Goofball, the brains of the operation, chose a bank in Beverly Hills for the robbery. The city was full of rich people, and that meant their banks were full of loot. Not money—loot. This was bad guy lingo, of course. Normal people called it money. Criminals called it loot.
Max the Wonder Thug knocked out the bank security guard with one punch. Goofball McCluskey jumped behind the counter and grabbed all the loot he could get his hands on. Outside, Calamity Wayne waited in the getaway vehicle—it wasn’t a pickle. He could hear the sirens getting louder.
And louder.
Little did he know that Melvin Beederman was already on the job.
“Hurry up, you guys!” Calamity yelled out the window. “Let’s hit the road.” He had nothing against roads and he wasn’t really sure why he wanted to hit one. He just knew that he wanted to get out of there ASAP—maybe sooner.
“Let’s go!” Calamity yelled again as the sirens grew louder. “Hurry!”
A few seconds later the front doors of the bank flew open. Goofball and Max, loaded down with money … uh, loot … ran for the car.
“Let’s make like a banana and split,” Max said.
Calamity looked confused again, although he loved bananas. “What does that mean?”
“Hit the road … now!”
“What did the road ever do to you?” Calamity had been feeling guilty about the whole hitting-the-road business.
“Back to our evil lair!” Goofball yelled. “Can’t you hear those sirens?”
Calamity did hear them. He stepped on the gas and turned off onto a side street, just in time. Just in the nick of time, to be exact. They weren’t seen by the police. But that didn’t mean they weren’t seen by a certain superhero.
* * *
Melvin Beederman flew over the city. It may have taken him many attempts to get up and flying, but once he was airborne, he was as good as they come. He zigged, he zagged, he swooped. He paused briefly in front of a building to flex and admire his reflection in the glass. And that’s when he saw a suspicious-looking vehicle heading for Lair Hill, which is where lots of bad guys lived. Movie stars moved to the Hollywood Hills; bad guys moved to Lair Hill.
With his x-ray vision, Melvin could see through the metal roof of the car. He could also see the underwear of the three occupants. Disgusting! Bad guys never wore clean underwear. Even some good guys didn’t. Melvin tried to ignore it. He was on the job. He was looking for—
Hey! Wasn’t that money in the car? Bags of it? These were the bank robbers, all right. Melvin followed them to Lair Hill. He wanted to find out where their lair was in case there were more evil bad guys to catch. Besides, he wanted to kick in the front door, which, of course, was one of the perks of being a superhero. He loved kicking in doors.
The car pulled up in front of a two-story building. It was an average lair as lairs go. Melvin waited until they had dragged the bags of money inside and closed the door. Then he swooped down out of the sky and kicked it in.
“Not so fast!” he yelled. This was part of the Superhero’s Code. You had to say this before you captured the bad guys.
“Get him, Max,” Goofball said.
This time Max looked confused. “Why me?”
“Because I am the brains of the operation,” Goofball said.
“I just drive the getaway vehicle,” Calamity Wayne added, running for the side door.
“Not so fast!” Melvin said again. “It means the jig is up.” He wasn’t really sure what a jig was or why the heck it was up, but it sure sounded good, and it felt great to say.
Max attacked. Goofball ran for the back door. But Melvin grabbed all three of them before you could say, “I’m tired of looking at dirty underwear.” He was.
He hauled them outside and lifted off the ground. At least he tried to.
“Up, up, and away!”
Crash! “Ouch!” said the three bad guys.
Splat! “Ouch!”
Thud! “Ouch!”
Kabonk! “Ouch!”
It was bad enough being captured by a superhero, but being captured by one with flying problems was kind of embarrassing. Plus, it really hurt!
On the fifth try, Melvin was up and flying. He carried Goofball, Max, and Calamity to jail, where they belonged.
“Curses!” Goofball said.
“You can say that again,” Calamity said.
“Curses!”
Max didn’t say anything. But he really wanted to make like some blackberries and jam. Or possibly make like a nose and run.