“Impress who?”
Lara sighed. “My sister.”
So that’s what he was doing here. “Are girls impressed by boys who can run fast?” I asked.
“Yes, they can’t help themselves. It’s elocution.”
What had speaking nicely got to do with it? I shook my head, mystified.
She huffed. “Y’know, Darwin’s Theory of Elocution? Fish turning into monkeys turning into people. For a cave-woman it was an attractive quality in a cave-man, being able to sprint after a woolly mammoth.”
“I didn’t think mammoths were that fast.”
“Once they got going.” She grabbed my sleeve. “But that’s not why I came. I have something to tell you,” she added cryptically, leading me out of earshot of the crowd.
“Me too,” I said. “I have good news.”
“And I have bad news.”
We both hesitated.
“You should go first,” she said. “You’re not going to be very happy once you hear my news.”
With a cry of “On your marks, set, go,” the substitute teacher started the boys’ race. Zack made a false start and the runners were called back to their blocks. As they settled for the restart, I filled Lara in on my conversation with Stellar.
“Stellar’s changed his mind. You’re on the team for the mission to the alternate universe. I told him about your skunk hair and—”
“Luke! You promised never to mention that again. It’s so embarrassing! But y’know what, that doesn’t matter now.” She looked over her shoulder, double-checking to make sure we couldn’t be overheard. “The rumour about your brother – something about it bothered me. So I’ve been doing some digging.”
In our last school Lara had been the youngest editor of the school newspaper. She used to say that she was not so much an eleven-year-old schoolgirl, more an investigative reporter embedded with Class 6b. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “The only people who know Zack’s secret superhero identity are: Zorbon, obviously, since he gave him his powers; the members of S.C.A.R.F.; Christopher Talbot, last seen aboard an alien mothership shortly before it blinked out of existence—”
Once again Zack leapt from the start-line too soon – the Star Lad rumour had really got to him. The substitute gym teacher gave him a final warning. One more false start and he’d be out of the race.
“You think Christopher Talbot is the leak?” I had my doubts. “Even if somehow he is alive, spreading a mean rumour at a secondary school would be fairly low-level villainy, for him.”
Lara gave an exasperated sigh. “I didn’t say I believed it was him. Let me finish. I figured if I could find out where the rumour began then that would lead me to the original leak. So I asked around. Turns out the Quinn twins heard it from Daniel Garstang, who heard it from Talia Gardener, who heard it from Fairuzah Bashir, who heard it from Fee McKinnon, who heard it from … you.”
“Me? That’s ridiculous. Of course it wasn’t— Oh.” It hit me. Now I knew who had started the rumour. The other day in the library I’d wondered why Stellar had been wearing my spare uniform. Now I knew.
“Exactly,” said Lara. “The question is, why?”
“Because he’s my Evil Twin.”
“That’s not really an answer, Luke.”
I thought it was a perfectly good answer to a variety of questions, but it seemed I was the only one.
Lara sucked her top lip, which she did when she was deep in thought. Or eating peanut butter. “We need to ask ourselves, what does Stellar have to gain from giving away Zack’s secret identity? What’s his end-game?”
The substitute teacher fiddled with his stopwatch and restarted the boys’ race. “On your marks. Get set… G … ood grief!” He looked up in amazement. Like the rest of the crowd he was staring open-mouthed at the masked figure that had just swooped out of the bright-blue sky, cape streaming from his shoulders.
It was Stellar.
What was it with my double – didn’t he understand the concept of keeping a low profile?
He shot over the heads of the runners preparing to race, and then, angling his body into the bends, streaked round the track. As he roared past the gawping crowd, he split the air with a sonic boom that blew the banner out of their hands. It flew up, carried on the current caused by his passing, before fluttering back down to earth, draping Zack and the rest of the runners.
“Star Lad! Whoo! Yeah!” whooped the crowd.
Star Lad – what were they on about? All eyes were focused not on Zack, but on Stellar. If he had stopped to sign autographs then the crowd would certainly have noticed the difference. But dressed in a similar costume, flying at speed, the two superheroes were indistinguishable.
