“It was just a detention,” he said.
“It’s a detention now, but what about tomorrow? Tomorrow is jail?”
Flinch frowned. Mama Rosa had a flare for the dramatic. No matter how small the mistake, she was in constant fear that Julio was on his way to the slammer.
“A bunch of kids were picking on me—”
“Julio! Julio! Julio! You know better. The bullies pick on the younger kids to get attention. If you react, then they get what they want,” Mama Rosa said.
Julio shrugged. “I would have explained that to them if they hadn’t shoved me in a locker first.”
He felt another flash fever coming on. His anger threatened to boil over. How dare Ms. Dove call his grandmother and label him a bully? He had fought back to defend himself, and now he was the villain? Did everyone expect him to just sit and take it? Did they want him to get pushed around the rest of his life? Well, they could forget it! He was done being picked on!
“Oh, Julio, you look so tired, cariño. You’re flushed. Are you OK?”
“I’m not feeling well,” he said, as his racing heart calmed.
“Well, lie down and I’ll bring you something to eat,” she said, putting her hand on his forehead. “You’re boiling. Go rest now, but remember: You are a good boy, and if you are not a good boy, I will see it. Your grandmother has eyes in the back of her head and in her hands and her back and her feet. I see everything—EVERYTHING! No more trouble at school. Do you understand?”
Flinch nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
He shuffled into his room, closed the door, and fell into bed with his shoes still on his feet. He felt horrible; even closing his eyes hurt. His temperature went from hot sweats to teeth-chattering chills. He’d never felt the flu come on so fast or so intense, and in his feverish haze, he wondered if he had picked up some kind of skeleton germ in the catacomb cemetery that morning. Something had killed all those people! Would he be the next victim?
He forced himself to think of other things. Chocolate-covered Easter eggs, marshmallow Peeps, Kool-Aid, maple syrup. That calmed him, and soon he fell asleep.
Unfortunately, in his dreams his happy thoughts were replaced with more frightening visions. Everyone was laughing at him. Everyone was conspiring against him. Even his friends and teammates were working on ways to keep him from achieving his full potential. In one particularly nasty nightmare, his teammates chained him to a wall in a prison cell and stood over him. He begged them to let him out, but they wouldn’t. Instead, they turned their backs and walked away. Suddenly, he heard the striking of a match and a tiny orange flame danced in the dark. In its faint light he saw a boy wearing a mask with a skull painted on it.
“Heathcliff!”
“No,” the figure whispered, then took the mask off. Flinch cried out. He was looking at an exact copy of himself.
“We are great, and they know we should be in charge,” his twin said. Then he blew out his match. Only the skull on his mask still shone in the dark.
OK, LET’S GET BACK TO YOUR PHYSICAL FITNESS TEST. THE FIRST ROUND WAS PRETTY IMPRESSIVE—FOR A BABY! NOW THINGS ARE GOING TO GET A LITTLE TOUGHER.
LIE ON THE FLOOR FACEDOWN, PLACE A BOOK ON YOUR LOWER BACK, AND GIVE ME TWENTY PUSH-UPS.
HEY, NO WHINING! THE PUSH-UP IS SORT OF THE INTERNATIONAL EXERCISE FOR TOUGH GUYS. SOLDIERS WHO SCREW UP ARE CONSTANTLY BEING TOLD TO DROP AND GIVE THE SERGEANT TWENTY PUSH-UPS. IT’S TRUE. IT HAPPENS IN ALMOST ANY MOVIE ABOUT A SOLDIER—SO THERE!
BUT THERE ARE A FEW THINGS THAT WILL MAKE THIS EASIER.
FIRST, STRETCH YOUR PECTORAL MUSCLES, BICEPS, AND SHOULDERS. SECOND, SEPARATE YOUR HANDS SO THAT THEY ARE EQUALLY DISTANT FROM THE CENTER OF YOUR CHEST. (TOO CLOSE TOGETHER WILL WORK THE TRICEPS, THE SMALLER MUSCLES, WHICH WILL MAKE THE PUSH-UPS HARDER. TOO FAR AWAY AND YOU WILL STRAIN YOUR SHOULDERS.) LAST, THERE’S A WAY TO DO IT IF YOU ARE A BIG CRYBABY: PUT YOUR KNEES ON THE GROUND.
