Billy Hooten (7 page)

Cole kept right on working, giving no indication that he had even heard him.

“I … I was wondering.” Billy began again. “I was wondering if you had any Owlboy comics?”

Cole stopped his work for a moment and glared at Billy, his eyes magnified through the thick lenses of his dark-rimmed glasses. “Owlboy?” he repeated, then laughed disdainfully, and with a shake of his shaggy head went back to work. “You don't want Owlboy, kid,” he said, taping a bag shut. “That's old-school stuff, way before your time. I seriously doubt that Owlboy would be flashy enough for you. Why don't you try
Furious Furies,
or
Snake
?”

“No, thank you,” Billy said politely. “I already have a bunch of those. I really am looking for Owlboy.” He grabbed his bag from where he'd left it by the door and pulled out his new prized possession. “Y'see, I got this
comic and I liked it a lot, and I'd like to read some more issues.” He held out the book to Cole.

Claudius moved out from behind the counter to take a look. Billy showed it to him, and the dog sniffed the cover. “Don't get any dog boogers on it,” he warned the German shepherd. “It's really old.”

The dog began to bark wildly, as if insulted. Billy jumped back, not sure what Claudius might do.

“What've you got there?” Cole asked. He'd stood up and was leaning over the counter, a large hand reaching for Billy's prize.

“It's an Owlboy comic,” Billy said as Claudius continued to bark.

“May I see it?” Cole asked, almost nicely, and Billy handed the book to him.

As soon as Cole had the comic, Claudius stopped barking, but his tail continued to wag furiously.

“You're right, Claude,” Cole said, bringing the book up close to his magnified eyes. “It
is
one of mine.”

The statement startled Billy. “One of yours?” he asked. “Are … are you saying the book was stolen?”

He started to panic. He'd never even thought to ask Archebold where he had gotten the comic. No wonder the goblin gave it away!

“Where did you get this?” Cole asked, shaking the old comic at Billy.

“A friend gave it to me!” Billy blurted out. “He's not from around here and I didn't think he'd ever even been to your store and …”

Cole stared at the comic's cover again before he started to flip through the pages.

Billy was terrified, imagining how much trouble he'd be in when his parents had to go to the police station to get him out of jail. He was about to explain to the store owner that this was all some kind of horrible misunderstanding, when Cole looked up, his big bug eyes boring into Billy's.

“So, what'd you think?” he asked.

“What did I think of what … sir?” Billy asked, momentarily confused.

“The comic,” Cole said, showing the open book to him. “What did you think of the comic? Did you like it, or did you think it stunk up the joint?”

“It was wicked cool,” Billy answered, almost tempted to share with the shop owner that it was based on real-life things, but he knew that would likely get him tossed out of the store for being a wise guy.

“I've seen you in here before, right?” Cole asked.

Billy nodded quickly.

“You like the Snake. Was it as good as an issue of
Snake
?”

“Even better! That's why I'm looking for more issues.”

Billy had to fib a little there. He didn't think telling the store owner that he wanted to use the old comics to learn how to
be
a superhero would go over so well.

“Hmmm,” Cole said, handing the comic back to him.

“I didn't steal it, sir, I swear,” Billy told him. “But if it's yours, you can take it back.” He held the book up to Cole.

But the man just laughed, his large belly jiggling up and down. “I know you didn't steal it, kid,” he said. “That's not what I meant when I said it was mine.”

Billy was confused.

Cole looked around, as if checking to see if he was being watched.

“Can you keep a secret?” he asked conspiratorially.

“Sure,” Billy said, and shrugged.

“Keep an eye on the store,” Cole told Claudius, and the dog woofed as if to say,
Gotcha, boss.

The store owner motioned for Billy to follow and led him through the store to the back. They stopped at a door marked PRIVATE.

“You sure you're ready for this?” Cole asked him, one hand on the doorknob.

Billy wasn't really sure what to expect. “I … guess,” he said.

“Remember, you promised me you could keep a secret,” Cole reminded him, and turned the knob.

