“What do you want to play next?” Gabriella said. I think she was joking.
“That’s enough for now,” I said. I turned back toward the tunnel. “Hey — look!” I grabbed Gabriella by the shoulders and turned her around.
“What’s your problem?” she snapped.
“The black door,” I said. “Look. It’s gone.”
We ran back to the wall where the door had stood. I ran my hand along it.
Solid brick.
A tall Horror in a black-and-orange Monster Police uniform came striding past us. His orange cape fluttered behind him.
Gabriella grabbed his arm. “Can you help us?” she asked.
The Horror tilted back his black cap. He had small curved horns poking up from the top of his head. “What’s up?” he growled.
“Well …” Gabriella began, “We were just back there with the Game Master but …”
He rubbed one horn with two fingers. “Who?”
“You know,” Gabriella said. “Winner Taikall. The Game Master.”
The Horror burst out laughing. “Winner take all? That’s funny.”
“No. Really,” Gabriella insisted.
The tall Horror squinted down at her. “Someone was playing a joke on you,” he growled. “There’s no Game Master at HorrorLand.”
The Chiller House shop looked like a little house. It was at the end of a row of shops at the back of Zombie Plaza. The shop had a brightly lit front window filled with funny souvenirs.
A sign above the entrance read: SHOP TILL YOU DROP (REALLY!) The straw welcome mat in front of the door said: GO AWAY.
“Maybe we can find something for Zeke in here,” I said. I pulled open the door.
A long aisle stretched down the center of the shop. On both sides, tall shelves and glass cases were jammed with weird, funny items. Skulls hung from the ceiling. Stuffed monsters were piled on the floor.
I picked up a small box from the first counter. “Maybe Zeke would like this,” I said.
Gabriella took it from me. “Huh? Why would he like a bar of soap?”
Then she read the label: FLESH-EATING SOAP.
“When you wash with it, it eats your skin away,” I said.
We both laughed. Gabriella pointed to an item next to the soap. A human hand cut off at the wrist. “It looks so real,” she said. “It must be made of rubber.”
She reached for it — and the fingers wrapped around her wrist.
Gabriella screamed in surprise. “Marco — help me!”
I pried the fingers open and tugged the hand off her. “It must be electronic or something,” I said. “But it feels like real skin. Yuck.”
“Here’s something Zeke would totally like,” I said. I held it up to Gabriella. EXTRA NOSE. “See? It’s a fake nose. The back is sticky. You stick it to your forehead and freak out your friends.”
“Awesome,” she said.
“Do you like that nose?” a voice asked. “I have it in three sizes.”
I turned and saw an old man at the front counter. He was bald and red-faced. He had small square glasses perched on the end of his long, pointed nose.
He wore an old-fashioned brown suit and vest with a ruffled shirt. He made me think of the painting of Ben Franklin in one of my schoolbooks.
He came shuffling up to us with his hands clasped in front of him. “I am Jonathan Chiller,” he said. “Welcome to Chiller House.” When he smiled, a gold tooth gleamed in the side of his mouth.
“Extra Nose is very popular,” he said. “And here’s something new I just got this week.” He held up a small box: DO-IT-YOURSELF DENTIST KIT.
“It has stickers you put on your teeth,” he explained. “It makes it look like you’ve got ugly brown stains and big holes in your teeth.”
Gabriella laughed. “Excellent!”
Chiller said something else. But I didn’t hear him. I’d spotted something very interesting. I pulled it off the shelf. My heart started to race as I flipped through it.
A graphic novel. About The Ooze. My favorite comic villain. A graphic novel I’d never seen before!
“I don’t believe it!” I cried. I shoved the cover into Gabriella’s face. “Look! I don’t have this one!”
She read the title out loud. “‘The Wizard of Ooze.’
“Marco — you must have read it,” she said. “I know you’ve read every comic and graphic novel there is about The Ooze. You’re obsessed!”
