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- Herausgeber: Knights Of
- Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
- Serie: Stuntboy
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024
Stuntboy is BACK... Or front. Depends on if his super friends (Zola and Herbert the Worst Who Is Now Herbert the Okay) are running faster than him... into the EMPTY apartment they've found. Could this be the perfect home base from where three superheroes can save the iguanas, trick the bullies, and not have to deal with the FRETS?
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Contents
Herbert Singletary used to be THE WORST. Now … not so much. Now he hangs out with Portico and Zola. Weird.
Portico, with the help of Zola, became Stuntboy. Back in the Mean Time.
3Stuntboy’s superpower is to do all the hard stunts so the heroes don’t have to do any. You know, the big jumps, and high dives, and bangs! and crashes! and ka-pows!
Stuntboy knows how to do, like, a million stunts. At least. And he’s saved a gazillion people. At most.4
But no stunt –
not the Potato Bug, or the Zamarama Zigzag, or even the Plaster Blaster – could save his parents from …
from …
Season Two
Episode 1
7STUCK ON STUNTS
10Stuntboy. He’s the best superhero most people have never heard of. But you’ve heard of him because, well, you’re smart, and trustworthy, and keep your eyes on all the secret superheroes, which happens to be your secret superpower but, hey, this story ain’t about you.
This story’s about Stuntboy.11
12And also, it’s about what you know about Stuntboy. Like how he loves television and drawing (way more than books). Or how he lives on the fourth floor in Skylight Gardens, the big castle with the glassiest glass and the brickiest bricks on Earth.
At least he used to. I mean, he still lives in the castle but now he lives on the fifth floor.
And the third floor.
13And now you’re thinking two things: How does he have two apartments in the castle? His superpower must be being in two places at once. Well, he wishes. But no. Your second thought is, Or he must be rich! Yeah, that’s what Portico thought too. At first. He thought Skylight Gardens was going to be renamed “The Portico Palace.” Or, “The Reeves Resort.” But, turns out, that’s not true either. The real reason he now lives in two apartments is because his parents … um … his parents, they, uh … they …
(JUST SAY IT ALREADY!)14
Portico’s parents became X’s. Yeah … hard. And hard to pronounce. I mean, because it’s basically just made of two’s, an Xshould make the sound of I. But big. A big loud I. But maybe because the two I’s cross, they jumble up the sound and that makes everything hard. So now X sounds like … ecks, or just ks, or shhh, or, zz. It’s the only real mixed-up letter, and mixed-up letters sometimes do mixed-up things. Like …
… like, break up. And become two separate I’s again. Which caused Portico to break down. And cry his eyes out.
It had only been about six days since the big split, and on the seventh day, Portico was supposed to spend the night at his father’s apartment. Apartment 3C.
For the first time. 15
This should’ve been great news. But to Portico, spending the night at his father’s place meant accepting the fact that his father’s place was … real, which meant his mother and father’s breakup was … real, which meant the upside-downing of his family was … real, and that was … real hard. Normally, he would’ve been excited to spend the weekend doing father-son things, but he’d never had to do that without the day ending with his parents doing mum-dad things. Now his mum and dad were busy doing we don’t like each other things, which to Portico was just a whole bunch of thisdon’tmakesense things, which made his body do bumble jumble rumble things.
16IN CASE YOU FORGOT
Frets (FRETS!) are when Portico’s insides became a jigsaw puzzle put together all wrong. And tonight, the night before his first weekend with his dad, the frets had decided to keep him awake. Puzzling. His inside-things running around each floor of his body. His Grunge Sponge and his Gas Tank were having a dance contest like the one he and Zola had at Zola’s birthday party a few weeks before. His Squigglies and Beaner Cleaner were bouncing off the walls acting out their favorite TV shows. (Had they ever heard of Super Space Warriors? Of course they had! They literally live inside Portico!)
Anyway, the point is, once Portico finally fell asleep, the frets showed up there, too. In his dreams.
In this dream, Portico was on the fourth floor outside his old apartment, but strangely, the door was bolted shut. That didn’t stop him from trying to open it. As he yanked and yanked on the door, he heard his father calling him.
