~Earlier, a universe away~
Timmy woke up to being shaken awake by Mr. Truth. Mr. Truth was a girthy man with a girthier mustache. He looked like a bowling ball rolled into an angry walrus with eyebrows, all smush-nosed and red-faced.
"Up and at em, Timmy boy!" Mr. Truth cried. "You've got a big day ahead of you. Big day!"
Timmy snatched his phone from his nightstand and looked at it. He wiped the morning crusties from his eyes and looked again. He glanced at the weak sunlight filtering through the soccer ball-sized window above his night stand. It was the only window in the whole attic, and it treated sunlight like a filter treated dirty water.
"It's six in the morning."
"That is is, Timmy. Best to start now, before you're late for school."
"It's a Sunday though."
"Yes! Isn't it wonderful? Hurry on and get dressed; your mother and I expect you downstairs, pronto!"
Mr. Truth clomped his way down the ladder. It creaked in protest, for the attic was very high up, and the man weighed on the wooden device considerably. Thump. Thump. Thump. Little swirls of sawdust swirled from the roof of the attic.
"Ah-CHOO!" Timmy sneezed. He reached for a tissue, but the Batman tissue box was empty. He wanted to lie back down and sleep. But experience had taught him that Mr. Truth would return cheerier and more obnoxious than ever, and he'd bring a bucket of cold water with him.
"School, shmool," Timmy grumbled. He reached for the pile off clothes next to his mattress and sniffed them. He tossed on his favorite T-shirt, a Merlin TV show fan-print from his grandpa, and a nondescript pair of blue jeans.
He paused before lifting the hatch. A strange premonition overtook him. Uneasy, he glanced back at the superhero posters hanging around his room. Colorful and heroic, they were who Timmy aspired to be -- a good person.
Heroes were underdogs. Like Timmy. All they needed was a fighting chance to prove to the haters they were awesome. A place where they could meet lifelong rivals and early love interests.
"High school," he said, yawning. He shuddered and shook his head. Villainous backstories were made in the parking lots of middle-American high schools. It's just how the world worked, according to TV. And whenever superhero parents woke them up bright and early in the morning, something extraordinary was bound to happen.
"Yeah, right," he muttered. Shaking his head knowingly at his youthful middle-school fantasies, the clever fourteen-year-old boy descended the ladder. His parents were weird, but they weren't weird enough to accidentally get themselves killed by a evil supervillain and start a revenge plot epic enough to get made into a whole movie.
At least, he hoped not. Family was family, after all. No matter how strange.
--
His parents found him in the living room, which was also the foyer. Dozens of stock photos hung about the room, which was painted alternating shades of red, white, and purple. Wallpaper peeked through some sections where his parents hadn't thought to peel it. An old TV hung from a wall, and coffee-stained couch lay sprawled across from it. Timmy's mother, Mrs. Truth busied herself with something in the kitchen. Upon catching sight of Timmy, she waved frantically and hurried over. She shoved something black and smoking under Timmy’s nose.
“Tomato, Timmy?”
Timmy peered suspiciously at the damp tomato smushed between two slices of charred toast. “No, I think I’m alright.” At Mr. Truth’s stern glare, he hastened to add, “ Why don’t you have bite, mother? It’s, erm, awfully early. You’re probably hungry.”
Mrs. Truth shrugged. She bit into the charred toast like a lioness crunching into a bony hyena carcass. With her big, brown curls and a strong teeth, Mrs. Truth often reminded Timmy of something out of a Nature documentary. Timmy, with his flat chestnut hair and plain brown eyes, more closely resembled an animated twig. Where Timmy was flat and pointy, Mrs. Truth was thick and rolling. Neither she nor her husband looked like Timmy at all.
They liked to point this out whenever Timmy did something to upset them.
Mrs. Truth coughed and turned purple. Her husband hurried over. He thumped her on the back until she spat out a wedge of tomato.
“Thank you, dear,” she said. She looked at Timmy and frowned. “If only you’d eaten the sandwich, Timmy, none of this would have happened.” She looked at Timmy, blue eyes alight with eager anticipation.
Timmy shifted nervously. “I guess not. But-”
“You know what your father and I think about butts, Timmy. Remember?” Mrs. Truth arched a brow and affected a stance that indicated she expected Timmy to remember every golden advice nugget she’d ever dropped – and her husband, too, for good measure.
Lucky for Timmy, he’d always had a very good memory. Sometimes too good, according to his grandfather, who didn’t appreciate his advice being quoted back at him. Remembering was easy.
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Unfortunately for Timmy, Mrs. Truth liked to mixed and matched phrases like a mad scientist building the world’s biggest word scrambler.
“No cuts, no butts, no coconuts?” Timmy said. It was something Mrs. Truth occasionally said while waiting in lines or buying groceries, or both. Timmy had no idea what coconuts were supposed to do with anything, especially not butts.
His mother nodded, pleased. “There you have it, Timmy. No coconuts.”
“Listen to your mother, boy,” Mr. Truth called from the kitchen, where he munched on a bowl of chips and easy-make guacamole. Mr. Truth moved like a trolley, slowly but steadily trailing invisible lines between the kitchen and all other rooms of the old house.
