by Greg James
His head full of questions, Murph wandered along to the auditorium by himself later. As he entered, he looked up at the stone tablet bearing the Heroes’ Vow, realizing the world of Heroes was bigger and more sinister than he had imagined. And how much more there was to fear. For the first time, it struck him that a world of superheroes brings with it the possibility of a world of supervillains.
Murph shuffled forward in the lunch line toward whatever delights awaited him. As he was quite short, he could only see the steam rising off the serving trays but was aware of the frantic motioning of the lunch ladies as they slopped and splatted the food onto the plates like robots on a production line. Friendly robots though, Murph thought. Robots called Edna, with hairnets. He patiently waited his turn as he edged toward the front of the line.
Suddenly it turned into a very good day. It was his favorite: spaghetti and meatballs with garlic bread. And even better than that, it was a fresh batch.
We all know what a great feeling it is watching the poor sucker before you get the scrapings from the tired, burned dish and then seeing the new one sliding into place. Murph was first in line. The new dish was ALL HIS. It’s the lunchtime equivalent of getting into bed and realizing there are clean sheets—except in this case, the sheets were covered in delicious tomato sauce, with cheese pillows.
Murph was moments away from watching the spoon make its first trip into the glistening meat-fest when a sharp push to his ribs knocked him backward. The people behind him in the line grumbled as he staggered into them.
Murph looked around in confusion—it appeared that no one had touched him—and by the time he turned back there was someone else being served the aforementioned glistening meat-fest. It was a tall, gangly, pimply kid with a wispy mustache that hung above his lip like it was embarrassed to be there.
“Oops. Did you fall over?” he asked sarcastically.
“Hey, you pushed in and . . . pushed me . . . I think,” replied a confused Murph.
The mustached boy just laughed, grabbed the last three slices of garlic bread, and strolled off.
Murph was so aghast at the whole situation that he hadn’t realized that the rest of the line had since swarmed past him to collect their food. The line now snaked right back to the door and he was no longer in it.
This was unfair, and Murph hated injustice. Besides, lunch was the only thing he’d been looking forward to that day. Thanks to growing up with a smelly big brother, he wasn’t afraid of sticking up for himself. So he started to march over to where the gangly line-jumper had sat down and was about to address him when he not iced who was sitting at the table with him.
The boy was surrounded by what can only be described as a terrifying collection of teenage monsters. Murph quickly nicknamed them all in his head to try and keep calm. Alongside Gangly Fuzz Face were Pork Belly Pig Breath, Corned Beef Boy, Crazy Eyes Jemima, and, last but not least, Frankenstein’s Nephew. It was a shame, he thought, that these names would never see the light of day, but it was probably safer that way.
At this point, Murph realized he’d been standing there staring at this array of beasts and naming them silently for around ninety seconds. They’d all stopped chewing and were staring back at him.
Except for Jemima. You were never quite sure what she was looking at.
“WHAAAAAT?” screamed Jemima suddenly and at the top of her voice.
“He pushed me out of the way and took my place in the line,” Murph replied.
“AND?” grunted Corned Beef Boy. “What you gonna do about it?”
Murph started feeling a bit worried.
“Hang on . . . Isn’t this the kid with no Cape?” said one of the goons.
“Why are you even at this school anyway?” said another.
“Yeah, shove off!” laughed Gangly Fuzz Face, and once again Murph felt a powerful shove in the center of his chest. He instantly recoiled, stumbling back uncontrollably into a huge pile of dirty plates. The plates hesitated for a moment, tottered playfully from side to side, and then decided to make a nuisance of themselves and cascade everywhere.
They fell backward, showering the table behind, where, to his horror, Murph could see the bald head and broad back of Mr. Flash. A bald head and broad back that were now covered in splotches of tomato sauce and hoops of spaghetti.
Gangly Fuzz Face and his friends all scattered, terrified of being connected to what had happened. Mr. Flash got to his feet and turned around slowly, like one of those ballerinas in a music box only without the frilly skirt. His face was red, and not just because there was a significant amount of tomato sauce dripping down it like savory magma from an erupting volcano. He picked a morsel of chewed garlic bread from his mustache and surveyed the scene.
