Archvillain (2 page)

Kyle growled a bit. “That’s not how it works, Dad. You watch it faster to
learn
it faster and
then —
”

“Oh, look, it’s back on!” Mom cried. “Move, Kyle.”

Kyle considered staying between them and their beloved TV, but it was useless. They didn’t get it. In fact, Dad had already put his DVD on the end table … and was using it as a coaster for his drink.

Kyle stomped off to his bedroom and kicked the aluminum trash can next to his desk before he could remember how much it hurt every time he did that.

But this time, not only did it
not
hurt …

The trash can shot up off the floor and went sailing right through Kyle’s window! Fortunately, the window was still open, so the glass was safe. That screen, though, would never be the same again. It was a shredded mess.

Kyle stood perfectly still and silent for a moment, staring at it. Lefty seemed to be staring, too. Kyle went over to the window and peered through the gaping hole in the screen. The trash can had landed at the very edge of the Camdens’ backyard, dented and mangled almost beyond recognition.

“Well,” Kyle said. He turned to Lefty. “
That
’s interesting.”

In the morning, before he had to leave for school, Kyle slipped outside and retrieved what used to be his trash can. The ground around the spot where it had landed was indented, and the grass even looked a little singed. The trash can itself was …

Well, the trash can was trash now.

He must have been really,
really
angry at his parents last night when he’d kicked it.

Back inside, Kyle choked down his mother’s oatmeal (how could she mess up
oatmeal
?), grabbed his things for school, and dashed outside to catch the bus as it pulled up to the end of his driveway.

A cheer went up from the kids on the bus as Kyle stepped on the top stair. Someone started chanting, “CAM-den! CAM-den!” and soon the whole bus joined in. Kyle held up his hands to quiet them, then made his way to the back of the bus, where his usual reserved seat awaited him. Along the way, he was slapped on the back and high-fived as he moved down the aisle.

After being out sick for so long, it felt great to be back among his friends. Kyle was the most popular kid at Bouring Middle School, which made sense, since he had also been the most popular kid at Bouring Elementary School.

“Good to have you back, man!” James called.

“Thanks!” Kyle replied, grinning.

“You feeling okay? You doing all right?” Ellen asked, concerned.

“Never better,” Kyle told her, and swung into his seat. “Never better.”

The bus driver let the brakes go — they whined and shrieked — and then the bus lurched forward. Kyle leaned back. Already, the kids who sat in the seats in front of him had turned around to ask him questions: Was it true he’d had an incurable disease … and then cured it himself? (No. Good story, though.) Was the whole sickness thing just a bluff, a way of getting out of school? (Faking illness to get out of school? Puh-lease! Anyone could do that!) Did he spend his time at home planning his next awesome prank?

Hmm. Well, no. He hadn’t. He’d been really, really out of it. But he didn’t want people to think he was off his game, so he just grinned like he had a secret. Everyone started high-fiving one another. Kyle’s pranks were legendary among the people of Bouring, especially the kids. That’s because Kyle didn’t just zing people his own age —
he zinged the adults, too, usually in such a way that no one could actually
prove
it had been Kyle.

Even the local sheriff, Maxwell Monroe, wasn’t safe. Last year, Kyle had hacked into the Bouring police band in order to broadcast his Prankster Manifesto. The Prankster Manifesto was simple and to the point:

It was a pretty simple manifesto. It only took a minute to broadcast it. But Sheriff Monroe acted as though Kyle had committed high treason. (As if the Bouring police band was ever used for anything other than the cops calling one another for coffee and doughnut runs.) Kyle’s parents had taken away his computer and his TV and
grounded him for weeks after that. He had learned an important lesson: From then on, he operated in secret.

He had only shared the news of his new boosted intellect with Lefty, who wouldn’t be blabbing to anyone, obviously. And, of course, he had recorded the information in a new cipher he’d invented for his top secret journal.

