SuperZero (7 page)

So many months of Superhero School had sped by, and I was no closer towards getting my superpowers going. They seemed to be flat out non-existent or just very lazy powers. They didn't seem to want to show up at all. I had tried everything. And here's the thing: I now WANTED to be a superhero. I was sure I'd be an awesome one. I'd like to swing from building to building (with Anna Conda on my arm), and of course, save the world and all that while I was at it—all those usual things, you know, beat the baddies to pulp. But mainly, I wanted to show my snake girl just how super I was!

Anna Conda . . . sigh! It was her birthday and I hadn't got any gift for her. Mom refused to give me her credit card, and Dad told me that he could not take out money from my college fund to buy a doll's house.

I went to my grandfather. ‘Gra, can you give me some money?'

‘Honey?'

‘Money.'

‘Funny? Told you there wasn't anything funny about it.'

I slouched out of the house in a very blue mood. And when all seemed lost (not even the Fly was buzzing around to say important-sounding things to me) something out of the ordinary happened.

BigaByte gave a little bark. I looked up and I swear (of course, I'm not allowed to swear, but HOODIE-HOO!), out there in the pure bright sunshine was the best sight of my life.

An alien walking all on its own, like on a morning stroll.

Unbelievable!

It was a short alien. Around three feet tall, I'd say. And it had stubby legs and hands and this humongous, round red body with big white spots all over it. Like it had measles the other way around. No face really, but just two pairs of beady eyes looking around. As we stared at it, it did a little jig, a kind of jump, over a puddle. It seemed a very happy alien for someone who was probably millions of miles from its home planet.

That's when the thought struck me!

What a brilliant gift for Anna Conda! It was just the thing! She wanted an alien—why, she'd get an alien—all for herself. Her own little pet alien. And then she'd look at me adoringly. I mean, who would ever leave a guy who'd got you an alien, right?

So I hurried a bit, just a bit, y'know. Didn't want to scare that alien away. And soon I was right in front of it.

‘Hey!' I said, ‘good morning!'

‘Hpzzzz,' it said.

‘Where are you off to on this fantabulous day? So far from home?'

‘Hpzzz arrrndzz conah!'

I wished I could speak Alienese, but I couldn't. So I tried to hold one of the alien's stumpy hands. ‘Come with me. I'll take you to a party,' I said.

And to my total surprise, the alien jumped up and clapped its hands. ‘Pfffaarty!' it shouted happily. So that's the way it works. Aliens were way more intelligent a life form than we thought they were. They could understand
all of Earth's many weird languages, but we couldn't understand theirs.

The party was not till another two hours later. So I took the alien home and tried to smuggle it in through the back garden door into my room. But Dad was outside, trying to repair some broken gadget as usual. So I had to think hard. I took one of the gunny sacks from the garden, the ones Gra stores his manure in. And I pulled it over the alien, who didn't like it (obviously) and so began to kick around but I held it tight and dragged it in.

‘What's that?' asked Dad, absent-mindedly reacting to the muffled growls. ‘Another shoe-eating dog?'

‘No, it's my school project,' I muttered and Dad didn't bother any more.

In my room, I banged the door shut and pulled the sack off the unhappy alien, who was kicking and crying now. ‘Wanzzzzza mmm.' I tried to hush it up but it kept screaming and throwing itself at the closed door.

‘What's that noise up there?' Mom called out.

‘My school project,' I shouted back.

Moms, unlike Dads, have antennae for trouble. ‘Why does your school project sound like a hen? I'm coming up to see it.'

Nooooo! We were so busted.

That's when I got yet another brilliant idea. I'd be giving this alien to Anna Conda as a gift, right? So I hopped over to the drawer in which Mom keeps the gift-wrapping paper
and pulled out the whole roll.

‘Help, BigaByte,' I hissed, ‘we gotta gift-wrap this alien!'

The alien began to wail. ‘Wannnnzzzzzommmmm!'

I could hear Mom's footsteps coming up the stairs. For a slim lady (she says I must always refer to her as ‘slim' and ‘lady'), she made an awfully loud noise.

BigaByte jumped in to help, except he got it wrong. He began to pounce on the gift-wrapping paper roll and rip up shreds of it, which he then chewed on.

‘No, BigaByte, wrap it, not eat it!' I cried, close to tears myself, while the stupid alien kept howling.

