Art Club was turning into a new surprise every day.
Today Spencer was waiting for me inside the door.
“Your comic book’s working.” His voice was a whisper. “We recruited a new member.”
“Really?”
I thought about this. Owen Skeet had been reading my Beanboy page that morning. Owen wasn’t the first person who came to mind when you thought about ferocious athletes, but he was on the basketball team. Mostly he rode the bench. But still, this was a person who could throw a ball. And catch it without falling down. Usually. Owen Skeet was something the Amelia M. Earhart Middle School art room had never seen before. Owen Skeet was . . .
. . . an athlete.
“Where?” I said.
Spencer motioned his stocking cap toward the corner.
I turned. And stared at the heap of a person slouched at my desk, stretched out over it sideways, his beefy head propped up in one beefy palm.
Owen didn’t have beefy palms. Owen didn’t have beefy anything. This person looked exactly like . . .
Dillon.
Zawicki. I swallowed. Dillon Zawicki was stretched all over my tilty-topped art desk. The universe was just messing with me now.
Dillon caught me looking at him. He shrugged one lump of a shoulder. “Sam said I had to.”
Case File: Dillon
(That’s it. Just Dillon. It’s kind of like Elvis. You just have to say his first name and everyone knows who you mean.)
Status: If you ask Sam, she’d say he’s a sidekick. Hers. Even though she doesn’t claim him half the time, and lately not at all. If you ask anyone else at Earhart Middle, he’s a supervillain. Definitely.
Base: Patrolling the Earhart Middle School hallways.
Superpower: Super strength.
Superweapon: Great hulking size. I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but since his upper arms are as big around as basketballs, nobody’s ever been brave enough to find out.
Real Name: Dillon Zawicki
I nodded.
Spencer leaned toward me. “This is good, right? I mean, we need new members and there’s”—he waved a nervous hand toward Dillon—“a new member. So that’s progress. Right?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I need to give it some thought.”
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see someone lurking in the art room doorway.
This time it was Owen Skeet, middle school athlete.
As he hovered there, shoulders hunched, long skinny arms hanging down like he wasn’t sure where to put them, shaggy hair drooping over his eyes, and all of Art Club gawking, Owen looked like a trapped animal, a specimen we’d caught and brought back to the lab to study.
His gaze darted around the room.
And landed on Dillon, who was still stretched out on my desk, taking a nap, it looked like.
Owen’s arms stiffened. His shaggy hair about stood on end.
“Oh. Uh.” He took a step backwards. “Wrong door. I thought this was the, um, bathroom. Sorry.”
He turned and shot down the hall.