My Evil Twin Is a Supervillain E-Book

David Solomons

• Herausgeber: Nosy Crow
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: My Brother is a Superhero
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Seitenzahl: 272

Beschreibung

When Luke is confronted with Stellar, his superpowered twin from another dimension, he is highly suspicious. No one travels through time and space without a plan, and that plan is usually EVIL. So what does Stellar want? And why is he so UNBELIEVABLY IRRITATING? From his superhero hair to his rocket-powered shoes, Stellar is up to no good, and Luke must BRING HIM DOWN! My Evil Twin Is a Supervillain is the third instalment of Luke's laugh-out-loud adventures. From the author of My Brother Is a Superhero, winner of the Waterstones Children's Book Prize and the British Book Industry Awards Children's Book of the Year. Books don't come much funnier than these! Packed with heart and soul, this series is perfect for fans of David Baddiel and David Walliams. My Brother Is a Superhero My Gym Teacher is an Alien Overlord My Evil Twin is a Supervillain My Arch-Enemy is a Brain in a Jar My Cousin is a Time-Traveller

Leseprobe

OUT OF THIS WORLD REVIEWS FOR MY BROTHER IS A SUPERHERO

“I even think my dad would like reading this book!”

David, The Book Squad, The Beano

“Cosmic! Amazing! Outstanding! Probably the funniest book I have read for a long time.”

Alison A. Maxwell-Cox, The School Librarian

“I was so addicted to it that my mum had to make me put it down.”

Calum, aged 11

“Funny, fast moving and deftly plotted, it’s the best thing to hit the superhero world since sliced kryptonite.”

Damian Kelleher, Dad Info

“You know a book is going to be good when you’re giggling after five minutes… Ideal for comic readers and superhero experts.”

Nicola Lee, The Independent

“An excellent adventure story with real heart that’s also properly funny.”

Andrea Reece, Lovereading4Kids

“You’ll laugh until you fall out of your tree house!”

Steve Coogan

“A brilliantly funny adventure with twists, turns, crazy characters and a really hilarious ending. Fantastic!”

Sam, aged 11

“Brilliantly funny.”

The Bookseller

In some parallel dimension two of you are voluntarily eating salad, and the other isn’t asking me to mow the lawn.

1

MULTIVERSE SCHMULTIVERSE

“Come on, Luke,” I muttered to myself as I steered Zorbon’s craft past another supernova. “How difficult can it be to pilot a stolen interdimensional spaceship to a parallel universe?”

I sat wedged in the command chair at the centre of a wraparound control panel laid out with a confusing array of touch-sensitive buttons and sliders. A Head-Up Display glowed at eye level showing a moving map of the immediate space around the vessel and a lot of probably very important numbers. Unlike the display, which moved slowly, through the clear bubble canopy stars flew past at an alarming rate. A read-out indicated I was travelling at a speed of 3. Though 3 what, I had no idea.

Swiping Zorbon’s keys and “borrowing” his ship had seemed like a good idea at the time. But now as I wrestled with the controls, the words of the universe’s greatest smuggler and starship pilot rang in my head. “Travelling through hyperspace ain’t like dustin’ crops.” Years ago, when I’d heard Han Solo speak those words in the first Star Wars film, I was puzzled. My confusion arose because I thought Han was referring to an actual person named Dustin Crops.

A light flashed green on the control panel. I was just thinking that at least it was green and not red when the bleat of an alarm reminded me that in Zorbon’s topsy-turvy universe red and green were reversed. Uh-oh. I glanced at the floating display. The symbol depicting my tiny craft was heading rapidly towards a big dark circle in space. Now, wasn’t there another name for an enormously dark space circle?

Black Hole!

