The Society of Super Secret Heroes

Table of Contents

 

 

 

PUBLISHED BY THE PENGUIN GROUP / Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. / Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) / Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England / Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) / Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) / Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India / Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) / Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa / Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2007 by Phyllis Shalant

Illustrations copyright © 2007 by Dan Santat

 

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast.

 

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

CIP Data is available.

 

Published in the United States by Dutton Children's Books,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group,
345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
www.penguin.com/youngreaders

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-11790-3

It was a holiday for most people, but not all. The workers at the fast-food restaurants were still serving burgers and fries. Lifeguards were still guarding swimmers at the town pool. Many busy moms and dads were catching up on household chores. And superheroes were doing their best to save people before the first day of school tomorrow.

“Hurry, the Horrible Hypnotizer is getting away!” Finch shouted as he rounded the corner of the house. “Keep your eyes closed in case he turns around. If he puts the chicken trance on you, you could be laying eggs for the rest of your life.”

The guys were right behind Finch, running with their eyes shut, too. It was a good thing they knew the yard so well. Rajiv felt the azalea hedge scratch at his T-shirt. Kevin's fingertips brushed the drainpipe that ran down the side of the house. Elliott was laughing so hard, he tripped over the apple-tree root that was shaped like an alligator—and bumped into Finch.

Finch opened his eyes. His sister, Mimi, was sprawled on the front walk.

“You pinheads! Why don't you look where you're going?” she shouted. The contents of her pool bag—towel, wet bathing suit, magazine, hairbrush, suntan lotion, and lip gloss—were scattered everywhere. She swept her long brown hair out of her face and smirked at the boys. “I bet you were playing stupid-heroes again.”

Finch reached over and handed her the pink flip-flop that had flown off her foot. “Sorry. But we weren't playing. We were practicing saving the world.”

“Get real, will you?” Mimi stood up and brushed off the back of her shorts. “You'd better not play that baby game when you start fourth grade tomorrow— unless you want to be known as the class losers all” year.”

Mimi (as in “Me! Me!” Finch thought) was going into seventh this year. She acted like she knew everything. It really drove Finch crazy, especially when she was right.

With one hand on her hip, Mimi watched the boys collect her things. She didn't help. She just stood there in one of her many supermodel poses. This time it was the round-shouldered, droopy-eyelids one that made Finch think of a grouchy lizard.

Elliott stooped down to retrieve her suntan lotion from under the hedge. “Ooh, I feel dizzy,” he said as he stood up. “I guess it's the sun or something.” He pressed a palm to his forehead and closed his eyes.

“It's probably from eating junk food all day,” Mimi sneered. This summer she'd only been willing to eat yogurt, salads, and tofu.

“Who are you, the Food Police?” Elliott groaned. His hair fell in his eyes as he bent forward and hugged his middle. Before Mimi could answer him, he began to gag. Everyone stepped back.

“Ack . . . ack . . . ack . . . blechhh!” Elliott was convulsing like a human volcano. A splat of yellow vomit flew through the air. It landed on Mimi's bare foot.

“Yeee-uck!” Mimi squealed. She flapped her foot. The vomit flew off and skipped twice on the front path before it settled down.

“Don't worry, I'll clean it up.” With his bare hand, Elliott snatched up the mess and tossed it on his palm. The vomit bounced lightly.

Mimi's nostrils flared in a very unmodelish way. “That's rubber vomit!”

“Doh, no—it's
super
-vomit.” Elliott slipped the fake vomit back into the big, deep pocket of his cargo shorts.

As the guys cracked up, Mimi grabbed her bag and swung it at them. It caught Finch right in the chest.

“Oww! Hey, that hurt!”

“A real superhero wouldn't complain about a little pain,” Mimi said as she flounced toward the house. “Good luck in school, super-babies. You're going to need it.”

“Yech, she said the S word,” Finch grumbled when she was gone.

“Don't worry.” Raj clapped a hand on his shoulder. Behind his wire-rimmed glasses, he winked an eye. “She'll probably have a fit tomorrow morning when she can't find this.” He flashed his empty palm to the group. Then he closed it into a fist. When he opened it again, Mimi's lip gloss was there. “Ta-da! Raj the Remarkable strikes again,” he crowed.

“Cool,” Kevin and Elliott both exclaimed.

“Yeah, great trick,” Finch said. Usually he admired Raj's skills as a magician, but right now his heart wasn't in it. At the beginning of summer, when he'd learned that Rajiv Shah, Kevin Chan, and Elliott Levenson—his three best friends—would be in his class, he'd been really psyched. Last year, none of them had been in Mrs. Rooney's room with him. But now that the time was here, Finch wasn't feeling so enthusiastic about going back to school. Mimi had told him that the fourth-grade teachers were as mean as trolls. They gave tons of work. They didn't even let the students have snack time.

“Where'd you get the vomit?” Kev asked Elliott.

“I found it on a Web site called Gag-o-Rama that sells funny stuff. It's supposed to be pizza vomit. Did you see the bits of pepperoni in it?”

“Yeah, gross. The person who made it is a real artist.” Kev was an artist himself. So were both his parents. “Let's get to work on the comic. We should finish it today, because tomorrow”—he drew a finger across his throat—“we'll probably have the H word--homework.”

“All right.” Finch opened the front door. It felt like it weighed a ton.

“Super Ferrets!” Rajiv cried as Cubby and Rosie came scampering at them across the hall floor. The two furry ferrets, one as pale as cream and the other the color of cinnamon, tumbled at the boys' feet. Rajiv picked Cubby up and draped him around his neck. Elliott wore Rosie.

They piled into Finch's room and sat down on the floor to play with the ferrets. But first they had to shove Finch's pajama bottoms, an empty chip bag, a sticky glass, towels, dirty socks, comics, a Batmobile, and other stuff into the corners. While Finch searched his desk, his buddies slid Cubby and Rosie across the floor like hockey pucks. It was the ferrets' favorite thing to play. But as the game got wilder, they crashed into each other. Rosie went skittering off into Finch's closet.