Billy Hooten

by Tom Sniegoski

  It was an old-fashioned key like some that Billy had seen at his grandfather's house, only this one was much larger, with the head of an owl at the end.

  Billy put the key inside the keyhole and gave it a turn. There was a loud clicking sound as it went in, and then a clacking as he turned it sharply to the right.

  The door creaked slowly open, and Billy stepped inside the room, holding his breath, wondering what strange sight could be waiting for him on the other side.

  And strange it was.

  The room was big, its ceiling rounded, and everywhere he looked there were televisions in all shapes and sizes, old as well as new, stacked up against the curved walls. Each one seemed to be tuned to a different channel, and as Billy looked closer, he guessed that these were views from all over Monstros City. There was also a reclining chair, just like the one his dad had, in the center of the room.

  “Where are we?” Billy asked in awe.

  “This is the monitoring room,” Archebold explained, taking the key from the door and returning it to his pocket. “The part of the Roost where he keeps a watchful eye on Monstros.”

  Billy quickly looked away from the screens and the varying images of what was going on all over the amazing city to look at the goblin.

  “Did you say the Roost?” he asked.

  Archebold nodded. “I certainly did.”

  “As in Owlboy's secret hideout?”

  The goblin nodded again. “Yep, a place you can come and hang out and invent stuff to help with your crime-fighting—when you're not out righting wrongs and thwarting evil, that is.”

  Billy had always wanted a secret hideout but knew there was zero chance of keeping it secret from his parents, or from Victoria next door. This was just too awesome for words.

  “My very own secret hideout,” he said, barely able to contain his excitement.

  “Well, not quite yours yet,” Archebold said, shaking a chubby clawed finger at him.

  Billy looked at him with dismay. “What do you mean? I thought—?”

  “First we have to see if you're ready,” the goblin explained, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

  “First you've got to complete Owlboy training.”

  Again Billy found himself someplace dark.

  After leaving the monitoring room, Archebold had escorted him down a long, winding hallway, past a multitude of doors, each of them with a little sign telling what was inside: SCIENCE ROOM, COSTUME ROOM, MUSIC ROOM, VEHICLE ROOM, there was even a SNACK ROOM, and Billy couldn't wait to check out each and every one of them.

  But first there was training. Whatever the heck that means.

  The goblin shoved him through a door which said TRAINING ROOM on it. Left standing in the dark, Billy was starting to get a little anxious, when he heard Archebold's voice.

  “All righty then,” the goblin said. It sounded as if he were talking through an old loudspeaker. “Let's get this show on the road, shall we?”

  Billy looked around, trying to pinpoint where in the room the voice was coming from.

  “Where are you?” he asked the darkness, just as the lights came on.

  “Holy crap!” Billy exclaimed, using a word his mother despised. She would much rather he use poop in his exclamations, but that just sounded stupid.

  Billy was standing in a giant room made up to look like a city street. It pretty much looked like any street he'd seen before, with its buildings and shops, but he knew otherwise. This wasn't just your average city street—this was a Monstros City street.

  “I'm up here, Billy,” he heard Archebold say through the crackling speaker, and he looked up to see the goblin waving to him from a booth high up near the ceiling. He was sitting behind what looked like a large panel of controls. Controls for what? Billy wondered.

  “This is where I'll be conducting your exam,” Archebold said, speaking into a large microphone.

  “An exam?” Billy nervously yelled up to the goblin. “But I didn't bring a pencil.”

  “Don't worry,” Archebold said, cracking the knuckles of his tiny hands before they started to move around the control panel, pushing buttons and turning cranks. “It's not a written exam.”

  Billy sighed with relief. He hated written exams, especially ones he hadn't studied for.

  “This exam has a much more physical nature.”

  “Physical?” Billy asked, his apprehension on the rise.

  “This test will show me how ready you are to take on the title of Owlboy.” The goblin appeared very busy up in the booth, moving around in a flurry of activity.

  “It's called Save the Citizens, and it'll show me everything I need to know,” Archebold said.