My hands were actually shaking. She’s right — I’m obsessed. I’ve read every Ooze book there is. Sometimes I make up my own stories about him.
And okay, I admit it. Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror with a sneer on my face, and I repeat The Ooze’s most famous phrase: “Know what I mean?”
“Know what I mean?”
“Know what I mean?”
I can sound pretty tough when I want to.
“You sure you don’t have this book?” Gabriella said. She turned to Chiller. “You should see Marco’s collection. It takes up a whole wall!”
Chiller took the book from my hands. He gazed through his square glasses at the cover. “This is a very limited edition,” he said. “It has the original story in it. The very beginning of The Ooze.”
He tapped the cover. “And in the back, there’s a special bonus section. It tells step-by-step how you can become a superhero.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Yeah, sure. And then I could battle The Ooze!”
Gabriella gave me a shove. “You would love being a superhero, and you know it.”
“Well, it’s not going to happen from a comic book,” I said. “But I have to buy this. I need it for my collection. And I’ll buy an Extra Nose for my brother.”
“Very good,” Chiller said. “Follow me.”
He led us up to the front counter. He pulled supplies from a drawer. Then he carefully wrapped the nose and the book in gray wrapping paper.
I reached into my jeans pocket for my money. “How much is it?” I asked. “I was so excited, I forgot to look at the price.”
Chiller motioned for me to put my money back. “You don’t have to pay me now,” he said. His gold tooth gleamed as he smiled. “You can pay me next time.”
Huh? Next time?
He tied a dark red ribbon around the wrapped package. Then he pulled something from the drawer and tucked it into the ribbon.
I stared at it. A little figure. A tiny Horror, like the ones who worked at HorrorLand.
Jonathan Chiller’s smile grew wider as he handed the package to me. “Here you are,” he said. “Take a little Horror home with you!”
On the car ride home, Gabriella and I sat silently in the backseat. I had my face buried in the Ooze book. Gabriella read over my shoulder.
“Look at those unusual trees,” Mom said from the passenger seat up front. “Have you ever seen anything like those?”
Gabriella and I didn’t raise our heads from the book. “Awesome,” I said.
“The trees?” Mom asked.
“No. The Ooze,” I muttered. “He has to be the coolest ever. I mean, a villain made entirely out of oil sludge? How cool is that?”
“Well … he’s definitely yucky and oily and gross,” Gabriella said.
“I can’t believe you kids are missing all this beautiful scenery,” Mom said.
“I don’t get it,” Gabriella said. “He’s just a huge pile of disgusting gunk. Why do you like him so much?”
“That’s why,” I said.
“Horse farm to your left,” Dad said, slowing the car. “Look on the hill. Those horses are definitely thoroughbreds. Wonder if they race.”
Gabriella tried to take the book from me. But I held on to it. “I’m not finished,” I said. “You don’t like it anyway.”
Gabriella made a pouty face. “There’s nothing else to do. I accidentally packed away my iPod.”
“You could look at the wonderful scenery,” Mom said.
“Did you see the bonus section about how to become a superher
o?” I asked Gabriella.
“Not yet. You’re hogging the book.”
“It says it’s easy to find the superhero inside you.”
Gabriella laughed. “You mean you changed your mind about it? Now you think this comic book could actually turn you into a superhero?”
“Well … not really,” I said.
“You know why they put that stuff in the back of graphic novels,” Gabriella said. “It’s just there to fill up the pages. The story ended. So they have to put a lot of other junk back there. No way it’s going to turn you into a superhero.”
“You’re right,” I said. “You’re definitely right.”
“Give me a turn,” Gabriella said. She tried to pull the book from my hands again — and something fell onto the car seat.
She picked it up. “Check it out. A bookmark.” She studied it. “Totally weird.”
“Why?” I asked. “What does it say?”
“I can’t read it,” she said. “It’s in a foreign language.”
I grabbed the bookmark and tucked it back inside the book. “We can study it later,” I said. “This book is definitely awesome.”