I wrenched the control stick to one side in an effort to miss the giant cosmic dustbin. I felt the craft turn and figures on the display confirmed a change of direction. It looked like I would avoid catastrophe but it was going to be close. I held my breath as I skirted the edge of the gaping hole. Time seemed to slow as I looked up through the canopy into a throat of endless darkness. It was blacker than the Chislehurst Caves I’d begged Dad to take me to when I was little. I was going through one of my periodic Batman phases and wanted to scout out a potential Batcave. Dad led me and Zack to a section he knew where the tour guides never went. Deep underground Dad turned off his lamp, to give us a little fright, he said afterwards. I freaked out, but I didn’t want Dad to know how scared I was. Somehow Zack sensed my anxiety and found my hand in the dark. Though it was years later, there in the cockpit of the interdimensional craft, I could feel my brother’s invisible fingers give mine a reassuring squeeze.

The hull groaned as immense forces clawed at the fragile ship. I could feel it come to a full stop and slowly begin to reverse direction. I was being pulled into the hungry Black Hole. If I couldn’t break free of its gravity then my mission would be over before it had even begun. I needed more power. Scouring the baffling control panel my eye fell on a likely symbol. I mashed it with my thumb. There was a pause, then piano music tinkled from hidden speakers and a woman with a weird high-pitched voice began to sing. A message scrolled across the Head-Up Display. It read: Cosmic Classics (remastered). Instead of more engine power, I’d activated Zorbon’s favourite playlist. The voice fluttered and swooped like flappy sleeves and just as I was wondering, “What’s a wuthering height?” the craft lurched sideways and began to spin. I’d lost control. Recovery systems triggered automatically. The cushioned pads of the command seat inflated, hugging me as tightly as Grandma Maureen when she hasn’t seen me for ages, the autopilot assumed control of the flight systems and an oxygen mask fell from the ceiling.

The main drive strained like Dad’s old Fiat on a cold winter morning. On the display 3 ticked up to 4 and with a grunt Zorbon’s craft shot out of the mouth of the Black Hole. I was free! The command seat relaxed its grandmotherly grip and I sat back with a sigh of relief.

I suspected my destination might be on a list of Zorbon’s previously visited stops, and I was right. I tapped the address and let the ship do the rest. As I whizzed across the universe I reflected on my epic journey. I was just like Superman, sent to safety from his doomed homeworld. Except that my homeworld wasn’t exactly doomed, and in the comic it’s Superman’s dad who sends him. My dad didn’t know I was gone, not yet. But he would. I wondered if he’d even care. Mum and Dad didn’t care about much these days. I pushed the grim thought to the back of my mind, where it could make friends with all the others. There was no looking back – I had to put things right. Now all that mattered was my mission.

On the control panel a new light flashed. The ship slowed and came out of hyperspace. Suspended before me in the darkness of regular space lay the third planet, Earth.

But not my Earth.

Adjusting its spin, Zorbon’s craft entered the atmosphere and blew a futuristic space raspberry at mankind’s finely tuned UFO detection systems. The Head-Up Display indicated that a cloaking device had been activated to deal with any nosy radar sweeps. The hull glowed hot and the whole craft shuddered as it skimmed the upper air. It continued its descent, knifing through low cloud to emerge over land. It was night, but a label on the display confirmed my position above the United Kingdom. A few minutes later I was circling over the south-east corner, but as I homed in on my ultimate destination there was a bang from somewhere deep inside the ship and it dropped so fast my stomach was left five hundred metres above.

“Auto-landing failure,” cooed the ship’s central computer. “Switching to manual control.”

The virtual control-stick pressed itself into my hand. Land the ship?! At that point an ordinary person might have panicked. But not me. I wasn’t merely Luke Parker, schoolboy and comic-book fan.

I was Stellar!

Granted superpowers by Zorbon the Decider to fight for truth, justice and … well, probably not to steal his spaceship. But anyway, I had powers. In fact, if I’d wanted to I could’ve pulled the eject lever and flown to earth under my own power. But I needed the ship – it was essential to my plan. Using a combination of regular flight controls, telekinesis and my natural brilliance I steadied the craft and prepared to set it down. I identified an out-of-the-way landing spot deep in the woods, far from prying eyes, the sort of place even a random dog walker would never stumble across. And by that I don’t mean that the dog was random, like a collie crossed with an envelope, I mean— Actually, never mind.

