Secret Identity (4 page)

I smiled big when I saw it:
Nolan
—
You shred, man! Awesome!

I shred?! Shred was special. Beyond awesome. He only said that about his favorite guitar players.

Or bands.

Or
presidents.

I put the paper carefully in my folder.

Inside I could feel it— things were changing.

By the end of the day, Miriam's hair was missing a chunk, Slow Jim, the class tortoise, had a new design on his shell, and Ian and Danielle's green sheets had disappeared.

I thought I'd gotten a picture of Slow Jim's run-in with the Magic Markers. I really did. But at recess when I hid in a bathroom stall and checked out the shot, all I saw was Bubba's butt. It took up the whole frame.

I was too slow with Ian and Danielle, too. Their green sheets were gone before I could get ready.

So I got no good shots the first day. But I didn't give up. I started taking my backpack everywhere with me because one, I didn't want anything to
happen to my camera, and two, I didn't want to miss catching Bubba red-handed.

Kids called me a nerd, but for once I didn't care. Not that much, anyway.

I was on assignment.

I was on a mission.

Bubba started it, I was going to finish it.

All week during lunch recess I didn't play foursquare. I wore my backpack and tried to get better at taking pictures with my back turned. I wrote down what I was doing in a little notebook. Every shot. Then I went into a bathroom stall with my backpack and scanned through the pictures. Sometimes the remote hadn't worked. Sometimes I was off by a mile. My notes would say,
Miriam at fountain
, and my shot would be half of somebody I didn't even know.

Then on Friday I caught him. On camera. In the act of dumping one of the trash cans. Looking over his shoulder. Can in the air. Trash flying out.

It was the perfect shot.

I stayed in the stall ten minutes just looking at it.

After school I got to work. I loaded the picture into my computer, tweaked the color, cut the frame. It was beautiful.

And now…what? I had to write an article. Actually, according to the green sheet, I had to
write a lot of articles. One of which was supposed to be an interview.

Uh-oh.

And now that I had my picture, I didn't really know what I wanted to
do
with it. What was going to happen to me anyway, once I turned my project in? Mr. Green always displayed projects.

Everyone would see!

Which was what I'd wanted, only now I was scared. When Bubba saw it, he'd pound me!

The more I thought about it, the more stupid doing a project on Bubba Bixby seemed. If only there was a way for everyone to see it, but not have anyone know who'd done it.

But how was I going to do that?

I took a break to watch
The Gecko and Sticky.
It was another rerun, but one of my favorite episodes. In it, Chase Morton—who is
The
Gecko— and Sticky—who is
a
gecko—save their town from the clutches of Damien Black. It's one of my
favorites because in the end Damien falls—
aaaaaaaarrrrrr
—into a pit of tarantulas. You should see him freak out and call, “Mommy! Mommy!” It's hilarious.

But after the show was over, I went back to thinking about my project. How was I ever going to do it without Bubba knowing it was me?

Maybe I should just change subjects. Dad and Mom still asked me about my project, but not as much. And I knew that Dad was sort of upset that I didn't want his help. Maybe I should just forget about Bubba. I'd lived with him this long, I could survive a couple more years, right?

But something about the past few days had made me feel… strong. Like I was finally
doing
something about being pushed around. But I didn't know where to go from here. Forward was scary, but back seemed worse.

I decided to do an extra credit math puzzle Mr. Green had passed out. They were always fun! But
as I was going through my binder, I saw my fractions time-trial. Level 42-e. One hundred percent.
Nolan
—
You shred, man!

Maybe everyone else thought I was a nerd, but Mr. Green didn't. He thought I shred! It was like he could see the Nolan that was hidden by the Nerd.

And that's when I got the idea.

Maybe I could have a secret identity!

Like Chase Morton was The Gecko!

And Clark Kent was Superman!

And Peter Parker was Spider-Man.

Maybe I could become someone else!

Someone better than the Nerd! Inside, I had lots of ideas that were cool and funny. Inside, I was strong and quick and didn't trip on my shoelaces. Inside, I had room for lots of friends.

I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. I pictured myself in a superhero's costume. I thought about what superpowers I could have.

Maybe I'd have an eye that was really a camera lens.

Cool!

Maybe I'd have telekinetic powers and could move stuff around.

Double cool!

Or maybe I could fly. I've always thought that would be the absolute coolest!

