The security guard stared at Heck as he approached. Heck knew what he must be thinking: pervert or good-deed-doer? Maybe if he thought Heck was a sicko, they’d take him in for questioning like on TV and Heck would offer to confess everything in exchange for tacos and a gallon of milk.
“Where did you find her?” the woman asked as she drew her daughter into her arms.
“Just over there, ma’am,” Heck said, gesturing. Superheroes always said ma’am and sir. It was part of their job description.
“Look, Momma! See what he drew for me? That’s me, Wanda Woman.”
“Thank you,” the woman said to Heck. “Thank you very much.” The little girl chattered on about evil forces.
The security guard looked Heck over, consulted his watch. “Don’t you have school this time of day?” he asked.
“Professional development day,” Heck said.
To her daughter the woman said, “Yes, he is a hero to us, isn’t he, sweetheart.” She glanced up at Heck. “Thank you again.”
“Bye, Superhero!” the little girl called as they walked away.
The security guard said something into his radio, then hooked it onto his belt. He put a heavy hand on Heck’s shoulder. “Done with your shopping?”
Heck searched the word bubble over his head. There was nothing in it but white space.
The guard thumped Heck’s shoulder in a friendly but dismissive sort of way, and then made a long gesture for Heck to move along.
Heck left the mall and headed to the Pepper Bar.
Helping the little girl get back to her mom was a Good Deed. It wasn’t the Good Deed, the one that would get him and his mom topworld, but something good would come to him for it. Now if only he didn’t still have that twenty in his pocket reminding him of past dastardly deeds.
He hadn’t meant to take it. The Carters kept a little money in the drawer of a small table in the entranceway. He’d known that for a long time, since the first time he was invited to Spence’s house. If Spence needed change for things, he knew to find it there. Sometimes there were a few quarters, and sometimes there were bills. Heck had always loved that they had money to just leave around, money that had no particular use, money they could just sort of forget was there. On his way out the door last night, Heck opened the drawer, just to look at it. Jackpot. Three twenties, a ten, and a million pennies and nickels. Then he heard Spence coming, and he’d just stuffed a twenty in his pocket. Aargh.
Heck hoped the restaurant wasn’t too busy yet. He’d need a good ten, fifteen minutes to pull her out of hypertime, make her laugh, tell her about getting a good grade on a test, tell her he was sure glad they were out of that dumpy apartment. He’d tell her how happy Spence was to have weekday sleepovers, and he’d find out where she was staying.
He’d say everything’s okay, like he always did.
He almost ran the last few blocks, and flung open the door to the Pepper Bar. Levi was leaning over the cash counter, and the place was practically empty. Oh, man, it smelled good.
“Hey, Heck, what brings you here?”
Levi was possibly the ugliest man on the planet, but he could cook hideously delicious things that made you want to kiss his ring in gratitude.
“I need to talk to my mom,” Heck said. He was puffing from walking so long and fast.
“She’s not here, Heck,” Levi said.
“When does her shift start?”
He looked at Heck strangely. “It doesn’t.”
“She doesn’t work today? But …”
“She came in yesterday and said she needed a vacation. I told her she’d already taken all her vacation time for the year. She said she’d give up next year’s … You know, Heck, I like your mom, but I’ve got to have people I can rely on. I told her if she didn’t come in this morning, she was out of a job.”
A vacation.
Levi continued. “She’s a good waitress, the best, it’s just I get a knot in my stomach every day wondering if she’s going to be here or not. This vacation thing was the last straw.” He seemed apologetic, sad even, but Heck felt too flat to tell him he understood.
“Did she say anything else?” Heck asked in flat.
Levi shook his head. “She didn’t say much at all. She seemed real sad about something. I asked her if she felt okay, but she just left.” He was peering at Heck as if he’d just discovered a new life form. “You hungry? I’ve got some stuffed peppers just out of the oven.”
Maybe his Little Girl Good Deed had added up to this: one stuffed pepper. He nodded.
Levi disappeared into the kitchen.
His mom was in hypertime. No doubt about it now. It always started out that way—she’d get sad, couldn’t go to work, couldn’t shower.
He had to find her fast, before she got too tempted by that other dimension in which she didn’t exist. When she saw him, she’d know she loved him too much to get all the way there.
Where would she go?
Levi returned carrying a plate with the biggest pepper Heck had ever seen. Bursting out of the top of it was a mixture of rice and beef and onions and mushrooms. Heck hated beef, but he had never smelled anything so tempting in his life. He thought he might faint at the smell of it. It was kryptonite to him—now he could hardly lift his fork.
“Eat up,” Levi said. “It’s on the house.”
Heck cut into the pepper. Every organ of his body was shivering with anticipation, except his stomach. It was like he’d swallowed the word “vacation” and it was taking up all the room in his belly.
He swallowed one little bite. His toes were screaming, “Food! Food!” in corny high voices. His kneecaps were spasming with pleasure, and his little taste buds were blossoming. His stomach, though, didn’t seem to have room for much more than that one bite.
He swallowed another bite anyway. It went down, but his stomach didn’t like it.
