The Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy, Book One: The Hero Revealed (8 page)

The only good news was that in the information about Meteor Boy, I had also found the answer to my main question. I knew who was on the missing card.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Less Is More

The next day, I walked into class before the bell rang and ducked when I saw Cannonball and Lobster Boy with erasers in their hands (or claws, in the case of Lobster Boy). They were waiting to throw them at whoever came through the door, but when they saw it was me, they stopped themselves at the last second. Cannonball has never gotten any nicer to me over the last five years, but he knows better than to pick on me.

The kid who came in after me wasn’t so lucky. It was the Spore, and as he stepped into the room, two erasers smacked him right in the face, raising a cloud of mold spores and chalk dust. Well, it could have been worse. He had only been hit by the two erasers Cannonball had thrown. In his excitement, Lobster Boy ended up snapping his erasers in half with his claws, producing a second cloud of chalk dust around his own head. Then, before any of the dust could settle to the ground, in walked the Human Sponge. The cloud of mold and chalk wafting around the Spore was absorbed into her before she even knew what was happening.

“Ewww, that is so disgusting,” she complained. “Somebody wring my head.”

“Gladly!” I heard Cannonball say gleefully as I made my way to my desk.

The rest of my teammates were already at their desks. They were still racking their brains trying to figure out the person on the missing card.

“I say that it’s the Mimic, who got kicked out of the League of Ultimate Goodness ten years ago for doing AI impersonations behind his back,” insisted Tadpole.

“No, he’s too obscure,” Plasma Girl disagreed, only half paying attention as she painted her nails with a glittery silver polish that matched her costume. “It’s probably just another pose of AI.”

“What about the Weatherman?” Stench suggested. “He was a LUG for a little while. I never could figure out why they didn’t keep him. I mean, the guy can manipulate the weather! What more could they want?!”

“We could ask Puddle Boy,” Hal suggested.

Stench turned toward Puddle Boy, who sat two rows over, near the wall.

“Hey, Puddle Boy,” hollered Stench, “did they put your dad’s picture in the new set of AI Collector Cards?”

Much to the Weatherman’s constant embarrassment, his son’s only power was the ability to create puddles beneath his feet. Even now, the pressure of having to answer a question was causing one to form. The Human Sponge, who was on her way to her desk after having her head wrung out by Cannonball, warily avoided it, while the Banshee, who sat behind Puddle Boy, let out a piercing scream as she scooted her desk away.

“No,” he answered self-consciously as the wail subsided. “They called and asked him if they could, but he threatened to sue them if they did. Then he said a whole bunch of words that I don’t think I should repeat. I don’t think my dad likes AI very much.”

“Well, that’th out,” said Tadpole. His tongue was wrapped around a pencil he was sharpening halfway across the room. “We might ath well jutht keep looking.”

“You sound just like Melonhead.” Plasma Girl giggled.

“Who thoundth like me?”

We all turned to see Melonhead come into the room. This kid had a head that literally looked like a melon. I don’t mean it was green or anything, but it was bald, shaped like a melon, and had wavy lines running down the sides of his face like the markings on a watermelon. And every time he spoke he spit seeds all over the place. Despite having a power that’s almost worse than having no power, he had more self-confidence than anyone else in our class. In a way I sort of envied him … at least when he wasn’t annoying the living daylights out of me.

“Oh, nothing,” Plasma Girl said. “We were just discussing the AI Collector Card series.”

“Aren’t they amathing!” he spit. “I’ve already athembled forty-theven cards!”

“We’ve got all but one of them,” Halogen Boy volunteered.

“Well, if you thtick to it, you thould be able to catth up,” Melonhead responded, completely ignoring the fact that we were already way ahead of him. “Perthaveranthe, that’th my motto,” he added as he took his seat in front of Tadpole.

“Don’t think about it,” Plasma Girl said to Halogen Boy, who was racking his brain to figure out how Melonhead could be doing better than us. “We still need only one card.”

“Yeah,” agreed Tadpole. “We just have to go out and look for it.”

“You’re partly right,” I finally spoke up. “We will keep looking. But I also happen to know what we’re looking for!”

“You do?” Halogen Boy said. He lit up with excitement.

“Of course he does,” said Plasma Girl, not even looking up as she blew on her nails to dry them. “Go ahead and tell us, O Boy.”

First I told them what I had learned about Meteor Boy. They were all as surprised as I had been.

“Wow! That would be so cool, fighting alongside AI,” Halogen Boy said dreamily.

“Are you nuts?” said Tadpole. “Didn’t you hear what happened to Meteor Boy?”

I was a little annoyed at Tadpole for snapping at Hal. It isn’t Hal’s fault that he’s a little slow. He just needed a moment to think about it and, sure enough, his excitement, as well as his glow, faded noticeably.

“So, anyway,” I pushed on, “that leaves us with thirty-two cards of AI, sixteen cards of other heroes—but only fifteen cards with villains. Clearly the missing card is a villain.”

“It makes sense,” Plasma Girl agreed. “But who?”

