The Return of Meteor Boy? Page 18

  “And where are your parents?” she asked. “You slept here last night, and you’ve spent the entire day with us.”

  I had anticipated this question, and I had prepared for it as best I could.

  “My parents are away for the weekend on an important mission,” I explained. “For the first time, they thought I was old enough to take care of myself for a couple of days, but to be honest, it’s been really scary being in the house alone.”

  The truth was, I had no idea if I would make it back home safely and see my parents again. The worry and concern on my face looked genuine because it was, and the Bee Lady’s motherly instincts took over.

  “Well, I would question any parent who left a boy your age, even one as clearly capable as you, alone for a weekend. But I have no intention of making you go home to an empty house,” she informed me. “I insist you spend the night here again. I just hope your parents aren’t worrying about you,” she added as she went to get me some blankets.

  Then it hit me. My parents must be worried sick! I had been gone for over twenty-four hours and they had no idea where I was. If everything worked, I would be back in my own time in about twenty hours. But what was going to happen when (and if) I returned? An idea hit me. I hopped off the couch and approached Lord Pincushion. He was studying the small chunk of prodigium with a magnifying glass.

  “Excuse me,” I asked. “Could I borrow a piece of paper and a pen?”

  “Certainly, my good lad,” he said as he handed me a sheet of paper from his desk and retrieved a pen from his chest. “Here you go.”

  I sat down and began to write:

  Dear Lord Pincushion:

  You are receiving this letter more than two decades after I wrote it. It is being delivered to you on the Sunday before the 25th anniversary of my disappearance. Right now you are meeting me as Ordinary Boy, but as difficult as it is to believe, in just two days, I will travel back in time twenty-five years.There, you and the League will be introduced to me as Meteor Boy. You also know what will happen two days after that. What you haven’t known until now, however, is that Professor Brain-Drain’s device is a time machine. I interrupted his original plan by stealing the prodigium meteorite he used as his power source. The Professor himself calculated that I was flung twenty-five years into the future, which, if he is correct, means I will be reappearing this coming Thursday in Telomere Park at precisely 4:35 in the afternoon.

  If I may, I would ask just one favor. By Tuesday evening my parents will have no idea what has happened to me and will be worried sick. Their names are Thermo and Snowflake, and I would be extremely grateful if you could let them know what is happening.Also, if my assumption is correct, and I return Thursday afternoon with the meteorite, Professor Brain-Drain will be there, prepared to use it to complete his plan, whatever it may be. Despite what you have read in the papers, he is not dead. If for some reason I do not reappear, please let my parents know that I love them very much.

  With many thanks,

  Meteor Boy/Ordinary Boy

  PS: You may reveal that this letter mentions me, but say no more. This is imperative for events to unfold the way they must. The fabric of time depends on it. I’ll understand.

  PPS: Thank you for the fondue. I’ve never tried it before, and it’s delicious.

  I reread the letter to make sure I wasn’t forgetting anything important, then I folded it up. Glancing around, I noticed the envelope that Lord Pincushion had dropped when he received his bill. Picking it up, I was pleased to see the message written on the front of it: Please deliver to the leader of the League of Goodness. I folded the letter, sealed it in the envelope, and examined it again. It still needed one more thing. I took the pen, and, mimicking the writing on the envelope as best I could, added: Many thanks! Meteor Boy.

  The Bee Lady was still off gathering up some beddingfor me, so I snuck over and retrieved the Collide-a-scope. As I knew it would, the top came off when I turned it in the opposite direction, dividing into two equal pieces. I slipped the envelope inside, closed the scope back up, and returned it to its proper place.

