this new guy, Mr. Burns. He does yoga, plays the bugle, and reads to us. Today we started The Indian in the Cupboard about this boy who has a plastic Indian that comes alive.”
“I read that when I was a kid,” Mimi said.
“Correction—you’re still a kid,” Finch pointed out. “Anyway, Mr. Burns set up these learning centers around the room. One of them is the Critter Corner. And guess what—I’m a class zookeeper.”
Mimi cast him a sideways glance. “You mean for real animals?”
“Doh! No, animal crackers! Of course they’re real. There’s a turtle, two goldfish, and two hermit crabs.”
“You call that a zoo?”
Finch ignored the comment. “I’m in charge of the hermies.”
“Hermit crabs—ew. They don’t even have faces.”
“That’s prejudiced!” Finch objected. “You’re prejudiced against animals without faces! Besides, they’ve got these cute little eyes on stems.”
“Do they bite?”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to look them up on the Internet.”
“Maybe I’ll do it with you.”
There—he’d caught her. Mimi never wanted to hang out with him. “I knew it! I knew you were guilty!” Finch said, spraying food everywhere. “You put my cape in my backpack. You’re trying to make me think I’m crazy!”
“You think I put your cape in your backpack? You know what, Fin? You really are crazy.” Mimi got up and walked out of the kitchen.
Finch felt as if he had pizza stuck in his throat. Something was wrong. If Mimi really were guilty, she would be pressing him for all the humiliating details. He closed his eyes and remembered rushing about, tossing notebooks, pencils, a sweatshirt, and other stuff into his bag this morning. Was it possible he’d accidentally shoved the cape in, too?
A little part of him wondered if he should apologize. He sort of wished he could tell Mimi what had happened in the school yard. But he hated to admit she’d been right. She’d warned him about playing superheroes. It was his fault he’d gotten caught.
He left the rest of his pizza on the table and trudged back to his room. But when he got to the doorway, he stopped short. His superhero cape was floating around on the floor in an undulating motion, sort of the way a stingray did underwater. It was bumping into the trash can, the desk chair, and the floor lamp. Before he could squelch it, Fin let out a pizza burp. The cape seemed to hear the sound. It changed directions and began moving toward him.
“Whoa, get away!” Finch grabbed one of his books off the floor and held it like a weapon. But the cape only came toward him faster.
“Hey!”
The cape crashed into his legs. It squeaked. Finch plucked it up in two fingers. Cubby blinked his beady brown eyes up at him.
“Cubby, how many times have I told you to stay out of the garbage?” Finch scolded. He was about to drop the cape into the can again when something stopped him.
Please have mercy on an old friend.
Finch whapped his forehead with a palm. “Shut up!” he said aloud. His new, fourth-grade mind was becoming very annoying. He shut the door to his room anyway. One last time, he draped the old green bath towel over his shoulders and tied the strings at the neck. He gazed at himself in the mirror on his closet door. The cape used to look like a blanket on him. Now it wa
s a better fit. It made him look taller and more dignified—like a combination of a superhero and a prince. He turned around to admire the yellow lightning bolts zigzagging across it.
Very dashing if I do say so myself, Master.
Fin froze. Dashing was a word like repast—a word he hadn’t realized he knew. A cool breeze crept across his back. Suddenly he had the feeling he wasn’t alone. Well, why couldn’t his cape have magic powers like the ring in The Lord of the Rings, or the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter? He pictured himself wearing the cape to school and turning Thorn into a hermit crab with the wave of a hand.
He looked in the mirror again. This time all he saw was a skinny kid with sticky-out ears who was too old to be wearing a superhero costume. “Quit being a baby,” he told his mirror self. He untied the strings, dumped the cape back in the garbage, and went to the computer room.
7
THE TATTLETALE FERRET
Finch Googled “hermit crabs” and found a site called Fun Facts About Hermit Crabs.
1. Hermit crabs have ten legs like shrimp.
2. Hermit crabs have two pairs of antennae. The longer pair is for feeling. The shorter pair is for smelling and tasting.
