Sidekicks

by Dan Danko

  “Look!” I spotted a T tile on the ground by the huge hole in the far wall. Good old Spelling Beatrice had left her tracking tile behind, hoping someone would be able to use it. “We can track the homing Q tile that Spelling Beatrice still has!”

  “Quick!” Exact Change Kid said, and I was very surprised, as I didn’t think “quick” was even a word in his vocabulary. “To the Sidekick Super Rocket of Blastingness!”

  “We have a rocket!?” I said, shocked.

  But Exact Change Kid didn’t answer. He raced toward the hole in the wall, and I ran as fast as I could with my throbbing ankle.

  “Oh. Wait a sec,” he said, stopping.

  Exact Change Kid walked to a door on the far side of the Sidekick Super Clubhouse and knocked.

  “What?” an irritated voice called from inside.

  “Who’s in there?” I asked Exact Change Kid, having always thought that that door was just a closet.

  “Latchkey Kid,” Exact Change Kid replied and cracked open the door.

  “Hey, me and Speedy are going out for a bit, okay?”

  “Okay . . . ,” Latchkey Kid replied. He sat on a couch, watching TV, his eyes never leaving the screen.

  “There’s some leftover meat loaf in the Sidekick Super Freezer of Frozen Justice,” Exact Change Kid told him. “Just put it in the microwave on high for four minutes, okay?”

  “I know! I know!” Latchkey Kid spat back.

  “You know, it’s a beautiful day out. Maybe you could go to the park or something?”

  “Yeah. Whatever.”

  “Okay. We’ll see you around nine o’clock,” Exact Change Kid told him. “If it’s any later, we’ll call, and then maybe you can have Mrs. Johnson come over.”

  Latchkey Kid didn’t answer. He stared at the TV and took a swig from his soda. Exact Change Kid slowly closed the door.

  “Maybe we should call a sitter?” he asked.

  “Come on!” I urged and pulled Exact Change Kid through the gaping hole in the wall.

  We raced across the Sidekick Super Additional-Parking Parking Lot of Justice.

  “Where’s the rocket?” I asked.

  Exact Change Kid raced up to a cardboard box and crawled inside.

  What awaited me inside was not an elevator that would take us down to the ultra-technology level of the Sidekick Super Clubhouse. It wasn’t a transporter that would beam us to the bridge of the rocket. It wasn’t even a go-cart with a chipmunk running on a treadmill as the engine.

  “This isn’t a rocket!” I yelled. “This is just a cardboard box with knobs and dials painted on the inside!”

  Exact Change Kid hung his head, broken by the pounding hammer of reality. “I know, I know,” he sobbed. “I was hoping no one would notice.”

  I crawled out of the box and kicked it. My foot broke through the cardboard side.

  “Oh, great!” Exact Change Kid shouted from inside. “Now it’ll never get off the ground!”

  Spelling Beatrice’s tracking tile beeped in my hand. It grew faint. “Come on! The signal’s fading! They’ll be out of range soon!”

  The two of us raced from the parking lot and stood on the street corner. I could run there myself, but my ankle was still hurting from being buried under the rubble, and I had to save all my strength for the final battle.

  And there would be a final battle. I wasn’t about to give up.

  “There!” Exact Change Kid shouted, pointing down the street.

  “What?” I said. “It’s just a bus.”

  “Just a bus to you. A fortress of solitude to me!”

  The bus pulled over at the curb and we raced inside.

  “Sir, by the power vested in me through the use of Spandex, I’m commandeering this bus for the battle against evil!” Exact Change Kid told the driver.

  “Whatever,” the driver said, pulling from the curb. “That’ll be two dollars and ten cents. Each. Exact change only.”

  Exact Change Kid leaped in front of me and thrust out his arms as if he was protecting me from a charging bull.

  “Stand back, Speedy,” he said, filled with determination and purpose. “Stand back and watch me shine!”

  Back at the Sidekick Super Clubhouse, Earlobe Lad raced into the main room.

  “EVERYBODY! LOOK!” He shouted and pointed to a pair of giant lead earmuffs wrapped around his head. “NOW YOU CAN TALK AS LOUD AS — HEY... WHERE IS EVERYBODY?”

