“This is a case for Colin Dillingsworth and Paul Noodleskin! With our investigative super powers and extreme observance and lack of athletic ability, we are perfectly suited to discover who, or what, has been kidnapping these cheer captains!” Paul yelped, excitedly.
“Good. Because these cops are really starting to bug me,” Kodi murmured as she glared over her shoulders at the uniformed police officer on second base.
“We’ll get it done!” I whispered, taking the paper. “You’re gonna be okay, Kodi.”
“Better be. I have a pageant in two weeks,” she retorted, sashaying that blond curtain over her shoulder and prancing off to the next class. Oh, no! The bell had rung! We were going to be late!
“Paul, we have to go! We’re late!” I screamed before trying my best to run into the school building as more disgusting water poured from the sky.
“No!” Paul cried when the bell rang and we skipped into the building. We gathered our stuff and shuffled into the Chemistry Lab.
“Late, I see. Detention,” the cruel chemistry professor, Dr. Lewman, stated unemotionally.
“Wh-Wh-What?” Paul stuttered and walked forward towards the lab table.
“You heard me. You were late. Detention, Mr. Noodleskin,” he commanded, and handed each of us a pink slip. I just tilted my head down and shifted into my seat and tried to pay attention to the lesson. How was I going to break it to my mommy?!?!
That afternoon, I shuffled into the detention hall, room 206. It was chock full with jocks, jerks, and just random people who were here because they ran in the halls or chewed gum.
“Hey! It’s Dorkingsworth and Poodlekin!” One of the hoodlums bellowed as others heckled.
“Actually, it’s Dillingsworth and Noodleskin-“
“No one cares, nerd.”
And then Paul and I were upside down in a closet, hanging like Desmodus rotundus. Or as you know, the vampire bat.

“This is actually quite comfortable,” Paul said drearily. The blood must be rushing to his brain. His eyelids fluttered, and he passed out against the wall. Just then, the creaky closet began to shake and we slowly descended.

“Paul! Paul! You hit a secret lever! Wake up!” I cried as I frantically wavered from side to side, bumping Paul violently as we sunk into the basement of the school.

Then, the dusty old closet rocked into place, and I mustered up all of my upper-body strength to slice off the hook with my Superman “Swatchblade,” a watch with a Swiss army knife that popped out at the touch of a button. I unhooked Paul and we peered through the grimy window of the inner-closet door.

We saw what looked like a mad-science lab, the ones from science fiction novels. 16 glowing cylindrical tubes aligned a long, rectangular wall. Fifteen of them had the cheerleader bodies suspended in the balance of a vacuum and electrical sensors and wires. Each was labeled with the girls’ names. But one was empty! I adjusted my glasses, squinting hard to discover the final victim.

“Oh, no! It’s Kodi!” I cried, pointing to the label on the tube. Paul gasped, chewing even more viciously on his fingernail-nubs.

“No! I was going to ask her to the Harry Potter Christmas Festival, you know, the Yule Ball!” Paul sobbed, burying his face in his hands. I patted his back and tried to search the room for more clues. I saw a calendar out of the corner of my eye; with today’s date, December 3rd slashed through, and a red circle dashing around December 17th. The night of the Yule Ball!

“It looks like Kodi might be gone way before then!” I yelped, stabbing a finger in the direction of the calendar. Paul gasped, once more. If he was going to that one more time, I think his asthma might kick in and I’d have to give him CPR in this elevator. Not the first time; probably not the last. “We better figure out how to get out of here, before someone finds us!”

We spent the next few minutes trying to find the secret lever, and it resulted in being a mop. I pushed it back, and we rose again to the dreaded room 206. It was empty, the lights flicked off, and dim sunlight stretching through the blinds. We used all our strength pushing against the door, when I once again whipped out my “Swatchblade” and used it to pick the lock.

“Free!” Paul cried when he stumbled onto the linoleum floor. “What’s this?” He asked, puzzled. He picked up a piece of plain printer paper, but it had typing on it. It must have been an email.
"Dear Gregory Johnson,
I have an idea to finally get my revenge on the evil school board of Darwin-Newton Academy for expelling me 50 years ago!
-Since Cindy Evergreen, the captain of the cheer leading squad, now principal, REJECTED me tot he Winter Ball, I will kidnap a bunch of local cheerleaders!
- SInce i am a leading scientist in neuology, i will brainwash them and make them my ZOMBIES!
- SInce i was considered what kids call "nerds" nowadays, i will attack at the "Yule Ball," or whatever they cal it. Its when a bunch of "nerds" get together to Celebrate and dance, while acknowedging those Henry Spoon books or whatever...
Yours evilly,
V. Ree Rattee"
“HEY! That’s Mr. Rattee, the janitor!” I exclaimed after I read the email.

“Dude. He is so suspect now,” Paul sighed, rolling his eyes behind Coke-bottle glasses. I ripped the email out of Paul’s stubby, sticky fingers and shoved it into my pocket-protector.

“We need to take this to Superman!” I cried, thrusting a clenched fist into the air. “AH!!! I dislocated my shoulder!”

