Boys in the Back Row Read online

  “Dude, that rocked!” Hector said as he lowered his bass drum to the floor in front of him.

  “It did!” I paused and leaned back to accept his high five. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Definitely.”

  “This is awesome!” Eric said when I was done running the bass drum gauntlet.

  “Totally,” I said, meaning the “we’re in the same section” part and the “World of Amazement” part, not the “Sean is really bad at drums” part. “You want to draw after school today?”

  “Yup.” Eric grinned. “So, your house?”

  “Sure. How come we never go to your house anymore?”

  “All the comics are at your house.”

  “What are you talking about? You have comics, you have a whole collection.”

  “Yeah, but you had a head start. There are MORE comics at your house.”

  “Huh. Good point. Okay, my house, then.”

  “Cool. I gotta grab some stuff out of my locker—”

  “Me too.”

  “Dude.” Eric grinned. “This is gonna be awesome.”

  “Totally,” I said. “Best field trip ever.”

  “Hi, dad,” I shouted as Eric and I came in through the front door and dropped our backpacks on the floor.

  “Hey, buddy,” Dad said, walking out of the kitchen with his laptop balanced in one hand as Eric and I kicked off our shoes. He gave me a one-armed sideways hug and a kiss on the side of the head, and I leaned into him for a couple of seconds.

  “Hi, Mr. Park,” Eric said as he pushed his shoes around with one foot. Dad lifted his non-laptop arm off my shoulder and over my head, then squeezed Eric’s shoulder.

  “What do you gentlemen have planned today?” Dad said.

  “Homework,” I said. Dad snorted in his usual “I’m not a fan of homework” way as he pushed around a messy pile of envelopes on the entryway table. Seriously, Dad hates homework—he even writes blog posts about it.

  “There’s a book by an author named Greg Pincus you guys should read. It’s called The Homework Strike—”

  “Read it,” Eric and I said at the same time. All three of us cracked up.

  “Ah, here it is.” Dad fished an envelope out of the pile and waved it at us. “My new ACLU membership card, boys. Important stuff.”

  “Awesome,” Eric said, giving me a squirmy-eyebrow, “what does that mean” look. I mouthed “tell you later” back at him as Dad tucked the envelope into his shirt pocket.

  “Dad, are you fighting with people on the internet again?”

  “Yes,” Dad said, tucking the envelope into his armpit and poking at his laptop’s touch pad. “You guys shouldn’t do it, though. You don’t, right?”

  “Nope,” Eric said, lying like an expert.

  “Well …,” I said, which got me a look from Dad. “Oh, COME ON, Dad, look who’s talking!”

  “Yes, yes, you’re right,” Dad said as all three of us headed for the kitchen. “I understand things get pretty heated on the Sandpiper Network.”

  “You know about the Sandpiper Network?” Eric said.

  “I do.”

  Whatever the word is for feeling totally proud of your dad and totally embarrassed by him at the same time is the word for how I felt right then. At least it was Eric—with anyone else it would have been 100 percent humiliation.

  “We have stuff to do, Dad,” I said, grabbing Eric’s elbow and pulling him toward the basement door, which was next to the side door of the house.

  “Sadly, I do too,” Dad said. “I got some macaroons, if you guys are interested. In the fridge.”

  “Not coconut,” I said, letting Eric head downstairs first.

  “Yes, coconut.”

  “Er, no thanks,” I said as I closed the door behind me and hustled down the staircase. I heard Dad say “your loss” as I got to the bottom.

  Living in the basement of my mom and dad’s house means living with a giant pole in the middle of the room, super-cold temperatures in winter, and tons of static electricity from the thousand-year-old carpet. Also, the laundry room was down there, so Mom made a lot of trips up and down the stairs to do laundry and yell at me for not helping more with laundry. But it was my bedroom, all mine, so I wasn’t complaining. Much.

