“You look guilty,” said Mum, the moment I swung through the door into the kitchen. She was sitting down, fiddling with her phone. Behind her on the hob an enormous pot bubbled like an overheating nuclear reactor. She peered at me. “What have you been up to then?”
Mum could always tell when I’d been up to something I shouldn’t. Having discussed it with Serge it turns out that his maman can always see right through him too. It’s like X-ray vision for mums.
“I’ve been taking photographs for the school newspaper,” I said. Which was true. OK, I didn’t mention the part where I took the bus to another part of town and went to Christopher Talbot’s house without permission. But then she hadn’t asked.
She lowered the phone. “You? Taking part in an extracurricular activity that doesn’t involve superheroes?” She sounded doubtful.
“I’m broadening my horizons,” I said, squirting washing-up liquid over my hands and running them under the tap.
“Is that so?” she said, studying me in detail, the way she checks all over to see if a pineapple is ripe in the supermarket.
Just then the back door flew open. Dad and Zack ran in from the garden, sheltering beneath a newspaper from a sudden downpour. Judging by the oil stains on their sleeves and smeared across their faces, they’d been in the shed working on the plate rack. What could oil stains possibly have to do with constructing a plate rack? Don’t ask.
“That rain is biblical,” said Dad.
“You mean it’s raining frogs?” I said.
“No, what I mean is—”
“It’s rain, but wrapped in a pillar of fire,” I suggested.
Dad shot a look at Mum. She shrugged. “He’s your son too.”
Our weather is always wonky, but lately it had been even odder than usual. No actual rain of frogs, or cats and dogs, unfortunately, but hailstones the size of Mini Coopers, clouds as thick as custard, and electrical thunderstorms violent enough to bring Dr Frankenstein’s monster to life.
“Good day at school?” Dad asked, ruffling my hair.
“He’s working on the school newspaper now,” said Mum, without taking her eyes off me.
“No he’s not,” said Zack, pulling a face.
“Yes I am!” I glared at him. I’d been keeping his secret for ages – couldn’t he see that it was time to repay the favour?
Mum leaned in, running her eyes over me like a laser scanner. “There’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?”
There were a bunch of things I wasn’t telling her. Which one did she have in mind? If I told a barefaced lie she’d see straight through me. I had to give her the truth. Sort of. “Um, you know how I said I went to Serge’s after school? Well, I didn’t.”
“Luke Alfred Parker!” said Mum in a voice that would drown out Black Bolt’s Sonic Scream. She stood up, her chair scraping across the floor like talons on a blackboard.
I looked from her to Dad. Their eyes blazed with a mixture of disappointment and displeasure. Zack stood at the open fridge, drinking straight out of an orange juice carton and chuckling at the jam I’d got myself into. Not the strawberry jam, which we don’t keep in the fridge or it turns solid and doesn’t spread on your toast. The other kind, when you’re hanging off the edge of a cliff in the last panel of the story. It looked like I was in a tight corner, but I was sure I knew what I was doing. Well, not totally sure.
“I’m going out with Lara Lee,” I said.
There was a cough and a snort as orange juice spurted out of both of Zack’s nostrils. It was quite impressive.
Mum and Dad had different reactions to my confession. Dad’s chin stuck out, this weird expression came over his face and he began to nod. I’d almost say he looked impressed. Mum, on the other hand, sat down heavily in her chair again. “My little boy’s growing up,” she sighed.
Mission accomplished! I had successfully distracted them from asking awkward questions about what I’d really been up to. I mean, Lara and I had gone out to meet Christopher Talbot, so that was a kind of “going out”, right? Whatever. It was close enough for me.
“He’s making it up,” said Zack, his lip quivering. He turned to me, eyes wide and glistening, orange juice leaking from his nose. If I hadn’t known he was a superhero, I’d have said he was about to burst into tears. “There is no way you’re going out with anyone.”
At that moment the phone rang and Mum picked it up. She said “hello” and then “oh” and with a startled expression handed me the receiver. “It’s … Lara.”
