The thousands of pies and cakes my father’s team had produced were used up within minutes, and the entire Commune for Justice was rounded up and hauled off to jail. The equally confused dinosaur was taken away to the Superopolis Zoo.
“See, my boy,” I heard Lord Pincushion say as he came up beside me. “I told you everything would turn out just fine.”
I turned to confront the founder of the League of Goodness with a fact that I now realized was undeniable.
“That’s only because a witness to all this is going to go back twenty-five years and make sure everything happens the way it’s supposed to,” I said. “And I think I know who that person is.”
“InvisiBoy?” I said, addressing the air around me. “It’s time to show yourself.”
There was a pause and deathly silence as a crowd began to gather around me. For a moment, I thought I was going to look like an idiot. Then InvisiBoy materialized before me. He was the same age as I had last seen him, and he looked very frightened and nervous.
“Your power isn’t invisibility, is it?” I asked him as gently as possible.
He looked anxiously at the people around us.
“N-n-no,” he finally admitted. “My power is the ability to shrink myself to the size of a speck. People have always just assumed that I was invisible and I’ve never told anyone otherwise.”
“You’ve been hitching a ride with me since you confronted me outside Pinprick Manor just five hours ago,” I said. “Haven’t you? Never guessing that it would carry you twenty-five years into the future.”
“I also think I accidentally unlatched your jet pack,” he admitted meekly. Then he started sobbing as a greater realization hit him. “How am I going to get back home?!”
“He has to get home.” I turned to see Cyclotron step up between Lord Pincushion and my mother. “After all, he’s the one who is going to tell me what my part has to be in this twenty-five-year mission.”
“Then you’re not a villain!” I said, a wide grin spreading across my face.
“Of course not,” he replied.
“But you’ve been committing crimes for over fifteen years,” the Amazing Indestructo piped up.
“Think about it, you idiot. I’ve never actually stolen anything,” Cyclotron said. “But it’s true I’ve rarely missed a chance to embarrass you in whatever way I could.”
AI looked as if he were about to protest, then wisely shut his mouth.
“InvisiBoy returned from this trip to the future and told me the role I was going to have to play in saving Superopolis from its worst crisis. In order to ensure that the Tipler would be reassembled, I had to gain BrainDrain’s trust and play a part in helping those mindless hippies complete their task.”
“If it hadn’t been for you, they wouldn’t have retrieved even one of the cones,” I confirmed.
“True,” Cyclotron agreed, “and I wouldn’t have been hired by Brain-Drain to help them if I hadn’t been a believable villain.”
“You remained focused on a single mission for twenty-five years?” said Lord Pincushion with awe. “Zephyr would have been immensely proud of you.”
“I told him my mission early on, and he always supported it,” Cyclotron revealed. “Even when I seemed to become a villain, he always knew the truth.”
“But how will I get back to tell you all this?” exclaimed a very panicky InvisiBoy.
“He has to,” the Bee Lady agreed. “It’s the only way I’ll find out as well.”
“I think I know,” I said as I fished the tiny pebble from my pocket. “This last remaining piece of prodigium is too small to use even in the interior chamber of the Time Tipler. It utilized almost ninety percent of its original size just to transport me twenty-five years to the past.”
“So what use is it?” AI asked dismissively.
“Shut up and let my son talk,” my dad said.
“What we need is a smaller time machine.”
I walked over to where my class’s science fair experiments were on display. On the way, I stopped by Uncle Fluster’s ice cream truck to borrow three sugar cones and the wire rack that held them. As I approached the science exhibits, I saw that the crowds were wandering back to them and most of my class mates we’re back explaining them to the passersby.
I noticed Puddle Boy’s and the Spore’s pea plant, which, in a matter of days, had been completely choked off by a layer of mold and moss that had also spread across their card table and halfway up Puddle Boy’s leg.
I passed by Plasma Girl’s and Little Miss Bubbles’ tea and fruit juice experiment, set up like a fancy party. The Animator was sitting with them enjoying a cup.
Then I saw Cannonball, who had Halogen Boy standing on a table as one by one he stuck balloons on my friend, utilizing Hal’s natural electric charge to demonstrate static electricity.
The next table was what I had come here for. Melonhead was manning it, but all that was on display was a potato with wires and two dials.
“Where’s my time machine?” I demanded. I had left it at school on Tuesday and I panicked that Melonhead may not have brought it.
“I jutht thet it off to the thide for a thecond,” he protested as he got it out of a box underneath the table. “Here it ith.” I exhaled a sigh of relief.
As everyone watched me intently, I placed the wire rack onto the potato-chip-can cylinder and then inserted a sugar cone into each of the three rings that extended from it. I then opened up the power chamber of the phonograph and pulled out the battery and the wires connected to it. I replaced the battery with the pebble of prodigium. My impromptu invention only needed one more thing.
“Melonhead,” I asked graciously, “may I have the use of your potato clock?”
“Thertainly!” he said, as surprised as anyone that it may be useful.
I removed some of the wires sticking out of the potato and proceeded to rewire them into the phonograph controls. It was tricky, but I managed to set it the way I needed it.
