Read Online Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain by Richard Roberts - Free Book Online Page A

out of the metal it was eating slid up to fill in the gaps. New legs emerged near the front, shoveling mechanisms into larger jaws that hinged like a bear trap. Every bite made it bigger, and, as it got bigger, it ate faster.
    I watched the bloated, turtle-like metal monster filling the bin suck up the last bits of wire, loose screws, and a tiny screwdriver lying on the bottom.
    “Come here, boy!” I ordered, my voice hoarse from excitement.
    The Machine stepped out of the bin on four bladed, multi-jointed legs. It was the size of a car.
    I giggled. I wanted to laugh out loud, but if my parents hadn’t seen what was going on yet, I wanted to keep them in the dark. This was the last real hurdle that might get them suspicious.
    I tucked my foot into a wedge sticking out of a metal leg, grabbed the edge of an armor plate, and hauled myself up. Then I extended an arm down to Claire, who just possibly might have been radiating as much glee as I was.
    “Where are we going?” I asked her.
    “Head down toward Santa Monica Boulevard.”
    I slapped The Machine. “You heard the girl. Get moving!” It lurched, rocking underneath us as it stepped over our fence, walked up the driveway, then turned and followed the sidewalk down the street. Walked? It moved way faster than I could run.
    Wait. “We’re heading toward Santa Monica? It’s not. It can’t be—” I gaped at Claire.
    She giggled back. It must be.
    It was. The ride was surprisingly smooth. The Machine was obviously a superhero’s kid’s toy, so a few people pointed and laughed with delight, but nobody minded clearing the sidewalk as we trundled down toward West Hollywood. Right until Claire pointed and told me, “Over there.”
    She was pointing across the recess yard of Northeast West Hollywood Middle School. The old villain’s lair was on school property.
    “Go on!” I told The Machine. It picked its way across the concrete yard, and I was glad it was late Friday afternoon and every kid I knew was as far away from here as they could get.
    “Those doors on the corner,” Claire said as we got closer. The school is huge and capital-J-shaped. It had lots of plain locked doors on the outside I’d never worried about. On the opposite corner, there had been stairs going down to the shop class. I knew there weren’t any stairs going down on this side.
    A supervillain’s lair was taking up that space. It had to be.
    When we reached the doors, I slid off The Machine and tugged at the doorknobs. Locked, of course. I could have The Machine eat the lock.
    I didn’t have to. Claire’s feet hit the concrete next to me, and she pulled a key out of her pocket. “Mom broke into this place right before Baron Overlord got himself banished to another dimension.”
    “Baron Overlord? Quite a title for a villain I’ve never heard of,” I said as she unlocked the doors.
    “Nobody’s heard of him. He lasted about five minutes. Major overconfidence problem. So now his lair is ours!” Claire crowed, pulling the doors open.
    Inside was a metal platform. An elevator. An elevator with lights. It still worked.
    “In!” I instructed The Machine. It stepped around Claire and drew in its legs to fit in through the doors and onto the elevator. I’d programmed it to be gentle, apparently.
    We squeezed in around the Machine, and I pushed a button that lit up bright green. My stomach fluttered as the floor dropped quickly, then smoothed to a halt. Wire gates opened in front of us. The lights on the elevator’s posts were just enough for us to see that we faced a big, dark room.
    I peeked around the corner and slapped the button on the wall. Sure enough, lights came on in rings on the ceiling of a huge, domed room. Open electrical panels gaped along the walls. I saw five more doors, two open into dark tunnels, but not much else. This place had been stripped.
    I pointed at the middle of the floor. “Start upchucking, Machine. Remember, I want everything back like it was, but fix