by Greg James
‘Our best ideas usually are,’ said Mary. They all turned to their leader.
Murph blushed and lifted the HALO unit to his mouth. ‘Alliance, come in. Super Zeroes here. Museum suspects neutralised. Please advise CAMU.’ Signing off, Murph looked around his friends in satisfaction at a job well done.
‘Copy that, Super Zeroes,’ came a calm voice from the handset. ‘Police will be in at tendance shortly. Clear the scene and keep out of sight. Good work.’
As the screen went blank, Murph looked at his watch. It was 8:25.
‘Myaaargh! I’m gonna be late for dinner!’
Mary smiled and flumphed her umbrella at him. ‘Need a lift home?’
Outside the museum, Penelope Travers was being pushed into the back of a police van.
‘But there were children,’ she was gibbering. ‘At least two children. One of them may have been electric. And one of them had horses! Tiny horses! One bit me!’
‘Yeah, absolutely, love, we’ll look into that straight away,’ mocked the police officer, who some weeks later would be awarded a medal for capturing one of the country’s most notorious cat burglars. ‘We’ll get the tiny horse detectives on the case, don’t you worry. For now though, get in the back of the van.’
He helped a still-complaining Penelope into the van, not noticing the flash of yellow that took off from a high window ledge and disappeared into the low cloud.
Murph could see drops of dew sparkling on Mary’s hair and woollen scarf as the two of them cleared the clouds and began skimming across town. One of her hands was holding tight to her umbrella – the other was wrapped around his waist. Away to the west, the sinking sun was just beginning to gild the edges of the clouds with pink. It looked like a giant plate of mashed potato that had been dusted with a delicate frosting of strawberry-flavoured sugar – which sounds disgusting but actually looked very pretty.
It made Murph feel slightly uncomfortable though. Ever since Mary had rescued him from certain death-by-pavement by grabbing on to his hand and flying him out of danger a few months ago, it was as if his awkwardness dial turned itself up a few notches whenever they were alone together. And now, floating in silence above rosy-white puffs of cloud, it was in danger of going all the way up to eleven.
To break the tension, he asked, ‘So, erm, how’s your new umbrella working out? I thought you said that you didn’t really need one to help you fly any more.’
‘Oh, well, it still seems easier with the umbrella. Helps me focus, if that makes any sense,’ Mary replied airily.
It made no sense at all to Murph, but he was so glad the silence had been broken that he gave a nervous, neighing laugh for no real reason.
Mary looked at him knowingly. ‘Anyway, enough chit-chat. You’re late enough as it is.’ And with that, they descended into the strawberry-dusted clouds.
At eight thirty precisely, Murph’s mum marched to the door of their house and looked angrily down the street.
‘Murph!’ she shouted into the evening air.
‘Yes?’ fluted an innocent-sounding voice from behind her. She spun round to see her youngest son tripping down the stairs like a carefree pixie who has been at home for literally hours.
‘Er … Oh. I didn’t hear you come in,’ she said, confused. ‘Anyway – come on, it’s last-night-of-the-holiday takeaway. Get stuck in before your brother has all the prawn crackers.’
‘Save some for me, Andy, you greedy great elephant!’ yelled Murph, pelting for the kitchen.
Not a bad evening’s work, he thought to himself. Robbery averted – and home in time for lemon chicken. Maybe this Hero business isn’t that complicated after all.
He could not have been more wrong.
A LONG WAY AWAY, a man in black sat on the cold stone floor of his cell and listened.
Eyes closed, head cocked, he tuned his super-sensitive hearing like a radio, scanning the world above him. He listened to words being uttered miles and miles away and sifted them like river sludge, searching calmly for the nuggets of gold that he could use to forge a plan of escape.
For years he had listened and heard nothing of use. But now, at long last, something had changed. He had scented it in the salty air, like the turning of a distant tide.
It was time. Time to take up his work once again.
The man in black opened his cruel eyes. With one pale, spindly hand he reached out and grasped a small stone.