Levi went in and out of the kitchen. After a while he came and sat next to Heck. “Isn’t it good?”
Heck nodded. “It’s great. Really great.”
Levi rubbed his whiskers. “Are you feeling all right, Heck?”
“Fine. Fine.” Swallow.
“Do you need some money?”
Heck stopped, mid-chew.
Trap. Do-gooder trap: “Let me help you in exchange for information that will then get you into trouble.” Heck could hear a trap a mile away. Don’t tell, he told himself. It would make it worse on her if he told. Besides, he’d just figured it out. She was probably at Dierdre’s. He should have gone there first.
He shook his head. “I’m okay.” The rice was waking his teeth up. What if she wasn’t at Dierdre’s? Where else would she go? Who else did she know? “Levi, do you remember that guy Mom went out with a month ago? His name was Sam or something.”
“Met him once.”
“Where does he work?”
“Don’t know. Guess she doesn’t talk about these things with you?”
“Do you know where he lives?”
“I don’t … Wait a minute. Yeah, I know where he lives. Your mom asked me to mail her last paycheck there. Hold on.” Levi went to the cash register and took a piece of paper from an envelope. “Here it is. Sam Halstead. Address of 356 Morrow Drive. I know that area a bit. It’s over by the old Lindsay Park.”
Heck took another bite and stood up. There was a hot spot developing on his left cheek. “Thanks, Levi.”
“Aren’t you going to finish?”
“I’m full. But thank you. It was great.”
“You want some dessert?” Levi asked, but Heck was on his way out, the door already closing behind him.
—
Heck headed back to the mall. Why would she have her check mailed there? Sam wasn’t a boyfriend—she’d just dated him a few times. Maybe she thought it would be safer to send it to Sam’s than to Dierdre’s. Dierdre tended to lose things. Also, his mom knew Dierdre would be tipped off if the check came there. Dierdre would guess something was wrong.
H
e had to phone Dierdre’s. For sure his mom would be there.
He didn’t have a quarter for the phone.
What would he say to her anyway? Hey, Mom, heard you lost your job?
He had to have some good news. If he had a job, for instance, that would be good news. That was it—he’d get a job! Not just a flyer-delivery job like he’d been trying to get before. It had to be a real job.
Besides, if he had a job, he could spend the twenty and pay Spence back later.
All superheroes had a day job. They had to earn a living somehow in the guise of their alter egos.
He remembered that he’d seen a Help Wanted notice in the window of the Art Store, the warehouse-sized place where the high school art competition was being held. He’d get a job like that, get a place, take care of himself. He’d always been able to take care of himself pretty well anyway. He’d tell Spence he quit school on purpose to get this job, he’d invite Spence to a sleepover on a school night, and in the fridge would be peanut butter for Spence and a big bowl of egg salad for himself.
It seemed simple and obvious.
Heck slumped into the mall, found his bench, and then shrank down into his hoodie as the security guard walked by.
The guard looked in his direction but didn’t see him. Such a thing probably happened all the time to flat, two-dimensional beings living in a three-dimensional world: at just the right angle you became practically invisible.
Heck pulled the twenty out again. He hated to break it, but he really needed to phone Dierdre’s, where for sure his mom would be.
“You’re having a hard time figuring out what to do with that twenty, aren’t you.”
Heck stared. It was a girl, but not a little one this time. She had hair as short as a boy’s, but he never saw anyone who looked so much like a girl. She was wearing pink sneakers. Just the sort of girl you’d like to do a Good Deed for.
“Pardon?”
“I can help you spend that,” she said.
“It’s not my money.”
She sat on the bench close to him. He sat still as a life-sized poster.
She smiled. Her teeth were rounded at the tips, not straight and sharp like most people’s. She was Girl at its roundest: round head, round eyes, round just right everywhere else. “You skipping school today?”
“How did you know?”
“I saw you here earlier, when you should have been in school.”
He cleared his throat. “I don’t go to school,” he said. “I’m getting a job in an art gallery.” It sounded good to say it.
She nodded. “I see,” she said, in a way that told him she didn’t see at all. “That was a good picture you drew, of the little girl, the superhero. I walked by when you were drawing it.”
Heck smiled a little and shrugged.
“Will you draw me?” she asked.
Heck felt himself blush all the way down to his armpits. People often asked him that, but he usually didn’t draw where others could see. Drawing, for Heck, required more than looking. It was a kind of Good Deed because you had to see—really see—to draw someone.
“Nah.”
“Please?” She put her hand on his knee.
He shook his head.
Her eyes narrowed. “You drew for that other girl.”
“Superhero stuff,” he said.
That was what he usually drew, even in art class. Mr. Bandras gave him near-perfect grades on everything he produced that wasn’t a superhero. He’d have the top grade in the class if his semester artwork weren’t locked up in his ex-apartment.
He punched his jaw.
“Why do you do that?” she asked.
“Toothache,” he said.
“I’ve got something that can make you feel better,” she said. She held out her hand and in the middle of it was one round green pill.
“They’re called Supermans,” she said. “Only costs twenty dollars.”
Heck put his hand in his pocket and gripped his pencil. Velocity Nine. Sure enough, the pill had Superman’s S symbol imprinted into it. “You got any aspirin?” he asked.
