“Yeah, so?”
“I may have whispered something to the wrong crowd.” She pointed out the window at a contingent of misfits marching toward us—the Dweeb League. “Nerd is the new superhero.”
“Oh, joy.”
The study room door opened and they filed in—a kid we called Whatsisface carrying a cafeteria tray overflowing with food, his Goth girlfriend Tish, and Kathryn’s boyfriend Bobby. Accompanying them was a pudgy little ninth-grader I didn’t recognize. He glanced across the table at me, gave me a little two-fingered salute, and stood at attention.
I shot Kathryn a you-call-this-slight? look.
Whatsisface plopped himself and his overburdened tray down beside me. He was the most oddly shaped human I had ever met. God had given him more than the normal share of legs and hips but less than he deserved of shoulders and head. The tray didn’t surprise me, though. Whatsisface’s eating abilities were legendary.
“Bobby-y,” Kathryn sang, patting the chair beside her. “Pop a squat.”
“Hi, Kitty,” Bobby said, taking his seat. “Whatsisface brought us a new member.”
“And a vat of food.” Kathryn puffed out her cheeks. “How did you get food into the library? We aren’t allowed.”
“Jedi mind trick,” Whatsisface said, waving his hand. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day, after all.”
“Sausage, eggs, potatoes, bacon, Cap’n Crunch… Big day.” Kathryn stared at the smorgasbord. “How many villages are you feeding?”
“Got to fuel the machine.” Whatsisface smiled. “You don’t maintain a body like this with exercise alone.”
“Your secret is safe with me,” Kathryn said. “Hey, I have a question. Does the machine have a name? I don’t feel right calling you Whatsisface to your face. I mean, behind your back, it’s okay, because I’d be like, ‘Hey, did you hear about Whatsisface?’ and everybody would know who I meant. But I’m sure your mother calls you something like Timmy or Johnny.”
Tish smiled. “Nope.”
Whatsisface turned slightly pale. “Hieronymus Friedrich Bodenwerder.”
Kathryn’s eyes widened. “So I should call you…?”
“Whatsisface,” Whatsisface said.
Kathryn nodded. “So, Whatsisface, who is our new member?”
“His name is Pickles.”
Kathryn clunked her head down on the table.
“Niles Piklowski,” Pickles said, arching an eyebrow. “The Niles Piklowski. You’ve probably heard of me.”
“Hi,” I said, wondering how old he was before he started getting beat up for saying things like that.
“The gamer,” Mason said. “I hear you’re pretty good.”
“Oh, I’m better than good, my man,” Pickles said. He flicked his head to the side, swinging his long bangs out of his face. “Let’s get right down to business. As I am the newest member of the Dweeb League, I have a special request for a special person.”
I looked around the room, trying to figure out who he was talking to.
“You, ma’am,” Pickles said, pushing his face so close to mine that our noses touched. “I’m talking to you.”
“Why me?” I backed up so I didn’t have to look at him cross-eyed.
“Because you are the local kung fu expert. I saw you in action against one Arthur Rubric. Now, I have to say, I’m not easily impressed, but girl, you have done it, and I am requesting advanced lessons. Don’t worry, I’m a quick study. Google me. I’m already world-renowned as a master of Immortal Assassin—billed as the impossible-to-defeat fighting game. Although”—Pickles closed his eyes and slowly shook his head—“I have defeated every level. Without, might I add, the benefit of cheat codes? No brag. Just fact.”
“What world?” I muttered.
“The world of online gaming, naturally.” He opened one eye and stared directly at me. “Obviously, I’m ready. I’d like to advance my already phenomenal skills in service to the Dweeb League.”
Kathryn patted me on the shoulder. “I mentioned the fact that you have actually taken martial arts lessons, as opposed to playing a mindless video game, and he was all over it. He wants you to call him Grasshopper.”
Pickles grinned at me. “Master.”
“Kwai Chang Pickles,” Mason said. “When you can snatch the controller from my hand, it will be time for you to leave.”