WHEN YOU’RE DONE, WIPE YOUR SWEATY FOREHEAD ON THE SENSOR BELOW.
The Antagonist had a secret lair called the Fortress of Antagonism. He had a jet called the Antagojet. He had a motorcycle called the Antagochopper. He had a boat called the Antagoboat. He had a bicycle he called a bicycle (there wasn’t anything particularly evil about it, except for the jangly bell, so he didn’t think it warranted its own name). He had an army of goons and minions, a handful of henchmen, and even an evil assistant named Miss Information, all of whom he called the Antagonauts. An outsider might have looked at him and said, “Wow, that madman has everything!”
But the Antagonist wasn’t happy. Not happy at all! What was causing him so much grief? It seemed that every time he turned around he had to kill yet another one of his employees.
Every day, one of the hundreds of people who worked for him decided that they were smarter than he was and should be running his evil empire. They tried to kidnap him. They tried to lock him up in dungeons. They tried to toss acid into his face. It was getting annoying.
At first he had blamed it on professional jealousy. But fending off fifteen murder attempts in a single week indicated more than just envy. Something was wrong. Unfortunately, the Antagonist could not quite put his hook on what it was.
The attackers seemed to be ordinary goons and henchmen, equally eager to push a hero into a volcano or go for coffee. But then all of a sudden they were wearing costumes, planning the destruction of the planet, and building doomsday devices. Just that morning, he had discovered Betty from accounting wearing a ridiculous costume and calling herself the Terrible Tornado. She wore a machine strapped to her back that could create cyclones. To prevent the lair from spinning into destruction, the Antagonist was forced to lure Betty into the bottomless pit on level four. (It wasn’t really a bottomless pit. The bottom was on level three, but no one had to know.) Betty had used her coffee breaks to build the machine, which was clearly against the rules in the employee handbook, and now the Antagonist was suspicious that the two personal days she had taken the week before were not for emergency cat delousing as she claimed.
But what was really frustrating about the entire situation was that Betty’s actions seemed to inspire the others to try to destroy him, too. That morning, he had stumbled upon three henchmen, wielding swords made of electricity, hiding in his private bathroom. Then, two more assassins dropped from the ceiling and another popped up from under his desk, all armed with poisonous blow-dart guns. He broke each of their necks and then picked up his phone.
“Maintenance, this is your lord and master,” he said. “I have some dead assassins in my office. Could you come up here and get rid of them? What? Yes, more dead assassins.”
He hung up the phone and returned to the executive bathroom, stepping over the bodies to get to the sink. He slipped off his skull mask and splashed cold water on his face. Then he looked at himself in the mirror. At first, he wasn’t sure he recognized the man staring back at him. He had a big, jutting jaw, a nose that had been on the receiving end of a few too many punches, and a brow that threatened to swallow his eyes. It wasn’t the face of a man with a superior intellect. Uncomfortable, he nearly put the mask back on, but then he stopped himself. His face might not look supersmart, but there was something else—it was fierce. It was a face good at frightening people into paying their debts.
And then he began to remember who he was. He was a goon—a professional manhandler. He was the star of his field, the most respected mauler in the industry. Not too long ago he was on the cover of Leg-breaker magazine as the year’s Sexiest Goon Alive. How could he have forgotten? How could his snow-white hair, acquired after being struck by a massive shock of electricity, slip his mind? Did he truly forget the milky-white left eye that sent trembles of fear into his victims? His mind was so full of anger and revenge that he was losing himself.
Why had he turned his back on all the knuckle breaking and intimidation to go into management? He had never wanted to be the boss—most of the criminal masterminds he had worked for were complete knuckleheads, to
o caught up in their own insanity to see the big picture. None of them truly had a chance to take over the world, but they provided the goon with steady work, which was all he had really wanted.