As I prepared to touch down a gust of wind lifted one corner of the ship and before I could correct it the opposite corner had touched the treetops. Before I knew what was happening I was cartwheeling through the air towards a large structure illuminated by multiple spotlights. Through the spinning canopy I glimpsed some kind of warehouse. Just before we crashed against it, the ship did this weird dimensional sidestep and ghosted through the roof without smashing it – or me – to pieces. At the last possible second alien safety systems re-engaged, bringing us to a controlled stop.

I popped the canopy and jumped out. The ship’s emergency lighting flooded the immediate landing area. I seemed to have arrived in someone’s bedroom. At least, it looked like a bedroom, but something felt off. For a start no one was here. Not that they hadn’t yet come to bed, it looked as if no one had ever slept here. It was then that I noticed all the other bedrooms laid out around an open corridor and a bunch of labels with weird alien names. In a flash I knew where I was.

“IKEA,” I mumbled.

From inside the ship I heard the onboard computer’s voice once more. “Activating environmental stealth mode.”

The ship began to change shape, transforming from its classic saucer-with-legs outline into a stylishly minimalist bedroom set. In seconds it had morphed into a bunk bed, a modular sofa and a storage unit in lime green.

“Flat pack achieved,” declared the computer, which was now a bedside lamp. I knew it was the lamp because every time it spoke the light would flash. I could have sworn that the computer’s voice sounded different too. Like a detective from one of those Scandinavian TV shows Mum and Dad were always watching. Which made sense since it was trying to fit in to its surroundings. I had to admit that it was a brilliant disguise. No one would ever notice an extra bedroom in IKEA.

With the ship safely concealed I made my way out of the store to the nearest road. I shivered in the cold night air and took a moment to look up at the stars and reflect on my journey. I’d come a long way. The universe was a big place, but the multiverse was incomprehensibly bigger. Infinite, in fact. Universe upon universe, floating forever in the darkness. It was why I had risked all to travel here. That, and comics. They had taught me that in the multiverse everything is true. From planets made of cheese to civilisations where the dominant lifeforms are hyper-intelligent unicycles, worlds where dinosaurs still roamed, to worlds where everyone is a cowboy (and rides a dinosaur), anything that can be imagined existed out there, somewhere. I was counting on it.

For instance, at that very moment not far from where I stood, my family lay asleep in their beds. A parallel version of my family, leading different lives: Mum, Dad, Zack and me. I scanned the road ahead.

It was time to go and wake myself up.

2

HE’S NOT AN EVIL ROBOT IMPOSTER

“I sincerely hope The Avengers do not show up,” said Serge, looking round the tree house, “as we are dangerously low on quiche.”

He made a good point. Not about the quiche, but he was right about one thing. The tree house was crowded with superheroes, all chatting to each other about how super they were, while enjoying a finger buffet.

In one corner munching a sausage on a stick stood Star Lad, aka my big brother Zack Parker. Next to him Dark Flutter, otherwise known as my friend and neighbour Lara Lee, sipped sparkling apple juice from a plastic champagne flute. And finally there was Stellar, whose real name was Luke Parker. Yes, I know, that’s my name too. Bear with me, as this gets a bit multiverse-y.

The Luke Parker on the opposite side of the room came from another, nearly identical Earth that existed in a parallel dimension to ours. From what I could understand of the complex science involved, he and I were basically the same person – being born, growing up, doing all the same things – until a fateful decision caused our paths to split. And what changed everything?

An unfortunately timed call of nature, that’s what.

I went for a wee and missed the most important five minutes in history, when a trans-dimensional alien called Zorbon the Decider visited the tree house and bestowed my big brother with powers. Precisely the same thing happened on the parallel Earth, with one crucial difference.

The Other Luke held it in.

Which meant he was still in his tree house when Zorbon popped round to hand out superpowers. In his world he, not Zack, was the one who became Star Lad. Stellar. In his world he prevented the planet-crushing Nemesis asteroid from destroying the earth. And now he was here. In my world.

