SG: Sporkman #23 - A New Roll-Call - (DCB 8/12)

[Greg Fishbone]

     Underling Number Thirty-One stepped out of the Old Navy-Colored
Clothing Store and danced around the Spoonside Galleria's
exhibit-packed colonnade, which featured items related to the
superheroic career of the Great and Mighty Spoonman. Among the items
she passed without paying much attention were a replica of the
Spoonmobile Mark II, the podium at which Spoonman had been sworn in as
Governor of New Jersey, and a mysterious statue that looked like
Amelia Earhart with a tiny Rush Limbaugh impaled on her middle finger
which, according to ancient legend, represented the first harbinger of
the Great Devourer's return to the mortal plane.

     The child-sized underling had been practically naked upon
entering the mall, but now wore a navy-colored hoodie, navy-colored
sweatpants, navy-colored shoes, and a navy-colored beret that sat
cocked at a cute angle atop her bright red hair. She also carried
bundles of unpaid-for, navy-colored merchandise in her tiny arms.
"That was fun!" Number Thirty-One told her big sister, Underling
Number Twenty-Two. "I think I'm going to like shopping."

     The taller, more adult-looking underling grinned down at her. "I
can't really say which part of shopping I enjoy more, the taking what
I want or the making sure what's left over doesn't fall into the wrong
hands." She pressed a small detonator button and the storefront behind
them erupted in a wall of flames and shattered glass.

     Other mall shoppers, being less tolerant of gratuitous
explosions, scattered in all directions, aided by a policewoman who
had perhaps responded to an earlier alarm from inside the store.
"Nothing to see here! Move along!" she directed. "Step carefully! Mind
the flaming debris!"

     "Good afternoon, ma'am," Number Thirty-One, with a polite curtsey
that had been pre-programmed into her newborn brain.

     "Good afternoon to you too," said the policewoman. "Gosh, you're
just about the cutest little supervillain ever!"

     Number Thirty-One turned to her big sister. "Are we supervillains?"

     "Of course not," Number Twenty-Two told her. "We're underlings."

     The policewoman frowned. "What's the difference?"

     "Supervillains have all kinds of responsibility for planning
stuff and organizing what everybody does, while underlings just follow
orders and have fun."

     "Hooray!" Number Thirty-One proclaimed, dropping her bundles and
dancing a merry jig. "I like being an underling!"

     "Ah, okay." The policewoman nodded. "But you're still
super-powered, aren't you?"

     The little redhead stopped dancing and frowned in uncertainty. "Are we?"

     In the blink of an eye, Number Twenty-Two snatched the gun from
the policewoman's belt and made a show of bending it into a new and
unusable shape with her bare fingers. "We are," she stated, tossing
the now-useless weapon back to its owner.

     "Right then," said the policewoman, apparently unphased. "I guess
Directive 37 would still apply. You two have a nice day now."

     "Bye-bye!" Number Thirty-One called, as she skipped happily away.


*************************************************************
**               The Sporkarific Sporkman
**             Featuring the Preteen Patrol
**             Episode #23: A New Roll-Call
**                  By Greg R. Fishbone
**
**              Dillweed City Blues #8 of 12
**
** Mickey Dunne, a former child superhero, has reinvented
** himself as Sporkman, savior of the Supersonic Airship
** Unsplodable. Can he save the future by confronting the past?
*************************************************************


     The mall's food court patrons, if they were seated in just the
right place and faced in the right direction, might have noticed a
metal door between Cinnabon and Orange Julius slide open for less than
five seconds. Those same patrons, if they were paying careful
attention, might have seen three children tumble out of a pneumatic
chute and land together in a heap. And if those patrons had telescopic
vision and fantastic attention to detail, they might have seen a tiny
bronze plaque reading: "PRETEEN PATROL ACCESS TUNNEL #417, GIFTED BY
THE CLASS OF 2003."

     But since the mall was undergoing an emergency evacuation, there
weren't any patrons in the food court just then anyway.

     The three children--two boys and a girl--carefully picked
themselves up off the food court's flooring of shellacked brick with
festive inlaid tile. "I didn't know we had a tunnel that led directly
to the mall!" exclaimed the girl, whose body and clothing seemed to
consist entirely of liquid metal with a polished mirror shine.

     "Official use only," said the taller, pale-skinned boy, as he
tapped the door's "Official Use Only" sign with his thumb. His costume
was a traditional spandex bodysuit in a very non-traditional dayglow
orange camouflage pattern, like one might wear to blend into a war
zone that had for some reason been entirely paved in hunting vests.
The sigil on the boy's chest contained the letters "U.T.K.K."

     "Ultimate Trapper Keeper Keeper is right," said the second boy,
whose shirt, pants, and mask were covered in thousands of glittering
rhinestones and tiny plastic studs.

     "You're just saying that to keep him from going into one of his
rants about following the rules," said the metal girl.

     "Shhhhh!" he urged.

     Ultimate Trapper Keeper Keeper opened his Trapper Keeper
portfolio, which was patterned with the same orange-cammo as his
costume, and removed a pre-printed form. "Okay team, it's time for
roll call!"

