My Evil Twin Is a Supervillain

by David Solomons

  “I’ll send you home,” he said. “Both of you.”

  I daren’t believe it. “It’s a trick. Has to be.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Serge. “There are many examples of supervillains who experience a change of heart and cross to the Light Side. For example, Black Widow, Rogue and Emma Frost.”

  “All women,” grumbled Lara.

  “For what I’ve done I deserve to be alone,” said Stellar.

  “No. You don’t,” said Lara. “And you’re not. You’ve got me.”

  Serge took a step forward and extended a hand. “Et moi.”

  Stellar clasped Serge’s hand and got to his feet. He walked to the centre of the garden and raised his arms; a maestro preparing to conduct his cosmic symphony.

  “He’s doing it.” I couldn’t conceal my amazement. “He’s actually going to save us.”

  “Of course he is,” said Zack. “He’s you. More or less.”

  “Wait!” cried Lara. “What if this is the gerbil-hole that triggers—”

  “The Emmental apocalypse,” Serge finished.

  Really, still with the cheese thing? This wasn’t the time to get into an argument. “We don’t have a choice.”

  Stellar began his efforts. He made a circling motion with one hand, summoning the gerbil-hole into existence. We held our breath, scanning the sky, waiting for a sight of the by now familiar phenomenon. We were still holding our breath fifteen seconds later. Not a sausage. Or indeed a chip. During the battle with Zack, Stellar had created multiple holes in the blink of an eye, so what was taking so long?

  Judging from his puzzled expression, the same question had occurred to Stellar. He began again, redoubling his efforts, straining to create the portal that would take us home and save our worlds. With a shout of frustration he turned to us.

  “I can’t do it. I’m out of power. The cats, the fight. Nothing left.” His shoulders slumped.

  That was not what any of us wanted to hear.

  The shadow of our universe continued its relentless slide across the surface of the fast-disappearing sun. Time was almost up.

  “Per’aps we could give him a boost?” suggested Serge.

  “There isn’t enough sunlight to recharge him,” said Lara, glancing into the sky.

  “And by the time I’ve flown him into space for a dose of starlight, it’ll be too late,” said Zack grimly.

  I snapped my fingers. “What about your charger?”

  “How long have we got?” he said.

  “About eight minutes,” said Lara.

  Zack shook his head. Not enough.

  There was a rumble, as if two thunder-gods were fighting over the remote control. A tremor shook the ground – the most powerful yet – throwing us across the garden. I struggled to stay on my feet as the quake split open the earth. Like a crack in a collapsing wall, it zigzagged across the garden. Its ragged course brushed my toes and I found myself teetering on the edge of a deep crevasse. The hole gaped like Gordon the World-Eater’s lipless mouth. Dizzy at the drop I took a step back. The loose soil gave way under me, I lost my footing and fell.

  I plunged down the side of the muddy chasm, bouncing off exposed rocks and tree roots, desperately clawing at the walls as I fell into darkness. At last I felt my fingers dig in to the mud and I slithered to a stop. Clods of loose earth tumbled around my ears. I had no idea how far I’d fallen. I daren’t look down. I was hanging on, but only just. Above me I heard the others yelling my name.

  “I’m OK,” I shouted.

  “I’m coming, Luke,” Zack’s voice sounded in my head. “I still have some power left.”

  Power. Of course. It was so obvious, why hadn’t I thought of it before? “Zack, no! Don’t waste it.”

  “What?!”

  “Stop using telepathy,” I called out. “You’re going to need every drop of your powers.” I began the slow and painful climb back to the surface. “You and Stellar have to do it together,” I shouted, hauling myself up on tree roots. “Combine your forces to create the gerbil-hole.”

  “Got it,” Zack shouted in reply.

  All I could do was get back to the surface in time, the rest was up to Zack and Stellar. I daren’t put a foot wrong. One slip, one fall, and it would all be over.

  Above me I glimpsed the last remnants of daylight, and against the fading light a silhouette. It took me a few seconds to realise what I was looking at. Lara and Serge had formed a human chain. Serge’s arms were wrapped around Lara’s legs. She hung over the edge of the drop like a bat.

