The OK Team (17 page)

I sit down and little Alexandra Fodder says, ‘I knew you were going to sit there.'

‘Good for you,' I say, and open my book.

CHAPTER 22
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

W
e practise for a couple of weeks. There's no point going through it blow by blow. Every day is pretty much the same. We run through the practice drills Mr Fabulous has set for us, while he plays cards with his old-time mates. We get frustrated and go nowhere. He tells us to keep going. We show zero improvement.

‘When you want to get somewhere, you'll get somewhere,' he says.

‘What do you mean?' Cannonball almost screams. ‘We're working our butts off here and nothing's happening.'

‘It takes more than work.'

‘What does that mean?'

Mr Fabulous just smiles mysteriously. I go back to staring at my hand and wondering why it won't disappear. Liarbird looks up, muttering, ‘Green, green, green.' Yesterday says, ‘Anywhere but the tree,' and Cannonball flies anywhere but at the tree. Switchy shifts randomly from a bowling ball to a lighthouse, to his own Hero form – but not Mr Fabulous – to a giraffe to a cool car. There's no pattern to his shapeshifting and the occasional rude word. Torch just stares sadly at the candle on the end of his finger, with the occasional sheepish glance towards the porch, where Old Man Torch, the most famous of the Torches, deals another hand.

It's as if the OK Team is caught in an endless night.

Until one day, Torch swears the flame on his finger actually reaches about ten centimetres towards the tree. He tries to do it again but it won't work while we're all watching.

Then Cannonball slams into the letterbox. Even his bravado can't convince us he actually controlled the flight but, even if it was random chance, he definitely went where he was supposed to fly. He misses the next thirty attempts. But it's something. Suddenly he can see a future.

Which is a lot more than I can, staring at my stubbornly visible right hand.

I realise I'm close to wanting to punch Cannonball. Yes, he may be my original Hero partner and he may have saved my life in that alley, but if he keeps strutting around like God's gift to Heroes, frowning at how crap the rest of the team is, while he still can't actually fly straight, apart from that once, I'm going to attack him with a rake or something.

Another day, I'm sitting next to Switchy and he changes from a toy robot into his muscle-bound genuine Hero form, and then into his gangly, pimple-faced self, and slumps on the grass.

‘Switchy, can I ask you something personal?' I say.

‘I guess.'

‘When you change back into yourself, like now, why don't you try to use your power to get rid of the acne?'

Switchy looks embarrassed.

‘Hey Switchy,' I press on. ‘It's not like we haven't all got zits here and there. But you could get rid of yours.'

He plucks some blades of grass then looks at me with a strange intensity. ‘The thing is, Focus, I don't think that this –' he waves a hand from his face to his feet – ‘is actually me.'

‘It's not?'

‘No more than the small dog, the toy robot or the heroic Hero persona. The truth is, I feel like I'm eighty-seven per cent sure that I'm playing a role in this body, just like the others.'

‘There must be times when you relax, when you really relax. What are you then?'

‘That's the thing, Focus. When I'm asleep, I'm a pillow or a sleeping bag, or maybe Sleeping Beauty. The rest of the time, I switch. Honestly, I don't think I know who I really am.'

‘Wow,' I say. ‘Is that why you always talk about being 400 per cent sure about stuff ? Because you're not sure about anything?'

‘I guess,' he says.

‘That's heavy.'

Sometimes I catch Liarbird looking at me, or she catches me looking at her, and we both quickly look away. One day she says to me, ‘Girls who want to drink hot chocolates with boys in Belgium often stand on their heads for more than nine hours before attempting sudoku puzzles.'

If you understand girls and can help me work this one out, you're a greater Hero than the whole team put together. Sometimes talking to her is like speaking with a Crypto Twin.

Finally, late one afternoon, Mr Fabulous steps off the porch, watches us all for a while and sighs. ‘It's not working,' he says. ‘Time for Plan B.'

‘What's Plan B?' asks Yesterday nervously.

‘It's simpler than this one. We boot you in the deep end with some bad guys and you either swim or you drown.'

‘Gee, that's a top idea,' says Liarbird.

‘Hey, toots, you think I want to spend a year here, watching you get the sky colour wrong? I'm not getting any younger, in case you hadn't noticed. I've only got so many days left on this Earth, capeesh?'

‘Capeesh?' asks Torch.

‘It means “understand”. You should watch more television. Hey, fuzzy-wuzzy freak show, have you made your hand vanish yet?'

‘No,' I say, thinking Mr Fabulous almost matches Scumm for rudeness.

‘Good,' Mr Fabulous says. ‘Then you can use both hands to bring me two beers.'

We break for dinner, supplied by Mrs Torch. I phone home and tell my mum that I'm staying at a school friend's house to finish some homework.

‘It's lovely you're finally making some friends, Hazy,' says Mum.

‘Isn't it,' I reply.

‘Is this a boy your father and I would like?'