I finally managed to wrap a dozen sheets of red and silver paper (with red-nosed reindeer—I guess it was left over from the Christmas party) and tie string round and round the thrashing alien so that it was pretty much strait-jacketed, like they do to violent criminals on TV. Well, it was a violent alien, wasn't it, obstructing the course of justice and all (if you watch as many police programmes as I do, you'll know what that is).

And then Mom burst in through the door. She never knocks, though the sign on my door says: KNOCK OR BE PREPARED TO DYE VIOLETLY. Mom had no fear of violet death, I guess.

‘Where's the . . . wow, what IS THAT?'

‘It's a project I made and I'm giving it to Anna Conda.'

‘What IS it?'

‘Uh . . .' I tried hard to think of something.

The alien let out a sob.

‘It sounds like a choking tap,' said Mom.

‘It IS! It's a home fountain!'

The alien tried to hop about but trussed up as it was, it just fell over.

‘It's a dancing fountain,' I said desperately. Then BigaByte leapt at the gift-wrapped alien, and in panic, I rolled it out of the door and down the stairs. ‘I'm late, so see you later.'

‘Be home by seven,' said Mom, who always says some random time that pops into her head. Seven! Huh!

Struggling to pull the gift-wrapped but fiercely protesting alien along, I finally just balanced it on BigaByte's back. Then I had a fiercely protesting dog AND a fiercely protesting alien.

It's a miracle I made it to Anna Conda's party at all!

The party was in full swing by the time we got there. Thanks to all the delays caused by aliens unwilling to cooperate, fathers and mothers who doubted the decent intentions of their innocent children, and the very slow progress of a fat alien on a fatter dog, and so on.

There was this club of which Anna Conda's nose-inthe-air parents were members, and the party was being thrown on its ‘Eden Lawns' (posh name for a patch of grass, I thought). There were long-stemmed flowers in a flower bed on one side, all perfect, like they were in uniform. And there were a lot of kids playing in a bouncy castle in the middle, with a trampoline. On the other side, there were some tables with the food laid out—for now, all under big silver lids, like upside-down flying saucers. One table had a humongous cake on it, with a castle made out of icing. I had to hold BigaByte's collar because he began to drool as soon as he saw it. ‘No, good dog, I'll give you all the gift-wrapping paper to eat later, I promise.' Behind
the food tables were tall swaying trees. It looked totally out of a Disney movie. There was just one thing missing.

Where was Anna Conda?

Just then, a big boom made us all jump (not the kids on the bouncy castle who were jumping already, but me and the alien especially). A big brass band began to play. A lot of drummers started up a real racket, banging away on their drums, and a trumpeter began to screech . . . and then, when everyone was standing to attention, from behind the tall trees, down a little path, a princess appeared. With a long tail. It was Anna Conda, the beautiful, the kind, the clever, the rich, making a grand appearance.

And just like that I got another brilliant idea. (Of course, all my ideas are brilliant). I would make an equally grand appearance to impress her. I would come flying in like Tarzan of the Apes. (What—you haven't watched that movie either? What have you been doing if you haven't been watching action videos?) You know how Tarzan swings from tree vines and branches and stuff, and then just flies in wherever to appear totally cool? Easy Peasy Deep-Freezy!

So I pulled my gift-wrapped alien up the trunk of a spreading tree (much tougher than it sounds). It almost rolled out of my grip a coupla times, and its wrapping was coming out in pieces. But I pulled it up the tree like the leopards pull dead deer up in National Geographic's Wildest Videos (Tell me you've seen that at least!) Like
the leopard, I was all muscle and grit and determination to win the girl leopard, or girl snake . . . whatever (stop pointing out mistakes!).

Then, all I had to do was swing in on a branch that was hanging low, so I tied the alien to my back with some of his gift-wrapping string, and as the drum beats grew louder, and the trumpeter began to play a very off-key version of ‘Happy Birthday', I swung out on the branch—and away we flew!

To wow the crowd!

To make a grand entrance!

To delight Anna Conda!

To make a big impression . . .

Right on the cake! Splat!

That's right—into the castle cake icing! And the silly alien went rolling off and began to howl again!

Anna Conda broke into tears, and everyone rushed to the alien, who strangely had not only rolled out of its gift-wrapping paper, but also out of its big red-and-white-spotted body! Inside was a little boy, five-year-old Bobby, who lived down the road from me, the nephew of the big biscuit factory's owner.