Zack made a noise like he was choking on a nut, and marched out of the kitchen in a hiccuping fury. From outside in the hallway came a strangled cry of “No-o-o!”
I couldn’t understand why he was making such a fuss. I put the phone to my ear. “Hi, Lara.”
“No time for chitchat. Meet me in your tree house in five minutes.”
“Does it have to be five minutes? I haven’t had my dinner yet.”
There was a sigh from the other end of the line. “Fine,” she grumbled. “After dinner then.” She paused. “What are you having?”
I glanced at the pot bubbling on the hob. The lid rattled and clanked and steam leaked from the gaps in white coughs. “Not sure,” I said. “But I think it’s trying to escape.”
“Oi, I heard that,” said Mum.
I cupped the phone and turned away. “Oh, and if anyone asks,” I whispered into the receiver, “we’re going out.”
“We’re what?”
“I was in a tight spot. I had to say something.”
“So you said I was your girlfriend?”
“Yes, but only as a diversionary tactic. So, less a girlfriend, more a wildebeest.”
“What is it with you and wildebeest?” she muttered and hung up.
As soon as I’d finished dinner I headed upstairs, loudly announcing my intention to do my homework. My actual plan was to circle back and meet Lara in the tree house, but I figured I ought to make it appear as if I was going through my normal routine.
I could hear Mum and Dad downstairs, doing the dishes and dancing round the kitchen. They do that a lot, even though they’re terrible dancers. At least they only do it in the kitchen and not in public where actual people could point at them. As they clumped around below, I padded across the landing, skirted the pot plant and eased past Zack’s bedroom door. He hadn’t come down for dinner and, to my surprise, Mum hadn’t insisted. I tipped open my own bedroom door and went inside. No sooner had I stepped over the threshold than I felt a steely grip around my arm and I was yanked the rest of the way into the room.
Zack slammed the door and turned to me. “You can’t be going out with Lara Lee,” he hissed.
“Why not?”
“Because, because,” he stuttered, shaking with fury. I felt drops of water spatter against my cheek and noticed that his hair was soaking wet. “Because I want to go out with her big sister and … and … I haven’t had a girlfriend yet … and you’re my little brother and…” His voice rose to a wail. “And it’s just not right!”
He released his grip and I rubbed my arm. I should have told him the truth. There and then I should have said, “Relax, bro, I made up the whole thing about Lara just to put Mum and Dad off the scent.” But I didn’t. Standing there in front of Zack, for the first time since he became Star Lad, I felt powerful. I had something that he wanted and all I could think was: serves him right – now he knows how it feels. A part of me knew that I was behaving badly, but another part wallowed like a pig in a mud bath at Zack’s unhappiness.
“Well, we are going out,” I said. “Lara’s my girlfriend.”
That shook him, but I could see he was about to probe further and if I didn’t end this conversation he’d figure out I was lying. I knew what would shut him up. It was the nuclear option, but he had left me no other choice. I took a deep breath and said, “She kissed me.”
It was another lie, of course, but Zack stumbled like he’d been zapped by a trip-ray. “You kissed?” he
howled. “You’re barely eleven and you’ve kissed a girl. This is … I don’t even know what this is any more. I don’t feel well,” he said, flopping down on my bed.
It was true, he looked pale. The top buttons of his shirt were undone and I could see that the star pattern on his chest, which usually shone as bright as a night-light and pulsed like a lion’s heart, was dim and thready. I felt a pang of guilt. Had I done this to him with my lies about Lara? Was this Star Lad’s Kryptonite?
“Zack, your stars…”
“I know. It happened last night,” he said, rolling over and staring mistily out of the window. “I’d just prevented a bank robbery.” He coughed. “Usually I feel great foiling a robbery, but yesterday I was so tired I almost let one of the robbers get away. It was a close call.”
“But you didn’t,” I said, trying to reassure him. “You caught the bad guys in the nick of time. That’s what superheroes do. They’re hardly ever early.”