“Look at that up ahead — an entire herd of black sheep!” Dad said.
* * *
We dropped Gabriella off at her house. Then as we pulled up our driveway, Zeke came running out to greet us. Of course, the first thing he said to me was — “What did you bring me?”
I helped Mom and Dad carry in the suitcases. Then I gave Zeke his Extra Nose.
The kid is so weird. He stuck it on the living room wall — not on his face. He thought that was a riot.
I spent the rest of the day helping Mom unpack and getting my room back together. We were all tired from the long car trip and went to bed pretty early.
I kept thinking about The Ooze and superpowers … superpowers….
I yawned. I was too tired to read. But tomorrow I would definitely try to find mine.
* * *
The next day was Saturday. That afternoon, I was upstairs in my room. I had the Ooze book open on my bed. I kept flipping through the pages in the back.
Find Your Inner Superhero
That’s what it said. Of course, I knew the whole idea was crazy. Totally dumb. No way it could work.
No way.
But I still wanted to try it. I had to try it.
Sprawled on my stomach on the bed, I turned to the first instruction page and started to read….
There are many powers to choose from. You must explore. You must experiment. It is the only way to find the power that you were born to use. When you find your power, you will KNOW it. Your power will stay with you. It will BECOME you — and you will become IT!
Wow. Marco, you can do this! I told myself. Go ahead, dude. Give it a try!
Is your inner superpower the ability to fly? To find out, you must concentrate … concentrate your thoughts and your muscles. Flight is the gift of birds. To begin, you will need to borrow from the birds. You will need two fresh bird feathers, still warm from the bird’s living body….
Two bird feathers.
“No problem,” I murmured to myself.
Most people would have trouble finding fresh, warm bird feathers. But not me. Maybe that meant I was destined to fly.
I left the book open on the bed. I pulled on my sneakers and made my way out into the hall.
Zeke’s room is across from mine. I saw him in there sticking the Extra Nose onto his laptop screen. “Where are you going?” he called.
“Outside for a minute,” I said.
“Want to play tetherball with me?” Zeke asked. “Dad fixed the rope.”
“I’m busy,” I told him.
“Busy being a jerk,” he said.
Typical.
I stepped out the back door. It was a steamy, gray day. Dark clouds hung low over the trees. It looked like it might rain later.
Mr. Clare, our neighbor, has a pigeon coop behind his garage. He keeps dozens of pigeons. I could hear them cooing.
I checked to make sure he wasn’t around. The back of his house was dark. His car wasn’t in the driveway.
Mr. Clare doesn’t like me. It’s because he thinks I was responsible for a bunch of kids running over his tomato garden. It’s true we were there, searching for our Frisbee. But we didn’t exactly run over the garden.
Anyway, he definitely wouldn’t like me plucking his pigeons. If he caught me, how could I explain what I was doing?
I ducked behind the low bushes between our yards. And I ran as fast as I could to the pigeon cages. They were stacked high against the garage. I counted six wooden cages with maybe ten or twelve birds in a cage.
As I ran up to them, the pigeons began to cluck and flap their wings and knock each other off their perches. “Ssshhh. Quiet, guys,” I whispered.
I glanced around the garage to the house. Did a light go on in Mr. Clare’s back window?
My heart started to pound. My mouth was suddenly dry as sand.
The stupid pigeons were squawking like chickens! They flapped their wings loudly. Two of them started fighting, pecking at each other’s eyes.
I tried to reach my fingers into the middle cage. But the chicken wire was too tight. No way I could pluck two feathers, even if a pigeon stood still for me.
I reached for the latch on the cage door. The pigeons started hoo-hoo-hooing louder.
“Shhhh. Quiet, guys. Please!”
I peeked again around the corner of the garage wall. Yes. I definitely saw a light in the kitchen. And was that Mr. Clare peering out the window?
I had to act fast. My hand trembled as I pushed down the latch. I pulled open the cage door.
