The Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters Read online

  “Where’s the Sidekick Super Clubhouse?” she finally asked.

  All the other sidekicks froze. They joined Spelling Beatrice in her search and then, one by one, they turned and glared at me. I dropped my head into my hands, wishing that a supervillain would come and strap me to a rocket and blast me into the heart of the sun.

  Or something.

  Chapter Four

  The Chapter That Is Not About Doughnuts

  “I really, really, really, really think this is a terrible idea!” I said to my mom again, but this time I added a fourth “really” because three “reallys” just didn’t seem to faze her.

  And don’t think I’m not desperate enough to use five “reallys.” Someone much smarter than me and much more dead once said, “Desperate times call for more reallys.” Or something like that. I wasn’t paying very much attention in class that day.

  “It’s the least I could do,” my mom explained. “After all, you did blow up their secret fort.”

  “It wasn’t a secret fort, and I didn’t blow it up!” I defended.

  “Don’t talk back to your mother,” Pumpkin Pete said, and closed the refrigerator door. He had a POW! soda in one hand and last night’s leftover meatloaf in the other. He tossed the meat-loaf into the microwave, popped open the top on the POW! soda, leaned against the kitchen counter, and asked, “So, this dump get cable TV, or what?”

  I grabbed my mom by the arm and led her from the kitchen. I moved her through the living room and past King Justice, who was eagerly pushing a vacuum across the carpet.

  “Flee before my sucking might, villainous dust bunnies!” King Justice yelled, and jabbed the vacuum hose under the couch. The long vacuum extension looked like a slender toothpick in his massive, heroic hands. “Your grime! Spree! Is! Over!”

  “Mom? Why is King Justice wearing an apron?”

  “He didn’t want to get his Spandex dirty,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone, as if there was nothing more natural than Earth’s greatest superhero draped in an apron that had KISS THE COOK emblazoned across the front in letters shaped like carrots and broccoli.

  I led my mom to the bathroom and closed the door. “I know the League of Big Justice Hall of Justice was blown up, but do you really think it’s a good idea to let them use our house as a temporary headquarters?” I asked.

  My mom thought for a moment. “Well...it is just temporary. And I told them they weren’t allowed in your room. I know how embarrassing you think that is.”

  Embarrassing? I’ll tell you what embarrassing is. Embarrassing is wearing brightly colored Spandex. Embarrassing is when that brightly colored Spandex creeps up your butt and you’re dying to pick it out, but you’re in the middle of a grand opening ceremony for a new supermarket and are surrounded by ten thousand people with cameras. Embarrassing is when you’re surfing the Web a few days later and find out that one of those ten thousand people with a camera followed you around the corner and took a photo while you “secretly” did a little Spandex-picking. Embarrassing is when the other sidekicks start calling you “Picky” for a week. That’s embarrassing.

  Having your mom drive up in the car while you sit on the curb in front of a mountain of rubble that used to be the League of Big Justice Hall of Justice and then offer to let the League of Big Justice use your home as their headquarters until the rubble is cleared out is not embarrassing.

  It’s the most humiliating day in your life is what it is.

  At first King Justice had turned down my mom’s “generous offer to use her humble and common two-story domicile to house the greatest good the world has ever known.” But then Pete pulled out the League of Big Justice Super Emergency Manual for Really Bad Emergencies and read aloud, “In the event of a really bad emergency” — here he looked at the smoking ruins of Donutz Village — “in the event of a really bad emergency, protocol calls for the League of Big Justice.. .” he lowered the book again and stated, “That would be us,” then returned to reading, “... the League of Big Justice to convene at the most immediately available location, especially if said location is supplied by the Sidekick responsible for blowing up Donutz Village in the first place.” He slammed the book shut with a triumphant nod. “So it’s settled!”

  “WHAT?!” I exploded. “It doesn’t say that!” “Well, maybe not that exactly, but it’s the basic gist. More or less.” Pete shrugged.

  And so there we were, the League of Big Justice doing yard work, the Sidekicks laughing at me, and Pumpkin Pete eating everything that wasn’t nailed down.

  “But what if evil attacks? Did you ever think about that?” I asked my mom as we stood in the bathroom.

  “Honey, the best place to hide an egg is in the chicken coop,” she replied.

