My Brother is a Superhero Read Online Free PDF

stop right outside it on the High Street. For the first time ever I’d persuaded Zack to come with me to the comic store, telling him if he wanted to understand how to be a superhero, then who better to teach him than Spiderman and Batman? Afterwards, clutching a bundle of new comics, we waited for the 227 bus. It was due at 2.47. And it was on time.
    “That’s unusual,” I remarked.
    “It’s not that unusual,” said Zack, who took morebuses than me. “The 227 is actually quite punctual.”
    “I don’t mean that,” I said, pointing. “Look.”
    The bus hurtled down the road, swerving wildly from side to side, its horn blaring like a frightened animal. It bounced off the kerb, sending people on the pavement fleeing in terror, then tore past a line of cars waiting at the lights, snapping their side-mirrors like a giant pulling wings off a fly. As it plunged towards us I saw the driver wrestling with the wheel, his face white with fear.
    In a flash I guessed what had happened. “The brakes have failed…”
    The door to the comic book store flew open and a gaggle of boys poured out to see what all the commotion was about.
    The bus clipped a parked car and went up on two wheels. A hubcap shot off like a Sidewinder missile, flying over the head of a policeman and crashing through the window of the hardware store. The bus was half on its side, its metal bodywork screeching against the road, leaving a trail of sparks behind it like a lit fuse to a bomb.
    “Zack,” I whispered. “You have to do something.”
    He flipped up his hood and strode purposefully out into the middle of the road, directly into the path of the oncoming bus.
    A few of the boys from the comic book store started to point.
    “Look at that idiot!”
    “What’s he doing?”
    “He’s going to get himself killed!”
    The last speaker, a red-haired boy with freckles, whipped out his mobile phone, tapped the video-camera icon, and began to record.
    Zack planted his feet and stretched out both arms. He was going to use his telekinetic power to stop the runaway vehicle. I’d seen him use it to move a torch and peel a potato, but they were nothing compared to a double-decker bus. I almost couldn’t look. He lowered his head, concentrating fiercely, summoning his superpower.
    The bus kept on coming. The noise of tearing metalwork was dreadful. And then, just as it seemed about to flatten Zack something incredible happened.
    The nose of the bus rose up, quickly followed by the rest. Zack stood there, arms extended like a weightlifter, the enormous double-decker hovering above his head.
    The High Street on a Saturday afternoon is a noisy place, but at that moment it fell utterly silent, save for the creaking of the suspended bus and the squeak of its spinning wheels.
    The pavements were filled with gawping pedestrians.Drivers stopped their cars to stare in slack-jawed amazement.
    Zack lowered the bus gently to the ground. The excitement was too much for the old vehicle. There was a groaning of joints and its suspension sagged. The hydraulic doors opened with a sigh like a dying breath, and the passengers emerged on unsteady legs, dazed but otherwise perfectly unharmed.
    The comic-store boys were the first to find their tongues. Like me, they’d been waiting and dreaming their whole lives for something like this to happen.
    They started to cheer madly.
    The rest of the street joined in, applauding and whooping.
    I stood on the edge of the cheering boys, not that any of them paid me the slightest attention. They were almost laughing with excitement.
    “Did you see that?”
    “That was incredible!”
    “Who is he?”
    I covered my mouth and coughed, “Star Lad.”
    “I think he’s called Star Lad,” said one.
    “Star Lad? Cool,” said one more.
    “Shame he doesn’t have a cape,” said another. I gritted my teeth.
    “D’you think he’d sign my comic?” the red-haired boy with freckles wondered aloud.
    As soon as he suggested the idea, the