Miss Marble can sometimes be insulting, but today I think she had a point.
“As I said yesterday,” she continued, “and as all of you clearly forgot—assuming your brains even absorbed it to begin with …”
“I absorbed it,” volunteered the Human Sponge, whose porous lips allowed her to mumble somewhat despite being frozen.
Miss Marble continued uninterrupted. “ … the value of something depends on how much supply there is compared with the demand for it.”
At this moment we all began to unfreeze.
“Let me give you an example that you will all understand,” she said gravely. “Yesterday there was lots of demand for a Professor Brain-Drain card and very little supply. That made it valuable. Let’s see what the situation is like today.”
I knew where this was headed, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.
“How many of you have a Professor Brain-Drain card?”
Every hand in the class shot up.
“How many of you need a Professor Brain-Drain card?”
I turned around. Nobody put a hand up. Well, at least not at first. Then I heard some whispering and I turned back to the front to see Halogen Boy holding up his hand.
“I don’t have one of my own yet.”
“I’ll sell you mine for eighty dollars,” Transparent Girl offered him, with no sense of shame whatsoever. I had to at least give her credit for figuring out where things were heading.
“Don’t even think about it,” Plasma Girl hissed at her menacingly.
Miss Marble continued with her lesson. “So, Cannonball, what do you think your card is worth?”
“At least twenty-five dollars,” he stated.
“And who would be willing to pay you that for it?”
“Halogen Boy?” he asked hopefully.
“I’ll sell Hal mine for twenty dollars,” Transparent Girl shouted out in undisguised desperation.
“Thikthteen dollarth, Hal,” Melonhead spluttered. “Ith a thteal!”
“I’ll sell him mine for ten dollars,” huffed the Spore, trying to brush the mold off his card.
“You can have all three of my cards for five dollars,” Puddle Boy said with anxiety as the puddle below his desk grew before our eyes. “And I’ll even throw in the collector bags.”
At this point panic had set in throughout the room.
“I’ll sell him mine for a dime!” wailed the Banshee in complete despair. As I plugged my ears, I marveled at how something purchased for one hundred dollars had fallen to a dime in less than an hour.
“I’ll sell you mine for a dollar—and a bike,” said Lobster Boy not fully grasping his bargaining position.
Halogen Boy fished a dime out of his pocket and handed it to the Banshee, and she transferred her formerly valuable Professor Brain-Drain card to him.
“And that’s what happens when supply is greater than demand,” Miss Marble concluded with a bit more of a smile on her face than good teaching required.
Everyone in class sat in stunned silence, contemplating their now-worthless Professor Brain-Drain cards.
“But don’t feel too bad, kids,” Miss Marble consoled them. “Most of your parents never learned this lesson either. Just ask them about the stock market.”
I didn’t think she needed to be quite so smug, but I had to admit it was a lesson in economics that no one was going to forget soon. Meanwhile, I had a more pressing question on my mind. Where had all these cards come from?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Hot on the Trail
At lunchtime my team got together to discuss something even more important than the sudden explosion of Professor Brain-Drain cards.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” I began, “but last night I felt lousy after the fight we had.”
“Me, too,” admitted Plasma Girl. “And I’m not even sure what the fight was about.”
“It was about who would hold on to the card,” Tadpole snapped at her, as if that justified things.
“That’s a dumb thing to fight over,” said Stench.
“But the card is …” Tadpole’s voice trailed off as he noticed us all scowling at him. He wisely decided not to push his point.
“It’s not even worth anything,” Plasma Girl pointed out. “At least not anymore.”
“Is it still safe where we left it?” Halogen Boy asked. With his eyes hidden behind his dark goggles it was never easy to tell exactly what Hal’s expression was, but I could tell he was concerned about the success of his idea for hiding (or not hiding) our Professor Brain-Drain card.