  As I settled myself on the couch, worry kept me awake. I possessed all this knowledge of what was going to happen tomorrow, but couldn’t share it with anyone. I knew the League of Goodness wasn’t going to figure out what Professor Brain-Drain’s device was until Lord Pincushion read my letter twenty-five years from now. I knew I couldn’t tell them now without altering both the present and the future. I knew that I would vanish at 4:35 tomorrow afternoon, but I had no way of knowing if I would get back to my own time, or what I would find waiting for me there if I did. And finally, I knew that the futures of my new friends were destined to change as well. Was there some way I could alter their fate? More importantly, even if I could, should I?

  Eventually, I drifted off into a fitful sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Betrayal

  I awoke the next morning to find the Amazing Indestructo sitting at a table in the kitchen area of league headquarters eating a bowl of cereal.

  “How do you think my face would look on a cereal carton?” he asked as he held the box up to his head for comparison.“Crunchy,” I said as I stretched and yawned. “Where is everybody else?”

  “The league had an early morning emergency,” he explained.“They were just getting ready to leave when I got here. I told them we should let you sleep and that I’d keep an eye on you.”

  “You’re too selfless,” I said with a sarcasm he missed entirely. As I sat down, AI handed me the box of cereal and then proceeded to pick up the morning newspaper he had been reading.

  “Look at this coverage,” he gushed as he flashed me the front page of The Superopolis Times. LEAGUE HERE TO STAY! the headline blared in huge type.

  “I’ve put together quite a team, haven’t I?” he commented, already convinced that this had all been his doing. “And I’m going to make the biggest star out of you . . . with the exception of me, of course.”

  “Of course,” I agreed as I scanned the front page. It was full of photos and stories about all five members of the league with multiple pictures of the sidekicks, including two different ones of me. There was only one person not pictured.

  “Where are you?” I asked AI. I admit it, I was trying to goad him.

  “Huh?” he said as he grabbed the paper from my hands. I got up and looked over his shoulder as he scanned the front page up and down.

  “There you are,” I finally said as I pointed to a small scrap of type three quarters of the way through the main article.

  “‘And the group will now be known as the League of Ultimate Goodness (featuring the Amazing Indestructo),’” he read as his face got redder. “Pincushion is behind this somehow,” he fumed.

  “That will change,” I reassured him. “In time you’ll have a team where no one gets any attention except you.”

  “But even you kids got more coverage than me,” he complained.

  And then I saw my opportunity. I had wrestled all night with the question of whether I should try to affect the events that would happen today. If I left things as they were, my friends’ lives would be changed forever, and not in a good way. But if I succeeded, I might alter my own future, and that definitely wouldn’t be good either.

  I had made up my mind, though, in the only way a hero could. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but thanks to AI, I now knew what I could do to keep my friends from putting themselves in danger later this afternoon.

  “Maybe you should rethink the idea of having kids on the team,” I said as casually as I could. “The truth is that kids as sidekicks is a trend that’s beginning to fade. You represent a new age of crime fighting. You need to set a new standard. Every second-rate hero has a junior sidekick. Why not be different?”

  “I see your point,” he pondered. “But what about you?”

  “That includes me, too,” I replied. “I’m only interested in making you the success you’re destined to be. I know the greatest hero
when I see him, and all I care about is that Superopolis gets the champion it deserves.”

  I practically gagged while I was saying it.

  “Go on,” pooh-poohed the Amazing Indestructo as he actually blushed. It took me a second to realize that what he really meant was “Go on!”

  “Let kids idolize you—not the kids battling evil alongside you. You’re the best there’ll ever be,” I tried to say with a straight face, “and sidekicks, including myself, will just deflect attention from you.”

  “No, no, no, we’d be great together.” He shook his head as he produced a document that I now realized was his sole purpose for being here this morning. “My new partner, the Tycoon, even drew up a contract just for you. It’s a great deal!”

  Yes, for him, I’m sure it was. I took it from him and read it over. Sure enough, I would basically be signing all rights to my name and likeness to him in perpetuity. What a creep!

  “I’m not going to sign anything,” I said as I pushed it back at him. I wanted him to fire all of us.

  “If you sign it, I’ll make you my sole sidekick and get rid of the others,” he promised.