Everyone gasped. Then giggled. Then laughed. Then grew really angry. And everyone, EVERY SINGLE ONE turned to me.

I had icing all over my face but I still managed to say, ‘I thought he was an alien!'

‘I wath noth an alien. I wath a muthwoom,' lisped a wailing Bobby, ‘in my thchool fanthy dweth.'

A mushroom! At his school fancy dress? How was I to know!

The moment was thankfully hijacked by a loud roar, and everyone turned to watch two men in aprons chasing a very fat creature around the food tables. BigaByte was gobbling down as much food as he could on the run!

While everyone was busy chasing BigaByte or fussing over the silly lisping alien mushroom, I took off home.

I was back on the Most Hated List. Not fair! I took ages to get off it, and then one day, all because of a snotty kid who was dressed up as a red-spotted fungus (and they call me weird!) I was back to being the Bad Guy.

Anna Conda, of course, didn't talk to me at all. She turned her gorgeous nose up in the air and slithered past me in the school corridor, hanging on to TRex, who bared his pointed teeth at me and winked. Slime Joos kept ‘accidentally' zapping slime balls at the back of my head. He pretended he was experimenting to see how far his slime could fly.

Masterror had me standing in a corner for almost a whole morning, trying to transmorgize or transmorgate or something or the other, which is NOT FAIR because no fresher kid can do that yet. He told me I should focus really hard on turning into a rat, which he said shouldn't be too tough for me, because I was pretty much there already.

And then to make matters much worse, Double-Headmistress came over with our progress cards. She read out our names and then handed each one over.

Head 1: ‘Lizzie Lizard, your self-control has increased tremendously. You've not zapped the Fly all of last term, and he is very grateful to you. He sends his best from Antarctica, where, right now, he is teaching the penguins to change colour.'

Head 2: ‘Vamp Iyer, I am proud to tell you . . .'

Head 1: ‘I haven't finished with Lizzie Lizard.'

Head 2: ‘Oh, I do beg your pardon. You weren't even talking ABOUT Lizzie Lizard, you were talking about the Fly . . . and that's all you can talk about . . . you're so smitten by him.'

Head 1: ‘Not in front of the children.'

Head 2: ‘Why? Is smitten too big a word for them?'

Head 1: ‘Yes, but bitten is just right, which is what your head really needs—biting off.'

There was a slight moment when I thought it all might turn out right for me, and they might just forget about me, because Head 1 and Head 2 were snarling at each other, but then they settled down . . . and finally got to me. Sigh.

Head 1: ‘And I will allow you, Head 2, to give the progress report on SuperZero.'

Head 2: ‘No.'

Head 1: ‘Sorry? I told you to . . .'

Head 2: ‘No, I mean there is NO progress at all.'

I mumbled while I took the progress card and walked back towards my corner. Masterror stepped in and placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘I hope you realize by
now, young SuperZero, that you are just not cut out of superhero material.' (Ya, what is superhero material? That tight spandex stuff? Who CARES!). He wasn't done. ‘I am recommending to your parents that you be pulled out of Superhero School. I hereby suspend you from class, with immediate effect, until you prove you have indeed some superpowers that we can build on. It was so not very nice knowing you—tra la!'

The class gasped.

An empty chair suddenly shouted, ‘It's not fair! You've got to give him a chance! He made paper planes fly! You shoulda seen him that day!' It was my buddy Blank, of course, who appeared soon after on the chair.

‘Yes, of course,' said Masterror, mustering as much sarcasm as he could. ‘Paper plane flying is SUCH a critical superhero talent. How would we save the world without paper planes?' He looked around the class, expecting the usual round of laughter in response, but everyone was quiet.

Maybe, just maybe, I did have friends out there.

I didn't want to make this nightmare last even longer than it should. I had my pride after all. And so I just turned around and walked right out.

At home, I was just so fed up of it all that I put the progress card on the dining table, where Dad read it first and then handed it to Mom. ‘He's out.' He didn't say much more. I thought he'd be dancing on the rooftops in glee,
but he looked a little crestfallen. Strange. Mom put an arm around him and they both looked sadly at me. I wished they'd just yell at me and get it over with, y'know. Like, c'mon guys, smack my ear or ground me, or make me clean the car all week. Don't give me the sad puppy look.