Monster Club, page 3
“This is a good thing, Doodles! I think Hollywood could be great.”
“Hollywood?”
“Oh. That’s Ahmed’s nickname.”
“Why?”
“’Cause he wants to be a movie star one day. But the point is, Hollywood has true potential. Also, we’re gonna need more members if we want more epic battles.”
“Fine,” I said. He had a good point there, but I was skeptical that anyone other than us could be worthy of Monster Club. “We’ll see.”
Hollywood and his family were over at Yoo-hoo’s house the next Sunday, so I went across the street to see what all the hype was about. And wouldn’t you know it: Hollywood lived up to his name. He was way cooler than me and Yoo-hoo, with brand-new Air Jordans and zigzags shaved into the sides of his buzz cut. He was also passionate about movies, and funny, and—Yoo-hoo was right—he really did show membership potential. Not only did he have no problem with just watching for thirty minutes, but he easily picked up on the game rules once we allowed him to play. And he said nice things about Brickman.
“Your monster is dope.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said.
“What’s that coming from his hand? Cement?”
“Yeah. He can shoot it out of the fingers of his left hand.”
“But not his right?”
“No. Only the left.”
“I like that,” Hollywood said.
“BellyBeast is dope too, though, right?” Yoo-hoo asked.
“Yeah,” Hollywood said. “Sure.”
And thus, Ahmed “Hollywood” Wilson became the official third member of Monster Club, along with his creature, RoboKillz, a beautiful robot with shoulder missiles, all-terrain tank treads, and a saw-blade hand, inspired by Hollywood’s love of sci-fi, especially the Terminator movies. Hollywood went to PS 206 in a different neighborhood, Sheepshead Bay, so he obviously couldn’t play at recess, but after school and on the weekends, we battled every chance we could get. That’s the way it went through fifth grade, and then, miracle of miracles, Hollywood got into Mark Twain too, as a drama talent, so when this school year started, Monster Club went full throttle. He brought on his elementary school friend Beanie (science talent), I pulled in Smash (art talent, like me), and suddenly we were doing full tournaments, with brackets and everything.
It’s been the best part of my year by far.
Which is why I can’t believe I forgot that semifinals for the Spring Battle Royale are tomorrow. I haven’t even finished my new Brickman yet.
A car horn blares. I swing my handlebars wildly toward the curb as a Honda passes within inches of me, sending a gust of air whooshing past my nose. I was so lost in thought, I strayed into the line of traffic.
“You okay back there?” Yoo-hoo shouts from behind me.
I have no idea, I want to say. I’m not used to zoning out like that. I regain balance and stop wobbling. Possibly not.
Instead I shout back “All good” and we continue on our way.
3
School Monsters
Brickman wasn’t my first monster.
There were a few others before him. They were solid but ultimately failed attempts at creating the perfect battle beast.
There was Dust-Dragon, a huge purple dragon who, well . . . breathed dust instead of fire. There was The Hermit, a gigantic hermit crab who could ball up in her shell and steamroll her opponent. There was 5G, essentially a giant smartphone with claws who could blast Wi-Fi lasers at anyone in his way.
And then there was Brickman.
He’s not as flashy as those other monsters, and he doesn’t have nearly as many bells and whistles, yet something made me fall in love with him, made him become the faithful monster I’ve relied upon now for more than two years. Could be the insanely cool cement he blasts out of his left hand. Could be the equally killer demolition ball he swings from a chain in his right hand. Could be that he’s trained in Krav Maga, this Israeli approach to fighting I learned about on YouTube that combines techniques from boxing, wrestling, karate, judo, and aikido. Or maybe it’s the personal triumph I’ve felt in how I nailed the shading of the bricks that make up Brickman’s rock-solid, nearly invincible body. But, most likely, it’s the humanity I’ve drawn into his eyes and features; he feels less like a creation and more like an actual friend.