“It’s safe, Hal. But in the end, the card doesn’t really matter,” I added. “What matters is our friendship. The Junior Leaguers are a team and we’re dedicated to battling all wrongs … or at least the ones that occur before bedtime and don’t interfere with our favorite TV shows. Just because adults squabble all the time, there’s no reason for us to behave like that. Are we agreed?”
I stuck out my hand with my palm facing down, rolled my fingers into a fist, but left my thumb pointing out. Plasma Girl did the same, wrapping her fingers around my thumb. Halogen Boy and Stench quickly added to the circle and did likewise. Tadpole paused for only a moment and then wrapped his fist around Stench’s thumb and inserted his own thumb into my fist. The circle was complete and we were once again a team.
“Agreed!” we all shouted in unison.
“And are the Junior Leaguers going to let this mystery go unsolved?” I asked.
“Never!” they responded as we unlinked our hands and prepared to do battle.
The problem, of course, was that none of us had a clue what had happened. Someone had obviously managed to create a whole slew of Professor Brain-Drain card duplicates, but how? It was while we were all racking our brains that we suddenly heard Cannonball shout from across the playground.
“Hey, there’s the creep who sold me the phony card!”
We all turned to look and caught a glimpse of a tall figure in a long, black flowing cloak, wearing a wide-brimmed hat pulled down over his face. He was in the process of trying to sell a card to an unsuspecting kid from another class. As soon as he knew he’d been spotted, he whipped off the cloak and hat and vanished into thin air.
“Get him,” hollered Lobster Boy. “He’ll be riding a bike with clawed-up handlebars.”
“Let’th thtring up the thuthpithiouth thtinker,” agreed Melonhead.
All of a sudden a mob of angry eight- to twelve-year-olds ran toward the spot where the stranger had last been seen. Stench and Tadpole were about to join, when I hollered for them to stop. We had already lost sight of the stranger.
“Don’t bother,” I said in frustration. “He’s already gone.”
“Who do you think you saw, O Boy?” Plasma Girl asked.
“You guys will think I’m nuts, but I think it was the same guy I saw at Aunty Penny’s Arcade. The one who stole the box of card packs.”
“Then let’s find that creep,” Tadpole said with determination.
“We have to,” I agreed, “but whoever it is, he’s too clever to be caught by a screaming mob of grade-schoolers. Everyone else went that way”—I pointed—“so I say we go the opposite way. C’mon!”
The five of us took off in the general direction of downtown. It was only after we had left the school grounds that I realized we were in the midst of committing a major act of hooky. It was only noon, and leaving school before three o’clock was strictly forbidden. Nevertheless, I knew this was too important a lead for us to ignore. We had to find out who was selling these cards.
“Which way do you think he went?” Stench asked as we approached Colossal Way, the city’s main east-west avenue. One direction led out to Telomere Park, the other straight into downtown Superopolis.
“This way,” Halogen Boy said. “I think I see something.”
Turning toward downtown, the rest of us immediately caught sight of what appeared to be a riderless bicycle five or six blocks ahead. “It’s Lobster Boy
’s bike!” shouted Tadpole. We began to run faster, but there was no way we could keep up with a bicycle. We kept after it for almost ten blocks until we were once again traveling along the south side of Lava Park. It was there that we finally lost sight of it altogether. Exhausted, we all collapsed beneath a statue of an enormous potato chip.
I realized we were back at the Inkblot’s Newsstand. I blinked. And then I blinked again. For there, right in front of my eyes, was the answer.
“That’s it!” I said.
“What’s it?” Plasma Girl asked between breaths.
“The answer to the mystery is right in front of us,” I said.
“The Inkblot is the answer to the mystery?” Stench replied, baffled.
I thought the newspapers hung out on the Inkblot’s stand said it all: MULTIPLIER ESCAPES! screamed The Hero Herald; MISSTEPS AT MAXIMUM EMANCIPATE MULTIPLIER blared The Superopolis Times. Then, of course, there was also The Weekly Daily, once again living up to its motto of “Last Week’s News Today” with the headline: MULTIPLIER MAKES MESS OF MIGHTY MART. Sadly, my teammates just stared at the newspapers blankly.
