Attack of the Tagger (5 page)

She just stood there, blinking.

I put up my
Shhhhh! Concentrating!
sign, closed the door tight, and got to work.

Digital camera connected to USB port— check!

Images loaded—check!

Images displayed—check!

I zoomed in on the two sixth graders I didn’t know, then got my yearbook down.

At first I just sat there with my yearbook on my lap. Of all the books in the world, this was the
only one I hated. Not because of my picture—it was just as good as anyone else’s, and a whole lot better than Ian McCoy’s! His eyes were half closed and he looked like he was about to sneeze.

But my fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Ankmeyer, had let us have a signing party where we all got to sign each other’s yearbooks. And while I was writing stuff like “Have a cool summer" and “Remember: E=mc
²
—you’ll need it in 5th grade!” and “I hope we’re friends next year,” some kids were writing nerd jokes in mine:

“You’re so nerdy, you’d probably trip on a cordless phone!”

“You’re so nerdy, you’d bring a spoon to the Super Bowl!”

“You’re so nerdy, if you threw a rock at the ground, you’d miss!”

I actually cried when I got home. Why did they have to be mean like that? Did they really think it was funny? Why didn’t anybody
like
me?

Mom wanted to talk to Mrs. Ankmeyer about it, but I told her not to. It was embarrassing enough without her making a big deal out of it. I just put the yearbook away and tried to forget about it.

Of course all that happened before I became a cyber-superhero. And now that I was, well, superheroes don’t cry.

They fight back.

I opened up the yearbook and started flipping through the pages. All four of the sixth graders I’d seen in Old Town had been in Mr. Green’s fifth’ grade class last year. There was Ryan Voss, Carl
Blanco, Manny Davis, and A. J. Penne. They all looked nice. Like they could be anybody’s friend.

Even mine.

Then I remembered:
Bubba
was hanging around with them. Scratch that friend idea!

But what was Ryan Voss doing with
Bubbal
He was the principal’s son! The sixth-grade class president! He was really popular! Did his mom know he was riding around town with Bubba? And why did Bubba get to ride with a bunch of sixth graders, anyway? Were they afraid of what he might do if they
didn’t
let him hang around with them? Was he blackmailing them into being in the group?

I scanned the yearbook pictures of Ryan, Carl, Manny, and A.J. into the computer, then downloaded the pictures I’d taken at Old Town.

Then I just sat there, thinking. I felt like I had a Super Soaker filled to the brim but didn’t really know where to start spraying. What I had
so far didn’t prove
anything.
So Bubba had bragged to Max and Kevin that he knew who the Tagger was.

Bubba lied like crazy!

So Bubba had been at Old Town with a bunch of sixth graders slapping around high-fives. So what?

Maybe they just thought the dumb-baby was funny.

Or maybe they just didn’t like Mr. Green.

“No-lan! Din-ner!” my mom called up the hallway.

I saved everything quick, then clicked off my monitor in the nick of time. “Nolan?” Dad was peeking in my room. “Hey, champ, it’s dinnertime.”

“Coming!” I tripped all over myself getting out of the room before he could wander in. “How’d work go?” I asked, then led the way to the kitchen. “Did they find out who sprayed the graffiti?”

“Not yet,” Dad said. “But the Tagger’s been busy. I suppose you know that he sprayed your teacher’s van?”

“The Tagger?” Mom asked, putting a platter of chicken on the table. “Is that what they’re calling him?”

“That’s right,” my dad said as we all scooted up in our chairs. “My headline tomorrow reads: TAGGER HITS OLD TOWN. But he’s hit two other places now, too.”

“
Two
other?” I asked, grabbing a chicken leg.

“Mr. Green’s van, and the Cedar Creek Bridge.”

I was paying attention, boy! I asked, “All dumb-babies?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Wait a minute,” Mom said, serving me carrots. “Dumb-babies? What do you mean? Did they say anything?”

I pulled a dumb-baby face. “Du-uh!”

“Nolan!” she scolded.

Dad laughed. “’Du-uh’ is exactly what they all say, Eve. And that’s pretty much what they
look
like.”

I chomped down on my chicken, ripping meat off the bone like a caveman. “Were they all red, Dad?”

“The one on the bridge is purple.”

I was gobbling food like mad! “They don’t have
any
idea who did it?”

“Just some punk kid causing trouble, I’m sure. The police are on top of it, but they don’t have much to go on. They’ve started questioning places that sell spray paint, but that’ll take some time.” He looked at me and said, “Good grief, Nolan, slow down!”

“Milk, please!” I said through my chicken. “More carrots, too!”

Superheroes need strong bones. And good night vision!

Dinner was barely over when Dad got a call. And when he hung up, he grabbed his coat and said, “The Tagger struck again. I’m going to go check it out.”

