by Stan Kirby
The best thing about school that isn’t Turbo Day is a class field trip. Eugene couldn’t wait. If anything could take his mind off his missing comic, it would be a trip to the zoo. He loved field trips. If you asked Eugene what his favorite class was in school, his answer would be field trip.
His second favorite class?
“Another field trip.”
And a trip to the zoo would also give Eugene a chance to see if there was any crime or bad stuff happening in Sunnyview. Plus he’d see some pretty cool animals.
As his classmates filed out of the classroom, Eugene pretended to tie his shoelace. After the class was empty, he scampered to Charlie’s desk and searched through his things. Books. Pencils. A ruler. Cans of cheese. But still no sign of Super Dude No. 429.
Maybe I’m wrong about Charlie. But who else could’ve taken my comic?
“Eugene? Are you coming?” Ms. Beasley asked, poking her head back into the classroom.
“Coming!” Eugene raced for the door. He’d be the last one on the bus, but that was no problem. Charlie would save a seat for him like he always did.
You can always count on a superhero best friend.
Eugene raced up the steps and onto the bus. He now felt silly for thinking his best friend, Charlie, had taken his comic book. He couldn’t wait to sit next to him for the long ride to the zoo.
And then the world turned upside down! Eugene’s mouth hit the floor! He saw the most horrible thing he could ever possibly see except for that time his dad gave him a haircut.
Meredith Mooney was sitting next to Charlie. Not Eugene . . . Meredith. The awful “ME . . . MY . . . MEREDITH!”
ARGH!
“Hey, Charlie!” Eugene said. “I thought you were saving me a seat?”
“I got here first.” Meredith smiled.
“Sorry, Eugene,” Charlie said. “She did call ‘firsties.’”
DOUBLE ARGH! What kind of person steals a seat on a bus? And what kind of a best friend lets a seat stealer call “firsties”?!
Seat-stealing is just the kind of thing a supervillain does when they’re not trying to crush the world or steal radioactive waste from the Moon!
This was not Meredith Mooney, the girl who always wore pink ribbons in her hair. This was Little Miss Stinky Pinky, the sworn enemy of Captain Awesome, and no friend to his sidekick, Turbo, either. She had once hamsternapped him. Nacho Cheese Man knew she was bad, even if she did wear pink ribbons in her hair.
But what was her evil plan? Villains like Little Miss Stinky Pinky were always up to no good!
Maybe she was trying to get information out of Charlie. Or WORSE! WORSER THAN WORSE! Maybe she was trying to crush the Sunnyview Superhero Squad? Evil hates best friend superheroes!
“There’s a seat up here, Eugene,” Ms. Beasley called out and patted the empty seat next to her.
Sit next to the teacher on a field trip?
BARF!
That’s even worse than sitting next to your sister or getting cheek-pinched by wrinkly old Aunt Matilda!
What kind of Superhero Squad member is Nacho Cheese Man? Eugene wondered as he made the long, doomed journey to the seat next to Ms. Beasley. If he can’t be counted on to battle all super-villains calling “firsties,” what’ll he do when a supervillain blasts the Earth with melted butter? Nacho Cheese Man is no longer on the side of goodness and hamsters. He did steal my comic, I’ll bet!
It was time now for Captain Awesome to confront a new, cheesy evil!
“You might not be able to stand up against bus seat firsties,” Eugene said quietly. “But keep your cheesy hands off my comic books!”
Charlie rocked back and forth on his swing, trying to move. He wobbled, weebled and wobbled, then wobbled some more. No luck. He wasn’t going anywhere. The thing about swings is, if you can’t get going on your own, then it’s really just like sitting in a chair with chains.
“It’s your turn to push,” Charlie finally said to Eugene, who sat on the swing next to him.
Eugene didn’t reply. He just scrunched his face up like he was pretending to be a prune.
“Eugene? It’s your turn to—”
“NO WAY!” The words just exploded from Eugene’s mouth.
Eugene jumped from his swing, looking more scrunchy and prune-faced than ever before and stomped to Charlie.
“Listen! CAPTAIN AWESOME is the leader of the Sunnyview Superhero Squad, NOT Nacho Cheese Head!”
