My Brother is a Superhero Page 12

  Lara went on.

  “So, Christopher Talbot has the missing video of Star Lad.” Having finished her tuna, she tapped a spoon thoughtfully against her bowl of Seasonal Fresh Fruit Salad. “And when you turned up on his doorstep he recognised you from the same video. Then he tricked us into giving him your address so he could kidnap Zack. Clever. Fiendishly clever.”

  I felt betrayed by Christopher Talbot and everything I’d thought he stood for. How could a lifetime of reading superhero stories turn someone into a villain? It went against everything I believed.

  But then I remembered a conversation I’d had with my dad when we watched Star Wars together. I’m talking about the first films – the original trilogy. They’re so old that the first time Dad put them on I expected they’d be in black and white. He had been desperate to show them to me since he tucked me into my first Jedi Babygro (I’m “Luke” for a reason), but Mum decided I had to wait until I was old enough, which in her opinion was eight. Dad argued for four. They settled on six. We watched the trilogy together on the morning of my birthday, beginning our marathon session shortly after dawn. Dad kept me off school and he called in sick to work, cupping the phone to explain to me in a whisper that this was a special occasion. And not to tell Mum. We watched all three films back to back. Then we watched Empire a second time because it’s the best.

  When it was over he turned to me with a tear in his eye and asked who my favourite character was. Well, that was obvious. Luke Skywalker, my namesake, the young Jedi with the superpower of the Force. Dad said that when he watched it the first time Luke was his favourite too. But years later when he revisited the films he preferred the roguish, gun-slinging Han Solo. I liked Han – not nearly as much as Luke – but I could see how someone might prefer him. But then Dad had lowered his voice and said that when he was older still he found himself drawn neither to Luke nor Han.

  “Not to Princess Leia?” I squirmed.

  “Well, no. I mean, yes. But no.” He hauled himself out of his armchair and walked in front of the TV. Behind him the end credits crawled across the screen. “The character I liked most was–” he paused for what seemed an age “–Darth Vader.”

  No-o-o-o!

  In that instant I pictured the Dark Lord extending his gloved hand to me and in that cold, rumbling voice saying: “Luke, I am your father’s favourite.”

  I was shocked. As if someone had fired a proton torpedo down my thermal exhaust port. Slowly I began to form a picture of the world I was being raised into. You start off believing in the good guys until one day you find yourself cheering for the Dark Lord of the Sith. Is everyone eventually tempted by the Dark Side? Is that what had happened to Christopher Talbot? And would it happen to me one day?

  Something was moving rapidly inches from my face. “Luke?” My eyes focused on Lara’s waving hand.

  “Hmm?” I said.

  “You zoned out. Where were you?”

  “Far, far away.”

  “Well, get back here because we need to figure out our next move.”

  As we drew up our plans the canteen emptied around us. The familiar uproar of lunch-hour faded to the occasional clink of cutlery. The three of us were among the last to leave.

  “So, we’re agreed,” said Lara finally. “After school we stake out Talbot Grange and when Christopher Talbot – aka Nemesis – appears, we follow him. At some point he has to pay a visit to his secret volcano. We just make sure that we’re on his tail when he does.”

  I nodded. It was a solid plan. I knew that there would be obstacles along the way. I was prepared for things like booby traps, robot guards and searchlight towers. But the first complication appeared sooner than I’d expected, that very afternoon at the school gates.

  24

  THE BEGINNING OF THE END

  “But, Dad…”

  “Luke, no arguments. We’re going home.”

  “But Serge and Lara—”

  He raised a warning finger. “Don’t make me use my Jedi mind trick on you.”

  I groaned in frustration. “I have to tell them. We made plans.”

  “I’m sure your plans will keep.”

  Hah! He had no idea and it wasn’t as if I could tell him what we were really up to. “I suppose,” I mumbled, slouching off. Lara and Serge lingered by the gates.

  “Does your papa permit you to come on the stake-out with us?” asked Serge.

