Two

Caveman Comics lay halfway below street level, tucked beneath a bike shop and an Internet cafe. Steps led up from the door to the sidewalk, past the sputtering neon sign that flashed CAVEMAN, past the single dust-caked window carved into the bricks of Caveman’s front wall. It really was a cave. A den. A secret hide-out for comic book geniuses like me and Noah.

Not a place for our arch nemesis.

But when we scuffed up the rain-soaked steps, there was Sam Zawicki: arms crossed, shoulders rigid, combat boot practically drumming a hole in the sidewalk.

And okay, so technically Sam Zawicki wasn’t our personal arch nemesis. Technically, Sam Zawicki had way too much arch-nemesing power to waste on a couple of flyweights like me and Noah. Technically, Sam Zawicki was too busy trying to arch-nemesis the entire seventh grade, most of Earhart Middle School, all of Wheaton, and, possibly, the universe.

Technically, Sam Zawicki was arch nemesis to the world.

She was standing in front of the display window of Weaver’s Department Store on the corner, under the red canvas awning, a stream of rain dribbling off the canvas behind her. She was glaring at the mannequins in the display. Practically glaring a hole through the glass. Like she was itching for a fight. Like she was just waiting for those mannequins to start something. Like she was ready to take ’em down.

And I don’t know if it was from Sam snorting her hot breath out into the damp air, or if it was just steam rising off her army surplus jacket, but her head—with the straggly brown hair and the chin jutting out—sort of rose from the fog that swirled around her.

Which, I have to admit, added a nice touch to the whole arch nemesis business.

She never really messed with me and Noah much as long as we stayed out of her way (except for one humiliating third grade bathroom incident that I don’t really want to talk about).

This worked out pretty well for everybody, since staying out of the way was the main thing me and Noah were really excellent at.

 

 

See, Noah and I had developed the power of invisibility. The trick was to stay quiet, stay low, and not wear anything in the lavender, pink, or magenta color families. Invisibility could be lonely, but let’s face it, when the third guy in your posse is a bassoon, it might just save your life.

“What are you looking at?” Sam Zawicki’s croaky bark shot down Quincy Street.

I jumped. Because: 1) Sam Zawicki’s voice is like a smack in the head, and 2) I realized I was staring at her. Or at least, staring at her reflection in the glass of the Weaver’s Department Store display window, under the sign that said NEWLY ARRIVED! FALL DANCE DRESSES. I hadn’t meant to, but there I was, staring Sam Zawicki in the eye.

And she was staring back.

She fired a look over her shoulder, past Weaver’s, down the next block.

I glanced that way, too, to see what she was looking at. Probably her big lump of a brother, Dillon. He’s not real bright, but when you’re as big as Dillon, you don’t need that many brain cells. But I didn’t see him. Luckily. The whole Zawicki experience was miserable enough without throwing Dillon into the mix.

“Hey!” Sam’s voice smacked me again. “Beanboy.”

Yeah. Beanboy. It was the kind of thing you had to deal with when you were born with a last name like MacBean.

“Quit looking at me.” She turned to face us.

“I wasn’t. I just—”

“Quit following me. Quit breathing my air. You got that?” She pulled her backpack close and wrapped her arm around it, like she was guarding it.

From me, I guess. Like I was a big threat.

Sam was shorter than me, and her arms and legs were just plain spindly. Her combat boots were actually smaller than my sneakers. I’m no hulking maniac, but I hoped I at least looked like I could hold my own against a sixty-pound girl.

Right.

I took a step back. Her combat boots had steel toes.

Noah gave his watch a covert tap. I nodded and angled sideways, trying to dodge Sam and her boots.

She stepped in front of me, cutting me off.

“Look,” I said. “I’m not following you. I do have to, you know, breathe, but I wasn’t looking at you. I mean, I was, but I didn’t know it was you. I just thought you were, I don’t know, some girl.”

 

Case File: Sam Zawicki

Status: Villain

Base: Amelia Earhart Middle School

Superpower: Rage (which, I know, doesn’t sound all that powerful, but trust me, when you go around all the time so spitting mad that your hair practically stands on end, people get out of your way).

Superweapon: A guard-dog personality, really bony elbows, and steel-toed boots from Ed’s Army Surplus Emporium.

Real Name: Samantha (but no one’s suicidal enough to call her that).

 

Sam stood very still. Which was somehow worse than when she was flinging her bony arms and snorting out arch-nemesis fog.

“Girl?” Sam’s voice was low. “Did you call me a girl?”

“Uh—”

I cut a look at Noah, who raised his eyebrows in a kind of forehead shrug. What was the right answer here? I mean, she didn’t act like a girl. She didn’t walk like a girl or talk like a girl or dress like a girl or hit people like a girl. But technically she was, well, a girl.

“Um. Yes?” I said.

Sam narrowed her eyes. Opened her mouth to say something. Probably something I couldn’t repeat out loud, in case my mother was listening.

But somewhere up the block, a bell jangled against a glass door. Sam stopped. Shot another glance over her shoulder.

I glanced, too.

“Stop it!” she barked. “Can you just for once stop being such a Beanboy?” She poked me in the chest. Hard. “Turn around, ’cause you’re not going this way.”

“But . . . I have to,” I said. “My house is this way.”

Probably not my best strategy. Tactical Tip of the Day: Never tell a Zawicki where you live.

She snorted arch-nemesis fog in my face. “Then you’ll have to go around the block.”

“Around the block? That doesn’t even make—”

I was going to say “sense,” but I never got a chance, because here’s what she did next: She reached out and, before I knew what was happening, ripped the plastic sack from my hand. Flipped it like a Frisbee and sent it skittering behind me across the wet sidewalk.

It skidded over the concrete. Skidded over the cracks. Skidded smack into a puddle.

And for a second, it floated. For that short little second, Caveman’s plastic sack kept H2O safe and dry. For a second, I had hope.

Till she ripped my backpack from my shoulder and heaved it into the puddle. Splattered muddy water all over me and Noah. Crushed the sack and my comic book and my tiny bit of hope to the bottom of the puddle.

And I just stood there, frozen, and let her do it.

I’d spent my whole life thinking—hoping, dreaming, daring to believe—that no matter how gutless I appeared to the naked eye, no matter how . . . invisible, somewhere inside me, somewhere deep down where even I could barely find it, beat the heart of a superhero. And now, when I finally had a chance to prove it, when I could have stepped in and saved my comic book, could have stopped Sam Zawicki, could have finally become my true superhero self, what did I do?

Nothing.

Not one dang thing.

I told myself it was because she caught me by surprise. Because I wasn’t ready for her. I wasn’t expecting her to be standing there on Quincy Street, and I sure wasn’t expecting her to throw my comic book into a mud puddle. I mean, who expects that?

A superhero would. A superhero’s lightning fast reflexes would never become frozen by surprise.

I snapped out of my stupor and dragged my backpack and my comic book from the puddle. I shot a quick glance over my shoulder.

Sam was gone.

I scanned the street. Saw mostly college students. Plus one rickety old guy carrying a rickety old paper bag out of the thrift shop, with something fluffy and pink billowing out the top.

But Sam Zawicki had vanished.

I poured a stream of water from my Caveman sack. Peeled my drowned comic book from the plastic and gave the soggy pages a flap. Stale, gritty puddle water flecked my face.

All I can say is, when Noah and I rule the world, comic books will be waterproof. Also fireproof, wrinkleproof, bulletproof, and stain resistant. But mainly waterproof.

Noah wiped the splatters from his glasses. “Beecher’s bus’ll be pulling up to your house in approximately”—he clicked his watch—“two point six minutes.”