The Society of Super Secret Heroes (6 page)

There—that was better. Sure, he'd borrowed a bit from Superman's oath, but he didn't think the big guy would mind. Something else was missing, though. He chewed on one of the cape strings while he considered what it was.

Hmmm . . . the last part sounded like something Mr. Burns would say. But Fin liked the idea anyway—especially when he thought of Thorn's sickeningly bloody nose.

 

 

No, that sounded like kindergarten. Fin chewed the end of his pen.

 

No, that sounded like a group of businessmen.
Perchance you should try “Society.”

Finch pressed his palm against his forehead. He wished the mind voice would go away already. Still, he liked the sound of it—the Society of Super Secret Heroes.

Fin put down his pen.

He read the Oath aloud in a low, quick mumble. “The Thinking Cape? Come on!” he chided himself as he crossed that part out. He gazed over the paper once more and covered his eyes with a hand. “What am I doing?” he moaned. “I can't show this to the guys. They'll think the whole thing is stupid.”

This was sick! Now the mind voice was answering him. “Shut up!” he snapped.

Finch froze. “Wh—who are you?”

Quickly, Fin untied the cape from his neck and threw it into the wastebasket. He needed to go to a doctor right away.

“You're just some old cloth. You can't speak,” he said.

Finch pressed his hands against his temples. This only happened in books or movies. It couldn't be real. “I'm not actually hearing anything,” he told himself firmly.

“Stop calling me that!”

“What identity?”

“It's not a real oath. I was just fooling around,” Fin said.

Maybe I'm dreaming, Finch thought. How else could I be talking to my kindergarten plaything? How else could it be answering back? “I don't really like fighting,” he answered finally. “I can't stand the sight of blood.”

“I AM NOT YOUR MASTER!” Fin shouted.

“No! I don't want to be a mental case.” Fin picked up the wastebasket. “I'm dumping you into the garbage can by the driveway. You can talk to the trash from now on.”

“There aren't any other members. There isn't any Society of Super Secret Heroes.”

Fin hesitated. “My friends could hear you, too?”

Finch thought about how amazed the guys would be if they heard the Thinking Cape speak in their heads. They'd freak out, of course. But if they heard it, too, that would mean he wasn't nuts. He had to know.

“All right. Maybe tomorrow, I'll ask the guys to come over. But don't talk to me anymore until then.”

“I said no talking!” Finch shoved the cape to the bottom of his backpack. This time the Thinking Cape didn't answer.

On Wednesday nights, Finch and Mimi always had dinner with their father—unless Mr. Mundy had to babysit for Jake. The kid was eight months old now. Sometimes Finch's dad brought him to see Jake, but the little blob had a schedule like a business executive. It was always time for his lunch, his bath, his nap, his walk, his playgroup, his baby gym class, or his baby swim class. Mostly, Finch saw the back of the kid's head as he was leaving. It was hard to feel brotherly.

Tonight they went to Finch's favorite Italian restaurant, Sal's, since Mimi claimed she was too sick to go out. They sat in their favorite booth, which was next to a window in the wall where you could watch the two pizza men, Dom and Louie, tossing pies. Sometimes Finch and his father bet on which of the guys would finish making a pizza first. Or else they tried to guess what toppings would go on the next pie. But tonight, Finch just stared through the window while he downed a soda.

“A pepperoni for your thoughts,” his father said.

“Dad, when you were a kid, were you normal?”

“Normal? I don't know, Fin. One man's normal is another man's nuts.”

“What?”

Fin's dad grinned. “I mean it's normal for people to have different opinions of what's normal.”

Finch twisted his straw wrapper between his fingers. His father wasn't helping. “I don't think I'm normal,” he blurted out.

“In what way?”

Finch hesitated. What if his dad whisked him off to the hospital? But he had to tell someone. He couldn't take it anymore. “I've been hearing this voice in my head.”

“What does it say?”

Finch felt his ears getting hot. “It reminds me of stuff. And, um, I think it wants me to be a superhero.”

“That sounds exciting.”

“Dad!”

