Archvillain by Barry Lyga Page A

had been too busy stretching his new brain and experimenting with his new powers —
    Was that it? His powers? Had someone seen Kyle flying out at the mine and reported him?
    No. That couldn’t be. They wouldn’t just send the sheriff for that, would they?
    Sheriff Monroe cleared his throat and then stood there, his thumbs hooked in his belt loops, until the room fell silent. As if he’d been waiting for just the right moment, he hitched up his pants, jingling the handcuffs that dangled from his gun belt.
    Show-off.
    “There’s gonna be an announcement soon,” he drawled, without even looking over at Miss Schwartz, “but the principal said I could tell y’all first, seeing as how this class is sort of affected. It involves one of your classmates.”
    He
was
here to arrest Kyle! Kyle’s heart pounded. For what? Kyle hadn’t done anything!
    “I’m real proud to announce,” Monroe went on, “that the town council has just voted to make this coming Saturday ‘Mighty Mike Day.’ ”
    As soon as he said it, the entire class erupted into cheers and elated screams. Monroe’s big, dumb face split into a huge grin, his mustache waggling at the ends.
    Kyle slumped in his seat. He was the only kid not to jump up. Except for Mighty Mike, who pretended to be humble, shaking his head from his seat and making a “Who, me?” face.
    Look at them! Look at those morons. Clapping and cheering for Mighty Mike. And look at Mighty Mike, still basking in his false humility.
Now he allowed the applause to pull him from his chair and he made a quick little bow to his adoring crowd.
    Mighty Mike Day! Had the entire town council — the entire
town
— gone completely mad?
    Sheriff Monroe ducked out of the class without so much as a glance in Kyle’s direction, a little smile playingon his face as if he were thrilled with the chaos he’d just caused by tossing this particular knowledge grenade into the room. Just as Miss Schwartz got everyone calmed down and back into their seats, the principal made the same announcement over the loudspeaker, sending everyone into another spasm of delight. Only this time, you could hear the ecstasy up and down the halls as Bouring Middle School rang with joy.
    Kyle thumped his forehead on his desk. A whole day to honor Mike for all his good deeds. There would be a parade and a reviewing stand and speeches and food and all that other stuff that the mundane, plebeian masses so enjoyed.
    Ugh. Kyle could barely keep from puking. A whole day to honor a space alien? Sure, he stopped that volcano and he’d unfrozen a slick highway in Vermont and he’d flown a sick girl to a special hospital on the other side of the country and done some other good things, but so what? Wouldn’t
anyone
with his powers do those things? Mike had an unfair advantage! He was self-centered and arrogant and … and …
    And he wore a cape. A cape! Who in their right mind, Kyle wondered for the 324th time, wears a cape? Just for wearing the cape alone, Mighty Mike ought to be disqualified from any and all honors.
    Second of all, Mighty Mike was a moron! How could you honor an imbecile, a nincompoop, a dunderhead, asimpleton, a chump? (Kyle had gotten tired of thinking of Mike as an idiot, so he’d memorized the thesaurus.)
    It’s not just that Mike was stupid compared to Kyle; after all,
everyone
was a ninny compared to Kyle. “Mighty Mike” was objectively a dunce. He had tried to blow out that fire like it was a candle and made things
worse
instead! Why, just the other day in this very science classroom, Kyle had watched as Mike stood, rapt, staring at the class fish tank.
    “How do they breathe in there?” he wanted to know.
    “Uh, they’re fish,” Mairi explained.
    “Of course!” Mike said. “Brilliant!”
    Everyone thought Mike was just kidding, but Kyle knew the truth. The alien punk was brain-dead. (The cape alone proved that.)
    Third of all, face facts: If
anyone
should be honored in this podunk town, it was