  Eric and I were way into this comic book artist named Jonah Burns—he drew Rocket Cats, League of Infamy, The Flammables, and a bunch of other stuff—but our favorite comic book character of his was Sandpiper. She didn’t have any superpowers, but she was smarter and a better fighter than anyone else, and Burns drew the best fight scenes. I was always impressed by the way he drew Sandpiper’s feet, especially when she was kicking someone in the jaw. Sandpiper was also the comic book I gave Eric to read the first time he came over to my house, back in fourth grade.

  There’s a mini-size door leading into a space under the stairs, which contains the greatest treasure in the Park household: my comic book collection. In fourth grade I only had about two hundred total issues, but by sixth grade it was over six hundred, mostly because everyone knew comic books were the only present I ever wanted. I had the entire twelve-issue run of Miss Missile; the first issue of Captain Stupendous, before they changed the color of his cape from black to yellow (a birthday present from Uncle Doug); and every issue of Infinite Comics Team-Up, including the one with Velocity Girl and Sonic Boom.

  We sat down in front of my desk, which was actually just a big folding table covered with piles of my stuff, and stared at the screen of my laptop as I hit the enter key and woke it up from sleep mode.

  “So I feel kind of weird about getting on the Sandpiper Network after your dad talked about it,” Eric said. “Like he might actually be there, pretending to be a fan.”

  “Uh, yeah, that is super paranoid,” I said as I logged in.

  “About your dad, maybe, but remember that guy who pretended to be a teenage girl?”

  “So are you gonna delete your account?”

  Eric snorted. “No!” He held up his phone, showing me the login screen for the SN app.

  “Me neither.”

  Sandpiper Network was just one of the chat rooms hosted by Vertex, which used to be “Vertex Comics” until their first superhero movie came out and earned fifty quadrillion dollars and it became just plain “Vertex,” which I guess makes sense since they’re also a movie studio and toy seller and all that other stuff. There’s actually a lot of other stuff besides the chat rooms—the fan fiction site is huge, and the Vertex Compendium has enough information about all the Vertex superheroes to make your head explode—but Sandpiper Network’s where to go to seriously talk with other serious fans. The thing that’s hard about SN is how many people use it—when it’s quiet, there might only be five or six people there. When it’s busy, there might be as many as twenty people there, which makes it kind of hard to follow the conversation.

  I logged in and discovered it was a very, very, very busy day.

  FelineAvenger has entered the chat. themightymightyEric, Pooperman, pollywantablaster, invulneraBill, makimochi, iamthedissident, and 174 others are already here.

  A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-FOUR? What??

  “Whoa,” Eric said. “Are you seeing this?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I can’t keep up!”

  The chat was scrolling by so fast that we couldn’t even say anything at first—we just read as fast as we could.

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: so awesome

  INVULNERABILL: is it an omnibus?

  POOPERMAN: it’s an iconic edition

  VIGILANTEINUNDERPANTIES: whats an iconic edition

  FASTBALLSPECIAL: like an awesome omnibus

  VINCENTWU: its a new thing

  IAMTHEDISSIDENT: what’s defendercon

  INVULNERABILL: a con

  ZOMBIESQUIRREL: why is it Sandpiper, i hate her

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: Sandpiper’s the best

  ZOMBIESQUIRREL: shes the worst

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: you’re the worst

  IAMTHEDISSIDE
NT: haha, you should call yourself notfunnyabill

  MAKIMOCHI: it’s a small conference

  CANDYCANECHRISSY: omg its so expensive

  INVULNERABILL: no its not

  FASTBALLSPECIAL: why are u so mean bill

  MAKIMOCHI: that’s how much cons cost

  INVULNERABILL: why are you so annoying

  CANDYCANECHRISSY: i mean the iconic Sandpiper

  ZOMBIESQUIRREL: girl superheroes are a waste of time

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: you’re a waste of time

  POOPERMAN: hey the cons right next to world of amazement

  ZOMBIESQUIRREL: so you hate all boys it figures

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: no, just you

  FELINEAVENGER: wait what??