“I haven’t got to the worst part yet.” He flipped on to his back again and stared at the ceiling. “After I handed the robbers over to the police, I was waiting for the bus and I felt it go.”
“Felt what go?”
“My force field. It died. Just as I was getting on the number 43. Went out like a power cut and hasn’t come back since.” He circled a finger about his head. “And now my radar is down and I just dunked my head in the bath to see if I can still breathe underwater.”
That explained his wet hair. “And what happened?”
“I almost drowned,” he said, his voice breaking.
This was bad. “But you’ve still got your telekinesis, right?”
“I … I don’t know.”
“Well, try it out. Start with something easy.” I pointed to the lamp by the side of my bed. “Use your power to switch it on.”
“OK, I’ll give it a go.” Zack propped himself up on the bed, flung out a hand, splayed his fingers and levelled his gaze at the lamp. His arm began to shake with the effort. He gritted his teeth so hard they began to squeak. The bulging blue vein at his temple looked ready to pop. Then with a gasp he lowered his arm and fell back on to the bed. “It’s no use,” he said with a hopeless sigh. “I’ve lost all my powers. How am I going to save two universes now?”
My head whirled with possibilities. Could it be? Had Zack’s reign as Star Lad come to an end so soon? I’m ashamed to admit it, but a part of me was pleased. Zack had never properly appreciated being a superhero and in my opinion didn’t deserve his powers. OK, sure, he went out and fought crime, but I could tell his heart wasn’t in it, and that he’d rather be in his room doing his homework.
Of course, superheroes lose their powers all the time (not that Zack would know, never having read a comic). For a while Superman gave up his powers to be human so he could go out with Lois Lane. Imagine giving up your superpowers for a girl?! And Spider-Man, Thor and Wolverine had lost their powers too. But all of them came back. They always came back. I was sure that Zack’s would too. After all, Abzorbo the Divider gave him superpowers so he could battle Nemesis and their climactic showdown had yet to happen. I was about to reassure him when he turned on to his side and moaned, “There’s a parents’ evening at school next Tuesday.”
I really shouldn’t have been surprised. It was my bookish brother, after all. This was exactly the sort of thing that would be bothering him at a time like this.
“All the time I’ve been spending as Star Lad saving people and foiling crimes, I’ve been neglecting my homework.” Zack swallowed hard. “My grades are slipping.” His voice broke. “I’m failing maths.”
Before he was a superhero, Zack had been a superstudent. It seemed you couldn’t be both. I knew how seriously he took his studies; he wanted to be a doctor one day and to do that you had to get all “A”s from the age of three. Also, no force field in the galaxy would stop Mum and Dad’s wrath when they found out he was failing maths.
I was about to say something to encourage him when he let out another moan. “I feel weak. I feel ordinary. I feel useless. I feel like…” He lifted his eyes to look at me and I knew what he was thinking.
He felt like me.
In that moment all my sympathy for him went up in flames. I hated my brother. I hated him with all the fury of an exploding sun. I knew that my life would be better if he didn’t exist. My parents would have no one to compare me to. My school reports would never be second best again. In our kitchen there are marks on the wall where Dad records our heights. Zack’s always been taller than me, even at one year old. I’ve been failing to measure up to him my whole life.
“Remember when I told you Cara said you were memorable?” I said.
“Yes?”
“That’s not all she said.”
Zack seemed momentarily revived. He shuffled to the edge of the bed. “Tell me.”
I felt strangely calm. As cold as Mr Freeze. As remorseless as Lex Luthor. “She called you that weird kid who stalks her at school.”
Zack’s face sagged and he swallowed hard. I went on, as unstoppable as Juggernaut. As deadly as Bullseye. “And she’s got a boyfriend. He’s called Matthias and he has a beard.”
Zack said nothing, just slipped off the bed and trudged out of my room. He didn’t even slam the door.
And as it clicked shut behind him I knew that I had defeated Star Lad.