But then something changed. The day he got that terrible flu—that’s when everything went weird. That day, he felt smart. Really smart! And all he could see was weakness and ignorance in others. He was sure they were trying to keep him down—making him feel like a fool—laughing at him behind his back. And then the mask came to him in his dreams, the same mask the kid who kept trying to take over the world used to wear. The mask comforted him. If he wore the mask, gave into it, then he would have everything he ever wanted and the world would shudder for standing in his way. It was ghastly and horrible, but it was also threatening and manipulative. It was a sign of intellect used to frighten the simple.
There was a knock at the office door, so the Antagonist slipped his mask back on, left the bathroom, and crossed the office to open it. Before he turned the knob, he pressed his ear to the door and listened.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“It’s Miss Information.”
“Are you here to kill me?”
“Not today.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I’ll be honest. I fully intend to kill you and take control of the organization, but only when you are at the height of your power. At the moment, this evil empire of yours is heavy on evil, but coming up short in the empire department. Although it does have the necessary bones to grow into something that will control the world. On that day I will strike at you with the speed and viciousness of a king cobra, but until then I’ll bide my time.”
The Antagonist considered this proclamation. Everyone else who worked for him smiled to his face as they tried to slide a knife in his back. Miss Information was someone whose directness he could respect, even if he couldn’t tell whether her smile was wicked or sincere. He unlocked the door and found her on the other side—unarmed.
“Just so you know, one day I will push you into a pit filled with mutated spiders that will lay their eggs under your skin,” the Antagonist told her.
“And someday I will subject you to a horrible medical procedure that will make you my mindless cyborg,” she said. “You look tense. I mean … I bet you look tense under your mask. Sit down.”
He sat in his desk chair and she stood behind him, rubbing his shoulders and releasing the stress that had been building for days.
“You really need to take better care of yourself, boss,” she said. “Stress is not good for your heart. It raises your blood pressure, affects your sleep, and makes you prone to heart disease. I can’t have you die before I get a chance to kill you myself. If you want a book on how to calm down, I can recommend one.”
“Who are you?” he said, turning in his chair to face her.
The woman shook her head. “That would be telling, and besides, we have a bigger problem on our hands. It’s a henchman.”
The Antagonist gestured to all the bodies in his office. “It appears we have a situation with a lot of the henchmen.”
“Yes, they do seem eager to kill you, but this one is a bit different. His name is Dirk Trappings,” Miss Information said.
“Dirk Trappings? Which one is he?”
“We met him at the supermarket. He’s the one who locked his manager in the freezer and then forcefully conquered the cereal aisle.”
“Oh, yes. There were corn flakes everywhere. What has he done?”
“Well, he’s built a doomsday machine and he’s taken it to New York City,” she said.
The Antagonist was enraged. “IS EVERYONE IN THIS ORGANIZATION BUILDING A DOOMSDAY MACHINE?”
Miss Information shrugged.
“Are you building one, too?”
“Just a little one,” she replied sheepishly.
“What does Trappings’s machine do? I hope he’s not a repeat of that idiot Captain Kapow.”
“All we really know is that he’s now calling himself Mr. Miniature.”
The Antagonist sighed. “It’s official. I’m surrounded by crazy people.”
Flinch’s sneeze rocked his science class. Every face turned to see if the poor boy had accidentally blasted his brains out through his nostrils. He smiled and assured everyone he was OK. A moment later he heard Agent Brand’s urgent voice inside his head.
“I need the team in the Playground, now. Lunch lady, get the School Bus fueled and ready for a trip to New York City. Ms. Holiday, prep the agents for skydiving. We can’t land a rocket in midtown Manhattan.”
Just as he’d done a thousand times before, Flinch stood up and gathered his things. He was halfway to the door when he heard his teacher’s voice.
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Reinhold said. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Flinch stopped in his tracks. What was he doing? He couldn’t just get up and walk out of a class anymore. He was so used to leaping into action after a big sneeze that he couldn’t help himself.
“Um, I have to go to the bathroom,” he stammered.
“There’s plenty of time between classes to use the bathroom,” Mrs. Reinhold said. “Please take your seat, Mr. Escala.”
