The Great Powers Outage (12 page)

THE SUPEROPOLIS ZOO

With animals of almost every known species, the Superopolis Zoo provides
a serene setting for the city's wildlife. It also keeps them safe
from a city of superpowered humans, who are often the most
dangerous animals around. How the zoo was populated, given its
location in an environment devoid of any natural fauna, is a mystery
of little interest to anyone.

Usually the animals went about their business oblivious to the humans strolling around looking at them. Yet today I had the distinct impression that
they
were watching
us
. The first thing I noticed was a group of six tropical birds perched atop a chain-link fence looking right at us. Sparkplug noticed them, too, and, being a creep, reached over to touch the fence. A jolt of electricity coursed through the metal fence, and the shocked birds scattered amid squawks of alarm.

The seal pool was coming up next on our right, and Cannonball ran up to the edge, with Lobster Boy close behind him, his claws still shoved in his pockets. The fat jerk was oblivious of the seal staring at him in a very unseal-like manner.

“I've got seafood,” he said, coaxing the seal to come forward as he kept his hands behind his back like he was holding a fish. “Come and get the seafood.”

“Cannonball,” Lobster Boy said as they watched the seal crawling forward, “you don't have any seafood.”

“Don't I?” He smirked as he grabbed Lobster Boy and hoisted him into the air above the seal pool.

“HELP!” Lobster Boy's claws finally came out of his pockets and they began to clench and unclench in panic as Cannonball held him by his feet over the pool. The seal didn't appear the least bit pleased and honked in annoyance.

“What's wrong with lobster?” Cannonball laughed as he set his “friend” back onto the ground. Lobster Boy quickly shoved his claws back into his pockets, but not before I noticed that they weren't their usual bright red. In fact, they were nearly flesh colored.

Those of us who had witnessed this odd incident now hurried to catch up with the rest of our classmates who were huddled around the monkey cages. The monkeys were all getting riled by peanuts that were being pelted at them seemingly from nowhere. I didn't even need to hear her nasty laugh to know that Transparent Girl was the one mistreating them. Fortunately, Miss Marble noticed as well and moved the group quickly along.

“Are you guys noticing how strangely the animals are behaving?” I whispered to my teammates.

“There's definitely something odd about these aardvarks,” Tadpole said as we passed their pen. The two aardvarks were fascinated by Tadpole's tongue as he stuck it out at them. They responded by sticking their tongues out at him.

We made our way to the center of the zoo, where Miss Marble brought us to a stop in front of a stage that had been set up. A large crowd had gathered, but it soon became clear that most of the people assembled were there to see the zoo's newest and most popular exhibit just across from the stage. It was an attraction that I was in many ways responsible for.

Safely behind mighty steel bars was a genuine, live velociraptor. A week earlier, he had been living the normal life of a dinosaur sixty-five million years ago. But when Superopolis took that wild ride into the past—and then back to the present—the dinosaur came along with us. It was quickly decided it should be placed in the zoo, since it just wouldn't have been wise to let a velociraptor roam about the city on its own.

My classmates immediately wandered toward the cage, even though Mayor Whitewash was up on the dais waiting to give his speech. Irritated that an exhibit was grabbing all the attention away from him, he turned to his wife standing with him.

“Blanche, go take care of that distraction.”

The woman turned white as a sheet then hurried off the stage. Thanks to her size she had no problem positioning herself in such a way that she completely blocked the view of the dinosaur cage. Reluctantly the crowd turned its attention back to the mayor.

“Welcome, Superopolitans young and old,” the mayor began. That was as far as he got before being interrupted by one of the “old” Superopolitans in the audience.

“What are you going to do to help those of us on fixed incomes afford the increasing price of potato chips? These newfangled chips are so consarned delicious we can't resist them. But they cost a whopping ten cents a can more than Dr. Telomere's did.”

A bunch of other old people began seconding his complaint.

“Of course, of course,” the mayor said reassuringly. “I always take the concerns of our elderly citizens seriously, seeing as how they're often the only ones who vote.”

He glanced nervously at his wife, who shrugged her shoulders as she once again drained of color. That was all the time he needed to come up with a plan.

