The Adventures of Beanboy Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Sample Chapter from COOL BEANS

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Harkrader

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  www.hmhco.com

  The illustrations in this book are digital.

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

  Harkrader, Lisa.

  The adventures of Beanboy / by Lisa Harkrader.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Wheaton, Kansas, seventh-grader Tucker MacBean loves comic books, so when his favorite comic has a contest to create a sidekick, he is hopeful that he can win, thereby fixing his struggling family.

  ISBN 978-0-547-55078-7

  [1. Family problems—Fiction. 2. Comic books, strips, etc.—Fiction. 3. Contests—Fiction. 4. Middle schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.H22615Ad 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011012161

  eISBN 978-0-547-55083-1

  v2.0414

  For my agent, Steven Chudney,

  who recognized Sam Zawicki’s potential

  early on and never lost faith in her.

  Thank you.

  One

  My best friend, Noah, was reading over my shoulder. “Weird how she’s always got it in for little kids,” he said.

  “Yeah.” I flipped the page.

  Advertisement. Flipped again. Another ad. Flipped. Too many pages.

  “You went past it,” said Noah.

  I flipped back.

  Beep-beep. Beep-beep.

  “Uh, Tucker?” Noah waved his wristwatch in my face. “Beecher’s bus.”

  I tore my eyes from the blazing school building. Tried to focus on Noah’s watch. He was still waving it around, so I couldn’t see what time zone he had it set for, but I knew it was synchronized to the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory and updated continuously by satellite. When Noah’s watch beeped, it wasn’t kidding.

  I smoothed H2O Submerged, Episode Nine: Cataclysm shut. Shot a glance at the back counter. If I was going to do this thing, I had to do it now.

  Noah clicked his watch off and swung his bassoon case over his shoulder. Don’t ask what a bassoon is. No one knows. I’ve been Noah’s best friend since kindergarten, and I’m still not sure. It looks like . . . actually, it looks like Noah. Some people look like their dogs. Noah looks like his band instrument—skinny, perfect posture, shiny and dark.

  I grabbed my backpack, and we threaded our way through aisles of comics, through the dust specks that floated on the few rays of light that had managed to beat their way inside. It had been raining all afternoon, and the damp air drew out the shop’s wet-dog aroma.

  We reached the counter, where Caveman sat hunkered over a graphic novel, his Hawaiian shirt stretched over the mountains of his shoulders, his wild black hair fluttering as he turned a page. He truly was a caveman. A caveman with a Wonder Woman lunchbox collection.

  Case File: Caveman

  Status: Uncertain. (Hero? Unlikely. He’s a little grumpy, but he doesn’t fit the villain profile, either. And he doesn’t like anybody enough to be their sidekick.)

  Base: Caveman Comics

  Superpower: The superhuman ability to know every single thing that is going on in his shop without ever paying attention to it.

  Superweapon: Possibly an extra set of eyeballs concealed somewhere on his body. That would be my guess.

  Real Name: Unknown. (I mean, no self-respecting parent actually names their kid Caveman. Do they?)

  CASE FILE: INCOMPLETE

  I pushed H2O toward him, reached into my shoe, and pulled out three dollars and twenty-one cents. I clanked it onto the counter. Caveman dinged the cash register open and slid the money in. He didn’t even look at it. He knew I had the exact change. He slipped H2O into a plastic sack, handed me the receipt, and went back to his novel.

  I swallowed. A nervous tang prickled my throat. I’d been working up my courage since Noah and I first stepped into Caveman Comics—no, before that, before we left school even—and if I didn’t do it now, I wouldn’t get another chance till next month.

  Noah gave me an encouraging thumbs-up.

  “So. Caveman.” I slid the sack off the counter. Casually. You know, so it wouldn’t look like I was making a big deal out of it or anything. “You ever think about deliveries?”

  Caveman licked a finger. Turned a page. Didn’t look up. “Nope.”

  At least, I think that’s what he said. It was more of a grunt than an actual word. Which partially explains his name.

  I took another breath. “It’s just this idea I had. Deliveries, I mean. Like Pizza Rocket, only with comics instead of, you know, pizza. You should think about it.”

  Caveman turned another page. “Nope.”

  Nope, he wouldn’t think about it? Or nope, he’d already thought about it, decided it was a bad idea, and was never going to think about it again?

  Hard to tell.

  “Okay.” I nodded.

  I tucked the receipt in my shoe (a.k.a. the best place to store your most important paperwork), gripped the crinkly plastic stack, and started toward the door.

  “Because here’s what I was thinking,” I said. Casually. Like I was tossing ideas at him on my way out. “It might do a lot for your business. You know, provide just one more service no other comic book shop provides.”

  Not that Caveman was big on service in the first place. But still.

  “Dude.” Another lick. Another page. “I’m not delivering your comic books. You can come down here and buy them like everybody else.”