“But, Steven!” my mom said, then threw her hands in the air. There was no sense arguing with him, and she knew it.

“Can I come?” I asked.

“I thought you had a mountain of homework,” Mom said.

“I do, but I’ll get it done!”

Dad said to my mom, “I think it’s great that he’s showing interest. It’d be fun to have him along.”

Mom shrugged. “Okay.”

“Yes!” I cried, then raced down to my room to collect my Shredderman gear.

The police were still there when we got to the toddler park where the Tagger had been. It was a little neighborhood park with two swings, a tube slide, a giant tic-tac-toe game, and a big ship with about ten steering wheels.

And now it also had a whole family of dumb-baby faces. They were sprayed on a tall fence that was between the park and some houses.

The police had some big floodlights lighting up the night. And all those dumb-baby faces looked kind of creepy. The paint went from one to the other to the other. It looked like a string of big purple ghosts with buckteeth!

“What a moron,” one of the policemen was
saying. He was shaking his head good. “What’s the deal with the ‘du-uh’? Is he saying
he’s
dumb?”

Dad shook his head, too. “I think he’s saying he thinks whatever he’s spraying is dumb.”

The policeman snorted. “Well, he’s sure got that backward.”

Another policeman came over and shook hands with my dad. “Glad you could make it, Steven.”

“Thanks for the call.” Dad pulled me in by the shoulder and said, “This is my son, Nolan. Nolan, this is Sergeant Klubb.” He looked at me and added, “You’ve heard me talk about my friend Sarge, right? Well, this is him.”

Sergeant Klubb gave me a crooked smile and
said, “So you’re Nolan.…I’ve heard tales about you, too. Can you really count by nine and a halfs?”

“Da-ad!” I said, and turned redder than the dumb-baby on Mr. Green’s van.

Dad ruffled my hair and said, “Sorry, champ.” Then he nodded at the purple dumb-babies and
said to Sarge, “It’s too late to make the morning paper, but we’ll get it in Wednesday’s. Any leads?”

“No witnesses so far. No help from the stores yet, either. We’ll catch him, though. I’m not putting up with this junk in Cedar Valley. They want to tag? Let ‘em go to the city, where they call it art.”

“Hey, Sarge!” a policeman called from inside the tube slide. “There’s a slew of them in here!”

We followed him over and looked inside the slide. There were rolling eyes and buckteeth all over the place! And at the bottom a great big
Du-uh!

Sarge was mad. “What a punk! Like he paid for this equipment?” The radio on his belt crackled. He pushed a button and said, “Klubb here.”

A voice on the radio said, “We’ve got a five-ninety-four at five-twelve Highland.”

“Copy that,” he said. “In progress?”

“Negative,” the voice on the radio answered.

“On my way,” Sarge said, then turned to Dad. “Another tagging about five blocks away. Since it’s too late for tomorrow’s paper, how about I leave whatever turns up tonight on your voice mail?”

“Sounds good,” Dad said. “I’ll help out any way I can.”

Sarge nodded. “See if you can’t rally a community watch. That would really help nail this guy!”

When we got back in the car, Dad said, “So, what do you think?”

I scooted my backpack between my feet. I hadn’t had the chance to take any pictures. Hadn’t really had the chance to do anything. And what was the point in trying to help when the police were doing a fine job without me? They’d figure out who the Tagger was
way
before I could.

I felt kind of stupid. I’d thought I was a superhero.

Ha.

“Nolan?” Dad was driving but looking more at me than the road.

I shrugged. “I didn’t know there were so many police in Cedar Valley.”

He nodded.

“I also didn’t know you were a policeman’s helper.” I looked at him. “It’s pretty cool that you do that, Dad.”

He smiled real big at me, and right then I wanted to tell him how I was trying to help, too. How I wasn’t just a boy who fumbled and stumbled and tried to toast peanut butter. I was a cyber-superhero! And I’d been working the whole day on figuring out a way to trap the Tagger.

But I couldn’t tell him. Mom and Dad were the last people who could know! They wouldn’t understand why Bubba’s Big Butt had to be on the World Wide Web. They would start worrying. Start making me
change
things.

It would be the end of Shredderman.

But
… maybe I could help my dad and the police without giving away my secret identity.

“Dad?”

“Yes?”

“Off the record?”

“Sure….”

“There are four sixth graders at school I think you should have Sarge look into.”

“There are?”

“Uh-huh.” My heart was beating like crazy. “I, um… I heard some kids at school talking.”

“You did? What did they say?”

“They were laughing about the dumb-baby and giving each other high-fives and stuff. From the way they were acting, I think it might be one of them.”

“Hmmm.” He glanced at me. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

I shrugged. Then I said, “Don’t tell anyone I told, okay?”