SuperZero Read online

  Jane De Suza

  SUPER ZERO

  Illustrated by Jit Chowdhury

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Contents

  Welcome to the superlatively super book of Superness! By the time you finish reading this, you will have learnt how Spidey runs up walls, how the Incredible Hulk turns green (without eating spinach!) and how Superman bashes up the bad guys without messing up his hair. Don’t try anything at home. (Especially, especially, don’t try eating spinach!)

  Here are the RULES of being a superhero:

  1. Never lose your undies

  2. Don’t trust women. Or worms

  3. Never fall asleep on the job

  4. Go get something to bite you

  5. Remember it’s always Ladies First (especially when there’s danger)

  6. Don’t attack the good people

  7. Superheroes shouldn’t use the stairs

  8. Befriend an alien

  9. Don’t go too close to a UFO

  10. If you can’t solve the problem, add to it

  11. Every superhero must have a sidekick who won’t eat him up

  12. Look (and smell) before you leap

  13. Pick on a dinosaur your own size

  14. Don’t gift-wrap the friendly alien

  15. Choose the biggest crowd to perform in front of

  16. Don’t get kicked out of your own story

  17. Discover the truth. In a smelly sack

  18. Dig up some roots. Turnips, preferably

  19. Find friends with loud voices to protest for you

  20. Superheroes must NOT faint

  21. Jump into the jaws of danger (only when they’re closed)

  22. Always (almost) listen to your mom

  23. Pick someone who can tell your story well. Without spelling mistakes

  24. Don’t let your best friend get the main role

  25. Pick the right villain

  26. Get a ‘brainweave’

  27. Be the hunter, not the hunted

  28. Be warned that sometimes a superhero’s job stinks

  29. Every story needs to end with a big fight

  30. Some things should always be a secret

  Superhero School Admission Form

  Acknowledgements

  About the Illustrator

  Follow Penguin

  Copyright

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  SUPERZERO

  Jane De Suza, like Vamp Iyer, comes to life at night, which is how she’s written stories, children’s books, articles for international magazines and the comedy thriller The Spy Who Lost Her Head. By day, she dons her serious face and consults in advertising and creative thinking. An alumna of Sophia College, Mumbai and XLRI, Jamshedpur, she now lives in Bangalore with her family and a dog who gives her career advice by regularly chewing up her pencils.

  To my parents,

  for a magical childhood.

  1. Never lose your undies

  I got my undies stolen! On the very first day of Superhero School. You know that tight spandex thing you have to wear to look like an invincible superhero? With your underwear OUTside? (Ha, and all along your mom told you never to let your undies show.) Well, I lost them! How can I be a superhero without undies?

  And what kind of an evil school was this? There I was, so, so freaked out because I was the new-boy-in-new-school and all that I had to run to the loo and struggle to yank off my tights and stuff. When I finally slung them over the cubicle door—whoooosh—just like that, my undies got pulled off. Right in front of my eyes!

  ‘Hey thief, give me back my briefs!’ I yelled in anger. (In poetry, too!)

  Then in panic.

  Then in tears.

  No briefs came whooshing back. Only a flush whooshed somewhere and the door closed. So I spent my first day in Superhero School shivering in the bathroom till the bell rang and everyone went home.

  I gotta tell you here that going home is not that bus thing you regular guys do. Superkids come from all four corners of the world to this school, and going home only takes an instant. They’re like email—they just close their eyes (I mean, email doesn’t close its eyes, but you know what I’m saying) and just like that Dub Lee is back in Hong Kong and Vamp Iyer is back in Chennai.

  Back at home, Gra, my grandfather, made me new briefs from an old shower curtain. ‘They’re waterproof,’ he said chuckling, ‘you don’t need to take them off to go to the bathroom.’

  Ha. Ha. Very un-funny.

  The shower-curtain briefs have little yellow duckies on them with huge eggs. I was sure I’d have to flush my head down in shame. I was a ten-year-old superhero in the making, off to school to learn to save the world . . . with yellow duckies on my undies?

  Panic! SOS situation!

