- 1 -

I almost miss it.

I can’t stop staring at the base runner in front of me, with his bright white cleats and his too-big batting gloves. He’s dancing off second base, clapping dust off those clown hands, shouting out nonsense. Jumping from one foot to the other.

All that fidgeting has drawn me in so deep I almost miss it: my best friend, Nate, sending me a secret message from the pitching mound.

See, me and Nate, we have this sort of superpower, a kind of telepathy, but just with each other. We’re always talking. Even when we’re not.

Like right now. From shortstop I get ready for Nate’s next pitch. He stares in hard at the catcher’s signs. The lefty at the plate gulps. Parents in the stands cheer.

And Nate, he’s not even looking my way, but he’s talking to me all right.

It’s the way he’s spinning the ball in his fingers, the way his glove, normally resting on his knee, dangles off his wrist. Nate’s telling me he knows all about the kid darting between second and third like his toes are on fire.

Nate starts his motion. He sneaks a peek back at me. My feet twist into the dirt. I run the sleeve of my Mira Giants jersey across my nostrils.

I know Mom must be wincing in the stands. She’s been begging me to stop wiping snot on my sleeve since I was five. But today, eight years later, my nose is dry. I only did that to let Nate know I got his message, loud and clear.

When nobody else is looking, Nate and I have a secret signal, proof our telepathy is working. We tap our noses with one finger. Right now, though, half of Mira is here watching this game. Not to mention the fidgety kid’s coach over at third. I can’t be so obvious.

Nose-on-sleeve it is. Mom can roll her eyes all she wants.

Nate’s as cool as ice. He doesn’t nod. He doesn’t smile. He doesn’t even blink. My best friend looks back at the catcher. His shoulders relax.

As soon as the kid leaps toward third again, I take off, straight for second base. Nate steps back off the rubber and whirls around. I catch a hint of panic in the runner’s eyes as he realizes he’s been caught leaning. His cleats kick up loose dirt. He stumbles.

I twist my body and lower my glove. I reach the base just as the kid starts an off-balance slide. Nate’s perfect throw smacks into my glove, right in front of the bag, and all I have to do is squeeze it.

The ump crouches down, peering at my glove. I raise it, proving the ball’s in the pocket. I’m already jumping into Nate and heading for the dugout when the ump thrusts his closed fist into the air.

Out!

Somehow Nate’s little brother, Ollie, beats us to the bench from way up in the bleachers at the end of each game, especially big wins like this one. He always looks the same: goofy grin on his face, giant, binocular-like glasses over his eyes, one arm pressing his prized sketchbook tight to his chest. As usual, his other hand is open and raised. None of us forgets, after reaching up to high-five Coach Wiggins, to bend down to tap Ollie’s waiting palm, too.

Dude, where do you come from? Jake McReynolds, our third baseman, asks. He uses both hands to mess up Ollie’s hair. Nate’s little brother frantically tries to put it back into place.

It’s his superpower, catcher Kurt Martinez says. He unbuckles his chest protector, shakes it off, and stows it under the bench. Teleportation. This is a game we’ve been playing since I moved to Mira a few years back and joined the Giants, since I discovered my new teammates were almost as crazy about comics as I am. One of us starts to describe superpowers, and the first one to yell out the matching hero wins. But where’s your brimstone—

Nightcrawler! I shout, and Nate does, too, but just after me. Frustrated, he chucks his glove against the fence. It’s pretty hard to beat me in the name—the—superhero game.

I make a game-show-wrong-answer buzzing sound. So sorry, Templeton.

Too slow, Kurt and Jake say together.

You and your thousand comics, Nate complains. I almost had you.

"Hey, Dan, tomorrow’s Wednesday. Captain Nexus comes out," Ollie shouts toward me. He reaches between the pages of his sketchbook, and I catch a glimpse of one of his drawings. The kicking leg of a pitcher—who else but his hero Nate?—seems unrealistically high, but Ollie snaps the book shut before I spy any more details. He pulls out #13, the one with Spark on the cover shooting lightning bolts toward the Hollow. His issue’s not even bagged.

What are you doing?! I ask.

Ollie’s eyes go wide. What?

You don’t bring a comic to a dugout. There’s dirt everywhere. I swear, Ollie’s only a year younger than us but sometimes he acts like he’s still in elementary school.

Look! Sally, our first baseman and the biggest kid on the team, shouts as he points at me. Dan’s eye is twitching. Have you started vacuum-sealing your comics yet, Summers?

