Secret Identity (7 page)

One toe was wedged onto one of the brackets
that held the pipe to the wall. The other foot was dangling around looking for something to grip on to.

I tried to reach the air conditioner, but I couldn't.

I couldn't go back to the power panel, either.

Could I pull myself up the pipe? Maybe if I got higher, I could get my foot on the air conditioner.

Inch by inch, I pulled myself up, wishing I could climb walls like The Gecko. I used muscles I didn't even know were there. I grabbed toeholds that didn't even look as big as a toe. I cut my hand on a bracket. I learned what sweating bullets means.

But I did it. I got myself onto the air conditioner.

I stood on it for a minute, catching my breath. Shaking.

Shredderman was definitely not The Gecko. Or Spider-Man.

But there I was. My head was above the roof. All I had to do was get the rest of me up there.

I reached up, swung my foot to the floodlight, pushed off, and pulled up.

Two seconds later, Shredderman was on the roof.

Wa-hoo!

I hunched over and tiptoed across the middle of the roof, trying not to make any noise. It seemed like such a long way from the back to the front!

When I was almost there, I dropped down on all fours and crawled. At the edge, I peeked over.

A kid was going into Room 20.

The door closed.

I looked left.

I looked right.

No one else was around!

I peeled off my backpack and dug out the Ziploc bags. I started flinging handfuls of confetti into the air. Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

I went into speedy mode and scattered the rest of the first bag.

I shook out the second bag!

Purple and yellow paper fluttered up, down, out… it was flying everywhere!

It was beautiful!

Awesome!

Amazing!

I felt like throwing both my arms in the air and shouting, “Shredderman lives!” Instead, I grabbed my stuff and ran across the roof, back to the air conditioner.

And when I looked down, Mr. Hoover's truck was pulling away.

Uh-oh.

I stood there a minute, not knowing what to do. Superheroes don't call for help. They
are
the help. And I had to get down from there
fast.

So I took a deep breath and lowered myself over the roof and onto the air conditioner.

I sat down on the air conditioner and reached for the pipe, telling myself, You can do this. You
can
do this.

I grabbed the pipe with one hand, held on to the air conditioner with the other, then let myself down, with one foot pushing against the side of the air conditioner, the other against the pipe.

When I got a toehold on a pipe bracket, I pushed off of the air conditioner, hung on the pipe for a second, then swung over to the power panel.

So far, down was much easier than up.

And if the truck had still been there, it would have been all over. But the truck was gone and now I only had one choice.

Jump.

One, two, three! I pushed off and flew to the ground.

Guess what. Shredderman is not Superman, either. I landed hard, fell over, and scraped both hands and an arm.

Everything hurt, but nothing was broken. So after a few seconds of shaking off the pain, I got
up and dusted off. Then I snuck around the building and back to class.

The video was still going, so I squeezed through the door and slid into my seat.

Mr. Green was talking with a student over in the corner. The kids at my table were watching a snake swallow something with a really long tail. No one even seemed to notice I'd been gone.

Mission impossible, not so impossible!

And as I sat there catching my breath, I couldn't stop thinking about what I'd just done. How being Shredderman was making me
do
things that I'd only ever dreamed about before.

Maybe I was banged up and scraped up, but I felt good.

No, I felt great!

And for once I had something in common with every other kid at school—I couldn't wait for recess.

When the recess bell finally rang, I waited until almost everyone else was out the door. And when I did go outside, all my beautiful, awesome papers were just lying there.

Like trash.

Kids were walking on them. Running over them.

Ignoring them.

I felt like calling, Hey! Check out the confetti.
Read
it! Instead, I walked around with a lump in my throat.

Then I heard one of the fourth-grade teachers say, “What in the world? Look at this mess!” She picked up a purple slip and read it.

She picked up another.

And another.

Pretty soon she had a whole handful of confetti.

A girl came up to her and said, “What
is
that, Mrs. Bernhart?” and picked one up, too.