“Nacho Cheese Man,” Charlie corrected, a little annoyed.
“And since CAPTAIN AWESOME is the leader of the Superhero Squad and NOT Nacho Bologna Head, you should be pushing me on the swings!” Eugene continued.
Now it was Charlie’s turn to be quiet. He didn’t know what to say or why Eugene was acting like he was. Then it hit him! Aliens stole his best friend’s brain, stuck it in a jar, and replaced it with an evil alien robot brain!
Charlie leaped from his swing! “Don’t worry, Captain Awesome!” He used his heroic Nacho Cheese Man voice. “I’ll save your brain!”
“And I know you stole my most favorite, best Super Dude comic book ever!”
“I did not!” Charlie said, defending himself.
“Did so! Issue number four hundred twenty-nine! You were there when I double-evered it!” Eugene said. “And you teamed up with the worstest, most evil, and pinkest supervillain in the whole biggest universe to do it: Little Miss Stinky Pinky!” Gross!
“You . . . you don’t really mean that?” Charlie was stunned.
“I mean it like my mom does when she says ‘eat your vegetables or you won’t get any dessert,’” Eugene growled.
Charlie’s stomach twisted into knots and he felt sick—and not just because Eugene was talking about vegetables. “I was wrong,” Charlie began. “Aliens didn’t switch your brain with an evil alien robot brain . . . they switched it with a NO-GOOD, ROTTEN, GUNKY, STINK EGG, MONKEY-FACED POTATO, EVIL ALIEN ROBOT BRAIN!”
Charlie stomped off, then turned around. “And I never stole your stupid comic book!” Charlie stomped off, then turned around again. “And I quit the Superhero Squad!”
Charlie stomped off, but this time, there was no more turning around.
Eugene plopped back onto the swing and crossed his arms. He was angrier than the time Queen Stinkypants flushed his Super Dude action figure down the toilet. And in fact Eugene would’ve been a lot more angry . . . if he wasn’t so sad.
Eugene sat at the table and stared at his vegetables. He rolled the peas to one side of his plate then rolled them behind the mashed potatoes so he wouldn’t have to look at them. Eugene’s mom made peas a lot. Sometimes she steamed them. Sometimes she boiled them. Sometimes she added butter. Sometimes she added tiny little onions. But no matter how she tried to disguise the little green things, they were still icky peas! BLECH!
Eugene lifted his mashed potatoes with his spoon and mushed them over the peas.
“Eat your vegetables or you won’t get any dessert,” his mom reminded him.
Eugene sighed. He didn’t feel like eating anything anyway, including dessert.
Eugene’s mom touched her son’s hand. “You seem upset, Eugene. Is something wrong?”
Eugene shrugged and mumbled something that sounded like “Dere’s muffin gong.”
“I know what might cheer you up,” his mom continued. “What if we asked Charlie’s mom if Charlie can come over this Friday for another sleepover?”
“Charlie’s not my best friend! He’s not even my worst friend! I’d rather have a sleepover with Queen Stinkypants than Charlie because at least I already know Queen Stinkypants is going to try to shoot me into space in a giant diaper, so it won’t be a surprise when she does!”
Eugene raced from the table and ran to his room.
His mom and dad sat at the table in shocked silence. Then Eugene’s dad, Ned, asked, “Wait. Who’s Queen Stinkypants?”
“I really think that one of us should go see what’s up with him,” Eugene’s mom said.
“I’ll go.” Eugene’s dad quickly got up from his seat. He hoped that, by the time he came back to the dinner table, his wife would’ve already thrown away the icky peas he’d hidden under the roast beef on his plate.
Eugene’s dad knocked on the door. Eugene covered his head with a pillow and mumbled, “Come in.”
His dad sat on the bed. “Are you okay, son?” Eugene’s dad felt a bit strange talking to a pillow. “Did something happen with Charlie?”
“Everything went wrong with Charlie!” Eugene blurted, throwing the pillow off his face. “Turbo rolled to Charlie and not me when I called ‘Turbo Force,’ then Charlie let Meredith Mooney sit next to him on the bus just ’cause she called ‘firsties,’ and he wanted me to push him on the swing just ’cause it was my turn to push, and most of all he stole my favoritest double-evered Super Dude number four hundred twenty-nine comic!” Eugene took a deep breath. Saying all those words at once made his face turn really red.
