My Brother is a Superhero (12 page)

23

WALTER EDMUND GO

“There is no Walter Edmund Go,” I declared excitedly.

“Are you having the sausage in gravy?” asked Serge. Fair to say, that was not the response I had expected.

The last lesson before lunch had finished and a line of noisy, ravenous schoolchildren filed into the canteen. When dance class had ended we’d gone straight into science, so there had been no opportunity for me to tell the others about my brilliant deduction until this moment.

Serge couldn’t concentrate with anything less than a full stomach, so I forgave him. We hovered between the Light Bites and the sausage in gravy in question.

“Of course there’s a Walter Go,” Lara objected, sliding a tuna salad on to her tray.

“Walter E. Go,” I repeated, emphasising his middle initial.

There was a crunch as Serge bit into a bread-stick. “I do not comprehend. Why are you saying his name like that? What is the significance of Walter Ego?”

We took our trays and sat down at our usual table. “Superheroes and villains have one thing in common,” I explained. “Most live behind a secret identity. Clark Kent is Superman. Matt Murdock is Daredevil. Princess Diana of Themyscira is a mouthful and she’s also Wonder Woman. There is another phrase for this:
alter ego.
And what does that sound like?”

Lara gasped. “Walter Ego!” I could see her mind working. It worked fast. “You’re saying Walter E. Go is just another name for Christopher Talbot?”

I pierced the straw through my carton of Not From Concentrate apple juice. “Talbot lied to us,” I said, taking a suck. “That day we went to his house asking questions, we were getting too close to the truth. He had to say something to put us off the scent. So he used his alter ego.”

“But why does the owner of a comic book store need an alter ego?” puzzled Serge.

“Because he’s not just an innocent comic book store owner,” I said.

“I believe he’s behind Zack’s kidnapping.” I gulped the last of my juice and crushed the carton in my fist for dramatic effect. “I believe that Christopher Talbot is Nemesis.”

Serge swallowed a forkful of mashed potato.

“Are you sure?” Lara asked doubtfully. “Let’s look at the facts – a good reporter doesn’t jump to conclusions. When we interviewed him he came across as, well, a bit useless. He was so …
bumbling
. All that business with the jet pack going through his ceiling – surely an experienced supervillain would
never
allow that to happen.”

I had an answer for that. “I think his bumbling was a trick to distract us from the truth.”

“Pardon,” said Serge, raising a hand as if he was in class, “but what is this
bumbling
?”

“It means behaving clumsily,” I said. “Lots of superheroes’ alter egos are bumblers. Clark Kent is the most famous one. When he trips over things and plays with his glasses it distracts people from the truth.”

“I knew it!” said Lara, spearing a mini tomato with her fork. “I knew he had to be the villain the moment he opened the door.”

“But you just said we shouldn’t jump to conclusions and that he was a bumbler.”

She waved away my objection. “Never mind that now,” she said. “I saw right through his little game. I knew Christopher Talbot was a weirdo. All those freaky gadgets and that odd little robot.” She shuddered. “Nobody pulls the whale over my eyes.”

I wanted to say that he hadn’t pulled the whale –
wool
– over my eyes too, but if anyone should be wearing the Woolly Balaclava of Shame, it was me. The truth was I’d liked him. All the things that Lara found weird, I admired. Above all, he and I shared the same deep love of comic books.

Lara went on.

“So, Christopher Talbot has the missing video of Star Lad.” Having finished her tuna, she tapped a spoon thoughtfully against her bowl of Seasonal Fresh Fruit Salad. “And when you turned up on his doorstep he recognised
you
from the same video. Then he tricked us into giving him your address so he could kidnap Zack. Clever.
Fiendishly
clever.”

I felt betrayed by Christopher Talbot and everything I’d thought he stood for. How could a lifetime of reading superhero stories turn someone into a villain? It went against everything I believed.

But then I remembered a conversation I’d had with my dad when we watched
Star Wars
together. I’m talking about the first films – the original trilogy. They’re so old that the first time Dad put them on I expected they’d be in black and white. He had been desperate to show them to me since he tucked me into my first Jedi Babygro (I’m “Luke” for a reason), but Mum decided I had to wait until I was old enough, which in her opinion was eight. Dad argued for four. They settled on six. We watched the trilogy together on the morning of my birthday, beginning our marathon session shortly after dawn. Dad kept me off school and he called in sick to work, cupping the phone to explain to me in a whisper that this was a special occasion. And not to tell Mum. We watched all three films back to back. Then we watched
Empire
a second time because it’s the best.