“Don’t you see it?” I said. “The Multiplier could have made all those duplicate cards. And he escaped from prison just yesterday.”
“He looks like a complete loser,” Tadpole commented as he picked up a copy of The Hero Herald to examine more closely. That was all it took for the Inkblot to notice us. He turned his attention away from a squirrel he apparently had been talking to and instead focused on us. The squirrel wasted no time in escaping.
“So like I was saying, Captain Radio was the greatest hero of all time,” he started to say, seemingly unaware that there had been almost a two-day gap since our last conversation. “But even he couldn’t withstand the power of the Red Menace. Now there was an evil genius! His voice alone could make people do things against their will.”
“What about the Tycoon?” Stench asked me. “He could have printed up more cards just to irritate us.”
“No, that would have cost him money,” Plasma Girl pointed out.
The Inkblot kept right on talking, oblivious to whether anyone was paying attention. “As the Red Menace realized the extent of his power he got bolder. He corrupted Captain Radio and used the captain’s powers to broadcast his evil instructions to everyone in Superopolis. He told everyone that they didn’t have to work anymore. Well, people liked that message for a while—at least until the grocery stores ran out of potato chips and pizza places started taking two months to deliver pizzas and no one picked up the trash anymore. The price of a banana reached four hundred and seventy-one dollars at one point. But it was all part of his master plan.”
In a way, what I heard of the Inkblot’s story was fascinating, and normally I would have even enjoyed listening. But I had a feeling we were closing in on a huge break in this case and I needed to focus.
“Luckily, there were still some heroes who were smart enough to get their news from the papers instead of the radio. Five of them—just like you young whippersnappers—gathered together and formed the League of Goodness.”
My ears perked up at this, but I was busy arguing with Stench. “It’s too much of a coincidence,” I insisted. “The Multiplier escapes and all of a sudden we have multiple copies of Professor Brain-Drain cards? In this instance, one plus one clearly equals the Multiplier.”
“That’s addition, not multiplication,” Halogen Boy pointed out.
“I think you’re right,” Stench agreed, ignoring Hal. “Only the Multiplier could have made all these duplicates. But how do we find him?”
I pulled out my copy of the Li’l Hero’s Handbook.
“Even without my help,” the Inkblot admitted to no one in particular, “they managed to put an end to the Red Menace’s reign of terror and lock him away in a soundproof room. After that, they became the most famous heroes in Superopolis, while Captain Radio was disgraced and forced into retirement.”
I think the Inkblot muttered something like “served him right,” but I was busy flipping through the appendices in the back of my handbook. Ah, here was what I was looking for! Secret hideouts!
“According to the Li’l Hero’s Handbook, the Multiplier’s secret hideout is at Seventeen Skullduggery Lane,” I informed everyone.
“What a terrible neighborhood,” Tadpole commented. “He must not be a very competent villain if that’s the best he can afford to rent.”
“It makes perfect sense,” I agreed. “He never has been very successful—at least until now. What I can’t figure out is how he managed to pull his stunt at the Mighty Mart, escape from prison, and now create all these duplicate Professor Brain-Drain cards. What’s changed him?”
“There’s only one way to find out,” Plasma Girl said, speaking for all of us. “It’s time to pay a visit to Seventeen Skullduggery Lane.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Minuscule Threat
I turned to apologize to the Inkblot for having to run, but he was now shouting at a picture of Mayor Whitewash on the cover of Superopolis Style magazine, and clearly wouldn’t notice us leaving.
“Come on, gang!” I hollered. “We’re back in hot pursuit!”
We headed toward one of the seediest parts of downtown Superopolis and soon found Skullduggery Lane. Most of the buildings on the street seemed to be warehouses. There were all sorts of shady characters loading and unloading what I imagined to be ill-gotten gains and illegal thingamajigs.
