The Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters
Page 1
Text copyright © 2005 by MainBrain Productions Illustrations copyright © 2005 by Barry Gott
Little, Brown and Company
Time Warner Book Group
Hachette Book Group,
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
The Little, Brown and Company name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
First eBook Edition: June 2005
ISBN: 978-0-316-02858-5
The text for this book was set in Bookman Old Style, and the display type is Bernhard Gothic Heavy Italic. Series design by Billy Kelly.
CONTENTS
Chapter One: The Chapter That Begins This Book!
Chapter Two: The Chapter That Continues the Story!
Chapter Three: The Chapter in Which Even More Stuff Happens!
Chapter Four: The Chapter That Is Not About Doughnuts
Chapter Five: Chapter Is Not About Doughnuts, Either. Although Someone May THINK This About Doughnuts!
Chapter Six: We’ve Run Out of Chapter Titles, So We’ll Just Call This One “Mikey”!
Chapter Seven: The Return of Mikey!
Chapter Eight: He Likes It! Mikey Likes It!
Chapter Nine: The Chapter That Tells You What Happened to Earlobe Lad, Even Though I Didn’t Know It at the Time!
Chapter Ten: Mikey’s Big Day
Chapter Eleven: Mikey’s Summer Vacation
Chapter Twelve: The Origin of the Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters!
Chapter Thirteen: The Revenge of Mikey!
Chapter Fourteen: Mikey and the Case of the Swiped Sweets!
Chapter Fifteen: Bananas Taste Good!
Chapter Sixteen: Bye-Bye, Baby!
Chapter Seventeen: Evil Has a Tantrum
Chapter Eighteen: Charisma Kid Saves the Day!
Chapter Nineteen: What H appened Next That Was So Mind-Bo ggling, It Deserves Its Own Chapter!
Chapter Twenty: Atually, It Was So Mind-Boggling, It Deserves Two Chapters!
Chapter Twenty-one: “Uh . . .”
Chapter Twenty-two: Hello? Anybody?
To Amy Hsu—
thanks for laughing with us and not at us!
Chapter One
The Chapter That Begins This Book!
The explosion shook the walls and rattled the windows of the League of Big Justice. The vibration faded, and Pumpkin Pete scratched his large, orange chin.
“Hmmm. I guess it’s not that button,” he said, and hovered his finger over a different button.
“Uh, Pete,” I said, “maybe we should wait until King Justice gets back before we push any more buttons?”
“Nonsense!” Pete blurted. “Buttons are made for pushing! If they weren’t meant to be pushed, they’d be switches.”
I know that made perfect sense to Pete. But then, filling his head with whipped cream and running around yelling “I’m pumpkin pie! I’m pumpkin pie!” also makes sense to Pete. He claims it’s a trap to see who really wants to eat him.
“I know one of these days, one of those creepy kids in Spandex is going to come after me with a fork and a tub of Cool Whip,” Pete once said to me as he squirted the whipped cream up his hollow nose.
“ ‘Creepy kids in Spandex?’ ” I asked. “You mean the Sidekicks?”
“Is that what they are? Well, when Stabby the Fork Boy comes after me with his Super Fork, I’ll be ready for his forky ways!” Pete shook his fist in defiance, then mumbled, “Curse you, Stabby...”
“Who’s Stabby the Fork Boy?” I asked, realizing that the answer would probably leave me even more confused.
“He’s the kid in purple Spandex that runs around with that fork yelling ‘It’s stabbin’ time!’ ” Pete replied as whipped cream started to ooze out his ears.
See, I’m a superhero sidekick. My code name is Speedy (real name: Guy Martin). I can run over 100 miles per hour. Pumpkin Pete is my superhero sponsor, and I’m at the Sidekick Super Clubhouse every day. I’ve never seen any kid in purple Spandex running around with a fork, yelling “It’s stabbin’ time!” Although, there was that one time Boom Boy ran around the Clubhouse with a cardboard box over his head and a trombone in his hand, shouting, “Everybody make way for Boxy the Trombone Boy! Toot! Toot!”
I’m still trying to figure out what that was all about.