Looking for all the world like an ancient, stooped bird in his tattered black clothes, he hunched over and used the stone to write on the granite floor. It made a hideous screeching – but there was no one except him to hear. Nobody else had been into this cell for thirty years.
But that was about to change.
He stopped only when he was surrounded by letters – large, uneven, white.
He heard the whine of a camera as it focused in on the message, relaying it to a screen somewhere in the world above.
The message on the stone read:
2
Mr Flash’s Emotional Antelope
Mr Iain Flash was woken at 5 a.m. on the first day of term by a lovely fluffy little wren sitting upon a dew-dappled twig outside his bedroom window. It was tweeting a delicate song, as if to welcome the beautiful start of a fresh new day.
‘SHUUUUUT UUUUUUP!’ screamed Mr Flash directly into its innocent little face.
The wren fell to the ground, stunned. (Although we should point out for all bird lovers that it made a full recovery.)
Mr Flash stalked angrily back towards his bed, stubbing his toe on a huge dumb-bell on the way. He looked in the mirror and preened his large ginger moustache with a special moustache comb, then began his morning exercises. First, he performed fifty press-ups and fifty star jumps, and then he stomped down the stairs for his early morning run.
He slammed the front door behind him and squinted angrily at the rising sun, as if it was personally trying to annoy him by shining in his eyes. Then, abruptly, he seemed to disappear as he sprinted off down the road, leaving a cloud of fine dust in his wake.
Mr Flash was a teacher at Murph’s school. In fact, Mr Flash was Murph’s least favourite teacher, because he never missed an opportunity to bully Murph about the fact that he had no superpower – or Capability, as they were known in the secret world that Murph had stumbled into. Mr Flash’s own Cape was incredible speed, as he was currently demonstrating with his morning sprint.
Five minutes later, Mr Flash appeared back outside the front door, beetroot-faced and sweating.
The wren, which was by now feeling much better, peered nervously at him around the corner of the house. He didn’t dare say anything until the teacher had vanished inside, but then he gave a tiny peep – which is actually a very rude word, but luckily you don’t speak Wren. Or if you do, please do not repeat it at home because we’ll get in loads of trouble. Which would be a peeping nightmare.
Inside, in the spotless kitchen, Mr Flash stomped around grabbing ingredients as he mixed himself an enormous protein shake to the following recipe:
Mr Flash’s Morning Shake
5 raw eggs
8 bananas
1 pint of milk
A handful of (which seeds) he flax seeds privately nicknames Flash
200g raw minced steak
1 red onion
Half an avocado
Again, this is something that you should not try at home. It’s disgusting. But Mr Flash womphed it down. When he’d finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let out a burp that both sounded and smelled like a young bull elephant.
Mr Flash was looking forward to the first day back at school. His subject was Capability Training, or CT. It was his job to help students develop their Capes and control them. Often this involved shouting at them – and this was the part of the job that he really loved.
After their first year at The School, students were split into two classes. Mr Flash took charge of what he proudly called ‘the A Stream’ – those students who
had powerful, useful Capes and might one day be suitable to join the Heroes’ Alliance. Popping a couple of slices of bread into the toaster and flicking the kettle on, the teacher curled his ginger moustache in satisfaction as he thought about how happy he was not to have to teach the other class – or, as he called them, ‘the remnants’.
Kids with weird Capes? What a waste of space. Tiny horses? Blowing your hands up like balloons? Hah.
But as he began arranging cutlery on a large tray, his thoughts turned to his least favourite students, who, you may have worked out, were Murph and the rest of the Super Zeroes. When Nektar, a crazy man-wasp, had attacked The School last year, Murph and his friends had saved the day while everyone else had either been captured or made into a mind-controlled slave. And yet, far from being grateful, Mr Flash couldn’t bear this. In fact, he was as far from grateful as you could imagine. If Grateful was a small town just outside Sydney, Australia, Mr Flash was very much located somewhere near Birmingham, England.
To make it worse, thanks to their actions the Super Zeroes had actually been recruited to the Heroes’ Alliance – an incredibly rare privilege.