  I could NOT be seen in egg underwear!

  I could also NOT be seen in NO underwear.

  I could NOT spend all my school days in the bathroom.

  Then genius struck! I learnt to wrap my cape all around me so no one would see the yellow duckies laying eggs.

  The first time I tried walking in a cape, I fell flat on my face (go on, I dare you to try it). But I soon mastered the art of walking like a wrapped-up banana. Hop, hop.

  The next day was an even bigger nightmare. I did my banana-hop into the school ground, where superkids of all ages (and shapes and sizes and colours) were hanging out before the first bell rang. Two ginormous green giants—Hulket and Hulkette I think they were called—were throwing trees at each other, while the whole school cheered on; and a thin, green girl called Eco kept replanting the trees with a zapping finger. Cool, cool!

  The bell finally rang and all the kids tumbled off in a rowdy rush to their own classes—flying, sliding, climbing and ricocheting. I did my banana-hop slowly up the grand staircase, through the huge main school door, on top of which there was a sign in Greek (or Sanskrit. Or ancient Egyptian. Who knows?) On top of the sign was an impressive statue of a crow lifting its wing and pecking at its underarm. I spent many useless minutes wondering why Superhero School would choose an itchy crow for its emblem.

  And then the crow flew off.

  Oh, okay.

  I hopped up the stairs to the second floor, where the freshers’ class was. My class was full of newbies—around twenty kids who’d enrolled in the school in the hope of finding their latex . . . sorry, latent powers. All I wanted to do was find some friends, honestly.

  So I hopped, tripped, crashed . . . right into Masterror, our class teacher, a tall, reedy man with a waxed moustache that went halfway around his head. ‘Oh sorry, sir!’

  ‘Wonderrrful, the new boy appears after two days of hiding! And what is your superrrpowerrr? The incrrredible hop-a-flop?’

  The class began to giggle—twenty-odd chuckles, screeches and high-powered wails—while I went red. I turned to the boy next to me, who was kind of shy-looking and had a huge mop of brown hair flopping all over his eyes. Bet he had no superpowers. He looked like an upside-down broom! But I needed to make some friends in this lousy school, so I whispered to him, ‘What’s with this place? Kinda spooky or what? Like everyone’s got a superpower, huh! You believe that? Haha.’

  He looked away . . . and then . . . there was no him! REALLY! Just that big mop of hair floating around in the air next to me.

  Masterror called out, ‘Blank! Stop doing that unless I tell you to. Come back this instant!’

  But the mop of hair kept bobbing around and finally bounced out of the door.

  ‘Lizzie Lizarrrd, why don’t you show the new boy your superrrpowerrr?’ bellowed Masterror.

  A slim girl with popping eyes and skin the colour of a lemon stood up. ‘Hey, you didn’t clean behind your ears,’ she said, and—slurp—out of her big grinning mouth shot a long tongue that reached two benches f
orward and slapped me behind the ear.

  Ow!

  I was so shocked I fell backwards. And then it happened. The cape flapped open.

  There, for the world to see, were Gra’s shower-curtain briefs with their yellow ducks and eggs. Aargh! By then all the kids were laughing so hard they were crying, except for Lizzie Lizard, who, serves her right, had no eyelids and so no tears.

  ‘He has zeroes on his briefs,’ she shouted.

  ‘They’re eggs,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘SuperZero in zero undies!’ she cackled. ‘That should be his super name.’

  ‘They’re EGGS, you rotten reptile!’ I shouted.

  ‘Name-calling will not be tolerrrated, Egg-Boy with no powers!’ Masterror shook his head gravely. ‘SuperZero you will be from now on!’

  And so sulking big time, I sat on my bench.

  The mop of hair returned and Blank became visible again, smiling shyly at me from his seat, but I did not smile back.

  SuperZero would be the blackest, angriest, strongest and silent-est superhero in the world, just watch it!

  2. Don’t trust women. Or worms

  I guess I should tell you how I landed up in this stupid school. It was all because of a woman . . . with worms.