“Good one,” Zack roared with laughter, clapping Stellar on the back. “You’re so funny.”

I ground my teeth together until they squeaked. The Other Luke had only been here twenty-four hours but I was already sure about one thing.

I didn’t like him.

For a start he refused to be called Other Luke, or Luke Two, or Super-Annoying-Luke, claiming that he was the original and if anyone should be footnoted to avoid confusion it ought to be me. The cheek! Unfortunately, I seemed to be the only one with an issue. Zack thought he was simply hi-lari-ous, Serge was fanboy-ing over the new superhero, as usual, and Lara was already lining him up for an interview in the school newspaper. Worst of all, they just assumed that Luke-Out-Here-Comes-Trouble and I must be best buds since we were pretty much the same person.

Serge appeared at my shoulder, holding a silver tray piled with some kind of breaded fishy things. He had proposed the welcome party for the new arrival and taken it upon himself to provide the catering.

He shook his head in wonder. “How did the world suddenly become so full of superheroes?” He thrust the tray under my nose. “Sole goujon with mango and lime dip?”

“No, thanks.” I pushed it away. “And what is that music?”

“It is my Serge Gainsbourg playlist.” He prodded the volume control on the portable Bluetooth speaker. “He is my namesake.”

Serge appeared to be named after some bloke who sang like he was gargling with gravel-filled mouthwash. My namesake was refilling Lara’s glass and launching into yet another side-splitting anecdote that involved him singlehandedly saving the world. The other world.

I sidled closer to Serge and whispered, “Are we quite certain he’s not an evil robot double?” It was a reasonable question. We’d barely had time to catch our breath since running into a cyborg imposter in the course of thwarting an alien invasion last month.

Serge sighed. “We have been through this, mon ami; he is the real thing.”

I bristled with indignation. “I beg your pardon?”

“You are the real thing, of course,” stuttered Serge. “But he is also the real thing.”

I grunted and stuffed a goujon into my face. “Well, what’s he doing here? All we know is what he’s told us: that Zorbon the Decider dropped him off. What are we now – a superhero crèche?”

Serge sighed. “I am perfectly confident that some world-shattering event will be along presently, bringing with it yet another interlude of horror, anguish and indigestion. But perhaps first we could take a brief moment to enjoy the buffet.”

I watched him cross the room and offer round the tray. Hey-Luke-At-Me continued to impress the others with his fabulousness. At one point Zack was laughing so hard he choked on a pizza whirl and Stellar had to use his telekinetic power to dislodge it. They carried on talking shop, comparing cape lengths and discussing which was better – a full-face mask or one that covered just the eyes. Lara was explaining how she could control most small animals, except for cats. No one could control cats. Then she organised everyone into a line and took a photo with the new phone she got after her parents split up.

The break-up had just happened. She and Cara were still living in the house on our street but her dad had moved out. Lara said it had been coming for a long time, but she was still really upset. I told her it could’ve been worse. When Scarlet Witch and the Vision broke up, his mind was wiped, she went bonkers and they discovered their twins were pieces of a demon’s soul. I think that helped put things in perspective for her. And at school I knew loads of kids whose parents didn’t live together. What’s more, as far as I could make out, there was an upside. While I wouldn’t like it if my mum and dad decided to go their separate ways, when George Barton’s broke up, he got an iPad. Judging from Lara’s shiny new smartphone there seemed to be a pattern involving separation and high-end electrical goods.

Lara marshalled Stellar and the others for one more snap. The three super-buddies and Serge hadn’t seemed to notice my absence. Which was understandable, since there I stood in the middle of the group, being funny and charming. Me. Not-me.

My greatest wish in the world was to become a superhero – and it had come true. Right wish, right person. Just the wrong world. This was so weird.

“This is so weird,” said Luke-What-Schrödinger’s-Cat-Dragged-In. “Hey, Other Luke, don’t stand there vibrating like a sad electron. Get over here and join the party.”