  I stopped. A whole sentence. Two, actually.

  “But see?” I said. “That’s the beauty of it. These deliveries—they wouldn’t be to me. They’d be from me. You’d hire me to be your comic book delivery man. On my bike.”

  With Beecher on the handlebars if I had to.

  “Not happening.”

  I blinked. “Okay. But think about it because—”

  “Not happening.”

  “Okay, but if you change your mind—”

  “Tucker,” Noah whispered. “I don’t think it’s happening.”

  I sighed. When Noah and I rule the world, comic book delivery will be mandatory.

  Noah headed for the door. I trudged after him, the crinkly sack rustling against my leg. We wound our way through tables and racks and shelves, all groaning under the weight of the world’s greatest superheroes: H2O and Batman, Superman and Spidey
. American and Japanese.

  We passed a small rack squeezed in between NEW RELEASES and GOLDEN AGE CLASSICS. One of Caveman’s signs was thumbtacked above it, black marker on a scrap of dusty poster board:

  Most people came in looking for the latest X-Men and didn’t know these were here.

  But I knew.

  Because these weren’t like the other comic books in the store. They weren’t written by famous comic book writers and drawn by famous artists. They weren’t printed in color on shiny paper and shipped out by the millions every month by Marvel or D.C. or Dark Overlord or some other behemoth comic book company.

  Mostly they were black-and-white Xeroxes, carefully folded and stapled, printed a handful at a time, probably at the copy shop over by the university.

  But they were here. Real live comics in a real live comic book store.

  I pulled one out. Ran my hand over the grainy cover.

  “So, hey. Caveman,” I said.

  He may have grunted. Or maybe not. The Cavester was a man of few words.

  “Have these indie comics started making any money?” I said.

  And sometimes no words. He didn’t even glance up.

  “Yeah. I know. Not as much as it costs the artists to print them. But I thought I’d ask. Just to see if anything had changed. I guess it hasn’t.”

  I slid the comic back into the rack. Ran my hand over it one more time. One day that would be me. One day my comic books would be for sale. And not just here at Caveman. Across the country.

  Across the country? Heck, around the planet. I’d be the most famous comic book artist ever, world-renowned for creating . . . well, I didn’t know what. Yet. But he (or she—you can’t be raised by my mother and not consider the very real possibility that the world’s greatest superhero just might be a girl) would be amazing. The most amazing comic book hero ever.

  I’d go to all the big comic book conventions, and the line of fans waiting for my autograph would stretch out of the building and around the block. Which would be exciting, but it wouldn’t give me a big head. I’d still be humble. I’d still be Tucker MacBean from Wheaton, Kansas. I’d still talk to everyone who came up to me and thank them for the excellent things they said about my—

  “Tucker.” Noah tapped his watch.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m with you.” I turned away from the indie rack. I’d have to be famous later.

  Noah and his bassoon leaned into the glass door. The afternoon thunderstorm had fizzled out, but a leftover wind swirled in from the stairwell and spit drizzle at us.

  I pulled the collar of my jacket up around my ears. Glanced back at Caveman.

  “Thanks,” I called back to him. “See you next month.”

  “I doubt it.”

  I doubt it? What did he mean? I was his most loyal customer. I bought at least one comic book a month. Every single month.

  I was as dependable as Noah’s watch.

  And I told Caveman so.

  “I always come in. The very day the new H2O hits the stands.” Next month especially. The episode I held in my hand, Episode Nine, contained a secret that would rock the H2O universe. Episode Ten would be the epic showdown that changed that universe forever.

  Caveman licked his finger and turned a page. “Yep.”

  That was all he said.

  I shot a funny look at Noah, who was still standing in the doorway, the wind whipping specks of rain against his glasses.

  “What does he mean?” I said.

  Noah rolled his eyes. “Who ever knows what he means? Let’s just go.”

  “It’s got to mean something.”

  “Tucker? Hello? It’s already”—Noah bent his elbow into a crisp ninety-degree angle so his watch was at eye level. He clicked through various cities (Tokyo, London, New York) till he finally got to us here in Wheaton—“three nineteen.”

  Case File: The Spoonster

  Status: Sidekick

  Base: Basically, the Earhart Middle School band room

  Superpower: Preventative action. (Noah always arrives early, always carries Kleenex, keeps four quarters, two spare pencils, an extra pair of gym shorts, and a tiny screwdriver—to fix his glasses and jimmy open my locker—in his bassoon case, and never leaves his homework till the last minute. Preventative action comes in handy more often than you’d think.)

  Superweapon: His huge brain. (Noah is like the smartest kid ever. It’s not his fault. His parents don’t allow him to be stupid. They’ve enrolled him in every extracurricular activity invented, from music lessons to anthropology camp. Now he knows everything, including how to play ancient Korean folk tunes on the bassoon. Which goes over big in the seventh grade.)

