The Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters Read online

  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?�
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  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.

  “But... then ...I fell hundreds of feet! I should be pudding!”

  “Bunni used her telekinetic powers and lowered you like a feather,” Spelling Beatrice explained.

  “Bunni saved me?!”

  “It’s amazing what a hug can do,” Exact Change Kid added. “We can fly. We can shoot rays from our eyes. We can bend steel bars with our bare hands. We have the powers to crush worlds and topple governments — well, none of us can do those things, really, but sort of — and yet none of us have ever stopped to think that maybe there’s no power greater than love.”

  Boom Boy slammed the window down on him. “Where is Bunni? I mean, I should thank her,” I said.

  Boom Boy stabbed a thumb toward the living room. “She’s sharing eye shadow secrets with Spice Girl.”

  “And my mom?”

  “Right here.” I heard her voice as she entered the room. “We’re all so proud of you!” she bent over and gave me a kiss on the forehead.

  “Mom!” I grumbled, turning red.

  I had a million questions. “Do we know who hired the Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters?”

  “Even Bunni says they don’t know. It was all done through scrambled messages,” Spelling Beatrice said.

  “So this isn’t over yet. The real enemy is still out there. Maybe with babysitters even more rotten than these... .” The thought left me uneasy.

  My mom ushered the Sidekicks from the room. “Now all of you run along and let my boy sleep. There’ll be plenty of time to discuss evil’s secret plan for world domination when he’s feeling a little better.”

  “Wait! What about the Babytron Bomb? Did I stop it?” I called to them.

  Spelling Beatrice stopped in the doorway. “Well, I wouldn’t say it ‘stop’ exactly....”

  “Where did it land?”

  “Paris!” Pumpkin Pete stated as he stepped from my closet.

  “Oh no! I turned the city of Paris into whining, crying babies?”

  “Eh, it’s just the French.” Pumpkin Pete shrugged. “You ask me, no one will know the difference.”

  And the funny thing? He was right. No one did.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Evil Has a Tantrum

  “What are they doing now?” the voice asked.

  “Trying to reattach the cable to the house,” the minion replied.

  “Cable?”

  “Yes. Cable.”

  “I see.”

  The room was cast in darkness. Long shadows fell across the mysterious figure shrouding his face and body in a gloomy veil. There was a moment of silence while the voice considered the possibilities.

  “What kind of cable?” the voice finally asked. “Cable TV cable.”

  “I see.”

  Again, silence. The voice had not foreseen this eventuality. There was a reason. There must be. If only the voice could crack the enigma of this event.

  “Don’t they have satellite TV? I thought everyone had satellite?” the voice finally asked.

  “No, great leader, they still have cable.”

  “I see.”

  Possibilities, endless possibilities unfolded like an onion smashed against a wall.

  “Do they at least have the premium channels?” the voice asked.

  “By our records, they have Bravo and Cinemax, but not HBO,” the minion revealed.

  “No HBO?! How do they watch The Sopranos?” “The one with the orange pumpkin for a head asked the same thing.”

  “And the Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters... did they destroy anyone?” the voice asked.

  “Counting the cable?” the minion replied. “No! Not counting the cable!”

  “Then no. They destroyed no one. Although Bunni did get a date with Boom Boy.”

  “A date to destroy Boom Boy?” the voice asked hopefully.

  “No. A date to Waterslide World. See, apparently Bunni didn’t get enough hugs as a child and when Spice Girl —”

  “Please. I just... don’t want to know,” the voice sighed. “Do we have any more rotten baby-sitters?”

  “ ‘Rotten’ as in babysitters who lack the skills to properly supervise a child, or are you making a commentary on their moral disposition?”

  “I don’t care which one! I need someone to destroy the League of Big Justice!” the voice shouted.

  The minion accessed his PDA. “Sorry, great leader, but all the remaining contacts we have are merely babysitters who lack the skills to properly supervise a child, such as Mrs. Duck-worth.”

  “But does she have any super powers? Can she blow things up or blast things? Tell me she at least has the power to blast things!”

  “No. But she does have a peculiar odor . . . not unlike mothballs.”

  There was silence; a long deep silence that set upon the dark room while the voice thought for a moment, considering the multitude of options like a master studying a chessboard.

  “And, sir? There’s still a matter of payment,” the minion reminded him.

  “Payment?”

  “Yes. We owe each member of the Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters ten dollars an hour, plus double for every hour they tried to destroy the League of Big Justice after midnight.”

  “Fine. Fine. Fine. But send it to them in pennies.”

  “Pennies, O great leader?”

  “Yes! Pennies! I am evil, you know!”

  “Yes, great leader! Of course, great leader!” the minion gushed as he bowed repeatedly and backed out of the room.

  “So...it would seem I have shown an error in judgment, sending well-dressed teenage girls to destroy the greatest superheroes the world has ever known,” the voice said to itself. “No matter. There shall be no mistake next time... for I shall destroy the League of Big Justice myself!”

  “Uh...were you talking to me?” the minion called out from the other room.

  “No! I was scheming! Can’t I scheme to myself anymore?!” the voice shouted back from the dark room.

  The minion did not answer. The voice fumed. “And another thing!” the voice shouted to the minion. “Get someone to fix this light! I’m tired of sitting in the dark!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Charisma Kid
Saves the Day!

  CHARISMA KID SAVES THE DAY! the newspaper headline screamed. Below it was a picture of the defeated Brotherhood of Rotten Babysitters.

  “What?!” I shouted. “Charisma Kid wasn’t even there!”

  Below that article was another photo of Captain Haggis being cut free from the undergrowth in my backyard by the local fire department. EVIL BUSHES ATTACK WORLD’S GREATEST HEROES! a smaller headline read.

  I took off my goggles and threw them across the parking lot. They hit Pumpkin Pete in the head and draped across his face. “Hey, look!” Pete called out. “Free goggles!”

  “I quit!” I shouted, as if throwing my goggles wasn’t evidence enough.

  “You can’t quit!” Pete yelled, stomping up to me. “And why not?!” I huffed.

  “Because you’re fired!” Pete snarled.

  “Then give me back my goggles!”

  Pete froze. The goggles’ elastic band was stretched to its breaking point as Pete forced them over his head. “So that’s how it’s gonna be? Well, then, you’re unfired!” Pete patted me on the back. “But can I keep the goggles?”

  “Go ahead,” I sighed.

  Pete ran off, as excited as a monkey in a banana store. He raced into the League of Big Justice and closed the door behind him. There was a moment of silence; then he cracked open the door again and poked out his head.

  “You’re fired!” he shouted, then slammed the door.

  “Fine,” I griped, then turned and walked straight into The Strike.

  “You’re quitting?” he asked. I don’t know who was more surprised, The Strike because I quit, or me because he appeared out of nowhere.

  “You’re a little late for saving me,” I complained.

  “I didn’t need to save you. You beat those babysitters on your own,” The Strike consoled me.

  “Wow. Good for me. I beat evil teenage girls.” “And saved your mom and The Sidekicks,” The Strike added. “It might be best if you wait until you lose a fight before you quit.”

  “I almost did lose this fight. But I’m sure you would’ve saved me. Just like you did with Dr. Robot and the Mole Master, Master of Moles.” I crossed my arms. “Now that I think about it, most of the fights I did win were only because you saved me.”