  The microwave beeped. Latchkey Kid looked up from behind the open door of the fridge.

  “They’ll be back around nine,” he said, popping open another can of soda.

  Chapter Seven

  These Chapter Titles Make No Sense

  “Amazing.”

  “What?” Exact Change Kid asked, raising his sullen head from his hands.

  “It’s just amazing, that’s all. Absolutely amazing.”

  “What is?” he asked again.

  “Nothing. It’s nothing,” I replied.

  Exact Change Kid hung his head again. This time it sunk a little lower between his knees than before.

  “Let me ask you a question,” I began, trying my best to not yell. “If I could not run fast, and I mean really, really fast, do you think I’d call myself Speedy!?”

  “No.” Exact Change Kid whimpered.

  “Then why in the world does a sidekick named Exact Change Kid NOT have one hundred percent exact change the only time in his stupid life he’ll ever really need it!?”

  Okay. I was shouting now.

  “I didn’t know my utility belt was back in the rubble. How do you expect me to have exact change without it?”

  “Then maybe you should call yourself Exact Change Utility Belt Kid!”

  “That’s a stupid name ... although Exact Change Utility Belt Boy does have a nice ring to it.”

  The two of us sat on the curb. We’d gotten half a block before the driver had kicked us out. “Exact change only!” He laughed as the door hit me in the butt on the way out. “And happy Halloween.”

  “Now what?” Exact Change Kid asked. “I hate to admit it, but I’m not much good without my change.”

  “Without your change? I don’t know where you’ve been for the last two hours, but you’re not much good with your change, either!”

  Okay, that was a little low and the moment I said it, I felt bad. But I was on edge, and when I’m on edge I do edgy things.

  I felt my ankle. It still hurt too much to use my super speed. Sure, you might be able to walk on a sprained ankle, but try running 90 miles per hour on one. I had to use my brains. It was the League of Big Justice’s only hope.

  Use my brains!? The League of Big Justice didn’t stand a chance.

  “Do you still have your cell phone?” I asked.

  Exact Change Kid pulled a phone from one of his hidden pockets. Time seemed to stop as I faced one of the most difficult choices I had ever made. Once I dialed, there’d be no turning back. Spelling Beatrice’s beeping T sounded in my hand, as if to remind me my sacrifice meant nothing if it saved lives. I pressed the phone to my ear.

  “Hi, Mom? I need a favor . . .”

  Within fifteen minutes, my mom arrived in her Oldsmobile station wagon. We climbed into the car.

  “Guy tells me you throw pennies,” my mom said as Exact Change Kid buckled his seat belt.

  Trust me. It just went downhill from there.

  Spelling Beatrice’s tracking tile did the job and led us directly to the secret base of the Brotherhood of Rottenness. It was hidden in a garbage dump. How fitting.

  At least for Le Poop.

  I was hiding behind a small mound of flies, leftover pizza, and something that might have been alive at one point but now was just kinda stinky. Exact Change Kid was across the street getting change at a mini-mart.

  And my mom was in the parking lot.

  I had told her this was just a training drill.

  If I had told her the truth, there was no way she would have let me go anywhere near the garbage dump.
She parked in the lot to wait for our “drill” to be over so she could take me home.

  At least I’d convinced her to stay in the car.

  From my hiding place, I had watched the evil ones carry Boom Boy, Spice Girl, Spelling Beatrice, and Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy through a large hidden door, and I was waiting for Exact Change Kid to return before we attacked.

  That’s what I wanted to do, but the thing about evil is, it just seems to have a mind of its own. The large door started to slide closed. Once it did, I knew there would be no way for us to get into the base. It was now or never.

  I bolted from my hiding spot. Pain shot through my ankle, but I ignored it. I had to. With each super-speed step, the pain stabbed higher up my leg. The door didn’t care how much my ankle hurt. It was closing. I pushed my speed up to 72 miles per hour and dove, barely sliding past the threshold as the door slammed shut and cut me off from the rest of the world.

  That’s when things really got bad.

