His brother, Chaz, was even crueler. He called Jackson “Braceface” and “Nerdatron.” (Chaz had a thing for robot humor.) He found particular amusement in Jackson’s headgear. At dinnertime, Chaz would bring a collection of household tools with him to see which would snap off the table and attach itself to Jackson’s face. In the night he snuck into Jackson’s room and strung party balloons to it. When he was suiting up for football practice, Chaz would hang his cleats from it. When Jackson complained to his father, his dad told him to suck it up. “A little ribbing is good for you. It will make you a man.”

As the winds of autumn arrived and leaves turned yellow, orange, and red, Jackson sensed the coming of football season and a change in his fortunes. Football was Jackson’s last hope for regaining some of his popularity. He was still the team’s star quarterback, even if he did have an Erector set circling his head. Sadly, on the first day of practice, Jackson discovered his headgear prevented him from putting on his helmet.

“You can’t play without a helmet, kid,” the coach said. “You’ll get brain damage.”

Getting booted off the football team was the last nail in the popularity coffin. Friendless, Jackson drifted through the halls flashing smiles that were never returned, raising his hand for high fives that never came, waiting by his locker for admirers who never showed up. It was as if the warm golden glow that had shined on Jackson his whole life had been turned off.

One day he found himself reminiscing at photos in the school’s trophy case—photos of his father leading the Tigers to victory, of his brother catching a touchdown pass. He found a photo of his own team, and saw himself proudly holding the winning trophy, the same trophy his father and brother had won. Sports were the glue that held his family together, especially since his mother died. The Jackson family had no patience for losers. They were winners on and off the field. Where did Jackson fit in now?

Just then, there was a terrific crash as the winning trophy was yanked through the display case glass by Jackson’s magnetic headgear. It took several teachers a half hour to pry it off his face.

The next day Jackson was banned from reminiscing.

The Hyena reached into her pocket and took out a folded note. She double-checked the coordinates written inside and frowned. There was no mistake. She was in the right place and there wasn’t a living soul in sight. Her mysterious new employer had started off on the wrong foot. It was rude to leave a person waiting in subzero weather at the North Pole! With a sigh, she wondered why criminal masterminds were so obsessed with desolate locations. Couldn’t this “Dr. Jigsaw” meet her in Hawaii or the Bahamas? Half of the money she made as a criminal was spent on mittens and long underwear.

Suddenly, she heard a whipping sound above her and looked to the sky. A black helicopter with no identifying marks of any kind hovered overhead and then landed several yards away. She tried to peer through the windows, but they were tinted black. Then the door opened and two men exited the craft. The first was a tall, thin man with bushy white hair and a neatly trimmed goatee. His face was perfect—too perfect—with well-spaced eyes, a long, straight nose, a strong chin, and not a single wrinkle. But another glance said that this man had had a tremendous amount of plastic surgery; his features had been pulled, pushed, and pounded into place. Now, his dark eyes locked onto the Hyena, studying her features as if making plans to rearrange them as well.

The second man was enormous, with slicked-back hair and chiseled cheekbones. He peered at the Hyena beneath heavy brows. “You da Hyena?” he grunted. His voice told her all she needed to know. He was a goon.

“No, I’m at the North Pole ’cause I’m Santa Claus,” she replied. She couldn’t stand goons. Stupidity was like an art form to them, and this particular goon was clearly the Leonardo da Vinci of goons.

“Dumb” Vinci sneered and turned back to the helicopter. Inside the still-open doorway the Hyena spied a figure dressed all in black. He—or she—turned toward her, revealing a mask with a ghostly skull painted on it. The figure nodded, and on his signal Dumb Vinci handed the Hyena an envelope full of money.

“Who is that?” the Hyena asked.

The first man ignored her question. “My name is Dr. Felix Jigsaw. I’m the preeminent expert on tectonic movement—”

“Tectonic what?”

“The movement of continents!” said Jigsaw. It was clear he had little patience for people he considered intellectually inferior. “I have a little project I’m working on and I believe you can help.”

“What kind of project?” the Hyena asked as she counted the cash inside the envelope.

“I’m going to conquer the world.”

The Hyena sighed. If she had a nickel for every criminal mastermind who said he was going to conquer the world, she’d be a very rich assassin. They never succeeded. Still, there was a lot of money in the envelope. If that was his dream, who was she to discourage him? “Sounds good, boss. What do you want me to do?”

Dr. Jigsaw took a piece of yellow paper out of his coat and handed it to the Hyena. She looked it over and smiled. Her career was finally on track.

“Whom should I kill first?” she asked.

Dr. Jigsaw shook his head. “You aren’t killing anyone. I want you to kidnap them.”

“Kidnap? That’s a job for a goon. I’m an assassin,” the Hyena said, trying to hand him back the paper.

“You want da money or not?” Dumb Vinci grunted.

The Hyena glanced at the envelope stuffed with cash. Inside was more than ten thousand dollars. She remembered that her subscription to Tiger Beat was about to expire … and there were those leather boots she had seen at the mall…. She stuffed the money into her pocket. “Once I get them, where do I bring them?”

Dr. Jigsaw turned and pointed toward the horizon. It was then that the Hyena noticed a silver fortress in the distance, built on the ice.

She was going to have to stock up on long underwear.

Without the gaggle of friends that usually surrounded him, Jackson felt like a ghost—a formless entity that no one could see or hear. He could have worn a clown suit to school or danced Irish jigs with his hair on fire and no one would have batted an eye, not even his old gang. He watched them from afar as they ate their lunches in the cafeteria. When they laughed, he laughed. When they whispered to one another, he imagined being part of their secret.

He was, in a word, pathetic. But it was during these lonely days that Jackson began to notice things about his friends he had never noticed before. For example, Steve Sarver smelled each bite of his food before he ate it. It didn’t matter whether he was having egg salad or peanut butter and jelly, he sniffed then chewed. Sniffed, chewed. Sniffed, chewed. Sniffed, chewed.

Ron Schultz limped, favoring his right leg. Lori Baker licked her lips every 2.3 seconds (Jackson timed it). Jenise Corron wouldn’t eat peas. Even his former best friend, Brett Bealer, who had once seemed like the coolest kid Jackson knew, had an odd quirk—he skipped when he ran.

As Jackson sat on the school bus one afternoon thinking about some of the quirks he had seen that day, he felt a tingling sensation at the back of his brain. It swept through his whole body and set his imagination on fire. Why did his friends do the things they did? Were they aware of their strange habits? He decided to dedicate himself to unlocking the mystery of their puzzling behavior.

The next day he began his life as a spy in earnest. He eavesdropped on his friends’ conversations. He followed them home. He opened their mail. He dug into their trash for clues. Remarkably, no one questioned his activities. No one stopped to ask why he was sorting through disgusting bags of garbage. Jackson was a social outcast, a misfit, a nerd—kids like that were always doing weird things; it hardly deserved attention. Jackson really was like a ghost.