Attack of the Tagger (7 page)

I laughed. That was sure to get kids clicking like crazy!

Next, I went to my address book, selected
all
the addresses, and sent them over to the Bcc box so everyone would get a copy but no one would know who else was getting copies.

I reread my letter. I spell-checked it. Then I set the priority to high so there’d be a bright red exclamation point when it arrived. I looked everything over again, held my breath, and clicked Send.

Just like that, copies flew through cyberspace!

To hundreds of different houses!

Boy, I love computers.

Just for fun, I went back to my site and checked it over. But then I noticed the little clock in the bottom right corner of my monitor.

3:45 A.M.?

How’d that happen?

I saved, shut down, and hopped into bed. And
the next morning, I staggered to school on less than three hours’ sleep. No power-walking for me!

But the minute I was on campus,
boing,
I woke right up.

The police were there!

The Channel 12 news crew was there!

And from the graffiti on the wall, I knew the Tagger had already been to
shredderman.com.

A giant purple dumb-baby was sprayed on the back wall of the library. But it didn’t just say “Du-uh!” in the talkie bubble. It said, “I’m Shredderman! Du-uh!”

Kids were swarming all around, talking a hundred miles an hour. A lady with a Channel 12 microphone was spinning in circles trying to get interviews with third graders. “What do you think of all of this?” she asked a blond boy with bowl-cut hair.

The boy pulled a dumb-baby face right at the camera and said, “Du-uh!”

The Channel 12 lady rolled
her
eyes, then
waved her cameraman over to another little kid and tried again. “What do you think of this, uh,
Shredderman?
she asked her.

“Shredderman?” the girl asked back. “Oh, Shredderman’s
cool!
”

“Yeah! Totally cool!” another girl said.

The Channel 12 lady shook her head and sighed, then stuck her microphone in someone else’s face.

I wanted to run up to the Channel 12 lady and say, “Wait! Shredderman didn’t do the graffiti! The Tagger did!” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t say anything that would give me away.

The teachers were having some sort of powwow off to the side, and Dr. Voss was talking to a policeman. To Sergeant Klubb!

I moved closer. I tried to act invisible. Actually, I’m good at being invisible. At least that’s what it feels like a lot. Like when we’re picking teams. Or when people are talking about sleepovers. Or
meeting at the park. Or going to the movies

People don’t seem to notice that I’m standing right there.

So I got real close to Dr. Voss and Sarge. And I was listening away when a hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Nolan!”

I jumped like a kangaroo. And when I landed, there was my dad, smiling down at me.

“I’m sorry, Nolan. Didn’t mean to startle you!”

My heart was pounding at least 165 beats a minute. My eyelids were cranked back probably 190 degrees. My whole body went from 98.6 Fahrenheit to subzero Celsius like
that.

Dad leaned down and whispered, “Take a deep breath, son. Take a deeeeeep breath.”

I tried, but it’s hard when your heart’s racing and the rest of you is petrified.

He laughed. “You must’ve been concentrating on something pretty hard. Honestly, I wasn’t trying to startle you…!”

Finally I blinked and said, “I… I… Uh, hi, Dad.”

“Surprised to see me at school?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Well, I got a call about the graffiti.” He put his arm around my shoulders and moved us toward Sarge and Dr. Voss, looking at the graffiti the whole time. “Shredderman, huh?” He took a small spiral notebook from his coat pocket. “And all this time we’ve been calling him the Tagger.”

“But he’s not!” I cried. “I mean…”

He wasn’t listening to me, anyway. He was shaking hands with Sergeant Klubb, saying, “Hey, Billy. Long time no see.”

Sergeant Klubb snorted. “This punk’s keeping us busy, huh?”

Dr. Voss looked mad. She had her arms crossed, and her lips were pulled tight. “And I suppose now you’re going to accuse my
son
of doing this?”

“Look, Mrs. Voss—” Sarge said.

“
Doctor
Voss to you, Sergeant.”

Sarge took a deep breath. “Ma’am, we never accused your son or the other boys we questioned of anything—we were simply looking for information.”

“But the implication was clear!”

Sarge turned to my dad. “Tell her, Steven. Tell her about the tip.”

Dad nodded and tried not to look at me. “It’s true, Dr. Voss. An anonymous tip was left on my machine at the
Gazette.
”

She huffed and said, “It was probably left by this… this
Shredderman.
He seems to think he can do whatever he wants, just like all delinquents.”

Shredderman? A
delinquent?.
How could they even
think
that? Shredderman fought for truth and justice! Shredderman was a
good
guy! Anyone who’d been to the site knew that!

Things had gone from bad to worse at light speed. And before I could figure out how to stop
something going 186,282 miles per second, Mrs. Bernhart, Miss Simms, and a bunch of other teachers started shooing kids off to class. “Didn’t you hear the bell? Go! Go! Go! You’ll all be tardy!”

My dad ruffled my hair and said, “Have a good day, Nolan! See you tonight.”