  “What? I don’t even know what that means!” My mom opened the bathroom door and headed out. “You can use that super speed of yours to run around evil invasions and death rays, but you can’t use it to run around life.”

  “Couldn’t you at least wear the Identity Containment Apparatus like you did at the League of Big Justice Family Picnic of Egg Salad or whatever that thing was called?” I thrust the ICA unit into my mom’s hands.

  “You want me to wear a paper bag over my head in my own house?” my mom huffed.

  “It’s not just a paper bag,” I quickly pointed out, hoping to convince her it wasn’t just a paper bag, which would be rather difficult because it was just a paper bag. “It’s an Identity Containment Apparatus designed specifically to protect your identity and make sure that no supervillain knows you’re related to —”

  “Yes, yes. I remember that bearded, kilt-wearing man’s speech at the picnic that day when he made your father and me put bags on our heads. Although I couldn’t really understand much of what he was saying... especially all that nonsense about ‘tree rats.’ ”

  “His name is Captain Haggis,” I reminded her. At least stop making them do all these chores!” I called after her. “I mean ... they’re superheroes.”

  She stopped in the hallway and turned. “Just because they’ve fought aliens and saved the planet from destruction doesn’t mean they don’t have to earn their keep in my house. I don’t care if they have the power of mimedom or can throw all the pennies in the world. As long as they’re under my roof, they live by my rules.”

  “Hear! Hear!” Pumpkin Pete called out. He fell back onto the couch, plopped his long, slender legs onto our coffee table, and shoveled a large forkful of blueberry pie into his fat orange mouth.

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Is Not About Doughnuts, Either. Although Someone May THINK This About Doughnuts!

  “And this one was taken when Guy was nine. He just tripped and dumped that whole bowl of Jell-O right on his head!”

  “Hoooph! Hoooph! Hoooph!” The muffled sound came from Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy. I think he was laughing. Either that, or he was really a robot and his head had just fallen off and tumbled down a deep hole. With Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy, you could never be too sure. “Hoooph! Hoooph! Hoooph!”

  The rest of the Sidekicks laughed as well. They were huddled around my mom like cold pioneers gathered around a warm fire, except the only warm glow the Sidekicks were basking in was the burning heat of my deep humiliation — humiliation that was so bad, it was like embarrassment wrapped in shame wrapped in mortification wrapped in disgrace wrapped in a corn dog and dipped in ketchup while being eaten by some chubby kid with dirt on his face and a bad hair cut.

  “Oh! And here’s one of my favorites! One day Guy just decided to dress up in my favorite —”

  “Okay, mom! I think they’ve seen enough!” I said and tried to turn the page. I’ve fought madmen and crazy scientists, but I could tell this was going to be my greatest battle ever. Those other villains paled in comparison to the threat of a proud mother with baby photos.

  My life was over.

  “Oh, Guy! Don’t be such a party pooper!” my mom interjected and gently tugged the photo album back.

>   “We fought him once. He was stinky,” Spice Girl volunteered.

  “That was Le Poop,” Spelling Beatrice corrected.

  “The Party Pooper changed his name to Le Poop?” Spice Girl asked.

  “The Party Pooper was named Le Poop.”

  “His real name was Le Poop? Who would name their child Le Poop? I’ll bet the kids picked on him all the time. ‘Look! Look! It’s Le Poop-a-Doop!’ ” Spice Girl sadly shook her head. “Poor Le Poop.”

  Spelling Beatrice rolled her eyes. “The guy we fought had the supervillain name of Le Poop. I don’t know his real name.”

  “Then who’s the Party Pooper?” Spice Girl questioned.

  “Speedy is!” Boom Boy laughed.

  Spice Girl scratched her head. “If Speedy’s the Party Pooper, then who was the guy who farted a lot?”

  “That was Commander Farto: The Human Stink Bomb,” Exact Change Kid reminded her.

  “You kids fight a lot of smelly people,” my mom commented.

  “That’s because evil is smelly,” Exact Change Kid replied. “And evil.”

  “And rude,” Spice Girl added. “But if you ask me, evil just didn’t get enough hugs as a child. I think the next time we fight someone who’s trying to blow up the world, instead of punching them in the face, we should probably just give them a biiiig hug and listen to what they have to say. Unless they’re stinky.”

