CHAPTER ONE

Do you ever wish that you had a superpower?
Me too. Ever since I can remember. The first one I ever really wanted was the ability to eat metal. Don't ask me why. I was only three, and for whatever reason, I thought my life would be perfect if I could just take little nibbles out of water faucets and car bumpers whenever I wanted. I even had dreams about devouring entire skyscrapers. . . .
The next superpower I really wanted was the ability to smell fear. You know, like a dog can. Somehow I got it in my head that if I could smell fear, then no one would ever bother me or yell at me again, and I could chase away burglars and everybody would pet me and call me "good boy" and give me treats, and I could take the treats to my special place in the hallway and --
I'm pretty sure I wanted that power because we'd just gotten a little puppy named Cheerio. He was a dachshund, one of those tiny little sausage dogs with cute pointy noses. I never did get fear-sniffing powers like Cheerio, but I did start trying to eat my food out of a bowl on the floor, and I did start trying to go to the bathroom on the . . . listen, I was four. OK? And soon after that infamous newspaper incident, my parents told me that Cheerio missed his old home and had asked to go back to his farm in the countryside so he could be with Grandma Cheerio.
I've wanted all sorts of superpowers over my twelve years here on planet Earth. Most of the powers have involved the ability to sniff out something or to eat something that's not actually food. But the one I've always wanted more than anything else is the power to be invisible. I know what you're thinking -- everybody wants that power. It's the most unoriginal power you could possibly want. Everybody wants to sneak around and look through people's stuff and maybe steal some precious jewels . . . but that's not why I want it. You see, I do have something of a superpower: I always end up in crazy situations.
Every time I look up, I'm in a crazy situation.
I'm actually in one at this very moment. And I'd do anything for an invisibility cloak right now, and I mean anything. I'd even eat locusts.
I am on the floor, flat on my stomach, underneath Miss Adolf's desk. My nose is
about six inches from Miss Adolf's feet, and a moment ago -- while I was telling you about poor little Cheerio -- Miss Adolf decided to kick off her shoes and get comfortable. Her feet smell like damp cheese and -- oh, no -- I feel a sneeze coming on. It's in my nose already. My face is starting to scrunch up. It's going to happen. And since I'll have only a few minutes to live after it's out, and since my invisibility cloak is once again on the fritz, I might as well tell you how I got here.
It all started with World War I.
 

CHAPTER TWO

Three weeks earlier.
When Miss Adolf asked for a volunteer to try on a gas mask, an authentic one from World War I, there was no question that I was going to be that volunteer. It all happened so fast. I don't even think I raised my hand. One moment Miss Adolf was taking out the gas mask from her bag and the next moment, I was at the front of the class, the thing pressed against my face, with Miss Adolf tightening the straps to skull-crushing levels.
 
"Too tight!" I gasped, to everyone's laughter.
"It's got to be airtight. You don't want to inhale mustard gas, do you?"
"I want to get out of this thing!"
"Notice, class, how difficult it is to speak wearing one of these gas masks," Miss Adolf said, and yanked the strap tighter.
"You're crushing my ear!"
"We can no longer understand anything Hank has to say. All we can hear is a low grunting sound." The class was loving it, laughing and pointing. "So you can imagine how difficult it was for soldiers to hear their comrades in the trenches, surrounded by machine-gun and artillery fire."
I was starting to get a little woozy. The goggles had steamed up from all my breathing, and the thing smelled like one-hundred-year-old saliva, just like that spit valve in the music room's trombone, the one that has been used by generations of kids.
 
"Can I barf in this thing?"
"Henry looks and sounds more anteater than human, don't you think, class?"
Through the steamy eye holes I saw that Miss Adolf looked quite pleased with herself for that one. She did that thing where it looked like she was trying to smile, but with her face so used to frowning and glaring all the time, it looked less like she was enjoying herself and more like she'd just eaten a bit of tainted meat.
"You sure there's no mustard gas left in there?" my best friend Frankie asked.
Miss Adolf thought about it for a moment. "I'm mostly sure."
"If there's mustard gas in there," my other best friend, Ashley, said, "he could go temporarily blind and get diarrhea!" Ashley is, by the way, super interested in grisly medical stuff.
Miss Adolf sighed. She loosened the straps, and I threw off the mask.

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Excerpted from Hank Zipzer: the Pizza Party by Theo Baker
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