“Good heavens, son!” Lord Pincushion said with astonishment. “Is that what I think it is?”
“It’s a miniature Time Tipler,” I confirmed. “I’ve recalibrated Melonhead’s potato clock so that each minute represents a year. One of the dials indicates the past, the other the future. All I have to do is set the hands on the past dial to twenty-five minutes, and it should be ready to transport InvisiBoy back to his own time.”
“Ingenious,” Lord Pincushion responded.
“It wath all my idea,” Melonhead claimed with a spatter of seeds.
“Are you ready?” I asked InvisiBoy.
“Yes,” he said with as much confidence as he could muster.
I instructed InvisiBoy to set himself dead center on the tip of the phonograph spindle inside the can in order to avoid the effects of the rotation. He shrunk himself down to a speck on my finger, and I transferred him to the interior of the cylinder. Once I was sure he was in place, I switched the turntable on.
The can began spinning faster, and then faster yet. The prodigium was doing its thing. Within a minute the speed was so great that the cylinder had become a blur. Finally, just when I was beginning to doubt the thing would work, the sugar cones tipped. A moment later, the prodigium vanished and the turntable returned to a normal speed.
“Did it work, OB?” my dad asked.
“It must have,” I replied confidently.
“But how do you know, lad?” asked Lord Pincushion.
“Because if it hadn’t worked, Principal Doppelganger wouldn’t be standing here,” I motioned to my principal. “After all, how else could InvisiBoy have grown up to become him?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Applied Science
Considering how bad things had been looking just one day earlier (or 65,435,797 years earlier if you want to be technical) everything had turned out reasonably well for everybody. The New New Crusaders made such an impression with their gigantic cake that they finally landed themselves a sponsor—the Maximizer Snack
Cake Company!
There were some happy winners of our science fair. With the absence of Crispo, the Amazing Indestructo was the only remaining judge. First place went to Limber Lass and Lobster Boy for their water beaker xylophone. I’m sure the fact that they used it to perform AI’s theme song played only a small part in their victory. Second place went to Transparent Girl and Foggybottom for their hardly scientific but deliberately pandering “exploration” of what makes AI the most impressive hero ever. Melonhead’s and my fully functional time machine got third place.
And both Cyclotron and Principal Doppelganger were finally able to go back to being exactly who they were. I don’t think my principal was completely happy that his power was no longer a secret, but he shouldn’t have worried. No kid was going to do anything they shouldn’t when there was a possibility that their principal could be shrunk to the size of a speck and observing everything they were up to.
Principal Doppelganger admitted to me that shortly after he returned to his own time, he had started acting incredibly reckless, knowing full well that he was destined to survive to adulthood. He got more and more out of control until, finally, Zephyr and Funnel Boy had convinced him that he could actually harm himself and throw everything out of whack. With their help, he staged a disappearance, and reinvented himself as Doppelganger.
Eventually, he embarked on a career in education with the sole purpose of putting himself in a position to pair me and Melonhead for the science fair. Just to be certain, he also gave Melonhead the idea of creating a time machine, not knowing I had already thought to do it on my own. I don’t blame him, though. He had to make certain we would invent the means for his younger self to get back home.
Even my own team, the present-day Junior Leaguers, got a chance the very next day at school to utilize the science they had learned. Only one week after this whole strange adventure had begun, we were back in gym class, and once again divided into the same teams for dodgeball.
That was where the resemblance to the previous week’s game ended. From the moment Coach Inflato blew his whistle, my team was on the offensive. Stench and Tadpole immediately teamed up with Limber Lass, using her as a slingshot to fire balls into the opposing team. In addition to the added speed, they put topspins and backspins on the balls, using their new knowledge of how objects move through the air to completely fool their opponents. The Quake, Melonhead, and even Transparent Girl were taken out in only a matter of moments.
Plasma Girl and Little Miss Bubbles had learned how the acid in fruit juices could easily clear up any cloudiness in iced tea. Using that knowledge, they coated one of the dodgeballs in lemon juice just before hurling it at Foggybottom. As soon as the ball struck the cloud surrounding him, his fog covering evaporated just long enough for Tadpole and Stench to smack him with one of their slingshot balls.
The first member of my team to be taken out was Halogen Boy, who got hit from behind by Sparkplug. Before he headed to jail, I whispered some advice in his ear. On the way, he stopped to congratulate Sparkplug with a handshake. In that instant, the same static electric charge that Cannonball had forced him to demonstrate at the fair, succeeded in short circuiting Sparkplug’s own electric field. I saw my opportunity and hurled a ball that found its target with nothing to stop it.
A moment later, I got hit myself by the Spore. Even as I headed to jail, I felt confident that we were going to win this game. Hal was still there, and the moment I arrived, a ball came flying back. It bounced off his hands and onto the stage.
I jumped up and followed the ball back to the hidey-hole where I had found the items that had set this whole chain of events in motion. I lifted off the panel and crawled inside, finding the remaining items I had left there—a packet of seeds and Lord Pincushion’s knitting needle. I picked the needle up, thinking it was high time I returned it to him. As I emerged from the cramped space, I barely noticed the dark figure standing in the shadows.
