The Brotherhood of the Traveling Underpants Read online

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  For Juanita

  —G. T.

  For my brother Michael

  —R. M.

  1

  THE BAD GUY BROTHERHOOD

  Goofball McCluskey was the brains of the operation. Calamity Wayne had the getaway vehicle. And Max the Wonder Thug was, of course, the muscle. If you wanted something broken, you called Max. If you wanted to get away after breaking something, you called Calamity. And if you wanted to know how to do both perfectly, you asked Goofball.

  Speaking of Goofball …

  “We have to do it before school lets out,” Goofball said. He was sitting at the table with Calamity and Max discussing plans for their latest job—a bank robbery. With the McNasty Brothers in prison, the bank-robbing business was wide open. “If we pull the job after school, we’ll have two superheroes to deal with instead of one.”

  Max nodded. “Good thinking,” he said, scratching his oversized neck.

  The three bad guys met weekly for the Bad Guy Brotherhood, where they discussed various bad guy ideas and got feedback from one another. They used to call their meetings the Sinister Sessions. Before that they called themselves the Brotherhood of the Traveling Underpants, but being connected by a shared article of clothing seemed a bit odd—and kind of gross.

  Calamity looked confused. “Two superheroes instead of one?”

  “That’s right,” Goofball said. “Melvin Beederman has a sidekick. He only works alone until his sidekick gets out of school. Everyone knows that. I’d rather deal with one superhero instead of two, wouldn’t you?”

  “Of course,” Calamity said. Calamity could be a bit slow sometimes, but he eventually understood. If they pulled the job in the morning, then Melvin would be working alone, which would make it easier to get away.

  These bad guys weren’t stupid. Okay, maybe one of them was. But two out of three ain’t bad.*

  * * *

  Melvin Beederman was the superhero in charge of Los Angeles. He lived alone in a tree house overlooking the city. Candace Brinkwater was his sidekick, his partner in uncrime, the girl he had divided his cape with. She was the only person ever to score 500 points in a single game of basketball. She was the only one ever to run the hundred-yard dash in three and a half seconds. She was the only third-grader who could fly.

  But she had to wait until after school to help Melvin save the world. And so Goofball, Max, and Calamity planned their devious and sinister deeds for when Candace wasn’t around to help her partner in uncrime.

  * * *

  The three bad guys raised their glasses in a toast to their evil plan. Max, the muscle, would beat up the security guard at the bank, Goofball would get the money, and Calamity would drive the getaway vehicle.

  “Be sure to make like a baker and haul buns!” Max told Calamity.

  “Exactly!” Goofball said.

  “No problem,” Calamity said.

  With any luck, they’d get the job done. If only they could outsmart Melvin Beederman. After all, Melvin had graduated from the Superhero Academy. And he had noggin power!

  2

  BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS

  Our superhero was in a pickle. Really! It was a pickle with a V-8 engine and a five-speed transmission. Zero to sixty in 59 seconds. Okay, maybe it wasn’t a very fast pickle, which is why the bad guys were getting away.

  And laughing while they did.

  Our superhero put his head out the window and yelled for his sidekick.

  Suddenly the ground shook.

  Windows rattled. And there she was, running alongside the pickle. “You rang, boss?” she said.

  “No, Thunder Thighs. I yelled. Now help me catch these bad guys.”

  She did. Thunderman and his assistant Thunder Thighs caught the bad guys, just in time for commercials.

  Melvin Beederman had been watching The Adventures of Thunderman with his pet rat Hugo while eating his normal breakfast of pretzels and root beer. Now he turned off the TV and stretched.

  “Luckily he had Thunder Thighs to help,” Melvin said to Hugo. “Thunderman needs to get a new pickle, don’t you think?”

  “Squeak,” said the rat.

  This either meant “I’d recommend a Harley-Davidson” or “Are you going to eat that last pretzel?” Melvin was never sure what Hugo was saying. Back at the Superhero Academy he had been fluent in gerbil, but rat language was not the same thing. For example, they said “warthog” differently, and that was only the beginning.

  It was a fine day for saving the world, Melvin thought as he looked out over the city of Los Angeles. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, even Hugo was humming as he started playing his mini guitar.

  Melvin tied his cape around his neck and looked at himself in the—

  Sirens! He could hear them blaring with his extra-sensitive hearing. Trouble was brewing! He could feel it.

  Melvin launched himself. “Up, up, and away!”

  Crash! He hit the ground.

  He got up and tried again. “Up, up, and away!”

  Splat!

  “Up, up, and away!”

  Thud!

  Kabonk!

  On the fifth try he was up and flying. This was how it went for Melvin Beederman. He never got off the ground on the first try. But no matter. He was up and flying, streaking toward downtown. Bad guys, beware! Melvin Beederman was on the job. And he wasn’t driving a pickle.

  3

  TROUBLE ON LAIR HILL

  Goofball, the brains of the operation, chose a bank in Beverly Hills for the robbery. The city was full of rich people, and that meant their banks were full of loot. Not money—loot. This was bad guy lingo, of course. Normal people called it money. Criminals called it loot.