Totally nuts; what on earth were they thinking? fumed Mr Flash as he angrily made a mug of tea. It’s hard to make tea angrily but he managed it.
When the breakfast tray was assembled, he popped back outside. The wren was sniffing a flower at the edge of the lawn.
‘MOOOOVE, YOU LITTLE BROWN … HEN, or whatever you’re supposed to be!’ Mr Flash bellowed at it.
The wren raised one of its eyebrows sarcastically and flapped off as Mr Flash picked the flower and carried it carefully back into the kitchen, placing it in a small vase on the tray.
‘Iain! Where’s my breakfast?’ screeched a voice from above suddenly.
‘Coming, Mother!’ answered Mr Flash. With a final snort of fury at the thought of the Super Zeroes, he lifted the tray and climbed the stairs.
At eight o’clock sharp, Mr Flash appeared in the front yard of the school after running the eight miles from his house in just under three minutes, not only breaking the land speed record but successfully avoiding detection from any passers-by. He was a little surprised to find the head teacher of The School, Mr Souperman, waiting for him outside the main entrance wearing a smart jacket and a rather strained smile.
‘Morning, Mr Flash,’ said Mr Souperman, his teeth and oiled hair both glinting heroically.
‘What are you doing here?’ replied Mr Flash rudely.
The head’s smile became slightly more strained. If you’d been close enough, you’d have heard it make a small creaking sound.
‘Well,’ he began, gesturing for Mr Flash to walk with him as he turned and started to pace across The School’s deserted front yard, ‘I just wanted to have a chat before school resumes. Nothing major, nothing to worry about.’
Here’s some advice that will help you out in the workplace later in life. When your boss tells you there’s nothing to worry about, you should immediately start worrying and possibly even accept the fact that your life is about to be ruined. Mr Flash was instantly on his guard, like an antelope scenting the waft of hungry lions on a soft African breeze.
‘I’ve been very, very impressed with your teaching over the past year …’ continued Mr Souperman.
When your boss tells you not to worry and then immediately compliments you, this is an even larger sign that your world is about to implode.
‘And with that in mind,’ the head teacher went on, ‘we’re having a little shake-up.’
Mr Flash now felt like an antelope who had just got its foot stuck in a mud hole while being chased by eight hungry lions.
‘But I’m … I’m still the CT teacher?’ he blustered, moustache flapping with anxiety.
‘Oh, yes, yes, yes, of course,’ Mr Souperman soothed him. ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes indeed.’ He was overdoing it now. ‘It was your class that I wanted to talk to you about. The A Stream.’
Mr Flash’s emotional antelope was now feeling the first bite of a lion’s tooth in his antelopean bottom. He was fiercely protective of his A Stream students, and resented anyone trying to interfere. Which, he correctly anticipated, was exactly what Mr Souperman was about to do.
‘I know you’ve always been, ahem, insistent about selecting students for the A Stream yourself, based on the P-CAT test,’ continued the head. He was referring to the Practical Capability Aptitude Test, the fearsome assault course for first years which was the highlight of Mr Flash’s year. ‘But I think the events of last term have shown us that the P-CAT is not necessarily the right way to identify those students with Alliance potential. After all, the Super Zeroes have just become the youngest students ever admitted to the Heroes’ Alliance, and their P-CAT results would have been abysmal … if the test hadn’t been interrupted by that, ahem, wasp chappie.’
Mr Flash made a noise like a hoover full of whipped cream being accidentally set to ‘blow’.
‘THEM?’ he spat disgustedly. ‘That bunch of … of … half-baked … baked beans? They’ll never be Heroes! They …’
‘They already are Heroes,’ Mr Souperman interrupted him. ‘And it’s not our business to question the decisions of the Alliance.’
Mr Flash looked like he wanted to make it very much his business – with a fully furnished office and a website and everything – but the head silenced his next burst of bile with a warning eyebrow. Mr Flash’s head went a colour that a paint catalogue would describe as ‘crimson inferno’.
‘The Super Zeroes will be joining the A Stream this year, and that’s final,’ Mr Souperman concluded, before shoving his way through the double doors at the front of the school and vanishing off into the gloom, feeling all managerial.