“Hey!”
Pigeons flapped and fluttered to the opening. They pushed against my hand, eager to escape.
“Who is back there?” I heard Mr. Clare’s shout from the house. “Is somebody back there?”
A pigeon slid past my hand and almost squeezed out of the cage. I kept the door pressed against my wrist. Pigeons squawked and jumped off their perches at me.
I grabbed at some tail feathers. Missed. Grabbed again.
Yes! I had three feathers pinched between my fingers. One more than I needed.
I squeezed them tightly, praying that they wouldn’t fall out. And carefully, I slid my hand out of the cage. With my free hand, I closed the cage door and latched it.
I moved the feathers into my palm and wrapped my fingers around them to protect them. Then I took off, running on trembling legs.
I made it to the long row of bushes just as Mr. Clare’s back door swung open. I saw him step out of his house, tying the belt of his gray bathrobe.
“Who’s back there?”
The pigeons squawked and cried in reply.
Hiding behind the bushes, I watched him stomp back to the pigeon cages. When he disappeared behind the garage, I took off running. I darted into the house and slammed the door behind me.
Dad was at the kitchen table, working on his laptop. He looked up and stared at my closed fist. “Marco, what have you got there?”
“Uh … something for a science experiment for school,” I said.
It wasn’t a total lie. It was a science experiment.
I gripped the feathers tightly, keeping them warm. And I ran up the stairs to my room.
Zeke was in his room across the hall. I could hear the rattle of gunfire and the roar of exploding cannons. Zeke loves war video games.
I carried the feathers to my bed and set them down gently on the pillow. I took a deep breath. My heart was still racing.
I picked up the book and read more of the instructions….
You will need the two fresh, warm bird feathers and a package of yeast….
Back to the kitchen. Dad was squinting at his screen. Concentrating hard.
“Do we have yeast?” I asked. “It’s for that science experiment.”
He didn’t look up. Just pointed to the cabinet above the stove.
I fum
bled around in there until I found a box of powdered yeast packets. I carried it up to my room and returned to the book….
The feathers will help you fly. The yeast will let you rise high. Place a feather in each pocket. Then pour the yeast on top of your head. Concentrate your powers. If the ability to fly is yours, you will take off instantly.
WARNING: Do not jump off a roof or out a high window until you learn if your inner superpower is flight.
Well, I knew the whole idea was weird. But I’d risked my life to get the pigeon feathers. I had to try it.
I shoved a feather into each of my jeans pockets. Then I opened the box and took out several packets of yeast and poured them onto my hair. Some of the yeast fell onto the shoulders of my T-shirt. I just left it there.
I pulled the desk chair out from in front of my computer and dragged it into the middle of the room. Then I climbed onto it. Carefully … carefully so I wouldn’t spill any more yeast.
I shut my eyes and tried to concentrate.
I knew this was totally crazy. But I felt excited. I took a deep breath and held it.
What if it worked? What if I really could fly like a superhero?
I concentrated … concentrated …
I opened my eyes. “Here goes!” I exclaimed out loud.
I bent my knees — and leaped off the chair.
Into the air. Yes! Yes!
I waited to land on the floor. But no — I floated … floated in the air.
I raised my arms and floated a little higher. I was at least three or four feet above the floor!
It was crazy. It was impossible! But it was working.
I raised my hands higher and felt myself rise up. Like a feather in the wind. My body was swept up — until my hands touched the ceiling.
Then … “OH, NOOOOOOOO!”
A long moan escaped my throat as I plunged straight down.
I landed hard on my face. The air whooshed out of my lungs. I made a choking sound. I couldn’t breathe. Waves of pain shot up and down my body.
“Ohh … help,” I gasped. “Help me. I’ve broken every bone in my body!”
Slowly, I lifted my head. I took a deep, shuddering breath.
My chin felt wet. I wiped it with two fingers and saw bright red blood. I could taste the blood on my tongue.