Mr. Mundy smiled. “Sorry. So it's like you're talking to yourself ?”

“Sort of—but not exactly. It's more like someone else is talking.”

“Who?”

“I'm not exactly sure,” Fin said after a long sip of his soda.

Mr. Mundy nodded. “You know, I used to be a lot like you. Except, I used to think about robots instead of super-guys. I wanted to invent one that would do homework, take out the trash, rake the leaves, and be my friend. Every year for science fair, I made a robot. I liked to imagine it could talk to me—but the most I could ever get it to do was pick up a golf ball. One Halloween, I dressed up in a robot costume. After that the kids called me Robo-boy.”

Finch imagined his dad in a costume made of foil-covered cardboard boxes from the supermarket. It wasn't a pretty sight. But it made him decide to trust his father. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Dad? I think I know who—I mean what—the voice is.”

Mr. Mundy was looking at his watch. “Hold on, Fin. I've got to make a quick call to Lisa. Jakey has an ear infection. I want to make sure the pain isn't back. Then you can tell me more, okay?” He took out his cell phone without waiting for an answer.

Finch turned back to the window. One of the pizza men, Dom, grinned at him, but he was too upset to smile back. His dad didn't really care about his problems. He'd only been pretending to be interested in what Fin had been saying. Probably, he'd been thinking about Jake the whole time.

Anyway, it had been a bad idea to tell his father about the voice, Finch chided himself. No adult would take him seriously. He began making loud slurping sounds with his straw. He kicked the back of the booth with his heels. The people at the next table glared at him.

“I've got to go now, Lisa,” Mr. Mundy said quickly. “I'll be home soon.” He snapped his phone shut and looked across the table at Fin. “So, about the voice. You were going to tell me what you think it is.”

Fin shrugged. “I guess it's just my imagination,” he mumbled.

When Sal brought their pizza to the table, he gobbled down his slices. He wanted to get home fast so he could call the guys. They were his only hope.

“Until I die?” Elliott dropped the paper from his fingers.

The guys were sitting in a circle on the floor of Fin's room, passing the Oath around. The ferrets crawled in and out of their laps, sniffing for raisins and crumbs. Fin finished tying on the cape and lifted Cubby into his arms. He hadn't mentioned anything about the Thinking Cape yet. He knew his friends would never believe it could talk unless they heard it themselves. But now that they were all together, he wasn't sure how to begin. What if he'd been imagining the whole thing—if he really was crazy?

“Why does it have to be a ‘secret' society?” Elliott complained. “If I'm going to be doing good, why can't I let anyone know?”

“Remember the gift or the curse?” Finch asked. “Superheroes never reveal their true identities. Otherwise people would always be bothering them to do things. They'd never get any rest.”

“Besides, if anyone found out about the Society, we'd be goners. We'd have to move to Reject Island,” Raj explained, as if he were talking to his little brother. “I mean it El, you wouldn't be able to tell anyone!”

“Okay, okay.” Elliott held up a hand like a policeman stopping traffic. “We'll be super secret heroes.”

“Yeah—except we haven't got the super part,” Kevin pointed out. “How can we be superheroes without superpowers?”

“We'd be a different type of superhero—the regular person kind. But maybe we'd have, er, outside help,” Fin said.

“Yeah? Who's going to help us—Batman?” Kev asked. “You got his cell number?”

Raj and El burst out laughing.

Finch swallowed. So far, the only thing talking inside him was his nervous stomach. “Come on, say something,” he urged in his head. But the Thinking Cape didn't make a peep.

“I've got superpowers,” Elliott announced. “I'm Elliott the Elastic.”

“Funny,” Kev said in a bored voice.

“No really, I—AHH . . . AHH . . .” Elliott reared back and let out a huge sneeze. “ACHOOO!” A string of greenish-yellow snot shot out of his nose and dangled all the way to the floor.

“Yeeeuck!” Raj and Kev scrambled backward.

Elliott pounded his chest with a fist. “See? Even my snot is elastic!” He reached out a finger and plucked the strand like a guitar string.