When it was over he turned to me with a tear in his eye and asked who my favourite character was. Well, that was obvious. Luke Skywalker, my namesake, the young Jedi with the superpower of the Force. Dad said that when he watched it the first time Luke was his favourite too. But years later when he revisited the films he preferred the roguish, gun-slinging Han Solo. I liked Han – not nearly as much as Luke –
but I could see how someone might prefer him. But then Dad had lowered his voice and said that when he was older still he found himself drawn neither to Luke nor Han.

“Not to Princess Leia?” I squirmed.

“Well, no. I mean, yes. But no.” He hauled himself out of his armchair and walked in front of the TV. Behind him the end credits crawled across the screen. “The character I liked most was–” he paused for what seemed an age “–Darth Vader.”

No-o-o-o!

In that instant I pictured the Dark Lord extending his gloved hand to me and in that cold, rumbling voice saying: “Luke, I am your father’s favourite.”

I was shocked. As if someone had fired a proton torpedo down my thermal exhaust port. Slowly I began to form a picture of the world I was being raised into. You start off believing in the good guys until one day you find yourself cheering for the Dark Lord of the Sith. Is everyone eventually tempted by the Dark Side? Is that what had happened to Christopher Talbot? And would it happen to me one day?

Something was moving rapidly inches from my face. “Luke?” My eyes focused on Lara’s waving hand.

“Hmm?” I said.

“You zoned out. Where were you?”

“Far, far away.”

“Well, get back here because we need to figure out our next move.”

As we drew up our plans the canteen emptied around us. The familiar uproar of lunch-hour faded to the occasional clink of cutlery. The three of us were among the last to leave.

“So, we’re agreed,” said Lara finally. “After school we stake out Talbot Grange and when Christopher Talbot – aka Nemesis – appears, we follow him. At some point he has to pay a visit to his secret volcano. We just make sure that we’re on his tail when he does.”

I nodded. It was a solid plan. I knew that there would be obstacles along the way. I was prepared for things like booby traps, robot guards and searchlight towers. But the first complication appeared sooner than I’d expected, that very afternoon at the school gates.

24

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

“But, Dad…”

“Luke, no arguments. We’re going home.”

“But Serge and Lara—”

He raised a warning finger. “Don’t make me use my Jedi mind trick on you.”

I groaned in frustration. “I have to tell them. We made plans.”

“I’m sure your plans will keep.”

Hah! He had no idea and it wasn’t as if I could tell him what we were really up to. “I suppose,” I mumbled, slouching off. Lara and Serge lingered by the gates.

“Does your papa permit you to come on the stake-out
with us?” asked Serge.

I shook my head.

“It’s understandable,” said Lara. “Your mum and dad have lost one son – they don’t want to risk losing you as well.” She gave me a comforting smile. “Don’t worry, we’ve got this. Serge and I will find Nemesis’ lair.”

I was struck by a horrible thought. “You won’t mount an assault on the volcano without me, will you?”

“No, Luke. Of course not.” She squeezed my arm. “You can lead the assault…” A shadow of doubt fell across her face. “…as long as you’re allowed out of your room.”

When Dad and I got home, Mum gave me a hug like I’d just returned from an expedition to the South Pole. I could hear chatter coming from the kitchen. I went in to find both sets of my grandparents making endless cups of tea and cutting slices of very solid fruit cake that you could easily chip a tooth on.

Grandpa Bernard was sitting at the table watching sport on his iPad, which he does a lot when he visits. And he never wears headphones, so the rest of us are forced to listen to some boring commentator drone on about golf or cricket and when someone makes a hole in one, or hits a six, the crowd applauds and it sounds like a bunch of mice clapping from inside a tin. Very annoying.
Grandma Maureen is always telling him off about it, but he never listens, just smiles happily and asks her to make him another cup of tea. They’re my dad’s parents and they live in Scotland. My mum’s are called Grandpa Clive and Mushki (she hates being called grandma because she says it makes her sound ancient, so she invented this secret identity to pretend that she’s not). They live two streets away. But right then they were all camped out at our house. The family was rallying round in the face of Zack’s disappearance, and so were the neighbours. A steady stream of them trooped through the hastily repaired front door, leaving cards and casseroles. I didn’t know what it was, but something about the situation made people want to cook meat slowly in large pots.