Oh, there’s an infectious disease lab at the CDC that’s vacuum— Kurt starts.

Oh my God, Martinez, Sally breaks in. Give it a rest. Kurt’s a huge germophobe. His constant Purell use and crazy trivia about diseases always bother Sally first.

Nate raises his voice above everyone else. Hey, Ollie’s right. Number fourteen tomorrow. Focus. He looks down at his brother, and Ollie beams back at him. All set for your group read?

Mom got the pretzels, Ollie says, nodding.

Because you can’t read a comic without pretzels, I say, then roll my eyes at Nate.

Ollie’s talking like I don’t know tomorrow’s a Captain Nexus Wednesday. We’ve all been on pins and needles for weeks now, wishing #14 could somehow hit the shelves early. All Nate does, though, is shrug. It even takes him a second to tap his nose. I know it’s because he doesn’t like me picking on Ollie. Wish he would defend me like that when the other Giants mock me for taking care of my comics. Whatever, like it’s a crime.

And the truth is, Ollie’s the one who told us about Captain Nexus in the first place. Even the group read was his idea: Nate always calls it Ollie’s group read like he doesn’t want us to forget his brother invented it. Reading with half the team in Nate’s basement is fun, sure, but sometimes I kind of wish Nate and I could just enjoy the new issues on our own.

Coach finishes talking to some parents and swings down into the dugout. He claps his hands to get our attention.

Okay, Giants! He points toward the parking lot, where most of our moms and dads are on the way to their cars. You know the drill. DiNunzio’s! We need to talk tournament.

The Giants throw our gloves into the air and hoot. After we collect the rest of our equipment, we rush after our parents. There’s no time to lose when pizza’s waiting.

- 2 -

Mom takes her phone out of her purse and shows me the alarm screen. Nine thirty, right?

Mom. That alarm isn’t even on. I twist in the passenger seat of the minivan, snatch the phone from her hand, and swipe the bar to green.

Mom’s really bad with time. When she’s in her office working on a report, she thinks ten minutes have gone by when it’s really been a couple of hours. Lately she’s been letting me set alarms on her phone as reminders. The results have been mixed.

Your dad’ll be here, she says in front of DiNunzio’s, her face lit up by the green-and-red flashing neon sign in the restaurant’s window. Hot!!! Pizza!!! Hot!!! Pizza!!!

We’re in the parking lot. The rest of the team’s already inside. I hand her phone back and try not to let doubt show on my face. My father’s a big-shot architect. Right now he’s working on a huge project to restore some old building downtown, in Buffalo. It was his favorite building growing up, the whole reason he studied architecture in the first place. The chance of a lifetime, he’d said when his firm landed the job.

It sounded great until I realized what it really meant. Lately Dad’s always stuck at work, weekends even. This morning I’d asked him to pick me up after pizza and he’d promised he would. Then again, he’s been promising to come to our games all summer, too, and he hasn’t made it to a single one yet.

Listen, Mom says, if Coach orders a spinach—

I cover my ears and cluck out I’m not listening noises. Mom does food inspections for the county. She has all these horror stories about every restaurant in Mira, but she’s not allowed to ruin my favorites, like DiNunzio’s.

Don’t let Dad forget, I say as I open the door.

Mom grabs my arm before I can escape. Hey! Congratulations again! The tournament!

Thanks, Mom.

As I step out onto the pavement, she blurts out, Don’t eat the spinach!

I sigh. Really, who eats spinach on pizza, anyway?

Coach always buys so many pies that probably all twelve of us could each eat a whole one and we’d still end up with leftovers. Nobody would ever go near the disgusting anchovy and pineapple he orders for himself, though. One time Greg Dravecky touched it by accident, and the team gave him the silent treatment the entire next practice, like in the major leagues when a rookie gets his first hit and the bench ignores him on purpose.

Stand back! Nate shouts tonight when Coach’s weird pizza lands on the table with a heavy thud. He extends his arms, protecting the rest of us from certain death, then smirks at me. Watch out, Dan, I think it’s moving.

It’s the crawling pie! I shout.

Hands flying across the table, the whole team grabs slices, eager for a pepperoni. Sausage. Anything but anchovy and pineapple. Kurt snags the biggest piece of the meat lovers, then turns his head to dig into his pack for his hand sanitizer. Nate reaches around and steals his slice, grinning at me while the crime is still in progress. I tap my nose.

Hey! Kurt cries when he looks back at his empty plate. Nate’s already darting around the table with his plate over his head, the grease from the huge slice dripping off the dangling tip.

