Attack of the Tagger (2 page)

Sheez-
Just what every superhero wants to hear.

But one Monday morning, Mom was all stressed out about a project deadline at work, so I said, “Don’t worry about getting home for me, Mom. I can take care of myself after school.”

“Nolan, you’re not old enough.”

“Mo-om! I am too!”

“No.” She was packing my lunch, but she kept dropping things on the floor. First the baggies, then a knife, then the box of plastic spoons.

I handed the stuff up to her, saying, “I’ll come straight home, do my homework, watch
The Gecko and Sticky
Everything’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know, Nolan….”

Wow! Something other than “no"! I jumped up and said, “I can take care of myself, Mom. Let me prove it!”

She shot a worried look at the clock. “Start by proving you can make your own breakfast while I clean this up.”

“Sure!” I started zooming around the kitchen.

Eggos out of the freezer—check!

Peanut butter out of the cupboard—check!

Butter knife out of the drawer—check!

I smeared peanut butter all over two Eggos. I
love
peanut butter, and especially on waffles.

Yum!

Eggos in the toaster—check!

Toaster on medium—check!

Toaster lever down—check!

“Nolan?
Nolan?
”

“Yes, Mom?” I was getting down a plate.

“Nolan!” she screamed as she yanked up the toaster lever. Eggos went flying. She grabbed them out of the air. “Nolan Byrd, how many times have you seen me make waffles?”

“Uh… a lot?”

“Hundreds?”

“Probably,” I agreed.

“Thousands?”

“Thousands?” I asked. “No… thousands means you would have made me Eggos every day for a minimum of five-point-four… five-point-four’ eight years, and I don’t think—”

“Nolan!” She wagged my waffles at me. “Have you
ever
seen me put the peanut butter on
before
I toasted them?”

I think those waffles would’ve come zinging at me like peanut butter Frisbees if Dad hadn’t come into the kitchen. “Good morning!” he said, then checked us both over. “Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh is right!” Mom said.

“Take a deep breath, Eve,” my dad said to her. “A deep,
deep
breath.” He took the waffles from her and inspected them. “Peanut butter on, waffles frozen. Hmmmm.” He turned to me. “Trying to make your own breakfast this morning, Nolan?”

I nodded.

Mom was taking deep breaths, but it wasn’t helping much. “He’s trying to show me that he can take care of himself.”

Dad pulled two new waffles from the Eggo box and said to me, “Toast first, champ. Butter later. Otherwise the peanut butter melts and drips in the toaster and makes a stinky mess.”

“Or starts a fire,” Mom added.

Dad held the new waffles out to me. “Try it again.”

So I did. And I didn’t ruin the toaster. Didn’t burn down the house. The waffles came up a perfect golden brown.

Dad seemed to be fine—he even micro waved the first two waffles and gobbled them up—but Mom barely ate anything and didn’t say a word.

Then Dad’s pager went off. He checked the number and said, “That’s Mr. Zilch,” and got up to call him back.

Mom sighed, then sighed again and looked at me.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said.

She touched my cheek with her hand and said, “I just worry, honey. You are so smart, but sometimes I’m afraid you’re living in your own world.”

“But, Mom, it was just a little mistake!”

She sighed some more, and then Dad came back, saying, “Looks like I’ll be doing a piece on graffiti.”

Mom turned to him. “Graffiti? In Cedar Valley?”

“Some hotshot sprayed red paint all over the shops in Old Town Square.”

“Gang graffiti?”

“No. Apparently it’s some childish picture and a long line of red paint.”

“How are you going to make a story about a long line of red paint?” I asked him.

Dad shrugged. “I’ll interview the shop owners— I’m sure they’ll give me a lot to work with.” He looked from me to Mom and said, “We okay here?”

She nodded. “Of course. We just take it one little step at a time.” She gave me a worried smile. “Right, honey?”

I was dying to say, I’m not a baby, Mom! Maybe I don’t know how to make my own breakfast. Maybe I button things wrong or tie them backward. Maybe I miss whole conversations because I’m thinking about something else. But under all that, I’m Shredderman! I’ve saved Cedar Valley Elementary from the evils of Bubba Bixby! I’m strong and I’m smart and I’m brave! I’m a cyber-superhero!

What’s toasting an Eggo compared to the fight for truth and justice?

But I couldn’t tell her. It’s against the Superhero Rules to give away your secret identity. It must be. That’s why they call it a
secret
identity.

So I just tried to smile back and said, “Toast first. Butter later.”

She gave me a kiss on my superhero forehead. “That’s my boy.”

I wiped it off, then heard the morning bell ring across the street. School was open! Morning recess had begun!

I zoomed down to my bathroom.

I brushed my teeth!

I zoomed up to my bedroom.

I grabbed my backpack!

I zoomed to the kitchen.

I snagged my lunch!

I zoomed out the front door, calling, “Love you, Mom!”

“Love you, too, honey!” Mom called back. “See you after school!”

But the minute I zoomed onto campus, I could tell that something was wrong.

And what it was turned out to be a whole lot worse than toasted peanut butter.

