The OK Team (12 page)

Liarbird says, ‘No.'

I put my silver glove out in front of me and hold it there.

‘What are you doing?' Cannonball asks.

‘We're a team. We need a pre-game catchcry. You ready? Repeat after me: I'm OK!'

They all look at me.

‘Come on, put your gloves and hands on mine and say it when I say it, reply you're OK.'

Slowly hands and gloves pile on top of mine.

‘I'm OK!' I say again.

‘You're OK!' they all cry.

‘Um, what I meant – oh, never mind. Now to finish, we all say, We're OK! Go!'

‘WE'RE OK!', and we belt it out, loud.

‘Cool,' I say. ‘Let's get 'em.'

I've never been so scared in my life as when we come around the corner of the shelter shed and find ourselves facing three teenagers at least three years older than us. Of course they're all built like footballers. Or professional wrestlers. Broad shoulders, muscled-up arms. My worst nightmare. One has long, heavy-metal unwashed hair. The other two heads are shaven. All have tattoos, and they don't look like the fake henna ones that some kids wear around to try and look tough.

One of the teenagers has a metal rubbish bin above his head, water sloshing out of it, about to hurl it through the science room window.

‘Hey, stop that!'

I'm as surprised as everybody else to hear my voice. My visibility flares, fuzzes, then fades, as the three thugs turn slowly to stare at a bunch of costumed kids.

‘You're trespassing and causing damage. You're under arrest.'

Even I can hear the tremble in my voice but I have to keep on with it. I try not to notice the sneer starting to creep across the three faces looking me up and down and mostly straight through me.

‘We are Entry Level, Grade Two Heroes. What is your status?'

‘Our wha –?' says one of the teens.

‘You're kidding, aren't you?' says another.

‘Our status is that we're gonna kick your butts,' says the third.

‘Torch,' I hiss. ‘They don't know about the Hero and Villain rankings. What does that mean?'

‘I'm not sure about this, you know, but I think we're supposed to hope there's a registered law enforcement officer on hand to negotiate the weapons and rules before we fight,' says Torch, looking even more scared than I feel.

But then Cannonball is next to us. ‘You guys have got it wrong,' he says, confidently. ‘If they don't know the rules then there are no rules. We can hit them with everything we've got. Rules are about as useful as buckets at a picnic.'

He swaggers to the front of our group, adjusting his black helmet and hitching up his baggy Hero pants. I have to admit that I envy Cannonball's fearlessness.

‘You ladies ready to have your heads rearranged?' he asks the teens. ‘Of course, in your case it would be a vast improvement, Ugly.'

The teen he is looking at processes this for a few moments then starts to scowl. ‘Hey!'

‘Yep, a brain like lightning,' Cannonball laughs. ‘You want speed, I'll give you speed! LET'S FIRE THE CANNON!'

And with that, Cannonball strikes a pose, clenches his fists and launches himself to fly straight at the three surprised teen hooligans.

It takes a moment but finally I hear the bang behind us. Cannonball has landed hard, taking out a goalpost on the oval more than sixty metres away. ‘Ouch,' he says, rubbing his ear.

One of the teens advances on what is left of the team. ‘Well, that was entertaining, but I think it's time you bunch of freakoids got taught a lesson. This is a school, after all.' He walks up to the Torch. He's half a metre taller and twice as wide. Torch raises a trembling index finger and flicks it into flame.

‘Thanks,' says the teen, producing a cigarette and lighting it. Then he flicks the cigarette at Yesterday, who squeals. The teen shoves Torch off to the side and swings a wild, roundhouse right-hand punch at me. Luckily I see it coming, completely dissolve in panic and barely feel the fist as it sails through the air where I should have been.

‘I knew you were a bunch of thugs when we first saw you,' screeches Yesterday, glaring at the teen.

‘Watch it, girlie.'

‘Violence is the refuge of the coward,' she screeches.

‘If I was you knuckle-draggers, I'd be looking forward to the full police SWAT team that is less than two minutes away.' It is Liarbird, arms folded, looking totally calm, defiant and, to my mind, absolutely gorgeous.

‘Like, sure,' says the long-haired thug.

‘You think we'd wander in here alone, you moron? You think a bunch of kids like us would be anything more than an advance party? We're the seekers and the heat is right behind us.'

‘Gee, I can hear so many sirens,' says one of the teens.

‘And I'm sure they'd send a SWAT team to deal with some broken windows.'

I find some clarity. ‘We weren't looking for a bunch of young punks like you,' I say. ‘Didn't you hear that the arch villain Monsterzoid was seen entering this school less than ten minutes ago?'

The boss thug snarls. ‘Monsterzoid? Like the zit on your girlfriend's nose? That sort of Monsterzoid?'

Liarbird takes a step towards him. ‘It's not a pimple on my nose, it's a mosquito bite. And we're talking about Monsterzoid as in the alien life form that hides in rubbish bins and then shape-changes into liquid to drip onto his victim's heads and eat their brains from the inside.'

