Two policemen had pulled their prisoner out of the backseat. It was the shabby guy who had left the papers in the boulder and taken the money!
He was handcuffed!
“What is he charged with?”Chatty shouted. “Is this one of the international spies?”
Both the policemen shook their heads, telling her they weren't going to answer her questions.
She chased after them anyway. “Is he Shredderman?”
Shredderman? How could she think that ? Shredderman had blown the whistle on this guy!
How stupid could this lady be?
One of the police officers seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he stopped in his tracks and gave her a long, steady look. Then he let the other policeman take their prisoner into the sta-tion while he stayed outside. He came a few steps our way, then cleared his throat and said, “I under-stand that you've got a lot of questions concerning this case, and we will answer them to the best of our ability when the time is right—”
“When will that be?”Chatty snapped. “You expect us to wait out here all night?”
The policeman took a deep breath. “How about we give you a statement in… oh, half an hour?”
“Can't you give us any thing now? Who is that man? Why was he arrested? Are you going to—”
Harry cut in. “Hey, Don, can you tell us if this arrest means you'll be releasing the Byrds and Elmo Green?”He glanced at us. “There are some people here who'd really like to know.”
“Hi, Harry,”the policeman answered. “I'd like to help you on that, but right now I can't say. Someone'll be back out in half an hour, okay?”
“Good enough, Don,”Harry said.
“Hey, Don!”Chatty called.
The policeman put up a hand before she could say anything more. “Please, Ms. Adams. That's enough. I'll have someone back here in half an hour.”
Chatty practically stomped her foot. Then she stormed off, muttering, “Bunch of good ol' boys around here. Bunch of lousy, clubfooted good ol' boys.”
Roy was on her again, saying, “Chatty, knock it off! You've scared off your source, and now you're alienating this whole town!”
“But it's not right! I was here first! This is my story!”
“It's still your story, Chatty. Calm down!”
“No, it's not! You think they're gonna keep a lid on this? You watch. In half an hour, this place will be swarming with reporters!”
Chatty stormed off to her news van, and I was expecting my classmates to take off, too, but they didn't. Trinity said, “I'm going to call my mom, but I'll wait with you, okay, Nolan?”
“Me too,”Ian said, then looked at Vinnie. “You taking off?”
“No way.”He was walking backward quick, with one eye on Trinity. “I'm just gonna beat Pony-girl to the phone!”She tried to punch him, but he took off running.
Some kids called home on their cell phones. Some went to the pay phone. I didn't have to call anyone—my parents were in the police station.
Maybe even in jail!
Someone else didn't call his parents, either.
Bubba.
And the way he was acting was making me nervous.
He was quiet.
Very quiet.
And he was watching me, kind of pacing back and forth. Like he was thinking.
No, more like stalking prey.
But he hadn't given me trouble in weeks. Weeks and weeks! Ever since I'd done him a great big—make that enormous —favor.
But still. Right now, he was looking very… dangerous.
I tried to wave at him, like, Hey, dude. What's happening? But it was a pretty lame wave, even I could tell.
And it made him do the one thing I didnt want him to do.
Walk my way.
Uh-oh. Was he going to pound me?
But why would he?
Unless he… unless he suspected that I was the one who'd posted his Big Butt on the World Wide Web. Unless he'd figured out that I was the one who'd gotten him busted for bullying. Unless he'd figured out that I was…
Shredderman.
Kids were starting to move our way. But before anyone got there, Bubba came right up to me and said, “I'm not as dumb as you think.”
I gulped. “Who said you were dumb?”
“I know that's what you think.”
Actually, I didn't think that. Bubba had managed to get through years of bullying and stealing and lying. Sure, I thought he was sneaky, but you can't be dumb and get away with all of that.
I shook my head. “I don't think you're—”
“I can put two and two together, man.”
“You can multiply them, too! And divide them! And probably even exponentiate them!”Man, my mouth was the one that was dumb. Real quick, I added, “I didn't mean that the way it sounded. Honest!”
“Just listen to me, Nolan.”
At least he wasn't back to calling me Nerd. I gulped and nodded.
“You humiliated me, dude. All those jokes about me. That picture of my butt. I swore when I figured it out I'd beat whoever it was to a pulp.”
I was sweating bullets.
He knew!
Without a doubt, Bubba Bixby knew.
Other kids were coming in closer. And closer. He was going to say it! He was going to blow my cover.
How could he resist?
Bubba looked around at all the kids gathered. He was feeling the power of it! The glory of it!
This was it—I was about to be unmasked.
And by Bubba Bixby!
He looked right at me. There was a hint of a smile on his face. He cocked his nose, like, Come here.
I squinted a little, like, Huh?
He did it again, then said to everyone else, “Step back! I gotta ask Nolan something.”
Everyone backed up, boy! Nobody could figure out what was going on, but they sure didn't want to be in the middle of it!
Then Bubba said to me, “Come here, dude!”
What else could I do? I moved a step forward.
He rolled his eyes.
I moved another step closer.