Zack peeled off the banner and grinned.
“No one’s going to believe he’s Star Lad now,” I mumbled. Stellar had pulled off a brilliant ruse.
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” said Lara. “Why would he spread the rumour, only to spelunk it?”
I was pretty sure she meant “debunk it”, but I didn’t bother correcting her. I watched Stellar soar into the distance. Once again he’d flown rings round all of us. What was he up to? Before the day was out, I swore I’d finally uncover the truth.
“I owe you, big time,” said Zack, gripping Stellar by the shoulders and beaming at him. It was later that evening and the three of us had gathered in the tree house for a debrief. As predicted, the crowd at the track believed they’d witnessed Star Lad breaking the lap record. Since Zack had at the time been standing on the start-line for all to see, as far as the kids in school were concerned that ruled him out as a potential candidate for the superhero’s alter ego. The rumour was as dead as a doornail that my dad has attempted to hammer, which is very dead.
“I’m just glad I could help you,” said Stellar.
The way he said it sounded so sincere. He had this Evil Twin act down to perfection. First he’d started the rumour, then he’d put an end to it. Yet, as far as I could tell, the only thing he’d gained was Zack’s gratitude. And how! My brother’s opinion of him had shot up. Stellar was the best thing since rocket shoes.
“The nanosecond after the comic-shop launch tomorrow,” said Zack, who’d sat his last mock that morning and seemed lost without them, “you and I are teaming up. Gorgon the World-Eater won’t know what’s hit him!”
I wanted to tell Zack about Stellar starting the very rumour he’d scotched, to warn him that Stellar was up to something. But we were in the dark about Stellar’s plans. If my Evil Twin thought that we were on to him, we’d be giving up our only advantage.
Though, if I’m honest, I was also desperate to burst their brotherly bubble. All that was missing from their mutual appreciation society were matching T-shirts and an annual picnic. Stellar was getting on much better with Zack than I had for quite some time, and I didn’t like it one bit.
“OK, I need your advice,” began Zack.
This was a turn-up for the books. Zack rarely sought my opinion about anything these days, unless it was comic-book related, and then only grudgingly. “Ask away,” I said.
“Not your advice.” He turned to Stellar. “Did you see Cara Lee at the track?”
Stellar nodded. “I saw everyone thanks to my incredible Stellar Scanner.”
He was such a bighead.
Zack began to pace. “It’s quite clear to me that she’s not interested in plain, ordinary Zack Parker.” He stopped. “So I was wondering, what if I told her I was Star Lad?”
“You can’t!” I blurted.
Zack shot me a dark look. “I didn’t ask you.” His eyes flicked across the room. “Stellar?”
“Other Luke is right,” said Stellar reluctantly. At least my Evil Twin understood the rules about keeping your superhero identity under wraps.
Zack huffed. “Remind me again why not? I mean, honestly, what’s the point of having a cool superhero secret if you can’t use it to impress girls?”
“It’s for her own good,” said Stellar. �
��In comics the girlfriends of superheroes usually end up getting bumped off.”
“You should listen to him,” I said. “And anyway, who’s to say Cara would even like you as Star Lad? Remember what happened aboard the sue-dunham mothership. The last time she relied on Star Lad to save her, she ended up having to save herself. I wouldn’t count on her being that impressed.”
“It’s not fair!” he complained. “It’s never going to happen between us.”
“In my world,” Stellar began, “you and Cara…”
Zack leapt on the unfinished statement. “Are we … together?”
He paused. “Sort of.”
“What does that mean?” said Zack.
“That anything is possible.” Stellar clicked his fingers. “I have a great idea. Why not use your telepathic power to probe Cara’s mind and find out how she really feels about you?”
Zack squirmed. “I don’t like to probe, not unless it’s an emergency. And preferably never with someone I know. You have no idea the weird stuff people are thinking until you go swimming in their heads.” He shivered. “Anyway, it contravenes Data Protection.” He made his way to the door. “We should get going. Mum and Dad’ll be waiting. Come on, Luke.”
