Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain (28 page)

Blinking in the bright sunlight, I asked, “Where to next?” because I sure couldn’t decide in this condition.

“Over there,” Ray supplied immediately, rushing ahead of us to the corner and then leaping across the street. Metaphorically.

As Claire and I hurried up behind him, I gawked in disbelief. “A shoe store?” But there he was, hands and face glued to the window in longing.

“Yes, a shoe store. Look at those boots.” I looked at the boots. The thick, black, leather ones that went way up the calf, with all the ornamental buckles. Thanks to their heavy and solid build, they didn’t look remotely feminine.

“Okay, I see your point. I’ll buy them for you.”

He sighed, half frustration and half longing. “You can’t. They won’t carry them in my size. Nobody makes the really cool shoes in middle school sizes.”

Well, that sucked. “Maybe you can order them online? I guess I don’t have a way to turn all this cash into a credit card number,” I speculated, realizing it was no good.

“No moping. Come on, I want to go in here,” Claire ordered us, grabbing our hands and dragging us next door.

I looked in the window at the frilly, colorful items on display. “A costume shop? I guess that makes sense.”

“If I’m going to be wearing something silly and cutesy when I work, I might as well have some variety. The trick will be finding something high enough quality to be worth wearing,” Claire insisted as she shoved the double doors wide and stepped in.

I followed in behind her, but fumbled in my pocket for my phone. Hmm. “We might want to watch the time. Tomorrow is Monday.” Clothing shopping could take forever. I already felt a magnetic pull toward a hat rack laden with costume goggles.

“We’re out for the whole month, remember?” Claire pointed out, flashing me a wicked smile. Oh, yeah. That was our fault. Ray’s fault, actually.

Ray who didn’t know when it was wise to keep his mouth shut. “That also means we’re guaranteed As. No chance of messing up our finals, and no Fs on our science fair projects to drag us down.”

“You don’t get to be smug about that,” I scolded him in a sharp whisper, throwing in a glare for good measure. “I’ve only forgiven you because I’d have been able to talk you out of it if Marcia hadn’t been an even bigger jerk. If she hadn’t set you up from the start, I’d be a superhero now and you’d be the supervillain I reformed.”

Somewhere between our reactions, Claire sighed. “I can’t believe we have all of December off.”

“It’s just our middle school. The rest of the school system is stuck finishing the term,” Ray added.

That detached, philosophical tone didn’t fool me at all. I turned and poked him in the chest with a finger. “You’re hinting we should go on another supervillain rampage.”

I’d caught him, and he didn’t bother to deny it. Or even look bothered. “It would help our cover. If we made a scene at a different middle school, no one would be sure we were students at Northeast West Hollywood Middle anymore.”

“I don’t know about attacking a middle school. If we just rampage, someone will get hurt.” Claire sounded wistful. Criminy. My friends!

On the other hand… “I might have an idea about how to do it, but we’d just be getting ourselves in deeper trouble.” Just because it might be fun to think about didn’t mean I was willing to do it.

Except the moment I said that, Claire and Ray closed in, their shoulders pressed against mine on both sides. Each way I looked, I got a devilishly eager smile from one of my best friends. Worse, they knew my weaknesses, and I could see how this argument would go. The next round would be them making me admit that if I blew up City Hall now, it wouldn’t affect my chances of clearing my name later.

I surrendered. “I’ll need a lot of metal I don’t have. Like a wrecked car, or something.”

double-counted. Three hundred fifty dollars. Sliding the bills into an envelope, I tucked it into the mailbox. Ray looked amused, but there was no way I was stealing this stranger’s car, even a junked one. “350 – DOESN’T WORK” had been painted on the back window, so that was how much the owner would find waiting when they got home from work.

I hoped the owner was at work. The next part might be loud and alarming. I uncoiled The Machine, tossed it into the back seat, and ordered, “Eat the car. I need transportation.” Hopefully it would get the message.

“Eat the car” went through loud and clear. The Machine chowed down on upholstery until tearing and crunching became squeaking and grinding when it reached the steel underneath. The Machine grew, a bulbous maggot in a vinyl skin, until it ate enough metal and the skin split, releasing a crab that was all mouth and legs. The whining of masticated metal grew louder. On this residential side street I didn’t see any pedestrians, and the three cars that passed didn’t slow noticeably. I added “Claire’s power keeps anyone from panicking” to the list of things I was hoping would work.

The Machine sucked down the last remaining tire and convulsed. Plates slid over each other, metal crackled, and more legs emerged. Finally, he settled down as a compact, eight-legged shape about the size of the car he’d eaten. Grabbing two legs, I climbed his joints and sat down on the rubber mat up near the head. Well, The Machine didn’t have a head in this shape, but one end was pointy and the other rounded and the pointy end looked like a tail to me. So, head.

