But being lonely, concentrating in class, and fearing bullies were nothing compared to the heart-racing experience called lunch. Normally, lunch would have been a feast of chocolate-covered morsels, caramel layers, and cream filling, all soaking in the finest high-fructose corn syrup money could buy. But Ms. Dove’s school had no such pleasures. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Flinch had to eat what most scientists would call “real food.” Some of it was green and leafy, some of it was broiled and baked, and there was a slice of something labeled “whole grain bread” and a few little orange logs he was told were called carrots. There wasn’t a peanut butter cup or red rope in sight. He appealed to the lunch lady, who knew what Flinch usually ate, but the big, burly figure said his hands were tied. Ms. Dove had already set up a lunch date with him to discuss what to serve in the cafeteria.
“It’s just going to get worse, kid,” the lunch lady warned. “Tomorrow we’re serving hummus on pita bread with baba ghanoush.”
“Baba ghanoush doesn’t happen to have little colored marshmallows in it, does it?”
The lunch lady shook his head.
The rest of the day didn’t get much better. When Flinch’s last class was over, he just wanted to go home and drown his sorrows in a couple of cases of juice boxes. But before he could even close his locker, he found himself surrounded by four very large boys. Every school has a few bullies whose growth spurts defy all logic. They are impossibly tall. They have mustaches. The four kids who confronted Flinch looked like gorillas wearing human costumes.
“Hey, kid, you didn’t pay the new student fee,” one of the boys said. He was skinny with a mop of red hair that hung in his eyes.
“New student fee?”
“Yeah, we’re here to collect. It’s five bucks, which is a great deal. Last year it was ten,” the second boy said, and the others chuckled. This one was a bit too chubby for his T-shirt.
Flinch sighed. He would have happily handed over five dollars just to avoid the hassle, but he was broke. He said as much, and suspecting the boys would not accept an IOU, he prepared for the inevitable: pushing, manhandling, maybe a purple nurple, maybe a pink belly—typical bully stuff—and there wasn’t a thing he could do about it without blowing his cover. Sometimes, being a superpowered spy was a real bummer.
The third boy stepped forward. He was the shortest of the bunch, but to call him the shortest was like saying he was the smallest giant. He had a wide, thin smile and big buggy eyes like an amphibian. He opened Flinch’s locker and went through everything, tossing books and papers aside in search of some money. “I think he’s telling the truth. He’s broke. Must have spent all his money on candy. There’s a trash bag’s worth of wrappers in here.”
The fourth boy was average-looking, but every time he breathed, a high-pitched whistle filled the air. “Well, you know what happens when you can’t pay the fee.” He laughed, then grabbed Flinch by the shirt and shoved him inside the locker.
The door slammed in Flinch’s face and he was plunged into darkness. His first thought was to wait until the boys were gone and then free himself, but suddenly he didn’t feel well. Nausea came on like a hurricane. A fever raced through him, making him feel like someone had lit a bonfire in his head. But the most peculiar sensation was his anger. He was angrier than he had ever been—even angrier than when they stopped making tropical fruit–flavored Now and Laters. He wanted to punish these kids for making him an easy target. Who were these … these fleas to treat him so disrespectfully? Couldn’t they see his intelligence and power? They needed to be taught a lesson!
With a swift kick, his locker door flew off its hinges and crashed against the far wall. He stepped out, fists clenched. The first bully shook off his surprise and charged at Flinch, who caught him in the chest with a punch that sent him skidding down the hallway several yards. The other three boys stared at their fallen friend in bewilderment, and the universal truth about bullies was revealed once again: They are usually cowards.
The boys tried to run, but Flinch wouldn’t let them. He raced down the hall like a jaguar and blocked their way. They turned to run back the other way, but he blocked them again, in the blink of an eye. He grabbed two of the boys by their shirts and launched them down the hall like twin bowling balls. They slid into their fallen friend and crumpled into a pile with him at the bottom. Then Flinch grabbed the fourth boy, the one with the whistling nose, and lifted him off the ground over his head. He wanted to toss him out a high window. He wanted to slam his body onto the floor. He wanted to crush the fool so that no one would dare challenge his mighty power. It would be a message to the world that he was someone to fear.
