Free Sidekicks by Jack D. Ferraiolo Page A

We’re still not sure. It’s not exactly the first place a supervillain would thinkto hit, which is maybe why he picked it. He didn’t seem to realize that the reason supervillains don’t hold used car lots hostage is because … well, who cares? They’re used cars. Even the guy who owns the lot wouldn’t care all that much if everything blew up; he’d get most of his money back in insurance … plus all that free publicity.
    So, Pocks has half the cars on the lot wired with explosives when we show up. Phantom starts in with one of his “opening confrontation” speeches. Meanwhile, Pocks keeps saying, “You’re early. You’re early” (as if we were supposed to wait for him to finish wiring all the cars before we confronted him). After a little bit of awkward silence, Pocks starts talking about how we can’t stop him, and if we even try, he’s going to hit the button on his detonator and blow up all these cars. The problem? He can’t find the detonator. He starts searching all his pockets, but it’s not in any of them. He starts sweating, and looks like he’s going to apologize to us at any moment … but he’s still saying his speech, which has lines in it like “You can’t stop me!” and “I’ll blow us all to pieces! I don’t care!” And I’m trying not to laugh because the threats are obviously meaningless without the detonator, which he still can’t find. To tell you the truth, I felt kinda bad for him.
    So, Pocks is yelling these meaningless threats at us,and the more he does, the more pissed off Phantom Justice looks. Finally, Phantom loses his cool and rushes him. Pocks looks really surprised, like he expected us to wait for him to find the detonator before we did anything … like he was following some script that Phantom and I were supposed to have but didn’t. So … Phantom picks Pocks up and throws him about thirty yards; he lands on his butt on top of one of the wired cars.
    Now Pocks had checked his back pockets at least a half dozen times while we were listening to his speech, but he hadn’t found the detonator. It must’ve been in one of them, though, because literally half a second after landing on his butt—
KABOOM!
Half the lot exploded, taking Pocks along with it.
    It took them a while, but the police eventually found all of Pock’s pieces.
    â€œRight … Pocks,” Trent says, and even though the Pocks example proves his point, he seems annoyed that I brought it up. “You realize that we are all that’s protecting the good people of this city from the clutches of evil.”
    â€œRight … clutches.”
    â€œWhat possible reason could you have had to justify breaking protocol?”
    â€œI don’t know,” I say. “I guess I just snapped. Probablysomething to do with yet another person making fun of my costume.”
    Phantom Trent sighs. “Back to the costume again. I thought we settled that.”
    â€œNo, you settled that. I’m still the one who has to live with the ridicule.”
    â€œI thought we settled that, too.”
    â€œLook, everyone is making fun of me. The kids at school, newscasters,
the villains
… EVERYONE. I’m sick of it. Can we PLEASE talk about a new costume?”
    â€œWe’ll see.”
    â€œThat means no, doesn’t it.”
    â€œNo, it means we’ll see. Keep pestering me about it and it’ll mean no.”
    â€œFine.” I slump in my seat and cross my arms. My mask peels off my face and falls into my lap.
    â€œWhat happened to your mask?” he asks. “Why isn’t it sticking to your face?”
    â€œI might’ve gotten some dirt on it.”
    â€œWell, you really ought to check those things before you go out. What if it had fallen off during the fight?”
    I don’t say anything. I turn to stare out the window, hoping Trent