  “You’re a very wise sidekick,” my mom said. “Are you the leader?”

  “Only during cheers,” Spice Girl giggled, then added a loud “Goooo team!”

  “You’re nuts!” I said, glad that the Sidekicks’ attention was diverted from my baby photos. “You can’t solve the world’s problems by giving evil a hug!”

  “Mostly because it’s so farty,” Spice Girl explained to my mom.

  “No! You can’t hug evil, because it’s evil!” I began.

  “And farty,” Spice Girl stressed.

  “Evil doesn’t like hugs. Evil’s got killer robots and master plans! Evil wants to invade and rule the world! It wants to crush us under its evil heel or make us work in its evil salt mines!” I was on a roll. I stood up from the couch and bumped the plate of Ritz Crackers and Hi-C juice packs my mom had put out for snacks. “Evil doesn’t like to fly kites! It doesn’t like birthdays or puppies —”

  “Except for evil puppies,” Boom Boy cut in. “And I think they’d like flying kites if a death ray was attached to them.”

  “No! No it would not! And do you know why?!” I asked.

  “Because it never got hugs when it was a child?” Spice Girl offered.

  “No. Because it’s EVIL! And it won’t stop until it’s destroyed everything good in this world! It won’t stop until everything that makes this life worth living is ruined and in flames! That’s why it’s evil!”

  The Sidekicks all looked at each other in silence.

  “You sure are a downer sometimes, Speedy,” Boom Boy said, and sucked on his grape Hi-C pack. He leaned over to my mom and added, “He’s kind of like this all the time, you know.”

  “That’s why we call him ‘Party Pooper,’ ” Spice Girl added.

  My mom considered Boom Boy’s words. “Maybe... maybe I should hug him more?”

  “Yes, you should!” Spice Girl agreed. “And the world would be a much better place!”

  Pumpkin Pete walked up. “Hey, who’s the dorky kid wearing the woman’s dress?” he asked, looking over my mom’s shoulder at the photo album that rested in her lap.

  “Oh, that’s Guy!” My mom laughed.

  “Guy? Who’s Guy?” Pumpkin Pete asked. “Speedy. It’s Speedy,” Boom Boy explained. Pete reached a long, viney arm over the couch and grabbed a Hi-C juice pack. He stabbed the little straw into the top and sipped. “Who’s Speedy?”

  “Me,” I said. I couldn’t believe my deep sense of humiliation could get any worse, but I had a rotten suspicion it was about to.

  “You? I thought your name was Picky,” Pete replied.

  “No. My name is Speedy.”

  Pete slightly closed one large eye, as if he was summing up the situation. He took a hard suck on his juice pack. “If your name is Speedy, then why do you always answer when I call you Picky?”

  “I’ll bet his real name is Le Poop,” Spice Girl whispered to Spelling Beatrice.

  “I answer when you call me ‘Picky’ for the same reason I answer you when you call me ‘Spuddy’ and ‘Spotty’ and ‘Spammy’ and ‘My Human Bulletproof Shield’ and ‘Potato.’ ”

  “Hey, Le Poop!” Spice Girl waited a moment, but I didn’t respond. “Just checking,” she said.

  “The reason I answer you when you call me ‘Picky,’ ” I began again, “is because no matter how many times I tell you my real sidekick name is Speedy, you either don’t know it or don’t care, so I might as well answer you no matter what you call me.”

  Pete looked at me and shoved a handful of Ritz Crackers in his mouth. “Wow. Looks like someone didn’t get enough hugs as a kid.”

  Chapter Six

  We’ve Run Out of Chapter Titles, So We’ll Just Call This One “Mikey”!

  I headed out to the backyard. Just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, my mom had gathered the Sidekicks in the kitchen for “training.”

  “When making a salad, always remember to peel the carrot away from you,” my mom had said, and slid the peeler along the carrot’s orange skin. “And never run with scissors.”

  That was all I needed to hear. I took the photo album, and anything else my mother might use to torture me, hid them under my bed, and then headed outside.

  It was a beautiful day; the kind of day you would never think began with Pumpkin Pete pushing buttons on a mysterious machine sent to the League of Big Justice until he pretty much blew up everything around us. No, usually the days when Pete blows things up or accidentally disintegrates something are cloudy. I don’t know why. It just seems to work out that way.

