A friend with a taste for stealing his father’s cars, apparently. This was an aspect of Theo’s life that Daniel doubted he’d ever understand.
Daniel had just pulled into his subdivision when he saw Rohan standing on the sidewalk, waiting for him and pointing at something overhead. It was still late summer, but the sun had started dipping lower earlier in the evening. The days were getting shorter. Against the backdrop of a burnt-orange sky, Eric appeared. He whipped up a few prematurely fallen leaves as he landed—a glimpse of the change of seasons to come.
“Hey, you talk to the new kid?” asked Eric. Eric loved to make an entrance, but he never acted like he was making an entrance. Daniel wondered at what point flying kids had begun to seem everyday. When precisely did such things stop being absolutely mind-blowing? He honestly couldn’t remember.
“Earth to Daniel,” said Rohan. “Did little Plunkett put you into some kind of trance? Eric, I think our friend’s been zombified.”
“Huh?” asked Daniel. “Oh, you mean Theo? He actually seemed okay.”
“Did you get inside?” asked Rohan. “Did you do any sleuthing?”
“I couldn’t get past the front door. But I did meet some of the family. Turns out, Theo’s grandfather is Herman’s brother. He looks just like a plus-sized Herman. It’s creepy.”
“Well, I’m glad you were able to meet the folks,” said Eric. “But that doesn’t help us figure out what Theo’s game plan is.”
“Actually, I think it does,” said Daniel. “They were normal people, Eric. Theo’s obviously super-spoiled and way too full of himself, but I don’t think he has any kind of game plan other than driving his dad crazy.”
Eric let out an unconvinced laugh and mumbled something under his breath.
“Eric apparently doesn’t take well to other kids saving his life,” said Rohan. “He holds a grudge for the strangest things.”
“For the record, Daniel did the saving,” said Eric. “And I don’t have anything against the kid.”
“But …,” said Rohan.
“But Daniel went over there for a reason. C’mon, you two are as freaked out about a new Plunkett in town as I am.”
Daniel didn’t answer. He just shrugged as he hugged the street’s shoulder, walking his bike toward home. They had reached a portion of the road where the sidewalk ended, and you had to keep one eye on oncoming traffic at all times. Unless you were Eric, of course. Daniel felt sorry for the tractor-trailer that was unlucky enough to come barreling into him.
“Look, it’s weird, all right? And I want to make sure that everything over there in Plunkett’s home is nice and safe, but I just don’t want to judge Theo on the stuff his crazy old granduncle did, okay?”
“Unfortunately, we don’t have much evidence one way or the other,” said Rohan. “Stealing his dad’s car for a joyride is a strike against him, but he did act pretty heroically when he saved Eric—or helped save Eric, anyway. The two kind of cancel each other out in my book.”
Eric shrugged at this. Daniel couldn’t understand why it bothered Eric so much that Theo had saved him, but it obviously did.
“So,” continued Rohan, “all we have to go on is Theo’s name. He’s a Plunkett. Let’s hope he’s just a quirky kind of Plunkett and not on the psychopath side of the family tree. But until we know for sure, we need to be cautious.”
Daniel nodded. He himself had told Mollie that they needed to be careful, and he supposed it was natural for them all to be suspicious of that family—Daniel included. But Theo was the new kid in a strange town, and only Daniel knew how that felt. And how important it would be for Theo to make real friends.
But something else was on Daniel’s mind, something that had been worrying him almost as much as Theo Plunkett.
“So …,” Daniel began. “Speaking of the creek, how are you feeling, Eric?”
Eric shook his head and smiled. “I was wondering when you were going to get to that. I was hoping to keep your detective brain distracted enough with Plunkett family conspiracies.…”
“I’m not using my detective brain on this one. We’re friends, that’s all.”
“You and Rohan are like two old ladies,” he said.
“I’ve been asking him the same question,” said Rohan. “It looked to me like Eric didn’t just lose his grip on that car. Looked like he depowered or something.”