The door swung open into a darkened room, and Billy squinted, trying to figure out what exactly he was seeing. For a minute, he wished he had his Owlboy goggles, but then Cole reached over and flipped a switch on the wall, and the room was illuminated by the glow of fluorescent lights.

Billy's eyes bulged. “Awesome,” he whispered as he stepped into the room for a closer look.

“Yeah,” Cole said proudly. “Thought you might think so.”

His mother didn't like him to drink Zap cola, but Billy took a big gulp of the ice-cold soda anyway, feeling it fizz in his throat as he drank it down. He smacked his lips eagerly, staring at the bright yellow label with the crackling lightning bolts.

“I never saw Zap in bottles like these before,” he said to Cole, who was taking a swig of his own drink.

“It's 'cause they don't make it anymore,” the shop owner replied. “When I heard they were going to cans, I bought up a bunch of cases, and I break out a bottle every once in a while on a special occasion.”

Billy had some more Zap, looking around the big room for what could have been the thousandth time. The back room of Hero's Hovel was like a museum
dedicated to Owlboy. There were posters and toys and pages and pages of comic book art framed on the wall. Billy had never seen anything like it before.

“So is this a special occasion?” he asked as he stood and walked around again.

“Yeah,” Cole said, thinking for a minute. “I guess it is. It's not every day that somebody comes in asking about a character I didn't think anyone—especially a kid your age—would remember.”

“I only read about him in one of my comic book hero encyclopedias,” Billy said, admiring a small toy car that could only have been the Owlmobile. “But when my friend gave me the comic …”

Billy looked to see that Cole was smiling, his big round eyes practically twinkling behind the inch-thick glass.

“He
is
a cool character, isn't he?” Cole asked.

“He's awesome,” Billy agreed, flipping through some Owlboy comics, some of the oldest comics he had ever seen, in a box on the counter.

“Every time I penciled an issue, it was like the very first time,” Cole said dreamily, taking another big swig from his bottle of Zap. “I never got tired of drawing Owlboy's adventures.”

Billy heard the sound of screeching brakes inside his head. “What do you mean, you never got tired of drawing Owlboy?”

Cole pointed to the framed art on the walls. “Where do you think I got all these original pages?” he asked. “Sure as heck didn't buy them, would've cost me a fortune.”

“You … you drew these?” Billy moved around the room again, carefully examining the framed art. “You drew Owlboy?”

“Yep, for almost ten years,” Cole said proudly. “Best darn job I ever had.”

“That's what you meant by my comic being one of yours—you drew it.”

“Bingo!” Cole exclaimed.

“This is amazing,” Billy gushed, not sure if his excitement was real or if it was simply the Zap cola kicking in.
No,
he decided, looking at the comics and artwork in the room with new eyes.
This is truly amazing.

“I can't believe you draw comic books,” he continued. “That's gotta be the most awesomest job in the whole world.”

“It was,” Cole agreed. “Well, until the publisher disappeared and Monster Comics went out of business.”

“What happened to him?”

Cole shrugged. “Nobody knows. His name was Preston Stickwell. He was also the creator and writer of the Owlboy adventures, so when he went away, the company and Owlboy went right behind him.”

“That stinks,” Billy commented.

“Certainly does,” Cole agreed. “It's funny, I tried drawing comics for some of the other, bigger publishers, but it just wasn't the same. There was something really special about Owlboy, almost as if he were real or something.”

Billy felt the truth bubbling around inside him. He wanted so badly to tell Cole what he had done in Monstros, how there really used to be an Owlboy.

How there might be an Owlboy again.

“Course, then my eyes got bad, and I couldn't do it anymore even if I wanted to,” Cole said in a voice tinged with sadness. “But those are the breaks.”

Billy didn't know what to say.

As if sensing the sudden change in his master, Claudius wandered into the room and rested his head on Cole's thigh, whining softly.

“Figured if I couldn't draw comics anymore, I could at least sell them,” Cole continued, absently stroking the dog's large head. “And the Hero's Hovel was born.”

“You miss it, don't you?” Billy asked.

Cole nodded. “More than you know, kid. More than you know.”

The silence was becoming uncomfortable, and Billy glanced toward the big windows at the front of the store. The sun had started to go down, and he remembered his mother's warning.

