Now, armed with a good supply of bologna, Goofball, Max, and Calamity set about doing away with the young Melvin Beederman. But how to do it? That was the question. And where? Sometimes the where was as important as the how. They already knew the who and the why. And the what was in there someplace. Sometimes what got lost in the shuffle. How and where got most of the attention, which could be very annoying if you were a what.
Wow, this is getting confusing. But back to our story.
“We need to get out of sight,” Goofball said. “The sun is coming up. There can’t be any witnesses.” This was part of the Bad Guy’s Code: Do your sinister and devious deeds in secret so you don’t get caught.
The trio was down by the waterfront, and the sky was getting lighter by the minute. Max pointed to what looked like an abandoned building on a pier over the water.
“Perfect,” Goofball said. Unfortunately, the place was locked. But they did not call Max the muscle for nothing. “Max, break it down.”
Max had broken down many doors in his life, but making a doorway where none existed sounded like even more fun. And so with his mighty fist, he did. One punch and it was complete. He dragged the young, uncaped Melvin inside.
* * *
The sun was indeed coming up. This meant that not only was most of Boston waking up, but most of the students at the academy were also. And Melvin and James’s best friend, Margaret, was the earliest riser of them all. It didn’t take her long to figure out that her two pals were missing. She came to their room every morning so that they could walk to breakfast together.
But today they were not there. She checked the lump of blankets on Melvin’s bed. Nothing. She ran down the hall to see if they’d gone on ahead of her. They hadn’t. They were simply missing.
“Holy mystery!” she said to herself. “I smell a rat.”
Holy mystery, indeed! Actually she didn’t smell anything. She was a first-year student and hadn’t received her cape yet. Without a cape, she didn’t have an extra-sensitive nose. She didn’t have extra-sensitive hearing. And, of course, she couldn’t fly. They received flight instruction starting in the first year, but it was all done in flight simulators. Still, Margaret knew something was wrong; her two friends were in trouble. She could feel it—even if she couldn’t quite smell it.
She knew she needed all the powers of a superhero to find her friends. She needed a cape. Wasn’t there a second-year student who owed her a favor? Hadn’t she and Melvin helped someone with math? She stood in the hallway and thought about this.
Nope. She hadn’t helped anyone. No one owed her a favor. She’d have to steal a cape to find Melvin and James, which had to be against the Superhero’s Code. But Melvin and James were in trouble and sometimes you just had to break the rules, didn’t you? Just ask the narrator about that. And so she ran to the boys’ shower room, covered her eyes, and poked around for the first thing that felt like a cape, grabbed it, and ran out again.
“Up, up, and away!” She was a natural. She flew down the hall and out an open window.
“Melvin and James, where are you?” she called. Then she cupped an ear and listened with her extra-sensitive hearing for their response.