  I shook my head.

  “It’s understandable,” said Lara. “Your mum and dad have lost one son – they don’t want to risk losing you as well.” She gave me a comforting smile. “Don’t worry, we’ve got this. Serge and I will find Nemesis’ lair.”

  I was struck by a horrible thought. “You won’t mount an assault on the volcano without me, will you?”

  “No, Luke. Of course not.” She squeezed my arm. “You can lead the assault…” A shadow of doubt fell across her face. “…as long as you’re allowed out of your room.”

  When Dad and I got home, Mum gave me a hug like I’d just returned from an expedition to the South Pole. I could hear chatter coming from the kitchen. I went in to find both sets of my grandparents making endless cups of tea and cutting slices of very solid fruit cake that you could easily chip a tooth on.

  Grandpa Bernard was sitting at the table watching sport on his iPad, which he does a lot when he visits. And he never wears headphones, so the rest of us are forced to listen to some boring commentator drone on about golf or cricket and when someone makes a hole in one, or hits a six, the crowd applauds and it sounds like a bunch of mice clapping from inside a tin. Very annoying. Grandma Maureen is always telling him off about it, but he never listens, just smiles happily and asks her to make him another cup of tea. They’re my dad’s parents and they live in Scotland. My mum’s are called Grandpa Clive and Mushki (she hates being called grandma because she says it makes her sound ancient, so she invented this secret identity to pretend that she’s not). They live two streets away. But right then they were all camped out at our house. The family was rallying round in the face of Zack’s disappearance, and so were the neighbours. A steady stream of them trooped through the hastily repaired front door, leaving cards and casseroles. I didn’t know what it was, but something about the situation made people want to cook meat slowly in large pots.

  Cara Lee and her mum popped in with a card and yet another casserole (chicken and mushroom, fourth of the day). Mrs Lee sat with Mum and held her hand and Cara stood looking sad next to the cooker. She had written in the card: “To Zack, I’ll never forget the way you saved my phone” and then she’d signed her name and put a kiss. Zack would be pleased – if he survived.

  Among the jumble of pots on the kitchen table was a piece of mail for me. It had come that morning. I don’t receive a lot of post, mostly birthday cards and notes from school about my behaviour/homework/test results/all of the above. It felt like a birthday card, but my birthday had been weeks ago. I slid a thumb under the flap and prised it open. Inside was an oddly shaped card printed with gold lettering.

  It was an invitation to the opening of Crystal Comics’ new flagship store. In all the drama of the last few days I’d forgotten about Christopher Talbot’s offer to invite Lara and me to the launch. I was confused. Hadn’t it just been a trick to obtain my address so that he could kidnap Zack? Judging from the invitation to the grand opening party next week, it appeared that the launch was real enough. What was Christopher Talbot up to? Why did he want me there? When I thought about it I realised the answer was obvious. Like all the supervillains I’d ever read about, he wanted an audience for his ultimate despicable deed.

  I could only guess what monstrous fate he had in store for my brother. Serge’s theory was that Christopher Talbot intended to display the kidnapped Star Lad as the centrepiece of his new comic store, like some twisted ice swan sculpture. The sick feeling in my stomach told me that whatever Nemesis had planned for Star Lad, it was a lot darker than turning him into an ice-based party decoration.
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  “What’s happened to my golf?” Grandpa Bernard complained, interrupting my gloomy thoughts. He hit his iPad like it was some sort of old-timey TV set that you could fix by banging it on the side.

  The rest of us breathed sighs of relief that the commentator’s mosquito whine had finally stopped. A new voice took his place and even through the tinny speaker you could tell that this one sounded serious.

  “We interrupt our regular programming for an important announcement. Please stand by.”

  There were concerned murmurs from the others in the room. In my mind there was only one answer to Grandpa Bernard’s question. It had to be Nemesis. He’d taken over the airwaves to broadcast his message of doom.