  FASTBALLSPECIAL: polly hates zombiesquirrel

  THEMIGHTYMIGHTYERIC: he means world of amazement

  ZOMBIESQUIRREL: shut up slowballspecial

  FASTBALLSPECIAL: what an amazing burn #irony

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: defendercon’s at the Soerio Center, it’s really close to WoA

  IAMTHEDISSIDENT: where are the mods when you need em

  FELINEAVENGER: but what’s happening at defendercon?

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: the Sandpiper Iconic Edition launch with Jonah Burns

  THEMIGHTYMIGHTYERIC: he’ll be there?

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: yup

  INVULNERABILL: duh, it’s a signing

  FASTBALLSPECIAL: youre such a jerk, vulneraball

  FELINEAVENGER: WHEN is it?

  MAKIMOCHI: end of May

  POLLYWANTABLASTER: may 25

  Eric and I looked up from our screens and stared at each other in real space.

  “Dude,” Eric said. “May 25. Is that—”

  I was already pawing through the papers on my desk like a wild animal.

  “I think it is, I think—” I pulled a paper from the stack and held it up. “Here!”

  My copy of the World of Amazement flyer was a little crumpled, but it was still easy to see the giant header at the top that said “World of Amazement Spring Festival” and the dates right underneath it:

  May 23–25.

  “Holy crap,” I said. “That’s …”

  “Yeah,” Eric said. “The same time as our field trip.”

  “Jonah Burns!” I slammed the sheet of paper back down on my desk and almost fell out of my chair. “In the same city AND at the same time as our field trip! What are the odds??”

  “Well, you know,” Eric said. “Super, super low. But not impossible.”

  “Obviously, since it’s actually happening!”

  “The timing couldn’t be worse.” Eric was sliding lower and lower in his chair. Gloom was practically oozing from his pores.

  “No kidding,” I said. “We’re gonna be right there!”

  “Somebody up there hates us.” Eric pointed up at the ceiling.

  “Like the universe?”

  “Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.”

  “You know about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster?”

  Eric nodded. “It’s only the most awesome church in the world.”

  “You know what they call people who go there?”

  “Pastafarians, of course.”

  I laughed. “I think it’s actually a real church in one country, like New Zealand or something.”

  “Oh, I thought it was your parents’ church.”

  “Dude, don’t let my parents hear you compare Unitarians to Pastafarians.”

  Eric did a don’t-even-worry-about-that hand flap. “I’m not scared of your parents. They love me.”

  “They don’t love you enough to take us both to some other conference where Jonah Burns is autographing books.”

  “Wait. How do you know?” Eric grabbed his chair’s armrests and dragged himself up until he was sitting straight again.

  “We’re not actually brothers, you know,” I said, thinking about a book I’d just started about two random girls who became sisters because their parents got married to each other. “It’d be awesome, but we’re not.”

  “I know, but, dude, we’ve gone on trips together before! Remember that camping trip last year?”

  “You mean The Least-Fun Trip Ever Since My Dad Actually Hates Camping?”

  “Well, yeah, he was super crabby the whole time, but it’s totally a precedent!”

  Hmmm.

  “You may be onto something there, Number One.” I pointed a finger at the ceiling, then dropped my whole hand until the finger was pointing at Eric.

  “I think you’re a little confused about who’s Captain and who’s Number One, but yes, yes I am.”

  I was getting excited. “So all we have to do is find another conference where Burns will be and talk my parents into taking us there.”

  “He must be doing a bunch of them, right? There are comic cons everywhere.”

  “Totally.”

  * * *

  It turned out Jonah Burns wasn’t going to a zillion different comic cons, though, because the universe is a cruel place. After almost a half hour of asking questions on SN and then digging through a bunch of websites because we didn’t like the answers we got on SN, we had to face reality: the number of conventions where Burns was going to sign the Sandpiper Iconic Edition was …

  “Two??” I draped my arms over my head and kicked my chair away from my desk. “He’s only going to two events? Seriously?”

  “Looks like it.” Eric’s head had been propped up on his hand, but at some point it’d slid down to his elbow, where it now lay sideways on top of his fully extended arm. “DefenderCon, and Expo Extraordinaire.”