  Everything started to shake. That’s never good when you’re in a building, because buildings that shake when there’s no earthquake can only mean one thing: Two Ton Tom was attacking.

  I turned to face his artery-clogged attack, but he wasn’t there. I was alone. So if a building shakes and Two Ton Tom isn’t attacking, then what that really means is that the building isn’t a building.

  It’s a rocket ship.

  Below, Exact Change Kid raced up with a fistful of dimes. “Take that!” he shouted, and he flung the coins at the ship as it ripped away from its garbage-covered camouflage and slowly lifted into the sky.

  I peered through a window in the ship’s side. The last thing I saw was Exact Change Kid covering his head as the dimes fell back to earth and rained down on him like candy from a broken piñata.

  He waved at me. “I’ll just go wait in the car!”

  Chapter Eight

  Showdown with Evil

  Once I was inside the ship, it didn’t take long to find the League of Big Justice and the sidekicks. A few left turns and one hydrolift later, and I was on the ship’s bridge.

  And so were they: King Justice, Lady Bug, Captain Haggis, The Stain, Mr. Ironic, The Good Egg, Ms. Mime, Depression Dave, The Librarian, Pumpkin Pete, Charisma Kid, Spelling Beatrice, Spice Girl, and Boom Boy were all in large glass tubes. Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy hung from the ceiling like a giant hamster disco ball.

  Everyone seemed to be okay, but they looked like they were in a trance. Probably something in the tubes. I ran over to the console and looked for a button to free them.

  And there was a button. There were also about a hundred knobs and two hundred levers. This thing was more complex than my last science test.

  I quickly scanned the console. I didn’t have much time. One way or another, the Brotherhood would find me. I spotted a red button and hovered my finger over it.

  The thing about red buttons is, pushing them always makes something really good or something really bad happen. Red buttons never result in something just okay. You never push a red button and then say “Gee. That was okay.” Try it and see.

  “I wouldn’t pick that one if I were you,” a voice behind me said. “Unless you want to start the dishwasher.”

  I knew that the moment I turned, I would be face to face with the evil mastermind that had defeated the League of Big Justice! Such a feat would take the greatest supervillain the world had ever known! He would be big, strong, mean, and terrifying with a genius mind capable of defeating the League of Big Justice and putting the heroes in tubes like Barbie and Ken dolls in a Toys ’R Us! I braced myself and turned, realizing I could never be fully prepared to face the awesome evil thing that waited to unleash the full fury of its awesome evilness and stuff.

  “Hey!” I said. “You’re just a puppet!”

  “A puppet, or the greatest evil force the world has ever known!?”

  I looked at him. He was made of wood and had strings. “No. Just a puppet. So, can you let my friends out or what?” I asked, looking at the balding chubby man with bottle-thick glasses who controlled the puppet’s strings.

  “Why are you talking to him!?” the puppet shouted.

  “Because... he’s a human being and... you’re made of wood?” Seemed like a no-brainer to me.

  “He’s my mind slave!” the puppet shouted again. He looked up to the chubby man and cackled with glee. “Aren’t you... mind slave?”

  “Yes... master.. .” the chubby man said.

  Oh, brother.

  “Yeah. Sure. Mind slave. Silly me for missing that one.”

  “Allow me to introduce the architect of your demise!” the manic puppet said. “I am ... Peenoh Keeoh!”

  “Don’t you mean ‘Pinocchio’?” I asked.

  “Yeah. If I want to get slapped silly with a lawsuit. Idiot!”

  One thing you can always count on a villain to do is explain his plan. There’s this thing about bad guys, like they never got enough attention as kids or something, so any time someone will listen to them, they just blab, blab, blab. That’s why they always have lackeys and minions. Those poor stooges have to sit around and listen to their bosses yak all the time.

  It’s like people going to a Michael Jackson concert. You don’t know why they do it, but it just keeps happening.

  “You’re probably wondering why I did all this?” Peenoh Keeoh asked.

  See. Even puppets need attention.

  “I plan to shoot the League of Big Justice and their lousy little sidekicks into the heart of the sun! I will be the man who killed the League of Big Justice! Then I will take my diabolical puppet satellite and blast the earth, turning everyone into living puppets!” Peenoh Keeoh cackled again like a mad jackal and then coughed.

