King Of Bad [Super Villian Academy Book 1] (6 page)

“What about the invisibility thing? When did you
figure that out?”

“I learned that in training.” Pyro looked at Jeff and
smiled. “Don’t get all excited, not everyone can do that either.”

“Where does it come from?” Jeff asked.

Pyro squinted at him. “You have to believe it.”

“Huh?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how else to explain
it.”

The waitress set plates in front of them heaped with
the burgers and fries they’d ordered.
“Anything else?”

“Mustard and
honey,” Pyro said. After the waitress left, she said to Jeff, “The real benefit
to training is that they teach you how to feel where the abilities come from so
if you’ve got it in you, they’ll help you discover it and develop it.”

“Well, after losing control today, I definitely need
help. But isn’t it
kinda
strange to you that the
academy develops villains? I just feel like there is something really wrong
with that.”

Pyro sighed. “Jeff, you’re going to be bad whether
the academy teaches you or not. That’s how you’re made.”

* * * *

The next day a letter came in the mail addressed to
his parents announcing that Jeff had been identified as a prime candidate to
attend an exclusive boys’ school on the east coast geared toward helping at
risk youth learn to channel their abilities to their greater good.

His parents ate it up. They researched the place
online. They called the dean of students to ask how they’d identified Jeff as a
potential student and to learn more about the school. They made arrangements to
fly out east to visit the school.

Jeff and Sandra
and their parents visited that following weekend. Jeff was amazed at the
establishment they visited. It was a real school. Tubs had an office there and
teachers and students seemed to know him. Jeff was dying to ask him how he
managed the charade, but didn’t have an opportunity. Jeff’s parents were
thoroughly convinced that he would benefit from such an experience. Jeff whined
to them about having to leave his friends. Mother argued that it might be his
last chance to learn to walk the straight and narrow. Jeff complained that he
didn’t like being held to a schedule. Mother scolded that it was about time he
learned responsibility. As he suspected, his parents didn’t listen to any of
his arguments and in the end they handed Tubs a big fat tuition check.

On the plane ride home the next day, Jeff and Sandra
ended up sitting a few rows behind their parents.

“Jeff, aren’t you a little nervous about this?”
Sandra asked.

Jeff stared out the window at the topside of the
fluffy clouds. “Yeah, I am.”

“Can’t you just promise to be good or something?”
Sandra asked.

Jeff turned to Sandra. Her eyes were round and watery
with worry. Her bottom lip was held prisoner between her teeth. Jeff smiled at
her. “I won’t though. I can’t be good. You should know that better than me.”

A sudden thought struck Jeff. He gasped and studied
Sandra’s face.

“What?” She leaned away.

“Sandra, do you…um…can you…” Jeff gnawed the inside
of his cheek. If he asked her and she didn’t know what he was talking about
she’d really think he was crazy. But could he handle not asking? No. “Sandra,
can you do anything that other kids can’t do? Like run really fast or hear
super well.
Anything unusual?”

Jeff could already tell that her answer was no by the
screwed up expression on her face as she examined him.

“Jeff, what are you talking about?”

“Nothing, I guess. Never mind. I’m just saying that
sometimes I feel like I’m better than anyone at being bad.” Jeff shrugged,
hoping to bring the conversation back to somewhat normal.

“You’re like king of bad,” Sandra said. She shifted
into the middle of her seat. “Remember the rotting cat you left under the
school bleachers during the playoffs? That was genius.”

Jeff chuckled. “Yeah, the maggots were pure bonus. I
bet the teacher who found it still has nightmares.”

“What do you suppose they’ll teach you at that
school?” Sandra asked.

“I don’t know, standard stuff, I guess. It didn’t
seem that bad. Maybe you’ll end up there with me one day.”

“Dope, it’s a boys’ school.”

“Oh yeah.”

