The Hero
By Zar Rezwan Pavri
Chapter One: Z Boy
You’ve heard of Superman, Batman and Spiderman, but have you ever heard of Z Boy? If you haven’t this is your chance. In San Francisco, CA in 1965 a baby was born. He was a normal boy. His name was Tom, Tom McCarthy, to be exact. His hair was brown, his teeth were just baby teeth and his feet were regular feet. His eyes were plain brown. Like everyone he had two ears. He seems normal and boring, right? Well, he was. His family was boring, his house was boring and his dog was boring. He didn’t care about his boring life. Since he was so boring, he couldn’t feel sad that his life was so boring because he didn’t know how much fun life can be.
But in 1968, on January 25th, horror struck the city. All the trash from the ocean had traveled onto the road the night before. That very night, there was thunder and lightning and the lightning struck the pile of trash to make it radioactive!
Later that night, Tom was bored so he went outside. He crawled up onto the top of a chair and leapt through the window outside on the pavement. He was wearing his pajamas because he was about to go to bed. It was a very cold, rainy night in San Francisco so his pajamas got soaked and his hair got wet.
He looked up and saw the giant trash pile. He thought it was unusual since he had never seen that much trash piled up before. Then he thought I never do anything interesting in life so I’m going to climb this trash pile.
He started to climb up the trash pile. There was glass, food, and old car parts. It was hard for him to climb the trash pile because it was very steep and he had to keep dodging jagged materials.
He was three quarters of the way up when he started to feel funny. He had a tingling feeling inside of him. He thought it was just from all the fun he was having. But later while climbing he started to realize it was not just the fun. Next, he felt something poking him really furiously.
All the chemicals in the trash had started to make him feel like someone was stabbing him with a knife. Then he froze, the chemicals had gotten to his brain. He couldn’t feel a thing now. He had gotten to the top and his eyes were glowing a strange bright blue color just like the glistening blue of the Pacific.
Then a voice said to him, “Go be a hero and save the earth.”
He fell from the trash pile onto the ground. Although he fell on rock hard cement, it didn’t even phase him after what he had just gone through. He didn’t understand it, but he knew one thing, he was going to play a big role in protecting the world.
Chapter 2: The Unbelievable Villain
You must be wondering, if Tom’s a superhero where’s the villain? Well, here he is. Bob McCarthy was born five years after Tom McCarthy on Friday the 13th. His eyes were blue, his hair was blonde, his teeth were just baby teeth and his feet were regular feet. He sounds normal and boring right? Well he was (but his parents hated him). His family was boring, his house was boring, his street was boring, and his dog was boring. If you were paying attention you would know that Tom and Bob were related. In fact, they were brothers.
Tom and Bob were in the living room and Bob was on top of Tom. Tom was giving Bob a piggyback ride. It was early in the morning and Bob still had on his pajamas because he needed someone to help him put his clothes on every day and his parents weren’t up yet. Tom though, was already dressed and ready for the day with a 49ers sweater and a pair of jeans.
The thing was, that Tom didn’t actually want to give Bob a piggyback ride, but the night before Bob had begged and begged for a piggyback ride, and since Bob’s parents weren’t up yet Tom had to give the piggyback ride.
Then Bob had an idea. He thought, Maybe I can lift Tom off the ground if I’m strong enough. So he blurted out, “ Can I try to lift you, Tom?”
Tom replied with a flat out, “No.”
“Please?’’ asked Bob.
“NO, I already told you.” Then it got really heated, but finally Tom brought out the mean voice and finished off the conversation with another no.
So Bob finally agreed to get on Tom’s back and the piggyback ride continued, but this time there was a twist. Tom still had some chemicals on his back from the radioactive trash pile, but over the years they had rubbed together and made a whole other power. This was a power to spit plastic bags, which was quite a rather terrible power to have, but you could use it for good if you truly wanted to.
Anyways, Bob decided to use it for a bad cause, let me tell you why. Throughout the years, Bob’s parents were very, truly mean to him, the reason being his grades. His grades were never great, actually they were terrible, and his parents didn’t like that one bit. But, it was never his fault; he had dyslexia, which made words jump around in his head. But nobody, not even his parents, knew that. One day his parents made an announcement to Bob and said that until he got his grades up he would not eat dinner with his family, sleep in his own room, read his own books, see his own friends, or do anything fun. After a whole year of this torture, Bob, sleeping outside, thought to himself that when he was out of his parent’s grasp he would make the earth feel all the suffering that it had made him go through.
He was going to be one bad villain.
