The Brotherhood of the Traveling Underpants

Chapter 1

The Bad Guy Brotherhood

Goofball McCluskey was the brains of the operation. Calamity Wayne had the getaway vehicle. And Max the Wonder Thug was, of course, the muscle. If you wanted something broken, you called Max. If you wanted to get away after breaking something, you called Calamity. And if you wanted to know how to do both perfectly, you asked Goofball.

Speaking of Goofball...

“We have to do it before school lets out,” Goofball said. He was sitting at the table with Calamity and Max discussing plans for their latest job—a bank robbery. With the McNasty Brothers in prison, the bank robbing business was wide open. “If we pull the job after school, we’ll have two superhero’s to deal with instead of one.”

Max nodded. “Good thinking,” he said, scratching his oversized neck.

The three bad guys met weekly for the Bad Guy Brotherhood, where they discussed various bad guy ideas and got feedback from one another. They used to call their meetings The Sinister Sessions, and before that they called themselves the Brotherhood of the Traveling Underpants, but being connected by a shared article of clothing seemed a bit odd—and kind of gross.

Calamity looked confused. “Two superheroes instead of one?”

“Yes,” Goofball said. “Melvin Beederman works alone until his sidekick gets out of school. Everyone knows that. I’d rather deal with on superhero instead of two, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” Calamity said. Calamity could be a bit slow sometimes, but he eventually understood. If they pulled the job in the morning, then Melvin would be working alone, which would make it easier to get away.

These bad guys weren’t stupid. Okay, maybe was one of them was. But two out of three ain’t bad.*

Melvin Beederman was the superhero in charge of Los Angeles. He lived alone in a treehouse overlooking the city. Candace Brinkwater was his sidekick, his partner in uncrime, the girl he had divided his cape with. She was the only person ever to score 500 points in a single game of basketball. She was the only one ever to run the hundred yard dash in three and a half seconds. She was the only third grader who could fly.

But she had to wait until after school was out to help Melvin save the world. And so Goofball, Max, and Calamity planned their devious and sinister deeds for when Candace wasn’t around to help Melvin.

The three bad guys raised their glasses in a toast to their evil plan. Max, the muscle, would beat up the security guard at the bank, Goofball would get the money, and Calamity would drive the getaway vehicle.

“Be sure to make like a baker and haul buns!” Max told Calamity.

“Exactly!” Goofball said.

“No problem,” Calamity said.

With any luck, they’d get the job done. If only they could outsmart Melvin Beederman. After all, Melvin had noggin power.

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