“I’m fine!” said Eric. “That car was heavy, and I guess I must’ve blacked out for a sec. I just overdid it splashing you two with those cannonballs. No big deal.”
“We’ve all seen you handle worse than that car,” said Daniel.
“Yeah, well, I’d like to see you two try to lift it!”
Daniel had never seen Eric this defensive before, which in itself was in some ways the most alarming thing of all. Or perhaps Eric was just tired of the questions, and maybe Daniel was looking for problems where there weren’t any. The easiest explanation would be that Eric had just been overly tired. Why couldn’t Daniel simply accept that and move on?
Because as Daniel had learned, in Noble’s Green the easiest explanation was almost never the right one.
He let the issue die for now, and the three friends walked a while farther without saying much of anything. Soon they came to the lonely intersection that marked Daniel’s street, Elm Lane. Rohan’s family lived on the corner, so he waved goodbye and headed indoors for the evening. Eric’s own neighborhood of Briarwood was several miles away, but that wouldn’t mean much to Eric. He could be home in minutes. But it was still a little surprising when Eric made the turn with Daniel onto Elm.
“You’re not headed home?” asked Daniel.
“Huh? Oh, in a while. I just thought you might want company.”
Considering that for the last ten minutes his “company” had been silent and grumpy, Daniel guessed there was something else going on here.
“Eric, is there a reason you’re not going home right away?”
Eric stopped walking, shoved his hands into his pockets, and stared at the sky.
“Bob’s back,” he said.
“Bob? Oh, your mom’s boyfriend?”
“Yeah. Only now he brought all his stuff. Mom says he’s making a commitment, but I think he finally got kicked out of his apartment. Staying with us is rent-free.”
“Oh, I see.”
Daniel had learned months ago that Eric’s home life was anything but perfect. His mom worked double shifts at the diner to pay the mortgage on their tiny Briarwood house, and when she wasn’t around, her on-again, off-again boyfriend treated Eric like dirt. The guy was rude at the best of times, but when he drank, he became downright scary.
Which in turn scared Daniel. Bob had no idea what Eric really was, or what he was capable of. Daniel worried about the day that Bob pushed Eric too far.
“I thought your mom had dumped him last time for good,” Daniel said.
“It’s never for good. My dad was lousy too, but she kept on taking him back until he finally disappeared. In the end he found a family he liked better, I guess, which was fine with me. My mom and I don’t need anyone else. We definitely don’t need Bob.
“Anyway, Mom’s back to pulling long hours, and Bob popped open his first beer of the day around noon. It’ll be at least seven or eight before he’s safely passed out on the sofa.”
“Well, you could eat dinner at our house. My dad’s cooking tonight, so I can’t promise it’ll be good. I can pretty much guarantee the opposite, actually. But I can promise there’ll be no Bobs at the dinner table.”
Eric smiled. “Thanks. That sounds awesome. Even the dad-cooked meal.”
The two of them started up Elm, past the flickering early-evening streetlights. But they hadn’t gotten very far before Eric put out a hand, stopping Daniel in his tracks.
“Smell that?” Eric asked, wrinkling his nose.
“Hmm? What?”
“Something awful.”
Daniel looked around, sniffing. “Dinner?”
“No, it’s …”
Then Daniel caught wind of it. A smell unlike any other in Noble’s Green. A smell that was so super-terrible, so nauseatingly horrific, that it could only belong to one person.
Bud.
The fat bully stepped out of the woods just a few yards ahead. He was out of breath and struggling with something in his ham-sized fists. Whatever it was, it was heavy even for the big kid. He was so preoccupied with hefting the large whatever-it-was that he didn’t see Eric and Daniel standing in the road.
“Evening, Bud,” said Eric.
Eric’s voice so startled Bud that he dropped what he was carrying. He yelped in pain as a large rock landed on his foot.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” cried Bud as he hopped around on the other foot. At the same time, the smell—that distinctive Bud odor—grew instantly stronger. A hard-boiled egg soaked in milk and left in a hot car.
Daniel covered his face with his sleeve and tried not to barf. Of all the superpowers in Noble’s Green, Bud’s super-stink had to be the worst. In more ways than one.
