Meet the Gecko (2 page)

“Nolan?” Dad waved a hand in front of my face.

“Huh? Oh! Oh, right.” I scratched my head. “Computer-animated. Of course. Cool.”

After all, I love computers, right? Computer animation is
totally
cool.

Dad seemed a little concerned. “You okay, champ?”

“I'm great! This is so, so cool!”

“Sí, señor,”
my dad said, ruffling my hair. “The Gecko and Sticky meet Shredderman.”

My eyes got big.

My heart started racing.

“You didn't tell them, did you?”

“'Course not! It's top-secret, I know that.”

I let out a deep breath. It was weird enough that my parents and teacher knew I was Shredderman. No way did I want a kleptomaniacal lizard to find out!

Or
The Gecko.

After all, they were superheroes on TV.

I was one in real life.

Bubba Bixby is someone I don't talk to if I can help it. He's big. He's mean. He's got breath like moldy onions, and believe me, he's not afraid to use it.

Bubba used to make fun of everyone and every-thing. Then I turned into Shredderman. I caught him in the act of bullying. And stealing. I posted his crimes, and his big butt, on the World Wide Web and challenged him to change his ways or pay.

My teacher, Mr. Green, says it's been a partial success. He says all the teachers watch Bubba more closely. He says Bubba
is
showing signs of maturing, and that if we keep working at it, someday we'll find the key to his kindness.

Ha! No matter what I do, Bubba still calls me Nerd.

Bubba still steals stuff.

Bubba still lies.

Which is why
Bubba's Big Butt
is still on the World Wide Web. It's the only revenge I've got, and as long as he's a jerk, that's where it's staying.

Then the day before my birthday, I saw Bubba at school and barely recognized him.

He was
smiling.

Bubba has lots of teeth. Dirty, fangy teeth. And when he smiles, it's more like a big dog snarling. So normally when Bubba Bixby smiles, kids run.

But this smile was different.

It was…
happy?

He was talking to his friends, Max and Kevin, acting like he'd just found a million bucks. His hands were waving in the air. His eyebrows were flying up and down.

His
ears
looked like they were trying to flap!

I wasn't the only one who noticed it. Kids all over the playground were staring. They were circling around him, a safe distance away. Nobody knew what to think.

Nobody had ever seen Bubba Bixby look like this before.

Then I heard Ian McCoy say to his friend Vinnie, “Wow… is that weird, or what?”

I did a few steps of my power-walk until I was right next to Ian. “What do you think's going on?” I asked him.

“Gotta be really diabolical,” Ian whispered.

“Yeah,” Vinnie added. “Maybe even deadly.”

“Whatever he's planning,” Ian said, “I hope I'm not on the receiving end of it.”

Then Vinnie snapped his fingers and said, “Hey! Maybe he's figured out who Shredderman is.”

Uh-double-oh! I tried to act cool as I asked, “You… you think so?”

“Yeah!” Ian whispered. “That must be it! What else would make the Bubmeister
that
excited?”

Ian and Vinnie walked off, leaving me to sweat bullets alone. What if they were right?

What if he'd figured it out?

What if this was my last day on planet Earth?

I watched Bubba a little while longer, then decided that there was only one way to find out.

I took a deep breath.

I snugged down the straps of my backpack.

Then I walked right up to Bubba and his friends and said, “Hi, guys,” pretending I was cool as dry ice. “What's going on?”

Bubba stared at me. “Who's this guy?” he said to the other two, pretending that he'd never seen me before.

“Dunno,” Max said. “But he sure looks like a…”

“Nerd!”
they all cried together, then started laughing.

I'd never been so happy to be called a nerd in my whole life. It meant they didn't know! They didn't have any
idea
I was Shredderman.

I let out the breath I'd been holding and started talking really fast. “Hey, you don't have to call me names. You were just looking pretty excited, that's all. I thought it might be something, you know, great. Fantastic. Amazing! Maybe even awesome! Astounding! Or… or out of this world!”

Wow, I was a regular yapping machine.

Bubba thought so, too. “Shut up, Nerd.”

“Yeah,” Kevin added. “You sound like a stupid thesaurus.”

Both of Bubba's eyebrows shot up at Kevin. “Thesaurus?
Thesaurus?”
He hitched a thumb my way. “You sound like
him,
dork.”

Max said, “Kevvy was just tryin' to explain things in a way the nerd would understand.”

Kevin nodded like crazy, saying, “Honest! I ain't never even
touched
a thesaurus!”

Bubba shrank back down to Godzilla size and snorted, “Good thing.” Then he turned to me and said, “Now scram! You're ruining my good mood.”

So believe me, I started power-walking out of there. But then I overheard Kevin say to Bubba, “So go on. I want to hear more about meeting The Gecko.”

I came skidding to a halt and froze for a whole nanosecond. Then I threw my power-walk in reverse and asked, “Did you say you're going to meet The Gecko?”