  Billy looked around at the fake city streets. “But there aren't any,” he said, feeling confused. “Citizens, I mean.”

  Suddenly, the air was filled with the sounds of whirring machinery. Hatches opened up in the floor, ejecting dummies.

  “Here they are,” the goblin said.

  If Billy hadn't known before, he certainly knew then. After looking at the dummies, there was no way he could've been any place other than Monstros City. These weren't the average dummies that you'd see in department stores of men, women and kids; these were dummies of creatures—monsters—of all shapes and sizes. Billy saw wolf-men, giant bugs and a fat old lady with snakes for hair who was pushing a shopping cart.

  “So I'm supposed to save them?” he called to Archebold in the control booth.

  “That would be a yes,” the goblin said, flicking some more switches and causing the lights inside the chamber to momentarily flicker.

  “And I'm supposed to be saving them from … ?” Billy asked, looking around the artificial street for any signs of danger. “Doesn't look like there's anything too dangerous around here.”

  That was when Archebold started to laugh, a creepy sound that didn't make Billy feel all that comfortable.

  “I'll show you dangerous,” the goblin said, chuckling. He reached inside his coat pocket and removed a hat, slipping it onto his large head. Billy adjusted the mechanisms on his goggles to find the telephoto lens and read what it said on the front of the black ball cap.

  #1 Villain! was stitched in red across the front of the cap. Billy found himself growing increasingly nervous.

  The goblin flipped more switches, and the large room was filled with the sound of machinery.

  Billy turned toward the noise and saw that a brick wall directly across from him had fallen away to reveal what looked like some kind of weapon.

  “What the heck?” he exclaimed, watching as the weapon's long silver barrel emerged from its hiding place.

  “It's a cannon,” he said with growing horror, watching as it took aim at the gathered dummies.

  “Save 'em, Owlboy!” Archebold cried, his voice echoing in the training chamber. “If you can.”

  The cannon fired with a thunderous explosion of compressed air, and Billy was shocked to see a gigantic red ball, instead of some explosive projectile, erupt from the barrel of the huge gun. The ball missed the dummies, bouncing off a building wall and coming at him at incredible speed. He dove out of its path just in time for the ball to rebound off the front of a fake apartment building behind him, ricochet around the room and finally come to a rolling stop nearby.

  And then it hit him like an ice cream brain freeze. The gun is firing dodgeballs, he realized. Bigger and faster than the ones thrown by Killer Kulkowski.

  Even here in Monstros he couldn't avoid the stupid game.

  The cannon took aim again. Billy jumped toward the weapon, surprised again by the distance he was able to cover in just one leap. The rules were different in Monstros City, he reminded himself, landing in a crouch in front of the gathering of dummies just as the cannon shot another ball.

  F'THOOM!

  He used the memory of how he'd been the last guy standing in the dodgeball game the other day, and how he had stood up against Killer Kulkowski, to psych himself up as he sprang into the path of the h
urtling ball, catching it against his chest.

  Or at least that was what he attempted to do.

  The ball hit him like a giant fist, lifting him off his feet, almost knocking one of his rubber boots off, and sending him hurtling backward into the dummies. The fake citizens went flying.

  “Watch out for the innocent bystanders,” Archebold scolded over the speakers. “With heroes like you, who needs villains?”

  “I'll give you an innocent bystander,” Billy grumbled, allowing the large ball to roll away from him as he got to his feet. It felt as though he'd just been punched in the chest by the entire sixth grade, and by the looks of it, the weapon was getting ready to fire again.

  “Jeez, gimme a break,” he said, pushing himself to get moving again.

  This time I'll take care of the citizens, he thought, and with a show of unbelievable might started to pick up the monster figures one at a time and stack them over his shoulder. It appeared that being in Monstros had given him a boost in strength as well. He had just about collected all the dummy bystanders when the weapon discharged. Carefully balancing the fake citizens on his shoulder, he turned to see where the ball was going and was struck from behind. He and all those he had attempted to rescue went tumbling into a heap.