From clear across the blacktop I could see that my teacher was not being the Happy Hippie—he was madder than the Green Hornet. He was storming toward the teachers’ parking lot, surrounded by kids.

I caught up and asked, “What’s wrong, Mr. Green?” because I’d never seen him mad before. Testy, sure. Or annoyed. Or even a little grumpy.

But mad?

Not Mr. Green.

“I cannot believe it!” he said, marching along the blacktop. He had a rag in one hand, a bottle of clear liquid in the other.

“Believe what?” I asked. “What happened?”

Mr. Green didn’t answer me, but all of a sudden he stopped and turned around and said to everyone, “This is not cool. And you can tell whoever did it, they won’t get away with it!” Then he started marching again, straight for his van.

I was next to Ryan Voss, so I asked, “What did they do?” I figured he
had
to know—not only is he a sixth grader, he’s the principal’s son and knows everything.

“Beats me,” he said.

“Dude, didn’t you hear?” Carl Blanco said to me. “Someone tagged the Green Machine!”

I said, “Tagged Mr. Green’s van? What do you mean?”

Carl pulled a face at me. “Not like the
game,
Nerd. They tagged it with spray paint.”

“Seriously?” Ryan asked.

Carl nodded. “I heard it’s bright red.”

“Red?” I stopped walking. The same color as the graffiti in Old Town!

Wow.

I shifted into my power-walk and caught up to Mr. Green. But he didn’t want to hear about my dad’s assignment for the
Gazette.
He just wanted to get to his van.

When we got there, Nica Parker said, “Oh, that’s awful!” and it was. Someone had spray-painted a great big dumb-baby face right over Mr. Green’s dolphins. Red circle. Red eyes rolling up. Red buckteeth going left and right.

And coming out of the giant dumb-baby mouth was a talkie balloon with a great big red
Du-uh!
inside it.

Mr. Green wet his rag and started scrubbing.

Everyone crowded around.

The paint didn’t budge.

Then the warning bell rang and Mr. Green said, “Get to class! All of you. Shoo!”

No one moved. We just kept watching him scrub.

“Now!” he shouted. “Go to class or you’ll be tardy!”

“Du’uh!” someone from the left side said.

Mr. Green froze mid-swipe. Everyone held their breath. Eyeballs went boinging all around.

Mine spotted Carl, smirking. And some other sixth graders around him were smirking, too. Like Ryan Voss. And Brad Waxton. And Richie Hatini.

“Who said that?” Mr. Green asked.

No one breathed a molecule.

“Who
said
that?” He stood straight up. “So. You’re a vandal
and
a coward, huh?”

“Braaawk-Brawk-brawk,”
came a voice from the other side of the crowd.

Everyone turned.

But before we could figure out who’d made the chicken sound, Dr. Voss appeared, her voice cracking like a whip. “Children! Get to class. You’ll all be tardy!”

Everyone charged out of there. Everyone but
me. I ducked behind the back bumper of Mr. Green’s van and waited.

When Dr. Voss got over to Mr. Green, she said, “I understand you’re upset about this, Elmo, but there’s no reason to make a school-wide spectacle of it.”

Elmo? My teacher’s name was
Elmo.

Wait. The
Bouncer’s
name was Elmo?

I fell flat on my butt.

Mr. Green was saying, “Someone did it this morning. Right here, in the parking lot.”

I peeked around the back of Mr. Green’s van. Dr. Voss was giving the dumb-baby a stern look. “We’ll see what we can do.”

She started to walk off, but Mr. Green stopped her. “Exactly what does that mean
this
time, Ivana?”

“That we’ll… look into it,” Dr. Voss said.

“
How
will we be looking into it?” Mr. Green asked her.

She frowned at him. “Let me give that some thought, will you?”

Mr. Green said, “How about we start by calling the police. Then let’s ask Dusty to look through the trash bins for the spray can.”

She put her fists on her hips. “Our custodian was not hired to dig through trash.”

Mr. Green shook his head. “Fine. Then I’ll do it.”

“You have a class to run.”

“Okay… I’ll get my class to help me, then.”

“Voluntarily?”

He shrugged. “Sure.”

She nodded. “That shouldn’t anger any parents. But make them wash up afterward. And don’t take too much time away from class!”

“Wait!” he called after her. “Can you ask the teachers to look through backpacks?”

“Well, I don’t know about
that.
” Her frown was back. “It could’ve been anyone. They could’ve
just walked through the field here, up the hill. They could’ve—”

“Could you
please
just ask the other teachers to check? My mural is ruined! It has a lot of sentimental value to me.”

“I’m sure it does,” Dr. Voss said with a smirk, then turned her back and headed for the office. “We’ll do the best we can!” she called over her shoulder. “In the meantime, I can see your class lined up outside your room!”

When she was gone, I popped up from behind the bumper and said, “Don’t worry, Mr. Green. Whoever did it, we’ll catch ‘em!”

“Nolan! Where’d you come from?”

“Back there,” I said, pointing to where I’d been.

“Did you hear… everything?”

“Uh-huh. And if Dr. Voss won’t help you, I will.”