Stellar and I both went to follow him out.
Zack laughed. “Sorry,” he addressed Stellar. “I meant the other Luke.”
Now I was the other one – even to my own brother. Could this get any worse?
Zack exited the tree house and I could hear him chuckling at his mistake as he descended the rope ladder.
“I’m not so picky,” said Stellar. He stood at the back of the tree house, half his face in shadow.
“About what?” I asked.
“Whose mind I probe.” I glimpsed the flicker of a dark smile. “Minds are like messy drawers. You know what it’s like, sometimes you need a double-A battery and you’re sure there’s one in there, but it’s right at the back behind a ball of string and a used roll of Sellotape and if you’re going to put your hands on it, then…” He stepped into the light. “You need to have a good rummage.”
He studied me in silence. The only sound was the tap-tapping of bare branches against the tree house.
“Was that meant to be a threat?” I said. “Because, for future reference, no one ever sounded intimidating using the word ‘rummage’. Got it?”
“I know you know,” he said coolly. “You can’t keep anything from me.”
He’d crossed the line. I shook a warning finger. “Stay out of my mind, Stellar.”
“I don’t need to probe your mind, Luke.” He lowered his voice to a growl. “I’m already in it. All. The. Time.”
OK, now that was creepy. Just as I was mentally measuring the distance to the door, Stellar gave a snort of amusement.
“You should see your face,” he said, shoulders heaving with laughter. “Oh my goodness. That was brilliant. Did you like my Evil Twin act? I’m already in it. I thought the growly voice was a nice touch. What d’you think?”
I didn’t know what to think. Which was the real Stellar – the exasperating prankster or the evil mastermind? He’d discombobulated me, again.
Shrugging off his villain act like it was a duffel coat, he crossed to the doorway and looked out over the garden towards the house. “What’s for dinner?”
I could see Dad in the kitchen, criss-crossing frantically from one side to the other. Even from here I could tell that he was looking for his car keys.
“And please don’t tell me I’m getting leftovers again,” Stellar went on. “I’m hungrier than Gordon the World-Eater.”
“We’re going out for Chinese,” I said.
He rubbed his hands together. “Great. Bring me back –”
“– wonton soup and a portion of sweet and sour chicken,” we both said at the same time. Some superheroes were connected by telepathy. We were linked by Chinese food.
Hold on a minute. Rewind.
Did he just say Gordon the World-Eater?
The name echoed along the dustiest corridors of my mind, banging doors unopened for years. I’d heard it before, a long time ago, but until that moment it had been buried beneath the accumulated names of a thousand comic-book characters. Now it surfaced like a zombie hand reaching through the soil to clasp its fingers around my ankle.
“You OK?” asked Stellar. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Not a ghost. A doppelganger. (Which is like an evil twin in fairy tales.) “Fine. I’m totally fine,” I said, trying to keep my breath even, hoping he wouldn’t see through me and realise his mistake. “Looks like Dad found his keys. I’ll see you later.”
“Don’t forget the prawn crackers.”
I scrambled down the rope ladder and dashed into the house, not daring to look back in case Stellar should glimpse my face and guess I was on to him.
“Luke, we’re leaving, get in the car,” said Dad as I shot past him and Mum at the foot of the stairs.
“I have to go to the toilet,” I called back, and heard him mutter his frustration.
“Is it just me,” he grumbled to Mum, “or is that boy always going for a wee at the worst moment?”
“We’ll be in the car!” Mum shouted after me.
It was a special night. We were all going out for dinner to celebrate the opening of the new comic shop, but The Mandarin would have to wait. The Chinese restaurant, that is, not the Marvel supervillain.