And then the fever was gone and his head cleared. What was he doing? He couldn’t treat normal kids like this. Where had all this anger come from, and why could he hardly control himself? He gently set the boy back down on the floor.
“Are you OK?” he asked the confused bully.
The boy couldn’t seem to speak, but Flinch didn’t think he was injured.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk,” a voice said from behind him.
Flinch turned and saw Ms. Dove standing there. She still wore her fixed-on smile, but her eyes were those of someone who finds her new puppy has chewed on her shoes.
“And what just happened here?” she asked.
“Just a little horsing around,” Flinch said.
“Jessie, get your friends and meet us in room eleven,” she said, then she led Flinch down the hall by the arm.
“I truly hate to do this, Mr. Escala. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t even have this room, but it does seem to help with those little birds who need time to think about how to straighten up and fly right.”
She stopped at room eleven and opened the door. A collection of juvenile delinquents and criminals to rival the inmates of Alcatraz looked up at Flinch.
“What’s this?” Flinch asked.
“Detention,” Ms. Dove said, with an exaggerated frown. “We can’t have a bully in our nest, Mr. Escala.”
A bully! Flinch could hardly believe his ears. He wasn’t a bully. He was the opposite of a bully. He was an anti-bully.
“Have a seat,” she continued.
He found one and collapsed into it, feeling foolish and humiliated. He gazed around at the other children looking for some sympathy and found none. When he looked back to the door, he saw Ms. Dove watching him from the hallway, her big owl eyes round and full of suspicion. She would be watching him now. Flinch was under her wing.
Heathcliff’s head was kept in a large two-story holding cell that was encircled by a catwalk on the second floor that was used by the doctors and scientists for observation. It was a bustling room filled with busy people who checked Heathcliff’s heart rate, breathing, and sedative levels around the clock. Armed guards were on alert twenty-four hours a day.
But it was not enough. Not for Agent Brand. If Heathcliff woke up, a bunch of guards were not going to be able to stop him—not much of anything would stop him. So, Alexander often found himself wandering away from his desk to check in on Heathcliff and make sure that the end of the world was not accidentally in progress, as he was now.
He did not enjoy being a babysitter for a monster. When General Savage asked him to run NERDS, he thought he’d be commanding a team of superspies to defend the world. He had no idea that the biggest threat the world had ever seen, a mind that could reshape reality as it wished, would be sleeping in his basement.
Ms. Holiday came through a door at the far end of the catwalk and approached him. He knew she had been busy all day, sorting through books in the school’s neglected library. She was a secret agent, but she was also a librarian, and, just like Brand, she had to keep up her cover. Brand had received a few e-mails from her with the subject line “The Library That Time Forgot” and photo attachments of books like Will Man Ever Walk on the Moon? and Rotary Phones: The World of Modern Communication. He enjoyed her sense of humor, and how she approached things with a smile. Her go
od attitude was rubbing off on him. He was starting to relax around her and at work. She said she was smoothing out his rough edges.
“How is Paris?” he asked.
“Angry,” she replied. “Every last person. Savage is arranging to have all the damage repaired, and luckily there were no serious injuries. Did you read the report?”
“Yes. Flinch wasn’t ready,” Brand said.
“Probably because we don’t give him any responsibility,” she said. “To be honest, I think he did pretty well, considering he’s never been on point. I’d hate for anyone to read what happened on my first mission.”
“I think fighting three mafia enforcers on an alligator farm was pretty brave,” he said.
She frowned. “You read my file.”
“Are you OK? You look tired.”
“I had a little cold, but I’m getting over it,” she said. “How is Sleeping Beauty?”
Brand nodded. “The same—for now. What are we going to do when he wakes up? The sedatives won’t keep him down forever. Eventually, his body will adapt, and nothing we can do will keep him unconscious.”