He grabbed my arm and yanked me next to him.
But he didn't pound me.
He didn't hurl me onto the pavement.
No, instead, he whispered in my ear.
And what he said was, “You need a sidekick, man?”
Chapter 18
A New Sidekick
“I'm serious, dude,”he whispered when I took a step back. “I'd be good!”He flexed an arm and grinned at me. “I kinda look like the Bouncer, don't you think?”
I was just staring at him, my mind going a million miles an hour.
He knew. There was no doubt about it.
But Bubba Bixby as the Bouncer ? Bubba was the whole reason I put on the Shredderman mask in the first place. And now he wanted to be my sidekick?
But what if I said no? What would he do then?
Pound me?
Or worse—unmask me?
Bubba put down his arm and said, “You're thinking this is a threat, aren't you?”
I just stared at him.
“Well, it's not, dude. I just think it'd be cool.”
I kept right on staring. My whole face felt frozen in place!
He sighed. “Man, you're thinking I'm going to rat you off, aren't you? Well, I'm not the creep you think I am. And to prove it, I tell you what— whether you say I can be the Bouncer or not, I ain't squealin'. Now or ever. You got my word.”
His word ? Bubba Bixby's word was about as good as a punctured ink cartridge!
But I couldn't just keep standing there, staring! I had to say some thing! Bubba had figured it out, and I could see he wasn't just guessing.
He knew.
But Bubba Bixby as a sidekick?
I practically laughed out loud.
It was just too… ironic.
Paradoxical!
Totally unexpected!
Completely surprising!
My face thawed into a
little smile, and I heard myself whisper, “I wasn't aware that you were big on truth and justice. But there does happen to be an opening.”
He pumped his arm and said, “Yes!”Then he whispered, “And, dude, I can totally get into truth and justice. Wait and see. I'm gonna be the best—”
“Shhhhh-shhh-shhh!”
Kids were sneaking in closer.
“Oh. Oh, right,”Bubba said. He put on a poker face. “I'm cool. I'm cool.”
Trinity was the first to say something. “You okay, Nolan?”
“Yeah,”I said, and tossed a look at Bubba. “Everything's cool, right?”
“Absolutely!”Bubba was grinning from ear to ear. “Everything is way cool.”Then he laughed and said, “It's nifty. Groovy! Awesome! You might even say it's copacetic.”
Everyone busted up. And I knew they were laughing because Bubba was doing what I always do, but he wasn't really making fun of me.
It was just funny!
“Copacetic, dude?”Vinnie called. “Can you spell that, too?”
“Yeah, man!”Bubba called back. “It's spelled C-OO-L.”
Everyone laughed again.
Then Trey came charging up, all out of breath. “Hey, guys! Have you seen that crowd on the steps? It's, like, twice as big as it was before!”
We looked over, and wow! People seemed to be pouring in from everywhere!
“Chatty Adams is gonna be so ticked!”Danielle said. “Two other news vans just showed up!”
By the time half an hour was up, you couldn't even see the station steps. They were packed with people! Cameras! Someone even set up a podium and put microphones around it!
Then they rolled out some CAUTION tape that we weren't allowed to cross.
The place was buzzing with gossip!
Cedar Valley had never seen anything like this!
A lot more kids from school showed up, too. Some with parents, some without. We kids all hung together, and pretty soon we were spotting teachers from our school.
“There's Mrs. Bernhart!”
“And Miss Simms!”
“There's Miss Surkit!”
“And look! There's Mr. Hoover!” Marvin Speltz cried. “I tell you, guys—janitor by day, Shredderman by night. That's why he's here!”
“Don't be a doof,”Mike McDermish told him.
Miriam interrupted them. “Look! There's Dr. Voss! Even our principal is here!”
Half an hour grew into an hour. Chatty Adams spent half her time yelling into her cell phone and the other half snapping at Roy and her cameraman. She was trying to keep people away from “her”area, and boy, was she being mean!
Then I got an idea. And I started wondering— was a news camera like the video camera we had at home?
I couldn't see a power source.
Did it run on batteries?
Chatty's cameraman was standing pretty close to her. His camera was resting on the pavement by his feet
I snuck over.
If only I had an invisibility cloak.
Or a magic Aztec wristband!
If only I could get in close enough to…
Chatty noticed me and yelled, “Scram! You hear me? Get away from this area! You have no business being here whatsoever! I said scram!”
Drat! How was I ever going to…Then I noticed that the guy from another news station had a camera just like Chatty's.
I inched my way over to it.
He was holding it by its handle, alongside his leg.
“Pretty cool rig, huh?”he said when he saw me checking it out.
“Sure is. Looks heavy, though.”
He shrugged. “You get used to it.”
“How's it powered? Batteries?”
“Yup.”He hefted it and pointed. “Right here.”
“That's it? That powers this whole camera?”
“Well, the battery goes way inside.”He pressed a lever and pulled it out. “See?”
It was big!
“And when this one gets low, I've got a backup right here.”He popped the backup off the camera, where it was stored. “See? Two seconds is all it takes to swap them, and I'm good to go.”