I watch Torch lighting candles on the dining room table with the flame from his hand.

‘Yeah, I guess. Dad sure would,' I say. ‘A whole new person to tell “interesting facts” to.'

After dinner, Mr Fabulous stands, stretches, claps his hands and leads us back onto the front lawn.

‘Right,' he says. ‘Let's go find us some bad guys.'

Cannonball puffs out his chest and asks, ‘You think we're as ready as the sun at dawn, huh?'

‘Not really, but I want to get home to Gotham before 2047. You've gotta get your butts kicked some time, so why not now?'

‘It's the unwavering belief that I love,' Yesterday says out of the side of her mouth.

‘I've heard there's a new band of teenagers riding their skateboards in the private car park of the dentist up on Grange Road,' says Torch.

Mr Fabulous is shaking his head. ‘Kid, I love you, you know that. I love your family and I love your grandad. But you do not become a Hero to sort out skateboarding young punks on private property. You become a Hero to beat up super-villains. We're going to the city.'

‘The city?' says Switchy, currently a mermaid.

‘Yeah, big place with lots of tall buildings. Not far from here.'

‘Are you planning to jump one?' says Cannonball.

‘What?'

‘A tall building. You could leap one, you know, in a single bound.'

‘Maybe twenty years ago, kid. Now I'm happy to drink a coffee while you punks do the hard work. Come on, let's go.'

‘I'm sorry to be speaking out of turn and all, but isn't the city centre where the big gangs hang out?' Torch persists.

‘What?' says Mr Fabulous. ‘You want to fight eight-year-old disgruntled boy scouts all your life?'

‘I think eight year olds are more likely to be cubs,' Switchy points out, currently in the gangly pimply mode that may or may not be the real him. ‘I'm 140 per cent certain you can't be a scout until you're older.'

Mr Fabulous is looking at him as though he is trying to remember how to use his heat ray to melt something. ‘That wasn't my major point there, changey-boy.'

‘Oh,' says Switchy, turning into a bag of cement.

‘But Mr Fabulous . . . are we ready for the city?' Yesterday asks. ‘Actually, I think I know the answer to that already.'

‘The only way to become top level Heroes is to start punching above your weight. Don't believe all this crap about entry level this and grade that. See a bad guy. Beat him. It's that simple. You think I got to be who I am by hassling jay-walkers?'

‘I'm not ready,' admits Torch.

‘If I say you're ready then you're ready, Junior Flame.

Let's go.'

‘Mr Fabulous?' I'm the leader. I have to say something.

‘Can we at least vote on whether we feel equipped to face a gang if and when we meet one in the city?'

The ageing Hero squints, looks at the sky, and thinks about it. ‘No,' he says.

‘This will go well,' says Liarbird as we head for the train station. ‘Heroes who fail in their first attempt at fighting city bad guys get locked in a vault in Gotham and have lipstick painted on their noses.'

CHAPTER 23
THE BATTLE OF THE TICK
TOCKS

W
e walk up and down the city's streets for forty minutes. Mr Fabulous looks mainly to the sky, between the tall buildings, before finally grinning and saying, ‘What time is it?'

‘Clobbering time?' says Cannonball hopefully.

‘Maybe, son, maybe. Is it 8 pm?'

‘No, it's 1 am,' says Liarbird.

‘Huh?' says the old man.

‘Actually it's 7 pm,' says Torch.

‘I thought so.' Mr Fabulous starts for the building. ‘All right, you lot. Onto the roof. Good luck.'

‘Who are we fighting?' Yesterday wants to know.

‘Who cares? Let's go get ' em like kangaroos in a supermarket,' says Cannonball.

‘I'm not going up there until I know who I'm dealing with.'

Mr Fabulous looks at me and shakes his head slowly. ‘You are a problem, son, but I'll humour you. It's Time-Zone. He's a low level villain who goes around changing clocks in public places. Likes to cause havoc with train timetables, things like that. He's tinkered with the Flinders Street clock, added an hour, contravening daylight saving adjustments.'

We look at one another. Torch shrugs.

‘OK, let's go,' I say.

‘Well, thank you,' Mr Fabulous says, dripping sarcasm.

‘I'm honoured that the great Focus has seen fit to agree with my judgement.'

I can't help myself asking, ‘Were you this crabby when you were in your prime?'

I'm expecting him to be mad, but instead he barks with laughter. ‘At least twice as bad tempered. I've mellowed.'

‘Gee, wish I'd known you then,' Liarbird mutters.

Yesterday looks nervous. ‘What happens if they start winning?'

Mr Fabulous shrugs. ‘Then you've got me. I mean, what am I? A block of flats?'

‘Actually, sir, that's Switchy,' says Cannonball, standing beside a large apartment building that wasn't there a few moments ago.

‘Oh, right. Nice switch, Switchy.' Mr Fabulous chuckles and shakes his head. ‘You crazy kids.'