Attack of the Tagger

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  “Truth and justice are not to be taken lightly.” My voice sounded older. Deeper. Like it wasn’t even me talking.

  “True. So what’s going on? Is everything all right?”

  “I need some information.” I buried my head under the comforter and whispered, “Don’t ask a lot of questions— just help me if you can, okay? This has to do with your van.” “Go for it, Shredderman.” “I need addresses for Carl Blanco, Manny Davis, A. J. Penne, and Ryan Voss. They were all in your class last year.” “Ryan Voss?” “Uh-huh.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, and I could tell he was thinking about a dozen things at once. “Hold the line, okay? I’ve got last year’s records in my file cabinet.”

  It took about five minutes, but when he finally picked up the phone again, he said, “Got ‘em. Ready?”

  “Yes!” I grabbed a pencil and scribbled down the addresses, then said, “Thanks!”

  “I trust you’ll use the information with respect. Giving it out puts me in touchy territory, you understand?”

  “I understand.” I hung up and got to work. One by one, I found the sixth graders’ addresses on the Internet. One by one, I marked them on my map. When I was done, I could see that A. J. Penne and Manny Davis lived quite a ways away from the places the graffiti had been sprayed. Especially from the purple dumb-babies that had shown up that night.

  But Ryan Voss and Carl Blanco both lived nearby.

  Could Ryan or Carl really be the Tagger?

  I thought for a minute, then decided.

  Helping the police hadn’t done any good.

  It was time to try it my way.

  CHAPTER 10

  Spraying Cyberspace!

  I sat in front of my computer with dumb-baby images galore and some pretty good shots of Bubba, Carl, Manny, A.J., and Ryan giving high’ fives in Old Town. But what should I do with them? I needed proof.

  I needed to catch the Tagger in the act.

  I scrolled through the pictures again and again. Then I noticed something. Something I’d been too nervous to pay attention to when I’d taken the shots.

  I double-checked the pictures.

  Sure enough, one boy was in all the high-five, low-five shots.

  Four of the boys were giving high-fives.

  Only one was taking.

  Ryan Voss.

  Then I remembered what Bubba had said to Max and Kevin in the bathroom: “The dude is, like, invincible.”

  Plus, from my map I knew that Ryan’s was the house nearest the toddler park.

  Evidence was mounting!

  I blinked at the picture of him on my computer screen. Could it be? And if it was, how much trouble did I want to get into trying to trap the principal’s son?

  Nolan Byrd was nervous, but Shredderman was mad! Who cared about trouble! We needed truth! We needed justice!

  Justice? All of a sudden, my brain had a dangerous thought.

  And Shredderman loved it!

  Oh, yeah! That’d be justice, all right! Poetic justice! But I had to set it up just right. I had to time it just right. And if I messed up or if I was wrong… boy! I’d be in big trouble.

  Colossal trouble!

  No time to think about that! Time to put the plan into motion.

  Step one: Make the Tagger mad!

  I found a picture of a chicken on the Internet. I imported it and started chopping it up. I put the chicken’s head on Bubba’s body. That would make the Tagger think I thought he was Bubba! I enlarged the chicken’s feet. I pasted them where Bubba’s shoes used to be. Now I had Bubba’s body with a chicken’s head and big ol chicken feet!

  It still needed something.…

  I enlarged the chicken’s tail and pasted it onto Bubba’s butt.

  Ha ha! It looked bigger than ever!

  And fluffy yellow!

  Then I took a purple Du-uh talkie bubble from one of the graffiti pictures and pasted it next to the Bubba-chicken’s beak. And under the Du-uh, I added, I’m the Tagged.

  I sat back and checked it over.

  Looking good!

  On my home page I built a link to the chicken page that said:

  ATTENTION: TAGGER!

  I KNOW WHO YOU ARE,

  AND I WILL PROVE IT!

  (Click here for a clue.)

  I made another link called Tagger Damage that went to a page of graffiti pictures. It wasn’t fancy or even that much—just a grid of pictures with labels—but at least it was a start.

  I activated the updates.

  It was time to spread the word!

