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didn’t know my utility belt was back in the rubble. How do you expect me to have exact change without it?”
    “Then maybe you should call yourself Exact Change Utility Belt Kid!”
    “That’s a stupid name ... although Exact Change Utility Belt
Boy
does have a nice ring to it.”
    The two of us sat on the curb. We’d gotten half a block before the driver had kicked us out. “Exact change only!” He laughed as the door hit me in the butt on the way out. “And happy Halloween.”
    “Now what?” Exact Change Kid asked. “I hate to admit it, but I’m not much good without my change.”
    “
Without
your change? I don’t know where you’ve been for the last two hours, but you’re not much good
with
your change, either!”
    Okay, that was a little low and the moment I said it, I felt bad. But I was on edge, and when I’m on edge I do edgy things.
    I felt my ankle. It still hurt too much to use my super speed. Sure, you might be able to walk on a sprained ankle, but try running 90 miles per hour on one. I had to use my brains. It was the League of Big Justice’s only hope.
    Use my brains!? The League of Big Justice didn’t stand a chance.
    “Do you still have your cell phone?” I asked.
    Exact Change Kid pulled a phone from one of his hidden pockets. Time seemed to stop as I faced one of the most difficult choices I had ever made. Once I dialed, there’d be no turning back. Spelling Beatrice’s beeping
T
sounded in my hand, as if to remind me my sacrifice meant nothing if it saved lives. I pressed the phone to my ear.
    “Hi, Mom? I need a favor . . .”
    Within fifteen minutes, my mom arrived in her Oldsmobile station wagon. We climbed into the car.
    “Guy tells me you throw pennies,” my mom said as Exact Change Kid buckled his seat belt.
    Trust me. It just went downhill from there.
    Spelling Beatrice’s tracking tile did the job and led us directly to the secret base of the Brotherhood of Rottenness. It was hidden in a garbage dump. How fitting.
    At least for Le Poop.
    I was hiding behind a small mound of flies, leftover pizza, and something that might have been alive at one point but now was just kinda stinky. Exact Change Kid was across the street getting change at a mini-mart.
    And my mom was in the parking lot.
    I had told her this was just a training drill.
    If I had told her the truth, there was no way she would have let me go anywhere near the garbage dump. She parked in the lot to wait for our “drill” to be over so she could take me home.
    At least I’d convinced her to stay in the car.
    From my hiding place, I had watched the evil ones carry Boom Boy, Spice Girl, Spelling Beatrice, and Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy through a large hidden door, and I was waiting for Exact Change Kid to return before we attacked.
    That’s what I
wanted
to do, but the thing about evil is, it just seems to have a mind of its own. The large door started to slide closed. Once it did, I knew there would be no way for us to get into the base. It was now or never.
    I bolted from my hiding spot. Pain shot through my ankle, but I ignored it. I had to. With each super-speed step, the pain stabbed higher up my leg. The door didn’t care how much my ankle hurt. It was closing. I pushed my speed up to 72 miles per hour and dove, barely sliding past the threshold as the door slammed shut and cut me off from the rest of the world.
    That’s when things really got bad.
    Everything started to shake. That’s never good when you’re in a building, because buildings that shake when there’s no earthquake can only mean one thing: Two Ton Tom was attacking.
    I turned to face his artery-clogged attack, but he wasn’t there. I was alone. So if a building shakes and Two Ton Tom isn’t attacking, then what that really means is that the building isn’t a building.
    It’s a rocket ship.
    Below, Exact Change Kid raced up with a fistful of dimes. “Take that!” he shouted, and he flung the coins at the ship as it ripped away