But right now, I had to figure out who had sent the large, crazy-looking machine to the League of Big Justice, and how I could stop Pete from pushing more of its buttons.
“You do realize that these buttons are blowing things up every time you push one?” I pointed out.
“And don’t you think switches blow things up? You’ve got a lot to learn if you don’t think switches are every bit as evil as buttons!” Pete’s long, viney finger poked another button. An explosion echoed in the distance. “And now my keen pumpkin senses have detected a second button not to push!”
“I really, really, really think it’s a very, very, very bad idea to keep pushing buttons.”
Pete spun away from the machine and glared at me. “Let me tell you something about super-heroes, Spuddy...”
“Speedy,” I corrected.
“Whatever. Now the thing about superheroes is, we’re super! And because we are super, we do super things. And super things are...uh... they’re...uh...”
“Super?” I offered.
“You bet your pumpkin pie they’re super! That’s why we’re superheroes! And I assure you, as a superhero, all the things I do are super !” Pete snarled. “Super! Super! SUPER!”
“Uh... what’s your point?” I asked.
“I have no idea!” Pete shouted back. “Now get out of my way so I can push more buttons!”
Pete slapped his palm on a large button near the top of the machine. There was a moment of silence, and then the Sidekick Super Clubhouse exploded.
“Pete! You blew up our clubhouse!” I said accusingly.
“Eh, that thing was blocking my view of Crosscreek Park anyway,” Pete defended as Sidekick Super Clubhouse debris rained down on the League of Big Justice Parking Lot of Big Justice.
“Super,” I said, and dropped my head into my hands.
Chapter Two
The Chapter That Continues the Story!
Pete nudged a glazed doughnut that lay next to his foot. He looked at the smoldering ruins where the Sidekick Super Clubhouse once stood and sighed. He tilted his head slightly so he could better see the smoldering ruins of Crosscreek Park. The twelfth button Pete pushed blew up the park, to which Pete had responded, “Eh, that park was blocking my view of Donutz Village.”
The thirteenth button Pete pushed had blown up Donutz Village and sent a rain of Cinnabuns and jelly-filled, powdered, and sprinkle-covered doughnuts across the League of Big Justice Parking Lot of Big Justice.
Pete picked up a burnt sugar doughnut. “Hungry?” he said, and offered me the blackened breakfast treat. I shook my head no.
“What’re we going to do, Pete?” I asked. We were lucky no one got hurt from all the button pushing and explosions.
Pete took a bite of the charred doughnut. “Well... did I mention I was super?”
“Yes.” I sighed.
Pete’s face contorted and his nose wrinkled. He spit out a black wad of sugar doughnut. “And that doughnut is anything but super!” He held the doughnut out to me again. “Are you sure you don’t want it?”
“Yes,” I repeated.
Pete shrugged and stuffed the rest of t
he doughnut into his mouth and chewed with a painful expression of displeasure.
“If it’s so bad, why are you eating it?” I asked. Pete pulled another scorched doughnut from under some burnt leaves. “Free food,” he mumbled, and stuffed the second doughnut into his mouth.
“Ahoy, fearsome fighters of the good fight!” It was King Justice, the coolest superhero ever to squeeze into Spandex and the leader of the League of Big Justice. He drove his Super Minivan of Kid Transport and Soccer Equipment around a large piece of burning rubble and pulled up next to Pete and me. On the bumper of his car was a sticker that read #1 SOCCER DAD. King Justice climbed from the car and surveyed the destruction.
“I didn’t do it!” Pete immediately said. “You’re probably wondering what happened,” I stated.
“Wondering what happened,” King Justice began, “or wondering what evil forces could be responsible for the destruction of so many yummy doughnuts?!”
Pete stuffed two more burnt doughnuts into his mouth. “Miff ma fwa bwaah hwo ga maff,” he explained, doughnuts packed into his cheeks.
King Justice looked at me, as if I’d know what the heck Pete was saying. I shrugged. “I guess it all began when this machine showed up at the League of Big Justice Hall of Big Justice.”