  I don’t know when exactly it all started but as long as I can remember, I was a little weird. I mean, I did a lot of things no one understood—okay, that I never understood either.

  Like I remember being really afraid of the dark. And what did my mom do? Say ‘Good night, Cookiekins. Sleep well!’ and put off the light! Uncool, huh? Now, get this, my dad got it into his head that all dads should read their kids stories. So he’d read out stories from this dumb book called The Noddy Bedtime Book, which had scary creatures like talking bears and goblins. And every night, after he left and Mom switched off the light, I’d shiver and think of the mean goblins, with their long toes and pointed noses, crawling around. Help!

  One night (when I was maybe around four), I heard a whisper at my window. Hsssst hsssst . . . I’ll never know if it was a goblin or a snake or just the wind whistling in from a gap in the shutter, but I was terrified. I began to feel really hot in my head, like my head was boiling. Then all of a sudden, the lights came back on in the room.

  And get this—it happened every night!

  Sometimes, my dad came in at midnight and mumbled, ‘That’s weird. How does she expect the poor kid to sleep with the light on his face?’ And he’d turn it off again and leave.

  My folks didn’t realize what was happening. They just kept saying ‘It’s weird’ and blaming it on each other. Till one night, Gra came in while the light turned on and off. He called my folks and insisted that I was doing it. From then on, oh man, I was watched like a TV screen. Every move I made!

  Something else happened when I was about seven. (I was in a normal school then.) We had tons of homework to do one day, and I did what anyone with tons of homework would do—I went to sleep. Then Mom came in and saw me sleeping, and boy, did she holler. She began to say horrible things like how she’d confiscate my rollerblades and stuff. I was so miserable about my piles of homework and my mom screaming and my rollerblades being taken away that I put my head down on my arms and began to howl. And then that strange hot glow in my head started and Mom’s jaw dropped.

  All my homework papers started rising up, in what she said was a revolution, and flew off into the air and out of my window. Maths goes to heaven, haha!

  Now, you ask me how I did all that? Not a clue.

  Maybe it was just a windy day, right? Maybe it was just a faulty light switch? But no, my mom would have none of that.

  ‘He’s special, my boy!’ she told the woman in the supermarket queue.

  ‘Mine’s special too. He can say “Humpty Dumpty” backwards,’ said the woman back to her. Of course he could! Every mom thinks her kid is special. IT DOES NOT COUNT! I HAVE NO SUPERPOWERS!

  But my mom—she kept trying to prove that I had superpowers. She tried to get me to climb walls and fly off tables and all I ever got for my pains was a bump each time.

  Finally, last month, she hid a ball of wool in her hand behind her back and said, ‘Use your super eyesight, Potchkins, and tell me what’s in my hand.’

  I closed my eyes and pretended to think really hard, but I kept guessing wrong. She got me really annoyed, and as she went on ranting at me, my hot head became hotter. I wanted to annoy her right back. ‘Worms!’ I said.

  ‘No, TRY AGAIN!’ And then she really screamed. And screamed. Because she pulled out her hand and there in her fist, the long strands of wool had turned into long strands of squiggling, squishy worms! She washed her hands for half an hour after that.

  My dad’s pretty cool, and wise and very sorted. He thinks I should become a basketball player because I have big knees (okay, so put it that way and he doesn’t seem very wise either). Also so I can earn many millions and buy him this sports bike he keeps looking at.

  Dad wanted to send me to Sports Academy, and Mom wanted to send me to Superhero School—and of course, Mom won! Whaddya think?

  So there I was in this school where every superkid came by teleporting or speed-travelling—except I had to come by Mom’s car because the school had to be in our stupid neighbourhood. And every other kid, of course, seemed to be superness in small format, except . . . you guessed it, me!

  Anyway, I was thinking bitterly about the worms incident, when Masterror suddenly banged on my desk. ‘SuperZero, what is the one food that can boost your super sight?’

  ‘Worms!’ I shouted, taken by surprise.

  The class burst out laughing again.