Eugene’s dad thought about his son’s problems very carefully, mostly because he had no idea what “Turbo Force,” “firsties,” and “double-evered” even meant, but also because he loved Eugene and didn’t want to mess things up even more. Luckily, Eugene’s dad knew one way he could help.
“Eugene, I don’t think Charlie stole your Super Dude comic. . . .”
“How would you know that unless you had X-ray vision or something?” Eugene paused for a moment, then asked hopefully, “Do you have X-ray vision?”
“No, son, but I do have this. . . .”
Eugene’s dad pulled out the missing copy of Super Dude No. 429. Eugene practically fell out of his bed. How did his dad get his Super Dude comic!? Was he the one who took the comic from Eugene’s room!? But why?! Then it hit Eugene! Aliens stole his dad’s brain, stuck it in a jar, and replaced it with an evil alien robot brain!
Eugene leaped from his bed! “Don’t you worry, Dad! Captain Awesome will save your brain!”
“My brain is fine. Although . . . I do get a little headache sometimes when I see your mom’s made more peas for dinner. . . .”
“But why did you take my comic?” If aliens didn’t steal his dad’s brain . . . well, Eugene was very confused.
“I didn’t take it. I found it in Molly’s baby doll stroller. And I think she took it because she wanted to play with you. She wanted to do something you liked to do.”
She wanted to play with me? Eugene thought. “When I saw her in the backyard, I kinda called her a ‘bad guy’ and told her to not open the doorway to the barkyard,” Eugene confessed, feeling rotten.
“Molly was going to open the doorway . . . to the, oh . . . backyard? That is pretty serious stuff.” Eugene’s dad put an arm around his son. The boy stared quietly at the Super Dude comic. “Eugene, do you know what makes Super Dude a superhero? It’s not the costume or the superpowers, it’s because, when someone needs help, Super Dude does everything he can to help them, no matter who they are. He treats everyone with kindness and respect—except for the bad guys, of course. And that makes him someone the rest of us can look up to and admire . . . just like Molly does to you, her big brother.”
The last words made Eugene have a terrible thought—yes, even more terrible than Super Dude covered in drool. He hadn’t been very nice to his little sister, and if she was the one who took his Super Dude comic, then he had been pretty rotten to Charlie as well.
The thought was really hard for Eugene to swallow, even harder than his mom’s icky peas. Maybe it was Captain Awesome who was acting like the “bad guy” after all.
The next day at school was Friday.
Pizza Friday!
Pizza Fridays are the most awesome day of the week because, in case you couldn’t guess by the name, they served pizza in the cafeteria. Eugene loved it . . . much more than Mystery Meat Mondays.
Actually, Eugene loved almost anything more than Mystery Meat Mondays.
But this Friday, Eugene wasn’t very excited about much—even pizza. He took a bite of the cheesy triangle and sighed. Usually, he and Charlie would see who could make the longest cheese string from their mouths to the pizza slice, but making cheese strings wasn’t much fun sitting alone.
Charlie was sitting across the cafeteria. He wasn’t making cheese strings, either. Eugene picked up his lunch tray and headed over. Eugene had a lot to say. There was so much to explain, but he left it all up to one word:
“Sorry.”
Charlie shrugged and ate his pizza.
Eugene continued. “Captain Awesome didn’t—I mean I didn’t treat you very well and I’m sorry. Will you please come back to the Sunnyview Superhero Squad?”
“Because the safety of the universe kinda depends on it?” Charlie asked.
“No,” Eugene replied. “Because you’re my best friend.”
Charlie smiled. He was about to say something, but made a cheese string instead. “I bet you can’t beat that one!”
Eugene bit his pizza. A gooey cheesy cheese string stretched from his mouth to the pizza slice. The string broke and flopped over Eugene’s chin.
“MI-TEE!” Eugene and Charlie said at the same time.
The two boys laughed and their happiness washed away any bad feelings over their fight.
And just in time for a sleepover on Friday night.
