Captain Awesome to the Rescue! Read online

  Table of Contents

  1. Here He Comes to Save the Day!

  2. The Attack of Queen Stinkypants!

  3. Evil Wears Pink Ribbons in Its Hair!

  4. Introducing Turbo

  5. Lunchtime Surprise!

  6. The Lost Hamster Weekend

  7. 1 Boy - 1 Hamster = Bad News

  8. Captain Awesome Hatches an Awesome Plan

  9. Captain Awesome Saves the Day and the Hamster

  10. The End Is Right Here

  “Where’s my Captain Awesome cape?” Eugene grumbled as he searched his closet. He tossed clothes back over his head, covering a stack of Super Dude comic books.

  Psssst! Want to know a secret? It’s the most hugest, gigantist, enormondoist secret ever. The boy looking for his cape is not just eight-year-old Eugene McGillicudy, son of Ned and Betsy, and brother to his little sister, Molly. He’s also the superhero known as Captain Awesome!

  Say it out loud:

  Eugene came up with that name himself. That’s one of the cool things about being a superhero. You get to pick your own name. And if you’re making up your own superhero name, it shouldn’t be something lame like “Captain Just Okay.” It should be mighty, like . . . Captain Awesome! MI-TEE!

  Eugene plopped on the pile of clothes and crossed his arms. Next time, I’ll remember to follow Superhero Rule number one: Never let your mom pack your superhero stuff when you’re moving to a new town. I bet Super Dude’s mom never lost his cape.

  Wait! You’ve never heard of Super Dude?! He’s only THE coolest, bravest, heroist superhero of all time, and the one responsible for Eugene becoming Captain Awesome.

  It all started the day Eugene’s dad gave him his copy of Super Dude No. 1. Sure, it might’ve looked like he was just giving Eugene the comic so he wouldn’t tell his mother who ate the last of the chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream, but Eugene knew what his dad was secretly telling him: Since he’s too busy with work and dad-stuff like mowing lawns and telling Eugene to keep his elbows off the dinner table, and eating the last of his mom’s chocolate-chocolate chip ice cream, it was up to Eugene to save the world from now on!

  Eugene and his family had just moved to a new town for his dad’s job called Sunnyview—he worked for Cherry Computers. (“Cherry’s on Top!”)

  “Eugene!” his mom called from downstairs. “Can you please come down when you get a chance? I want to talk to you about school.”

  Oh, great! First she loses my cape and now she wants to talk about school! Eugene looked at the calendar on his wall. And tomorrow’s my first day.

  Hooray.

  BY HOORAY I REALLY MEAN BARF! I DON’T WANT TO GO TO A NEW SCHOOL!

  Eugene fell backward into his clothes pile and covered his head with his pajamas.

  Things were really getting desperate! First his cape was missing, and now school talk?! Yuck! Could today get any worse?!

  Eugene leaped to his feet and struck a superhero pose. “Miff ivnent da mime poo burry abut barf—” Eugene stopped and yanked the pajamas off his face. “This isn’t the time to worry about BARF and new schools,” Eugene said and punched his hand into his palm. “I need to find my cape or Captain Awesome won’t be able to protect Sunnyview from the evil doings of bad guys like Queen Stinkypants, Baron Von Booger, or Dr. Spinach. Letting the bad guys win is worse than homework . . . on a weekend!”

  Evildoers all over Sunnyview had better beware, because Captain Awesome was going to ferret them out just like a, well, a ferret ferrets stuff, except he’ll be wearing a superhero outfit and he won’t have a furry tail.

  Captain Awesome will give bad guys his famous one-two punch and tell them to change their ways and become good guys . . . or . . . he’ll . . . tell their parents.

  And if you think the Captain Awesome one-two punch sounds scary, you should see a super-villain’s angry parents. Bad guys hate to lose, but they hate being grounded even more!

  But instead of fighting evil this morning, Eugene was digging through all the boxes in his new bedroom looking for his superhero cape.

  “I’ll bet Super Dude never had days like this.” Eugene sighed.

  And that’s when Eugene heard it! The evil “Goo!” and “Gaaah!” of his archenemy . . . Queen Stinkypants from Planet Baby!