King Justice scanned the area. “And speaking of the League of Big Justice Hall of Big Justice ... where is it exactly?”
I looked to the place where the Hall of Big Justice used to be. There was a high pile of rubble and several small fires.
“Let me tell you about the fourteenth button Pete pushed...”
“Buttons?” King Justice gasped. “Does evil have no shame?! Does it know our every weakness?! Buttons are made! To! Be! Pushed! Who can resist the call of a BIG! RED! JUICY! BUTTON?!” King Justice grabbed his head as if the very thought of a big red button was driving him insane. “The very thought of a big red button is driving! Me! Insane!”
Pumpkin Pete leaned over to me. “I told you,” he said.
“The only thing that could have made this plan more evil is a plan with switches! You should see the things switches blow up!” King Justice gasped.
“Told you again,” Pete said to me. He jumped up from the curb and ran over to a cream puff that had a little flame still flickering on top. “Look! It’s like a little birthday cake! A little birthday cake that blew up and landed in my parking lot!”
King Justice moved a chunk of burning leather that used to be his La-Z-Boy chair and sat on the curb next to me. “Well, on the bright side, we don’t have to give any more tours. Oh! The questions I had to answer! My head! Pounding!”
Unless he was strapped to a rocket and being blasted into the heart of the sun or something, King Justice always took a few hours every weekend to give tours of the League of Big Justice Hall of Big Justice. After the tour, he always had a question-and-answer session. You’d think that if people had the chance to ask a question, any question, to the superhero responsible for saving the Earth about a hundred times, they’d ask better questions than “Can you create a rock that you can’t crush?”
After the guy had asked that question, King Justice considered his answer carefully. “I...I can’t create rocks,” he finally replied.
“You can’t? Oh.” The man also took a moment to think. “But I’m just saying, like, if you could create a rock, could you create one that you can’t crush?”
Another boy raised his hand. “King Justice! King Justice! In episode 42 of Alias, why did Sydney allow Sark to escape when she knew he was working with the Covenant?”
King Justice shuffled a foot and turned an embarrassed shade of red.
“Uh...I don’t know. I don’t watch that TV show,” he confessed.
“It’s not a TV show!” the kid yelled back. “It’s Alias!”
“If you were on an deserted island, which superhero would you vote off first?” a girl called out.
King Justice puffed out his chest. This was an easy question. “I wouldn’t vote anyone off. I’d build a large platform for everyone to stand on, then help The Librarian to fly us off the island.”
“You can’t fly off the island ... unless it’s an Immunity Challenge,” the girl corrected him.
Small beads of sweat formed on King Justice’s brow. “An... Immunity Challenge?” he wondered aloud. King Justice looked to the door, probably hoping it would blast off its hinges and a supervillain would come and strap him to a rocket and blast him into the heart of the sun.
Or something.
Chapter Three
The Chapter in Which Even More Stuff Happens!
“Hey! Hey! Who ordered doughnuts?” Boom Boy asked as he strolled up to the curb. King Justice was gone, picking through the rubble of the League of Big Justice Headquarters of Big Justice while Pumpkin Pete wandered about the parking lot collecting doughnuts and any loose change he could find.
“No one ordered doughnuts,” I explained. “What? What? They just fell from the sky?” Boom Boy replied.
“Yeah. Kind of. After Pete blew up Donutz Village, it just kind of started raining doughnuts.”
Pete looked up. He was on the other side of the League of Big Justice Parking Lot of Big Parking with an armful of chocolate-frosted doughnuts and a fistful of change. “I didn’t do it!” he shouted.
“Wait a second! You’re saying that you blew up Donutz Village without me?” Boom Boy blurted out.
“What do you mean, without you? It’s not like Pete and I got together and said ‘Hey! Let’s blow up Donutz Village, but not invite Boom Boy.’ Pete blew it up by accident. I think.”
“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? You think you can just go and blow up Donutz Village without Boom Boy?” Boom Boy snarled and balled his fists. “All those months of planning! Ruined! Those doughnuts should be mine, I tell you! Mine! I’ll show you what happens when you blow up Donutz Village without Boom Boy!”
