Mascot to the Rescue!

“And I am his guidance counselor, and I likewise have to do what I feel is right for him. This…fantasy life of his is a recurring problem, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to alert social services.”

  “Social services?” Josh’s mom looked as if she’d been whacked in the face with a baseball bat. “That’s who you go to in cases of child abuse! I’m not abusing him!”

  “No, but you’re not disabusing him, either. Running around and pretending to be a superhero is unacceptable. Sooner or later he’s going to get hurt.”

  “He’s a good kid,” Doris said, and then stood and added, “and I’m a good mother, and I’m doing my best.”

  “No one is saying you’re not.”

  “Actually, I think that’s exactly what you’re saying,” snapped Doris Miller, and she turned on her heel and headed for the door.

  Mascot is busy using his hyperhearing to eavesdrop on the ranting of Misstermind. Thus far, it’s been tricky to pick up. Perhaps Misstermind has some sort of white noise scrambling device that’s making it difficult to—

  “Hi.”

  Josh recognized Kelsey’s voice instantly. Unfortunately, he had been leaning to the side of the chair he was sitting on, trying to hear better, and so wound up toppling off. He thudded to the floor.

  “Are you all right, Josh?” Kelsey said.

  “I’m fine. Fine,” Josh assured her, bouncing to his feet like a rubber ball. He squared his shoulders and put his hands on his hips.

  Mascot smiles inwardly. Naturally he recognizes Large Lass, one of the founding members of the League of Extraordinary Justice. Her ability to manipulate her mass and become superheavy or superlight makes her one of the most powerful members of the group. The Leaguers all keep their identities private from one another, but certainly Large Lass is smart enough to know that he’s recognized her.

  The school secretary seated nearby was giving him strange looks. So he dropped his hands from his hips to look a little less heroic.

  “I just—” She smiled shyly. “I just wanted to tell you that the way you jumped in with those boys…that was the bravest thing I’ve ever seen someone do…in person, I mean.”

  “It was no problem.”

  “And the way they ganged up on you…it wasn’t fair.” Her face darkened into a scowl. “I wanted to help you. I really did.”

  “It’s okay. I know you could’ve knocked ’em around really good if you’d had the chance.”

  She nodded and then stuck her hand out. “I’m Kelsey Markus.”

  Josh stared at her hand in confusion for a moment before realizing that he should shake it. He took it and shook it firmly, and said, “Josh Miller.”

  “I know. A lot of kids say you’re crazy.”

  “Yeah? Like…how?”

  “They say you think you’re a superhero.”

  Josh paused, and then said cautiously, “Do you…like superheroes?”

  “They’re okay. I like them better when they’re being their secret identities, though.”

  “Really?” He was still holding her hand in the handshake but had forgotten he was doing it. “But…but the superhero identity is so cool.”

  “I guess, but they’re kind of…you know…bigger than life. I like my heroes life-size.”

  She smiled at him in a way that made him feel weird inside. That was when he realized they were still holding hands, and he quickly released hers as he shrugged and said, “Eh. Who cares what the other kids say, right? I mean, you don’t care what other kids say about you, right?”

  “Definitely right,” she assured him. Kelsey stood there looking a little uncertain. “Well…I’m going home now, I guess.”

  “Why?”

  “Because school’s over.”

  “Oh.” Josh looked up at the clock. “Yeah, I guess it is.”

  “Well…I just…” She bobbed her head shyly. “Thanks again…. I…guess I’ll see you around in school or something—” and she couldn’t resist adding—“hero.”

  She started to turn and walk out.

  “Maybe you should—” Josh began.

  Kelsey pivoted in place and looked at him. “Maybe I should what?”

  Come over to my house, Large Lass. It might be nice to hang out.

  Josh shrugged. “Be…more careful outside. During recess. I guess.”

  Slowly Kelsey nodded. “I…guess you’re right.” She sounded a bit confused, as if she knew that wasn’t what he had wanted to say.