  “So, let me get this straight. You defeat the League of Big Justice, defeat the sidekicks, then take everybody here, put them in tubes, blast them into space and now... now you’re going to shoot them into the sun? And after all that, you’re just going to zap the earth and turn everyone into puppets? And... this makes sense to you?”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I mean, why didn’t you just leave all of us back on Earth and just turn us into puppets when you zapped everyone else?”

  “Hello? Did I say my name was Mr. Plan? No. I don’t think so. When you battle Dr. Oh-What A-Great-Plan-I-Always-Make and his League of Immaculate Strategy, feel free to criticize. But for now, save the commentary....”

  Wow. I never realized it before, but sometimes evil is stupid.

  “. . . So, after I shoot all of you into the sun, I will place Phase II of my master plan into motion.”

  I grabbed a metal box that was magnetically anchored to the floor and raced to King Justice’s tube. I wasn’t sure how strong the glass was, but I was hoping that with enough speed, I could shatter it. I ignored the fact my ankle was about to burst and swung the metal box at the tube while running 48 miles per hour.

  “Wait! What are you doing?” Peenoh Keeoh yelled. “I’m not done revealing my master plan. Stop and listen to me talk!”

  Here’s a little clue for you. Never listen to the speech. When you’re flying toward the sun and your teammates are trapped in tubes, don’t wait until the end of the speech. It’s just a time killer until the villain can finally laugh and say, “Ha! Ha! And now you’re too late to save them!” Then he pushes a button, most likely red, and everyone blows up. But if you smash the tubes while he’s talking and he’s nowhere near the blow-up button, then he just gets real angry because he can’t gloat anymore.

  Trust me on this one.

  The metal box hit against the tube and... nothing. I hit it again and only managed to crack the exterior.

  “Idiot! That’s not ordinary glass!” Peenoh Keeoh laughed. “It’s ...well...I don’t know what it is exactly, but it’s really strong and I got it on sale at Construction Depot.”

  I whacked the tube a few more times. Peenoh Keeoh shook his head and looked up to his mind slave.

 
“They never listen, do they?” Peenoh Keeoh sighed. “Okay. Moving on...”

  I ignored Peenoh Keeoh and pressed my hands against King Justice’s tube. I used my speed to vibrate both my hands super fast. The tube rattled violently and shook so hard the cracks grew and grew. My muscles stung and I felt my arms cramp. I couldn’t keep it up much longer.

  Peenoh Keeoh’s wooden mouth dropped open. He hit the alarm button as the tube finally shattered. King Justice collapsed to the floor and I nearly joined him. My arms ached as if both my shoulders were dislocated.

  “Nice...work...Sporty,” King Justice said.

  He took a few deep breaths and regained his senses. King Justice rose. He towered over me.

  His chest emblazoned with the colors of the American flag, he stood as a constant reminder of justice and virtue.

  “Prepare to taste the Five Knuckles of Goodness, Peenoh Keeoh!” King Justice yelled.

  In quick succession, King Justice used his super strength to shatter the tubes imprisoning the other members of the League of Big Justice and the sidekicks.

  “Not so fast, you monolithic moron!” Peenoh Keeoh shouted, pointing behind King Justice. Eight towers of evil stood in the doorway like eight really evil towers standing in a doorway.

  Le Poop. The Complainer. Jellyfish. The Professor. Mayham and Rye. The Dentist. Santa Claws. These were the deadly members of the Brotherhood of Rottenness.

  “Ho-ho-horror!” Santa Claws growled and extended the steel claws in his hands. A bell tinkled at the end of his red cap and his belly jiggled like a bowl full of jelly.

  Peenoh Keeoh jumped up on the console and pointed at the heroes.

  No. Don’t say it. Anything but those two words that every villain always says at these moments. The two words that should be banned from a villain’s repertoire along with the gloating laugh and the slow-moving death ray.

  “Get them!”

  There. He had to say it, didn’t he?

  “Time to deal justice from the card deck of impartiality!” King Justice called out and leapt into the fray.