Joshua Dread (3 page)

Since it didn’t look like the world was going to be destroyed after all, I still had some homework to finish after dinner.

Most people imagine that supervillains live in
hollowed-out volcanoes or secret arctic lairs. But our house looked just like everyone else’s. When your family has a secret identity, it’s not a good idea to draw attention to yourself by installing death satellites or converting the garage into a dungeon.

But if you’d looked closer, you might have noticed the little details that made our house different from the others. Like the extra-tall fence in the backyard that blocked any view of what my parents were working on back there. Or the network of invisible sensor beams that formed a security perimeter around all the doors and windows. Or the curtains on our basement windows that hid the zombies my mom kept locked down there.

I walked past the closed door to my parents’ lab, where they plotted out most of their evil plans. I paused to glance at my reflection in the hall mirror. Mom and Dad kept assuring me that I would be hitting a growth spurt any day now, but so far all I’d hit was a growth sputter. I still could barely see myself in the bottom of the mirror. Disheveled brown hair, a constellation of pale freckles scattered across my nose.

For the next couple of hours, I stuck to my bedroom. I’d had enough experience with these types of situations to know that it was best to just avoid my parents until they’d recovered from their foul mood. By the next day, they’d be over their disappointment again.

When I headed back downstairs for a glass of water,
it was so quiet that I thought they’d gone to bed. But I heard whispers coming from the living room.

“Don’t you think it’s time we tell him?” Dad asked.

“Not yet,” Mom replied. “Let’s just wait a little longer. He’s still young.”

“He deserves to know.”

Mom sighed. “You’re right, Dominick. I’m just worried about him, that’s all.”

I peered around the doorway. My parents were seated on the couch. The television was muted. The light from the screen flickered over my dad’s features as he leaned forward and rubbed his temples.

“Joshua is going to find out soon, you know,” he said. “Whether we tell him or not, he’ll discover the truth.”

“Soon,” Mom said. “We’ll tell him soon. But not yet. Give him just a little more time.”

What were they talking about? What did I deserve to know? Before I could get any answers, Captain Justice appeared on TV in a commercial for Pegasus shoes. Quick shots of him running, lifting weights, practicing with holographic nunchucks—all while wearing Pegasus shoes.

Dad grabbed his plasma gun and pulled the trigger. The TV disintegrated.

When household accessories started getting vaporized, that usually meant it wasn’t the best time for a chat. I turned and tiptoed back upstairs.

The next morning, I climbed out of bed and headed into the bathroom. On the wall beside the sink was a silver box with the words “No Handz WonderBrush” printed in the center. This was one of Dad’s inventions. See, when my dad wasn’t busy inventing devious technologies to terrorize the planet, he spent his time inventing devious technologies that terrorized the rest of the family.

His inventions weren’t supposed to be dangerous. It was just that Dad was an impatient guy. Mom accused him of having SADD (Supervillain Attention Deficit Disorder). He’d start on one project, then get another idea and get all carried away with something else, until a new plan gripped his imagination, and another, and … you get the idea.

Because of Dad’s SADD, our house was stuffed with inventions that he was too distracted to ever quite finish. Some of his ideas were pretty cool. But a lot of them were also kind of life-threatening.

Like the No Handz WonderBrush.

“This little device makes brushing your teeth easier than ever before!” Dad had explained to me while installing the prototype in my bathroom the previous year. I’d considered mentioning that brushing my teeth wasn’t actually all that hard to begin with, but he’d been caught up in his explanation. He’d pressed a button,
and a mechanical arm had swung out of the wall with a toothbrush attached to the end. “See?” he’d said. “Easy. Now just relax while the No Handz brushes your teeth for you!”

That was the idea, anyway. The one time I tried it, the No Handz ended up brushing my eyeballs. Since then, I’ve stuck with my normal toothbrush.

And it’s not like Mom made my life any easier. She was constantly testing out her experiments around the house. That morning was no exception. When I got downstairs for breakfast, she was placing a small potted tree on the floor next to the dining room table.

“What does this look like?” she asked, pointing at the tree.

It had to be a trick question. “Um … a tree?” I said.

“It’s actually a genetically engineered mutant ficus,” she said.

See what I mean? Trick question.

“I’ve been working in the lab on this for months. And I think it’s finally ready.” Mom turned and faced the tree. “Well, are you ready?”

She was speaking to the tree. And that wasn’t even the weirdest part. Because a second later, the tree flapped forward and back several times. Like a nod.

“Did you make it do that?” I asked.

“Nope,” Mom said. “Micus did that all on his own.”

“Micus?”

“Mutant Ficus. He’s been genetically engineered to understand human language by measuring the vibration in our voices. And he’s also capable of responding to simple questions and expressing himself.”

The tree seemed to be looking up at Mom now. Its branches flapped up and down like arms.

“So, uh—what does it want now?” I asked.

Mom examined the tree. “At the moment, he appears to be hungry?”

Micus nodded more enthusiastically than the previous time.