It didn’t look good for Murph, who was standing right beside the smashed pile of plates.
“DID YOU DO THAT, COOPER?” shouted Mr. Flash.
Murph considered several possible answers to this question. But he only got as far as “Ummmmmm” before Mr. Flash had identified another possible culprit.
“OR WAS IT YOU, YOU GREAT LIABILITY?” he roared over Murph’s shoulder.
Murph spun around and saw the boy from his class who could inflate different parts of his body. The kid looked absolutely terrified at being shouted at by a tomato-flavored monster like this, and in his panic one of his hands suddenly ballooned, sending his glass of milk flying.
This did nothing to calm down Mr. Flash. “IT WAS YOU, WASN’T IT? YOU CLUMSY LITTLE . . . YOU’VE BALLOONED ALL THE BLINKIN’ PLATES OVER, HAVEN’T YOU?”
The boy made a small whimpering noise and edged along the bench as if trying to escape, one of his ears inflating with a high-pitched whining sound.
“Problem, Mr. Flash?” said a voice.
Murph spun around again and was relieved to see Flora, the old lady who sat outside the headmaster’s office, carrying a cup of tea.
“You seem to be covered in bolognese,” she went on helpfully. “We should go and get you cleaned up.”
Mr. Flash made a spluttering noise and flicked a meatball off his shoulder.
“Come along,” continued Flora brightly, and she led him away firmly by the arm, but not before turning to Murph with a wink.
“That was a close one,” said the inflated-hand boy. “I’m Billy, by the way.”
“Murph,” said Murph, holding out his hand.
“Yeah, I know who you are. Kid Nor—”
“Don’t even go there, Balloon Boy,” said Murph, but with a smile.
“Heeey,” said Billy. “If you get to call me Balloon Boy, then you’re Kid Normal.”
“Billy it is, then,” Murph decided.
“Nice to meet you, Murph,” replied Billy. “I quite like Balloon Boy, as a matter of fact. Anyway, have a seat. I’ve got some garlic bread left.”
14
Captain Brush
As January went on, Billy spent more and more time with Mary, Hilda, and Murph. “We’re like a crime-fighting team!” enthused Hilda once, but she fell silent as the other three looked at her with eyes that asked, “Seriously?”
But no sooner had Murph’s life at school started to seem like something he might be able to cope with than, out of nowhere, the rug was not only pulled from beneath his feet but yanked, thrown into the corner, and set on fire. And guess who was standing there holding the matches? Correct. Once again it was the bristling, shouty Mr. Flash bearing the bad news.
A couple of weeks after the Great Tomato Sauce Incident, Murph and Billy had wandered to the library to avoid going outside into the raw January weather. It was a large, comfortable room with a calm atmosphere that was only rarely interrupted by a gentle boop as the librarian, Mrs. Fletcher, checked out books with her computer.
I wonder what her Cape is, Murph found himself thinking as they settled into two comfy chairs near the window. Idly he imagined Mrs. Fletcher firing flames out of her hands, or leaping tall buildings with her pleated, plum-colored skirt flapping in the breeze. It
crossed his mind that her glasses, which were fastened around her neck on a delicate metal chain, could actually be very useful in a rescue situation. You’d never lose them, he thought. And you could also use the loop as a lasso to reel in the bad guy. Murph’s imagination, as ever, was getting the better of him. Ironically, he was only minutes away from finding out what Mrs. Fletcher’s Capability actually was, when Mr. Flash barged into the library like a wrecking ball.
“COOPER!” he barked, looking around like an angry lighthouse.
Mrs. Fletcher bristled. “Shhhhhhh,” she hissed sharply.
Mr. Flash tried again. “COOPER!” he husked, in one of the loudest whispers ever recorded.
“Oh nooooo,” whined Billy, sliding down behind his chair, “he’s gonna shout at us. He’s still angry about getting covered in saaaaaauce.” But it wasn’t sauce that Mr. Flash had come to discuss. He spotted Murph in his seat beside the window and strode over, his huge boots clonking on the floor. Mrs. Fletcher went bright pink and made another angry shushing noise.
