Super Amos by Gary Paulsen

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    Duncan—Dunc—Culpepper and his best friend for life, Amos Binder, were cleaning Mrs. Weatherby’s garage. Actually Dunc was cleaning. Amos was stretched out on a broken lawn chair reading his favorite comic,
The Adventures of Lightning Man
.
    Dunc had finished labeling all Mr. Weatherby’s power tools and was arranging them in alphabetical order on a corkboard. He put the last one in place. “We could probably get this done a lot faster if you would help,” he said.
    Amos kept reading. The look on his facewas serious. “I can’t believe it. The worst possible thing has just happened.”
    “After all,” Dunc went on, “it was you who crashed through Mrs. Weatherby’s picket fence and ruined her prize begonias.”
    Amos frowned and snapped the book shut. “He quit.”
    “What are you talking about? Who quit?”
    “Lightning Man. He’s getting out of the superhero business for good.”
    Dunc took a long look at him. “Sometimes I worry about you.”
    Amos sighed. “He says he’s hanging up the old tights for good. He’s taking his wonder dog, Hercules, to a small town somewhere and disappearing from crime fighting forever.”
    “Amos, Lightning Man isn’t real. He’s a comic-book character. Besides, they always put stuff like that at the end of the book so you’ll buy the next one to see what happened.”
    Amos brightened. “You think?”
    “I’m sure of it. Now about this mess …”
    “Oh yeah. Thanks for helping me. Mrs.Weatherby was really mad about her flowers. I decided cleaning her garage was the least I could do.”
    “Considering she was about to call the police on you, I’d say you made the right choice.” Dunc picked up a piece of trash. “You never did explain what you were doing in her yard that day.”
    “I wasn’t supposed to be in her yard. My mom sent me to the store for a loaf of bread. I took the long way because my uncle Alfred was visiting. You remember him, the one who picks his toes through his socks?”
    Dunc nodded.
    “I had just turned the corner when I saw Wendy Van Gilder.”
    “You ran through Mrs. Weatherby’s fence because of Wendy Van Gilder?”
    “Sort of. Everything was fine until Wendy started waving at me. At least I think she was waving. There’s an outside chance she was swatting a fly. Anyway, since she’s Melissa Hansen’s newest best friend, I figured Melissa sent her over to give me a message, you know maybe ask me to go to the mall with her or something.”
    Dunc knew all about Amos’s crush on Melissa Hansen. She was Amos’s one and only true love. He adored the ground she walked on. Unfortunately for Amos, Melissa paid as much attention to him as she did to the ground she walked on. Actually, she probably paid more attention to the ground.
    “Anyway,” Amos continued, “I had to look cool because I knew she’d report everything to Melissa. So I turned to show her my best profile, smiled, and waved back. The only problem was, when I let go of the handlebars, my bike turned and crashed through the fence.”
    “Was that when you ruined the prize begonias?”
    “Not yet. I came off my bike on the other side of the fence and landed in the roses. Man, those thorns were sharp.” Amos winced, thinking about it. “My bike kept going. It bounced off the porch and did a back flip into the begonias. Took the heads off every single one of those suckers. Luckily, it didn’t do any permanent damage to my bike.”
    “Did Wendy give you a message from Melissa?”
    “She didn’t get a chance. By the time Mrs. Weatherby finally quit chasing me around the yard with her broom, Wendy had already left.”
    “That’s too bad.”
    “Yeah. But I’m hoping Wendy will go ahead and tell Melissa about my smile and everything.” Amos sighed dreamily. “Melissa will probably call me later.”
    Dunc looked at his watch. “It’s getting late. I promised my dad I’d deliver some real-estate papers for him to the old Grogan place. We’ll have to