  I scrambled up the slippery wall of mud, eyes fixed on her outstretched hands.

  “I see him!” she cried, stretching towards me.

  I reached out. Our fingertips brushed – once, twice. I felt my footing slip. I threw myself at her.

  And missed.

  As I fell back, I made one last desperate attempt and seized the cuff of her jumper. I was hanging on by a thread.

  There was a slap as her other hand clamped my wrist.

  “Got you!” she shouted. “Serge, pull!”

  The two of them groaned as they bore my weight. Sliding and scrabbling, they hauled me back up to the garden. I flopped on the ground beside my exhausted friends, but our relief was short-lived.

  A cold wind howled through the oak tree. All that remained of the sky was a splinter of daylight like a crack in a closing door. The end was approaching fast.

  A cry of frustration joined the shriek of the wind. Zack and Stellar stood in front of the tree house. They had joined hands in an attempt to combine their powers, but so far with no success.

  Zack dropped Stellar’s hand. “I can’t… I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “Try again,” said my twin, slipping his hand in Zack’s once more. “You can do it.”

  Zack nodded, took several deep breaths and pulled himself together. “OK. Think of home. Mum and Dad. Physics tutoring with Cara. GCSEs.”

  He tried again.

  “Come on, Zack,” I urged under my breath.

  “Home. Home,” he repeated. “There’s no place like home.” But nothing appeared. Not the glimmer of a gerbil-hole.

  My plan wasn’t working.

  Behind us came the sound of scraping metal. Pushing aside the fence panels was the figure of Cara Lee. She crossed the garden with a dazed expression, almost as if she was sleepwalking.

  “Uh, what are you doing here?” asked Lara.

  Cara barely registered her sister’s presence. Her eyes were fixed on Zack. “I was at school,” she mumbled. “We were streaming the superhero fight. Then I got home and saw lights in the garden…” She tailed off and turned to me. “The other night, at dinner. All that stuff you said about a parallel world. I have these dreams. Ever since it happened. Zack’s there, but in them he’s … flying.” It was hard to see in the fading light, but I think she was crying.

  “Cara,” mumbled Zack.

  She placed a hand on his cheek. “Zack.”

  Normally when my brother is around Cara he stutters or walks into furniture. Thankfully there wasn’t a chest of drawers in the garden and just as it looked as if he was about to say more, she leaned in and kissed him.

  “French fries!” shouted Serge. “I smell the French fries!”

  A swirling gerbil-hole bloomed in the darkening sky.

  Stellar and Zack (with a snog from Cara) had done it!

  “Two minutes and counting,” said Lara. “It’s going to be close.”

  “Uh-oh, something is emerging from the hole,” said Serge.

  An outline began to form in the mouth of the dimensional portal. Swiftly, it took shape. Not a gerbil with laser-eyes, nor rocket shoes, nor a world-eating destroyer. Something far less impossible, but unexpected just the same.

  A bus.

  It sailed through the sky and fell to earth, landing hard on the other side of the fence. Somehow its suspension survived the descent. Headlights raking the garden, it crashed through the fence, slid across the grass gou
ging out two deep tracks, and with a squeal of brakes stopped centimetres from the crevasse. The engine idled noisily.

  I registered the number on the destination board above the cab. This wasn’t just any bus.

  “The 227,” I muttered.

  My bus home.

  With a hiss the front doors opened. I turned to the others. I wanted to say something, but a frantic Lara cut me off.

  “What are you waiting for?!” she yelled, pushing me towards the door. “Get on the flipping bus!”

  “Au revoir, mes amis.” Serge waved us goodbye. “Vite. Quickly!”

  “I’ll miss you,” Cara whispered to Zack.

  “Zack…” Stellar threw himself into my brother’s arms.

  Looking back, I’m not sure who let go of whom first, but the hug came to an end. Zack leapt aboard the bus and, as the doors began to close, Stellar laid a hand on the glass and mouthed something. Zack was close enough to hear, but I couldn’t make it out.

