The Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters Read online

  “That’s my favorite perfume,” Spice Girl whispered.

  “And now, we’ve been hired to totally destroy the League of Big Justice!” Candi growled.

  “Well, you chicks are out of luck,” Boom Boy laughed. “The League of Big Justice is back doing yard work at Speedy’s.”

  “All of them?” Kiki looked like she was about to explode.

  “Yes! All of them!” Pete’s muffled voice cried out from the closet. “Especially the ones you can make into pies!”

  “Who was that?” Kiki demanded.

  “Meow! Meow!” Pete replied.

  “Why do you want to destroy the League of Big Justice?” I asked.

  “Why?” Kiki sneered. “We’re rotten babysitters! It’s just what we do.”

  “My colleague and I have a question,” Exact Change Kid said, looking up from his notebook. He had been scribbling during the whole conversation and also conferring with Spelling Beatrice. He flipped back one page, briefly read his notes, then asked, “Are you ‘rotten babysitters’ because you’re no good at babysitting, or are you babysitters who are rotten, and therefore do bad things? I hope you can see my confusion. The way you use it, ‘rotten’ is modifying ‘babysitter,’ making it sound like an assessment of your babysitting skills rather than a commentary on your moral disposition. While you’ve been divulging your plan to destroy the League of Big Justice and then rule the world or whatever, I’ve taken the liberty of sketching out a few alternatives to help avoid any future misunderstandings. So, let me run these by you and maybe you can get some immediate feedback from the other sidekicks.” He flipped over two more pages and cleared his throat. The three evil babysitters exchanged unsure looks. “Okay... sticking with the babysitting theme... how about... ‘The Brotherhood of Babysitters Who Are Rotten’? or ‘The League of Morally Suspect Babysitters’? Oh, here’s a good one: ‘The Babinators.’ Or maybe ‘Babysitting Destructo Force-1’? And then there’s my personal favorite —”

  Before Exact Change Kid could reveal his favorite, Kiki blasted him through the front door.

  “Now we’ll never know his personal favorite,” Spice Girl lamented.

  “Sidekicks, attack!” I shouted.

  “That’s unofficial...,” Exact Change Kid moaned from outside, and collapsed into unconsciousness.

  I didn’t have time to worry whether “sidekicks, attack!” was our official battle cry or not. I had three crazy babysitters on my hands. If you ask me, all babysitters are evil anyway, but usually the only wicked plot they have the ability to inflict is to ruin your evening of TV or crush your hopes to stay up late. But give a baby-sitter super powers and you’re just asking for trouble.

  And that’s just what these three were: trouble — with a capital T.

  I once fought trouble with a little T. Actually, it was an evil duo who called themselves Tiny Trouble and Little T.

  “I shall trouble your kneecaps!” Tiny Trouble had yelled as he attacked with Little T at his side. “We’ve got twice the T and half the size!”

  Unfortunately, Pumpkin Pete had a sneezing fit just as the battle began and ended up inhaling both of them. I think they still live inside his head.

  But there would be no inhaling these three. Candi’s hands turned frosty blue and sent a bolt of ice at me, but I was too fast. I zipped out of the way, raced across my living room at 29 miles per hour, and delivered a right cross to her chin.

  “Dude! Dude! You hit a girl!” Boom Boy yelled as I skidded to a stop next to him. “And a cute one, too!”

  “They’re girls second and evil first!” I reminded him.

  “Actually, I think they’re really bad dressers first, evil second, and girls third,” Spice Girl corrected. “And don’t even get me started on their makeup.”

  “I don’t care how evil or badly dressed they are,” Boom Boy argued. “I don’t hit girls!”

  Boom Boy was suddenly swept off his feet by Bunni’s telekinetic powers and slammed against the wall. The dry wall cracked from the impact. Boom Boy let out a pained grunt and fell to the floor.

  “Boom Boy!” Spelling Beatrice cried out. She readied four L Scrabble tiles in one hand and two R tiles in the other.

  Boom Boy slowly rose to one knee, his teeth still clenched in pain. “I may not hit girls,” he said in an unsteady voice, “but I didn’t say anything about not blowing them up!”

  Boom Boy leaped into action. Actually, he stood and balled his fists. His cheeks trembled as his face turned red. “Blow you ...to the... moon,” he grunted through clenched teeth.

  “Maaa pam pam mamama!” Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy shouted as he charged his Hamster Ball of Justice toward Kiki.

  Spice Girl pulled out all the stops and launched a curry-and-black-pepper attack, causing Candi to sneeze like a giant runny nose in a hay fever factory.

  Candi retaliated by shooting deadly icicles from her hands. They rocketed across the living room and sliced up Spice Girl’s Spandex outfit like a wasabi-crazed chef in an all-you-can eat sushi bar.