“It’s a good thing I was riding along with you when you placed these items here,” Principal Doppelganger said stepping forward. “If I hadn’t been, no one would have known to guide you to their discovery.”
“You threw that ball up here on purpose last week,” I stated. “And then made sure it rolled through the hole in the panel.”
“I had to,” he explained. “That’s why I asked Inflato to have you kids play dodgeball, even though it’s against school policy. I knew it would provide the opportunity I needed to steer you back here.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mind,” I said. “He seems to enjoy inflicting misery on us.”
“Sadly, yes,” the former InvisiBoy sighed. “But he’s really not a bad person. For twenty-five years he both blamed you for his failed career, and felt guilty over your disappearance. Nothing Funnel Boy or I said to him could convince him otherwise.”
“In reality, he saved my life,” I admitted. “If he hadn’t struck the Tipler’s lever, I would have been sent back twenty-five years further in time.”
“We tried telling him that, but he just wouldn’t believe our story.”
“It is pretty far-fetched,” I said with a smile.
“Indeed,” Principal Doppelganger started to laugh for the first time that I could ever recall. “Now get back out there and win your game. I allowed for one more dodgeball game to give your team a second chance. After all, I stacked the previous game against you.”
“You told Cannonball who to choose for his team?” I said with annoyance.
“He couldn’t have figured it out on his own,” the principal admitted. “And I had to make sure you ended up in jail.”
Even more determined to avenge last week’s defeat, I returned to the game. It couldn’t have been going better for us. The Banshee let out a tremendous scream just as the Human Sponge’s ball collided with her forehead, and even Puddle Boy managed to raise a cloud of mildew with a well-aimed shot at his science fair partner, the Spore.
In fact there was only one person left to get—Cannonball, himself. Tadpole and Little Miss Bubbles each held a ball, Stench had a third. The fourth came bouncing back to me. Halogen Boy had gotten out of jail, but Lobster Boy had taken his place. I handed the ball to him despite barely being able to hold it with his claws. I figured he was owed this shot. On my signal, the balls were thrown all at once. Cannonball made for a nice fat, round target and even Lobster Boy was able to hit him. Thanks to the force of Stench’s ball, the creep crumpled beneath the onslaught. Our victory was complete.
Even as my team erupted in cheers, a figure appeared at the entrance to the gym. The cheers were suddenly stifled as my classmates couldn’t believe who they were seeing. It was none other than the Amazing Indestructo, here at our school. The shouting, which had been confined to my team, now spread to almost the whole class as they ran to mob their favorite hero.
I did not join them. But as I watched the hubbub, another person stepped up next to me. It was Coach Inflato.
“I finally figured it out,” he said. He appeared remarkably calm for him.
“Coach Inflato,” I started to say. “I hope that now you understand why I . . .” but that was as far as I had gotten.
“That’s okay,” he interrupted. “I finally realize why AI chose just you as his sidekick. My abilities would have taken too much attention away from him. He needed someone who wouldn’t overshadow him, and of course he saw that in Meteor Boy.”
I looked at the knitting needle in my hand, and then at the Amazing Indestructo. I suddenly knew how I could repay Inflato for saving my life, while doing it in a way I could feel good about. As he went on and on, insulting my abilities, I jabbed him in the leg with the needle.
The air burst out of him instantly as he ricocheted around the gym—up and down, and over and around. He finally came to rest at the feet of the Amazing Indestructo. Ignoring the kids still clamoring about him, AI helped our completely deflated coach onto his shaky feet.
“Say, I’d forgotten how impressive your power is,” he told
his long-ago sidekick. “We should talk sometime. You could have quite a future with the League of Ultimate Goodness.”
Coach Inflato couldn’t have looked prouder.
“But first I need to have a talk with this young man,” AI continued, looking directly at me.
My first thought was to run, but I was curious as to why he had come to see me. I should have known it would involve money.
“Well now,” he said as he walked me over to a quiet corner of the gym, “I just thought we should have a little chat about how we move ahead in promoting the Meteor Boy line. Sales are already through the roof, and once we get you on TV, things should go bonkers.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I reminded AI. “I never signed a contract. I only agreed to play the role last Tuesday as a favor to Whistlin’ Dixie.”
“True,” said the Amazing Indestructo in a way that indicated he had something up his sleeve, “but I have another contract.” And sure enough, he pulled one out of his sleeve. “It’s a twenty-five-year-old contract that I have with Meteor Boy himself. You should know, you signed it as Meteor Boy. And a contract is a contract.”
I stared at him silently wondering what I had ever been impressed by. His smile got broader as he sensed his victory over me.
“Clearly,” I finally said, “you have never—even in twenty-five years—actually looked at the contract. Because if you had, you would see that you have no rights to the name, image or likeness of Meteor Boy, and you never will.”
With that I turned and walked away from him as his eyes scanned the contract. When I heard his strangled cry of rage, I knew he had reached the bottom of the page where, twenty-five years earlier, I had signed with the name—Ordinary Boy.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The Return of Meteor Boy? Page 21