I realize the ridiculous nerdiness of me talking this way about my own drawing, but I guess my point is, I didn’t just randomly sketch Brickman one day and then commit to him forever. Like everything else Monster Club–related, it was a decision made over time and with great thought and care. It’s the same great thought and care I’m currently channeling into my rendering of Brickman for the semifinals tomorrow. Since part of every battle is marking up your opponent’s monster based on the damage you inflict, everyone needs a fresh drawing each round. Honestly, the quality of the drawing barely factors into winning the game, but it’s, like, a side competition we have among ourselves. To take the tournament and have the sickest-drawn monster is the ultimate triumph. And I want it bad. I was ranked first during the spring season, so I got to skip quarterfinals last week and advance directly to semifinals, where I’ll be facing off against Beanie and her monster, DecaSpyder. Deca’s this incredible spider made of metal that shoots titanium silk webbing and also lasers. Considering my only loss this season was to them, I’m taking it really seriously. Not to mention that Beanie won the Winter Battle Royale in February, so she’s the current holder of the Monster Club Crown of Glory (a tin crown I stole from my dad’s collection of old King’s junk). I’m excited to take it from her.
I was able to spend most of first period working on Brickman since Mrs. Franklin doesn’t really care what we do while she lectures about weather patterns and cold fronts or whatever, but my world history teacher, Mr. Zendel, is more of a stickler for paying attention. So even though the second-period bell hasn’t rung yet, I’m still trying to hide the fact that I’m doing the detail work on Brick’s mortar thighs.
“Ooh, nice.” I realize Mr. Zendel is hovering over my shoulder. He’s in the same blue polo shirt that he seems to wear every day, nodding appreciatively. “My six-year-old would go nuts for that.”
For a second, I feel really good about myself, but then I hear a couple of snorts and giggles from my classmates. Like it’s so hilarious that I’m art talent and I’m drawing something a little kid would love.
“Thanks,” I say, sliding Brickman from the desk onto my lap before more people start laughing.
“We’re about to get started, bud,” Mr. Zendel says, patting me on the back, “so if you wouldn’t mind putting that away . . .”
“Yep,” I say. I can feel my face has gone red.
Mr. Zendel makes his way to the front of the room, and I assume the moment is over.
“Totally awesome drawing, though,” he says, giving me a thumbs-up.
“Totally awesome, dude!” someone says in a mocking voice from behind me. “You draw like a six-year-old! Way to go!”
“Okay, okay,” Mr. Zendel says. “Everyone quiet down. Let’s return to where we left off in our discussion of the fall of Rome.”
I sneak a peek over to Yoo-hoo, whose seat is diagonally behind me. He holds up a Post-it he’s written on from the neon-green pad he always keeps in his pocket. It has a U on it. He flicks it down on the desk, then holds up another: OK. Then one more: a question mark. I don’t respond, both because I’m nervous I’ll draw more attention to myself and because I feel like I might cry.
When the bell finally rings, Yoo-hoo and I burn out of there.
“I’m sorry, Doods,” Yoo-hoo says, putting one hand on my shoulder as we walk down the hallway. “Zendel’s like a clueless dad sometimes.”
“Do you think it’s true?” I ask, and it takes all the effort in the world.
“Yeah! I mean, that thumbs-up he gave you was just—”
“No, I mean . . .” All class there was a thought I’d been trying desperately not to think, a thought I know I have to face head-on. “What they were laughing about.” I stop in the hall and hold up my drawing of Brickman. “Is it true that this is, like, what a six-year-old would draw?”
“Hell no, Doodles!” Yoo-hoo says. “I mean, of course kids would love it because Brickman is, like, the coolest monster of all time, and you’re an incredible artist. But a little kid couldn’t make that. Unless they were a superprodigy or something. Those guys laughing were just being jerks.”
I’m relieved to hear him say that, even though part of me wonders if it’s actually true.
“It is really good,” a voice says from next to us. “Subject matter’s not my taste, but there’s a nice attention to detail.”
Much to my surprise, it’s Jenni Balloqui, staring down at Brickman with that intense gaze she has.
“Uh, thanks, Jenni.”
I don’t know her that well, other than knowing she is a very active and passionate participant in class who gives off a general vibe of being very on top of everything.
“It’s not a compliment,” she says, turning her laser gaze onto me. “It’s a fact. You’re a really good artist.”
“Oh,” I say, my head expanding to twice its size. “Cool.”