  Josh’s mother walked out of the guidance office and scowled down fiercely at Josh. If Josh had been able to read minds, he would have known that she was more annoyed with Mrs. Farber than she was with him, but Josh was sitting there and Mrs. Farber wasn’t. “Let’s go, Josh,” she said irritably. She stuck out a hand. Josh took it tentatively and glanced nervously in Kelsey’s direction.

  That was when Kelsey spoke up: “Don’t be mad at him, Mrs. Miller,” she said, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “It was those other boys’ fault, and not Josh at all, and he was really, really brave, and you shouldn’t be mad at him for that.”

  “I don’t think it’s any of your business, young lady,” Doris Miller said primly.

  Kelsey didn’t back down. “It kind of is, since I’m the one Josh got into the fight over. So it’s my fault he got into trouble, and those boys’ fault there was any trouble at all, so really, Josh is the last one who should be getting into trouble.”

  Mrs. Miller stared at her as if really seeing her for the first time, and then—to the surprise of both Josh and Kelsey—smiled. “What’s your name?”

  “Kelsey Markus.”

  “Are you new around here, Kelsey?”

  Kelsey nodded.

  “Hard to be the new girl in school,” Mrs. Miller said. “My family moved around a lot when I was growing up, so it seemed like I was always the new kid. Never easy, is it?”

  “No, ma’am. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really thought Josh was very brave.”

  Doris looked her up and down, and her smile widened. “How long have you been friends with Josh?”

  “Just since this afternoon.”

  “Oh!” Doris looked at her son. “So you just jumped in to help a total stranger, huh?”

  “Mommmm,” moaned Josh, and his cheeks turned red.

  She turned her attention back to Kelsey. “Anytime you’d like to come over and visit, Kelsey, you’re certainly welcome.”

  “Mom!!!” Josh’s face colored even further, and he blew his cheeks in and out rapidly like a puffer fish.

  “That would be nice…if it’s okay with you, Josh.”

  Josh looked from Kelsey to his mother and then back to Kelsey again, and his shoulders slumped in something that Mascot would never have acknowledged possible: defeat.

  “Whatever,” he said, sighing.

  CHAPTER 3

  THE SECRET STASH

  Josh was seated cross-legged about five feet away from the television, and he was aiming a plastic gun at it. On the TV screen an assortment of monsters was charging him, and he was calmly firing away. Electronic bursts would appear on the screen in response to Josh’s marksmanship, and monsters were tumbling right, left, and center. He wasn’t thinking about the monsters, though. He was thinking about Kelsey and the fact that she was sitting next to him, watching wide-eyed.

  “Wow. You’re great. Do you ever miss?”

  “I used to,” Josh said, trying to sound casual. “But not for a long time now. I’ve gotten really good at this.”

  “Do you play any other video games?”

  “A few.”

  Doris appeared, showing her amazing ability to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the right time. “Why don’t you show her your comic book collection?”

  “Aw, Ma, she wouldn’t care about that.”

  He was startled when Kelsey replied, “Yeah, I would. I like comic books.”

  This caught Josh completely flat-footed. “I thought you said you didn’t like superheroes.”

 
“No. I just like their secret identities better. It’s…” She considered it. “It’s hard to seem regular when you’re super-special. It’s nice of them, that they go to that much work.”

  “I never thought of it that way.” Hiding his amazement, he laid down the gun, turned off the video game, went with her downstairs to the basement, and started hauling out his long, white boxes filled with meticulously bagged and indexed comic books. “Which heroes do you read about?”

  She started flipping through the comics. “Where are your Archie comics?”

  Josh sagged visibly. “I don’t collect those. Girls collect those.”

  She looked at him pointedly.

  “Oh. Right. You’re a—”

  “Girl?”

  “Yeah. Pretty much.”

  “Well, sorry…I thought you read about superheroes.”

  “I do. I have.”

  He stared at her, confused. “You said you read Archies.”

  “Uh-huh. But they have superhero identities, too. Like Archie becomes Pureheart the Powerful, and Betty is Superteen, and Jughead turns into Captain Hero and Reggie is Evilheart—”

  “Those stories don’t count! Those are, like, imaginary stories. They’re not real!”

