Matt Wallace - The Supervillains Guide to Being a Fat Kid

M ax shouldnt have been thinking about revenge, about taking down Johnny Properzi once and for all. Max shouldnt have been thinking about how good it would feel to throw him through the nearest window. The boy the whole school called Johnny Pro had already gotten what he deserved for making Maxs life miserable, at least thats what Max told himself. But to have Johnny Pro physically feel just a little of what hed made Max feel since the school year began, what other kids like him had made Max feel for as long as Max could remember... that was so tempting.

He knew he could do it. He had the training now.

Max should have been thinking instead about finishing the plan, about putting the last piece in the puzzle, like his friend, teacher, and mentor told him he could do at this party. Revenge wasnt part of that plan.

That should have been at the front of Maxs brain, but all Max could think about was how uncomfortable the suit he was wearing made him.

Master Plan said hed get used to it. He told Max that it was like anything we do to help us become the people we want to be. Those things can be uncomfortable at first, they can even hurt, but it is the kind of hurt thats like a broken bone healing. In the end, it makes you stronger.

Most kids in the sixth grade didnt wear suits to school, at least not to his school. Hed told Master Plan that hed get killed wearing one to class. But this was a party.

It was only the second time hed ever worn one. The first was at his first Communion ceremony, and it was this itchy brown thing his mother bought at a secondhand shop that was too small. He remembered he could barely keep the shirt tucked inside the pants.

The suit Master Plan had ordered for Max, made just to fit him, was like wearing a cloud compared to that other one, but it was still more than he was used to.

Master Plan told him it was the last step in changing the way the other kids thought of him. Max did think the suit looked cool. He just didnt like it because it made him sweat. Everything made him sweat, but wearing layers of clothes always made it worse.

Max watched half the Captain Clobbertime Memorial Middle School Water Polo Team striding toward him, danger in their every step and fury in their eyes, led by the eighth-grade boy whose downfall Max had directly caused.

He wondered if he was sweating more because of the extra clothes, or because of how nervous he felt about what was about to happen.

Max had learned a lot since he opened his first email from Master Plan, but the biggest thing hed learned was that there are things people do and say that they can never take back. There are some things that saying sorry for isnt enough. Those things change people and the world around them forever. You had to decide if doing them would change your world for the better, and if making that happen was worth it to you.

Master Plan was the one who had taught Max what consequence meant and, more than that, what it could do to people.

Thats how Max knew that what he had done to Johnny Pro was one of those things you couldnt take back. As he watched the boy, the one whod made him afraid just to exist, about to step to him, Max knew at once that if he let Johnny Pro provoke Max into acting, something else would happen that he couldnt take back. The world around him would change. And whether that change was good for Max, it would definitely be bad for the other boys.

A big part of him wanted that to happen.

He still wasnt sure, though.

Master Plan wouldnt wait. Max knew that. He wouldnt ask himself questions. He wouldnt be sweating through two shirts. Master Plan wouldve already decided to wreck them all if they were coming after him.

But Max wasnt Master Plan.

Yet.

A second ago, he didnt think he could sweat any more or any harder, but he was wrong.