“Sorry, Bud,” said Daniel. “We didn’t mean to surprise you.”
“Aww, man!” said Bud, struggling to keep his balance and massage his foot at the same time. “Why you gotta sneak up on people?”
“We were just walking along the street,” answered Eric. “You’re the one who came skulking out of the woods. What do you got there, anyway?”
Bud suddenly seemed to remember his dropped parcel, and he took an obvious step forward to put his body between it and Eric and Daniel.
“This? Nothin’.”
“What Bud meant to say,” came a voice from behind them, “is that it’s none of your business, Boy Scout.”
From the opposite side of the street stepped Clay Cudgens, Bud’s wicked, and far more dangerous, partner. Where Bud was a giant slab of flab, Clay was lean and mean. And powerful. Clay was at least as strong as Eric and just as hard to hurt. He reminded Daniel of a feral dog. He’d bitten the hand of everyone who’d reached out to him, including Daniel.
“Well, this looks familiar,” said Eric. “You gonna brag and threaten us until I have to finally kick your butt? Again?”
Clay couldn’t fly, and what’s more, he was terrified of heights. That was Eric’s only advantage, but so far it had always been enough. So far. At that moment Daniel could feel the tension between the two boys strain to the breaking point. It was taut between them.
“That wasn’t helpful,” whispered Daniel.
“Just skipping ahead to the fun part,” Eric whispered back.
“Look, Clay,” said Daniel. “We were just on our way home when Bud came stumbling out of those woods. We’re curious what he’s up to, is all.”
“And I said it wasn’t none of your business. You got trouble with your ears as well as your head?”
Daniel shook his head. “I’m trying to avoid trouble here, Clay. But you make it really hard.”
“Sure.” Clay smiled. “You want to avoid trouble because you’ve got flyboy there to back you up. You’d be wetting yourself if you came around the corner alone and found me waiting for you.”
Actually, that last part was absolutely true. Daniel had already had a bad run-in with Clay, one that had ended with Daniel falling off a mountain. If it hadn’t been for Eric’s timely rescue, Daniel would’ve been a puddle of goo at the foot of Mount Noble. While Clay had ultimately helped the Supers in their final battle with the Shroud, that truce had been temporary, and these days Clay seemed even more determined to make their lives miserable. Clay was right: Daniel was scared of him. And with good reason.
“If Daniel came around the corner and found you,” said Eric, “you’d smile and ask how he was doing. Then you’d go peacefully on your way. Otherwise I’d hear about it. Then you’d hear about it.” He pointed one finger up at the sky. “You and me, we’d have a nice long talk. Up there.”
Clay glanced worriedly skyward. His mouth twitched in anger, but there was fear in his eyes.
“Fine. You go your way, we’ll go ours. We weren’t hurting nobody anyhow. C’mon, Bud.”
Bud began waddling past them, his cloud of stink trailing behind.
“Bud!” said Clay.
“Huh? Oh! Right!” Bud turned around and bent over the fallen hunk of rock he’d smashed his foot with.
“Oof! Gimme a hand, Clay, won’t you?”
Clay snarled in annoyance and walked over to his partner, all the while keeping his eyes on Eric and Daniel.
“Pick it up, lard-butt!”
“It’s heavy!” complained Bud, his face turning red from the effort.
“Hold on, let me get a look at it first,” said Clay, bending low. Daniel noticed that while Clay was looking, he wasn’t touching.
“That’s just a rock,” he said at last.
“But it’s a funny shape! Kinda. Man, I hauled it all the way here, just like you asked.”
“You’re an idiot.”
Something was bothering Daniel. Something was wrong with this situation. Something about the rock, and the direction Bud had come from. He’d hauled it all the way from where?
Eric was apparently curious too. He’d already approached the two boys. “You guys having trouble with your pet rock?”
“It’s kinda heavy,” answered Clay. “But I bet you could pick it up, no problem.”
Something in Clay’s voice, something in the suddenly too-friendly smile.
“Eric,” said Daniel, “be careful.”