  She stared at him in disbelief. “Let me understand this. My superheroes aren’t real…and yours are?”

  Josh tried to respond to that but then just blew air out impatiently between his lips. “It’s just different, okay? I thought you understood.”

  Seeing his disappointed look, Kelsey said gamely, “Okay, well…which one is your favorite? Maybe,” she continued, “maybe I can try some of yours, and I’ll lend you some of my Archies.”

  “We could do that,” agreed Josh, who had absolutely no intention of reading any of her Archies, superteens or no.

  Josh went straight to the back of the largest box. It was out of order alphabetically, but that didn’t matter: He always kept this particular comic at the back so that he would be able to go straight to it at a moment’s notice.

  He extracted the precious comic with such delicacy that he might well have been handling a bomb. It was safe in its Mylar snug bag, and he held it up for her to see. Kelsey leaned forward and read aloud, “Captain Major #342: The Origin of Mascot.”

  “Mascot wasn’t always his sidekick. This is when he first showed up, two years ago.”

  “Can I read it?”

  “Read it?” Josh echoed. The concept was strange to him. He’d read it so many times that he’d memorized every single word, could reproduce every drawing. He didn’t need to read it anymore; he could experience it by just holding it. Obviously, though, Kelsey didn’t share that ability and, well, she was trying.

  “Okay, sure, I guess. Don’t take it out of the bag…lemme do it,” he said, and he eased the comic carefully out of its sleeve. “Are your hands clean?”

  “You’re the first boy I’ve ever met who worried about clean hands,” said Kelsey, amused. But to set his mind at ease, she went off and washed her hands. Having thoroughly dried them, she dropped onto the floor cross-legged and held out her hands side by side, palms up. He opened the comic for her and watched as she paged through.

  The first thing to leap out at Kelsey was the name of Mascot’s secret identity. “Josh Mills? His name is Josh Mills?” Josh nodded. “That’s awfully close to Josh Miller,” she said.

  “It sure is. And that’s not all.” He began to talk quickly, excitedly, faster than Kelsey could possibly turn the pages to read it for herself. “Captain Major took Mascot on as his sidekick after Josh Mills’s father mysteriously disappeared. And my father mysteriously disappeared just a few months before.”

  “He did?” Kelsey’s eyes went wide.

  “Yup. Oh…Mom tried to make it sound like the marriage broke up and he walked out on us. But I know she’s just covering.”

  “Covering?”

  “Uh-huh. Look, it’s right there, on page eighteen, panels one through three.”

  Unsure of what she was going to find, Kelsey turned to the page Josh had indicated. There was Captain Major, his hand resting on Mascot’s shoulder, and he was saying:

  Don’t you worry, Mascot. I’m sure that if and when your father can return, he will. It could be anything keeping him away from you: Space aliens. A secret spy mission. You never know. But it’s going to be hardest on your mother. You have to be the man of the house until he comes back.

  “But…how would Captain Major know these things about Josh’s dad?” said Kelsey, not entirely convinced.

  “Ahhhhh,” said Josh, waggling his finger as if she’d just hit upon a secret of the universe. “That’s part of the mystery. Me, I’m thinking maybe Mascot’s dad is really an operative for the Stellar Protection Alliance that Captain Major works for, and Captain Major swore to him that he’d watch out for Mascot while Mascot’s dad was off on a dangerous mission. Or—and this one I like the best of all—I think Captain Major really is Mascot’s dad, but he has to keep it a secret.”

  “Why would he have to keep it a secret?”

  “Because that’s what superheroes do. Keep secrets. Anyway, we’ve got almost the same name, and our dads both disappeared, and there’s all sorts of other stuff. Like in issue three fifty-three, Mascot’s mom goes out on a blind date with this guy who’s nasty to her and then sticks her with the check in a restaurant, and it turns out he was actually a supervillain. The exact same thing happened to my mom, except he wasn’t a supervillain. At least I don’t think he was. Oh, and one month when Mascot’s mom was out of work, the electric company cut off their power. Right around the same time, our phone got cut off because Mom couldn’t pay the bill. It’s, like, every couple issues stuff happens to both Mascot and me.”