Mr Flash slumped back against the wall, with his emotional antelope now spread over a twenty-metre radius and being picked at by vultures. This year could not have got off to a worse start.
3
Veterans Day
The beginning of the school year is like the start of a roller coaster: once things have got going they tend to move very fast. One moment you’re clambering into a carriage in the sunshine at the top of the ride, with grass-stained knees and wearing a summery T-shirt. Then, moments later, you’re hurtling past pumpkins and Catherine wheels, and before you’ve even digested your toffee apple you’re trundling to a halt at Christmas and your nose is freezing.
And Murph was looking forward to every bit of it, he realised as he zipped along the pavement to begin his second year at The School, still full of spring rolls, chicken chow mein and excitement.
What a difference a year makes, he thought.
A year ago he was getting teased for being the only kid at school without a Cape, but now he was one of the youngest people ever to be made a member of the Heroes’ Alliance. If that didn’t prove that he belonged at The School as much as anybody, he didn’t know what did. Finally, after putting up with all of the whispering and teasing, he might be about to get a little bit of respect.
‘OI! HURRY IT UP, YOU USELESS LITTLE MAGGOT. STOP MAGGOTING AROUND LIKE A … LIKE A … A MAGGOT!’ bellowed an enormous and all-too-familiar voice.
Mr Flash had decided to soothe his wounded pride with a bit of really high-quality shouting, and his least favourite student had appeared at just the right time. Murph faked a spurt of speed by doing that waddle that looks a bit like you’re running but in reality isn’t actually any faster than walking.
‘COME ON! GET IN HERE! The party can really get started now Kid Normal’s arrived!’ roared Mr Flash as Murph run-walked past him with his head down. ‘Though what you’re doing here at all I’ve still got absolutely no idea,’ he concluded in a fake whisper that was perfectly audible to everyone within a ten-metre radius.
As Murph followed the press of students towards the main hall, Mr Flash’s jibe hung around in his brain like a mean-spirited daddy-long-legs, bothering his new-found confidence with its unnecessarily dangly limbs and dampening his spirits. Soon he began t
o be uncomfortably aware of people looking at him: he noticed expressions of interest, puzzlement and, from one or two of the older kids, real hostility. Being a Hero didn’t bring automatic respect, Murph was quickly realising. Instead, it brought a large helping of disbelief with a jumbo-sized side order of jealousy. He was relieved when Hilda fell into step beside him.
‘Look at all the new little people,’ she said as they came upon a tangle of wide-eyed first years blocking the hallway. ‘I can’t believe that was us a year ago. We’re so grown up now. Grown up and Heroes!’
Hilda had always been fascinated by the world of Heroes. Of the five of them, she was by far the proudest to be a member of the Alliance, albeit a little disappointed that she wasn’t allowed to wear a special costume. Murph suspected (correctly) that she had secretly designed one anyway, and was just waiting for an excuse to wear it in public.
The main hall was already filling up, but he could see Billy and Mary waving from a row near the back. Billy had ballooned a hand to save them both seats.
‘Keep one for Nellie too,’ Mary reminded them as they sat down. ‘Has anyone seen her?’
They scanned the room as the rest of the school swirled around them. The older kids greeted each other confidently and swapped summer stories, while the first years were milling around hesitantly towards the front of the room amidst a faint smell of nervous gas. One of them was so anxious he accidentally activated his Cape; his neck suddenly extended to twenty times its normal length so that his head shot into the air like a jack-in-the-box.
‘I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to do it!’ squeaked the head as it bobbed amongst the light fittings. Billy looked up at him pityingly as laughter rose around the hall, knowing all too well what it felt like to be laughed at for his own unpredictable Cape.
‘Oh dear,’ smiled Mary.
‘Poor little mite. Let’s hope he winds his neck in before Mr Souperman gets here.’
Neck Boy did indeed succeed in reverting to a more traditional shape, just in time for Mrs Fletcher, the school librarian, to call for silence in her own unique way.