  I was so enraged that he would think I could be bribed to sell out my friends that I was almost tempted to throw my cereal bowl at him. Then it hit me. This might be the only way to prevent my friends from being at Telomere Park this afternoon. I wasn’t happy that AI was going to think he had succeeded in bribing me, but it was an opportunity I had to take advantage of for the sake of my new friends.

  “Okay, I’ll do it.” I sighed reluctantly. I took the contract, signed it, and handed it back.

  “It’ll be worth it, kid,” he promised me as he quickly rolled up the contract. “And now that you work for me, maybe you should go take a shower. You smell like you haven’t had a bath in two days.”

  I sniffed myself and realized he was right. Getting up from the table, I headed for one of the bathrooms and found myself a towel. As I got out of my costume, I carefully set my jet pack off to the side.

  Turning on the shower, I got underneath the spray and thought about what I had done. I felt like I had betrayed my friends, but it was my only chance to keep them from harm this afternoon. Half an hour later, I came out of the bathroom, clean and back in my costume. AI was still sitting at the table eating.

  “Have my friends gotten here yet?”

  “Yes and no,” AI answered as he continued eating. “Yes, they were here, but no, they probably aren’t your friends anymore.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked in alarm. “What did you say to them?”

  “I told them how you forced me into firing them. They weren’t very happy about it.”

  “You told them I made you do it?!” I said as my temper began to boil. “It was your decision. Take some responsibility for once in your life!”

  He went silent, his eyes blinking rapidly, and then his lip began to quiver. It was a signal I had become familiar with.

  “You’re right.” AI began to blubber. “I always take credit for the successes, but shift the blame to others.”

  Unbelievable. I still couldn’t get over what a crybaby AI was. I could almost feel sorry for someone so pathetic. Almost.

  “They made this for you.” He continued sobbing as he handed me a small cardboard poster.

  I recognized it immediately. It said: THE JUNIOR LEAGUERS. FRIENDS FOREVER: FUNNEL BOY, INVISIBOY, THE GREAT INFLATO, AND METEOR BOY. It was the poster I would find pinned up in the team’s headquarters at school twenty-five years from now.

  Then it hit me. How was it going to get there? I hadn’t even been there. In fact none of my new—now ex—friends had even mentioned it to me. And time was running out. Well, someone had to leave it there, along with the newspaper clipping and the chunk of meteorite. Grabbing the poster from AI’s hand, I went over to Lord Pincushion’s laboratory area and retrieved the box holding the meteorite fragment. On my way to the elevator, I stopped and tore out the picture of us from the front page of The Hero Herald. Without really even thinking, I also picked up a pack of the seeds AI had been trying to sell, along with one of Lord Pincushion’s knitting needles, and added them to the box as well. With my collection of items, I got into the elevator and hit the button for the ground level. As the door began to close I could still see AI slumped over sobbing.

  When the elevator doors opened back up, I stepped out to find my three former teammates waiting for me.

  “There’s the traitor,” fumed Funnel Boy. “Thanks for nothing.”

  “W-what do you mean?” I stuttered, even though I knew exactly what they meant.

  “You told AI to fire us,” huffed Inflato, “just so you could be his only sidekick.”

  “That’s not true,” I protested. “I told him to fire all of us.”

  “But why?” asked InvisiBoy, who looked most hurt of all.

  “Because . . .” I paused. What could I tell them? “Because I was trying to keep you from getting hurt.”

  “That’s a pretty poor excuse,” said Funnel Boy with a scowl. “We can take care of ourselves just fine.”

  “No, you can’t,” I responded. “Something bad is—” and then I stopped. I couldn’t exactly tell them I was from the future. Then I noticed InvisiBoy staring at me with a peculiar look on his face. I was so agitated by it that I blurted out the first thing I could think of.

  “Professor Brain-Drain is going to do something awful today, and if you don’t stay away it will ruin the rest of your lives.”