“Um, I’m gonna split,” Yoo-hoo says, probably picking up on the weird intensity in the air. “See ya in a bit.”
“Later, Yoo-hoo,” I say as he gets swept up in the stream of kids heading to third period.
“The question is,” Jenni continues on, as if Yoo-hoo were just a figment of my imagination, “can you draw something real? Something like . . . this?”
She pulls a purple folder out of her backpack, the word Research meticulously Sharpie’d on its front, and then pulls from that an old black-and-white photo. I have to stare at it for a few seconds before I realize it’s the Parachute Jump ride from Coney Island, the thing I was staring at earlier this morning in that photo from my dad’s box.
Whoa.
I desperately want to say that I can draw it, especially because this feels like fate or something like that, but the truth is I have no idea. Drawing “real things” is pretty much my kryptonite. Monsters, creatures, aliens, superheroes, supervillains? All in my wheelhouse. Everything else? Less so. Maybe it’s the pressure of having to get the details right instead of just creating directly from my imagination. Like, people will have concrete proof that I haven’t done a good enough job. But when I’m the one who thought it up in the first place? No one can correct my work! Mr. Solomon, the art teacher at Mark Twain, has been pushing me a lot lately to go outside my comfort zone, but with mixed results. Well, mainly bad results, to be honest. Like when I did a self-portrait that everyone thought was a picture of eggs and bacon. But here, now, with Jenni staring at me in that way she has, no way I’ll admit I can’t do it. So instead I say: “Yeah, sure, I probably can draw that.”
Jenni picks up on my uncertainty and squints at me. “Probably?”
“I mean, definitely. It’s, like, just a big piece of metal, really, so . . . I mean, yeah. That’s a no-sweat kind of thing for me.”
“Good.” She starts walking down the hall, and I’m unsure if that’s her way of saying bye, but then she looks back to me like You coming? so I follow. “Take a look at this,” she says, before grabbing a green three-ring binder out of her bag, carefully unclicking it, and pulling out a piece of paper enshrined within one of those clear page protectors. Jenni Balloqui does not mess around. “Page one,” she says, handing it to me.
“Of what? A comic?”
“Ew, no! It’s a graphic novel.” She sounds like that should be obvious from the large empty comic panels above freakishly neat handwriting. “It’s on the history of Coney. From the Mesozoic dinosaur era through the indigenous people all the way up to the hurricane.”
“Oh, I get it,” I say. “So the drawings go in the big boxes.” I sound like an idiot even to myself.
Jenni stares at me again, like she’s regretting this entire interaction.
“Very cool,” I say, trying to redeem myself. “I love history.” That’s a total lie. I think history is super boring; it’s all dates and faraway places and old guys in awkward wigs.
“Okay, good. Because I want you to be my art talent.”
“Huh?”
“Creative writing talent has to find art talent to collaborate with. For the seventh-grade project.”
“Oh. Even though we’re in . . . sixth grade?”
“Getting a head start,” Jenni says, smiling for the first time that I’ve ever witnessed, revealing that she has dimples. Who knew? “You in or out?”
“Uh . . . in?”
“Superb,” Jenni says. She takes the Parachute Jump photo and blank page out of my right hand, grabs Brickman out of my left, puts them all into the purple folder, then places the whole thing into my hand. “I’d love to see a sample page one by the end of the week.”
“This week?”
Jenni stops walking. “I have a couple of other partners in mind. So if you don’t think you’re up for it, let me know. I only get A’s, obviously, so speak now if this is too much for you.”
“It’s not,” I say, holding up the folder in a way I hope will inspire confidence. “It’s the perfect amount of much.”
“Great. Excited to see what you do.” And there’s that smile again. And those dimples. I smile back as the one-minute-warning bell rings for third period. I can’t believe we’ve been talking that long. Jenni heads into the classroom right next to us, which is when I realize that, in blindly following her, I’ve ended up at pretty much the opposite end of the school from where my third-period class is.
And that’s when the purple folder gets snatched out of my hands.
“Hey!” I shout before realizing it’s my least favorite person in the entire school, Darren Nuggio. The tall, redheaded seventh-grade monster who thinks he’s hilarious and derives immense pleasure from others’ pain. Especially mine.