Chapter 9

Two weeks later, Jeff settled into his new dorm room
at the academy. It had been quite a show getting there. He, Sandra and their
parents had flown to the bogus school again with Jeff’s suitcases, guitar and
Pucker. A big deal was made to get Jeff settled in to his new room. Tubs had
told them that Jeff’s assigned roommate hadn’t arrived yet, so Jeff could pick
whichever side of the room he wanted. His family spent the night at a nearby
hotel and came back one last time the next morning to say goodbye. After they
left, Jeff packed up all his stuff again and he and Tubs flew back across the
country to the academy only 30 miles from Jeff’s home.

There he unpacked his stuff all over again.

The room was cramped even though it only had a single
bed, small bedside table and a dresser. A small closet took up a corner of the
room and the furniture occupied the rest. But Jeff was glad to have a room to
himself
.

He’d just finished hanging his favorite poster, a picture
of a lake at night that Jeff could stare at for hours, when a boy resembling
the professional wrestler, Randy Orton, barged into Jeff’s room.

“Knock much?” Jeff asked.

The kid walked right over to Jeff and punched him in
the nose.

“What the hell was that for?” Jeff grabbed a wad of
tissues to catch the flowing blood.

The kid glowered back and then moved over to Jeff’s
dresser and picked up each item and examined it.

Even Pucker seemed wary of the bulky boy stumping
around the room. She floated behind a clump of fake seaweed on the far side of
the fishbowl.

“What’s that all about?” The kid pointed to Pucker.

“My sidekick.”

The kid scrunched his meaty brow, deep in thought.

“Get the hell out of my room!” Jeff said.

The kid shrugged and left.

Testing his nose for a break, Jeff mumbled to Pucker.
“What was that, anyway?
Official villain greeting?”

* * * *

According to Tubs, the teachers’ quarters and the supply
rooms were off limits. Intending to turn in the opposite direction if he saw a
mop, Jeff left to explore the academy.

The first place he purposely sought out was the cafeteria.
His stomach had been growling since their airplane landed and his throat felt
like a desert. Tubs had explained the cafeteria stocked food and drink 24 hours
a day, but hot meals were only served during standard meal times. It was 7:30
in the evening, therefore not a standard mealtime. A smattering of kids sat in
small groups or alone throughout the large room. They all looked at him when he
entered, but no one greeted him. He selected a sandwich, apple and milk from a
cooler and found a table to sit at.

“Oh look, a new loser. Who are you?” a zit faced
girl, maybe Jeff’s age, challenged from two tables over. She sat with two other
kids, another girl with blue hair and a pierced nose and a small boy with
rat-like features.

“Jeff,” he said. It was strange to feel such open
animosity from people. He wasn’t sure how he should act. He snapped right back
at her, “Why, who are you?”

Rat boy snickered.

“What’s so funny?” Jeff asked.

“No one uses their own name around here,” the boy
wheezed in a high, thin voice.

“What’s your name?” Jeff asked.

“They call me Cracker,” the boy replied. “That’s
Tears and this is Flame.”

Jeff looked at the blue haired girl Cracker had called
Flame. “Do you have fire too?”

The three kids laughed. The zit-faced, Tears, said,
“No, she’s gay.”

Jeff couldn’t make sense out of what the kids said,
so he ignored them and ate.

Tears got up and walked to Jeff’s table and slid onto
the chair next to him.
“Where you from, Jeff?”
She
over-pronounced the J in his name the same way he over-pronounced the M in
Mother.

“Close,” Jeff answered. “Why do they call you Tears?
Cry baby?”

Crackers snickered again. Jeff realized the other two
had stealthily moved to his table while he was busy with Tears. He felt like
the prey of a pack of
velociraptors
.

Tears smirked. “Who would you not want to see with
their neck sliced?”

The question took Jeff aback, but he involuntarily pictured
Sandra lying in a pool of blood with her head severed. The image sharpened in
his mind. Suddenly, he was convinced he’d found Sandra like that. His heart
beat fast and his breath shortened as panic took over.

Tears grinned.
“An open book!
Oh goody.”