  “Oh, yeah?” asserted Inflato. “We can handle Professor Brain-Drain by ourselves, can’t we, guys? We were a team long before you barged your way in.”

  “Yeah, even if we had just met Inflato a few hours before we met you,” Funnel Boy added.

  With that, all three of them turned to leave.

  “Please don’t go,” I begged, as my plan unraveled around me. “You’re in danger.”

  “No way will we let you get all the glory,” har-rumphed Funnel Boy as he whipped himself into a dust cloud and whirled off in the direction of Telomere Park. Inflato frantically ran after him. Turning around, I found InvisiBoy just standing there looking at me suspiciously.

  “You’re not from here,” he said matter-of-factly.

  I didn’t know what else to do so I replied, “No. I’m not.”

  And then he began running toward me as if he were going to tackle me. At the last second he vanished completely. He had been so close that I expected his invisible self to bowl me over, but there was no sign of him. I called his name for more than ten minutes before finally giving up.

  Finally, I blasted into the air and headed toward my school. To my surprise, it was a building still under construction. The gymnasium looked fairly complete, though, and it was easy to find the hidey-hole. I removed the panel with no trouble at all. Inside, I placed the items that I was destined to rediscover twenty-five years from now, and then closed the space back up.

  Leaving the school I rocketed toward Needlepoint Hill. I needed the help of the League of Goodness. It was now 2:35—only two hours until I would meet my fate. In trying to alter the futures of my friends, I had only succeeded in leading them into danger. I had failed at my attempt to change the past, and now I knew I had no choice but to follow things through in the manner they were destined to unfold.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  The Final Mission of Meteor Boy

  Upstairs, MagnoBox confirmed right away the danger that my friends (or ex-friends, if we’re being technical) were in. His face vanished from the screen to be replaced by what was taking place at that very moment in Telomere Park. We could see Funnel Boy and Inflato, who were doing their best to battle the Commune for Justice on their own. They were completely outnumbered, and soon multiple copies of SkyDiamond had them captive. InvisiBoy was nowhere to be seen, but given his power that was hardly a surprise. We all gasped as Professor BrainDrain appeared on the screen.

  “I should drain the intelligence of these young scalawa
gs right now,” he said as his index finger inched toward Funnel Boy’s forehead. “But they may come in handy as hostages, at least until my plan is executed.”

  “That cad!” Lord Pincushion exclaimed. “We must rescue those boys.”

  Moments later I was seeing exactly what I had witnessed as a black and white rerun on MagnoBox’s screen. Only here it was in full-color—and happening to me. As in the replay, there was no sign of my friends as we neared the Tipler. Professor Brain-Drain was standing in front of it and just as we sighted it, it began slowly to turn.

  “You’re too late,” I heard Professor Brain-Drain cackle as he had once before. “My Tipler has begun turning and when it reaches full speed, Superopolis will be destroyed.”

  Moments later, MagnoBox reacted the way I knew he was going to.

  “What’s . . . happening?” he said as his face began to blur and the image on his screen turned to snow. “Super . . . sized . . . headaches . . . need . . . Buffer-o!” Zephyr set him down on the ground where he dropped his head, his hands pressing the sides of the screen.

  Knowing he would be okay, I turned back to Professor Brain-Drain and gasped as I saw the number that was displayed on the Time Tipler’s panel. In MagnoBox’s replay, it had been the number 25. But here it was showing something entirely different—a much larger number—the number 65,435,772. And the lever was set not for the future—but the past! No wonder he needed so much power. Professor Brain-Drain’s plan was to transport all of Superopolis more than sixty-five million years into the past! But why?

  “We have to stop him!” I yelled to the Bee Lady. “We have to reset the number on the Tipler to twenty-five.”

  “But why?” she asked. “What is this thing?”

  “I can’t explain,” I said frantically. “All I know is that the number on that screen has to read twenty-five, or the consequences could be cataclysmic.”