“Portico!” His father’s voice echoed throughout the building.
Portico ran to the stairwell to get a better listen.
“Portico! Portico!” His father’s voice was now louder. 18
Portico started down the stairs, but after he jumped down one flight (which should’ve landed him on the third floor) he realized something was wrong. Because instead, he was on the fifth floor.
Weird, he thought. But the weirdness of it all didn’t stop him from trying to find his father – because that would be weird – so he trotted down the next staircase. 19
To his surprise (a second surprise!) he was now on the sixth floor. Confused and frustrated, Portico stormed down flight after flight after flight – more flights than actually exist in Skylight Gardens – but the numbers kept going up, until finally he heard his mother’s voice.
“Portico!” she cried out from below him.
Portico turned around and headed back up the steps – flight after flight – but this time, though he was going up, the floor numbers were going down. And up and up he went. And down and down the numbers went.
Up was down.
Down was up.
And no one was anywhere to be found.
“Portico!” his mother called, again.
“Up, Portico! Up!”20
DAD-UARY
Portico’s mother was shaking him awake. Portico opened his eyes even though it felt like he’d just closed them. His mother kissed him on the forehead.
“Wake up, baby,” she said. “Time for me to go.”
“Where you going?” Portico gurgled.
“I told you last night. Mrs. Brawner invited me to a meditation retreat. I figured it might be nice for me to try something new.” 21
“Oh, that’s good,” Portico replied, only half awake. If he had been more awake, maybe he would’ve said that all anyone in their family seemed to be doing were new things. Mum lived in a new place, which meant Portico lived in a new place. Dad lived in a new place, which meant, after tonight, Portico lived in a(nother) new place. And Gran Gran lived with Dad, so she was also in a new place. And the cat, A New Name Every Day … well, the cat pretty much did whatever it wanted. “You want some advice?”
“I’d love some, especially from you,” his mother said, her face somewhere between rested and wrestling, which is how it’s looked since the big split.
Portico sat up, because you can’t give advice lying down.
“Okay. So, when it comes to meditation’ing, all you have to remember is to make yourself a pretzel and take a bunch of deep breaths through your toes.” Portico’s mother pretended to write this down with an invisible pen on an invisible piece of paper.
“Pretzel … toes … got it. Anything else?”
“Well, you might wanna focus more on your thumb toes 22because your pinky toes have corns, and corn and pretzels don’t really go that good together,” Portico advised.
“Wow … okay. I’ll be sure to keep that in mind. You just make sure to go down to your father’s apartment. And when you get there, promise me there will be no pretzels involved. No twists, no knots, and no salt between you two, understand?”
Portico had no idea what his mother was talking about. “Not really?”
“I just mean, promise me you’ll try to enjoy yourself.”
That seemed like a strange thing to promise because Portico’s father was always enjoyable. Enjoyable could’ve been his father’s first name. It wasn’t. It was Marvin, which might mean enjoyable in another language. Like an alien language. But that would make Portico’s father part alien. Which would make Portico part alien. Which would explain why Portico has eleven toes.
Just kidding.
He has twelve, like everyone else. 23
Just kidding, again. Maybe.
Anyway, the point is, Portico’s father was usually so enjoyable his name could’ve been Enjoyable Reeves.
Here’s why: First of all, Portico’s dad had the coolest job in the world. Honestly. Like, people always want to be the president, but it doesn’t seem like the president can have friends. And having no friends doesn’t seem enjoyable at all, which means being the president can’t be all that fun.
School teacher seems cool, because they get summer break, but it seems pretty risky to teach because what if you get a class full of Herbert Singletaries, back when he was still the Worst? I mean, if you get a class of Zolas, teaching would be awesome, but even Portico knew Zola was the only Zola. So … yeah, being a teacher was a gamble. Honestly, other than Ice Cream Truck Driver, and Ice Cream Flavour Taster (Tester? Taster? Both?), or Crisp Cruncher Muncher, or … I mean … Super Space Warrior, there was no better job than the one Portico’s father had: Bin man.