The thug with the steadily-dripping rubbish bin still poised over his head suddenly looks uncomfortable.

‘And the same Monsterzoid,' Liarbird continues, taking another step forward, ‘who continues through the victim's body until the water leaves via the usual channel, at a urinal, at which point Monsterzoid assumes human form, midwee.'

‘Oh yuck,' says the boss thug, looking panicked.

‘And the same Monsterzoid who is RIGHT BEHIND YOU!'

The three thugs gasp and spin, but of course there is nothing there.

‘Nice try, hottie. But now you're really for it.' The lead thug advances on us.

Until a small pale shape appears right between them and us. Super Dead Kid pulls his own ghostly brain out of his skull, holds it up and says to the teens, ‘Hi, I'm Monsterzoid. Who's got the tastiest brain?'

The three teens scream and run for it, disappearing towards the front of the school. At the same time, Liarbird grabs Yesterday and Torch by the arms and sprints off around the shelter shed. I scramble after them, wondering if Liarbird hadn't grabbed my arm because she might not be able to actually grab it, or because she cares about me the least? Mostly I wonder why I'm spending more time thinking about whether she likes me than the fact that I almost had my team pulverised by three teenage hoodlums.

Cannonball joins us as we reach the fence and we all go over or through it in record time, running fast from the school.

We are three blocks away before we slow down, wheezing and puffing.

‘Well, that went about as well as I'd expected,' says Yesterday.

‘I think we were brilliant,' Liarbird sighs.

A little ghost appears, standing next to the Torch who backs away slowly. ‘You know what? You guys are so pathetic, I wouldn't want to join your team.'

‘Wow, I love it when this little sweetheart turns up,' Liarbird says, recoiling.

‘Oh, Liarbird, this is Super Dead Kid. He auditioned for the team before you,' I explain. ‘Thanks for jumping in when you did, Super Dead Kid.'

‘You're welcome. As a team, you do stink, though.'

‘That's not constructive, all right?' I feel a need to defend the team. ‘If you haven't got anything positive to say then don't say anything.'

Super Dead Kid thinks about that for a while and then shrugs. ‘Fair enough. See you.' And he vanishes.

Torch looks uncomfortable. ‘I don't want to cause trouble, but were we right not to let him join? He did better than any of us back there.'

Yesterday is scowling. ‘But imagine hanging out with him every day. Yuck!'

‘I agree, sis,' Cannonball says. ‘He's too weird, even for us.'

‘Put out your gloves,' I order, and they do, forming a stack of hands in the middle of our circle. ‘Come on, I want us all to say our motto. That wasn't great, we've got room for improvement but, one way or another, we actually stopped some bad guys. We did have some success. There was some teamwork. Liarbird, you were great. We just need to train more.'

They all look unconvinced.

‘I guess we did save the school, sort of,' the Torch says.

‘I sense we will get better,' Yesterday adds.

Cannonball hangs his head. ‘I sucked more than an icy pole. Big time.'

‘It doesn't matter, mate. You had a crack,' I say gently. ‘What do you say we have another audition? See if there are any useful heroes around to give us more firepower.'

‘I don't know if anybody cares but I think that's a great idea,' Torch says. ‘Strength in numbers.'

I gaze at my teammates, now at least meeting my eyes. ‘Come on. Say the words.'

We all say together, ‘I'm OK. You're OK . . . WE'RE OK!'

It is only later that it occurs to me that Liarbird, the girl whose power is an inability to ever tell the truth, has no problem saying the motto.

CHAPTER 16
THE BIG SWITCH

T
hat night, I place another advertisement on herohints. com for an audition to be held on the weekend. While I'm on the site, I notice a few less than complimentary descriptions of our recent ‘battle'. The OK Team is obviously getting a reputation – a reputation for being the most pathetic outfit around.

The auditions are a disaster. The Human Sprinkler is the worst. He starts by drinking eight litres of water, which is
a lot
, then looks at photos of waterfalls and turns on a hose so it trickles next to him. Finally, he spins around in circles for more than five minutes until he is totally giddy. He has only just begun to drop his trousers when he is forcibly led from the building by Cannonball and the Torch.

Nobody else even turns up for a couple of hours until a lanky kid walks in the door.

‘I am the Flying Saucer!' he declares. He is wearing a green bodysuit with an oversized Mexican bandit ammunition belt around his waist and another flung over his shoulder, and a sombrero on his head. The ammo belts are full of what appear to be plastic bottles with spouts.

‘What's with the hat?' asks Cannonball.

‘Hey, you wear a stupid helmet, I wear a sombrero,' says Flying Saucer.

‘O-kay,' I say. ‘You say you can fly, huh?'

‘A-ha! Wrong again!' declares the teen. ‘I only said I am the Flying Saucer!'

‘I can't wait to have you in the team,' says Liarbird.

‘Thanks, toots. I can't wait to get to know you either.' Flying Saucer gives her an exaggerated and very obvious wink.