  The Good Egg was in the front yard mowing the lawn and Ms. Mime was using imaginary hedge clippers to trim an imaginary hedge. Or maybe it was a bush. I don’t know. It was imaginary.

  I guess on the bright side, all my chores were being done for me — and by the world’s greatest superheroes, no less.

  I strolled to the backyard. Mr. Ironic was watering the container plants with a hose. “I’ve got a real green thumb!” he boasted, not realizing the plants he was watering were fake.

  Or did he?

  Then I heard a noise in the bushes. Something was in there. Something big. I moved closer. The tall, thick row of undergrowth lined the back wall like a small, wild jungle. It would be the perfect hiding place for evil as it plotted and planned to invade my house and fight the League of Big Justice... and my mother. I slowly crept up to the thicket and heard the cracking of dead leaves and branches. “Aaack!” a voice cried out from inside.

  “Come out!” I called back. “I know you’re in there!” I dropped back a few feet and stood in my battle stance, ready for whatever was about to leap out at me.

  “Aye! Boyo!” Captain Haggis shouted as he stumbled from the thicket. His kilt was torn. Broken twigs and leaves were stuck to his beard. His chest heaved with each deep breath. His eyes were wild, as if panic clenched his half-crazed mind. “Yew’ve got ta ’elp me, laddie!”

  “What is it?! Are we under attack?!” I gasped. “Aye! By the nastiest tree rat yew ever did see!” Captain Haggis panted. “Yer ma sent me oot ’ere t’me doom! She tricked me, she did! Tol’ me theh be weeds that need pullin’! An’ look what ah’ve got ta deal with!” Captain Haggis stabbed a finger at the impenetrable undergrowth. “Me Bagpipes a’ MacMcTarrganonnin e’ still be in theh somewheh! What good be a Scotsman withoot his bag, laddie?” Captain Haggis turned to face the dense bushes. He pulled back two thick, leafy branches and stuck his head inside.

  “Uh... Captain Haggis? What’s a tree rat?” He spun from the undergrowth. “Whar be th’ foul li’l critter? Do ya see ’im, ladd
ie?” He spun in various directions, poised and ready for any possible attack. “Whar is he?! WHAR?!”

  “I haven’t seen him. In fact, I don’t even know what a tree rat is.”

  “Don’t knew what a tree rat is?! Och! I’ll tell yeh this, laddie — they be th’ foulest vermin knewn, with them li’l beedy eyes an’ them teeth jus’ gnawin’ at yer very suul! They be not a’ this earth, I’ll tell yew that!” He bent two of his fingers and raked them at me to show me how the tree rat gnawed his very suul — I mean soul.

  Just then, Captain Haggis froze. His eyes grew wide, like the wide eyes of a bearded Scotsman without his bagpipes who felt the tree rat gnawing at his very soul. His muscles tensed and his eyes slowly moved down toward his beard.

  “Whatever yew dew, don’t move, laddie...” Just then, something burst from Captain Haggis’s thick, bushy beard. It was brown and furry with a bushy tail. It hit the ground and bolted toward the nearest tree.

  “Thar she be!” Captain Haggis shouted, and dove toward the small animal. “Yew’ll not get away fr’m Cap’n ’aggis this time, yew foul tree rat!”

  The little animal let out a panicked squeal and raced up the tree. Captain Haggis balled his massive fists and punched the mighty oak. “Yew’ll not get away fr’m me so easily, furry l’il bandit!”

  “Uh... Captain Haggis . . .”

  “Not now, laddie! I’m punchin’ th’ tree!” “But...uh...the...” Bark flew off in shattered chunks.

  He stopped punching and gritted his teeth. Captain Haggis took a step back and shook an angry fist at the small squirrel, which had long since hidden himself deep within the oak’s branches. “This batt’l goes to yew, tree rat! But Cap’n ’aggis ’as yet ta give up th’ war!” He turned from the tree and stomped back toward the thick undergrowth. His cheeks flushed red. “I’ll say this much: Them foul critters dew make fine eatin’ tho!” he said as he disappeared into the undergrowth, in search of his lost Bagpipes a’ MacMcTarrganonnin.