  Left foot. Right foot. “Goo.” Fall down. Get up. Left foot. Right foot. Fall down. “Gaah.” Get up.

  “I’d know those sounds anywhere!” Eugene raced to his bedroom door and peeked down the hallway . . . and there she was! “QUEEN STINKYPANTS!” he cried. “My archenemy from Planet Baby!”

  Even from the safety of his secret hideout, Eugene could smell the terrible stink of her stinky stink powers! Blech!

  “She followed me to Sunnyview! She found my secret hideout! She’ll discover my secret identity!” wailed Eugene. Then he realized the worst thing of all! “AHHHH! She’ll drool all over my toys! For the sake of all the arms and legs of my action figures, and the safety of the universe, I have to stop her!”

  Eugene jumped onto his bed. He stuck out his chest and thrust his fist into the sky, just like he had seen Super Dude do on the cover of Super Dude No. 7 when he fought the Society of Evil Babysitters.

  “Queen Stinkypants must never, ever, ever, nope, never enter my secret base! So vows Captain Awesome! Heroes don’t let villains do that . . . especially stinky supervillains because you’ll never get the smell out of your carpet!”

  She would not, COULD NOT be allowed to enter the room. Captain Awesome doesn’t like bad guys, and he also doesn’t like cleaning his room.

  Eugene raced to his closet and grabbed his Captain Awesome suit. Quickly, he tried to pull it on over his tennis shoes. That didn’t work! He lost his balance.

  “ACK!” he yelled as he fell to the floor.

  “Hey! There you are!” Eugene’s cape was under the bed! Standing up, he flipped the cape over his head . . . and couldn’t see a thing. The cape covered his face!

  He bumped into his bed and fell to the floor, again.

  That was either the sound of his head hitting the floor or THE SOUND OF QUEEN STINKYPANTS at his door!

  Eugene fixed his cape as the door flung open. A blast of evil, stinky, smelly baby came at him.

  “Ugh.” Eugene made that face you make when you see brussels sprouts. YUCKY!

  Queen Stinkypants babbled in her secret, evil baby language.

  Eugene knew what every sound meant though. After she stunk up his room, she was going to drool on everything he held most dear. He had to protect his army of action figures and his collection of Super Dude comic books.

  GROSS!

  “No drooling on my watch, villain!” Eugene called out. Captain Awesome, and his cape, leaped into action!

  RIIIIIING!

  “Arrgh!” Eugene cried out.

  The school bell! Was it the first bell or the second bell at Sunnyview Elementary School? Was he on time or later than late? Being late was bad, but being later than late, and on the first day at a new school, was the worst. Like green-bean-ice-cream-covered-in-broccoli-mush-sauce worse.

  And just as YUCKY!

  Eugene cracked open the door to the school hallway. Hallways were a danger zone where the principal or vice principal patrolled—a duo of doom that would like to lock up a late student in their DUNGEON OF DETENTION. Together they would wait like furry little spiders hungry for a buzzing late fly with a backpack.

  STOMP! STOMP-STOMP!

  Footsteps echoed down the empty hall! Only a principal would wear shoes that STOMPED so . . . loud . . . or someone wearing bricks on their feet. Oh no! What if the principal’s shoes are made of bricks? Eugene gasped. What kind of school is this place?

  Eugene dove in
to the nearest classroom to avoid Principal Brick Foot. He ducked as the principal lumbered by. STOMP! STOMP-STOMP! echoed down the hall.

  “You’ll never catch me, Principal Brick Foot.” Eugene chuckled.

  “Can I help you?” a voice behind him asked.

  Eugene spun from the door and faced . . . a TEACHER.

  “N-no,” he stammered. “I was just hiding from Principal Brick Foot.” The class laughed. Eugene’s fingers dug into his backpack, clutching it tighter to his chest.

  “I’ll bet you’re Eugene McGillicudy,” Ms. Beasley, the teacher, said.

  Eugene gasped. How could she know that? And then he realized the worstest, awfulest truth: She can read minds! Eugene grabbed his head to stop her from sucking more thoughts from his brain.