3. A hermit crab’s large claw is for defense. The small one is for feeding itself.
4. Hermit crabs don’t make the shells they live in—they find them.
5. Hermit crabs are most active at night.
6. Hermit crabs may fight over a shell. It is possible for an attacking crab to pull off the defending crab’s claw if
“Mimi, Fin, I’m home!”
“Coming in a minute, Mom,” Finch called. He bookmarked the Fun Facts website and dashed into the kitchen.
“Guess what? My teacher, Mr. Burns, picked me to be a class zookeeper.”
“Nice.” Finch’s mother stepped out of her high heels and wriggled her toes. “Ooh, what a hard day.”
“Did you sell any insurance policies?” Finch asked.
“Yep,” Elaine Mundy said as she unloaded store-made roast chicken, potato salad, and coleslaw from a grocery bag. She was the most successful insurance saleswoman at the Safe and Sound Insurance Agency. Fin was very proud of her.
“My client Mrs. Fogel was worried about who would take care of her three dachshunds if she were no longer able. Her niece likes the dogs, but Mrs. Fogel didn’t think the young woman could afford to look after them. So she bought an insurance policy that would provide her niece with enough money to take care of all three pups if she becomes incapacitated—or dies. Mrs. Fogel is in good shape, but she’s quite old.”
“Three dachshunds!” Mimi exclaimed as she shuffled into the room with Rosie attached to her fuzzy pink slipper. “Can we get another ferret?”
“Definitely not!” Mrs. Mundy exclaimed. “Two is the perfect number. Any more and this place will smell like a zoo. In fact, it already does—whose turn is it to clean the ferrets’ litter box?”
Finch looked at the ceiling. “I don’t smell anything.”
“You never do,” Mimi said, “because you’re such a stinker.”
“Fin, I want you to change that litter right after dinner,” his mother said. “If you neglect your responsibilities in school like this, your teacher will take away your zoo job.”
“Yeah, he’ll let someone else clean the crab poop instead,” Mimi teased.
“No, he won’t! I’m going to take the best care of them ever,” Finch shouted.
“Enough!” Mrs. Mundy commanded without looking away from the salad she was tossing. “Set the table.” She waved a salad spoon in the air. “Why don’t you two tell me how your first day of school went?”
Except for the scraping of spoon against bowl, the kitchen was silent.
Mrs. Mundy sighed. “That well, huh?”
“Are you and Kelly in any of the same classes?” Mrs. Mundy asked at dinner.
“Homeroom,” Mimi muttered as she pushed her potato salad around her plate. “Math. Spanish.”
“That’s nice.”
“No, it’s not,” Mimi said.
“I thought Kelly was your best friend,” Finch mumbled with his mouth full. Bits of coleslaw dribbled down his chin.
“Not anymore. I hate Kelly! She told everyone I like Ollie Rosebud.”
Finch dropped his fork. “Yuck. He’s a creep. ”
Mimi stared at her fork as if she’d never seen one before. “No, he’s not. I do like him.”
“Ollie Rosebud—are you crazy?” Finch yelled. “He’s the one who teased me about my cape in first grade.”
Mimi snorted. “First grade? Get over it.”
That only got Finch more worked up. “His brother, Bud, is friends with the worst kid in class. The two of them hate me!” Finch was on the verge of telling his mother and sister about Sodaman and Spraybuddy. He needed to know what to do if it happened again.
But before he got the chance, his mother said, “Fin, you’re not helping.” Then she turned to Mimi. “Maybe Kelly was trying to do you a favor. Maybe now you’ll find out Ollie likes you, too.”
“No, Mom, you don’t understand!” Mimi wailed. “Ollie already has a girlfriend—Holly Taylor—the most popular girl in class. Kelly just wanted to embarrass me to get on Holly’s good side.”
Blah, blah, blah, blah. Finch stopped listening. He concentrated on trying to lift the blue bowl of coleslaw with his mind, but it remained in the center of the table. He put his fork on his lap and tried to bend it without using his hands, but he couldn’t make a dent. He attempted to make his chair fly around the room, but it wouldn’t move. He sighed loudly but no one noticed.