“Cooper,” began Mr. Flash in an even more strangled voice. “I have some news for you. Now that I’ve got to start preparing the class for their P-CAT, obviously there’s not much point you being in my lessons.”
Oh great! thought Murph. This is where he tells me I can hang out in the library for an hour every morning.
“But you’re not going to be hanging around in the library every morning,” roared Mr. Flash unhelpfully. Behind him, Mrs. Fletcher got up from her librarian’s chair, looking furious and shushing like a nearly boiled kettle. “You’re going to be helping out Carl while the rest of us have CT.” Mr. Flash looked like he was enjoying himself enormously.
“The janitor?” asked Murph blankly.
“That’s right. You’ll be the right-hand man’s right-hand man,” Mr. Flash went on. “So in the morning, you head to Carl’s and see what you can help out with, and leave the rest of us to get on with some work. ALL RIGHT?”
Mr. Flash had gradually become aware that someone was standing right beside him, breathing heavily. Nervously, he turned his head and found himself staring into the furious eyes of Mrs. Fletcher.
“This is a library,” she began angrily, “and I . . . said . . . shush. So would you please . . . shush.”
“All right, Mrs. Mouse, just giving Cooper here some good news. Keep your pants on.”
“I beg your pardon . . . ,” began Mrs. Fletcher.
“You heard. Don’t get your hair in a twist. It’s too quiet in here anyway.”
At this point Mrs. Fletcher lost her temper. And this is where Murph found out what her Capability was. Because when Mrs. Fletcher boils over, her head transforms into a very large foghorn. And you know what noise a very large foghorn makes.
“PAAAAAAAAARP!” went Mrs. Fletcher’s foghorn head, directly into Mr. Flash’s face.
And then again. Twice more. “PAAAAAAAARP! PAAAAAAARP!”
After the three blasts, the entire library was silent from shock and awe.
Mr. Flash looked rather dazed and rather windswept. He reached up and wiped some librarian spit off his face, adjusted his mustache, and quietly walked off.
Mrs. Fletcher’s head transformed back into a normal-size librarian head and she sat down as if nothing had happened.
The following morning, instead of heading to CT, Murph trudged off to begin his glamorous role as janitor’s assistant. After Mr. Flash had left the library, Billy had informed Murph that Carl had a workshop on the edge of the woods at the back of The School grounds.
As Murph crossed the soccer fields, he realized for the first time how large and cleverly laid out the grounds of The School were. The green fields behind the main buildings were almost totally secluded, with high wooden fences stretching into the distance and only a few treetops visible beyond. The School was on the edge of a steep ridge, he figured out, and because the ground dropped away so sharply, the whole place was practically invisible.
Perched on the edge of a slope near the trees was a collect ion of wooden buildings that, as Murph approached, he saw was bigger than it looked from a distance.
Carl’s workshops tumbled down the first part of the slope on a cleverly stepped series of platforms. It was as if a building had been pushed off the edge of the hill and come to rest mid-collapse. There were extremely large double doors to the left—securely padlocked—that seemed to lead into a garage of some kind. To the right was a smaller door, which looked like the main entrance; there were large flowerpots on either side of it, although at this time of year they contained nothing but brown earth and the remains of the morning frost on top. And pinned up just beside the door was a small, grubby square of cardboard with the words Fortress of Solitude written in small, neat, curly handwriting. Next to them, in a different pen, someone else had drawn a smiley face.
Murph screwed his face up into the “other people are confusing” expression that he was now adopting for around 67 percent of the school day, and knocked on the door.
“Around the back,” came a voice from the woods below him. Along the side of the building, Murph noticed a walkway of planks and paving stones that led crookedly down the hill and around to the back of the buildings. He picked his way down, heading toward a large pond he could make out through the trees. Overlooking the pond was a wide deck supported on stilts, and Murph caught a glimpse of a wisp of grayish smoke rising from it.