Claire grabbed the highest joints of two legs, and, like a gymnast, swung herself slowly up and around to crouch behind me. In a bear suit. I didn’t know whether to be jealous or die laughing. Ray seemed in no hurry to join us, but, if I could outrun a car, I’d act the same way.

“So how do you drive this thing?” Claire asked, peeking over my shoulder at the complete lack of controls.

I pointed down the street. “Forward!”

We took off. I grabbed my seat in both hands as The Machine lurched forward. Those eight legs could
move
, and we barreled down the street. As the intersection loomed, I pointed left and yelled, “That way, and try to stay between the cars!”

The Machine obeyed. The car behind me gave us plenty of space as we scuttled up Los Feliz. Claire stood behind me like a princess overlooking her domain. Me, I had to cling to my rubber seat tightly as the wind rolled over us.

And then the car ahead of us slowed down at the same time we reached the bridge, and, without my instruction, The Machine swerved off the road. The world tipped underneath me, and I wrapped my arms around The Machine’s body and lay on the side of my rubber seat as we crawled sideways along the bridge struts without slowing down. Another lurch, a moment of vertigo, and I picked myself up and took back my seat. We were upright on the other side of the bridge, and I heard laughter.

I looked. Four kids in an SUV next to us had the windows rolled down, laughing gleefully. On the other side, two teenagers on the bike path cheered and whistled. HA! Why fight it? “AH HA HA HA! Machine! Jump the next car!”

STUPID! The Machine shuddered, and I let out a desperate squeal as we catapulted into the air! I had to clutch my seat tightly again to keep from being thrown off the back. A metallic crash and the honking of the car we’d just jumped beat at my eardrums when we hit the ground. I uncurled slowly, but The Machine resumed scurrying up the street as if nothing happened.

Behind me, Claire yelled, “Do it again!” over the wind. I twisted my head around to see her rising from a crouch.

“Forget it! Some of us don’t have a superhuman sense of balance!” I yelled back. Claire’s grin didn’t waver for a second.

The buildings got bigger. There was the skyline of Glendale’s downtown in front of us, but we weren’t going there. I pointed down an upcoming side street and ordered The Machine, “That way!”

We pulled up to the schoolyard with Claire giving me a pout because I hadn’t done anything crazier than driving a giant mechanical spider around Glendale. A little kick of my foot, and The Machine wandered off the road and up to the fence around the school.

At which moment Ray slid down from where he’d been sitting on a parked car, walked casually past us, and jumped. A hand caught the top of the ten-foot fence, and he vaulted over the top to land as lightly as a feather on the playground just as the bell rang.

Wait, the bell just rang? I pulled out my phone and flipped it open. Twelve o’clock. We’d gotten here much faster than I’d expected.

Well, the beginning of lunch would do just as well as the middle of lunch. Time to rampage! Another little kick with my heel and The Machine barreled forward, smashing through the fence and flattening it under its eight legs as if it had been made of cardboard. That got everyone’s attention. Kids had already started emerging to eat their lunches in the schoolyard, but they exploded out now, gaping at me, at my ride, at Claire in her bear suit, and at Ray in his black suit and hat. Gaping at The Inscrutable Machine.

LA was too used to this. They were interested, but they weren’t scared. I flipped up the power on my air conditioner cannon, set the blast nice and wide so my lousy aim wouldn’t mess this up, and blew a stone table off its pedestal. It flipped twice in the air and then smashed onto the asphalt with a boom. Perfect.

“Good afternoon, Hailo Senior Junior High! You have been conquered by The Inscrutable Machine!” I shouted at the top of my lungs. The Machine crawled forward toward the growing crowd. More kids, a little more safety-conscious, stared from behind windows. I tried to combine “loud” and “lazy” as I told them, “Now, don’t worry. Submit to our power, and we’ll finish our business here and be gone again. No one has to get hurt unless they resist.”

Seeing a table blown apart would have convinced me, but there always had to be one. A boy so big he must have been held back a year grabbed a chunk of old asphalt and pulled it back to throw it.

I didn’t have to do anything. Ray moved like a shot without seeming to hurry. The boy with the rock didn’t even see him coming until Ray’s gloved hand closed on his wrist. With Ray’s strength, it didn’t look like a fight. He took the boy by the back of his neck, walked him out in front of his classmates, and pushed him easily down to his knees in front of me. The boy finally took the hint. When Ray let go, he hung his head down so far I couldn’t see his face.