25Though Portico was nervous about staying at his father’s place, one thing he was excited about was the possibility that this might be the weekend his dad would let him come on the rubbish truck. His mother had bagged up lots of things from their old apartment. Things that weren’t split up in the split-up. Like bath mats and soap dishes and a cracked coffee pot and old remote controls and flower pots and paper cups and paper plates and paper clips and paper paper. Just … stuff. And Portico was supposed to take it all down to the rubbish chute that went down to the big rubbish trough that the rubbish monsters ate from. But instead of dumping the bag, Portico saved it. It would be much cooler to go through it with his father first, just in case he wanted any of it.
BREAKFAST OF SUPERHEROES
Oatmeal is healthy. And it tastes like it, right? I mean, who thought it was a good idea to have an oat … meal? Like, a whole meal of just oats. Seriously, if we didn’t know oats could be eaten, we would just assume they were dirt. Or bird food, but not even, because birds eat seeds and stuff. Unless you live in Skylight Gardens, where birds eat leftover pizza and breakfast sandwiches, all better options than oatmeal. So instead of eating oatmeal, which is what 27Portico’s mother made him for breakfast, Portico decided to take every kind of cereal in the cabinet – Sugar Circles, Sugar Flakes, Sugar Crispies, Sugar Sugars – and pour them all into the same bowl as the oatmeal. Then he bathed them in chocolate milk. After that, he let it all soak in the bowl until it got soggy, which basically made it … ahem … sorta … kinda … oatmeal! But delicious!
Portico was washing his bowl when there was a knock at the door. It was one of his favorite people – the strawberry-candy dealer, the purple-hair princess, the classy couch potato, the queen of the resting eyes – Gran Gran!
“Helloooo,” Gran Gran sang, kissing Portico’s face.
“How was Las Vegas?” Portico’s mother asked. Gran Gran and Portico’s father had gone on holiday for the week. Not sure if you know anything about Las Vegas, but it’s basically like hanging out in a giant pinball machine in the middle of the desert. Dad was trying something new too.
“Fantastic. Seven-Seven-Seven!” Grandma bragged. 28
“What’s that mean?” Portico asked.
“That’s the lucky number. Means I hit the jackpot!”
“What?! For how much?” Portico’s mother asked, surprised.
“Seven dollars and sixty-five cents!” Gran Gran was totally pleased with herself. She dug through her purse. “And … I used it to buy this! ” Gran Gran pulled out a refrigerator magnet from her bag. She handed it to Portico. “For you.”
WHAT MAGNETS ARE FOR:
1. To stick a list of chores your mum wants you to do to the refrigerator.
2. To help you remember the name and address of your doctor’s office.
3. To help with reading and writing. Magnetic letters are the best!
4. To remember a holiday someone else went on.
5. To make a refrigerator look pretty.
6. To make a house a home.
29“Thanks, Gran Gran,” Portico said, admiring the souvenir before slipping it into his pocket because it was the first time he’d ever owned a magnet, and he just wasn’t ready to share it with his mum by adding it to her big collection stuck to the fridge. “Did Dad hit the jackpot too?” He was excited by the possibility.
“Nope!” Gran Gran said plainly before lining herself up along Mum’s new couch, preparing herself for a flop down on its cushions.
Once flopped, she leaned back, leaned forward, bounced up and down.
“What you think?” Portico’s mother asked.
“Meh. It ain’t been tenderized yet. So it’s still a sofa. But it’ll be a couch eventually.”
“Gran Gran, what you doing here?” Portico asked.
“Oh, how I’ve missed you!” Gran Gran said, hugging A New Name Every Day. “And you, too, Portico. Can’t a grandma come see her grandson?”
30“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant I’m not gonna be here because I gotta go stay at Dad’s. And since that’s where you live now too, I thought I’d just see you when I got there.”
“I know. But I figured I’d stay here tonight. That way I can give your father a chance to rest today – losing is exhausting – and plus, you two can have some quality time together.
“Oh, Dad’s resting? I should probably just catch him another time.”