“Would you like to feed him?” Mom asked.

The tree turned in my direction. Strange that you could feel like you were being watched by something without eyes.

“Go ahead,” Mom said. “Micus won’t bite. Will you, Micus?”

The tree shook its bushy head back and forth.

“That’s okay,” I said. “Actually, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

All morning, questions had been swimming through my head. What had my parents been whispering about the night before? What were they keeping from me?

But this obviously wasn’t the time to ask. Mom was distracted by Micus, who’d begun flailing his branches around like a little kid throwing a temper tantrum.

“Oh, now he’s upset. Here, give him some of this.” Mom
pushed a plastic jug into my hands. Water sloshed around inside. “A little water ought to make him feel better.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Absolutely. Once he has something to drink, he’ll perk right up.”

“Okay.” Leaning forward, I tilted the jug. All of a sudden, Micus wrapped a branch around my wrist. I tried to pull back, but Micus was surprisingly strong for a houseplant.

“No, Micus!” Mom yelled. “Let go of Joshua at once!”

Instead, the tree pulled my wrist down. Water gushed out of the jug, landing in the pot and spilling over the edges.

“Okay, I’ll give you what you want!” I screamed. “Just don’t hurt me!”

I couldn’t believe it had come to this—bargaining for my life with a potted tree. Micus yanked harder, and the rest of the water came splashing out of the jug. Finally Mom raised her hand, palm out. She stared hard at the tree, a concentrated expression that always showed up on her face when she used her power. I felt the plant’s grip loosening. As soon as I was free, I leaped around to the other end of the dining room table to catch my breath.

Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast after all.

When I got to school, everyone was talking about the fight between Captain Justice and my parents. A You-Tube video of my dad getting caught in the Net of Truth had gone viral overnight. Things only got worse on my way to third period. I was rounding a corner near the main stairway when a harsh voice called out to me.

“Hey, Dorkface! Where ya going?”

My stomach did a somersault. The voice belonged to Joey Birch. As for “Dorkface”—well, I guess that was another of the names I went by.

Joey was wiry and tall, with red hair and pale, sharp features. He roamed the hallways of Sheepsdale Middle School threatening, stealing, bribing, cheating—followed everywhere by Brick Gristol.

Nobody knew how Brick had gotten his nickname. Maybe it had something to do with his level of intelligence. Or maybe it was because his head was as flat and hard as a brick. There were rumors that he’d been held back three times. This would have explained why he was the only kid in the sixth grade who had a five o’clock shadow and a learner’s permit.

Brick grinned down at me, showing off a mouthful of crooked teeth. He was wearing a T-shirt that read:

“Listen up, Dorkface,” Joey said, taking a step in my direction. “We’re trying to settle a little bet. Brick says that we could stuff you into a locker and shut the door. But I say we’d have to break your legs before you’d fit. Whaddaya think?”

Neither option sounded all that good to me, but I had a feeling that they weren’t really asking for my advice. Besides, every time I tried to speak, the enormous knot in my throat got in the way, and I ended up making a sound that was something between a squeak and a gurgle.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” Joey said. “Just break
one
of your legs and stuff you inside. If you don’t fit, we’ll break the other one.”

Brick grabbed my arm with one hairy-knuckled hand. With his other hand, he reached out and yanked the knob of a nearby locker. The door swung open with a clang.

I could tell there was no way I was going to fit inside the locker. Not even close. I’d admit that I was kind of small for my age, but I was not nearly as bendable as I looked. I tried to mention this to Joey and Brick, but when I opened my mouth, I sounded like a suffocating hamster.

I glanced down at Brick’s hand. It looked about the size of a catcher’s mitt against my scrawny arm.

Brick pulled me closer to the locker.

“I hope you’re flexible,” Joey said. “ ’Cause it’s gonna be a tight squeeze.”

I can’t really explain what happened next because I didn’t understand it myself. But a weird feeling came over me. It started as a tingling in my fingertips and spread down my arms and across my pounding chest. Then a surge of energy pulsed through me, a rush of intense power bursting through my veins.

All of a sudden, Brick flew backward like he’d just been hit by an invisible eighteen-wheeler. A crash echoed through the hallway as he slammed into a row of lockers.

Joey looked from Brick to me, his eyes wide with shock. “How did you …,” he muttered. “That’s not possible.…”

For once, Joey and I were in complete agreement. My brain buzzed with confusion. Somehow I’d just knocked the biggest kid in school into a locker without even raising a finger.

O
ver the previous few months, there’d been other instances like this. Weird, unexplained events happening around me. Like when I’d been in the middle of a math test and my pencil had exploded in my hand. Or the time, a couple of weeks after that, when I’d been on the floor playing a video game and I’d felt something burning. Dropping the controller, I’d scrambled to my feet. That was when I noticed the burn mark in the carpet right where I’d been sitting. And it had been shaped exactly like my butt.

Our health teacher had told us that our bodies
would be “experiencing many strange and wonderful changes.”