(Kyle kept a written journal, as opposed to one on the computer. He had a very simple reason for this: Kyle’s business was his own and no one else’s, and after all, it’s impossible to hack paper.)

The bus jerked to a halt, its brakes wheezing like an old man who has run a marathon, and Kyle’s best friend, Mairi MacTaggert, got on. Her eyes lit up when she saw Kyle, and she walked quickly to his seat.

“Can I sit here?”

“I was saving it for you,” Kyle said.

Mairi smiled, her eyes shining green under her mane of red hair. She slid into the seat next to him.

“I was worried about you, Kyle. That was the longest you’ve ever been sick. And when I called, your parents said they didn’t know what was wrong with you.”

There was no one on the planet smart enough to know what had happened to Kyle. Except for Kyle, of course, and even he wasn’t sure.

“I’m fine. They worry too much.”

“You didn’t miss much in school. In case you were worried.”

Kyle laughed. “I bet it was pretty boring without me around.”

Mairi considered. “Well, it was
quiet,
I’ll tell you that. No remote-controlled mice. No purple water in the drinking fountains. No random burping noises from the computers.”

“No one ever proved I did any of that stuff.”

“Oh,
I know,”
Mairi said airily. “So I guess it’s just a coincidence that
nothing
like that happened while you were out sick?”

Kyle shrugged, which was really the only safe response. He didn’t want to lie to Mairi. She was the only person who ever really understood him in the entire town of Bouring. She was the only one who never wanted anything from him.

Sure, he was popular … but that popularity came with a price. “Hey, Kyle,” a kid would say, “can you pull a cool prank on my mom?” Or, “Can you help me get back at my big sister?” But Mairi never asked anything of Kyle. She just liked hanging out with him.

“Hey, remember the time you rewired the loudspeakers so that the principal sounded like Dora the Explorer?” Mairi asked.

That had been a classic from third grade. “That was a long time ago. I’ve matured since then.”

“Sure you have.”

Having someone as your friend for as long as you
can remember is great — but the downside is that they know everything about you. Mairi had actually been present the day Kyle decided to embark on a life of prankstering. It was back in first grade, when a group of middle school actors visited the elementary school to perform their own version of
The Emperor’s New Clothes.
Kyle had been captivated by the story of an arrogant, self-important monarch who was so impervious to common sense that he walked around naked, convinced he was wearing fine clothes.

As he watched the play, Mairi had leaned over to him and whispered, “It’s just like real life!”

Even that young, they’d both already recognized that many adults took themselves too seriously and needed to be taken down a peg or two. Or ten. The teacher who always said “supposably” instead of “supposedly.” The principal who walked the halls with his shirttail sticking out of his fly. The lunch monitor who couldn’t tell the difference between a stalk of asparagus … and a green bean. They were surrounded by clueless people.

Mairi thought it was funny, but even in the first grade, Kyle — already a genius — knew that it was deadly serious. And a problem. Even though it would be more than a year before he actually wrote it down, the Prankster Manifesto was born that day.

Now that he once again sat on the bus with Mairi, the world made at least a little sense. He tried to stay
casual, but he couldn’t help it — he was happy to see her. Even though Mairi didn’t always appreciate Kyle’s pranks (the ones she knew about, that is), she also never hassled him about them.

“Are you still doing the Astronomy Club thing?”

The Bouring Astronomy Club was holding its monthly stargazing event in a couple of weeks. Mairi and Kyle had always gone to them together and he didn’t see why that would change now. “Of course.”

“It’s your turn to bring the snacks.”

“I know. I’m not an idiot.” That was more true than ever now.

Mairi punched Kyle in the shoulder. “No one said you were an idiot, you idiot.”

Kyle grinned back at her, but inside, he was suddenly cold and worried. Mairi was pretty tough; she had a decent punch.

But when she’d punched him just now … he hadn’t felt a thing.