“It’s true, I’m the perfect man for the Dweeb League.” Pickles leaned close to me, cupped his hand alongside his cheek, and whispered, “I understand you’re safe, one of us, if you know what I mean. Now here’s the deal: I know the workings of the criminal mind. First it’s ‘kick me’ signs on people’s backs, then it’s burning paper bags of doggy doo on their doorsteps. Been there. So I ask myself, when is it going to stop? The answer came to me in a dream. I was sleeping in Language Arts after a grueling night of Immortal Assassin, when I heard an angel’s voice prophesying about Protectors who will stop the robberies.”
Kathryn grinned in embarrassment and raised her hand. “That would be the faux pas.”
Pickles didn’t seem to notice. “When I woke up—honestly, it was more like coming out of a trance—right then, I knew that the prophesy must be fulfilled. Yes, the world needs a hero. Newsflash—I’m that hero. Yes, me. Yours truly. People look at me with disdain and belly laughs. They don’t suspect that I am a ninja, a warrior’s warrior, a sheep in wolf’s clothing.”
“A wolf in sheep’s clothing?” Kathryn said.
Pickles smiled smugly. “See? I have the perfect cover. There’s only one thing I don’t have, but you do, sister. Yes, indeedy, you have got it!”
I turned to Kathryn. “What did he just say?”
“He wants to be a superhero.”
“I don’t do superheroing. They fly, leap tall buildings in a single bound, shoot webs…” I turned to Pickles. “I don’t think I’m the right one to teach you.”
“You are the one. This I know.” He put his hands on his hips and laughed a deep belly laugh. “Leave the superheroing to me, Pocahontas. I just need my feet to be as deadly as my brain. I’m nearly there. Watch this.”
He plucked Kathryn’s pencil from her hair, causing it to flop across her face, then he tossed the pencil high into the air. As it arced toward the ceiling, a high-pitched scream ripped from his throat. I assume it was meant to be a Bruce Lee imitation, but it sounded like a cat with its tail caught in a pencil sharpener. Pickles leaped into the air and threw a wild kick, totally splitting the seam out of his pants. His momentum spun him like a top and his foot plowed through Kathryn’s pile of books, sending them flying onto Whatsisface’s lap.
Pickles grinned at me, red-faced. “Okay, you get back to me on that, will you? We’ll set a time for the first lesson. TTFN.” He turned and duck-walked out of the study room, mumbling something about adding a sewing kit to his utility belt.
“Amazing.” Kathryn stared wide-eyed at the books piled on Whatsisface. “All that, and my pencil is still in one piece.”
I looked at Bobby. “Pocahontas?”
“That’s his code name for you,” Bobby said. “Kathryn is 99. He gave every member of the Dweeb League secret identities. Pickles is okay. He’s just a little…you know…odd.”
“Aren’t we all?” I said. “Why me, Bobby? Why not anybody else in the entire world?”
“You have a reputation. A lot of people saw you stand up to Art Rubric when he was trying to force kids to pay a toll to walk the halls.”
“Bobby, half the school stood up to him.” I pointed to Hieronymus— Whatsisface. “Whatsisface stood up to him. Whatsisface is awesome. We should all be more like him.”
Tish reached over and squeezed Whatsisface’s hand. “See? Told ya people like you.”
Whatsisface blushed and shoveled a sausage link into his mouth. He leaned back in his chair and smiled, chewing contentedly. “My peeps.” He held his hands wide. “It’s nice to have a place. I’ve never really had a place before, you know? It’s like I finally fi
t in. The Dweeb League makes it cool to be me.”
“You always did,” I said. “You’re one of us.”
“The Dweeb League made a lot of things cool,” Tish said. “It’s cool to say drugs are for losers. It’s cool to stick together against the bullies.”
“The Dweeb League!” Whatsisface bounced from his chair, threw his shoulders back and his meager chest out, pointed to the sky, and shouted, “Ruggedly handsome child protégés by day, Protectors of the downtrodden by night—”
“Where would we be without you?” I said.
He gazed back and forth between us then sat down with a massive grin. “At the mercy of Art Rubric and the Red Team.”
“What’s the Dweeb League intel on Art?” Mason asked. “He’s always been bad news, but he’s getting worse. I’m worried about him.”
“He used to be your friend,” Whatsisface said. “He was never mine.”
“Art got into things I want nothing to do with,” Mason said.