Chapter 3: They Meet Again
In 1982, on May 18th, Tom McCarthy, now also known as Z Boy, was flying around the city and . . . (oops, I forgot to tell you what super powers he has. He can fly, suck garbage into his arm, talk to water, and throw really far) . . . as I was saying, Z Boy was flying around the city and then he saw a man; a very familiar man. Z Boy zoomed in and it was his brother. He flew down to meet him, but before he could, Bob looked up at Tom and he started to run. Tom thought, What? We haven’t seen each other in forever, why is he running? Then he saw where Bob was running to.
He was running towards the beach and there were some people sun tanning and he had to hurdle over them. He hurdled over two people but the third he hit straight in the face. FLABOOM! Since he was in such a hurry he didn’t even stop to apologize, he just sprinted away. Once he got to the edge of the beach though, he made sure nobody was looking, by scanning up and down the beach. He ducked down and spit some plastic bags into the ocean. From a distance, one might think he was throwing up, but if you got just a little closer you would see he was actually spitting bags into the ocean.
Once Z Boy saw this he was astonished. He immediately ripped the bags out of the ocean and pushed all of the garbage into his arm and turned it into muscle and then threw the rest into the sun.
Bob glared at Tom and on that note he was gone. Tom flew down to the ground and walked to his house, stunned by what he had seen.
Chapter 4: A Man’s Cover
You see, a superhero has to have a job so he can earn money and have a cover. Tom’s cover is being a manager at Radio Shack. You must be wondering, what’s Radio Shack? Well, back then in the 1980s, Radio shack was the place to buy small electronic stuff. It was a boring job. Every day he did the same exact thing: sell plugs.
Later, when he was 26, he was offered a job as an author. He would later write many autobiographies. There were a few things he didn’t like as an author. He hated revising and editing. I bet you didn’t know this but many authors hate doing this stuff.
Anyway, back to Tom. He once wrote a book about his adventures as a superhero, although nobody really believed that he was a superhero. It was all just really good fiction to them. Tom never really wanted them to know that he was a superhero anyways. That’s the reason he had that job. Tom, like other superheroes, knew that he had to keep his identity safe and sound. So he never told anyone who he was or where he was from.
Chapter 5: The Attempt of a Lifetime
On June 2, 1990, Tom was enjoying a day on the beach with his two kids and his wife, Penny. Thirty minutes after they settled in, Tom saw his brother once more. He was spitting plastic bags into the ocean again!
Tom had to do something without hurting his brother.
He asked the water to topple Bob over. So the water made its biggest wave ever. But Bob, also known as Pollution Boy, stayed firmly locked on the ground. Z Boy got worried that he would have to physically fight Bob. But that wouldn’t be the case because Pollution Boy was gone!
Later Tom went home with his family. His two kids were fighting like apes with a bad temper. Tom was yet again stunned by what he had seen. He knew that Bob wasn’t going to back down unless he fought him but when it comes to family, Tom can’t do anything to hurt them. It’s just the way some people are born, and Tom and Bob were very born differently. If Tom doesn’t fight, I don’t know what he’ll do?
Chapter 6: The Madness
In 1992, on July 16th, just for once Tom was just trying to relax on the beach without having to fight Pollution Boy. He laid down his blanket and put up his umbrella for some shade. He relaxed for one hour and then thought, it’s time to go. He started folding his blanket, but was interrupted yet again by Pollution Boy.
“Oh, c’mon!” yelled Z Boy. He walked up to his brother and everyone stared. “Why do you always have to ruin my time at the beach?”
“Hello, brother,” said Bob.
“Hi, I’m really excited to see you but I’m also really mad.”
“Why would you be mad? I’m doing the world a favor,” he said delightfully.
“A FAVOR?! You call this a favor?” Z Boy was getting really mad now. So he sucked up all the trash in the ocean and threw it into the sun with all his might.
“NO! You ruined all my hard work,” said Pollution Boy. This time he spit out as many plastic bags as he could into the ocean. But then he spit out a giant plastic bag and trapped Z Boy.
“No! Let me out!” he cried. The water heard him and he was freed.
Tom went up to Bob and pointed his hand at Bob’s mouth. Then he started sucking the plastic bags out of Pollution Boy. Then more and then more until finally there were no more plastic bags left in Pollution Boy.
Bob fell to the ground and yelled up at Tom, “Hey bro, you want to start things over?”
“Sure,” said Tom and the brothers gave each other a high five.
Now, the 58-year-old and his 54-year-old apprentice still roam the streets of San Francisco. If you see them, remember this story and what Z Boy did to save the earth and the work that they do to clean the ocean even now.
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