With that, he stepped back from the curb and balled his fists. His face grew redder and redder as he prepared to blow himself up.
“Why’s Boom Boy trying to blow himself up?” Exact Change Kid asked. It was time for the daily sidekicks meeting and soon all of them would be here.
“Because we blew up Donutz Village without him,” I explained.
Boom Boy doubled over and grunted loudly. His face grew more and more red.
“What?! You blew up Donutz Village?” Exact Change Kid cried out. He pulled out his notebook from his utility belt and flipped to the middle. He tore out several pages and threw them at my feet. “All those months of planning! Ruined! Those doughnuts should be mine!”
I picked up one crumpled piece of paper. Across the top it read in large block letters: OPERATION DONUTZ VILLAGE. Below that it read in smaller letters: OBJECTIVE: TOTAL DONUT SUPREMACY. The other pages were filled with schematics, arrows, formulas, and a two-hundred-step plan to get all the doughnuts from Donutz Village.
The last page was a poorly drawn picture of Exact Change Kid sitting atop a mountain of doughnuts. Above his head was a banner that read KING DONUT.
Exact Change Kid doubled over and grunted loudly. His face grew more and more red as he and Boom Boy both clenched their fists tighter and gritted their teeth.
“What are you doing?” I said to Exact Change Kid. “You can’t blow yourself up!”
“I... know,” grunted Exact Change Kid between clenched teeth. “But right...now I’m...so...mad...I wish...I could!”
“If you guys want free doughnuts so badly, just go get some! They’re all over the place!” I pointed out. Suddenly Pete increased his pace of doughnut collecting, as if he knew competition was on its way.
“Wait!” Boom Boy said, and opened his eyes. “I get it now. I get it. You want me to blow up don’t you? Yeah. ’Cause once I do, I’ll be gone and then there’ll be more free doughnuts for you.”
“But I don’t want any of the doughnuts,” I informed him.
“And that’s how it better stay, because if you do, I swear, I swe
ar I’ll blow myself up!”
“Yeah! I swear I’ll blow myself up, too!” Exact Change Kid threatened.
I dropped my head into my hands. Right about now I really wish one of those big buttons had blown me up.
“Maaa pam mam maa pah ma mam pamh mam?” Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy asked as he rolled up in his Giant Hamster Ball of Justice. Large doughnuts were flattened all around the outside. The clear shell of his hamster ball looked as if it had acne.
Chocolate acne with pink and yellow sprinkles. “You’ll never guess,” Exact Change Kid said. “Speedy blew up Donutz Village.”
“MAAA PAM MA MA PAAA!? MA!? MA-HAHA-HAAAAAH!” Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy yelled, and ran forward so fast he hit his forehead against the inside of his Giant Hamster Ball of Justice and slid down the inside like a big, pink hairless hamster who had just found out his favorite doughnut shop had been blown up by a guy with a pumpkin for a head.
“Technically, I didn’t blow it up,” I corrected. “It’s a little too late for apologies now,” Boom Boy grumbled. He peeled a squished doughnut from the side of Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy’s Giant Hamster Ball of Justice, sniffed it once, shrugged his shoulders, and took a bite.
Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy sat at the bottom of his giant ball and let out a sad whimper. He pulled a small, crumbled piece of paper from his utility belt and stared at it as if it were an old photograph. I could see only the top of the worn piece of paper.
PROJECT DONUTZ VILLAGE, it said.
“Did you guys hear?!” Spelling Beatrice yelled as she and Spice Girl raced up. “Someone blew up Donutz Village!!”
“Someone ... ?” Boom Boy asked in a sarcastic tone, and kicked me with his toe.
“Do you know how much more sad I could be right now?” Spice Girl asked. “None more. That’s how much more.”
I sat on the curb and watched Boom Boy and Exact Change Kid join Pumpkin Pete in his doughnut collecting. Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy sat in the bottom of his Giant Hamster Ball of Justice and stared blankly at the failed ambitions of “Project Donutz Village.” King Justice returned with the broken left arm of his statue from the destroyed Hall of Heroes of Big Justice, and Spelling Beatrice quietly looked around the area.