Now he was calling me Other Luke? He’d gone too far. Whose parallel dimension was this anyway? “If I were an electron then as part of a quantum field I could effectively be in two places at once,” I sneered. “So I could be standing here outside the party, and also over there with you. At the same time.”

There was a long silence. I imagined the others were being impressed by my brilliant comeback.

“Well, you kind of are,” said Stellar with a broad grin that displayed two rows of shining white teeth. Toothpaste was clearly more advanced in his dimension.

“Show-off,” I muttered under my breath, and grudgingly made my way over.

“Stand there,” ordered Lara. “Serge, you too. I want a picture with everyone.”

I shuffled up next to the others as she positioned her phone for a high-angle group selfie.

“Not too close, Other Luke,” Stellar warned. “You and I must be very careful never to touch one another. We are already stretching reality to breaking point by existing in the same dimension. We’re like matter and antimatter. I’m obviously matter. Please keep your distance, for the sake of all reality.”

I’d expected something like this. In comics and films it’s a common problem. When matter and antimatter touch it usually causes the end of the universe or something equally dire.

There was the snap of a shutter as Lara took the shot and inspected the photograph. “Nice.”

Stellar reached for a canapé from Serge’s tray. “Merely brushing against one another will trigger the collapse of stars and lead to the end of everything as we— Oops!”

He tripped over his cape and fell towards me. Instinctively I flung out my arms. Next thing I knew we were in an embrace, arms wrapped round each other, identical noses pressed together.

“Aaah!” yelled Serge, dropping his tray with a clang. “It is the end of the world. Then with my final breath I must confess my true feelings.” He turned to Lara, dragging a hand across his sweating brow. “Lara Lee, aka Dark Flutter, I have something I must tell you. Before the stars go out for the last time, let me declare that I lo—”

A snigger burst from Stellar’s lips. Serge’s declaration came to a crashing halt, much like an intergalactic cruise liner hitting a space-berg.

“Sorry,” mouthed Stellar. “Couldn’t resist.”

I pushed him off me. “That wasn’t funny. You don’t joke about apocalyptic singularities.”

Zack was trying to pretend he disapproved, but he couldn’t keep a straight face.

“It is not the end of the world?” said a small French voice. Serge was sinking fast. And there definitely wasn’t room on this life-raft.

Stellar straightened his cape. “Not today, mon ami.”

In the embarrassed silence that followed, the only sound was Serge’s namesake crooning from the speaker.

Serge bent to collect the spilled canapés and Lara helped him clear up the mess. I couldn’t help notice that they studiously avoided each other’s gaze.

“I think it’s time I told you why I’m here,” said Stellar, striding into the centre of the room. “I need your help,” he declared.

“Well, you’ve come to the right place,” I said, pleased at last to be able to demonstrate my usefulness. “We are S.C.A.R.F., the Superhero Covert Alliance Reaction Force. And we’re in the business of—”

“No, not your help,” said Stellar, cutting across me. He fixed Zack with a long look. “Just yours.” Stellar planted his feet shoulder-width apart and put his hands on his hips. “My world is in peril. Only by combining our superpowered forces can we hope to overcome the evil might of Gorgon the World-Eater.” He extended a gloved hand towards Zack. “Come with me, Star Lad; help me save my world.”

Zack pulled at an ear. “Um, yes, of course. Absolutely. But I don’t suppose it can wait? It’s just that I’ve got exams. They’re only mocks, but…”

I cast a disbelieving glance at my brother. What kind of way was that for a superhero to behave? When Batman sees the Bat Signal he doesn’t say, oh hang on a minute I’m just finishing this jigsaw.

“It can wait,” said Stellar.

“It can?!” I blurted.

“Oh yeah,” said Stellar with a wave. “You can’t rush into confronting a thirty-storey tall megademon with superpowers. We need time to plan. And according to my latest intelligence report, Gorgon is massing his forces in his hidden base. He won’t be ready to strike my world until…” He sent Zack a questioning look, as if my brother would know.

“Saturday?” suggested Zack.

Stellar nodded firmly. “Yeah. Saturday first thing.”

