25 - Attack of the Mutant

“Hey—put that down!”

I grabbed the comic book from Wilson Clark’s hand and smoothed out the
plastic cover.

“I was only looking at it,” he grumbled.

“If you get a fingerprint on it, it will lose half its value,” I told him. I
examined the cover through the clear wrapper. “This is a
Silver Swan
Number Zero,” I said. “And it’s in mint condition.”

Wilson shook his head. He has curly, white-blond hair and round, blue eyes.
He always looks confused.

“How can it be Number Zero?” he asked. “That doesn’t make any sense,
Skipper.”

Wilson is a really good friend of mine. But sometimes I think he dropped down
from the planet Mars. He just doesn’t know
anything.

I held up the
Silver Swan
cover so he could see the big zero in the
corner. “That makes it a collector’s item,” I explained. “Number Zero comes before Number One. This comic is worth ten times as much as
Silver Swan
Number One.”

“Huh? It is?” Wilson scratched his curly hair. He squatted down on the floor
and started pawing through my carton of comic books. “How come all your comics
are in these plastic bags, Skipper? How can you read them?”

See? I told you. Wilson doesn’t know anything.

“Read them? I don’t read them,” I replied. “If you read them, they lose their
value.”

He stared up at me. “You don’t read them?”

“I can’t take them out of the bag,” I explained. “If I open the bag, they
won’t be in mint condition anymore.”

“Ooh. This one is cool!” he exclaimed. He pulled up a copy of
Star Wolf.
“The cover is metal!”

“It’s worthless,” I mumbled. “It’s a second printing.”

He stared at the silvery cover, turning it in his hands, making it shine in
the light. “Cool,” he muttered. His favorite word.

We were up in my room, about an hour after dinner. The sky was black outside
my double windows. It gets dark so early in winter. Not like on the Silver
Swan’s planet, Orcos III, where the sun never sets and all the superheroes have
to wear air-conditioned costumes.

Wilson came over to get the math homework. He lives next door, and he always
leaves his math book at school—so he always comes over to get the homework from me.

“You should collect comic books,” I told him. “In about twenty years, these
will be worth millions.”

“I collect rubber stamps,” he said, picking up a
Z-Squad
annual. He
studied the sneaker ad on the back cover.

“Rubber stamps?”

“Yeah. I have about a hundred of them,” he said.

“What can you do with rubber stamps?” I asked.

He dropped the comic back into the carton and stood up. “Well, you can stamp
things with them,” he said, brushing off the knees of his jeans. “I have
different-colored ink pads. Or you can just look at them.”

He is definitely weird.

“Are they valuable?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He picked up the math sheet from the
foot of my bed. “I’d better get home, Skipper. See you tomorrow.”

He started for the door and I followed him. Our reflections stared out at us
from my big dresser mirror. Wilson is so tall and skinny and blond and
blue-eyed. I always feel like a dark, chubby mole next to him.

If we were in a comic book, Wilson would be the superhero, and I would be his
sidekick. I’d be the pudgy, funny one who was always messing up.

It’s a good thing life isn’t a comic book—right?

As soon as Wilson left, I turned back to my dresser. My eye caught the big
computer banner above the mirror: Skipper Matthews, Alien Avenger.

My dad had someone at his office print out the banner for me for my twelfth
birthday a few weeks ago.

Beneath the banner, I have two great posters tacked on the wall on both sides
of the dresser. One is a Jack Kirby
Captain America.
It’s really old and
probably worth about a thousand dollars.

The other one is newer—a
Spawn
poster by Todd McFarlane. It’s really
awesome.

In the mirror, I could see the excited look on my own face as I hurried to
the dresser.

The flat brown envelope waited for me on the dressertop.

Mom and Dad said I couldn’t open it until after dinner, after I finished my
homework. But I couldn’t wait.

I could feel my heart start to pound as I stared down at the envelope.

I knew what waited inside it. Just thinking about it made my heart pound even
harder.

I carefully picked up the envelope. I had to open it now. I
had
to.

Carefully, carefully, I tore the flap on the envelope. Then I reached inside
and pulled out the treasure.

This month’s issue of
The Masked Mutant.

Holding the comic book in both hands, I studied the cover.
The Masked
Mutant #24.
In jagged red letters across the bottom, I read: “A TIGHT
SQUEEZE FOR THE SENSATIONAL SPONGE!”

The cover art was awesome. It showed SpongeLife—known across the universe
as The Sponge of Steel—in terrible trouble. He was caught in the tentacles of
a gigantic octopus. The octopus was squeezing him dry!

Awesome. Totally awesome.

I keep all of my comic books in mint condition, wrapped in collector’s bags.
But there is one comic that I have to read every month. And that’s
The Masked
Mutant.

I have to read it as soon as it comes out. And I read it cover to cover, every word in every panel. I even read the Letters
page.

That’s because
The Masked Mutant
is the best-drawn, best-written comic
in the world. And The Masked Mutant
has
to be the most powerful, most
evil villain ever created!

What makes him so terrifying is that he can move his molecules around.

That means he can change himself into anything that’s solid.
Anything!

On this cover, the giant octopus is actually the Masked Mutant. You can tell
because the octopus is wearing the mask that The Masked Mutant always wears.

But he can change himself into
any
animal. Or any object.

That’s how he always escapes from The League of Good Guys. There are six
different superheroes in The League of Good Guys. They are all mutants, too,
with amazing powers. And they are the world’s best law enforcers. But they can’t
catch The Masked Mutant.