  “Oh!” Archebold screeched excitedly from the booth. “Score one for the bad guys!”

  Temporarily trapped beneath the pile of dummies, Billy emerged feeling madder than he had in quite a while, the last such incident having something to do with an atomic wedgie and being hung from a doorknob.

  It hadn't been one of his finer moments, and neither was this.

  “Whatcha gonna do … Owlboy?” Archebold teased, his squeaky voice over the speaker system only making Billy angrier.

  “I'll show you what I'm gonna do,” Billy blurted, adjusting the goggles on his face before marching toward the cannon. He had a plan. It was a little bit crazy, but at this point it was all he had.

  “Oh no you don't!” Archebold said, and Billy could see the goblin in the booth above quickly manipulating the controls to aim the cannon directly at him.

  Billy had noticed a whirring sound before the big gun fired, and he was hearing the sound right at that very moment. Standing in the path of the dodgeball cannon, he jumped up as it was about to fire. He grabbed hold of the thick silver barrel. Using every bit of his newfound superstrength, he bent the metal muzzle toward the ceiling and, with a loud grunt of exertion, pinched the end of the cannon off.

  “Try shooting me now,” he said, a little out of breath as he dropped down to the floor, curious to see if his plan had worked.

  The gun tried to fire, but it wasn't successful. Billy dove for cover, suspecting what was going to happen as the weapon suddenly rumbled, shook and then exploded, sending thick black smoke, twisted metal and hundreds of flying dodgeballs into the air.

  Billy peeked out from behind the cover of the fat lady with the snakes for hair and her shopping cart, and as the smoke started to clear, he saw the full effect of his maneuver.

  “Did I do that?” he asked as the bouncing balls started to settle and he saw what little was left of the dodgeball cannon. He couldn't help looking up at the control booth and smiling.

  Archebold was standing in the window of the booth, a look of absolute shock upon his face.

  “You … you broke the bombardment gun,” he stated in disbelief.

  Billy looked over at the smoking remains of the weapon. “Yeah, sorry about that. I guess I was madder than I thought.” He made a muscle, feeling it through the material of his costume. It didn't pack much of a wallop back home, but here …

  Archebold pulled his #1 Villain cap down tighter on his gourd-shaped head and returned his attention to the controls in front of him.

  “No problem,” the goblin muttered as he flicked some more switches. “I'll just get Halifax to fix it later. Let's pump up the volume a bit, shall we?”

  Billy was about to ask who, or what, a Halifax was, but he never got the opportunity. The floor rumbled beneath his feet, and he watched as a section of artificial building pulled apart like two puzzle pieces to reveal one of the craziest-looking contraptions he had ever seen. It looked like a giant pair of robot legs. At the end of the legs was an equally gigantic pair of feet. But the weirdest part—as if it could get any weirder—was that the feet were wearing giant sneakers.

  A creature covered in thick brownish fur and wearing dirty, grease-stained overalls was sitting in a high-backed seat between the mechanical legs, operating them with a series of levers. He gave Billy a little wave.

  “What the heck is that?” Billy yelled up to the goblin with a chuckle, but just as the question had left his mouth, he watched in horror as the giant feet began stomping their way right toward the pile of dummy citizens he was supposed to be protecting.

  “Remember the object of the game,” Archebold called out in an annoying singsong voice. “Oh, dear me, it looks like those poor people are about to get squashed.”

  If he wanted to go through with this—if he really wanted to be Owlboy—Billy knew he had to do something quickly. His thoughts racing, he ran toward the dummies, trying to come up with the best way to get them out of the path of the mechanical stomping feet.

  And then he saw it.

  Yahtzee! Billy dove for the shopping cart of the lady with the snakes for hair.

  Really putting on the speed, he righted the tipped cart and wheeled it toward the dummies.

  The feet were coming closer, and he could feel the vibrating footfalls through the floor as he managed to pick up each and every dummy and load it into the cart.

  After moving the last of the citizens—a werewolf wearing sunglasses, with a pink bow in her hair—Billy rushed to push the cart toward the center of the street. Seconds after he'd left the spot, one of the giant mechanical sneakers came down, missing him by a hair.