  In comics no one ever really dies. At least not permanently. They almost always come back in another issue. But for Stellar there would always be a Zackshaped hole in the universe. At least this time he got a chance to say goodbye.

  The wheels of the bus spun, struggling for traction, and then bit. Instead of heading across the garden, the nose rose straight up and we lifted off, bearing for the gerbil-hole. Thrown off balance by the violent ascent, Zack and I were pitched backwards. With a yell we slid the length of the aisle to the very back of the bus. Through the rear window the last thing I saw of the Other World was Stellar, in full flight behind us. For a moment I thought he was about to follow the bus, but as we crossed over he stopped at the boundary, watching.

  He began to wave. Zack and I knelt up on the seats and waved back. Stellar hovered there, a sad smile on his face.

  The gerbil-hole closed behind us and the bus shot forward. Instantly, I felt the gap between our universes widen.

  I turned to Zack. “What did he say to you?”

  He propped his head in his hands and stared out of the window. “Second star to the right, and straight on till morning.”

  I could feel our universes separate, the space between them expanding rapidly as I left Stellar behind. The previous time I’d travelled through a gerbil-hole I’d emerged instantly on the other side. This time it was clear we were in for a lengthier journey. We steered past planets and suns, bypassed a supernova and did a three-point turn to avoid a Black Hole. I caught my reflection in the darkened window. I barely recognised myself. I looked … relieved. And then it hit me that I was going home. I glanced at Zack. We were going home. For one perfect moment I felt a glow of satisfaction – and then I remembered Stellar.

  “You OK?” said Zack. He was watching me from his seat. Since our brief exchange after departing Other Bromley, the journey had passed in sombre silence.

  I nodded. “How about you?”

  “I kissed Cara,” he said dreamily.

  “Technically, she wasn’t your Cara,” I pointed out. Last month Zack had kissed an alien cyborg Cara, today a parallel version of her. This was becoming a habit.

  “I have a girlfriend,” he said in the same faraway voice.

  “Yeah,” I mumbled. “In another dimension.”

  He gave me a hard stare.

  “Uh, who’s driving the bus?” I asked, keen to change the subject.

  “No one’s driving it,” he said, adding unconvincingly, “It’s, y’know, quantum physics.”

  Like that ever explained anything. “So who’s wearing the hat?”

  In the driver’s compartment, reflected in the large rear-view mirror, sat a figure in a peaked cap. As I asked the question, the figure lifted his head, revealing his face.

  “Zorbon!” Zack gasped.

  “The Decider?”

  “No, the Dentist.” He rolled his eyes.

  We made our way forward. Before me, finally, was Zorbon the Decider: representative of the High Council of Frodax Wonthreen Rrr’n’fargh, Bestower of Superpowers upon the Unworthy, Prophet of Doom when it Comes to Things Like Giant Asteroids and Evil Gym Teachers, The One Who Always Shows Up When I’m in the Toilet. He wore a high-collared purple cape, and I could just make out a collection of stars glowing on his chest. He was just as Zack had described him, with one crucial detail left out. His head barely rose above the level of the wheel.

  “He’s teeny-tiny,” I whispered. “Give him a fishing rod, you could hire him out as a garden gnome.”

  Zack scowled.

  “YOU DID WELL,” Zorbon’s voice boomed. It was like hearing thunder from a squeaky bath duck.

  I raised a questioning finger. “Uh, just to be clear, Mr Zorbon, Your Honour. First off, Hello. Nice to meet you. Finally. Uh, so my question is this. Who did well? Is your praise only for Star Lad, or am I included too? And if so, is there a reward? Y’know, because if you’re giving out superpowers, I have a list. I’ve been thinking about it. A lot.”

  “Luke!” Zack hissed. “You can’t ask for superpowers. That’s not how it works.”

  “Says who?”

  Zack gave me a pitying look. I realised with dismay that it was the same look I used to give him whenever he asked a stupid question about Green Lantern’s ring powers, or the limits of Superman’s strength. He was right, of course. The comic tables had well and truly turned.