“Oh, shut it, Colin. Let’s take this to the cops, then you can ride the handlebars on my bike and we’ll get you all wrapped up,” Paul said, tenderly leading me out of the classroom and into the parking lot.

“I don’t know, Paul, handlebars are the safest mode of transportation…”

“Let’s go!”

“Wait…what’s that over there?”

We looked over and saw a blonde head getting shoved into a large black trash bag. As we began our mad dash to the masked caper, our energy slowly started to deteriorate. Our some-what speedy jog became a sluggish, exhausted walk, and by the time we got to the other end of the parking lot, he was gone, and so was the use of my right arm.

“Aw, Crunchberries!” Paul cried throwing his hands in the air in defeat.

“Paul,” I said, poking him, “ Paul. Paul. Paul. Paul.”

“WHAT IS IT COLIN!?” he shouted, smacking his hand to his forehead.

“I need to go to the hospital,” I sighed, rubbing my swollen shoulder.

“Kodi just got kidnapped! We saw her! We have to go find her!” Paul screamed, once more trying to race after the masked kidnapper.

“Paul, the guy is long gone. And based on all the evidence we have collected, I think we can assume it is the dastardly Janitor Rattee!” I said, sounding rather leader-like than the passive nerd I was known for being.

“You’re right. And you’re throbbing shoulder is starting to freak me out. Get in the basket,” Paul gestured to the Spiderman bicycle in the corner.

“Alright, but I get to ring the Limited Edition Batman bell!”

“FINE!”

-One Hospital Visit Later-

Paul and I couldn’t sleep that night. We were having our bi-annual monthly Superman Series Marathon Sleepover. Featuring “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius,” “The Fairly Odd Parents,” and “Sponge Bob Square Pants.”

“Hey…Paul, are you asleep?” I whispered into the darkness of the tree house.

“How could I be asleep, when my girlfriend was kidnapped by the janitor?!” Paul muttered angrily.

“You know she wasn’t your girlfriend, right?” I asked, slightly chuckling and turning to face him.

“The closest thing I had in a long time!”

“Ever.”

“Well…”


“Besides your mom.”

“Well what are we going to do?!” Paul inquired, sitting up in his Sponge Bob footsies.

“I’ll tell you what!” I said nonchalantly, reaching for my spare poster board, juice box, and top-of-the-line Crayola Crayons.

We spent the night planning, and I couldn’t tell you how tired we were in the morning. Staying up past 9:30 does that to me. Well, man I was beat like the time Sponge Bob broke his butt sand boarding down the dunes with Sandy. Besides Cindy, I could really see myself with a chick like Sandy. Besides the whole different-species idea, we are exactly alike. Except Sandy can walk down the halls and not be pushed into a locker.

My arm was in a cast from my failed attempt to call upon Superman, but we still managed to ride to school with the best woman I know; my grandma.

“Hello, sonnies!” she chirped, waving to Paul and me from her car; wrinkles flowing in the wind.

“Hi Grammy!” I cried, racing towards her; tripping in the process. Luckily, she had Spiderman Band-aids and kissed my boo-boo to make it better.

“So how’s school?” She asked once we got in the car.

“Elusive.”

“Murderous.”

“Sounds fun!” she said, clapping her hands together.

“GRANDMA!” HANDS ON THE WHEEL!” Paul shouted, shortly before we crashed through the walls of the gym. Talk about making an entrance. We were all screaming and waving and flailing and crying, but I saw something I could never get out of my mind; Mr. Rattee struggling to drag a lumpy black, nylon trash bad down the steps of the back entrance to the basement of the school. We really had him now!

After the police came, and after the paramedics checked us out, and after grandma wrote a check to pay for the wall being redone, it was pretty boring. The Yule Ball was still approaching, and Paul and I were impatient to get our Harry Potter and Ron Weasley replica dress robes. Paul was taking his cousin Eileen, but I was flying solo. Who knows who I could pick up at the ball?

Days went by, and after each one Paul got more and more nervous for Kodi’s safety. After all, we knew what was happening to her and where she was being held, but we had to wait until the Ball for the Zombie Cheerleader Apocalypse.

“How can we train for the attack?! Dumbledore is dead, Harry Potter lives in Hogsmeade, England, and even Neville would not be helpful is this situation!” Paul cried, reaching his breaking point during lunch one day.

“Keep it together, Paul!” I shouted, being assertive, like when Plankton taught Sponge Bob. NO ONE WAS GOING TO STEAL MY ICE CREAM CONE!

“Alright…I know…Gotta keep it together…” Paul mumbled, collecting himself. “Don’t want to have an asthma attack…”

“Again…” I rolled my eyes and dumped my trash out, but making sure to “Rid the Lid” and recycle.

“Come on! Seriously, what are we going to do?!” Paul asked, bringing in a new seriousness to the conversation.

“Okay. You know how I have those Light Sabers, and you have those Harry Potter replica wands? Stash them in the Invisibility Cloak,” I instructed.

“You mean that hideous quilt my grandma knitted for me for Chanukah?”

“Yes, Paul. What other Invisibility Cloak do we have?!”