“You think you’d ever have a chance with someone like Jenni?” Darren asks. “Dream on, Fart Talent.”
That’s what he’s been calling me since he first saw me drawing in the cafeteria. It’s his not-so-clever spin on “art talent.”
His two henchmen, Cyril Sklar and Buzzy Hoffman, laugh, right on cue, as if Darren hasn’t used that joke hundreds of times. Cyril has long black hair that he wears in a threatening man bun, while Buzzy has a shaved head and a long scar under his left eye. All three of them are athletics talent. (Yes, Mark Twain unfortunately recognizes many kinds of talent.) Which means they’re scary. They all hit puberty in third grade.
“Okay, fine, whatever,” I say. “Just give me the folder.”
“Why?” Darren asks. “Is this where you keep all your fartwork?”
More cracking up from Cyril and Buzzy.
There are all sorts of rumors about why Darren is the way he is: that his dad is in prison for stealing a car, or that his mom is a drill sergeant and he’s rebelling against her, or that his parents work for NASA and are ashamed of having a son who’s athletics talent. Whatever the reason is, it’s never made it suck any less to have him pick on me.
“I’m serious!” I say, trying to grab my folder back. “I’m gonna be late, and I need it for—”
“Okay, okay, fine.” Darren holds the folder at a height I could never reach. He’s aggressively tall. “You want it? Ready. . . . fetch!”
Darren throws the folder down the hall, and I start to run after it.
“Sucker,” Darren says, cackling along with Cyril and Buzzy, and I realize it was a fake throw. You know, the kind of thing you do to trick a dog.
“Give him his folder back,” a voice says, and I’m both relieved and embarrassed to see Mr. Solomon standing there, arms crossed, wearing one of his usual colorful, crisp button-down shirts.
Darren points to me as Cyril and Buzzy scatter like frightened mice. “He started i—”
“Come on, Darren,” Mr. Solomon says. “I’m not an idiot.”
Darren hands the folder back to me.
“If I catch you treating another student like this, I won’t hesitate to write you up. You understand?”
“Yeah,” Darren says, looking at the floor.
Mr. Solomon turns to me. “You okay, Eric?”
“All good,” I say. Seems to be my go-to phrase today when I’m pretending to be okay.
“Good. Now y’all need to get to your next class.”
Darren heads down the hall first, turning to shoot me a death stare once he’s past Mr. Solomon.
“You sure you’re all right, Eric?”
“Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Solomon.” I’m so grateful he bailed me out, I could almost cry.
“If he does anything else, you let me know, okay?” He pats me on the shoulder and goes back into the art classroom.
Alone in the hallway, I take a deep breath. Then I head to math, holding the purple folder in one hand and praying the day won’t get any worse.
4
Monster Club Assemble
“Monster Club assemble,” Yoo-hoo says, appearing at my locker at the end of the day. It’s literally music to my ears.
“You know it,” I say, zipping up my backpack. We’re having one last meetup / practice before tomorrow’s semifinals, and I could not be more excited. I don’t have to think so hard when I’m with them. I don’t have to keep my guard up like I do against the Darren Nuggios of the world. Kind of ironic, I guess, that I love meeting up with Monster Club so I can avoid monsters. “We all out front?”
“Yeah,” Yoo-hoo says, “except first we have to swing around back to get Beanie. She’s doing Robotics Club.”
“Traitor.” I slam my locker shut for dramatic effect.
“If it were up to you, no one would be allowed to even think about anything except Monster Club.”
“That is correct,” I say. “Because it’s the best and deserves everyone’s full focus.”
“I love you, Doodles,” Yoo-hoo says, laughing. “You’re so hard-core.”
Behind Mark Twain, there’s a set of steps kids hang out on after school, along with a bunch of handball courts and a big field, which is where Yoo-hoo and I immediately spot Beanie and Robotics Club. She’s one of five nerds decked out in VR goggles (the tallest one and the only one with long, thin braids trailing down her back) and holding remote controls. Her attention is focused up on the five drones racing through the bright blue sky. Even as someone who resents this club for stealing Beanie’s time, I can admit it’s pretty cool.