When I reached the landing I ignored the bathroom and dragged a chair beneath the attic hatch. I jumped up to grab the handle. The hatch swung open and I lowered the ladder from inside, quickly climbing up into the low-ceilinged room beyond. I snapped on an overhead light. A bare light bulb chased away the shadows around a cluster of plastic storage boxes. Most of them were helpfully labelled and contained things like old photo albums, Christmas decorations, baby clothes of mine and Zack’s that Mum and Dad had inexplicably chosen to keep. I continued searching until I found a box with my name scrawled on it in Dad’s handwriting. I prised off the lid. Inside was a collection of useless stuff: a lifetime of birthday cards; endless drawings I’d done over the years; a stack of finger-pointing school-report cards. Half hidden beneath a drawing I’d made at nursery school portraying me and my family – which at the time appeared to include robot supervillain Ultron – I found what I’d come for.
“Hearos & Vilanz,” I muttered, lifting out the deck of homemade cards that Dad and I had created. Like a mini Zorbon the Decider I’d sat at the kitchen table and bestowed each character with superpowers. I riffled through the pack, skimming past Thunder-Shooter and Sky-Rabbit, Wonder-Gluk and Punch-Man. But it was none of these I was looking for.
Somewhere in the pack was the ultimate power. Strength: 100. Psionic ability: 100. Speed: 100. He was a hundred per cent across the board. All-powerful, invulnerable, indestructible. Even back then I’d read enough comics to know that any self-respecting fictional universe needed an invincible supervillain.
I found it! My fingers closed around the yellowing card as I read.
“Gordon the World-Eater.”
The corners of the card were bent, and along the bottom edge ran a tear in my unbeatable villain. The drawing was surprisingly good. I’d given his body the classic overly muscled look, but instead of a masked or hooded face I’d made his head a black hole speckled with glitter to represent the worlds he’d eaten. Unlike the rest of the drawing where the felt tip pen had strayed over the lines, his head was perfect, as if the dark force at its centre had sucked the ink into a seamless circle. As I peered at it in the dim attic light, I felt a shiver.
“Gordon. Gorgon.” It was too much of a coincidence. They had to be one and the same. “He’s not real,” I mumbled to myself. “There is no Gorgon the World-Eater.” I pictured Stellar and me, each sitting down with our dad on that same wet afternoon all those years ago, separated only by a universe.
So how could Stellar’s world be threatened by a made-up supervillain? The answer was that it couldn
’t. Which meant that Stellar had invented a fake threat to persuade Zack to go with him. But why? The answer struck me like a blow from Thor’s hammer.
It was a trap for Star Lad.
I had to show the Top Trump card to Zack – he’d have to believe me now. I held up the precious card, and a shadow fell across it. I spun round. Stellar hovered above the attic hatch.
“You got me,” he said. “Gordon the World-Eater.” He shook his head. “I knew I’d slipped up as soon as I opened my mouth.”
“I know what you’re up to,” I said
He smiled thinly. “You have no idea.”
He pointed, and I could only watch in dismay as the Top Trump card wriggled free from my fingers and spun through the air into his outstretched palm. The one piece of evidence that proved Stellar’s guilt was now in his possession.
Slowly my Evil Twin extended a hand. “Join me, Luke, and together we will rule the multiverse!” Then he snorted. “Just kidding.”
Other Luke had come dangerously close to spoiling my plans. He’d left me no choice – I had to get rid of him.
Not like that.
I imprisoned him in the tree house, swung by his bedroom for a super-quick change out of my Stellar costume into jeans and a jumper, then joined the rest of his – my – family in the car.
Fair enough, assuming the place of the Other Luke was a bit Evil Twin-ish, but I’d had to act fast. And in the grand scheme of things it was hardly the Anti-Monitor destroying the universe, or Bane breaking Batman’s back, or Doctor Octopus taking over Spider-Man’s body.
OK, it was a bit like that last one.
We arrived at the restaurant and sat down at our table. Dad was in a great mood, talking excitedly about tomorrow’s launch of the new shop. Mum kept looking at him and smiling. In my world I hadn’t seen them this happy for a long time. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. When I looked up from my menu I found Zack staring across at me with a curious expression.
“What are you plotting?” he said.
“Nothing.”
“So what’s the stupid grin about? I can tell you’re up to something.”
My Evil Twin Is a Supervillain Page 6