“Wow,”I told him. “That is one cool camera.”He let me look it over for a minute, so I said, “Thanks for being so nice.”
He grinned and said, “No problem.”He shot a look at Chatty and dropped his voice. “Besides, I saw how that prima donna was treating you. Believe me, she's not anyone's favorite.”
Just then, the police station door opened.
A man in a suit and tie came out.
A man in a uniform came out right behind him! Was that… Sergeant Klubb?
It was!
Photographers all around hoisted their cameras.
All the reporters jockeyed for position.
The men from the station were moving slowly toward the podium.
I raced over to Bubba and whispered, “Pssst! I need your help.”I pulled him over to the side.
“As the Bouncer?”he whispered.
I nodded. “See Chatty's cameraman?”
He looked over at him. “Yeah?”
“I need you to bump him. Hard.”
“You want me to bring him down?”Bubba whispered. “I can land that dude, easy.”
“No! Just distract him so I can pop the battery pack out of his camera.”
“But why? There's all these other news guys here.”
Why did my sidekicks always argue with me? I frowned at him. “Because Chatty Adams is not here for truth or justice. She's here for herself.”
He nodded slowly and said, “Got it,”but I could tell he didn't.
“Besides,”I whispered as we hurried over, “didn't you hear her call you 'fatso' back there?”
“Hey! That's right!”
“You think I'm gonna let someone call my side-kick 'fatso'?”
For a second his face went blank. Then a light seemed to come on inside him. He grinned at me and said, “Dude, you really do shred!”
And with that, Bubba Bixby charged.
Chapter 19
Charge!
I know from experience that when Bubba wants to bring someone down, he brings them down. Chatty's cameraman didn't have a chance.
“Oh, dude! I'm so sorry!”Bubba said. He helped him up, then “accidentally”tripped and knocked him over again.
Meanwhile, I was zeroing in on the camera.
I got my hands on the battery.
The camera twisted away!
I got my hands on it again, and click, thwack! Battery number one was mine!
Boy! Was it heavy!
I held it between my knees and…
Click, thwack!
I pulled off the backup battery!
Lucky for me, Chatty was too busy being pushy to pay attention to what was going on.
The cameraman was back on his feet now.
Bubba was dusting him off!
So far, Bubba the Bouncer rocked!
He looked my way and I gave him a nod.
Mission accomplished!
We raced back over to the rest of the kids. “Stay cool,”I told him as I stashed the batteries in my backpack and strapped the backpack on. “Stay totally cool.”
He nodded, but he was anything but cool. He was amped, and panting like crazy!
After he caught his breath, he whispered, “I am lovin' this! So now what?”
“So now we listen,”I whispered.
“We listen ?”Bubba whispered back.
“Shhhhh!” I warned. “I've got to find out what's going on.”
“Good evening,”the man in the suit and tie said, holding on to the podium with both hands while Sarge stood off to one side. “As many of you know, I'm Scott Yardland, Cedar Valley's chief of police. Unfortunately, our bucolic community—”
“Bucolic? What's that?”Bubba whispered.
“Lots of trees,”I whispered back.
“—has apparently been home to the maneu-verings of an international spy ring.”
“Have you apprehended the spies?”Chatty Adams shouted.
“If you'll please be patient,”Chief Yardland said, giving her a hard look, “we'll get to that.”He went back to his speech. “Please understand that we're in the middle of a very complex and delicate situation. There are things we are not yet at liberty to disclose—”
“Disclose?”Bubba whispered.
“Tell us about,”I whispered back. “There are things he can't tell us about.”
“—but what I can tell you is that we have arrested one individual and have detained three others, all connected to a cash-for-secrets exchange that we believe took place under the Blackstone Way Bridge. Unfortunately, none of the individuals in custody is cooperating with authorities. I can also tell you that the arrested man has been positively ID'd as the individual we suspect of selling the highly sensitive classified documents.”
“What is the nature of the documents?”a lady with a notepad called out.
Chief Yardland gave her a friendly little smirk.
“That they're classified. Top-secret.”
“Military?”another reporter asked.
“The FBI has asked me not to discuss specifics. I am not at liberty to say anything more about the documents at this time.”
All of a sudden, there was a big commotion across the crowd from us. Chatty's arms were flying in the air as she yelled at her cameraman. Then she started yelling at Roy!
I grinned at Bubba.
Bubba grinned at me.
We slapped a sly-five on each other and watched as Chatty zoomed around, trying to bum a battery off other cameramen.
“How about the other people you've detained?”a reporter shouted at the chief. “You've got a woman, her husband, and a teacher in custody, is that right?”
“Yes. They have not been charged with anything yet. Our initial impression was that they were only involved peripherally—”
“Peripherally?”Bubba whispered.
“On the edge. Only a little,”I whispered back, wishing Chief Yardland would stop using such big words.
“—but it's clear that they are holding back information. We'll see what transpires over the next few hours.”
“Transpires?”Bubba whispered.
“Happens,”I whispered back.