Mr. Green caught up to me before I got in line
outside Room 22. “Nolan!” he whispered. “What were you
thinking?.
”

“I didn’t spray that!” I whispered back.

“I mean about the site. I got your e-mail this morning.”

I shrugged. “I was trying to make him mad.”

He laughed, but it wasn’t a funny laugh. “Well, you did a good job! And he sure turned the tables on you!”

“I know! But how can people think that
Shredderman
did that?”

“People jump to conclusions, Nolan.”

“Well, tell them he didn’t do it!”

“Me?” He pointed to himself. “I can’t tell them! I’m the Bouncer, remember?”

“But—”

“And the truth is, I’m feeling pretty uptight about all this. I’m not exactly Dr. Voss’s favorite teacher to begin with, you know.”

I didn’t know. But now that he said it, it did
make sense. She was never very friendly to him, that’s for sure. And she’d been pretty
mean
to him about his van.

Kids in line were starting to look around for him, so I said, “Don’t worry, okay? I’ll fix every-thing. I promise!”

He looked at me like my mom does when I tell her I know how to make my own lunch, then hurried to unlock the door.

By the time I got home from school, I felt weaker than a mortal. Forget superpowers—I was like Superman surrounded by kryptonite. What was I going to
dot

Mom took one look at me and said, “Honey! What’s wrong?”

I just sat down on the floor, backpack and all.

She felt my forehead. “Are you coming down with something?”

I shrugged, sighed, and lay down on the floor.

“Nolan!” She pulled me up. “Honey?”

“I’m okay, Mom,” I finally said. “Just really tired.” I was, too. Superhero or not, three hours’ sleep is not enough.

She peeled off my shoes and dragged me to bed. “You get some sleep, young man.” She felt my forehead again and said, “I’ll check on you at dinnertime.”

I must have snored through a time warp, because I swear she never left. One minute she’s sitting on the edge of my bed, feeling my fore’ head, saying, “You get some sleep,” and the next
minute she’s
still
on the edge of my bed, feeling my forehead, but now she’s saying, “Honey? Honey, time to wake up.”

The smell of dinner was floating through the air. “Spaghetti?” I asked.

“Lasagna.”

I sat up. “Really?”

She laughed and said, “Feeling better?”

I swung out of bed. “Lots!”

“Good! You had me a little worried. And,” she added, “your father is quite anxious to talk to you.

Uh-oh. I stopped in my tracks.

“About Shredderman,” she said.

Un-double-oh. “Shredderman?” I said as innocently as I could.

She shook her head. “Don’t ask me—never heard of the guy before.”

“Hi, Dad,” I said when I sat down next to him at the table.

“Nolan! There you are!” He scooped a big square of lasagna onto his plate. “Your mom says you were wiped out when you got home from school.”

“I’m okay now.”

“Glad to hear it.” He put some lasagna on my plate. “So, tell me—what do you know about Shredderman?”

I shrugged. “Not much.”

“Hmmm.” He served Mom. “Well, I’m getting conflicting reports. Some of the kids at your school told me he was trying to stop the Tagger. Other kids say he
is
the Tagger.” He frowned. “Dr. Voss seems to think he’s an all-around menace. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “She was in a pretty agitated state of mind when I tried to ask her about it—complained a lot about some Web site of his.”

“A Web site?” My mouth was dry. My throat felt choked. What if they went to the site and could tell I had built it? What if they—

“She called it a cry for attention.”

I almost jumped out of my chair and shouted, No way! It’s a call for truth and justice! It’s an awesome site! How can she not like it?

Then I remembered the link to
Bubba’s Big Butt.

Principals—and teachers and
parents
—are funny about butts.

And underwear.

And farts and burps and barf and B.O. and poop.

They make being an adult seem really, really boring.

“Nolan?”

“Huh?”

“Where were you just then?” my dad asked.

“I… I don’t know. Daydreaming, I guess.”

“Well, I was asking—what do
you
know about this Shredderman character?”

“Uh… that he’s a good guy.”

“A good guy who sprays graffiti?” my mom asked.

“He didn’t spray it!” I cried.

“Oh?” they both said, looking at me.

Whoops.

I tried smiling. “At… at least
I
don’t think he did. I think—”

The phone rang.

Phew.

Dad said, “Sorry, Eve, but I’ve got to get it. Just in case.” We could hear him from over by Mom’s

desk. “Hello?….Hey, Sarge.…Uh-huh…uh’

huh…. Seriously?… Uh-huh … uh-huh…. Is that spelled just like it sounds?…Got it. Okay, I’ll be sure to check it out.”

“What was that about?” Mom asked after he hung up.

“Sarge went to that Web site—
shredderman.com.
Says it’s a riot.”

“So Shredderman’s
not
the Tagger?” my mom asked.

“That’s yet to be seen.” He took a bite of lasagna. “But we’ll get to the bottom of it.”

After dinner, Dad booted up Mom’s computer. He typed in
shredderman.com.

Mom hung over his shoulder.

I held my breath.