  Anybody that’s ever written to shredder-man@shredderman.com is in my Shredderman address book. By now I’ve got hundreds of e-mail addresses saved up!

  And one golden one: bixby@bignet.com.

  I get nasty e-mails from Bubba almost every morning. He hates that his butt is on the World Wide Web, and I think he checks my site first thing every day.

  But now this was good, because even if the Tagger didn’t see the site on his own, Bubba would tell him all about it.

  So I clicked on Compose and made a new e-mail that said TAGGER ALERT! in the subject line and typed:

  You’ve seen his handiwork. On the Green Machine, on the hallowed walls of Old Town Square, on our historic Cedar Creek Bridge, even in the tube slides of a toddler park. The Tagger is hateful and harmful and (let’s not mince words here) duuuu-uuuuh-dumb!

  Do you want to see what this villain looks like?

  Do you want to know him for what he is?

  Then go to shredderman.com and click on the Attention: Tagger! link. (Younger viewers, beware—it is not a pretty sight! Parental approval advised!)

  I laughed. That was sure to get kids clicking like crazy!

  Next, I went to my address book, selected all the addresses, and sent them over to the Bcc box so everyone would get a copy but no one would know who else was getting copies.

  I reread my letter. I spell-checked it. Then I set the priority to high so there’d be a bright red exclamation point when it arrived. I looked everything over again, held my breath, and clicked Send.

  Just like that, copies flew through cyberspace!

  To hundreds of different houses!

  Boy, I love computers.

  Just for fun, I went back to my site and checked it over. But then I noticed the little clock in the bottom right corner of my monitor.

  3:45 A.M.?

  How’d that happen?

  I saved, shut down, and hopped into bed. And the next morning, I staggered to school on less than three hours’ sleep. No power-walking for me!

  But the minute I was on campus, boing, I woke right up.

  The police were there!

  The Channel 12 news crew was there!

  And from the graffiti on the wall, I knew the Tagger had already been to shredderman.com.

  CHAPTER 11

  Mistaken Identity

  A giant purple dumb-baby was sprayed on the back wall of the library. But it didn’t just say “Du-uh!” in the talkie bubble. It said, “I’m Shredderman! Du-uh!”

  Kids were swarming all around, talking a hundred miles an hour. A lady with a Channel 12 microphone was spinning in circles trying to get interviews with third graders. “What do you think of all of this?” she asked a blond boy with bowl-cut hair.

  The boy pulled a dumb-baby face right at the camera and said, “Du-uh!”

  The Channel 12 lady rolled her eyes, then waved her cameraman over to another little kid and tried again. “What do you think of this, uh, Shredderman? she asked her.

  “Shredderman?” the girl asked back. “Oh, Shredderman’s cool!”

  “Yeah! Totally cool!” another girl said.

  The Channel 12 lady shook her head and sighed, then stuck her microphone in someone else’s face.

  I wanted to run up to the Channel 12 lady and say, “Wait! Shredderman didn’t do the graffiti! The Tagger did!” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything that would give me away.

  The teachers were having s
ome sort of powwow off to the side, and Dr. Voss was talking to a policeman. To Sergeant Klubb!

  I moved closer. I tried to act invisible. Actually, I’m good at being invisible. At least that’s what it feels like a lot. Like when we’re picking teams. Or when people are talking about sleepovers. Or meeting at the park. Or going to the movies

  People don’t seem to notice that I’m standing right there.

  So I got real close to Dr. Voss and Sarge. And I was listening away when a hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Nolan!”

  I jumped like a kangaroo. And when I landed, there was my dad, smiling down at me.

  “I’m sorry, Nolan. Didn’t mean to startle you!”

  My heart was pounding at least 165 beats a minute. My eyelids were cranked back probably 190 degrees. My whole body went from 98.6 Fahrenheit to subzero Celsius like that.

  Dad leaned down and whispered, “Take a deep breath, son. Take a deeeeeep breath.”

  I tried, but it’s hard when your heart’s racing and the rest of you is petrified.

  He laughed. “You must’ve been concentrating on something pretty hard. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to startle you…!”