Mrs. Bernhart blinked around at the blacktop and sand. Her mouth was hanging open. She ripped the paper out of the girl's hand. Then
she
did a power-walk. Straight for the office.

The girl picked another strip off the ground and read it. “Hey!” she called to a friend. “Look at this!”

That's all it took. It spread like a cyber-virus around the playground. Everyone was picking up slips. Everyone was talking to their friends. Kids were smiling. Laughing. Giggling. Showing each other what their slip said. And they were running all over the place to see if there was more. Something on a slip they hadn't read yet. There
wasn't a ball bouncing anywhere on the playground!

I could hear their voices. “Shredderman… ? Shredderman… Shredderman…!” It was quiet at first, but got louder. And louder! Like a swarm of bees getting bigger and bigger.

Mrs. Bernhart came back, and she wasn't alone. Another teacher, Miss Simms, was with her. So was our principal, Dr. Voss!

Pretty soon
all
the teachers were in a huddle near the bathrooms. Even Mr. Green. They were talking rapid-fire, too. Hands were waving. Heads were shaking. They didn't know what to do. It was too late to stop it.

Then Freddy came up from behind me and shoved my shoulder. “Why are you just standing here, Nerd?”

I caught my balance, then turned and shoved him back.

Hard.

And before I could believe I'd done that, out of my mouth popped, “Nothing, okay,
Pee-boy?”

He blinked at me, then just stood there like I'd hit him with a stun gun.

I took a step back and said, “You're Freddy, I'm Nolan. Got it?”

He nodded.

Then he followed me as I walked away, saying, “I just couldn't believe you weren't checking these out.” He handed me a purple slip. “They're about Bubba.”

“Bubba?” I said, trying to act like I didn't know anything about it. “What's this Shredderman stuff about?”

“I don't know! But I sure want to check it out. You think Miss Surkit will let us on the Internet?”

I blinked at him. And I wanted to say, Us? but instead I laughed and said, “Worth a try!”

The computer lab was open, but we didn't see Miss Surkit right away. She's really short—even shorter than most of the upper graders—so it's easy to miss her. But Freddy spotted her behind her computer.

“Miss Surkit?” I asked. She was grinning from ear to ear.

“Huh?” she said, looking up.

Before she could switch back to the browser's home page, I saw
my
home page flash on her monitor.

She'd been visiting
shredderman.com!

“Yes, Nolan? Well, hi there, Freddy.”

I said, “We were wondering if we could use the Internet?”

She raised an eyebrow and asked, “Was there a particular
site
you wanted to visit?” She picked a piece of confetti off her desk and wagged it at us. “I don't think Dr. Voss is going to permit visits to
shredderman.com
, if that's what you're after.”

“Darn!” Freddy said.

“Bummer,” I added, trying hard not to smile.

As we left the computer lab, Freddy said, “Wow. If they're censoring it, it must be
good.”
Then he took off down the ramp, calling, “See you back in class.”

By the end of recess, confetti was in pockets everywhere. There was almost none of it left on the ground.

Back in class, people tried to ask Bubba what was going on, but he just got mad. “I don't know, stupid! You think I know? How am I supposed to know, huh?”

Then, like a couple of dumbmunks, Kevin and Max said, “Yeah, how's he supposed to know, huh?”

Mr. Green had barely gotten everyone to quit talking when Dr. Voss came into the room.

My heart stopped.

I could see it on her face—she knew!

Boy, was I in deep, deep doo-doo.

Dr. Voss whispered something to Mr. Green.

They both looked very serious.

Then Dr. Voss left the room, but we could see her waiting outside.

Mr. Green said, “Okay, gang. Take out your social studies books and begin reading on page one-forty-nine. We'll be answering questions at the end of the section. Numbers one through ten.”

We pulled out our books.

We turned to page 149.

We looked at Dr. Voss, waiting outside.