  Max the Wonder Thug knocked out the bank security guard with one punch. Goofball McCluskey jumped behind the counter and grabbed all the loot he could get his hands on. Outside, Calamity Wayne waited in the getaway vehicle—it wasn’t a pickle. He could hear the sirens getting louder.

  And louder.

  Little did he know that Melvin Beederman was already on the job.

  “Hurry up, you guys!” Calamity yelled out the window. “Let’s hit the road.” He had nothing against roads and he wasn’t really sure why he wanted to hit one. He just knew that he wanted to get out of there ASAP—maybe sooner.

  “Let’s go!” Calamity yelled again as the sirens grew louder. “Hurry!”

  A few seconds later the front doors of the bank flew open. Goofball and Max, loaded down with money … uh, loot … ran for the car.

  “Let’s make like a banana and split,” Max said.

  Calamity looked confused again, although he loved bananas. “What does that mean?”

  “Hit the road … now!”

  “What did the road ever do to you?” Calam
ity had been feeling guilty about the whole hitting-the-road business.

  “Back to our evil lair!” Goofball yelled. “Can’t you hear those sirens?”

  Calamity did hear them. He stepped on the gas and turned off onto a side street, just in time. Just in the nick of time, to be exact. They weren’t seen by the police. But that didn’t mean they weren’t seen by a certain superhero.

  * * *

  Melvin Beederman flew over the city. It may have taken him many attempts to get up and flying, but once he was airborne, he was as good as they come. He zigged, he zagged, he swooped. He paused briefly in front of a building to flex and admire his reflection in the glass. And that’s when he saw a suspicious-looking vehicle heading for Lair Hill, which is where lots of bad guys lived. Movie stars moved to the Hollywood Hills; bad guys moved to Lair Hill.

  With his x-ray vision, Melvin could see through the metal roof of the car. He could also see the underwear of the three occupants. Disgusting! Bad guys never wore clean underwear. Even some good guys didn’t. Melvin tried to ignore it. He was on the job. He was looking for—

  Hey! Wasn’t that money in the car? Bags of it? These were the bank robbers, all right. Melvin followed them to Lair Hill. He wanted to find out where their lair was in case there were more evil bad guys to catch. Besides, he wanted to kick in the front door, which, of course, was one of the perks of being a superhero. He loved kicking in doors.

  The car pulled up in front of a two-story building. It was an average lair as lairs go. Melvin waited until they had dragged the bags of money inside and closed the door. Then he swooped down out of the sky and kicked it in.

  “Not so fast!” he yelled. This was part of the Superhero’s Code. You had to say this before you captured the bad guys.

  “Get him, Max,” Goofball said.

  This time Max looked confused. “Why me?”

  “Because I am the brains of the operation,” Goofball said.

  “I just drive the getaway vehicle,” Calamity Wayne added, running for the side door.

  “Not so fast!” Melvin said again. “It means the jig is up.” He wasn’t really sure what a jig was or why the heck it was up, but it sure sounded good, and it felt great to say.

  Max attacked. Goofball ran for the back door. But Melvin grabbed all three of them before you could say, “I’m tired of looking at dirty underwear.” He was.

  He hauled them outside and lifted off the ground. At least he tried to.

  “Up, up, and away!”

  Crash! “Ouch!” said the three bad guys.

  Splat! “Ouch!”

  Thud! “Ouch!”

  Kabonk! “Ouch!”

  It was bad enough being captured by a superhero, but being captured by one with flying problems was kind of embarrassing. Plus, it really hurt!

  On the fifth try, Melvin was up and flying. He carried Goofball, Max, and Calamity to jail, where they belonged.

  “Curses!” Goofball said.

  “You can say that again,” Calamity said.

  “Curses!”

  Max didn’t say anything. But he really wanted to make like some blackberries and jam. Or possibly make like a nose and run.

  4

  THE NOT-SO-GREAT ESCAPE

  The prison where they sent Goofball, Max, and Wayne was very crowded, so much so that the warden put all three of them in the same cell until he could find room for them. Unfortunately, this was the very cell they had used to hold Grunge McNasty, that notorious bank robber and all-around bad guy. On the floor of the cell was a large piece of plywood and beneath it was a hole in the floor, leading to the tunnel dug by the McNasty Sisters when they broke their brothers out of prison.

  “Holy dumb prison workers!” said Goofball. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Holy dumb prison workers, indeed! They did. They jumped into the hole and followed the tunnel to freedom. Once outside the prison, they ran. They ran and ran and ran. But where to go? They couldn’t go back to their lair on Lair Hill. The police already knew about it. More important, so did Melvin Beederman.

  Speaking of Melvin …

  “We have to do something about Melvin Beederman,” Goofball said, “or we’ll never be able to pull any more sinister or devious deeds. Any ideas?”