  “So…what are you saying, Josh? That it’s your life in this comic book?”

  Josh shrugged. “I dunno. It’s just…it happens a lot.”

  “Well, sure, it happens a lot, Josh, but that’s all kinds of general stuff that can go wrong with any mom who’s on her own and doesn’t have a lot of money. Right?”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  Josh was suddenly sorry he’d brought it up.

  Kelsey looked into Josh’s eyes and saw disappointment crawling across them.

  Without missing a beat, she said, “Although, you know, now that I think about it…”

  “Yeah?” he prompted. “What?”

  “Well…you could take one or maybe two things and say it was coincidence. But a whole bunch of things…that’s very different, isn’t it? I mean, the odds keep going up and up with each thing until you’re left kind of wondering…maybe it’s not coincidence.”

  “Right!”

  “It’s like…the two of you are sort of connected.”

  He pumped the air in triumph. “Wow! You’re the first person to get that! And the way I figure it,” he said, holding up the latest issue, “if Mascot can get through all the stuff that he has to deal with…then I can get through all of mine. He’s just what his name says: He’s my good-luck charm. If he can handle it, then so can I. As long as he can keep going, it…” His voice trailed off.

  “It makes it easier for you to keep going?” she said gently.

  Josh nodded. Much to his mortification, he felt a stinging in his eyes. The last thing he wanted to do was cry in front of a girl, especially one who seemed as cool as Kelsey. He rubbed his eyes as hard as he could.

  “Are you okay, Josh?”

  “Fine. I’m fine,” he said.

  Mascot remains concerned that Large Lass, being a girl, will blab news of his secret identity to the world. He reminds himself, though, that she is a hero in her own right, and heroes can always be trusted.

  He forced a smile.

  “Can I show you something,” he said cautiously, “that I’ve never shown anybody else?”

  She looked at him sidelong, not entirely sure where this was going. Cautiously she said, “Where do you keep it?”

  “Here, in this box.”


  “Oh. Well…sure. I guess.”

  He reached in and pulled out a pad that was labeled “Artist’s Sketchbook.” He handed it to her and she started flipping through. There, leaping across the pages, was an assortment of superheroes, meticulously drawn in pencil.

  “Is it lousy?” he asked. “If it is, you can tell me. I can take it.”

  She had a feeling that he, in fact, couldn’t have taken it. That it was his fear of someone telling him it was no good that had prevented him from showing it to anybody else. Fortunately she didn’t have to lie.

  “These are good, Josh. Really good,” she said.

  “You think?” He sighed with relief. “Wow. You’re, like, my new best friend.”

  “I am?” No one had ever said anything like that to her before.

  “Yeah. Of course,” he added, “it’s not like I’ve ever had an old best friend. And…hey…you don’t have to be my new best friend if, y’know, you don’t want to, because…”

  “No. No, it’s fine,” said Kelsey. At that moment she decided that there was no one in the world she wanted to make happy more than Josh Miller.

  When the doorbell rang, Doris put aside the book she was reading and answered it. She was surprised to see a rather handsome man standing there. Not movie-star handsome, but…not bad. He had sandy hair and a tanned complexion that made him look as if he were outdoors quite a lot. He was dressed casually in a blue sweater with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, faded jeans, and sneakers. He was about half a head taller than she was.

  “Hi. I’m Kelsey’s dad,” he said.

  “I’m Josh’s mom.” She shook his hand and then smiled. “I remember when I used to have an actual name.”

  “Zack,” he said, laughing.

  “Doris.”

  “I’m here to pick up Kelsey.”

  She turned, cupped her hand to the side of her mouth and called, “Kelsey! Your dad’s here to pick you up!” She turned back to him and said, “I would have driven her home….”

  “Oh.” He waved off the notion. “I wouldn’t have wanted you to go to the trouble. Where are they?”