  “Zorbon, I think this is yours,” said Zack, handing him the squished interdimensional craft the size of a large bar of Dairy Milk.

  “HMM.” Zorbon inspected the damage. “THAT WILL BUFF OUT.” He rubbed a corner of the ship with his sleeve. “NOW, TAKE YOUR SEATS.” He swung the steering wheel and Zack and I were thrown on top of each other. “WE ARE COMING IN TO LAND.” There was a crunch of gears as he shifted down. “BRACE YOURSELVES!”

  One moment we were whizzing through the folds of space, the next the bus crashed down on an ordinary and very familiar road. The suspension groaned in protest, tyres shrieked as we skidded on the wrong side towards an oncoming car. Shocked by the sudden appearance of the 227, the driver swerved out of the way, blaring his horn. Zorbon regained control and we slowed to a much more bus-like trundle.

  It was then that I noticed something weird. Zorbon had grown. And not like a centimetre or two – this was magic beanstalk stuff. His hat brushed the roof of the driver’s compartment. It seemed that travelling through the quantum realm could do strange things to a person.

  “Look,” said Zack, pointing.

  The sun hung low over the rooftops, perfect and round. There was no sign of the shadow universe.

  “Did we…?”

  “YES,” replied Zorbon, without hearing the whole question. He had a habit of knowing the end before it happened.

  We’d saved the world, the universe, the multiverse. The whole big shebang. And I needed a rest.

  “We’re home,” I said. Something in my voice sounded strange, but I put it down to the excitement of the moment.

  Grinning with relief, Zack turned to me. The grin vanished from his face. But much more worrying than the loss of the grin was the face. It wasn’t his.

  “Luke?”

  “Zack?” That voice again. Although it was coming out of my mouth, it wasn’t mine.

  Slowly we both looked up into the mirror hanging over the driver’s compartment. Our horrified reflections gazed back down at us. Something had happened in the journey between universes. Something terrible.

  We’d changed.

  He was me.

  And I was my brother.

  Ding! The bus bell chimed. This was our stop.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I was about to write my customary thank-you note when the following document arrived via a gerbil-hole. It appears to be written by a version of me from an alternate universe.

  I, Citizen Author number 451 of the Independent Publishing State of North Crowea, offer my humble and insufficient thanks to our glorious ruler in perpetuity, Supreme Leader Wilson. I present my poorly parsed gratitude
to First Minister Stansfield. This book would not exist without her benevolent, sleep-depriving supervision. I am uneasily indebted to the Head of Brainwashing, Minister Stokes, and her feared emissaries from the Department of Propaganda, Vice-Chairman Kingston and Director Hall-Craggs.

  I express ballistic appreciation to Marshal Gotkowska of the Overseas Secretariat for her long-range global strategy. My terrified thanks to Section Bounce of our revered Secret Police, for their tireless work twisting arms and infiltrating bookshops. Once again I marvel at the skills of citizens Laura Ellen Anderson, Rob Biddulph and Robin Boyden (state-approved illustrators numbers 16, 17 and 18), in abject collaboration with Head of the Design Dungeons, Director Theobald. Strict, hierarchical thanks to the rest of the Central Committee, including Minister Bonnick and Deputy Scoble.

  I acknowledge that I would not be where I am without Agent Stan. And if anyone can hear me, please send help.

  Finally, to my life partner and brood mother of our 18 children, Natasha, see, I have obtained the correct permit for another child! Why are you running away like that…?

  COPYRIGHT

  First published in the UK in 2017 by Nosy Crow Ltd

  The Crow’s Nest, Baden Place

  Crosby Row, London, SE1 1YW, UK

  www.nosycrow.com

  ISBN: 978 0 85763 956 1

  Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd

  Text copyright © David Solomons, 2017

  Cover illustrations copyright © Laura Ellen Anderson, 2017

  Inside illustrations copyright © Robin Boyden, 2017

  The right of David Solomons to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  All rights reserved

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of Nosy Crow Ltd.