SuperZero (10 page)

‘Wake up, SuperZero!' I heard a low growl, and there, up in my face, was Masterror. Why was he looming like the Angel of Death above my face? I glanced around in a panic, and realized I was lying on a hospital bed, wearing a pink-striped hospital robe, and across me lay Vamp Iyer.

‘You fainted,' hissed Masterror, ‘but that's only to be expected from you. At the threat of a slight bite!'

‘And Vamp Iyer?'

‘He fainted too. At the very first sight of blood, that tiny prick of blood from your arm. Some vampire! Huh! They just don't make superheroes the way they used to!'

I closed my eyes and wished he would just go away and leave me alone. But of course, being un-super and an un-hero, nothing happened. There he was, glaring at me, hovering over me like a faulty parachute in a bad dream.

‘You should really go away and leave everyone alone,' said Masterror. Strange, I should have said, I was thinking the same about you.

Masterror continued in a whisper, ‘The Superhero School has never been so badly tarnished before. Our reputation is going down the drain, our headmistress is almost headless, and the students will never learn to be superheroes now because they are too busy fighting each other and not villians. And it's all because of, let's see now, who is it all because of?'

I got the picture. I might not have super sight, but I saw the big picture all right.

‘Me,' I said in a small whisper. ‘It's my fault.'

Masterror's eyes gleamed. ‘Correct, boy, and here I was thinking you'd never learn. You got it!'

I felt sick and it wasn't just because of the blood loss. I felt small and stupid and like a complete loser. It was true: before I happened, the Superhero School was the toast of the town. Everyone was so proud of it and of those fantastic kids. They were the hope of the future, until I started jumping into birthday cakes and flooding buildings.

Time to face the truth.

Masterror leaned even closer till I could see the glimmer in his eyeballs. ‘And you know what's worse? The evil guys around, who have been lying low, because they're afraid of our superheroes? Well, they all think we're a big joke now. I have very trustworthy news that someone is planning an attack on our city. I wonder just what it would take to stop them now?'

I shrank into my pink-striped hospital pyjamas and
said miserably, ‘Tell them I've gone away, and am never coming back. Tell them that there is no one now to ruin things at the Superhero School, and all the superkids are going to be back to their strongest and best—and to look out! Tell them—tell them I've gone.'

Masterror straightened up and smiled. ‘I knew you would do the right thing, boy. I always had faith in you.'

‘But where will I go?' I asked, feeling really sorry for myself. ‘I can't go home—I've let them down so badly.'

‘You should never give up on your dream, boy.' Masterror actually put his arm around my shoulders. Was he actually getting to like me—just a little bit? He smiled. ‘You wanted to be a superhero like Spiderman, right? You were searching for something powerful enough to bite you, right? I happen to know just where a certain mutant species is right now that may be just the thing.'

‘Where?'

‘The zoo,' Masterror whispered. ‘The city zoo has a new Lanther. It's a mutant, a cross between a lion and a black panther. I hear it's brilliantly black with a big golden mane.'

Ulp! ‘It sounds scary. Are you sure it will work? Won't it just eat me up?'

‘Only one way to find out, boy. What if it works? What if you become Lanther Boy? What's a spider in front of a black-panther-lion?'

I began to shiver a bit, because I realized there was no other way out. I swung my feet on to the floor and
was about to pull off my hospital pjs, when a shrill shriek cut through the air. ‘Poppypooh! Where's my brave, wounded soldier?' I could hear Mom's high heels tapping across the gleaming corridor outside. I heard a nurse say, ‘Please don't shout. This is a silent zone. Who is Poppypooh?'

I cringed even more. Just when I thought things couldn't get worse.

‘Here,' said Masterror, ‘jump out of the window. Get out before your family gets here, or you'll never get away.'

‘But this is the fourth floor,' I cried, ‘I'll fall and smash my head on the concrete below.'

‘Perhaps you'll finally learn to fly? Sometimes superpowers come out in times of distress. Look at the Wolverine . . . Or you could always try climbing down the wall.'

‘Powder puff!' I heard Mom shout outside, ‘Is that you in there?'

I heard a door open and then suddenly a man's scream.

‘Oops,' I heard Mom say, ‘I'm so sorry. It must hurt to get an injection down there.'

That did it! Masterror raised his eyebrow at me, and I leapt over to the windowsill. The drop down was scary. Four floors!

‘Be brave, SuperZero, do it for your school!' said Masterror. (The cheat! He was just stealing lines from Gra's TV movie too).

‘Are you here, Pippop?' Mom was twisting my room's door knob now. I threw myself out of the window.

I heard Masterror's steely voice then telling my mother, ‘I'm afraid you're too late.'

Mom shrieked, ‘Late? For what? Where is he?'

Masterror's voice once more: ‘I have no idea whether he is in the land of the living or the dead. But we'll know in a minute.'