Swish . . . swish . . . swish . . . swish. A strange noise came from outside the room. That got everyone’s attention. It sounded like someone was mopping the floor. In another moment, a gray cloth appeared at the entrance to the kitchen. Rosie was dragging it.
Finch jumped out of his chair. “Rosie, give me that!”
But Mimi leaned down and got it first. “Let me see, baby,” she said as she took the rag away from the ferret. “Ew, what is this?”
Finch jumped up. He tried to snatch it from his sister, but his mother caught his arm. “Isn’t that your Justice League T-shirt, Finch? What happened?”
Finch swallowed. “Why don’t you ask Ollie Rosebud’s brother? Spraybuddy!”
8
THE CRAB THAT FLEW
Finch was finishing his cereal when his mother appeared in the kitchen. “What are you doing down here so early?” she asked.
“I want to get to school before class starts so I can do my job. Would you drop me off on the way to work?”
Mrs. Mundy squinted her left eye the way she always did when she was doubtful about something. “I have to meet a client at eight. Won’t you be too early?”
“Some of the teachers will be there. I can sit in the corridor and read if the classroom door is locked.”
But the door to the classroom was open, and Mr. Burns was at his computer when Finch arrived.
“Hi, Mr. Burns. I wanted to get started with my zookeeper job, if it’s okay.”
“Sure, Fin—good idea. It will take the hermies a while to get used to you. They may not come out of their shells until they feel they can trust you.”
“Okay.” Finch went over to the table and stared into the tank. The crab in the small white shell with brown spots was hunkered down in a corner. “Hey, Anthony,” he said quietly.
The crab in the larger shell poked out its eye-stalks. With its small claw it reached up and tapped the tank. Maybe it was crab-talk for “I’m hungry.” Fin reached for the jar called Hermit Crab Grub on the tray beside the tank. While he was reading the feeding instructions, his classmates started arriving. Some of them wandered over to the Critter Corner.
“Excuse me, I’m one of the zookeepers.” Elliott elbowed through the kids and stood next to Finch. Kevin and Rajiv squeezed up to the table, too.
Raj reached for the turtle food. “I’ll take care of Lima Bean.”
“I’ll feed Hoover and you feed Eureka,” Elliott told Kev.
“You can’t feed one fish at a time,” Kev said. “You can’t even tell them apart.”
“Sure I can. I’m already an expert on them,” El replied. “For instance, do you know why goldfish are orange?”
“No, why?” Chloe and Kayla asked from behind the boys.
Elliott peered over his shoulder and grinned. “Because the water makes them rusty.”
“Uhh,” Kev grunted. But Chloe and Kayla both giggled.
“Boy, that stuff stinks,” Bud announced as Fin unscrewed the top to the hermit-crab food.
“Then why don’t you go somewhere else?” Finch sprinkled the food into the crabs’ dish. Phil stuck his legs out of his shell. His antennae twitched. But Anthony didn’t move at all.
“Come on, Anthony, it’s your breakfast, too.” Finch lifted the lid on the tank and picked up the smaller crab. “It’s okay, boy, I’m your friend,” he murmured as he held it on a flat, steady palm.
Suddenly it seemed as if the entire class was in the Critter Corner, pushing and shoving to get closer to the tanks.
“Let me see!”
“Can I hold him?”
“Gimme.” A hand snatched Anthony off Finch’s palm.
Finch whirled around.
“What’s the matter, Towelman?” Thorn jeered. “Did you lose your little super-crabby?” He raised his fist.
“Don’t hold him like that!” Finch snapped. “You’ll scare him.”
“Scare him? It’s just a stupid crab. It doesn’t have feelings.”
“Give him back!” Finch grabbed Thorn’s arm.
Thorn shoved Finch away. Bam! Finch fell back against the table. Water sloshed out of the goldfish tank. Elliott threw his arms around it to steady it.
Finch launched himself toward Thorn. “Give me that crab!” But Thorn stuck his arm straight up so that the fist that held Anthony was out of Finch’s reach.
Finch leaped for the fist and stumbled forward. As he came down, his hand whacked Thorn on the nose.
“Oooooooh!” his classmates gasped.
The Society of Super Secret Heroes Page 3