“This is better,” she said.
Heck shook his head at the floor between his feet. There was no air in his flat throat. He tried to smile.
“You’ve never done anything before?” she asked incredulously.
“I’ve done stuff before,” Heck said. No, he hadn’t.
“This’ll make your teeth feel better,” she said. “It will make you feel good all over.”
“I try not to do drugs on days that end in y,” Heck said. He and Spence had read that in a comic book. Spence made Heck practice saying it. “That way it will come naturally for you,” Spence had said.
“How old are you?”
“Thirteen.”
The girl frowned. She closed her fist around the pill. “No wonder. You’re just a little kid,” she said.
“For all I know, you may be an undercover cop,” Heck said. They’d practiced that one, too. Spence seemed to think Heck was gullible or something. His teeth throbbed.
“Twenty bucks isn’t worth all this,” she said. She stood up.
What if he just gave it to her? Was it a Good Deed if you gave away stolen money? Spence didn’t believe in the Good Deed the way Heck did, but he was a nice guy. He’d probably give it to her.
“Hey, you can have the twenty if you really need it,” he said.
Spence didn’t mind the odd small Good Deed, so long as it didn’t get out of hand. He’d pay Spence back later, after he got his first paycheck.
He held out the twenty to her. “Use it to start a new drug-free life,” he said. “I just need a quarter out of that to use the phone.”
Just then Heck saw the security guard walking in their direction, still a way off. The girl saw him too. She snatched the twenty.
“Thanks,” she said. “See ya.”
“Hey!” Heck called. “I really need that change.” She just kept walking. He didn’t want to chase after her—the security guard would notice him for sure.
He pulled his hood over his head and watched her walk away. He wasn’t sure if he felt good because of the Good Deed or lousy because he just gave his friend’s money away.
He decided he felt good. Somehow change for the phone would come to him for that Good Deed.
He closed his lips so the air wouldn’t touch his teeth.
Maybe he could ask one of the mall shoppers, someone who looked like he had a quarter he could spare. All of them looked like they had places to go. None of them walked on the world like it was going to crack. None of them seemed to live under a curse that made them have to justify their share of the planet’s oxygen …
He saw the pill. She’d left it there, sitting in plain view on the bench beside him.
He sucked in a big gulp of mall air. Cold filled the holes in his teeth. He closed his mouth, but his teeth wouldn’t stop screaming.
The security guard was close. Heck put the pill in his pocket just as he strode by.
Heck punched his jaw, but it didn’t help.
He punched again, harder.
His jawbone trembled, his nasal passages vibrated, his teeth thrilled like flutes.
Heck folded his arms over his head. His tongue probed the holes in his teeth. Every bone in his head played the drums.
He took the escalator to the lower level of the mall. Behind the escalators there was a maze of medical offices. He walked the halls until he found a dentist. Dr. B. J. R. Murdock, D.D.S. There was a big smiling tooth painted on the window and a sign that said, “We Cater to Cowards.”
He passed that one, and walked into the next dentist’s office he came to.
He was sure the receptionist could hear his teeth, as if he had a personal CD player turned up too loud and the sound was leaking out of the headphones.
“Yes, can I help you?” she asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” he said. When your teeth hurt this bad, you didn’t care what people thought ab
out you. “Can I help you? Need any Good Deeds?”
“Good what?”
Heck swallowed. “Uh—any odd jobs need doing around here? In exchange for dental work?”
She looked puzzled for a moment, then smiled and shook her head. “Um, no, I don’t think so.”
Maybe the dentist was the doer of Good Deeds for other people. “Do you fill teeth for people who don’t have any money?” Heck asked.
She looked at him like he had a spider on his face. “No, I’m sorry, we don’t, but I believe you can call Social Services in the blue pages—”
“You can’t call,” Heck said. He’d tried once before when he didn’t want to worry his mom. Somehow, then, the pain went away, but now it had returned with a vengeance. “All you get is a hostile machine. It tells you to do all this stuff—send it income tax returns … I don’t have an income tax return.”
“I’m sorry, I wish we could—”
“I went to Community Assistance,” continued Heck, “but they don’t fill. They only pull. If I go to Community Assistance they’ll assist me until I don’t have any teeth left.”
She stared blankly at him.
“Do you give out pain medication?” Heck asked.
“Young man, I’m sorry, but …”
She kept saying she was sorry, but she didn’t seem very sorry. “Can you take me to your leader?”
She glared at him then, and he knew she was thinking that maybe he was carrying a flat handgun or a very thin rifle or …
She picked up the phone and said something, and in a moment a big man came out to the desk. He had thick black hair on his arms and was wearing green surgical clothes.
“Is there a problem here?”
“I think alien forces have begun their scheme to supplant the human race by germ warfare, and they’ve started in my mouth,” Heck said. “See?” He opened his mouth wide.
The dentist folded his arms. “So, now you know the real reason why we invented dental floss. All this stuff about plaque is just a coverup.”
Heck didn’t smile. “I could do odd jobs in exchange for dental work.”
Heck Superhero Page 2