The next morning Eugene and Charlie both woke with a start.
“HOOOOWWWWWWL!”
“Charlie! Mr. Drools is back!” Eugene gasped and quickly reached under his pillow to make sure Super Dude No. 429 was still there.
“I’m all cheesed up and ready to go!” Charlie whipped out two cans of cheese and popped the tops.
ZIP! ZIP!
In a flash the boys pulled out their superhero outfits, and a moment later, Captain Awesome, Nacho Cheese Man, and Turbo—in his plastic hamster ball, the Turbomobile—climbed down the ladder to do battle with the droolicious Mr. Drools!
They jumped off the ladder and onto the surface of the moon, only to be met by the shocking sounds of gibberish!
“Gah-gwarr-googee! GAAAH!”
“Oh no!” Nacho Cheese Man cried out, holding his canned cheese even tighter. “It’s Queen Stinky-pants!”
Eugene was about to unleash some awesome Captain Awesome awesomeness on his archenemy, but then he remembered what his dad had said.
“I . . . I think she just wants to play with us—I mean, fight evil with us,” Captain Awesome said, just in time to stop Nacho Cheese Man from launching his three-cheese attack. “We can always use some extra hero-power to defeat Mr. Drools!”
Queen Stinkypants was going to help them? Nacho Cheese Man was confused for a second. Then he realized Super Dude’s famous Rule 42:
Sometimes evil teams up with goodness to fight a bigger evil.
Maybe it was like that with Mr. Drools and Queen Stinkypants. After all, the slobbering menace did gobble up the queen’s favorite Stinkdoll just last week.
Captain Awesome stuck out a hand to Queen Stinkypants and asked, “Do you want to help us?”
“Gwaaa-ha-ha-ha-heee-giggle-giggle!” Queen Stinkypants laughed with joy and she hugged Captain-Awesome’s leg.
“No hugging.” The Captain blushed and quickly unpeeled her.
“HOOOOWWWWWWL!”
“Come on, heroes! Let’s put Mr. Drools back in the doghouse!” Captain Awesome called out and led the charge.
There was a strange smile on Queen Stinkypants’s face as the three heroes rushed into battle. There was an even stranger smell coming from her diaper. Captain Awesome knew he might not be able to trust her forever, but at least on this day, they were three heroes fighting side by side against . . . THE DREADED MR. DROOLS AND HIS PAWS OF DESTRUCTION—and Eugene wouldn’t have it any other way.
“RUN!”
Captain Awesome grabbed the Frisbee and raced for his life!
“We’re not going to make it!” Nacho Cheese Man shouted, an empty can of cheese in his hand.
Rowwwwwl! The howl of their enemy was
directly behind the heroes and getting closer!
The Danger-Stopping Dynamic Duo had made the dangerous journey into Mr. Drools’s Dog Star battle station to save their precious Frisbee being held captive in Mr. Drools’s drippy, droolish jaws.
Who is Mr. Drools? He’s only the most slobberingest monster from the Howling Paw Nebula! He wakes up neighborhoods around the galaxy with his barking, his Drool of Destruction, and his taste for Frisbees.
Eugene McGillicudy and his best friend, Charlie Thomas Jones, were not just ordinary students at Sunnyview Elementary. They also had supersecret superhero identities: Eugene was Captain Awesome and Charlie was Nacho Cheese Man.
Together, along with Captain Awesome’s hamster sidekick (and the class pet) Turbo, they formed the Sunnyview Superhero Squad to protect the universe from bad guys.
Especially drooling space dogs.
They were the two most awesomest heroes not named Super Dude (who just happened to be the most awesome superhero in Eugene’s comic book collection).
Captain Awesome and Nacho Cheese Man had landed the Awesome Rocket on Mr. Drools’s dreaded Dog Star—a grrrnormous battle station, shaped like a dog’s head—that flew around the universe barking at helpless planets. Boarding the Dog Star was the start of a three-part mission to save Eugene’s flying plastic disk of fun.
The three parts were
1. find the Frisbee
2. rescue the Frisbee
3. do not get drooled on by Mr. Drools! GROSS!
GRRRRR! Mr. Drools growled, drool squirting from his clenched teeth.