Whatsisface nodded. “Always high on Psychedone 10. Tammy Angel supplies him so he’ll do her bidding. I don’t have a clue what her bidding is, but Art is going downhill. Me, I hope he overdoses, but hey, no hard feelings, right?”
I scowled at Whatsisface, shocked. “That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”
Bobby smirked. “After what Rubric did to all of us—you included—I think you’ll have a hard time finding much compassion in the Dweeb League. But I think we need to find out what Tammy Angel’s bidding is.”
“What do we do when we find out?” Whatsisface said.
“Report her to the cops,” Bobby said. “Even Spider-Man does that. I mean, he might gift wrap the bad guys in webbing first, but then he calls the police.”
“I can get close to Art,” Whatsisface said. “He’ll never suspect I’m anything but a dweeb.”
“He’s right,” Bobby said. “Dweeb League dudes and dudettes are invisible to boneheads like Art. Let’s use that to our advantage.”
Whatsisface punched his fist into his palm, popped up from his chair, and waddled out of the study room, Tish close on his heels.
This was my first chance to be alone with Mason, Bobby, and Kathryn since Nicolaitan captured Mason. Bobby knew as much about me as Mason and Kathryn did. He had witnessed my Psi Fighter abilities firsthand the day I stopped Mason from murdering him. He protected my secret as fiercely as Kathryn did.
“Whatsisface is getting more confident,” Bobby said. “He’s exactly what we need to find out what Art is up to.”
“We have another problem,” I said. “The Knights are turning kids at this school into pawns. They call them their Proletariat.”
“Lower class citizens?” Kathryn said. “That’s snobbish.”
“It is,” I said. “And I plan to stop them.”
Chapter Eight
Mission Misérables
The Greensburg Public Library has everything a book aficionado could expect—the latest titles in print, digital, and audio, courses on every subject from nuclear physics to making vegan pancakes, the complete 1960s Batman TV series—that alone makes the visit inspirational—along with something no one would expect. A secret entrance to the Old Salem Academy of Psi Fighters.
Traditionally, secret entrances are found at the mouths of bat-infested caves or behind paintings that sing badly and refuse entrance unless you know the password. But the secret entrance in the Greensburg Library wasn’t built by anyone traditional. Andy designed it. He put it in the ladies bathroom, second stall to the right. Yes, Andy made a secret entrance from a reference to Peter Pan and a toilet. That’s my Andy.
The Academy is an amazing catacomb of tunnels and renovated rooms hundreds of feet beneath Greensburg in an area of the old coal mines that, according to official record, doesn’t exist. With secret entrances all around the city, the Psi Fighters can move freely without being seen. There are seven that I know of. They aren’t all toilets, but they’re all unforgettable. I love Andy, but seriously, he doesn’t quite grasp the concept of “normal.”
I entered the Greensburg Library through its large wooden front doors, followed closely by Susie, my ten-year-old sister, whom I adore and am protective over to the point of lunacy. Like me, she is a Psi Fighter in training. She won’t reach black belt level for another six years, but her kung fu skills are already phenomenal. Her Mental Arts skills, though…that’s another story. Extremely powerful, and totally unpredictable. Which came in handy during our battle with Egon.
We walked past the head librarian’s office, through the ladies’ room, and into Stall Number Two, closing the door behind us.
“Second stall to the right and straight on till morning,” Susie said. “You go first.”
I hugged her. “See you at the bottom.”
Following my normal after-school routine, I plopped down on the toilet and reached toward the roll of toilet paper.
“Uh-uh,” Susie said, doing a finger wag at me. “Don’t forget the most important part.”
“Thanks,” I said, hit the lever, and flushed. The bowl emptied but did not refill.
“Okay,” Susie said. “Now you’re safe.”
I laid my fingers delicately on the silver plate above the toilet paper roll and released a stream of psionic energy. The toilet immediately spun around to face the wall behind me, which slid silently open, revealing a dark shaft. Every time I used this entrance, I had to wonder why Andy hadn’t installed a seat belt. The toilet rolled on unseen tracks right into the mine shaft, with me firmly gripping the seat. The wall closed behind me. Without warning, the toilet and I dropped straight down into darkness.