  “Ooo! I just got this back from the dry cleaners!” Spice Girl shouted, and let loose with cilantro and paprika. “Smell this!”

  Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy’s Giant Hamster Ball of Justice Bowling Ball Blitzkrieg on Kiki ended abruptly when Bunni used her telekinetic powers to bounce him between the floor and the ceiling like a giant, human Ping-Pong ball. “Ma — Pam — Mam — Pa — Ma — Mmm!” he shouted and half-grunted with each impact.

  Spelling Beatrice hurled her L tiles. They hit Bunni and let out an electrical shock, breaking her concentration. The Hamster Ball of Justice fell to the ground, but it was too late. Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy slid down the concave side of his hamster ball. “Maaaaa...,” he groaned as he fell unconscious.

  The next thing I knew, Candi had encased Boom Boy in an ice block and Spelling Beatrice, Spice Girl, and I were on the run.

  “Hide under the bed! Hide in the closet! Hide behind the couch! It won’t matter! No one can hide from a babysitter!” Kiki shouted at us as we raced out the front door. “Especially an evil babysitter!”

  “Rotten,” Candi corrected. “Rotten,” Bunni agreed.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Mikey and the Case of the Swiped Sweets!

  I didn’t want to run. I’d never run from a fight before. I once ran away from this girl who asked me to the movies, but that was only because I kept stuttering when I tried to answer her. I figured it was less embarrassing to yell “Look out!” and run in the opposite direction than it was to continue to stand there stammering.

  I was wrong about that one. For the next six months, every time her friends saw me at school, they’d yell “Look out!” and run in the opposite direction.

  But today I ran. We needed to regroup, and more importantly, I needed to get the Rotten Babysitters away from my house and my mom’s hiding place.

  “Now what?” I asked Spelling Beatrice and Spice Girl.

  We seemed to be on some island and, despite Spice Girl’s insistence, there was neither a Yellow Brick Road nor flying monkeys.

  “But when we find them, I know one kid who can blow up who’ll owe me an apology!” Spice Girl warned.

  “I can’t blow up. I have super speed,” I reminded her.

  “Then why do you call yourself ‘Le Poop’?” she asked.

  “Do you think they were the ones who sent the machine with all the buttons?” Spelling Beatrice asked.

  “I dunno,” I began. “It seems odd. If they were powerful enough to rip my house from its foundation and fly us here, why send us a machine with buttons?”

  “So, two different groups want to kill the League of Big Justice,” Spelling Beatrice said in realization.

  That’s one thing I never understood about supervillains. These people spend a lot of time planning, plotting, thinking, trying, and hoping to destroy the League of Big Justice. I mean, it’s really, really unhealthy behavior. Do they get up and check their calendar and it says WEDNESDAY: D
ESTROY LEAGUE OF BIG JUSTICE, or TUESDAY: TRY TO RULE THE WORLD ? So they get dressed, go out, and try to destroy the League of Big Justice. It’s like, “So, what’re you doing today?” “Oh, just planning to destroy the League of Big Justice.” “Really? I was plotting to destroy them, too.”

  I mean, come on! Get a life! Or at least a hobby. (A hobby besides trying to destroy the League of Big Justice, I mean.) Between all the planning, plotting, and attacking, they really don’t have much time to just sit back and enjoy the little things in life.

  No wonder they’re supervillains.

  The three of us took refuge in the jungle island’s thick underbrush. “We have to think of a plan,” I said.

  “Well, you could bring the punch and cookies, and Spelling Beatrice can bring party games, and I can bake a nice cake with sprinkles on top,” Spice Girl said brightly.

  “I mean a plan to defeat the Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters,” I clarified.

  “Yeah, I know,” she said and rolled her eyes. “That’s my plan.”

  “How can we defeat them with cake and party games?”

  “I’m glad you asked. While I serve the punch, you pull out the Twister board and we —”

  “It was a rhetorical question,” I snapped. “Oh. Sorry. I’m bad at math.” Spice Girl scratched her head as the bright smile left her face.

  “SIDEKICKS!” Kiki’s voice boomed over the same loudspeaker we had heard before. “We know you’re out there! No one can escape... Skull Island!”

  “Skull Island?” Spice Girl repeated. “What an icky name.”

  “What do you want?!” I called back.

  The only answer I received was a shower of icicle spears from Candi. We couldn’t see them, and I knew they couldn’t see us. The deadly attack was sent in the direction of my voice. We dove for cover and barely prevented the sharp tips of the ice missiles from turning us into Spandex shish kebabs.

  “They’re more powerful than we are!” Spelling Beatrice said. “I could run circles around them on the SATs, but.. .” she looked around at the dense jungle, “I’m a little out of my element here. If I’d only brought my thesaurus!”

  “We need to find a classroom!” Spice Girl suggested.