All right! Coach stands up at the head of the table. We quiet down. Hey, you guys were awesome today! Like the Amazing Super . . . Team . . . Friends! I swear, of everybody on the planet, Coach could set the record for knowing the absolute least about superheroes and comics. It’s so weird that he’s our coach.

I open my mouth, but Nate leans toward me. Just let it go, man.

Listen up, people, Coach continues. Before I lose you to pizza hangovers, a tiny bit of housekeeping. Next practice is Saturday morning. Tournament starts in two weeks!

Coach tries to talk some more about the practice schedule, but we’re all too busy high-fiving and fist-bumping. Getting into the Western New York Double Elimination tournament used to be just a dream. No team from tiny little Mira had ever done it before.

But today the Giants did it, all thanks to Nate’s incredible pitching.

Outside I spend a minute searching for Dad’s Volvo before hearing Kurt say, Hey, Mrs. Summers. That’s when I notice it’s Mom waiting for me in the minivan instead.

I’m on time, at least, she says defensively when I open the door.

Where’s Dad?

Stuck at work. She watches me buckle in. He said to tell you congratulations.

I nod. My glove is on the floor where I left it. Feels like I need to be doing something with my hands, so I pick it up and start to run both thumbs over the stitched decal.

Hey, Mom says, reaching out to turn my chin toward her. Your dad’s just busy right now. It’s a big project.

I force a smile. Yeah, I know.

Come on. She thrusts the van into reverse. I bought ice cream sandwiches. We need to continue this celebration. She slaps her own knee. The tournament! Then Mom howls like a wolf, one of her go-to celebrations. I join in, our little pack of two.

- 3 -

Sometimes I wish I’d gone with the short comic boxes instead of the long ones. Okay, you can’t fit as many comics in them, but at least they’re easier to move around.

You could help, you know, I grunt at Nate. I’m on my knees, struggling to pull a heavy long box out of my closet. The white cardboard full of bagged and boarded issues drops to the rug with a thump.

And you could hurry up, Nate says from my desk chair. He lifts his feet and spins around once while flipping a baseball from one hand to the other.

Don’t rush me. If I get agitated, the gamma rays turn me big and—

The Hulk! he shouts.

I shake my head. "Too easy. Big and furry and orange. And those are the only clues you’re getting."

He snaps his fingers as I flip up the cardboard lid. I know this one, Nate murmurs. What’s his name?

I start to hum the Final Jeopardy tune. I’ve got the right box. My Alpha Flight collection is here, which is what made me think of that particular hero. Some guy in dirty coveralls sold me the first twenty-four issues of the original series for a song—Dad’s expression—at the Walden flea market last summer. That was back when Dad and I used to go every Saturday, hunting for bargains. Now it seems like there’s never enough time.

These days I spend my Saturdays with Nate instead, except when the Templeton family has to attend some Ollie event. It feels like Ollie enters everything, like he’s trying to prove I-don’t-know-what to I-don’t-know-who. It’s like Mira isn’t good enough for him. He’s always heading out of town for a spelling bee, MATHCOUNTS, Junior Science Fair, whatever.

The worst day was last summer, when Mr. Templeton drove the boys to Toronto for that big comic convention, but I couldn’t go because it was my uncle Marty’s birthday. That Saturday, like all the other ones without Nate, rolled by in dreamy slow motion, my face buried in the pages of Captain Nexus and the Nexus Five back issues, cruising through the Nexus Zone alone.

Sasquatch! Nate cries before I get to the end of my tune.

Bingo. I slide an issue out and show it to him. The orange, furry hero from Canada’s greatest super team is front and center on the cover.

So bring that one, he says. The guys are gonna be at my house any minute. He sets the baseball back on my desk and leans forward, elbows on his knees. They don’t really care which one you pick, you know. They haven’t read any of these old ones. Not like you.

Ollie’s group read happens one Wednesday a month. We picked Nate’s basement because it was the biggest. We need lots of room to devour the latest issue of the best comic ever, Captain Nexus and the Nexus Five, together. I always bring an older comic, too, from my ever-expanding collection of classics. I’m trying to educate the rest of the Giants, slowly but surely, on the greatest heroes and villains ever, though I’m pretty sure Captain Nexus and his enemy, the Hollow, now sit alone at the top of that list.

Whichever issue I bring, I let one of my teammates take it home. When he finishes reading, he passes it to the next guy. My only requirement is that the book comes back in the exact same condition. And I mean exact. No wrinkles or bends, no spine stressing. Once Kurt said the words minor corner wear together in the same sentence, and I think I might’ve fainted.