By the time they got to school, Kyle was still thinking about that punch. Had Mairi pulled her punch, worried about hurting him since he’d been sick? That made sense.

At school, he’d barely gotten off the bus when his Great Nemesis swooped into view.

“Hello, Kyle!” his Great Nemesis burbled.

“Hello, Great Nemesis.” Kyle gritted his teeth.

“Oh, Kyle! Are you still calling me that?”

Melissa Masterton. Bouring Middle School’s guidance counselor. She had been Bouring Elementary School’s guidance counselor and then transferred to the middle school at the same time Kyle started. He was convinced she was stalking him. Isn’t that what a Great Nemesis would do?

Ms. Master ton was always trying to help Kyle. This was particularly annoying because Kyle didn’t
need
any help. Ms. Masterton called what she did “channeling your energies.” As if Kyle were a raging river that needed a dam.

She also didn’t seem to understand that Kyle really, genuinely did not like her. She thought he was kidding about the “Great Nemesis” stuff.

“You’ve been out of school for a week,” she went on. “I want to make sure you don’t need any help getting back on your feet.”

He glared at Ms. Masterton, who beamed down at him like a deranged grandmother. Her eyes had blue eyeliner all around them and her face was thick with pasty makeup. Kyle wondered how many pounds of makeup she went through in a year. It had to be a lot.

“I’m on my feet just fine,” he told her. “Standing up and everything.”

“A long illness can be difficult, especially for someone
as bright and competitive as you are,” she babbled. “You might be afraid that you’ll never catch up.”

Ha! Kyle had done his missing work and more. He started calculating her makeup poundage, just to make the time pass.

“So I just want you to know that I talked to your teachers and they’re all willing to give you as much time as you need to get acclimated.” She paused. “Acclimate is a word that means —”

Become accustomed to a new climate or new conditions,
Kyle thought, still calculating. In lipstick alone, she probably used twenty pounds a year. Eyeliner weighed less, but she probably used more of it, so figure another twenty pounds there.

“And I just know you’ll do great!” Ms. Masterton went on, and then did the most horrible thing a Great Nemesis could do: She leaned down and hugged Kyle, right there in broad daylight!

“Now go on inside and don’t be afraid to come to my office if you need to!”

Kyle broke away from her, grateful that no one had seen that little display.

Fifty pounds, he settled on. Fifty pounds, ten ounces, to be exact. That’s how much makeup Ms. Masterton went through in a year.

That’s a kindergartner’s weight in makeup!

Once he got inside the school, Kyle realized the cold, hard truth: He was in middle school. He had an intellect the size of a moon and he was trapped in the sixth grade. The boredom would crush him like an egg and leave a gross, gooey mess. In truth, “bored” was too small and too normal a word to describe what he felt. School had never been much of a challenge for him, but now he was so smart that his old smartness looked like stupidity, and that made his boredom come alive like a giant wearing steel-toed boots, crushing everything in its path.

He occupied his mind with other things instead. Like: How had his intelligence been boosted? Did things besides his brain get changed by the radiation? Did that explain his deadly trash-can-kicking prowess? And his sudden ability to ignore a punch from Mairi MacTaggert?

Then he remembered something from the article about the “stars falling down” — there had been someone
else
in the field that night. Another kid Kyle’s age.

That was strange because Kyle had no memory of anyone else being there, but BouringRecord.com said there had been. Maybe he could go find this kid and compare notes….

The idea of needing help from someone else didn’t sit well with Kyle. Not at all.

Lunchtime helped Kyle forget his troubles. Kids fought over the opportunity to sit at his table. Kyle tried his best to keep the peace, but he had to admit that it was kind of cool to have everyone want to be that close to him.

“All right!” he said finally, when he judged that Mr. Hathaway, the lunch monitor, was going to intervene. “That’s enough, you guys. You, you, and you” — he pointed — “can sit here. The rest of you will have to wait until tomorrow.”