  Ms. Beasley held up her right hand and the class stopped giggling. “Eugene, I have your name on my roll sheet as the new student. Why don’t you tell us all about yourself?”

  Eugene looked around, hoping there was another new boy named Eugene standing behind him. I’ll bet Super Dude never has to stand in front of class and talk about himself, Eugene thought. I also bet Super Dude doesn’t have a brain-sucker for a teacher.

  “Ha-ha-ha!” Meredith Mooney laughed. “The new kid is a scaredypants. Oh, please tell us about your oh-so-special self, Eugene. Won’t you, please? My ears can’t wait!”

  “Meredith. Please be polite,” Ms. Beasley said.

  Eugene guessed that Meredith’s mother must’ve tied the pink ribbons in her hair too tight. That would explain a lot about how she was acting.

  “We are all waiting, Eugene,” Ms. Beasley reminded.

  Then Eugene realized something more awful than a babysitter with bad breath! The teacher and Meredith were working together.

  Like Super Dude always said: “Ohhh NO!”

  Ms. Beasley had to be MISS BEASTLY, yet another villain destined to do really bad stuff to the mighty Captain Awesome . . . and the universe. Like give me really hard homework, Eugene realized. Every night . . . just for fun!

  Not today, villain! Eugene was on to her secret plan. Ms. Beastly wanted him to tell everyone about himself so he’d reveal his secret identity as Captain Awesome! She was using her evil sidekick, Little Miss Stinky Pinky, to tease him into doing it!

  Looks like it was time to send evil to bed without its dessert. Miss Beastly and Little Miss Stinky Pinky would be no match for the awesomest power of Captain Awesome!

  MI-TEE!

  Eugene’s second day at school was much like his first: a ringing bell and a narrow escape from Principal Brick Foot. Meredith Mooney called him Pizza Breath. So what if Eugene liked to sneak leftover pizza from the fridge for breakfast? Ms. Beasley once again called on him to stand in front of the class.

  That’s when things got weirder than a frog with three eyes and a purple cowboy hat.

  “How would you like to be in charge of Turbo?” Ms. Beasley asked.

  What was this Operation Turbo? Some kind of supervillain trap? Was Eugene being called on to save the school? To turn up the air conditioning? To find out what was being served for lunch today? That was easy. Something GROSS!

  “Turbo?” Eugene said. “What’s a turbo?”

  “Turbo is our class pet. He’s a hamster.” Ms. Beasley pointed to a cage in the back of the room. A little brown-and- white hamster was happily spinning on his squeaky metal exercise wheel.

  Eugene paused. Definitely a trap.

  “He? What?! Turbo?! I’m supposed to take care of Turbo!” Meredith whined, clearly unhappy with Ms. Beasley’s choice.

  “I’ll do it!” Eugene blurted. Even if it was a trap, if it made Meredith unhappy, Eugene was ready to go! Eugene’s heart soared like Super Dude’s after that time he put Commander Barf Face in space jail in issue No. 34.

  Meredith, like many villains, had a calendar to prove it was her turn to care for the little furry creature.

  Unfortunately, she held it too close to Turbo’s cage. The roly-poly hamster grabbed her calendar in his paws and started chomping so fast that Eugene understood why he was called “Turbo.”

  Turbo stopped chewing and looked up at Eugene. Did the hamster just smile?

  “I really like this hamster,” Eugene said. He was also starting to think that maybe, just maybe, Ms. Beasley wasn’t so bad after all.

  There was one thing about Sunnyview that was the same as Eugene’s old school. He could smell the Mystery Meatloaf Surprise long before he saw it.

  Eugene got his lunch and went to find a seat.

  There was a sinking feeling in his stomach, and it wasn’t from the smell of the Mystery Meatloaf Surprise.

  It was that horrible feeling that all new kids get . . . where to sit in the cafeteria. Meredith and her friends sat at one table. No chance Eugene would sit with them. There was an open seat next to Mike Flinch, but he smelled like Eugene’s grandpa who spent most of his time in his backyard digging for lost pirate treasure.

  “Hey, Eugene! Yo! Over here!” Charlie Thomas Jones called out. Charlie was the one boy who didn’t laugh when Meredith Mooney was teasing Eugene.