Flinch knew that when an adult used your last name with Mr. or Ms. in front of it, they meant business. He slinked back to his chair and buried his head in a book. Once Mrs. Reinhold had stopped staring at him, he gave his nose a good squeeze so he could activate the two-way communication device. “I’m stuck,” he whispered.
“What do you mean you’re ‘stuck’?” Brand said. Flinch could hear the impatience in his voice.
“The teacher won’t let me go.”
“Mr. Escala, your job is to save the world. If you’re going to be a secret agent, you can’t let a sixth-grade science teacher get in your way.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Flinch asked.
“Find a way, Agent Flinch. You’re a spy. You’re supposed to be resourceful!”
“Maybe you guys should go without me. I mean, I did destroy Paris,” he whispered.
“GET DOWN HERE!” Brand shouted.
Flinch scanned the room. What would get him out of class? Hmmm … The fire alarm! Back at Nathan Hale Elementary, the fire alarm was used all the time to get out of classes. He turned the dial on his harness and felt the sugary energy rush through him. Like a bolt of lightning, he zipped out of his seat and down the hall toward the alarm—only to find Ms. Dove standing right next to it. He nearly slammed into her, but he managed to turn at the last second and race back to his seat in class. No one noticed he had been gone, but the blast of wind that followed him into the room sent papers and books flying in all directions.
He needed another plan. He could always just leave. At superspeed he could be gone before anyone knew it, but they would eventually notice there was no one in his seat, and that was a sure way to get another detention. He didn’t want to disappoint Mama Rosa again. He had to try to get permission to be excused.
“Mrs. Reinhold?” Flinch cried, waving his hand wildly.
The teacher turned to him with an angry look in her eye. “Yes, Mr. Escala?”
“I really need to use the bathroom. It’s an emergency.”
The angry look turned furious. “My answer is still no.”
“But if I don’t go now I’m going to—”
“NO!”
Brand’s voice rang in his ears, too. “Agent Flinch, the rest of the team is here. We need you now!”
Flinch growled. “I’m doing the best I can!”
Mrs. Reinhold marched down the aisle toward Flinch and stood over him. “Do we have a problem, Mr. Escala?” Flinch was so stressed he was shaking.
“Yes, we have a big problem. If you don’t let me go to the bathroom, I’m going to … to just go right here in my pants.”
The class erupted into laughter, but Mrs. Reinhold looked as if she had just discovered a mouse in her jar of mayonnaise.
“You wouldn’t dare,?
?? Mrs. Reinhold said.
“Uh-oh, here it comes.”
The teacher stomped her foot. “Mr. Escala, take yourself to the office right now! Principal Dove can deal with you.”
Flinch grabbed his books and darted out of the room. Instead of heading to Ms. Dove’s office, he rounded the corner and leaped into Locker 41. A few seconds later, he was in the Playground and Ms. Holiday was helping him into his flight gear.
“I’m in trouble,” he said. “She sent me to the office, and I didn’t go. I’m going to be in detention until I’m an old man.”
Brand scowled. “I understand. That woman hounded me all day to clean up after the pack of mongrels she calls students. Have you ever had to scrape snot rockets off a library door? We will deal with her later.”
He and Ms. Holiday hurried Flinch to the School Bus docking bay, where the rest of the team waited. The bright yellow ship was lying on its side like a plane, and it had been modified to ride on two tracks that led into a dark tunnel. The lunch lady stood near the open hatch.
“Let’s move it, people!” he shouted. “We do not want to hit New York City during midday traffic, even in a rocket.”
Seconds later, the engines roared, and with a sudden burst the School Bus hurtled into the dark tunnel, twisting around tight curves and up and down steep hills like a runaway train. There was a blinding flash of daylight and another burst of speed, and then the rocket was airborne, slicing through the powdery clouds toward outer space.
“We’ll be in New York City in less than fifteen minutes,” Brand said, “so we need to get prepared fast. This is a Level One threat.”
“Remind me again. What’s Level One?” Flinch asked.
Pufferfish rolled her eyes. “You didn’t pay attention during your training! Level One is a crime using advanced technology.”
“Two in the same week?” Matilda said. “What’s going on?”