The Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters (8 page)

“Would you shut up already?!” Kiki demanded. “You’re just mad because I was, like, voted Most Popular during senior year and you still had braces,” Candi said.

“If you were so popular then how come
I
was the only one who signed your yearbook?” Kiki asked.

“That was totally my second yearbook. My first one was already full, Tractor Teeth!”

“Don’t call me that!” Kiki shouted.

“Tractor Teeth!” Candi yelled.

“Don’t call me that!” Kiki repeated.

“Tuh ...tuh ...tuh ...Tractor Teeth!” Candi mocked.

Bunni started to cry.

“Why are you crying now?” Kiki demanded. “I hate it when you two fight,” Bunni sniffed. “We’re supposed to be rotten babysitters, but I think we’re just rotten friends...”

Kiki and Candi looked at each other, and then broke out in apologies, tears, and hugs.

“I’m sorry!” Candi sniffed.

“No! I’m sorry,” Kiki added. “Come on, let’s destroy the Sidekicks and rule the world.”

“You’d still want to rule it with me?” Candi asked, wiping away a tear.

Kiki held up a charm bracelet on her wrist. It was one-third of a whole. Candi and Bunni held up their thirds. I couldn’t see what it said, but somehow I knew that when all three were placed together, it said something like “Best Friends:

2 Good 2 B 4-Got-10” and had a picture of a dolphin or a unicorn or something.

These girls
had
to be stopped!

I didn’t have much time. My mom was in their hands and desperate babysitters do desperate things: like microwave macaroni and cheese for dinner. “Spelling Beatrice! You take care of Candi. I’ll take care of Kiki and my mom.” I turned to Spice Girl. “I’ll get Bunni off that platform, then she’s all yours. We’re counting on you.”

“Good,” Spice Girl nodded. “But I don’t want to count on you. I’m bad at numbers.”

We’d get only one chance. If I missed, or Spelling Beatrice couldn’t stop Candi, it was going to be a very short fight. At least if Spelling Beatrice or I failed, I wouldn’t have to worry about Spice Girl stopping Bunni — which sounded impossibly insane.

I raced toward a tree as fast as I could. Using my super speed, I jumped fifteen feet high to the bottom branch and ricocheted off like a bullet.

Luckily, the hover platform was low enough and my attack sudden enough that I took the Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters by surprise. I body-slammed Bunni and she fell into the jungle below.

“You stupid little brat!” Candi growled. “No TV for you!”

She raised her hands and was about to freeze me when Spelling Beatrice’s Scrabble tiles sailed through the air, spraying a gooey substance that encased Candi in a glob of goodness. She was immobile and powerless.

“Give it up,” I said to Kiki.

“Oooo! If you ever have kids, I’m charging you double-time!” Kiki sneered.

She unleashed a shock blast from her hands, but I was too quick and zipped to the side.

“You move fast, kid. But let’s see how fast the old lady moves!”

“Who are you calling ‘old’?!” my mom snapped back.

Kiki aimed her hands at my mother. A wicked smile crossed Kiki’s face. There wasn’t a second to lose! I lunged at Kiki and grabbed her wrists. Both hands twisted upward and the blast shot harmlessly into the sky.

We struggled. Kiki twisted her wrist in my hand and let loose another blast. It barely missed my head. I used all my strength and tried to face her hands upward again.
That
was when she kicked my shin.

Kicking a shin isn’t much in a battle between the forces of good and evil with the fate of something important hanging in the balance, but, dang, it hurt! She used the opportunity to break one hand free from my grip. She quickly aimed it at me.

“Bye-bye!” she laughed, and prepared to blast me.

That
was when I pushed her off the platform.

Chapter Fifteen

Bananas Taste Good!

Kiki unleashed a series of quick blasts. I dove off the platform after her, and once I hit the ground I was able to use my super speed again. I zigged at 51 miles per hour and zagged at 36 miles per hour. Kiki yelled. Kiki shouted. Kiki had a tantrum.

But Kiki couldn’t hit me.

Too bad Kiki couldn’t say the same thing.

I raced directly at her, weaving through her power blasts, and delivered a roundhouse, knocking her to the ground.

“I can’t believe you hit girls!” Kiki gasped, down on all fours.

“You’re no girl. You’re a babysitter!” I snarled. I don’t know what that means, but it just sounded like the right thing to say.

Kiki let go another blast. It missed me, but then, she wasn’t aiming at me. It hit the trunk of the tree behind me. Kiki rolled to safety and I barely managed to avoid the collapsing branches.

Suddenly, dozens of quick blasts shot out from the jungle. I zigzagged as quickly as I could to avoid Kiki’s energy powers. As I sped closer, it became easier for her to hit me. I had to keep running. I had to keep moving. One false step and all would be lost.

Kiki let out a huge blast as I leaped at her. It skimmed my shoulder. The pain felt like dislocation, but I couldn’t be stopped. I tackled Kiki and pulled her to the ground. She raised both her hands and prepared to hit me point-blank.

This
was gonna hurt. A lot.

Spelling Beatrice jumped out from the jungle, more Scrabble tiles at the ready. She hurled two
S
tiles. “Onomatopoeia!” she shouted as the tiles did their work and encased Kiki in a binding net.

“Come on! We have to help Spice Girl with Bunni!”

I grabbed my aching shoulder as the two of us raced in the direction where Bunni had fallen. Soon we smelled chamomile and cinnamon.

“Uh-oh,” I said, “that doesn’t smell like a battle.”

Spelling Beatrice and I quickened our pace. We raced into a clearing and found... well, I’m not exactly sure
what
we found.

“And then... and then, after my parents got a divorce, my mom had to work two jobs and I never got to see her.” Bunni sniffed. “I didn’t really
want
to steal those things from the store...I just wanted her attention...”