“You’ll miss Dad’s comic-shop opening,” I said.

Zack shrugged. “Then I’ll have to miss it. Nothing is more important than saving the world.”

“Except your mocks,” I muttered. Zack was taking maths, physics and chemistry early. Did someone say super-show-off?

“If you did want to stay for the opening,” said Stellar, “we could probably leave right after and still be back in time to defeat Gorgon the World-Eater.”

He made it sound as if they were trying to make a swimming lesson, not confront a world-eating monster.

“Only if you’re sure,” said Zack.

Stellar nodded again. “The more time we have together strategising the better, right?”

The two superheroes grinned at each other. Decision made, the two of them immediately began devising their plan.

“I think better when I fly,” said Stellar. “Shall we?”

With that they bounded out of the tree house, leaving the rest of us standing around with little to say and a lot of uneaten canapés. Typical. Stellar looked like me, sounded like me, but was as annoying as my big brother.

3

THE ROAD NOT TAKEN

“Stellar is clever, non?” It was the Monday after the welcome party and Serge and I were back at school. He seemed to have forgiven Stellar for embarrassing him in front of Lara, and had slipped in to his default state of fanboy excitement. “Put yourself in his shoes for un moment.”

I frowned at my best friend. Really?

“Ah, desolé.” He reached into a pocket for a packet of Fruit Pastilles. “But imagine: you are Stellar, pitched against the evil that is Gorgon the World-Eater, a deadly foe with eyes and ears everywhere.” He paused. “I do not mean to suggest that the deadly foe’s body is covered with eyes and ears in some sort of terrifying mutation, only that he has a highly efficient intelligence network.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

“So, how do you outwit such an all-seeing enemy? From where do you recruit an ally? A completely different universe. Such brilliant strategic thinking, do you not agree?”

I did agree, but that didn’t mean I had to say so aloud. Stellar’s brilliance wasn’t something I had any wish to celebrate.

“It is just the sort of superior plan that you would come up with.”

I smiled at the unexpected compliment. It was weird being best friends with someone who won’t stop gushing about your trans-dimensional superhero double, so it was good to hear he hadn’t forgotten that Stellar and I were different people. Even if we were also the same person. This quantum entanglement stuff made my head hurt.

“But did you really buy that business about Gorgon the World-Eater?” For a terrifying global threat, Stellar had been remarkably relaxed about the timescale. And there was something about the stupid name. It teased a distant memory that I couldn’t pin down. “What kind of name is that anyway? I bet he doesn’t actually eat worlds.”

Serge thought for a moment. “It is possible that he calls himself Gorgon the World-Eater not for any concurrence with a particular set of superpowers, but simply because it is a chilling name. There are many similar examples. Doctor Doom, for instance, whom you never see interrupt his evil plans in order to spend a morning writing prescriptions at the local GP surgery. Fruit Pastille?” Serge offered me the packet and I took one.

“Stellar’s so full of himself,” I said, chewing the sweet. “Now, if I had superpowers…” I caught Serge’s eye and felt myself run out of steam. We both knew the end of that sentence had already been filled in, and it was temporarily sleeping in my tree house. Stellar was camped there, safely out of sight. I’d lent him a spare house key so he could nip in and use the toilet, figuring if he happened to bump into Mum or Dad they’d think he was me.

The school buzzer sounded and we plodded off to our next classes. Phoebe Warren strolled past stroking a guinea pig, followed by Edouard Galliard carrying a stick insect in a glass case. It was Pets In School week, and the whole place was one squeaking, barking, mewing, clicking petting zoo. I didn’t currently have a pet. My last one had been a gerbil when I was six years old. He’d had a tan and white coat and distinctive black marks over his eyes like a superhero mask. I’d named him Wayne and spent all my birthday money on him, filling his cage with a gerbil wheel, a climbing frame, his own special tunnel habitat and even a pet-powered car. I was training him to be the gerbil equivalent of Batman. I also wanted him to live forever and have laser eyes. I missed Wayne.

Serge and I paused outside the stairwell that led to the science corridor. “Are you coming over to the shop later?” I asked him.