“Well, thanks for showing me all your Owlboy stuff,” he said, finishing off the last drop of his soda. “But I need to get going.”

“Hey, kid, it was my pleasure,” Cole said, taking Billy's empty bottle and placing it with his own in a wooden box in the corner of the room.

Billy had just started to walk out of the room when he heard Cole call to him. He turned back to see the shop owner walking toward him carrying a small white box.

“Here,” Cole said, putting the box in Billy's arms. “These should fill you in on just how cool a character Owlboy was.”

Billy put the box on the floor, removed the lid and looked inside. He felt his heart do a little dance as he saw dozens of issues of
Owlboy.

“Wow!” he exclaimed, thumbing through the books.

“You can't have them,” Cole warned him. “They're my personal copies. But you're welcome to borrow them, just as long as you promise to keep them in mint condition.”

“I sure will,” Billy said. “Thanks!” He hefted the box into his arms and left the store, feeling luckier than a hundred-million-dollar lottery winner.

Carrying the box in his arms and his book bag on his back, Billy walked home faster than he ever had before.
Ordinarily, he would have stopped and rested, but just the thought of what was in the box was enough to keep him moving.

Finally, dinner was over and Billy had the rest of the evening to himself. He switched on the ceiling light as he entered his room. He had a lot to do tonight. If this whole Owlboy thing was going to work, something had to be done about the costume.

“Heroes do not look like they're wearing a diaper,” he muttered to himself.

He went back into the hallway and rummaged through the linen closet, looking for his mother's sewing kit. He'd goofed around with sewing last year; unfortunately, what was supposed to be the greatest alien invader costume ever built by human hands somehow ended up looking like the Easter Bunny's evil twin, with tentacles. No matter, he was just going to have to get better to make this Owlboy costume work. He hauled out the white plastic sewing kit and returned to his room.

Then his eyes fell on the box of comics on the floor.

“I'll read one comic now and then work on the costume,” he decided aloud, eagerly lifting the cover from the box and removing the first book.

“Wow,” he said, his eyes taking in the illustration on the cover. It was Owlboy fighting a giant mechanical gorilla.
Can Owlboy defeat the mechanical menace from beyond time?!,
the cover read, and as Billy gingerly removed the comic from its plastic bag, he certainly hoped so.

Soon he was lost in the world of Owlboy again. Owlboy
was
better than the Snake. In fact, Owlboy was probably the greatest superhero Billy had ever read about. This guy had it all: he wore a cool costume and lived in a city loaded with monsters, and he had a secret headquarters called the Roost, all kinds of cool inventions of his own creation and an awesome yellow car that was shaped like an owl's head.

What wasn't there to love? This guy was rad, and if all went according to plan, Billy would soon be having these adventures for real.

One comic turned into two, and more followed. Billy just couldn't get enough of his new favorite hero. Then suddenly, unexpectedly, the comics came to an end. And to make matters worse, the last story was a cliff-hanger.

Had Cole really forgotten to give Billy the last chapter of a story that had the hero in hot pursuit of the master of mind control, the Brainworm, who had managed to take over the Monstros City police force and turn them against Owlboy—or had something far more
sinister occurred? Billy double-checked the box and then flipped through the comics he'd already read, thinking he might have mixed them up.

Finally, he remembered what Cole had said about Monster Comics and how the publisher had mysteriously disappeared. Was it possible that the last part of the story had … never been published?

He couldn't even begin to think of anything quite so horrible. It was bad enough to have to wait a month for the next issue of a comic, but to be waiting for an issue that would never come?

It would be torture. Pure, never-ending torture.

Billy sat on the floor, his back against his bed. He wasn't sure how long he had been like that when there was a knock at his door.

“Come in,” he said softly.

His mother opened the door. “What's the matter?” she asked. “You look like you just lost your best friend.”

“I might as well have,” he answered, hauling himself to his feet and slipping the comic back into its protective cover.

“Oh, I'm sorry. Anything I can help with?”

“Naw,” Billy said, showing her the comic as he placed it back in the box. “Not unless you can find the missing publisher of Monster Comics and get him to tell you how this story ends.”