Sidekicks Read Free Page B

costume was pretty cool, too. Red and black Spandex. On his chest was a picture of himself blowing up.
    “You guys ready for another boomtastic day of monitor duty? I get the front chair!” Boom Boy said, sniffing at Spice Girl.
    “How do we know you even
have
the power to blow up?” Earlobe Lad whispered from under the table.
    “What? What? Because if I couldn’t blow up, I’d call myself ‘I-Can’t-Blow-Up Boy,’” Boom Boy sneered. “Or, if I had a really stupid power, I’d call myself Earlobe Lad.”
    “Makes sense to me,” Spice Girl commented.
    “Yeah, but I mean, we’ve never actually
seen
you blow up,” Earlobe Lad whimpered. “No one has. You tell us you can blow up. Sometimes you even threaten that you’ll blow up, but no one’s ever actually
seen
you blow up.”
    “Stop messing with me or I swear I’ll blow up,” Boom Boy threatened.
    “See.”
    “Okay! Okay! So that’s how it’s going to be, huh? Well, don’t blame me when they’re picking pieces of you off the ceiling,” Boom Boy called back.
    “Won’t they be picking pieces of you off the ceiling, too?” Earlobe Lad pointed out.
    “Yeah. But I’ll have the satisfaction of being right.”
    Boom Boy stepped back from the table and balled his fists. His face grew redder and redder as he clenched his eyes.
    “Maybe we should stop him,” Spice Girl whispered nervously.
    “No way,” I responded. “I wanna see this.”
    “But what if someone . . . gets hurt?” Spice Girl warned.
    “Of course someone’s gonna get hurt! Boom Boy’s about to blow himself up!”
    Earlobe Lad crept out from under the table in time to see Boom Boy’s face turn stop-sign red.
    “Wow. He’s really going to do it this time,” Earlobe Lad whispered in a nearly inaudible voice.
    “Wait!” Boom Boy said and opened his eyes. “I get it now. I get it. You
want
me to blow up don’t you? Yeah. ’Cause once I do, I’ll be gone and then there’ll be no more Boom Boy to push around.”
    “But no one pushes you around,” Earlobe Lad murmured.
    “And that’s how it better stay, because if they do, I swear I’ll blow myself up!”
    “I think
I’m
going to blow up,” I said and smacked my palm against my forehead.
    “You have that power, too?” Spice Girl asked.
    Before I could answer, Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy rolled into the Sidekick Super Clubhouse in his Giant Hamster Ball of Justice.
    “Mmmph pah mm mm!” Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy shouted from inside his protective ball, whose thick walls muffled his shouts like he had a sock in his mouth.
    “What?” I yelled back.
    “Ahh! You’re killing me!” Earlobe Lad moaned.
    Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy pointed wildly toward the door. “Mmm! Mmmph! Mmm!”
    “I dunno,” Boom Boy said, scratching his chin. “I think he’s trying to tell us something.”
    Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy’s face flushed red. In a fit of frustration, he began beating his head against the inside of his Giant Hamster Ball of Justice.
    “Oh! Oh! I know this!” Spice Girl enthused. “It’s Morse code! He’s trying to tell us something about cheese.”
    Something was wrong and it was something more terrible than Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy needing to use the bathroom. But before Boy-in the-Plastic-Bubble Boy could shout one more word of nonsense, a huge explosion shook the Sidekick Clubhouse and would have rattled the Sidekick Clubhouse windows — if we had some.
    “Don’t look at me,” Boom Boy said as the echo died. He checked himself over to make sure his arms and legs were still attached.
    Exact Change Kid ran out from the Sidekick Super Bunk Room. “What the heck was that? It knocked over all my change piles. I’ve got pennies mixed with dimes mixed with nickels! It’s madness!”
    “Come on!” I shouted.
    “Wait,” Exact Change Kid called out, shuffling four dimes, two nickels, and a penny in his hand. He had a crew cut, was thin, wore bottle-thick glasses, and was decked out in