“Think about it,” I said. “Who is AI’s first and greatest foe? Who destroyed Meteor Boy? Who is constantly setting up AI’s most difficult challenges—at least on TV, anyway? And who is nowhere to be seen among the sixty-three cards we already have?”

“Professor Brain-Drain!” all four of them said in unison.

“Exactly!” I said.

“What’s that about Professor Brain-Drain?” came a voice from the front of the class.

Our teacher, Miss Marble, had come into the room. Her hands were folded over her ample midsection as one foot tapped in irritation.

“Uh-um,” I stuttered for a moment. “We were just talking about the Professor Brain-Drain card that we’re missing from our set of Amazing Indestructo Collector Cards.” I blurted out the truth in that frustrating way you do when you can’t think of a good fib fast enough.

“Well, as long as it’s something important,” Miss Marble said in a tone that clearly indicated she didn’t think it was important at all. “How many of the rest of you are also attempting to collect these cards?”

The hand of every kid in the class shot up. I felt vindicated! But then they all immediately began talking to each other.

“Did you see the card with my uncle on it?” Cannonball announced to anyone who would listen.

His uncle was the Crimson Creampuff, and Cannonball was incredibly proud to have a relative in the League of Ultimate Goodness. Whenever I felt jealous, I reminded myself that the Crimson Creampuff was one of the
least
competent members of the League.

“I’m missing twenty-three cards, including Whistlin’ Dixie, the Animator, and Moleman,” said Transparent Girl, from what looked like an empty seat on Hal’s left. “If anyone has them, I’d be happy to hold onto them for you.”

Even with our hands still raised, everyone began chattering, comparing notes on how their various collections were coming. No one was paying attention to Miss Marble any longer, which is never a good thing. Sure enough, I felt the inevitable reach of her power begin as a tingle in my left leg. Not wanting my hand to get stuck in the air, I quickly lowered my arm only a moment before I found myself frozen in a state of suspended animation.

Miss Marble got her name from her ability to freeze a person in place just as if he were a marble statue. The suspension never lasted more than a couple of minutes, but it made for a handy way to get the attention of … well, in this case, a class full of disruptive students.

“Now that I’ve frozen your mouths shut, let’s have a little discussion about something called scarcity.” Miss Marble glanced around the room at her students, who were petrified in poses ranging from acrobatic to downright uncomfortable. “Do any of you know what that word means?”

I knew what the word meant, but there was no way to put my hand back up or to even speak, for that matter.

“What’s the matter, kids? Cat got your tongues? Ha-ha-ha-ha!”

Miss Marble often said the exact same thing after freezing us, and always laughed hysterically at her own bad joke. Of course, we all just sat there, stiff as boards. The feeling began to pass after a few minutes, and soon I was able to move my eyelids. As movement returned to the rest of the class, kids lowered their tired arms and remained quietly in their seats. No one ever wanted to risk a second freezing right away.

“So, scarcity. How about you, Hal?” Miss Marble continued, nodding at Halogen Boy.

Hal looked about helplessly. He can glow as brilliantly as an X-ray machine, but the sad fact is that he really isn’t all that bright.

“Uh, I don’t know,” he said, before deciding to wing it, which for Halogen Boy is never a good idea. “Is it a city that’s really scary?”

Miss Marble’s eyes rolled to the back of her head. “No, it is not. Puddle Boy, do you know?”

Puddle Boy just nervously shook his head without saying a word. The puddle beneath his desk grew by another inch.

“How about you, Melonhead?”

“Thkarthity?” he said. Seeds splattered from his mouth in a dozen different directions. “Doethn’t it mean generothity? Ath in “Thkarthity beginth at home?”

“Okay, Ordinary Boy,” Miss Marble said, resignedly. “What does scarcity mean?”

It annoys me that she always assumes I know the answer. Well, okay, so most of the time I do. She still didn’t need to pick on me.

“Scarcity is a term that refers to how difficult

something is to find,” I said. “The fewer there are of an item that lots of people want, the more
scarce
that item is.”

“Correct as usual,” she said.

“Miss Marble?”

“Yes, Transparent Girl?” Miss Marble asked with a sigh of resignation.

“Scarcity is a term that refers to how difficult an item is to find,” she pointed out perkily.

Miss Marble ignored her and pressed ahead. “Now tell me again, Ordinary Boy, what card haven’t you been able to find?”

“I suspect that it’s a card with Professor BrainDrain on it,” I answered.

“Has anyone found this card?” she asked the class as a whole.

Not a single hand was raised.

“It appears,” she said directly to me, “that this card is
very
scarce, assuming that it exists at all. If it doesn’t exist, you will all end up on a wild-goose chase and will no doubt spend much of your parents’ money in the process.”

“But what if it does exist?” I asked hopefully.

“Then,” she answered, “if you find one, you will have found something that is very valuable indeed.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Straight to the Top

It was three o’clock and school had just let out. All five of us Junior Leaguers had agreed to meet at the end of the day to plan a strategy. We were waiting for Stench, who as usual needed to use the bathroom right after class.