Spice Girl embraced Bunni and patted her on the back. “There, there. It’s okay,” she assured Bunni. “It’s not your fault.”

As Bunni cried, Spice Girl looked up and noticed our arrival. “See,” Spice Girl said with a warm smile on her face. “Sometimes evil just needs a hug.”

I raced back to where we left Kiki. Even though the battle was done, there were still too many questions to be answered. Kiki had mentioned that they were “hired” to destroy the League of Big Justice. I intended to learn who was signing their paychecks.

Or maybe
what
was signing their paychecks. You can never be too sure with supervillains.

“So, you think you’ve won?” Kiki mocked the moment I raced up.

“Well, if by ‘won’ you mean that I kicked your butt and we defeated your Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters — if
that’s
what you mean by ‘won,’ then yeah, I think so.”

“Think again,” Kiki said. I finally noticed she had wriggled a hand down to her waist. Before I could act, she pushed a button on her belt.

“Okay, is that calling for more babysitters?” I asked.

I heard a loud rumble behind me. A large missile rose slowly from the jungle terrain.

“There’s not a chance that’s just filled with popcorn, is there?”

“That, my stinking little sidekick, is the Babytron Bomb!” Kiki laughed.

“The Babytron Bomb?!” I gasped. “Wait. What’s a Babytron Bomb?”

“When that hits California, the entire Western seaboard will be turned into babies!”

“I thought you hated kids!”

“I DO! But it pays cash, and you can make your own hours. Besides, I’ve invested all my babysitter and supervillain earnings into stock in diaper companies!” Kiki squirmed in her net, but she wasn’t going anywhere. “You may have won the fight, sidekick, but I won the bigger fight! And the next fight will be for cribs and pacifiers!”

“You’re insidious!” I yelled.

“No, I’m
rotten,
” she corrected.

I pulled out my sidekick Super Wrist Communicator of Tiny Screenness. “Spelling Beatrice! We’ve got trouble!”

“I know! Is that a missile?!” her tiny face appeared on the tiny screen on my tiny wrist communicator.

“Worse. A Babytron Bomb.”

“Oh no! Not a Babytron Bomb!” She gasped. “Wait. What’s a Babytron Bomb?”

“No time to explain! I’ve gotta get up there quick or half the U.S. will be wearing poopy diapers and crying for their mommies!”

“They’re despicable!” Spelling Beatrice said. “ROTTEN! We’re
rotten
! Why is that so hard to remember?!” Kiki shouted.

“Why hasn’t it blasted off yet?” Spelling Beatrice asked.

I looked to Kiki. She averted her eyes.

“Well?” I asked.

“I...uh...I like, kind of figured we’d have you captured already when we launched it, so I ... like ... kinda extended the countdown time to uh... you know ... give it more...you know...,” she stammered.

I looked at Spelling Beatrice on my Super Wrist Communicator of Tiny Screenness. “Dramatic tension,” I said.

Chapter Sixteen

Bye-Bye, Baby!

The Babytron Bomb rumbled as it slowly lifted off from Skull Island.

It had taken only a few seconds for my mom to navigate the hover platform to the ground. “I’d just like to tell everyone that I am
so
proud of my son!” She showered me with kisses and hugs.

“Mom! Please! You’re embarrassing me in front of the supervillains!”

“A loser like you defeated us, and, like, you think
you’re
embarrassed?” Candi complained with an eye roll.

And now, there I was, zooming over the jungle. I pressed the throttle lever on the hover platform as hard as I could, hoping to get to the Babytron Bomb before it shot into the sky.

Who knows what I would do once I did get there.

I didn’t have much time. I didn’t know if I would be coming back. I had so many questions; so many questions that might never be answered. Important questions like, “Why do they call it ‘Skull Island’ if it’s got nothing to do with babysitting and there’s not a rock or a mountain that even vaguely looks like a skull?” and “Why couldn’t they have used their babysitting powers for good instead of evil?” and perhaps the most important, “Is there
really
a Supervillain Handbook?”

The Babytron Bomb picked up speed. I didn’t know how fast the hover platform could fly, I just knew it could never keep up with a Baby-tron Bomb. I mean, I assume they’re fast.

I’d have only one chance. But I couldn’t think about that now. I could think only about all those crying babies and stinky diapers. I was the last hope of the Western United States. I was the only thing that stood between salvation and millions of people having to live through puberty a second time. I had to stop the Babytron Bomb even if it meant sacrificing myself.

Some people call it courage. Others, bravery. I call it sheer stupidity.

The thunderous rumbling of the Babytron Bomb filled my ears as it cleared the silo. I dropped the hover platform into overdrive and rammed into the Babytron Bomb’s guidance fin at full speed. The impact sent a hard shudder through the hover platform. Its circuits shorted. Sparks and smoke gushed from the split metal, and a second later, the hover platform exploded.

As I fell back to Earth, the last thing I saw before I blacked out was the Babytron Bomb lifting into the sky, a bent fin on its side and a plume of black smoke trailing behind.

I opened my eyes.

I remembered plummeting from the sky. You’d think, falling from that height, I’d have been little more than pudding right now. Although, I still might have been pudding, just with eyes. I lifted my one arm, then the other. Okay, maybe I was pudding with eyes and two arms.

I sat up in bed. I was in my bed, in my room. Spelling Beatrice, Boom Boy, and Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy sat next to my bed. Exact Change Kid leaned in through the window.

“I had the strangest dream,” I said slowly. “You were there... and you, and you, and you!” I continued, pointing to each sidekick.

“It wasn’t a dream, Speedy,” Spelling Beatrice informed me.