  Max was busy doing push-ups. He stopped and thought. He couldn’t flex his muscles and think at the same time.

  Calamity put on his thinking cap. It was green with white stripes.

  “We need a new place to live, and we need to find a way to get rid of Melvin Beederman,” said Goofball. He looked at his two companions. Calamity wasn’t known for his ability to think, but that didn’t mean Max didn’t have any ideas.

  “How about Big Al’s?” Max said.

  “Yes, Big Al will know what to do,” Goofball said.

  * * *

  Big Al’s Rent-a-Lair was the place to go if you were a bad guy looking for a place to live. He also sold all kinds of bad guy gadgets, things to make a good guy’s life miserable. If anyone could help them with their Beederman problems, Big Al could. After all, Big Al had been serving Southern California’s bad guys since 1985.

  “Can I interest you in a new lair?” Al asked, when Goofball and Company arrived.

  “Yes,” Goofball said. “We’d also like to see what you have in the defeat-a-superhero department.”

  Big Al nodded. He knew which superhero they had in mind. “I think I may have just the thing. It’s in my office. Follow me.” The three bad guys followed Al past the latest lair models in the showroom to the office in the back of the store. He pointed to a large box.

  “What is it?” Max asked.

  “It’s the very latest thing. You want to get rid of Melvin Beederman, right? This is the way to do it.”

  Of course, this didn’t exactly answer Max’s question. “What is it?” he asked again.

  “It’s a time machine,” Big Al said proudly. “Melvin Beederman is one tough superhero. He’s faster than you. He’s stronger than you. He can see your underwear.”

  “You can say that again,” Max said.

  “He can see your underwear. You can’t beat him at this stage in his life. That’s where the time machine comes in. Go back in time. Get him before he becomes powerful.”

  “Holy brilliant idea!” Goofball said. “We’ll take it.”

  Holy brilliant idea, indeed! They did. They bought the time traveling device and a basic lair, which they had delivered to Lair Hill. With any luck, Melvin Beederman would soon be history.

  But what about his sidekick? What about Candace Brinkwater?

  Speaking of Candace Brinkwater …

  While the three bad guys were busy setting up their new lair and putting together their time machine, Melvin Beederman was with his partner in uncrime, Candace Brinkwater. School had just let out, and the two of them met at the public library so that Melvin could help her with math. This was how it went every day. Melvin helped Candace with math, and she helped him save the world.

  “What’s the latest?” Candace asked as she worked an addition problem.

  “Bad news. Goofball McCluskey, Max the Wonder Thug, and Calamity Wayne escaped from prison.”

  “Holy I’m-one-peeved-sidekick!”

  Holy she’s-one-peeved-sidekick, indeed! She was. She hated when the bad guys escaped from prison. But at least it gave her something to do … after her homework was finished, that is.

  “You forgot to carry the one,” Melvin said, pointing to Candace’s worksheet. “Hurry up. We have to catch those guys.”

  5

  MEANWHILE …

  While Candace was finishing her math, Goofball, Max, and Calamity were hard at work putting together their time machine. It was a battery-operated model, and it had three seats. It would be perfect, Goofball decided. They’d all travel back in time together.

  “Is this thing powered by the flux capacitor?” Max asked. He thought he had seen something like that in an old movie.

  “No. This is powered by
the slip transistor or the slide battery.” Goofball didn’t know how the darn thing worked, actually. He just liked messing with Max, which was one of his hobbies.

  “How should I know?” Goofball said finally. “Hand me that wrench.” He fastened the final bolt and stood back to admire their new mode of travel. It looked sinister all right—sinister with a capital S. Or devious. Take your pick.

  “Ain’t she a beauty?” Max ran his hand along the pinstriping. “I bet this baby goes from zero to sixty in way less than 59 seconds.”

  “Yes, if this thing’s as slow as Thunderman’s pickle, I’m going to shoot myself.” Goofball circled the device a few times, looking for any flaws. He had to admit, it really was a beauty. The question was: Would it work? Would it transport them back so that they could get Melvin Beederman before he became powerful?

  Goofball stopped and looked at his partners in crime. “Where was Melvin Beederman before he came to Los Angeles?”

  “The Superhero Academy,” Calamity said. Calamity wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but even he knew that. “Los Angeles is Melvin’s first job since graduating.”

  “Then that’s where we’re headed, boys.” Goofball began making notes. “When was he at the academy? Can you give me the exact dates?”

  Max and Calamity gave the information to Goofball, who wrote it down. “This is perfect. Melvin Beederman won’t suspect a thing,” he said with an evil laugh. As evil laughs go, Goofball had a great one. He had been the National Evil Laugh Champion three years in a row, and that ain’t bad.

  That ain’t bad, indeed! Oops!

  “Who said that?” Max asked.

  “Who said what?”

  “Who said ‘oops’?”

  “The narrator.”

  Max scratched his oversized neck. “That’s strange. Why didn’t he just put the ‘oops’ as a footnote on the bottom of the page?”