For a long time Ms. Holiday didn’t reply. It was obvious she didn’t have an answer. “I worked with him for a while,” she said finally, “and he wasn’t always out of control.”
“I remember,” Brand said.
“I’m talking about before you arrived. Yes, he was cranky and arrogant, but he could be kind of sweet, too. He was very close with his parents,” Ms. Holiday said. “His mother described him as a very loving and sensitive boy.”
“He changed,” Brand said.
“True, but—”
“You see something else?”
“You’ll think I’m silly.”
“I never do,” he replied.
Ms. Holiday smiled. “Well, he snores.”
“Huh?”
“Heathcliff snores—a lot. It sounds like a hundred cows with sleep apnea. The staff has taken to wearing special headsets to protect their hearing.”
“So?” Brand wasn’t sure what she was saying.
“It means he hasn’t changed so much. It means despite it all, he’s still human. He still does something embarrassing. And if he snores just like everyone else, well, maybe there’s a soft spot in his heart just like in everyone else’s, too,” Ms. Holiday said.
It was a crazy theory, but Brand wanted it to be true.
“So … Captain Kapow is ready for questioning,” she said.
Brand nodded. “Good. I’d like to take my mind off of one maniac and put it on another. Lead the way.”
He followed Holiday through the doorway and down several halls until they came to the door marked Interrogation Room. Above the door was a flashing red lightbulb, which meant the room was occupied.
“Is he restrained?” Brand asked.
“Yes, finally. I’m not sure he’s ready to talk, though. He’s been rambling most of the day. I think he’s sick. He’s feverish and disoriented. I’ve had one of the scientists take a look at him, but she hasn’t given me a report yet.”
“Pufferfish can help. She’s allergic to sick people,” Brand said. “And she’s allergic to hundreds of different bacteria and viruses, so she might be able to narrow it down. See if you can get her here.”
“The kids are already home for the day,” Ms. Holiday said.
“The first day is over already?” Brand asked.
“Yes, but not without problems. It’s the principal.”
“One crisis at a time,” Brand said with a groan.
Ms. Holiday opened the door to the interrogation room. Captain Kapow sat inside. His wrists and feet were strapped to a chair, and the chair was bolted to the floor. As soon as Brand stepped close to him, he found out why. The man growled and tried to lunge at him. Luckily, the restraints kept the Captain under control.
“Has he said anything?” Brand asked.
A small round panel opened in the wall and Benjamin zipped into the room. The orb flittered about and finally hovered in front of the agent’s face. “Plenty, but not a lot that you would describe as rational. What he has said isn’t as interesting as who he is. The Captain’s real name is Sherman Stoop. He’s been working as part of our organization for three years.”
“He works for us?” Brand cried.
Ms. Holiday handed him a stack of papers. “Here’s his file.”
Brand flipped through Stoop’s records. He could hardly believe what he was reading.
“What happened to this man?” he asked, not expecting an answer. “Record this interview, Benjamin.”
“Of course, Agent Brand. Recording now.”
Brand: Hello, Mr. Stoop. My name is Agent Brand, and this is my associate, Agent Holiday.
Stoop: I knew that! Nothing gets past my incredible brain. My superior intellect already deduced that you would come. Naturally, you want to interrogate me.
Brand: I think most people who have committed a major crime could guess there would be someone wanting to ask them questions.
Stoop: If when you say the word “most,” you mean just me, then I accept your notion! Ask what you want, Agent, but know this—many of my answers may be difficult for you to comprehend. I am, after all, a genius. But I will do my best to keep my answers simple for you and your dullard of a partner.
Holiday: Well, he’s a real charmer.
Brand: Mr. Stoop, who put you up to this crime?
Stoop: Ha! How dare you! The bombing was entirely my idea!
Brand: Mr. Stoop, we’ve gone through your files. Your IQ is just above a house cat’s.
Holiday: You were voted “Most likely to fall down a flight of steps” by your class.