Cara Lee and her mum popped in with a card and yet another casserole (chicken and mushroom, fourth of the day). Mrs Lee sat with Mum and held her hand and Cara stood looking sad next to the cooker. She had written in the card: “To Zack, I’ll never forget the way you saved my phone” and then she’d signed her name and put a kiss. Zack would be pleased – if he survived.

Among the jumble of pots on the kitchen table was a piece of mail for me. It had come that morning. I don’t receive a lot of post, mostly birthday cards and notes from school about my behaviour/homework/test
results/all of the above. It felt like a birthday card, but my birthday had been weeks ago. I slid a thumb under the flap and prised it open. Inside was an oddly shaped card printed with gold lettering.

It was an invitation to the opening of Crystal Comics’ new flagship store. In all the drama of the last few days I’d forgotten about Christopher Talbot’s offer to invite Lara and me to the launch. I was confused. Hadn’t it just been a trick to obtain my address so that he could kidnap Zack? Judging from the invitation to the grand opening party next week, it appeared that the launch was real enough. What was Christopher Talbot up to? Why did he want me there? When I thought about it I realised the answer was obvious. Like all the supervillains I’d ever read about, he wanted an audience for his ultimate despicable deed.

I could only guess what monstrous fate he had in store for my brother. Serge’s theory was that Christopher Talbot intended to display the kidnapped Star Lad as the centrepiece of his new comic store, like some twisted ice swan sculpture. The sick feeling in my stomach told me that whatever Nemesis had planned for Star Lad, it was a lot darker than turning him into an ice-based party decoration.

“What’s happened to my golf?” Grandpa Bernard
complained, interrupting my gloomy thoughts. He hit his iPad like it was some sort of old-timey TV set that you could fix by banging it on the side.

The rest of us breathed sighs of relief that the commentator’s mosquito whine had finally stopped. A new voice took his place and even through the tinny speaker you could tell that this one sounded serious.

“We interrupt our regular programming for an important announcement. Please stand by.”

There were concerned murmurs from the others in the room. In my mind there was only one answer to Grandpa Bernard’s question. It had to be Nemesis. He’d taken over the airwaves to broadcast his message of doom.

We crowded round the iPad. A picture of an empty podium with a microphone filled the screen. Behind it on the wall hung an official-looking seal. Dad flicked on the TV. The same image was on there too. As we watched, a figure in a dark suit made her way slowly to the podium. It wasn’t Nemesis.

“It’s the Prime Minister,” said Mum. I could hear the concern in her voice. I looked around at the other adults – all of them were worried.

The Prime Minister removed her spectacles and laid them on the podium. I thought she looked tired.
“This morning at four a.m. Greenwich Mean Time,” she began solemnly, “ATLAS, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System detected an object in our solar system, on a collision course with Earth.” She paused. “Their calculations have been verified by NASA and the European Space Agency. The asteroid will hit our planet in one week’s time. Since this morning I have been in close contact with other world leaders to monitor the situation. Everything humanly possible is being done to avert a catastrophe, but it is my grave duty as your elected leader to prepare you for the worst. The vast size of the asteroid means that an impact will…” She choked and then gathered herself. “…will wipe out civilisation as we know it.”

There was a collective gasp from everyone in our kitchen.

“How big
is
this thing?” said Dad quietly.

It was as if the Prime Minister had heard him. “The object is approximately seven hundred miles in diameter.”

I felt dizzy. “That’s bigger than the Death Star,” I muttered in disbelief.

“In accordance with international conventions, NASA has designated the asteroid as … Nemesis.”

What?!
That didn’t make sense. Nemesis was
Christopher Talbot. Wasn’t he? “Nemesis is coming.” That’s what Zorbon the Decider had told Zack. Naturally I’d assumed that he or she was a superpowered criminal. But I’d got it all wrong.

Nemesis wasn’t a supervillain, it was a giant space rock. Which meant that Star Lad’s destiny was to save the world from a planet-killing asteroid. There was just one problem.

Star Lad was a prisoner.

“The brightest minds on our planet are already at work, planning how to avert the threat,” the Prime Minister continued. “However, our technological capabilities are limited in the face of such a galactic scale.” She leaned in, gripping the edges of the podium, looking less like a politician and more like someone’s mum. “So I make this appeal now to the individual known as Star Lad. This is our darkest hour. Please come forward. Your planet needs you.”

The broadcast ended, the screen went dark and was replaced seconds later by golf. No one moved. Then Grandpa Bernard switched off his iPad.