Then I heard a voice that brought tears to my eyes. ‘If I find out that you had anything to do with my son's disappearance, I'm coming back for you, Masterror.' My dad. My hero.

Gra joined in, complaining loudly, ‘Why is everyone crying? Are there onions around?'

There was silence. I guess Mom had just fainted. That was perfect. Now she would be put in pink-striped hospital pyjamas on the bed near Vamp Iyer. I was sending people to hospital at lightning speed.

Gra continued to grumble, ‘I thought we were coming to the hospital for my bunions. Look at those painful bunions on my toes! No one said anything about onions. Is everyone deaf here?'

And then I wondered, like you're probably wondering, why I could still hear all these voices if I was lying smashed on the concrete four floors down. No, no, no ghosts and stuff like that.

I was clinging to a drainpipe just outside the window. That's why. I clung to it, just under the window, holding on for dear life. I didn't want to risk flying or climbing walls or anything right now, thank you.

Masterror continued, ‘I hope you'll excuse me. I have a school to take over now, and a bunch of evil people to keep away. It's a hard job and I need to start doing it.'

That reminded me of why I was here. Out of the window. Me. The cause of all the trouble. The super big zero! I needed to get right out of it and away from it all.

So I slid down that drainpipe, right to the bottom, and slunk out of the hospital compound.

From behind the wall, I saw some of the superkids
bring in large bunches of flowers and boxes of muffins. I guessed they were for Double-Headmistress (even though Head 2 could neither eat the muffins nor smell the flowers now), or perhaps they were milky muffins for Vamp Iyer. I doubted anyone would want to bring me any gifts any more. Not after I'd acted like a star and offered to give my blood and then fainted and killed the whole idea. If Head 2 died, it would be all my fault!

I soon found myself at the gates of the city zoo. It was evening now, and they were announcing that it was almost closing time—the last lot of people could get in, and that too for only half an hour.

The sky was darkening while lights in the enclosures were coming on, but not many, since the zoo tries to keep it natural for the animals and of course, in the jungles, they don't have tube lights. Hyenas don't say ‘Let's eat this giraffe in the living room where the lampshade is better than the harsh tube light of the dining room' and so on . . . I was feeling a bit jittery, to tell the truth. All these thoughts of hyenas and their dinner. I kicked stones all the way along, moving from enclosure to enclosure. Emus, elephants—did they keep them in alphabetical order? It wouldn't take a long time to reach the Lanther then.

Since I was still in my pink-striped hospital pyjamas, no one thought much of me; I was just another kid whose mom dressed him funny. I walked and walked, till a siren went off and the wardens kept calling, ‘Time up. Everyone out now. Time up!' I kept hiding in the shadows every time someone came near me.

When it was all dark and silent, I finally came upon the signpost that said ‘Lanther'. A wall rose till my chest, topped by a tall wire mesh rising another ten feet up, after which I pushed my nose in to see. There was a moat, a kind of stream, and beyond that, an island area set up with a tree and some grass and stones and bushes and that sort of thing for the Lanther to feel at home in. Except . . . there
was no Lanther! At the back of the area, I saw a cave with a large metal grill door built in, which was now open. I guess the Lanther had strolled in to have a nap. What a pain! If I could only get it to come here and give me a little lick or a nibble.

‘Here kitty, kitty,' I hissed.

No Lanther.

I pushed my arm in through the mesh—I was that skinny. ‘Here, come and get some bones, kitty!'

No Lanther.

Huh!

I climbed up on to the wall to get a better look around. No Lanther. Where was the stupid mutant cat? I guess the zoo had just been fooling everyone and getting a whole lot of extra money. What if they'd just spray-painted a lion black? Tara Rumpum should have been there to get the whole story out into the papers.

I decided to do a little investigating. I threw a stone right into that cave-house and it went and plunked through the doorway and crashed inside. No cry of alarm from NO LANTHER!

Quite annoyed, I climbed to the top of the tall, tall mesh to get a better vantage point. The mesh said in many places: ‘DO NOT ENTER . . . DO NOT PUT YOUR HAND THROUGH . . . DANGEROUS ANIMAL!' (Who would put their arm through a dangerous animal anyway?) Just their con job so that no one would notice there was no Lanther.
They'd all think the Lanther was asleep in its cave-house—yeah, like through the day and forever.

Craning my neck from the top of that fence, I sort of toppled, and landed with a splotch right into the moat, and just as I started to climb out, I heard a snarl.

It was the Lanther.

Big, black with a golden mane, baring its teeth, with yellow slit eyes focusing on me for dinner.

Help!

Superhero School had this class (Super Moves) in which they taught you different ways to combat danger. Different clever martial art moves and all that. I forgot them all. I just turned and dived back into the moat and began to swim away from the sneaky Lanther as fast as I could.