I opened my eyes and sat up. Flying.
Sheez
. The only flying I'd ever done was off a swing, and I almost broke my arm landing. That, and one time when I animated a picture of myself so it flew across my computer screen.

Thinking about that made something in my brain go
snap.
And for a minute I just sat there with my eyes wide open, frozen in place.

Then I jumped straight out of my chair.

Maybe I couldn't fly around the playground or the classroom. But I
could
fly. And I
could
have a secret identity.

On the Internet!

My mind was spinning like crazy. My legs were walking me all over the room! What if I built a Web site and posted my project on it!

I could totally shred on Bubba!

I could put up pictures! Stories! Jokes!

Evidence!

It would be All Bubba, All the Time.

Oh, yeah!

I logged on to my computer and started typing like crazy. I needed a domain name for my Web site. What was my secret identity going to be? Not
nerd.com
. No way. More like
shred.com
. Yeah! I went to a registration site to see if it was taken.

Drat! It was.

I tried
youshred.com
.

Available, but sorta lame.

The Shredder! How about that? It'd be like The Gecko!

I typed it in.

Taken.

Then all of a sudden I had it. Shredderman. Like a superhero, flying though cyberspace, fighting for truth and justice!

It was perfect!

I typed it in with my fingers crossed—not an easy thing to do! But then the screen flashed with…
this domain is still available.

“Oh, yeah!” I jumped up and pumped the air with my fist. “Shredderman!”

I was on my way to becoming a cyber-superhero.

No one can know a superhero's identity.

Not even his mother.

So I wound up
promising
her I wasn't doing anything bad, wound up
begging
her to trust me. Wound up on my knees, waving cash in the air,
praying
for her to give me her credit card number.

It costs money to put up a Web site, you know.

I also wound up cleaning my room. “How can I trust a boy with a messy room?” she asked me. I didn't see the connection, but I made it shipshape anyway.

Then came the refrigerator. Maybe she can't trust a boy with a messy refrigerator? Don't ask me. I just cleaned it. Also the kitchen sink. Then
the driveway. Dad came home and they talked it over.

Dad shrugged a lot.

Mom shook her head plenty.

I couldn't hear a word of what they were saying.

After dinner I cleared the table. Loaded the dishes. Emptied the garbage. Trust was everywhere.

Finally Mom sat me down and said, “All right.”

“Wa-hoo!”

“Only
I'm
going to type in the number.”

“No, Mom! You can't. This is top-secret! It's… it's… vital to the operation that I do it myself.”

“To the.,. operation? Nolan, what
are
you up to?”

“Mom, please! Write it down on a piece of paper. I'll give it right back. You can burn it! I'll never use it again. Promise!”

She just frowned at me.

“Have I ever done anything that you wouldn't want me to?”

She was quiet a minute, then said, “We're not talking about recycling paper in the bathroom sink, right? Or microwaving the ice cream carton for five minutes to make a milkshake? Or luring an ant invasion outside with a trail of sugar water?”

“No!”

“We're talking big things?”

“Right.”

She thought some more. “Well, no… but you
are
approaching puberty.”

“Mo-om! I'm in the fifth grade!”

Dad was in the room. He shrugged. Mom closed her eyes. Finally she sighed and said, “This is the one and only time I'm going to go for this. You'd better not let me down, Nolan.”

“I won't, Mom! I promise I won't!”

“Okay, then.”

Shredderman.com
became mine that night.

WebBuilder came flying through cyberspace seconds later. Complete with E-Z Launch instructions.

I had the tools. I had the site. Time to start building!

But I'd barely had a chance to print out the instructions when Mom knocked on the door.

I shut off the computer monitor. “Come in!”

“Honey? It's past bedtime.”

“But it's Friday!”

Her eyes narrowed. Her hands punched both sides of her waist.

“Oops. Sorry,” I said. “I'm going.”

I went, all right. But I couldn't sleep. All I could think about was being Shredderman. And besides, superheroes don't need sleep, right?

So when Mom and Dad went to bed, I waited until I was sure
they
were asleep, then I booted up and got building.

By morning my home page had an awesome look. Cool font. Radical colors. Across the top was:

Welcome to
Shredderman.com
, where truth and justice prevail!

Then a purple and gold SHREDDERMAN banner waved as a masked cartoon guy zoomed
from one corner of the screen to the other. That was the hard part, but it was so, so cool!