  We crowded round the iPad. A picture of an empty podium with a microphone filled the screen. Behind it on the wall hung an official-looking seal. Dad flicked on the TV. The same image was on there too. As we watched, a figure in a dark suit made her way slowly to the podium. It wasn’t Nemesis.

  “It’s the Prime Minister,” said Mum. I could hear the concern in her voice. I looked around at the other adults – all of them were worried.

  The Prime Minister removed her spectacles and laid them on the podium. I thought she looked tired. “This morning at four a.m. Greenwich Mean Time,” she began solemnly, “ATLAS, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System detected an object in our solar system, on a collision course with Earth.” She paused. “Their calculations have been verified by NASA and the European Space Agency. The asteroid will hit our planet in one week’s time. Since this morning I have been in close contact with other world leaders to monitor the situation. Everything humanly possible is being done to avert a catastrophe, but it is my grave duty as your elected leader to prepare you for the worst. The vast size of the asteroid means that an impact will…” She choked and then gathered herself. “…will wipe out civilisation as we know it.”

  There was a collective gasp from everyone in our kitchen.

  “How big is this thing?” said Dad quietly.

  It was as if the Prime Minister had heard him. “The object is approximately seven hundred miles in diameter.”

  I felt dizzy. “That’s bigger than the Death Star,” I muttered in disbelief.

  “In accordance with international conventions, NASA has designated the asteroid as … Nemesis.”

  What?! That didn’t make sense. Nemesis was Christopher Talbot. Wasn’t he? “Nemesis is coming.” That’s what Zorbon the Decider had told Zack. Naturally I’d assumed that he or she was a superpowered criminal. But I’d got it all wrong.

  Nemesis wasn’t a supervillain, it was a giant space rock. Which meant that Star Lad’s destiny was to save the world from a planet-killing asteroid. There was just one problem.

  Star Lad was a prisoner.

  “The brightest minds on our planet are already at work, planning how to avert the threat,” the Prime Minister continued. “However, our technological capabilities are limited in the face of such a galactic scale.” She leaned in, gripping the edges of the podium, looking less like a politician and more like someone’s mum. “So I make this appeal now to the individual known as Star Lad. This is our darkest hour. Please come forward. Your planet needs you.”

  The broadcast ended, the screen went dark and was replaced seconds later by golf. No one moved. Then Grandpa Bernard switched off his iPad.

  25

  AN INVITATION TO ADVENTURE

  They cancelled school. We had one more day with Mrs Tyrannosaur, and at the end of the last lesson she gave out prizes for the best drawing and story of the term, even though term wasn’t officially over for another month. I knew I’d be leaving junior school for the last time this year – I just hadn’t expected it to be because of a giant asteroid. All year long I’d been anxious about moving up to the big school, but right then my fears about leaving old friends and making new ones, getting lost in unfamiliar corridors and being late for class, about not being smart enough and falling behind – all that seemed so tiny and unimportant.

  Before we went home, Mrs Tyrannosaur gave each of us a big hug and told us how much she loved us and then our parents collected us at the gates – even the kids who normally walk or take the bus themselves.

  Lara, Serge and I walked out together under a cloud of hopelessness. The stakeout of Talbot Grange had so far failed to produce the location of the secret volcano, and if we didn’t find it by next Tuesday, when the asteroid struck, it would be too late. Time wasn’t just running out, it was sprinting wildly, waving its arms with its hair on fire.

  Mum and Dad were waiting for me outside the school gates. They were smiling, but I could tell that they were putting on a brave face. I didn’t blame them – what was there to smile about? Zack was missing and it was six days until the end of the world.

  “You have to tell them about Zack,” whispered Lara. “The world needs Star Lad and we need help finding him.”