  “Hey, that was kinda close!” Billy yelled up to the furry beast.

  “Not close enough,” the creature growled, and the legs lurched toward him, ready to stomp him and the dummies to paste.

  Billy started to run with the cart, turning his head to see if the feet were keeping up. Surprisingly, they were. In fact, they picked up speed and started to jog. Putting everything he had into it, Billy managed to get ahead of his pursuer, but he knew it wouldn't be for long.

  He was beginning to realize that running wasn't the answer. Putting his brain cells into overdrive, he came up with another idea.

  He wheeled the cartful of citizens onto the fake sidewalk beside the front steps of an apartment building. He removed the dummies from the cart and sat them on the apartment steps, an audience for what he hoped would follow.

  “Now, if you'll excuse me, folks, I've got some things I need to take care of.”

  Along the street he found the dodgeballs that had been scattered by the explosion of the bombardment cannon and started to gather them in the now empty cart.

  “What's that, Billy?” Archebold asked. “Cleaning up before you're defeated by my stomping feet of doom? How nice.”

  And then the goblin started to laugh maniacally.

  Archebold really seems to be getting into this whole supervillain thing, Billy thought as he collected the last of the big red rubber balls.

  He backed away from the cart and looked down the street at the mechanical feet. The legs had come to a stop, the hairy driver watching him from within a forest of fur.

  “C'mon,” Billy urged, striding closer. “I'm waiting for you.”

  He'd presented himself as bait, but the driver of the feet and legs wasn't biting. This called for drastic measures.

  “Don't you want to stomp me? Well, here I am.” Billy watched him, waiting for a reaction, but still there was nothing.

  It was time to pull out the big guns.

  “What's the matter? Are you afraid … Mary?”

  Being called by a girl's name—especially Mary, for some reason—was the ultimate attack on somebody's courage.
It was always guaranteed—well, at least at Connery Elementary School—to get an explosive reaction.

  Billy guessed correctly that the reaction would be similar here in Monstros.

  “Mary!” he heard the hairy driver exclaim. “I'll show you who's a Mary!”

  The mechanical legs started toward him, stomping the ground so hard that huge cracks appeared in the blacktop.

  For a moment, Billy felt what could have been a touch of fear in the pit of his belly. Then he realized that it could also be the General Tso's Chicken he'd had that night.

  Did the other Owlboys feel fear when facing the diabolical inventions of Dr. Mechano or the giant crabs of Sygnis 7? he wondered.

  Never.

  So it had to be the chicken.

  The sneaker-wearing mechanical feet were almost upon him. Billy knew it was time. As the device bore down on him and a foot rose up to squash him flat, Billy tipped over the cart of dodgeballs.

  Leaping from the path of the foot's descent, Billy rolled onto his stomach to see if his latest scheme had worked. Coming down on top of the balls, the mechanical leg lost its balance. Billy could see the hairy driver attempting to regain the leg's footing, but no matter where the giant sneakers fell, they landed on rubber balls. Unable to stabilize itself, the device tipped dangerously to one side, crashing through the front of one of the fake apartment buildings.

  “Yes!” Billy cheered, his fist shooting up into the air in victory. He watched with interest as the overall-wearing creature emerged from the rubble of the demolished building, jumped down from the wreckage of his craft and ran up the street.

  “I've had enough of this!” he cried out, disappearing through a doorway into one of the fake stores.

  “You'd better run,” Billy called after him. “Teach you to fool around with Owlboy.”

  For the first time, the name felt right coming out of his mouth.

  But his victory was short-lived.

  “Not so fast, Hooten,” Archebold called. “I'm not done with you yet, I'm sorry to say.”

  Billy tensed, wondering where the next threat to him—and the dummy citizens—would be coming from.

  Suddenly, a spotlight blazed to life and illuminated an area not far ahead. Billy could see what looked like a kind of finish line. A white sign spelled out SAFETY ZONE in big red letters.