  “Which is in London,” I half barked, half laughed.

  “I guess it can’t hurt to ask.” Eric shrugged.

  “If we can go on a trip to Europe? What’s the point?”

  “Maybe your parents will be so sympathetic that they’ll say yes.” Eric locked eyes with me for a second, then we both snorted and shook our heads.

  “You know what, I’m gonna ask just to see what they say.”

  * * *

  “Oh, honey, that would be amazing, but there’s no way,” Mom said.

  “I’ve never been to London,” Dad said in a wistful voice, which actually gave me a second of false hope, but then he sighed. “We could do it in a couple of years if we really plan for it.”

  “That’s …” I groaned. I knew it was totally unrealistic for us to go on such an expensive trip—I’d looked up the airfare and practically had a heart attack when I saw how much it was—but now that we were talking about it I felt so frustrated. It actually made it worse that Mom and Dad were taking it kind of seriously. “That’s too late. It has to be this year. They’re not gonna do another book like the one he’s signing this year.”

  “Matt, we just can’t do it,” Mom said. “You’re sure this DefenderCon thing is the only other—”

  “YES, I’M SURE.”

  I slumped over on the table and folded my hands over my head like a tent. A tent of despair.

  “He’s our favorite comic book artist,” I mumbled. Mom and Dad exchanged one of those looks where they both make sad faces with upside-down U-shaped mouths.

  “How about if we set up some other kind of trip with you and Eric?” Dad said. “We could go to some other convention that’s in driving distance. Or just someplace you guys think would be fun.”

  “Sure, I guess,” I said into the surface of the table. It helped that he wasn’t being all hey, I have a TERRIFIC idea about it, but going to some other comic con where we couldn’t get Jonah Burns to sign the Sandpiper Iconic Edition would be like eating a jelly doughnut that turns out to be a slice of bread wrapped around a piece of fruit leather.

  “Okay,” Mom said. “We’ll come up with something. I know it won’t be as good, though, and I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  “So am I,” Dad said.

  Mom came over and rubbed my shoulders a couple of times, then went into the living room. Dad kissed me on the back of my head and
went into the kitchen, where I heard him start washing dishes.

  Everything was awful.

  October means Halloween, and by the second week of the month the school was basically wallpapered with pumpkins and ghosts and stuff. Mr. D was maintaining tradition by hanging up a scarecrow he’d made himself, complete with a fake mustache that looked like his mustache. It was really good, actually—you could always tell he’d spent a bunch of time on it—and he’d always laugh when we’d tell him how much better-looking the scarecrow was than him.

  I was still in a terrible mood about DefenderCon, although Scarecrow D helped a little. I tried reminding myself that at least Eric and I were still going to World of Amazement, which also kind of helped. I knew we’d eventually have to figure out who else to room with—the hotel rooms were four-person suites—but Hector solved that problem for us, and waaaaay before it actually had to be solved.

  My locker and Eric’s locker were at opposite ends of the hallway leading to the music wing, and mine was at the end closest to the music rooms, so I stopped at my locker while Eric kept going toward his. Hector’s locker was just a few feet away from mine, and he swung its door shut as I walked up.

  “Hey, Matt,” Hector said.

  “What’s up, Hector?” I said. It was still weird to open my locker and not immediately put my piccolo in my backpack, so I stared into it for a second before grabbing the Giant-Size Untouchable Girl special issue on the top shelf and stuffing it into my backpack instead.

  “Not much. You picked out a Halloween costume yet?”

  I shrugged. “No. How about you?”

  “Yeah, I’m gonna be a zombie wrestler.”

  “You mean like a lucha libre zombie?”

  “Yeah. You know about lucha libre, huh?”

  I shook my head.

  “Not really, but did you ever read that book Niño Wrestles the World when you were little?”

  “Ooooh, right, by Yuyi Morales!” He pronounced “Yuyi” more like “Juji,” although not quite—the J sound was a little squishier, or something.

  “Right. That’s all I know about lucha libre. Anyway, that’s an awesome costume.”