When we got to number 17, it looked like all the other buildings, except there was no activity going on. What we did find, however, was a bike leaning against the side of the building. And not just any bike. We could tell by the clawed-up handlebars that this was none other than Lobster Boy’s bike. Whoever sold him the phony card must be inside. We peeked through a window, but we weren’t able to see anything. I tried the heavy metal door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“Stench”—I gestured to the door—“would you mind doing the honors?”
“My pleasure,” he said as he strode up to the door, grabbed hold of the handle, and yanked the door off its hinges with one effortless tug.
Unfortunately, Stench’s exertion brought with it a small burst of gas. We all held our breaths and quickly ran into the dark warehouse.
“Hal, can you give us some light?” I asked.
In response, he took a quick swig from his sippy cup. Soon he began to glow, the dimness vanished, and the items piled all around us became perfectly clear. Our mouths dropped open in amazement. The warehouse was filled with stacks and stacks of traffic cones and crates full of traffic cones everywhere we looked. Thousands of them! No, hundreds of thousands of them! What could possibly be the point?
“What’s with all the traffic cones?” Stench said.
“I have no idea,” I said, since I had no idea.
“Maybe the Multiplier has been making them,” suggested Plasma Girl, her mouth hanging open in awe.
“But it would have taken him ages to create all these. Most of these cones look like they’ve been here for years. Just look at all the dust on them.”
“What would anyone want with a gazillion traffic cones anyway?” Tadpole asked.
“I don’t know,” I said as I led the way farther into the warehouse, “but we’re going to find out.”
The team followed me deeper and deeper into the warehouse, passing between towers of cones, sometimes piled fifty feet high. Soon we saw a light ahead that became brighter and brighter as we got closer. I whispered to Hal to douse his own light and I cautiously poked my head over the nearest bunch of traffic cones. What I saw confirmed everything I had suspected.
There, in a clear space within the warehouse, was the Multiplier. And hanging from the ceiling by a thin wire was a clamp. Clutched by the clamp, I could tell even from where we were hiding, was a Professor Brain-Drain card. Instinctively, I knew it was the second genuine card in existence—the one stolen from Aunty Penny’s Arcade. The Multiplier was pinching the card betw
een his thumb and index finger. As I watched him concentrate, a duplicate of the card appeared out of thin air in his other hand. He set it down on a stack of duplicate cards about two inches high and then once again began lightly pinching the original. I barely even breathed. It must have taken nearly five minutes, but sure enough, another card appeared in his empty hand. The duplicating speed that I had witnessed in the Mighty Mart the other day had clearly been abnormal.
All of a sudden, I swore I heard a voice mumble something. Then the Multiplier responded. It sounded like he was talking to someone, but I couldn’t see anyone else. He possibly could have been talking to himself, but the Multiplier wasn’t supposed to be crazy—just incompetent. I motioned for the team to stay where they were while I tried to move closer. I had to hear what was being said.
I moved around to within a few feet of where the Multiplier was standing. I could see only part of him, since my view was partly blocked by the crates, but I could hear him perfectly. And he definitely wasn’t alone.
“I’m creating them as fast as I can,” he was complaining in a whiny voice. “Since I escaped from prison I haven’t even had a chance to sleep!”
“You ssseem to forget that it was I who ssset you free,” hissed the eeriest voice I had ever heard.
“I know. And I appreciate it,” the Multiplier said nervously, obviously afraid of whoever he was talking to. “But I’ve been making these cards all night. Can I help it that my power is slow?”
“You were given a devissse to ssspeed up the prosssesss,” the stranger reminded him. “However, your sssilly essscapade at the grosssery ssstore dessstroyed it. It wasss one of a kind and will take time to replassse. It’sss a shame you weren’t sssmart enough to duplicate it firssst.”
I could glimpse enough of the foolish expression on the Multiplier’s face to see that something so simple had never occurred to him. And then my mind flashed back to the thing I had seen him drop as he sailed across the checkout area of the Mighty Mart. One mystery solved.
The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book One: The Hero Revealed Page 10