  Finally I blinked and said, “I… I… Uh, hi, Dad.”

  “Surprised to see me at school?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, I got a call about the graffiti.” He put his arm around my shoulders and moved us toward Sarge and Dr. Voss, looking at the graffiti the whole time. “Shredderman, huh?” He took a small spiral notebook from his coat pocket. “And all this time we’ve been calling him the Tagger.”

  “But he’s not!” I cried. “I mean…”

  He wasn’t listening to me, anyway. He was shaking hands with Sergeant Klubb, saying, “Hey, Billy. Long time no see.”

  Sergeant Klubb snorted. “This punk’s keeping us busy, huh?”

  Dr. Voss looked mad. She had her arms crossed, and her lips were pulled tight. “And I suppose now you’re going to accuse my son of doing this?”

  “Look, Mrs. Voss—” Sarge said.

  “Doctor Voss to you, Sergeant.”

  Sarge took a deep breath. “Ma’am, we never accused your son or the other boys we questioned of anything—we were simply looking for information.”

  “But the implication was clear!”

  Sarge turned to my dad. “Tell her, Steven. Tell her about the tip.”

  Dad nodded and tried not to look at me. “It’s true, Dr. Voss. An anonymous tip was left on my machine at the Gazette.”

  She huffed and said, “It was probably left by this… this Shredderman. He seems to think he can do whatever he wants, just like all delinquents.”

  Shredderman? A delinquent?. How could they even think that? Shredderman fought for truth and justice! Shredderman was a good guy! Anyone who’d been to the site knew that!

  Things had gone from bad to worse at light speed. And before I could figure out how to stop something going 186,282 miles per second, Mrs. Bernhart, Miss Simms, and a bunch of other teachers started shooing kids off to class. “Didn’t you hear the bell? Go! Go! Go! You’ll all be tardy!”

  My dad ruffled my hair and said, “Have a good day, Nolan! See you tonight.”

  Mr. Green caught up to me before I got in line outside Room 22. “Nolan!” he whispered. “What were you thinking?.”

  “I didn’t spray that!” I whispered back.

  “I mean about the site. I got your e-mail this morning.”

  I shrugged. “I was trying to make him mad.”

  He laughed, but it wasn’t a funny laugh. “Well, you did a good job! And he sure turned the tables on you!”

  “I know! But how can people think that Shredderman did that?”

  “People jump to conclusions, Nolan.”

  “Well, tell them he didn’t do it!”

  “Me?” He pointed to himself. “I can’t tell them! I’m the Bouncer, remember?”

  “But—”

  “And the truth is, I’m feeling pretty uptight about all this. I’m not exactly Dr. Voss’s favorite teacher to begin with, you know.”

  I didn’t know. But now that he said it, it did make sense. She was never very friendly to him, that’s for sure. And she’d been pretty mean to him about his van.

  Kids in line were starting to look around for him, so I said, “Don’t worry, okay? I’ll fix every-thing. I promise!”

  He looked at me like my mom does when I tell her I know how to make my own lunch, then hurried to unlock the door.

  CHAPTER 12

  Mom and Dad Boot Up

  By the time I got home from school, I felt weaker than a mortal. Forget superpowers—I was like Superman surrounded by kryptonite. What was I going to dot

  Mom took one look at me and said, “Honey! What’s wrong?”

  I just sat down on the floor, backpack and all.

  She felt my forehead. “Are you coming down with something?”

  I shrugged, sighed, and lay down on the floor.

  “Nolan!” She pulled me up. “Honey?”

  “I’m okay, Mom,” I finally said. “Just really tired.” I was, too. Superhero or not, three hours’ sleep is not enough.

  She peeled off my shoes and dragged me to bed. “You get some sleep, young man.” She felt my forehead again and said, “I’ll check on you at dinnertime.”

  I must have snored through a time warp, because I swear she never left. One minute she’s sitting on the edge of my bed, feeling my fore’ head, saying, “You get some sleep,” and the next minute she’s still on the edge of my bed, feeling my forehead, but now she’s saying, “Honey? Honey, time to wake up.”