Brand: When you applied for this job, they asked you for a blood test and you asked for time to study. You don’t have the intellect to build the complicated devices you planted under Paris.
Stoop: My brain’s full potential has recently reached great heights. Give me an IQ test, but be prepared—my scores will be so high, your tiny little minds may slip into madness trying to understand.
Brand: I think we’ll pass. Whether or not that’s true about your IQ, one thing hasn’t increased dramatically and that’s your bank account. You don’t have the funds to fly to Paris or to buy and build the bombs. So, using my tiny little mind, I have deduced that you are working for someone, Sherman.
Stoop: Don’t call me that name! I’m Captain Kapow!
Holiday: He sounds like Heathcliff. He had a thing about his name, too.
Brand: You didn’t do this on your own, Captain. Who helped you?
Stoop: Fine, yes, I have a benefactor. But I have no idea who he is. All I know is he’s a genius—not on my level, but certainly bright. If it wasn’t for him, I’d still be wasting my potential guarding that giant head.
Holiday: Did he give you the idea to bomb Paris?
Stoop: Hardly! The Antagonist merely showed me that I was special and helped me fulfill my destiny.
Brand: The Antagonist? Who is the Antagonist?
Stoop: I don’t know. All I know is that he wears a mask. It’s black and has a skull painted on the front.
Holiday: That can’t be …
Brand: What kind of fool do you take us for, Mr. Stoop?
Stoop: I suppose I take you for the regular, everyday kind of fool, Agent, but what I have told you is true.
Agent Brand slams his fist on the table.
Brand: Benjamin, can you project an image of Simon for us? Benjamin displays a photograph of Heathcliff Hodges as his alias, Simon.
Brand: Does the mask look like this?
Stoop: Yes.
Brand: That’s impossible! The person who owns that mask is in this facility right now, and he’s been in our custody for almost three months.
Stoop: What’s that mean to me?
Brand: The owner of that mask is the giant head you were guarding! His name is Heathcliff Hodges!
Flinch lived with his grandmother, Mama Rosa. She was in her late seventies
but as spry as a teenage girl. After school every day, he could always find her in the same place: parked in front of the television watching her “stories.” Her favorite was a Spanish soap opera called La Luna Blanca, which in English meant “The White Moon.” It was about a beautiful housecleaner who goes to work for a very wealthy Spanish family who owns a winery. Flinch had tried to watch it once, but his Spanish was not as good as it should have been. Still, you didn’t need to be fluent to know what was going on—especially with Mama Rosa around. Any time someone appeared on screen who the old woman didn’t like, she hissed, pointed, and cursed at them in Spanish. Flinch didn’t know what some of the words meant, and he was pretty sure that was a good thing. Mama Rosa was in the midst of a very intense shouting match with the TV when he got home that day.
“You do know they can’t hear you, Mama,” Flinch said.
Mama Rosa shook her head. “Someone has to talk some sense into these people, especially poor Mrs. Lucina. Her no-good husband is trying to steal her family’s fortune! Ay, Mrs. Lucina! Can’t you see he is bad for you?”
Flinch couldn’t have been more relieved. All the way home from school he worried that Ms. Dove had called his grandmother, but it looked as if the coast was clear. He turned to climb the stairs to his room when suddenly the television clicked off.
“So, I hear you are now a juvenile delinquent.”
Flinch turned back reluctantly. He hated disappointing his grandmother. He knew the hyperactivity was bad enough, so he tried to be a good kid in most other ways. “Before you get upset, I can explain.”
“Julio, today is your first day,” she said. “You have never been in trouble before! Is it those kids you are always hanging around with? Are they a bad influence on you? I don’t want you spending time with them if they are hoodlums.”
“Mama Rosa, my friends aren’t hoodlums. They’re the smartest kids in the school,” Flinch said. “You know Duncan as well as you know me.”
“Yes, the one that eats paste,” she said with a harrumph. “Well, they may not be hoodlums, but they are weird. If it’s not them, then why have you turned to a life of crime?”