  “No. We have to find the Rotten Babysitters’ weakness. Aw! Where’s Super Vision Lad when you really need him?” I complained. “Come on, think! What’s every babysitter’s weakness?”

  “Parents who don’t pay!” Spice Girl said. “No... something else...”

  “Parents who don’t tip!” she said.

  “No! It’s not parents!” I saw Spice Girl’s face brighten. “And it’s not cold pizza, either!”

  Her smile disappeared again and her shoulders drooped. “Well, it could be,” she mumbled.

  “I think we have to take out Bunni first. She’s the most dangerous,” Spelling Beatrice suggested.

  “Any ideas?” I asked.

  “With those telekinetic powers, she can nullify my tiles and your speed . . .”

  “My speed? How?”

  “It’s hard to run one hundred miles per hour when you’re floating upside down,” Spelling Beatrice reminded me.

  “Oh, yeah. That.”

  “So, I was thinking,” Spelling Beatrice went on, “and hear me out before you just say ‘no.’ I was thinking, the only powers she can’t stop are...”

  She didn’t say it. She didn’t need to say it. I already knew the answer.

  “Why is everyone staring at me?” Spice Girl asked. Her eyes widened and she quickly lifted her hand to shield her face. “Is there a booger in my nose?”

  “Bunni’s telekinetic powers can’t stop your . . . smell.” As each word left my mouth, it sounded more and more insane. That’s probably because it was insane and becoming more and more so with each word that left my mouth. “You have to stop Bunni.”

  Spice Girl thought about this for a moment, then asked, “Do you mean ‘stop’ as in ‘Stop in the Name of Love’ or ‘Stop’ as in Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot ? I sure hope it’s not that one, because it was a really stupid movie with that guy who yelled ‘Adrian!’ all the time in that other movie where he punched stuff. I think that movie was called The Man Who Punched Stuff.”

  I looked at Spelling Beatrice. “What’s your other idea?”

  “Sidekicks!” Kiki’s voice blared again. “We have a little surprise for you!”

  The moment we heard Kiki, we hunkered down, hiding beneath the leaves and brush. None of us were going to answer this time and let them get a bead on our location.

  The time seemed to stretch into minutes and the silence chewed at me like a tree rat.

  “Well, are you gonna tell them the surprise, or what?” we heard Bunni ask.

  “What did we just talk about not five minutes ago?” Kiki spat back.

  “Getting pedicures every Sunday once we rule the world?” Bunni replied.

  “No! Dramatic tension !” Kiki yelled.

  “I totally think you don’t even know what dramatic tension is,” Candi joined in. “Because every time you say you’re creating dramatic tension, you’re just totally standing there like... ‘Duh!’ ”

  “It is not ‘DUH!’ ” Kiki shouted. “It’s the use of silence and inactivity to increase the sense of anxiety between us and them. Come on! It’s in the first chapter of the Supervillain Handbook!”

  “I thought the first chapter was ‘Pompous Speeches, Convoluted Schemes, and Slow-Moving Death Traps,’ ” Candi stated.

  “That’s Chapter Six,” Kiki corrected. “You didn’t even read the book, did you?”

  “I tried! But that McKenneson brat kept throwing broccoli at me!”

  “Uh... girls?” I interrupted from my hiding place. “Maybe we could get back to your evil surprise?”

  “STAY OUT OF THIS!” Kiki and Candi shouted at me.

  “You’re just mad that I made head cheerleader and you didn’t!” Kiki continued.

  “Why do I care about being head cheerleader?!” Candi spat back. “I’m totally gonna be ruler of the world!”

  “Yeah, but I’m gonna be ruler of the world and head cheerleader!” Kiki boasted.

  “Oh... shut up!” Candi fumed.

  “You shut up more!” Kiki countered.

  “Fine!”

  “Fine!”

  There was a moment of silence, and then Kiki said, “Okay, sidekicks! Surrender now... or else!”

  “Speedy!” I heard a weak voice cry out from above me. “Don’t listen to them!”

  The voice sounded too familiar, and then I finally saw them. They were above us, standing on a hover platform. My mom was with them.

  The Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters had my mom.

  It was time to kick some babysitter butts. “No more messing around. We take them out. Now.”

  “But Boom Boy already had dibs on the blond girl,” Spice Girl reminded me.

  “I don’t mean take them out on a date. I mean take them out of commission!” I had never been more serious in my life. My mom was in trouble, and even worse, she was being threatened by babysitters. “Evil babysitters,” I said aloud.

  “Rotten,” Spelling Beatrice corrected. “Rotten,” Spice Girl agreed.

  “I’ll give you ten seconds to give yourselves up!” Kiki called out. “Or she gets it!”

  “Is that, like, ten real seconds, or ten ‘dramatic tension’ seconds?” Candi snorted.

  “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.
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  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!”