Well, guess what. A huge splash told me the Lanther had just dived into the moat after me. Help, help, HELP. Of course, when you're screaming under water, it all comes out as cute baby bubbles and gurgles. I swam and swam and the Lanther swam after me, and I realized I was just circling that stupid enclosure—round and round—like a game of tag, except that tag doesn't end with one player eating up the other.

I glanced over my shoulder and yelped, because the Lanther, being a stronger swimmer than me, was just a head away. It reached out its huge paw and swiped, and I felt my hospital pyjamas rip. A big piece of the flimsy cloth was now in the Lanther's claw, which it held up like a flag of victory.

I'd had enough of swimming and I scrambled up the bank of the moat, hanging on to the trailing branch of a tree (the same tree that the cunning Lanther had been sitting on and watching me do that ‘Hello Kitty' routine from, I'm guessing). Anyway, I pulled at this branch and hoisted myself up the moat bank and almost got dragged back because the Lanther had made a grab at my hospital pyjamas again. Why did this animal fancy my pink-striped pyjamas? I took the branch and swung out at the Lanther and connected with something hard.

The Lanther yelped and left my pyjama (with another big hole—I hope these hospital clothes are not returnable like library books, because then I'll have to pay a fine. Ha, like I was getting out of this alive to pay any fines.). It slipped back into the moat and I made a dash for it.

Where to though? Not the tree, because the Lanther obviously loved to go up that tree.

The only other place was the cave-house.

I ran like I had a bloodthirsty mutant beast after me (oh wait, I had!). Reaching the cave-house thing, I threw myself in. It was a small place, around the size of the hospital room, and I scrambled to the wall at the end, when I heard that snarl again and realized that in my brilliance, I had not shut the door behind me. It even had a lock with a key in it. I would have been so safe. Mom! Mom! It's all her fault—she was always complaining that I banged doors shut.

The Lanther licked its lips. The cave thingie was a closed place, and I had nowhere else to run. The Lanther stood outside the door, its tail swishing, and its yellow eyes sizing me up—you know, for meal proportions, number of calories, protein value, that sort of thing.

‘Hey, I'm really sorry for all that kitty calling, you know, I don't think you're a kitty. You're a big daddy, awesome muscleman, dude!' I appealed to the Lanther.

Snarl.

‘I don't really mind if you kind of give me a little nick here, a small scratch, okay? That was the idea. I would luuuve to be like you, all big and strong. But just a tiny
one, okay? Because it's been proven that I faint at the sight of my own blood.'

Snarl. An I-don't-quite-think-so snarl.

I kind of missed my mom. No one messes with my mom. If she were here, she'd flatten the Lanther out with her handbag alone. Her handbag weighs a ton and has all sorts of things in there, including a hair curling iron. Mom! Where are you, Mom?

Another snarl.

I missed Blank and Anna Conda and Vamp Iyer and Head 2 and the Fly, and said a little apology to all of them for being such a complete idiot. And I missed Dad and Gra a whole, whole lot.

Then the Lanther went down in a crouch, and I knew that it was going to pounce at me—I'd seen enough wildlife TV to know that. So I shut my eyes tight. At least that way I would not see myself be eaten alive.

My heart was beating like a war drum, and I saw everything turn black and red and my head felt heavy and really hot . . . and then I got that sudden feeling that it was on fire. Maybe something was working here. That old familiar almost-there superpower. I focused my fear on that oh-if-only metal door.

And HEY!

That metal door slammed shut. Just like Mom told me never should happen. Bang! The happiest sound ever. Mothers are NOT always right! I think the Lanther was
as surprised as I was. The door slammed shut on its own, and the key turned in the lock.
Puh-lunk
it went! Just like that. With no warning, no one around. I gawked and the Lanther snarled, and that was okay by me. Snarl, kitty, all you want—I'm sa-a-a-fe!

Well, as safe as one can be locked in a dark cave with a hungry, angry mutant wildcat outside.

But how did that door shut? And lock? Did I make it happen? I'd give a million dollars (though I had nothing in my piggy bank right now) to know how I made these weird things happen around me.

Could I make the Lanther eat its own tail?

Nope. It just swished its tail and licked its lips at me.

Could I conjure up a deadly python to swallow the Lanther alive (ya, ya, I didn't think of what I'd do with the deadly python later).

No luck.

I tried to focus on getting a warden over.

Of course not.

I settled down for the night. Surely, the warden would come along sometime soon any way to feed the stupid kitty and let me out. It was only a matter of time.

A rumble broke into my thoughts. That came from the Lanther. And a corresponding rumble. That was from my tummy. We were both hungry. I looked around the cave place and saw a long tray with some sloppy stuff in it. It looked a lot like Slime Joos's slime juice. Lanther-dinner!
Gosh, that meant no warden would appear, because this cat had already been given its food.

I curled up, hungry, miserable, and get this—being bitten alive by a hundred mosquitoes again! And hating everything and everyone, I guess I fell asleep.