Even the League’s leader—The Galloping Gazelle—the fastest man in the
solar system, isn’t fast enough to keep up with The Masked Mutant.

I studied the cover for a few minutes. I liked the way the octopus tentacles
squeezed SpongeLife into a limp rag. You could see by his expression that The
Sponge of Steel was in mortal pain.

Awesome.

I carried the comic over to the bed and sprawled onto my stomach to read it.
The story began where
The Masked Mutant #23
left off.

SpongeLife, the world’s best underwater swimmer, was deep in the ocean. He
was desperately trying to escape from The Masked Mutant. But The Sponge of Steel
had caught his cape on the edge of a coral reef.

I turned the page. As The Masked Mutant drew nearer, he began to move his
molecules around. And he changed himself into a huge, really gross octopus.

There were eight drawings showing The Masked Mutant transform himself. And
then came a big, full-page drawing showing the enormous octopus reaching out its
slimy, fat tentacles to grab the helpless SpongeLife.

SpongeLife struggled to pull away.

But the octopus tentacles slid closer. Closer.

I started to turn the page. But before I could move, I felt something cold
and slimy wrap itself around
my
neck.

I let out a gasp and tried to struggle free.

But the cold tentacles wrapped themselves tighter around my throat.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream.

I heard laughter.

With a great effort, I turned around. And saw Mitzi, my nine-year-old sister.
She pulled her hands away from my neck and jumped back as I glared at her.

“Why are your hands so cold?” I demanded.

She smiled at me with her innocent, two-dimpled smile. “I put them in the
refrigerator.”

“You
what
?!” I cried. “You put them in the refrigerator? Why?”

“So they’d be cold,” she replied, still grinning.

My sister has a really dumb sense of humor. She has straight, dark brown hair
like me. And she’s short and a little chubby like me.

“You scared me to death,” I told her, sitting up on the bed.

“I know,” she replied. She rubbed her hands on my cheeks. They were still
cold.

“Yuck. Get away, Mitzi.” I shoved her back. “Why did you come up here? Just
to scare me?”

She shook her head. “Dad told me to come up. He said to tell you if you’re
reading comic books instead of doing your homework, you’re in big trouble.”

She lowered her brown eyes to the comic book, open on the bed. “Guess you’re
in big trouble, Skipper.”

“No. Wait.” I grabbed her arm. “This is the new
Masked Mutant.
I
have
to read it! Tell Dad I’m doing my math, and—”

I didn’t finish what I was saying because my dad stepped into the room. The
ceiling light reflected in his glasses. But I could still see that he had his
eyes on the open comic book on my bed.

“Skipper—” he said angrily in his booming, deep voice.

Mitzi pushed past him and ran out of the room. She liked to cause trouble.
But she never wanted to stay around once things got
really
ugly.

And I knew things were about to get ugly—because I had already been warned
three times that week about spending too much time with my comic book
collection.

“Skipper, do you know why your grades are so bad?” my dad bellowed.

“Because I’m not a very good student?” I replied.

A mistake. Dad hates it when I answer back.

Dad reminds me of a big bear. Not only because he growls a lot. But because
he is big and broad. He has short, black hair and almost no forehead. Really.
His hair starts almost right above his glasses. And he has a big, booming roar
of a voice, like a bear’s roar.

Well, after I answered him back, he let out an angry roar. Then he lumbered
across the room and picked up my carton of comic books—my entire collection.

“Sorry, Skipper, I’m tossing these all out!” he cried, and headed for the
door.

You probably expected me to panic. To start begging and pleading for him not
to throw away my valuable collection.

But I didn’t say anything. I just stood beside the bed with my hands lowered
at my sides, and waited.

You see, Dad has done this before. Lots of times. But he doesn’t really mean
it.

He has a bad temper, but he’s no supervillain. Actually, I’d put him in The
League of Good Guys most of the time.

His main problem is that he doesn’t approve of comic books. He thinks they’re
just trash. Even when I explain that my collection will probably be worth
millions by the time I’m his age.

Anyway, I stood there and waited silently.

Dad stopped at the door and turned around. He held the carton in both hands.
He narrowed his dark eyes at me through his black-framed glasses.

“Are you going to get to your work?” he asked sternly.

I nodded. “Yes, sir,” I muttered, staring at my feet.

He lowered the carton a little. It’s really heavy, even for a big, strong guy
like him. “And you won’t waste any more time tonight on comic books?” he
demanded.

“Couldn’t I just finish this new one?” I asked. I pointed to
The Masked
Mutant
comic on the bed.

Another mistake.

He growled at me and turned to carry the carton away.

“Okay, okay!” I cried. “Sorry. I’ll get my homework done, Dad. I promise.
I’ll start right now.”

He grunted and stepped back into the room. Then he dropped the carton back
against the wall. “That’s all you think about night and day, Skipper,” he said
quietly. “Comics, comics. It isn’t healthy. Really. It isn’t.”

I didn’t say anything. I knew he was about to go back downstairs.

“I don’t want to hear any more about comics,” Dad said gruffly. “Understand?”

“Okay,” I murmured. “Sorry, Dad.”

I waited to hear his heavy footsteps going down the stairs. Then I turned
back to the new issue of
The Masked Mutant.
I was desperate to find out how SpongeLife escaped from the giant octopus.

But I could hear Mitzi nearby. She was still upstairs. If she saw me reading
the comic book, she’d run downstairs and tell Dad for sure. Mitzi’s hobby is
being a snitch.