  Eugene put down his tray and sat. Charlie brought his own lunch. He had two cans of squirt cheese and a stack of crackers. He squirted little cheese mountains on top of each cracker.

  “You sure do like cheese,” Eugene commented.

  “It’s better than that stuff.” Charlie pointed at the rectangle on Eugene’s tray. “You’re eating the Mystery Meatloaf Surprise.”

  If a supervillain ever created a blob of gooey garbage to rob Eugene of his Captain Awesome powers, it would probably look a lot like the grayish-brown meat-thing sitting on Eugene’s tray. “What’s the surprise?” Eugene asked.

  “You’ll find out,” Charlie said. “You must have an iron stomach stronger than Super Dude to eat that stuff.”

  “Super Dude?” Eugene was shocked. “You know who Super Dude is?”

  “I have every one of his comic books!” Charlie proudly said. “I’ve also got a Super Dude action figure on my dresser and this talking Super Dude watch.” Charlie pressed a button on his watch.

  “Danger is my middle name!” the watch announced.

  “Super Dude’s my most favorite superhero EVER!” Eugene liked Charlie, but he wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to tell him about his secret identity as Captain Awesome just yet.

  Eugene took a bite of his meatloaf and made a yuck face.

  “Surprise!” Charlie laughed.

  Eugene laughed, then gagged. He spit out his bite of Mystery Meatloaf Surprise and hid it under a pile of corn. At least, he thought it was corn. . . .

  Ms. Beasley had given Eugene a job, and he was going to do it right. That weekend he took Turbo home and introduced him to Mom, Dad, and Molly.

  Eugene kept the cage in his bedroom, and whenever he left, he loaded Turbo into his round, plastic hamster ball—the Turbomobile—so that Turbo could follow him. Turbo joined him at the swing set, by the bathtub, and even at the dinner table.

  “At least he keeps his cute little elbows off the table,” Eugene’s mom said, pointing to Turbo.

  Eugene even shared his secret with his new friend.

  “Turbo,” Eugene whispered. “I know I can trust you with a secret, mostly because no one understands Hamster, but I want you to feel safe here because underneath these matching clothes, I’m really . . . CAPTAIN AWESOME!”

  Turbo unleashed a tiny squeak, and Eugene smiled. A hamster’s squeak was as good as a handshake, and he knew his secret would be safe.

  But Sunday morning brought trouble.

  Eugene slept late, sleeping sounder than Super Dude’s sidekick Sergeant Super Bear during his winter hibernation in deep space. When Eugene finally woke up, he reached over to Turbo’s cage on the nightstand.

  “Good morning, Turbo!” Eugene said happily. “Let’s see what Mom made for breakfast! Will it be Pancakes of Power or Titanium French Toast?”

  But Turbo didn’t squeak an answer! He was
gone!

  “Turbo!” Eugene yelled. “Where are you?” Eugene jumped to his feet and pounded his fist into his palm. “This has to be the wicked work of the most super of duper supervillains . . . ever! Which one could it be?”

  Eugene thought for a moment. Superheroes have a lot of enemies, but who hamsternapped his friend Turbo?

  And more importantly, how could Eugene face Ms. Beasley and the rest of his class if they knew that Turbo was missing?

  “Blah blah blah! Toldja sotoldja so-toldja so! Yackity yack yack!” He could already hear Meredith’s teasing.

  For the sake of Turbo—and the fear of Meredith’s “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah”s—he had to find Turbo before it was too late.

  Then Eugene heard giggling! It was the girly little giggle and baby babble that could only come from his dreaded enemy: Queen Stinkypants had returned!

  The giggling came from behind the door at the end of the hall. Eugene wondered what Queen Stinkypants was up to. And then it hit him!

  Queen Stinkypants can speak Hamster!

  Unable to enter Captain Awesome’s awesome headquarters, Queen Stinkypants hoped that Captain Awesome’s new friend, Turbo, would reveal all of Captain Awesome’s awesome secrets.

  Eugene raced back to his room to get his Captain Awesome outfit. Super Dude would never leave his outfit in a pile on the floor of his bedroom! That’s because superheroes are supposed to keep their bedrooms clean—especially if they still live with their parents.