  The smell of dinner was floating through the air. “Spaghetti?” I asked.

  “Lasagna.”

  I sat up. “Really?”

  She laughed and said, “Feeling better?”

  I swung out of bed. “Lots!”

  “Good! You had me a little worried. And,” she added, “your father is quite anxious to talk to you.

  Uh-oh. I stopped in my tracks.

  “About Shredderman,” she said.

  Un-double-oh. “Shredderman?” I said as innocently as I could.

  She shook her head. “Don’t ask me—never heard of the guy before.”

  “Hi, Dad,” I said when I sat down next to him at the table.

  “Nolan! There you are!” He scooped a big square of lasagna onto his plate. “Your mom says you were wiped out when you got home from school.”

  “I’m okay now.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He put some lasagna on my plate. “So, tell me—what do you know about Shredderman?”

  I shrugged. “Not much.”

  “Hmmm.” He served Mom. “Well, I’m getting conflicting reports. Some of the kids at your school told me he was trying to stop the Tagger. Other kids say he is the Tagger.” He frowned. “Dr. Voss seems to think he’s an all-around menace. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

  “How come?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “She was in a pretty agitated state of mind when I tried to ask her about it—complained a lot about some Web site of his.”

  “A Web site?” My mouth was dry. My throat felt choked. What if they went to the site and could tell I had built it? What if they—

  “She called it a cry for attention.”

  I almost jumped out of my chair and shouted, No way! It’s a call for truth and justice! It’s an awesome site! How can she not like it?

  Then I remembered the link to Bubba’s Big Butt.

  Principals—and teachers and parents—are funny about butts.

  And underwear.

  And farts and burps and barf and B.O. and poop.

  They make being an adult seem really, really boring.

  “Nolan?”

  “Huh?”

  “Where were you just then?” my dad asked.

  “I… I don’t know. Daydreaming, I guess.”

  “Well, I was asking—what do you know about this Shredderman character?”<
br />
  “Uh… that he’s a good guy.”

  “A good guy who sprays graffiti?” my mom asked.

  “He didn’t spray it!” I cried.

  “Oh?” they both said, looking at me.

  Whoops.

  I tried smiling. “At… at least I don’t think he did. I think—”

  The phone rang.

  Phew.

  Dad said, “Sorry, Eve, but I’ve got to get it. Just in case.” We could hear him from over by Mom’s

  desk. “Hello?….Hey, Sarge.…Uh-huh…uh’

  huh…. Seriously?… Uh-huh … uh-huh…. Is that spelled just like it sounds?…Got it. Okay, I’ll be sure to check it out.”

  “What was that about?” Mom asked after he hung up.

  “Sarge went to that Web site—shredderman.com. Says it’s a riot.”

  “So Shredderman’s not the Tagger?” my mom asked.

  “That’s yet to be seen.” He took a bite of lasagna. “But we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  After dinner, Dad booted up Mom’s computer. He typed in shredderman.com.

  Mom hung over his shoulder.

  I held my breath.

  All of a sudden, music blared from the speakers! Shredderman streaked across the top of the screen in his purple mask and cape! The SHREDDERMAN banner fluttered behind him!

  Then the Bouncer boinged into view. He flexed his tattooed muscles. One biceps popped up with TRUTH, the other popped up with JUSTICE.

  My dad spotted the Attention: Tagger! link. He clicked! And a few seconds later, he said, “Look at this, Eve! Shredderman’s not the Tagger!”

  My mom nodded. “But he’s sure egging him on, don’t you think? Calling him chicken and all?”

  “Hmmm,” my dad said. “But it does look like he meant well.”

  “Unless he’s got a dark side.” She glanced at my dad. “You know, like an alter ego?”

  My dad laughed, “A schizophrenic superhero?”

  “Steven, don’t laugh! They’re all a little that way when you think about it. Spider-Man, Superman, Batman… they’re all tortured inside, don’t you think?”

  “Superman?” my dad asked. He was clicking on the Jokes link now. “How’s Superman tortured? He’s got superstrength, he’s got X-ray vision, he can fly. Give me that kind of torture any day!”