Timmy wandered over to the threadbare couch and plopped in it. His mother eyed him critically from where she rifled through a packet of magazines and newspapers the previous owners had forgotten to cancel..
“Where is your backpack?” Mrs. Truth said. “Boys shouldn’t head to school without their backpacks.”
“It’s summer vacation,” Timmy explained, unsure of what had possessed his parents to insist he prepare for school a whole week ahead of opening day.
Being largely responsible for his own well-being meant he’d taken it upon himself to read the pamphlets, and the pamphlets said school began on the 1st of September. The calendar Timmy hung on the covered fridge marked today’s date as August 25th.
Mrs. Truth wagged a finger. “Now, that’s no way for a foreign exchange student to behave, mister. We brought you up right and proper, we did.”
“Sure did,” Mr. Truth said between bites of Cookie Crisps.
“Foreign exchange student?” Timmy said.
“No need to state the obvious, Timmy. Albert, would you be a dear and fetch Timmy’s backpack from his room? We can’t have his hosts think we let Timmy go without his backpack!” She brandished a rolled magazine in the direction of upstairs.
“Oh, all right,” Mr. Truth grumbled, clearly reluctant to interrupt his morning snackage.
Timmy clutched a pillow. “You’re sending me away?”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic, Timmy. It’s only Canada.”
“Canada!”
“A year abroad will grow you up nice and quick.”
“A whole year?”
“Yes, isn’t it wonderful? Think of all the nice, Canadian girls with mittens.”
Before Timmy could ask what in the world mittens had to do with anything, Mr. Truth clomped his way downstairs and shoved a Spiderman backpack around Timmy’s shoulders like he was saddling a Timmy-sized horse. He clapped Timmy on the back.
“That’s it, boy. You’re all packed. Up and at em’ now.”
--
Not a minute later, Timmy found himself staring down the wrong end of a screen door. He had on him a backpack stuffed with various snacks, a package of pancake mix helpfully provided by Mr. Truth, and a $20 bill his mother had loaned him for “various airport things.”
“Good luck, my boy!” Mr. Truth hollered from the other side of the door.
“It's Canada, dear. He won't need luck, he'll need maple syrup.”
“Right you are, dear. Right you are.”
The second, heavier door slammed shut. There was the sound of a lock clicking in place. Then a second click, because Mrs. Truth had never quite gotten around to trusting the government.
“Thanks a lot,” Timmy muttered. He turned.
The neighborhood of Castillon Avenue was nothing out of the ordinary. Grey, wispy clouds cast shadows over rows and rows of mismatched houses. The rolling, house-by-house gentrification of Castillon had never quite reached the point where it’s former residents had given up and rolled over. Thus, trimmed gardens existed side-by-side with overflowing ones, broken fences were erected alongside thick metal gates, and half-painted houses squatted beneath the shadows of majestic three-story villas. The only signs of the cold war being waged were the increasingly passive-aggressive Post-It notes residents stuck to their neighbors’ mailboxes.
Timmy crunched through piles of broken leaves until he reached the edges of his parents’ property. He wondered where he was supposed to be – surely, his parents hadn’t expected hi to make his own way to Canada?
Timmy had to admit, that did seem like the sort of thing they’d do. His adopted parents had picked him up from the orphanage with nothing more than a vague idea of how children worked, alluding more than once to a book titled How to Raise Your Human 101 that Timmy had yet to find online or elsewhere.
The only notable thing outside Timmy’s property was a sleek, black limousine. And if Timmy knew one thing, it was that limousines had nothing to do with Timmy. Fallen leaves swirled around the tires of the parked car. The tinted windows revealed no hint of whomever or whatever might be inside, much to Timmy’s disappointment.
Timmy fished from his pocket an old smartphone, a gift from his grandfather. He slowly typed a few words, then waited. He peered at the screen. “Gosh. That looks expensive.” He gave the $20 in his pocket a friendly pat. “Sorry, but it looks like you’re stuck with me.”
A well-dressed neighbor looked curiously at the limousine parked across the street. Surely, they’d be willing to help Timmy travel to Canada. Assuming his parent had actually managed to arrange Timmy proper schooling and housing, which Timmy very much doubted.
Why bother? Timmy thought. He’d occupy himself for a couple days, then return to his parent’s home, claiming defeat. He’d done it before. Anyways, his Grandpa Truth was always happy to see his only grandson, if only to talk his ear off about his late wife.
Timmy nodded. His mind was set. He practically knew the city buses by heart. He peered one more time through the tinted windows of the limousine. The glass was dark. Impenetrable.
Timmy sighed. He took a few steps along the pavement.
The door to the limousine opened. A long, muscular arm snatched Timmy by the waist and yanked. The door to the limousine slid shut, and the vehicle sped off down the street in the a squeal of burnt rubber.
The woman across the street stared open-mouthed at where the young man had been. She dropped the Post-It note in her hand and hurried inside to inside call her husband, who would call the police, who would call the government, who would call someone in charge of chasing down filthy rich kidnappers loitering on the intersection of Castillon Avenue and Maple Street.
But by the time help arrived, it would be much too late. The kidnappers were long gone. And the boy’s parents, a Mr. and Mrs. Truth, were nowhere to be found.