     "Do we have to?" groaned the metal girl.

     "We already know who's here and who's not," the other boy added.
"Keeper, Shopper, and Bedazzler, all present and accounted for--now
let's start busting heads!"

     Ultimate Trapper Keeper Keeper smiled patiently. "All in good
time, my stone-studded friend, but first we must follow the policies
and procedures set forth in Chapter 13 of the Preteen Patrol
operations manual--"

     "Which you made up yourself," the metal girl noted.

     "--which I made up myself," he agreed, "in my capacity as group leader."

     "But the rest of us never voted for you!" the other boy protested.

     "Elections aren't necessary when there's only one viable
candidate." Ultimate Trapper Keeper Keeper pulled a ballpoint pen from
the edge of his Trapper Keeper, to which it was attached by a
retractable cord. He clicked his pen three times and brought it to the
paper, using his Trapper Keeper as a clipboard. "On this pre-printed
attendance sheet I am filling in the date, time, and a brief
description of our mission. Then at the bottom, each of us has a field
for attendance, special orders, and any behavioral deficiencies for me
to bring to Miss Ammy's attention."

     "Wait, hold on," said the metal girl. "You've been narcking on us
to the teacher?"

     "In my capacity as group leader--"

     "We never voted for you!" the other boy shouted again.

     Ultimate Trapper Keeper Keeper made a mark on the page. "Your
insubordination has been noted. Now, I shall start the attendance with
the universally acknowledged leader of the Preteen Patrol, myself." He
cleared his throat and called out, "Ultimate Trapper Keeper Keeper,
Keeper of the Ultimate Trapper Keeper, known to friend and enemy alike
as Keeper for short--are you here?"

     During the pause that followed, the metal girl splashed her
liquid metal foot up and down while the gem-encrusted boy picked at a
particularly large green-glass crystal on his shoulder.

     "Yes, I am here," Keeper answered his own question while placing
a checkmark on the page. "Next, Silver Shopper?"

     The girl stood at attention. "I am Silver Shopper, herald to
Konsumor, a being with such a high credit rating that he is able to
purchase entire planets!"

     "I didn't ask for your entire backstory," Keeper snapped. "Just
say 'here' or 'present.'"

     "Present," grumbled Shopper, and she resumed tapping her foot in boredom.

     "Bedazzler?" asked Keeper.

     "Present," said the boy with the rhinestones. "And I'm starting
to get a little pissed off by the way you waste our time with this
nonsense at the start of every mission."

     "Editorializing during roll call...Miss Ammy will not be
pleased," said Keeper with a sad shake of his head, as he made another
mark next to Bedazzler's name. "And finally, Superguy Junior?"

     The three preteen heroes looked all around the empty food court.

     "Superguy Junior?" Keeper asked again.

     A blue sticky-note drifted down from the ceiling. Shopper
snatched it out of the air and read, "HEY, GUYS. STILL LOOKING FOR MY
QUIET READING BOOK... DID I LEND IT TO ONE OF YOU AND FORGET ABOUT IT?
SIGNED, EUGENE."

     "Oh for Elvis's sake-- We're on a mission, Eugene!" Keeper called
into the empty air. "Chicken out if you want but at least you could
respect the code name system!"

     Another sticky-note dropped into Bedazzler's hands. "SORRY, DUDE.
NOT CHICKENING OUT--JUST SUPER BUSY, LIKE MY DAD. WILL BE THERE TO
PITCH IN IF I'M TRULY NEEDED. SIGNED, SUPERGUY JUNIOR"

     Keeper tapped his pen next to Superguy Junior's name and wrote,
"Chickened out again. Recommend booting his worthless
too-busy-for-action butt off the team."

     "So it's official," said Bedazzler. "We're mostly here and
somewhat accounted for. Now can we please get at least one good fight
scene in before the teaser questions roll?"

     "Too late!" shouted Shopper. "Look! There they are!"


WHAT THE--?

WERE THE TEASER QUESTIONS POSTED IN A PLACE WHERE THE CHARACTERS COULD
READ THEM?

DID THEY APPEAR IN THE AIR, FLOATING, MADE UP OF COLORED LIGHT TO
RESEMBLE NEON TUBES?

DOES IT CHEAPEN THE SERIES TO HAVE CHARACTERS BREAK THE FOURTH WALL LIKE THIS?

Find out on the next episode of "The Sporkarific Sporkman featuring
the Preteen Patrol", only on SUPERGUY!

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

[1] Before we had Old Navy stores in our area, it was hard to tell
just what they were from the ads alone.  I figured they either sold
used clothing donated by the Navy or outdated styles in various shades
of dark blue.  Now that we have Old Navy in our local mall, I don't
actually shop there, so I still don't know which is true.

[2] It's fun to have some new characters to write for!  It'll be
interesting to see how long it takes them to totally take over this
series.

[3] Say... Mickey doesn't appear in this episode at all, does he?  :D

-- 
Greg R. Fishbone - http://gfishbone.com
* Author: THE PENGUINS OF DOOM - http://septinanash.com
* President: Class of 2k7 - http://classof2k7.com
* ARA: New England SCBWI - http://nescbwi.org