Not that the people inside the shop would reject someone because of his appearance. What turned them off about the brute was how he manhandled the comics. He bent them. He smeared them with his greasy hand. He scratched them with his hook. He was single-handedly turning mint-condition comics into “fair condition”—at best.

“Heroes disgust me,” the man grunted at Albert. His voice sounded like a sledgehammer.

Albert tilted his head but said nothing.

“They offer so little to the world,” the man continued.

“If you’re into books about villains there are plenty—”

The man continued as if Albert had not spoken. “Do they build things? Do they invent things? Do they create machines that change the world? No! All heroes do is break things.”

“That’s a little simple,” Albert said.

The man turned to him and frowned. “Oh, is it? Look at the covers of these books. Every single one of them has a scientist, an inventor, a visionary whose plans are ruined by a man in rubber pajamas. These so-called heroes hate science. They turn their fists and powers on great thinkers. Heroes are a menace. Don’t ya agree, Albert?”

“How did you know my name?” Albert said.

“I know lots of stuff about you, Albert. Or do you prefer your other name, Captain Justice?”

Albert felt a bead of sweat trickle down his face. How did this man know his secret identity? The same thing had happened to Spider-Man once, but for the life of him Albert could not remember how Peter Parker had handled it. “What do you want?” he whispered.

“Me? Nuthin’. It’s my boss. He wants to meet you,” the man said as he handed Albert a business card. It was stuck on the end of his hook. “He wants your help. If you’re interested, go to the address on the card.”

Albert gingerly pulled the card off the sharp tip. “My help? What can I do for him?”

“He wants to hire you to do a job for him and he’s offering you your greatest desire as payment.”

“And how would he know what my greatest desire is?” Albert asked as he looked down at the card. The name Simon was printed on it. The goon’s hook had cut a hole in the center of the “o.”

“Isn’t it obvious, pal? You want to have superpowers—real-life superpowers.”

“Good afternoon,” Duncan said to a stocky, thick-limbed lunch lady behind the counter in the school cafeteria. She had hairy, tattooed arms and smoked a cigar. She also needed a shave.

The lunch lady nodded. “Good afternoon,” she said in a gruff voice. “I have something very special on the menu that I think you—”

Duncan shook his head and lifted a brown paper bag so the lunch lady could see. “I brought mine from home. I just need a spoon, please.”

The lunch lady bit down on his lower lip. He took great pride in his cooking. Yes, I said “he.”

The lunch lady had a few secrets besides his carefully guarded recipes. Most of them are classified, but suffice it to say the lunch lady was not really a lunch lady. Nor was the lunch lady really a lady. No, she—I mean he —was actually a spy, just like Duncan Dewey. But while Duncan got to stroll the halls of Nathan Hale Elementary dressed as a normal fifth grader, the lunch lady had to wear a smock, wig, and hairnet to work every single day. Still, despite his lousy cover, he was content. He had discovered the joy of cooking. It wasn’t as much fun as, say, cleaning his bazooka or knife-fighting with terrorists, but it did give him some satisfaction.

“Are you sure? Today we have tilapia with cranberries and capers,” he continued. “Tilapia is a lovely fish—”

Duncan shook his head. “I’m good. Just the spoon, please.”

The lunch lady frowned and eyed Duncan’s sack lunch with disdain. “You eat too much of that stuff, kid. Don’t you ever get tired of it?”

Duncan shook his head as the lunch lady handed him his utensil. “How could I get tired of the most delicious thing in the world?”

The lunch lady waved the boy away. “Then go! Get out of my kitchen!” he bellowed.

In the lunchroom, Duncan quickly spotted his best friend, Flinch. Flinch was a scrawny Mexican-American kid with dark hair and eyes. Like Duncan, he brought his own lunch. In Flinch’s case, two huge chocolate bars stacked like a sandwich with fruit pies and candy corn between them. As a side he had two perfectly toasted balls of fried ice cream, and for dessert, a jar of Marshmallow Fluff. He inhaled all of it at an incredible speed, and within a few seconds the boy was hooting and bouncing in his chair like a monkey.

“The lunch lady is grouchy,” Duncan said.

Flinch opened his mouth and a stream of crazy words and noises that made no sense spilled out. There were a few high-pitched screams and he slammed his head into the tabletop a couple times, then giggled like an idiot. Finally, he reached inside his shirt and turned a big glowing knob counterclockwise. It seemed to calm him down.

“Sorry, I’m a little wound up today,” Flinch said.

“Just today, huh?” Gluestick asked with a smile. He had known Flinch for almost two years, and he had always been hyperactive. Luckily, when the boys became members of NERDS, Flinch was given a special harness that channeled all that sugary energy into superhuman strength and speed. The harness also helped calm him down when he was on the verge of a hyperactive fit. Without it he was practically a blur of nervousness—hence his nickname, Flinch.

“Where’s the rest of the team?” Duncan said.

“Last I saw, Brett Bealer was ‘escorting’ them into the bathroom for their daily dip into the toilet,” Flinch said. “They’ll be along as soon as they dry their hair.”

“Any word from Agent Brand or Ms. Holiday?” Duncan asked as he opened his own sack lunch and took out his feast: a bologna sandwich, a banana, a small container of raisins, and a bottle of Elmer’s Glue. He opened the cap on the glue and smelled it the way grown-ups sniff a glass of wine. His nose came alive with flavors. It had been a good year for craft adhesives. Still, he knew he shouldn’t eat his dessert first, so he put the cap back on and set it aside.

“Nothing yet,” Flinch said. “I did run into Brand this morning, but he’s still in a foul mood. He wouldn’t even talk to me.”

“Ms. Holiday told me he’s still very upset about Heathcliff’s betrayal of the team. She says he thinks he failed us by not seeing what was going on earlier.”

Flinch shook his head. “I’ve known Heathcliff since the first grade. I didn’t see it coming. He was just a bad box of graham crackers.”

Suddenly, Duncan felt a tingle in his nose. His eyes watered and he let out a loud and obnoxious sneeze. Flinch did the same and then both of the boys heard a familiar voice inside their heads. “Gluestick, Flinch, this is Ms. Holiday. We need you in the Playground at once.”

Flinch hopped up, pounded on his chest, and bellowed like Tarzan. “Finally, a mission. I thought we were going to have to spend the day in class!”

“On our way,” Duncan said out loud, causing several children at nearby tables who had not heard the voice to move farther away.

Together Duncan and Flinch dashed out of the cafeteria. They weaved in and out of other students, slinked past the suspicious eyes of Principal Dehaven, and zipped down the halls as fast as they could. Along the way they came across a trio of children hurrying in the same direction. The first was Jackson Jones—a wide-eyed kid with lots of product in his blond hair and the worst set of braces ever attached to a human being. The second was Matilda Choi—a tiny Korean-American girl whose asthma inhalers never left her hands. And last was Ruby Peet, a rail-thin girl with a poof of blond hair and thick glasses. She spent most of her days scratching and avoiding the millions of things she was allergic to. At the moment her hands were swollen to the size of balloons.