“That's exactly why I'm proposing that the city purchase every empty canister of the Amazing Indestructo's Amazing Pseudo-Chips for a dime. Not only can you make back the extra ten cents the chips cost, but you can also gather up the canisters that others are too lazy to redeem and make even more money to fund your retirements. I think you can all agree with that idea.”

He made that announcement with the sureness of a man who had never had anyone disagree with him.

Until now.

The old people in the crowd erupted in jeers.

“But that would require effort on our part,” one woman complained.

“Yeah,” added another. “Why can't there just be a government grant that gives us the money as if we
had
redeemed the cans without us actually having to do the work?”

The mayor looked shocked. No one had ever questioned one of his statements or proposals. I was shocked, too. My idea for enlisting his aid to steer people away from Pseudo-Chips was collapsing in front of me. What had happened to the mayor's power?

“Mithter Mayor?” I turned around in surprise to see Melonhead eagerly raising his hand. “Thurely you mutht know that the prithe of Amathing Indethtructo comic bookth have rithen by twenty-five thenth in jutht the latht year. Wouldn't thuch a program be perfect for that crithith?”

“Of course not, son,” the mayor replied as he tried to shake off his panic over his failure with his older constituents. “You're not old enough to vote. And even when you are old enough, statistics show that you probably won't bother. But old people
do
vote, and could very well vote me out of office.” I looked at the various old people in the crowd, all of whom looked ready to prove the mayor right. “That's why I pander to their every whim and why I'm proud to announce my new Pseudo-Chip Senior Citizen Rebate Grant Program.”

The old people all let out a cheer.

“But you're running unopposed,” I shouted out.

“That isn't completely true,” the mayor corrected me. “There may not be another candidate on the ballot, but I'm not the only choice. I live in constant fear that ‘none of the above' could someday be elected mayor.”

The saddest thing was that he could be so honest about his motivations without causing any outrage. Or so I thought.

“Perhaps your greatest concern, Mayor, should be whether you're elected to be someone else's meal.”

All heads turned toward the mayor's wife, which was the direction from which the eerie voice had come.

“Blanche . . . ?” the mayor started to say.

She was whiter than anyone had ever seen her before and had a look of sheer terror on her face. She quickly darted back to her husband on the stage, and we could all once again view the zoo's latest attraction.

“Excellent,” the dinosaur spoke again. “I see I have your full and undivided attention.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Zoo Hullabaloo

Just then, chaos erupted throughout the zoo. Every animal in every cage suddenly began bursting its barriers. To describe what happened next as hysteria would be a massive understatement. It was panda-monium, it was otter chaos, it was an albatrossity, it was . . . well . . . it was a whole bunch of other really bad animal puns.

There was nothing strange about seeing a person in Superopolis doing something unusual. But animals behaving bizarrely was a whole different story. People always had superpowers. Animals did not. Until now.

Some of them instantly went for payback. The birds that Sparkplug had shocked off their perch came dive-bombing right toward him. At the last possible moment they pulled back up, but not before pelting him with droppings.

“Eewwww!” my classmates and I exclaimed simultaneously.

But it was worse than just getting splattered with bird poop, if you can imagine such a thing. What these birds had left behind stuck to Sparkplug like glue, and the more he struggled, the more he found himself being coated with the stinky, sticky mess.

Not everyone was sympathetic. Cannonball was laughing his butt off, though he should have been paying more attention to his own safety. The seal he had humiliated just moments earlier had quietly sidled up behind him. Still laughing hysterically, Cannonball turned around, only to go silent as he noticed the seal glaring at him. Before he could react, the seal reared up and gave his front flippers one solid clap creating a massive shock wave that sent Cannonball rolling more than a hundred feet away.

“These animals have developed some remarkable abilities, wouldn't you say?”

I turned to the dinosaur inside the cage. He was speaking directly to me.

“As have I,” he continued. “You may call me Gore.”

“Gore?” I repeated, baffled by the impossibility of what I was hearing. “But how did you . . . ?”

“I'm really not certain,” he replied. “I woke up in this cage the other morning with the remarkable ability to not only understand the languages of all creatures but also to speak them.”

“Including humans,” I added numbly.

“Yes.” Gore nodded. “Well, you are just animals yourselves, despite your delusions to the contrary. Your language is, however, quite sophisticated—though not as highly developed as that of the orangutan or the chipmunk.”