The smoke was emerging from a short wooden pipe stuck into the underside of a neat gray mustache. Above the mustache was a checked brown cap, and in between the two of them was a pair of shrewd eyes. Two muddy leather boots finished off this whole arrangement, stretched out comfortably in front of an old-fashioned deck chair.
“Kid Normal,” he said, drawing the words out speculatively and gazing at Murph through the cloud of smoke that came with them.
Murph realized that though he had seen the janitor zipping around The School plenty of times, he’d only once actually heard him speak before. His voice had a reassuring old-man huskiness to it, but it was deeper and more confident than he’d been expecting.
Murph half raised a hand in a nervous wave.
“Mr. Flash said I should come and help you out,” he explained. “I’m off CT because I don’t, you know . . .” He trailed off.
“Because you don’t have a Cape,” the janitor finished for him. “Because Geoffrey Souperman signed you up to The School thinking you were a skimmer, and now he’s too embarrassed to admit he’s made a massive mistake.”
That about sums it up, thought Murph, signifying this by raising his eyebrows slightly and puffing out his cheeks.
“I’m Carl Walden. Pleased to meet you. Well, what can you do, then, Kid Normal? Can you hold a brush?”
Murph bristled. “Of course I can hold a brush. Holding a brush isn’t a superpower—sorry, a Capability. Who would watch a film about the adventures of the amazing Captain Brush?”
“Who would watch a film about a perfectly ordinary kid?” countered Carl, which was unanswerable.
Murph did not answer, proving this to be true.
“Right then, Captain Brush,” continued the janitor, “time to put your amazing powers into action. The School is under threat! Only you can save the day. You’ll find your secret weapon in the cupboard behind me.” He jerked his head in the direction of a rough wooden door in the back wall of the outbuildings. “Sweep out the workshop for me. I’ll be here if you need anything.” He settled back in his chair as Murph went inside, leaving Carl to gaze out over the calm waters of the pond in the woods.
It was warm inside the workshop, and it carried the reassuring smell of sawdust, glue, and paint. A long wooden bench ran along the entire length of the room on one side, and above it was a board covered with every imaginable kind of tool, all neatly arranged in special clamps or hanging from hooks. There were intriguing contraptions everywhere: something motorcycle-shaped sat in one corner, covered by a cream-colored cloth, and weird-looking weapons lined
another wall. One had a large iron grappling hook sticking out of the end.
Murph found a broom and began sweeping half-heartedly, all the while taking in this mysterious place. On one shelf was a collection of angels, some made out of pottery, some wooden, with big faces, small faces, elaborate wings, and broken wings. A series of metal clamps, one of which Carl seemed to have been using recently, ran along the edge of the main workbench. There was a small pile of metal shavings on the floor underneath and a selection of tools strewn across the worktop nearby. Held in the clamp was a metal wristwatch.
Murph swept his way in that direction to get a better look. The watch had a lot of buttons, and he wondered what they could all possibly be for. Unable to resist the urge to find out, he touched one tentatively. Maybe it was one of those watches that could change the channel on the TV?
A jet of flame shot out of the side of the watch and singed a nearby potted plant.
Safe to say it isn’t one of those TV-remote watches, thought Murph, dashing over and furiously trying to pat out the smouldering begonia.
“Everything all right in there, Captain Brush?” came Carl’s voice from outside.
“Yep, absolutely! Just brooming away!” lied Murph, as a burning leaf drifted delicately to the floor.
As he was dusting the ash from the workbench, his attention was caught by something even more interesting than a flamethrower watch. Tucked away behind the plant was a wooden box full of photographs with its lid half off. Murph took a closer look and saw a face he recognized.
He carefully slid the photo out, trying not to disturb the stack or start any more fires.
It was a large black-and-white image of two men with their arms around each other and their thumbs up. One of the men was Mr. Souperman, dressed in the red costume Murph now knew belonged to his alter ego, Captain Alpha.
The other man, he realized with a thrill, was a much younger Carl—with no mustache, but still dressed in the same clothes and wearing his distinctive checked cap. Both men were smiling, standing in front of a car with a long hood, which was dented and scorched. But as Murph peered at it, trying to make out more details, he heard the door handle behind him turn.
