NOTHING GOOD COMES IN A BUCKET
Once upon a time, superheroes Mal and Cal Worthy were trapped in the belly of a yellow beast. The smell of salami was overpowering. Would anyone claw free of the monster’s vile belly? Anyone?…
“… Anyone?” the school bus driver called out again before shutting the doors. Immediately, two dozen kids began to shout.
Becca Deed covered her nose. Corey “Gorilla” Manila, an eighth grader about the size and smell of a sack of dirty elephant laundry, had obviously had salami—and maybe garlic—for lunch again.
Becca had been trying to escape into her brain, because her body sure wasn’t going anywhere. The bus had been locked in traffic for an hour. She was a writer, and as such, she was the kind of girl who could sit quietly as she explored her imagination—but even she couldn’t imagine away the toxic mix of eighth-grader breath.
She pinched her nose tighter. Definitely garlic.
Becca looked over to see her best friend, Kyle Word, snoring, his face pressed up against the window. Despite his last name, Kyle hated words and writing, but he and Becca got along because they both liked stories with epic adventures, dastardly villains, and justice for all. In fact, they were working on a comic book series together, The Astounding Adventures of Mal & Cal Worthy, that had all those things. She handled the text while he illustrated—which was a good thing, because Becca was really only good at drawing a cartoon cat.
“Watch out for the Garblenuff,” Kyle mumbled in his sleep.
“Wake up, Kyle,” Becca said, poking him in the ribs. But his only response was to snore a little louder and say something that sounded kind of like, “I know karate.”
Becca sighed. They had planned on plotting the next Mal and Cal adventure on the bus, but Kyle had been tired all day because his little brother had woken him up extra-early. She guessed it didn’t really matter anyway. It was impossible to focus on anything when surrounded by garlic-zilla fumes. Not to mention Kyle’s sketchbook was still soggy from when someone had accidentally spilled tea on it. It had been a long day.
But one more stop and Becca would be home. And not a moment too soon, because, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gorilla Manila dump a pack of itching powder down Kyle’s shirt.
“Bye, Kyle,” she said, standing up quickly as the school bus screeched to a halt. “I’ll bring some aloe for you tomorrow. Maybe in the next issue, Mal and Cal should face down a bunch of giant mosquitoes.”
“ZZhmm? What?” he said, waking up. “What do you mean?”
Becca knew the moment the powder met his skin. His eyes popped like a poked puffer fish and he shot straight up, scratching like a monkey with chicken pox. Or, since he was bobbing his head to reach his neck, more like a chicken with monkey pox.
The school bus’s doors swung open, and she hurried down the aisle before Gorilla Manila dumped itching powder on her back. Eager to breathe clean air, she hopped down the steps—right into a tsunami!
Where had the water come from?
The last time Becca checked, she lived miles away from any ocean. And she didn’t think it was supposed to rain today.… Maybe an elephant had escaped the city zoo and stepped on a water main?
Then her eyes cleared and she saw the Bucket.
The Bucket held by her stepbrother, Sam.
That bucket and the villainous smile on his face told her the whole story.
“Welcome home!” Sam said, his smile getting bigger.
“Welcome to your doom!” Becca shouted. Dropping her backpack on the sidewalk, she charged.