The shop in question was Crystal Comics, formerly owned by supervillain turned saviour of Earth, Christopher Talbot. He had sacrificed himself in defence of the planet, and left me his shop. At least, he’d meant to. In reality, what he’d left were three months’ unpaid rent and a stockroom full of comics that technically the bank owned. My dad had dealt with Barclays and was now in the process of fixing up the shop for its grand reopening this weekend. Every spare minute I had I was helping out.

“Of course,” said Serge. “Where else would I be?”

“I thought you might prefer hanging out with Stellar.”

“It is true I plan to check in on him at lunchtime.” He patted his bulging schoolbag. “I have a beef bourguignon and a very nice bottle of grape juice.”

We agreed to meet up after school, and then I went to my English class and Serge headed off for an hour of physics teaching that now seemed doubtful at best, its basic principles having been blown out of the water by the existence of the occupant of my tree house.

English wasn’t on much more solid ground. We were reading this poem written by Mr Freeze, or Frost, or some name like that. It’s about a man in a wood who I think is lost. The poem doesn’t tell you how he got lost in the first place – was he marooned on a far-flung planet while being chased by a tribe of alien hunters? Was he a highly trained spy with amnesia? It’s a bit vague on those points. Anyway, he comes across two paths and has to choose one. Our teacher, Mr Bonnick, asked the class if we thought the man had chosen the wrong path. I said if it were a videogame it wouldn’t matter, since there’d be a save-point and if you did choose the wrong path you could go back and try again.

I learned that in this respect poetry is not like a videogame.

My mind drifted back to Stellar and I raised my hand again. I added that if you were part of a quantum field so that you were effectively two people then you could choose both paths at the same time. Mr Bonnick hadn’t thought of that.

I wondered how Stellar was getting on in the tree house. I’d left him a stack of comics, but he’d read them all before. He said they had exactly the same comics in his universe, except there Superman is an aardvark. Then wouldn’t he be Superaardvark, I’d said, and Stellar had grinned. He was pulling my leg. Again. In quantum physics it seems you can pull your own leg.

When the lesson finished I sprinted to the door with the rest of the class. From behind me I heard a voice.

“Hey, Luke. Mate.”

I turned to see the figure of Joshpal Khan, weaving through the crowd. Josh used to torment me at every opportunity, but since discovering I was best friends with his idol, Dark Flutter, he’d changed his tune. I think he was hoping I’d introduce him to his superhero crush.

“You going to lunch, cuz?” he asked, eyes wide.

That was another thing. One of Josh’s cousins had recently married one of mine, which to my horror meant that we had become distantly related. “Uhh…” I hesitated. I was due to meet Lara in the cafeteria – she wanted to discuss some important S.C.A.R.F. business. The last thing I needed was Josh tagging along.

“Great,” said Josh. “I’ll come with you.”

Clamping a hand on my shoulder, he propelled me from the classroom and along the corridor. He was like some kind of bodyguard, pushing people out of my way, barking orders to make space. When we reached the cafeteria I’m pretty sure he would have tasted my food if I’d asked him. The meatloaf did look dodgy.

“What’s he doing here?” Lara whispered as Josh banged his tray down beside us and pulled up a chair. I could only offer an apologetic shrug. Our S.C.A.R.F. meeting would have to wait.

Josh scraped his chair closer to mine. “So, Luke-a-saurus,” he said, leaning in and lowering his voice. “Seen much of You-know-who lately?”

“You mean Dark Flutter?”

“Shh,” he hissed, gesturing over his shoulder. “Don’t want everyone to know.”

Lara pretended to fiddle with her phone. Naturally, Josh had no idea that she was Dark Flutter. If he’d thought about it he might recall never seeing them both in the same room at the same time, which is often a giveaway in these situations, but Josh wasn’t the most observant of people. One thing had become obvious: I wasn’t getting shot of him over lunch.

“She called you Commander,” he whispered. “Said you were leader of something called … M.I.T.T.E.N.S?”