“I said, scram!” Bubba shouted.

“Yeah!” Kevin added. “Scram, Nerd!”

“But… but… are you really going to meet The Gecko? How?” A crazy part of me wanted to tell them that
I
was going to meet him the next day. For my birthday!

Max leaned at me and said, “He'll figure out a way, Nerd. He's, like, his number one fan!”

I almost said, No, he's not! but then they all shouted, “Scram!” so I zoomed out of there.

But still, I couldn't believe it. This was impossible!

Or, at least, the weirdest thing since the discovery of quarks!

Bubba Bixby and I had something in common.

I've never had a big party for my birthday. My mom tried to make me have one last year, but I couldn't figure out who to invite. Trinity Althoffer is the only person who's halfway nice to me, but she's a girl. Besides, she's into horses, not computers. Or math. Or science.

Now that I think about it, I have more in common with Bubba Bixby.

Scary!

My parents always give me a really great pres-ent for my birthday, though. That's how I got my digital camera.

And my scanner.

And my bike!

They always take me someplace cool, too. Like bowling, or to an arcade, and once even to a theme park. I love roller coasters!

All those lateral G's.

Vertical G's!

Think about the science involved!

Roller coasters employ gravity, centrifugal force, momentum, and acceleration.

They're amazing!

The wildest roller coaster I've ever been on had five loop-de-loops and seven in-line twists. I thought for sure I was going to die!

My head was dizzy!

My body was shaking!

My stomach kept flying up in my ears!

But it turns out twelve inversions on a roller coaster was nothing compared to meeting The Gecko.

My stomach was so topsy-turvy I thought for sure I was gonna barf!

And that was
before
my dad picked me up at school.

I didn't tell anyone at school where I was going. I was dying to, but now that I knew that Bubba wanted to meet The Gecko, it was way too dan-gerous to talk about!

If Bubba found out, he would want to pound me!

The only person I could have told was Mr. Green, but he was in Oregon, visiting his brother, who was having a heart operation. So I kept my mouth zipped at school, but it was hard! And when the release slip came from the office and our substitute, Miss Newby, told me I could go, I tripped over my feet and my seat and molecules of thin air racing out of there.

My whole body felt like it was going to burst!

On the drive over, my dad let me sit up front with him. I wouldn't exactly call it sitting, though. It was my turn to bounce around!

As we got near Old Town, Dad said, “Hey,
champ. Take a deep breath, okay? He's just a
guy.”

I tried, but my lungs were closed up tight.

“You've got your camera, right?”

I nodded.

“And your poster for him to sign?”

I nodded some more.

“So, relax. He'll like you fine.” He tousled my hair. “How could he not? You're a superhero, just like him!”

“Da-ad!”

He just laughed.

Cedar Valley has one fancy hotel, and that's where The Gecko was staying. The hotel's called the Historian, and it's part of a bunch of buildings that make up Old Town Square. Not that the Square is really a square, which has always kind of bugged me. It's more a U.

Mom says I shouldn't take things so literally.

Dad says I should look at the park area in the middle of the U because
it's
a square.

I say they should quit calling it something it's not.

Or build a fourth side.

Anyway, all the buildings in Old Town are wooden and connected with a big, wide, creaky walkway. The Historian is wooden, too, only it sticks way up in the sky. It's seven stories tall!

As we drove past, we could see people setting things up outside the hotel. There was a giant scissor crane!

Rolling dollies!

Big silver reflectors!

Lights!

Cameras!

Pretty soon there would be
action.

I was looking all around for The Gecko. Was he there?

Dad was leaning across me, looking out my window, too. “Do you see him?”

“Not yet. Do you?”

“Nope. Looks like they're still setting up. I think he comes out when they're all ready to shoot.”

The car behind us honked. We were stopped in the middle of the street! And since you're not allowed to park cars in front of Old Town, we drove around the corner to the parking lot. A whole section of it was blocked off for semi-trucks and moving vans and trailers and limos.

The place was packed!

“What's all that?” I asked.

“Movie equipment, I suppose. And trailers for the stars, maybe.” He smiled at me. “I'm just guessing, Nolan. This is a first for me, too.”

“Wow” I hung my head out the window and looked ahead as Dad got closer. “Do you think The Gecko's in one of those trailers?”

“Maybe so. But I was told to go to the hotel, so that's what we're going to do.”

After Dad parked the car, we walked into Old Town and cut across the park. We watched peo-ple setting up equipment outside the Historian for a few minutes, and then Dad said, “We'd better get going, Nolan. I don't want to be late.”

I'd never been inside the Historian, but I had gawked through the window plenty of times. They have a giant stuffed grizzly bear inside. It's fierce! It has beady eyes. Huge yellow teeth. Even bigger claws! And it's standing on its hind legs, roaring.

Now that I think about it, it looks an awful lot like Bubba.