They . . . don’t . . . care? I clutch at my chest like I’m having a heart attack, then make a big act of falling over backward. A second later, a pillow flies over my bed and drops right onto my face. Of course Nate’s arcing toss was perfect.

"These are comic books, my muffled voice says through the pillow. I push it off my face. They’re where the heroes live. The people you turn to when you’re in trouble."

You’re obsessed. I can’t see my best friend anymore, but I hear my chair creak all the way around again, then squeak as he lifts his weight from it.

Nate comes around the bed and steps over me. He grabs the top issue of Captain Nexus, #14, just out today, off the stack of honor on my nightstand. The entire series is there. I can’t bear to box them up yet.

He stares down at the cover. Do you think it’s true? About number sixteen being the last issue?

I bolt up straight and fling my pillow past him onto the bed. No way. There’s too much story left.

Yeah, but George Sanderson told Geeker.com—

That was so long ago. Besides, I’m not even convinced they really talked to him. I start counting off reasons on my fingers. No one knows where he lives, how old he is, nothing. He’s never given another interview, so who says he really gave that one?

Nate sits down on my bed. They wouldn’t make it up, would they?

Well . . . I’m about to answer, but I get distracted by #14’s cover all over again. Captain Nexus cowers in front of a mysterious bright light. One of his gloves is missing. The curved N in the center of his gray shirt, surrounded by five dots like electrons spinning around the nucleus of an atom, is ripped, as if someone’s raked their claws straight across the Nexus Five’s logo. It’s as awesome as it’d been on the counter display at Jackson Comics and Games earlier today, seconds before I paid for it.

Beneath the image, in stark white letters I admit I’ve traced my finger over more than once already today: Written and drawn by George Sanderson. I’m almost as big a fan of Captain Nexus’s creator as the actual superhero. I just wish I knew more about him.

Earth to Summers. Nate has one hand rolled into a fist, like he’s speaking through a megaphone. He sets the comic back on my nightstand.

Mom shows up at my door. I didn’t even hear the garage open. She’s in the plain jeans and golf shirt she wears when she’s on inspections—casual, so the restaurants don’t see her coming. Her face is pale white, like she’s just seen a ghost.

Whatever you boys do, if you’re in Brooksburgh, never eat at Luigi’s Meatball Emporium. She wipes sweat from her brow, leans against my doorframe, stares down at her sneakers.

I catch Nate’s eyes and grin. Right, Mom. You know, next time we’re in Brooksburgh.

On our own, Nate continues.

Craving meatballs, I finish.

The things I’ve seen, Mom mutters, shaking her head. I need to lie down. She heads for her bedroom.

"Gonna take her a while to write that report. Nate laughs. Now will you please pick a comic?"

Fine, since you like Sasquatch so much. I slide the issue in my hand back into the box—it wasn’t that good anyway—and thumb through the rest of my Alpha Flights until I find #10. Sasquatch’s grimacing orange face takes up the whole cover. This one is cool. It has the Super-Skrull in it. We haven’t talked about him. He has all the powers of the Fantastic Four at once.

Nate gives me a flat look.

At the same time! I insist, shaking the issue in his face. Strength, invisibility, flames, stretchiness.

Perfect, Nate says. He pushes off my bed. Come on, let’s go. We’re late.

I stand with him, reaching back to snag my copy of Captain Nexus #14 for the read.

Tell me this. What’s Green Lantern’s greatest power? he asks me as we start down the stairs.

Duh. His ring.

Nope. Willpower. If he didn’t have willpower, Hal Jordan would never have been chosen to wear the ring at all.

I feel like I understand almost everything about Nate, but not the heroes he likes. Not all of them, anyway. I mean, he loves Captain Nexus as much as I do, but his other favorites are Batman, Hawkeye, those kinds of guys. Street fighters, a lot of them with no powers at all except for training. And when he does like other heroes, it’s not because of their cool green power rings, the ones that can create any amazing thing they can imagine.

Oh no, it’s always because of something like . . . willpower.

Bor-ing.

It’s like Nate doesn’t get that their powers are what make the heroes super in the first place.

- 4 -

"Finally!" Sally cries as we stomp down into Nate’s basement. He snaps open the little square of tape on his Captain Nexus with eager fingers.

Nate peers around. The ratty old recliner he always reads from sits empty in the middle of the room. Jake and Sally are on