  The Prime Minister’s appeal for Star Lad’s assistance had, of course, resulted in silence from the superhero. Every night Bromley Council would beam his signal into the sky, and every night it would go dark without a response. Online and off there was furious speculation about why he had failed to answer the call. For some people his silence proved he was a fake, others were convinced he’d returned to his home planet, a few suggested he’d entered the cocoon form of his evolution and in five days would emerge as Butterfly Man. Which was bonkers. Only we knew that he was tied up in a volcano and couldn’t come to anyone’s aid until we had come to his. Which didn’t look like happening any time soon.

  Lara was right. If I told Mum and Dad, they’d inform the authorities. A full-scale search of Bromley with dogs and police and probably Special Forces and helicopters with infrared and thermal cameras would surely uncover Christopher Talbot’s volcano lair. So as we took the short walk home through the park, I told my parents the story, from the beginning. They listened in silence as we strolled past the swings where Zack and I used to play together, nodded as we wended our way alongside the pond where we’d fed the ducks and played shark attack, and by the time Mum was slotting the key in our front door they knew everything.

  There was only one problem.

  “What d’you mean, they didn’t believe you?” asked Lara.

  It was later that night and I was wearing my Human Torch pyjamas. I had sneaked the laptop up to my bedroom and was Skyping with her and Serge. I could hear Mum and Dad down below. They weren’t dancing badly like they usually did, instead they were arguing and crying. I preferred it when they danced. I couldn’t make out much, but I could tell that they were discussing Zack and me.

  “They think I’ve made up the kidnapped superhero story.”

  “Why would you do that?” asked Serge.

  “To protect myself.”

  “I do not comprehend,” he said.

  Parents had a weird way of looking at the world. “They think that I’ve invented a superhero fantasy in order to escape from the horrible reality of the situation.”

  “But the kidnapped superhero story is the horrible reality,” protested Lara.

  I watched the little video image of me in the lower corner of the screen shrug. “I know. But in their minds it’s better for me to imagine my brother as Star Lad, rather than picture him dead in a ditch somewhere, or a victim of some awful kidnapper.”

  “So they won’t call the police?”

  I shook my head. “No chance.” I had an idea. “But that doesn’t stop us from calling them.”

  I grabbed the house phone, sat back down in front of the laptop and dialled the local police station.

  “Bromley Police Station. Sergeant Gordon speaking.”

  “Hello. My name is Luke Parker and I have vital information regarding the disappearance of Star Lad.”

  There was a slurping sound like he was drinking tea and then the sergeant said, “Is that so?” He said it as a question, but I got the feeling that he didn’t actually want to know the answer. I fil
led him in on Zack’s kidnapping. When I got to the bit about the volcano I could hear him choke.

  “So, you’ll send out a search party?” I said. “I think six helicopters and twenty-five patrol cars should do it. Oh, and dogs. Yes, lot of tracker dogs. Though you don’t need to send the ones with brandy barrels. Unless it snows.”

  “Thank you for your highly valuable information, sir. In accordance with procedure I shall file it along with the other reports on Star Lad’s disappearance. We will action yours in due course.”

  “OK,” I said. Now we were getting somewhere. There was just one thing I wanted to check. “What’s due course?”

  He cleared his throat. “Based on existing police performance targets and the four hundred or so other reports of Star Lad we’ve had in the last two days, that would be … six to eight months.”

  “What?! But we haven’t got that long. Nemesis is coming. Next Tuesday.”

  “I am well aware of the imminent destruction of the planet, sir.” Another sip. “Was there anything else?”

  I told him there wasn’t and hung up the phone in frustration. “See, this is why in films the hero never calls the police.” Serge and Lara had heard every word of my useless conversation. Their scared faces stared at me from the laptop screen. They were looking at me to do something. Even Lara, who was normally fearless and reckless, seemed to be at a loss. If we failed, it was the end. Of everything.

  “So what are we to do now?” asked Serge.

  “We have to find Zack ourselves – no one else is going to help,” I said. “It’s up to us.”

  It really was on our shoulders. The governments of Earth had put their best people in a room to come up with a solution to the Nemesis threat, but according to the twenty-four hour rolling news coverage, so far all that had come out of the room were requests for pizza.