Jeff blinked a couple times. The image of Sandra
faded and he realized it had been a fabrication. He growled under his breath
when he saw that his hands shook slightly from the shock of the image.

Blue haired, Flame, stared at his fingers. “Watch out,
guys, he has fire and he’s not afraid to use it.”

Jeff dropped his smoking sandwich. He concentrated on
a place deep down in his lungs and then gently blew a thin coat of ice onto his
fingertips.

The three kids gawked.

“He’s a
frickin
’
freak!”
Tears said. Disgust dripped from each word.

Cracker and Flame looked simultaneously horrified and
nervous. The three kids backed away from the table as if Jeff were a cobra
ready to strike. Finally Tears turned her back to him and the other two
followed her out of the room.

Jeff let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.
A cool sensation passed his lips and a layer of frost settled onto the sandwich
in front of him.

“Great,” Jeff mumbled to himself. “Even in this
circus act of a place, I’m still the freak show.”

Jeff dumped his scorched and frostbitten sandwich
into the trash and grabbed another and
scarfed
it
down on his way out of the cafeteria.

Chapter 10

Snores from the room next door rattled the walls all
night long. Jeff barely slept and went to his first class crabby. It didn’t
matter. It seemed to Jeff that all the S.V.’s were crabby. After all the hoopla
to get him to the new school and yet he sat in normal, boring algebra. Jeff
studied his schedule and groaned. Algebra was followed by history, and then social
studies. He didn’t have any unusual classes until the afternoon.

As slow and boring as the morning was, Jeff mourned
the loss of it when it was over. Taking a deep breath, Jeff followed a group of
kids into the cafeteria, the single worst place to have to go on your first day
at a new school. He plodded through the line dragging his tray along the metal
countertop. He got a plate heaping with turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing
all smothered in steaming brown gravy. His stomach growled at the appetizing
smell. Near the end of the line he grabbed a small bowl of applesauce and a big
glass of milk. Then he turned and faced the room swarming with teenage super
villains.

Why am I doing this?
Each table seemed to
overflow with kids. Jeff spied a table that was only half full. He bee lined
for it and slid onto an empty seat before anyone had a chance to tell him no.
He started eating right away and when the kids at the table realized he was
there, it looked as if he’d been there a while. They grimaced at him, but
didn’t tell him to beat it.

He stuffed his mouth full of turkey smothered with
mashed potatoes and looked around the crowded room. Kids laughed with each
other and glared at others. They greeted one another with smiles and handshakes
and then sneered as soon as the kid turned his back. Jeff ate slowly and tried
not to make direct eye contact. When the cafeteria was nearly deserted, he got
up, tipped the bowl full of applesauce into his mouth and slurped it down. He
dropped his tray in the return window on the way out of the room, feeling
successful having made it through his first lunch hour unscathed.

He had a hard time
finding his next class, Basic Abilities. It was in a completely different wing.
The hallways were narrower. The walls were a utilitarian gray. The few doors he
passed were heavy metal. Finally at the end of the hall a single doorway stood
open with a small brown sign identifying it as the classroom he was looking
for. Jeff paused in the doorway. A lack of lighting just inside the room left
Jeff disoriented. The cavernous room sloped downward in stadium seating. Where
the slope leveled out the room was brightly lit, lending a stage-like effect.
Half a dozen kids milled around a large open space waiting for the teacher to
begin the class. Jeff’s eyes adjusted to the darkness on his end of the room so
he entered and walked down the sloping aisle toward the others, ignoring his
churning stomach.

The teacher, identified on Jeff’s schedule as
Sherlock, spotted Jeff approaching and nodded enthusiastically. Jeff almost
turned around and left. It was the first nice welcome he’d received since he
arrived and already it felt out of place and awkward.

“Ah, I’d heard we were getting someone new today.
Terrific,” Sherlock said.

The students were bunched into a couple of groups,
whispering about Jeff as he approached.
Jeff half expected
Sherlock to ask him to introduce himself and tell a little about what he’d done
on his summer vacation.
He was relieved when Sherlock got right to
business.