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from its garbage-covered camouflage and slowly lifted into the sky.
    I peered through a window in the ship’s side. The last thing I saw was Exact Change Kid covering his head as the dimes fell back to earth and rained down on him like candy from a broken piñata.
    He waved at me. “I’ll just go wait in the car!”

Chapter Eight
    Showdown with Evil

    Once I was inside the ship, it didn’t take long to find the League of Big Justice and the sidekicks. A few left turns and one hydrolift later, and I was on the ship’s bridge.
    And so were they: King Justice, Lady Bug, Captain Haggis, The Stain, Mr. Ironic, The Good Egg, Ms. Mime, Depression Dave, The Librarian, Pumpkin Pete, Charisma Kid, Spelling Beatrice, Spice Girl, and Boom Boy were all in large glass tubes. Boy-in-the-Plastic-Bubble Boy hung from the ceiling like a giant hamster disco ball.
    Everyone seemed to be okay, but they looked like they were in a trance. Probably something in the tubes. I ran over to the console and looked for a button to free them.
    And there was a button. There were also about a hundred knobs and two hundred levers. This thing was more complex than my last science test.
    I quickly scanned the console. I didn’t have much time. One way or another, the Brotherhood would find me. I spotted a red button and hovered my finger over it.
    The thing about red buttons is, pushing them always makes something really good or something really bad happen. Red buttons never result in something just okay. You never push a red button and then say “Gee. That was okay.” Try it and see.
    “I wouldn’t pick that one if I were you,” a voice behind me said. “Unless you want to start the dishwasher.”
    I knew that the moment I turned, I would be face to face with the evil mastermind that had defeated the League of Big Justice! Such a feat would take the greatest supervillain the world had ever known! He would be big, strong, mean, and terrifying with a genius mind capable of defeating the League of Big Justice and putting the heroes in tubes like Barbie and Ken dolls in a Toys ’R Us! I braced myself and turned, realizing I could never be fully prepared to face the awesome evil thing that waited to unleash the full fury of its awesome evilness and stuff.
    “Hey!” I said. “You’re just a puppet!”
    “A puppet, or the greatest evil force the world has ever known!?”
    I looked at him. He was made of wood and had strings. “No. Just a puppet. So, can you let my friends out or what?” I asked, looking at the balding chubby man with bottle-thick glasses who controlled the puppet’s strings.
    “Why are you talking to him!?” the puppet shouted.
    “Because... he’s a human being and... you’re made of wood?” Seemed like a no-brainer to me.
    “He’s my mind slave!” the puppet shouted again. He looked up to the chubby man and cackled with glee. “Aren’t you... mind slave?”
    “Yes... master.. .” the chubby man said.
    Oh, brother.
    “Yeah. Sure. Mind slave. Silly me for missing that one.”
    “Allow me to introduce the architect of your demise!” the manic puppet said. “I am ... Peenoh Keeoh!”
    “Don’t you mean ‘Pinocchio’?” I asked.
    “Yeah. If I want to get slapped silly with a lawsuit. Idiot!”
    One thing you can always count on a villain to do is explain his plan. There’s this thing about bad guys, like they never got enough attention as kids or something, so any time someone will listen to them, they just blab, blab, blab. That’s why they always have lackeys and minions. Those poor stooges have to sit around and listen to their bosses yak all the time.
    It’s like people going to a Michael Jackson concert. You don’t know why they do it, but it just keeps happening.
    “You’re probably wondering why I did all this?” Peenoh Keeoh asked.
    See. Even puppets need attention.
    “I plan to shoot the League of Big Justice and their lousy little sidekicks into the heart of the sun! I will be the man who