After a second of freefall, bright lights blazed, illuminating the shaft the whole way to the bottom. Anthracite walls and dark timbers and the aroma of coal enveloped me as I plummeted deeper and deeper into the mine shaft, squealing in delight, my stomach in my throat. Air brakes hissed and the toilet came to a smooth halt. Not too long ago, I walked away from this ride soaked to the hilt with all the water I had forgotten to flush away before activating the secret entrance. That’s an experience you don’t want too often.
I jumped off and raised the toilet seat. Air valves whistled, and the potty shot straight back up the mine shaft. I walked away, happily dry, toward a single bulb that cast a small patch of yellow light on the far wall. A sign hanging against the wall read:
Old Salem Academy of Psi Fighters
Vanquish Evil
Do Right
Protect the Innocent
That’s our creed. Occasionally, it’s hard to live up to. I mean, some of the “innocents” we are sworn to protect are nasty, cranky people who could use a good dose of butt-whoop. Unfortunately, my training is in fighting evil, not attitude adjustment.
As I stood pondering the pros and cons of the Psi Fighter creed, a bloodcurdling scream reverberated from the mine shaft. It grew louder and louder then changed to side-splitting laughter as the air brakes engaged and the toilet slowed to a halt. Susie rolled off the seat onto the floor, giggling hysterically.
“I love that ride,” she said, pulling herself to her feet. “Let’s do it again!”
“You can go first when we go back up,” I said.
“I got the lights,” she said, still giggling.
I rubbed her back. “Go for it.”
She clapped her hands and the long dark tunnel ahead of us lit up for as far as I could see. Yes, Andy had installed a Clapper. When he first put it in, I’d made fun of his totally retro sense of humor, but I had to admit, it was much better than searching for a light switch in the dark.
The tunnel ran straight as a laser beam and disappeared in the distance. Except for the large timber supports, it didn’t look anything like a dingy old coal mine. The anthracite floors were polished like glass and the timbers hand waxed. Even the black iron plates holding the timbers together sparkled in the bright light. Susie and I passed several openings and doorways on the way to the training room, including one marked with a blink
ing red sign that read K-Mart. That’s where Andy invents our Psi Fighter gadgetry.
“K-Mart,” Susie said like a news reporter, “is where informed Kilodans shop.”
“You’ve been hanging around Andy too long.”
The main tunnel ended against a huge wall of coal with a silvery square embedded in its surface. To the average person, it looked like a plate of highly polished aluminum, but it was actually an electrode filled with circuitry designed to channel psionic energy. Andy had created a whole new field of electronics that he named Psitronics because it treated mental energy as though it were electricity. The shiny plate was a key.
I placed my palm against the plate and concentrated. Mental force caused my hair to fluff like terrible static cling. Psychic sparks jumped from my fingertips, and a massive section of the wall slid silently aside to reveal Andy standing in the middle of a large room, surrounded by Psi Fighters.
“Let the party begin,” Andy said as we entered the training room. “Line up!”
Andor Manchild—the Psi Fighter’s answer to Q of James Bond fame. Whereas Q is a genius, Andy is a goofnut. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a genius, too, but he tries so hard not to show it.
Susie joined the younger students while Andy and I took our places at the front of the class. The Four entered, and the class bowed to them.
The Four are the top leaders of the Psi Fighters. They don’t have names. We call them by their rank—Kilodan, Teradan, Gigadan, and Megadan, the highest levels of mastery of the Mental Arts. The Four are the most secretive of all the Psi Fighters. I don’t know much about them. They are always masked and armored. They rarely show up in class at the same time, and when they do, it’s nearly impossible to tell them apart. Their masks aren’t identical, but the differences are very subtle. They all look like angels in deep thought. Not even the students know their true identities. With one exception.
The Four stood silently, emotionlessly gazing out at the class, when one turned toward me and gave me a quick thumbs up before returning to her statue-like posture. The Megadan. I had always thought the Four were guys until the Megadan created a Psionic Yardstick and threatened me with detention. Mrs. Bagley, high school principal, and the last person I would have ever suspected to be a Psi Fighter.
Live and Let Psi Page 5