  Real Name: Noah Spooner

  “Three nineteen? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I did. We’re veering dangerously off schedule here. I have bassoon practice. And homework. And a firm bedtime. And if you miss Beecher’s bus, your mom’ll ground you.”

  “Ground me? Are you kidding?” I headed out the door. “If I miss Beecher’s bus, she’ll kill me.”

  “She’ll kill you first. Then she’ll ground you.”

  Two

  Caveman Comics lay halfway below street level, tucked beneath a bike shop and an Internet cafe. Steps led up from the door to the sidewalk, past the sputtering neon sign that flashed CAVEMAN, past the single dust-caked window carved into the bricks of Caveman’s front wall. It really was a cave. A den. A secret hide-out for comic book geniuses like me and Noah.

  Not a place for our arch nemesis.

  But when we scuffed up the rain-soaked steps, there was Sam Zawicki: arms crossed, shoulders rigid, combat boot practically drumming a hole in the sidewalk.

  And okay, so technically Sam Zawicki wasn’t our personal arch nemesis. Technically, Sam Zawicki had way too much arch-nemesing power to waste on a couple of flyweights like me and Noah. Technically, Sam Zawicki was too busy trying to arch-nemesis the entire seventh grade, most of Earhart Middle School, all of Wheaton, and, possibly, the universe.

  Technically, Sam Zawicki was arch nemesis to the world.

  She was standing in front of the display window of Weaver’s Department Store on the corner, under the red canvas awning, a stream of rain dribbling off the canvas behind her. She was glaring at the mannequins in the display. Practically glaring a hole through the glass. Like she was itching for a fight. Like she was just waiting for those mannequins to start something. Like she was ready to take ’em down.

  And I don’t know if it was from Sam snorting her hot breath out into the damp air, or if it was just steam rising off her army surplus jacket, but her head—with the straggly brown hair and the chin jutting out—sort of rose from the fog that swirled around her.

  Which, I have to admit, added a nice touch to the whole arch nemesis business.

  She never really messed with me and Noah much as long as we stayed out of her way (except for one humiliating third grade bathroom incident that I don’t really want to talk about).

  This worked out pretty well for everybody, since staying out of the way was the main thing me and Noah were really excellent at.

  See, Noah and I had developed the power of invisibility. The trick was to stay quiet, stay low, and not wear anything in the lavender, pink, or magenta color families. Invisibility could be lonely, but let’s face it, when the third guy in your posse is a bassoon, it might just save your life.

  “What are you looking at?” Sam Zawicki’s croaky bark shot down Quincy Street.

  I jumped. Because: 1) Sam Zawicki’s voice is like a smack in the head, and 2) I realized I was staring at her. Or at least, staring at her reflection in the glass of the Weaver’s Department Store display window, under the sign that said NEWLY ARRIVED! FALL DANCE DRESSES. I hadn’t meant to, but there I was, staring Sam Zawicki in the eye.

  And she was staring back.

  She fired a look over her shoulder, past Weaver’s, down the next block.

  I glanced that way, too, to see wha
t she was looking at. Probably her big lump of a brother, Dillon. He’s not real bright, but when you’re as big as Dillon, you don’t need that many brain cells. But I didn’t see him. Luckily. The whole Zawicki experience was miserable enough without throwing Dillon into the mix.

  “Hey!” Sam’s voice smacked me again. “Beanboy.”

  Yeah. Beanboy. It was the kind of thing you had to deal with when you were born with a last name like MacBean.

  “Quit looking at me.” She turned to face us.

  “I wasn’t. I just—”

  “Quit following me. Quit breathing my air. You got that?” She pulled her backpack close and wrapped her arm around it, like she was guarding it.

  From me, I guess. Like I was a big threat.

  Sam was shorter than me, and her arms and legs were just plain spindly. Her combat boots were actually smaller than my sneakers. I’m no hulking maniac, but I hoped I at least looked like I could hold my own against a sixty-pound girl.

  Right.

  I took a step back. Her combat boots had steel toes.

  Noah gave his watch a covert tap. I nodded and angled sideways, trying to dodge Sam and her boots.

  She stepped in front of me, cutting me off.

  “Look,” I said. “I’m not following you. I do have to, you know, breathe, but I wasn’t looking at you. I mean, I was, but I didn’t know it was you. I just thought you were, I don’t know, some girl.”

  Case File: Sam Zawicki

  Status: Villain

  Base: Amelia Earhart Middle School

  Superpower: Rage (which, I know, doesn’t sound all that powerful, but trust me, when you go around all the time so spitting mad that your hair practically stands on end, people get out of your way).

  Superweapon: A guard-dog personality, really bony elbows, and steel-toed boots from Ed’s Army Surplus Emporium.

  Real Name: Samantha (but no one’s suicidal enough to call her that).