  3. Never fall asleep on the job

  8-10 10-12 12-1 1-2 2-4

  Focus Hocus-Pocus History, Geography, Maths and all the ‘normal’ subjects Lunch (no eating other children allowed!) Outdoor games (no flying outside premises) Projects and Practicals

  That’s the schedule for today. So we started with Focus Hocus-Pocus. We all had to focus on things and make them do other things. Like make spoons bend. Spoons don’t like to bend, of course.

  Masterror made us hold a spoon in front of our noses and stare at it. Try it—staring at a spoon is more boring than maths multiplied by history multiplied by 144.

  ‘Focus, focus, fooow-cussss!’ Masterror kept mumbling for so long that I began to yawn.

  ‘Feel that strong lump of power in the middle of your forehead,’ he said. As I dozed off, I fell forward and hit my head on my desk. Ow! Now I really do have a strong lump on my forehead for everyone to see.

  The class started laughing, and Masterror yelled at me, ‘SuperZero, wake up! Or I will exchange you for the spoon!’

  ‘Focus, focus, focus . . .’ again!

  Lizzie Lizard got her spoon to stretch. Huh!

  Slime Joos’s spoon began to melt.

  Blank’s spoon vanished.

  I stared at my spoon. I stared. I stared some more. My eyes began to water. I saw dots and criss-crosses. I saw my own reflection with my angry lump in the spoon. But nothing happened to it. I stared at it in panic. Nothing!

  Other spoons were beginning to turn into knots and other shapes. I had to get my spoon to do something!

  ‘It’s flying!’ I yelled and when I had everyone’s attention, I kind of flipped it over with my thumb and it went sailing up into the air to . . . (guess where) . . .

  . . . hit Masterror right in the middle of his forehead. Now BOTH of us have powerful lumps.

  When me and my angry lump went home, Mom said, ‘Oh smoochie poochie, a lump! How brilliant! You’re beginning to look like a superhero already. Does your lump do anything?’

  Yeah, it sends out signals to Mars. Huh! Yes, Mom, my lump does something. It HURTS!

  Dad took his chance and began to shout, ‘That’s it! He’s got no superpowers at all. And now his brains have begun to ooze out!’

  ‘I’m learning to bend spoons,’ I grunted.

  ‘End soon, what? Will the world end
soon?’ asked Gra, who was totally deaf.

  ‘Bend spoons!’ shouted my mom.

  ‘Oh, mend soon. What should I mend soon? Don’t tell me his duckie briefs have a hole already!’

  I gave up. What a family! I wanted to hit my head against the wall, but then I’d have two angry lumps.

  C’mon, superpowers! Where are you?

  4. Go get something to bite you

  Every day, I sat in class and tried desperately to bend spoons or stare through walls or feel powerful focus points in my head, but all I felt was sleepy. So I talked to Blank.

  SuperZerrro!’ Masterror yelled. ‘Are you talking to yourself?’

  ‘No, to him,’ I said, pointing to Blank, who, of course, had turned blank. So then I looked like I was talking to myself.

  The only person in the class who’s undeniably awesome is Anna Conda. She’s epic! She can stretch herself fabulously long and slide up walls and under doors and stuff. So basically anything she says I listen to real well, smiling non-stop at her and opening my eyes wide—almost as wide as Lizzie Lizard’s. I’d give up my eyelids for Anna Conda, I would! Sigh.

  ‘Hey SuperZero,’ she said today, ‘Spiderman got his powers when he was bitten by a spider. Maybe you should get bitten by something.’

  ‘Yeah, like by a crocodile,’ said Slime Joos, who can spurt slime on demand.

  I didn’t want to get bitten by anything, but I wanted to act all brave in front of Anna Conda, so I said, ‘That’s cool. I’m ready. Who’s afraid of a little bite, ha!’

  Swosh! Lizzie Lizard’s tongue swiped all over my face. Ugh!

  ‘Tell me where to bite,’ said Vamp Iyer. ‘I’m supposed to bite people, but I don’t really like how they taste.’

  I was getting a bad feeling about this already.

  Who can bite me, and who cannot, and why