“What? What’s there to be afraid of? We’re all friends, right, Clay? You don’t mind if I hold your pet rock for a minute.”
He lifted the bowling-ball-sized stone like it was nothing. “Huh. Can’t say I see what’s so special. What is this, limestone?”
Limestone. The Old Quarry. All at once, everything clicked together in Daniel’s mind. He knew, without a doubt, where Bud had been and, worse, what he’d been looking for.
“Eric!” Daniel said, moving toward his friend. Clay had taken a step back, but he was looking intently at Eric, like a hyena waiting for its next meal. “Drop it!”
“Huh?” said Eric. “What’s wrong?” He gave Daniel a confused smile, but he did as he was told. He let the rock fall with a thud to the ground.
“It’s limestone,” answered Daniel, glancing over at Clay. “From the Old Quarry. But they weren’t looking for limestone. They were looking for Plunkett’s stone.”
Eric’s smile disappeared. He understood now. Placing a hand on Daniel’s chest, he gently pushed him away from himself and Clay, but as he did so, he never took his eyes off the bully. Daniel’s heart was pounding in his ears. He knew what his friend was thinking, knew that the memory of that final fight with Herman Plunkett was still fresh in Eric’s mind. In the Old Quarry, the Supers had stood united against the Shroud and his black meteorite, a shard of the Witch Fire Comet itself, an alien stone that had stolen the powers of generations of superpowered children and had very nearly defeated them all. In the end, with Clay’s help, they had won. Plunkett was dead, buried under tons of limestone rubble. His body was still there. And so was the Witch Fire meteorite.
They’d been allies for that one night, but now there was going to be trouble. Bud took the hint and stepped back too. Far away from Eric’s quiet rage.
“What?” said Clay. “Bud’s starting a rock collection, that’s all—Hey!”
Eric had grabbed Clay by the shirt collar, yanking him close.
“It’s not enough to be a bully? You want to be a super-villain now, is that it?”
“Get your hands off me!”
One hand holding Clay by the collar, Eric leapt up to the sky … and fell. His feet didn’t get more than a few feet off the ground before something in him gave out and he collapsed back to earth.
“What the …?” Clay shrugged Eric off and stumbled backward, his face twisted in confusion. Eric wobbled to his feet, barely able to stand. Daniel recognized that dazed look on his friend’s face—he’d s
een it before back at the bridge.
“Hey, what’s the matter with him?” asked Bud.
No one answered. No one said anything. But a mean smile crept across Clay’s face, making his already ugly face even uglier. It was never a good thing when Clay Cudgens smiled.
“Hey, Eric,” said Clay. “You okay, man? You need a hand?”
Before Daniel could shout a warning, Clay gave Eric a hard shove, knocking him backward.
Eric was lifted up and off the ground by the force of Clay’s little push, and he landed with a loud smack that knocked the wind out of him. He lay there clutching his stomach and gasping for breath.
“Well, well,” said Clay. “Here’s an interesting twist!”
“Whoa,” said Bud, and the air took on the tang of spoiled meat.
Clay stalked toward Eric’s helpless form, cracking his knuckles as he walked.
“Man, payback hurts, don’t it?”
Eric struggled to stand up, but he just couldn’t get his breath. Daniel was at his side, but even with help Eric could only make it to one knee. If he didn’t get better fast, they were both in serious trouble.
“Maybe I’ll just give you to Bud,” said Clay. “I bet even lard-butt over there could whup you now.”
“Hey!” said Bud.
“But just to make sure, I think I’ll soften you up first. This’ll be fun.”
Not that long ago, Daniel had watched Mollie Lee stand her ground against Clay. She’d been protecting Daniel at the time, and though she was super-fast, she was no match for Clay’s strength. If the two of them got into a fight, Daniel doubted that Clay would even feel it. But she hadn’t backed down; she’d stood up for a boy she barely even knew.
Daniel tried to hold on to that memory of Mollie, her face full of stubborn bravery. He kept it foremost in his mind as he put himself between Clay and Eric.