19
SMASH AND GRAB
I waited until Mum had popped next door to check on old Mrs Wilson, and Dad had retreated to his shed for another round with the plate rack, before sneaking out to join Lara in the tree house. The air was still, the night sky hidden behind a thick bank of cloud as it had been all week. Lara wanted to discuss our next move, but I didn’t care about the investigation any more. I didn’t care who knew about Zack’s stupid secret identity. I was mad at him. I put a foot on the bottom rung of the rope ladder and started to climb.
I decided to tell Lara the truth about Star Lad. Let her write what she liked.
I found her sitting cross-legged on the floor beside a stack of my comics, flicking through a copy of Uncanny X-Men. She set it aside.
“I called Crystal Comics’ headquarters,” she said as I sat down beside her. “Walter Edmund Go can’t do the interview because he’s on holiday in Slovakia. Don’t you think that’s weird?”
“Slovakia is quite an unusual place to go on holiday,” I agreed.
“And when I googled him nothing came up.”
“He’s the Invisible Man,” I muttered. Under other circumstances that would have been cool, but right now it meant our only lead was a dead end.
“I think Christopher Talbot sent us on a wild moose-chase.”
“I think it’s a goose chase.”
She wrinkled her nose. “A moose is much trickier to catch than a goose. Anyway, I don’t trust him. That creepy coat-strangling gadget and the exploding robot.” She shivered. “Normal people don’t own things like that.”
I thought his auto-coat-rack was cool and there was no gadget I wanted more than my own personal robot, except perhaps my own personal jetpack.
“Did you notice there were no photographs in his house?” she asked.
I had noticed and thought it strange too, but I certainly wasn’t about to admit that to her now. She would only seize on it as proof she was right to call Christopher Talbot weird. He wasn’t weird – he was like me.
“I think there’s more to him than meets the eye,” said Lara, narrowing her own eyes.
“Well, I disagree. Just because he loves comics and lives in the house of the future doesn’t make him an oddball. You could say that about most superheroes. There’s more to them than meets the eye.”
“You’re saying Christopher Talbot is a superhero?” Her face lit up. “What if he’s Star Lad?!”
It was time for the truth. “Lara, there’s something I have to tell you.” I took a deep breath. “My brother is…” I tried to get the words out. I could see them in my head but they just sat there with
their arms folded, refusing to budge. “What I’m trying to say is … my brother … Zack…” I knew where Star Lad’s force field had gone – it was between my tongue and my brain. “Zack is…”
From outside came a splintering crash and the ring of breaking glass.
“What was that?” asked Lara, dashing to the door.
We peered out across the dark garden, searching for the source of the noise. There was a light on in Dad’s shed and the sound of banging. He was wrestling with the plate rack, but the noise hadn’t come from there and the commotion hadn’t disturbed him. I swung round to examine our house. Lights shone from the upstairs windows. They were on in the landing and in Zack’s bedroom. I could see him moving around.
He hauled himself from his bed and half stumbled towards the door, but as he got there it flew open, striking him on the shoulder, sending him spinning to the floor. Beside me I heard Lara gasp. She’d seen it too. Extending a shaking finger to point she said, “Luke, there’s a robot in your house!”
There in the doorway of Zack’s bedroom stood a giant, shining figure. As we watched, it ducked its chrome head and turned a pair of broad gleaming shoulders sideways to squeeze through the gap. It made its way purposefully into the room, putting one hulking foot in front of the other like it was stamping on ants.
“That’s no robot,” I said. “It’s someone in a powered suit.”
Its movements were jerky, as if the suit had come right out of the box and the user hadn’t yet read the manual. It headed straight for Zack. He lay on the floor, dazed by the collision with the smashed door. The figure in the powered suit was almost on top of him. I had to do something. Lara was one step ahead of me.
“Well, come on, what are you waiting for?” She launched herself over the edge of the tree house deck and shimmied down the rope ladder. I climbed after her. By the time I reached the ground she was already easing open the back door. I caught up with her as she snuck into the kitchen. The lights were off.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered in the darkness.
My Brother is a Superhero Page 9
