• WATER

• COTTON SWABS

• PAPER

• IODINE

• A SMALL SPONGE

NOW, BEFORE WE MAKE

THE INVISIBLE INK, I NEED TO

TEST YOU TO MAKE SURE YOU

HAVE THE BRAINPOWER

TO ACTUALLY DO THIS.

QUESTION 1:

IF I USE THE STOVE WITHOUT

MY PARENTS’ SUPERVISION,

I COULD:

• BURN THE HOUSE DOWN

• BURN THE HOUSE DOWN

• BURN THE HOUSE DOWN

• ALL OF THE ABOVE

IF YOU GUESSED ANY OF THE

ANSWERS ABOVE, YOU ARE NOT A

MORON AND THUS WILL KNOW TO

MAKE SURE YOUR PARENTS ARE

WATCHING YOU WHILE YOU COOK

ON THE STOVE. IF YOU GOT THIS

QUESTION WRONG, YOU ARE A

MORON. YOUR PARENTS PROBABLY

ALREADY KNOW THIS. YOU SHOULD

STEER CLEAR OF THE STOVE, AND

FIRE IN GENERAL.

ALL RIGHT, BRAINIAC, LET’S

MAKE US SOME INVISIBLE INK.

MIX 3 TABLESPOONS OF

CORNSTARCH AND 1/4 CUP OF

WATER IN A PAN AND STIR UNTIL

THE CORNSTARCH IS DISSOLVED.

COOK ON LOW HEAT UNDER

A PARENT’S CAREFUL EYE.

ARE YOUR PARENTS AROUND? GOOD.

LET IT COOL FOR A FEW MINUTES,

THEN DIP A COTTON SWAB OR Q-TIP

INTO THE SOLUTION AND WRITE A

SECRET MESSAGE ON A PIECE OF

PAPER. NOW, IN A BOWL, MIX 3

TEASPOONS OF IODINE WITH 2/3 CUP

OF WATER. DIP YOUR SPONGE INTO

IT, MAKING SURE TO SQUEEZE OUT

EXCESS WATER. NOW WIPE THE

SPONGE ON YOUR MESSAGE.

IF YOU FOLLOWED THE

DIRECTIONS EXACTLY,

THEN YOU SHOULD SEE

YOUR MESSAGE IN

PURPLE. IF NOT, WELL,

I DON’T KNOW. I MEAN,

I CAN ONLY DO SO MUCH.

Spencer de La Peña was a novelist. For the last five years of his life, he got up in the morning, ate an egg-white omelet, and bicycled to the local coffee shop on the corner of Wykoff Avenue and Smith Street in Brooklyn. All day long he drank from a bottomless cup of coffee and worked on a sweeping epic about the last days of feudal China. It was a complicated and demanding story with hundreds of characters and thus far had not found a publisher—but it would! Spencer was convinced.

He would write the whole day, and at five o’clock sharp, with his hands so shaky from the caffeine he could barely type, he would file away his novel and go to work on the job that paid his bills—writing comic books.

Spencer was currently working on three titles at the same time: Sgt. Blast, Ultraforce, and Clash of Heroes. Each one was filled with costumed guys who punched one another in the mouth a lot. He had come to comics hoping to give them some depth, but after only a few issues of his retelling of Medea, his editor informed him that readers were not interested in depth. They wanted more punches to the mouth. But hey, it paid the bills.

“Are you Spencer de La Peña?” a voice asked now from beyond his laptop screen. Standing before him was one of the most awkward kids he had ever seen—chubby, short, with purple pants and a clashing shirt. Spencer knew something about awkward kids. He had a huge audience of young readers, all of whom were nervous, ill-adjusted, and destined for a lifetime of bullying.

Spencer frowned. “Sorry, kid, I’m busy writing. I don’t have time for autographs.”

“I’m not interested in getting one. Are you the guy who writes Ultraforce?” the boy said. He held out a copy of the comic.

“Yes, and—”

“Did you write this one?”

The writer eyed the cover. It was an issue he had written featuring a character he had created himself—the Machine Master.

“Yeah.”

The boy pointed to the villain’s weapon—a space-age ray gun that made machines bend to the villain’s every whim. “How does this work?”

Spencer rolled his eyes. He scooped up his computer and snatched his jacket. “Kid, I know all this stuff is very interesting, and I admit to being a bit of a fanboy myself, but nothing in those pages is real. That ray gun doesn’t exist, and if you built it it wouldn’t work. I made it up. It’s imagination. So, I’ve got to get going. It was nice to meet you, but I have a deadline.”

“But—”

“I’m sure there’s some online community about this comic. Perhaps if you all put your heads together, you can figure it out for yourselves.” He walked out of the shop. Unfortunately, his path was blocked by four more equally geeky kids.

“I don’t think you answered my friend’s question,” a jittery Mexican kid said.

“What is this? Are you kids part of some fan club?”

“Something like that,” the boy from inside the coffee shop said as he joined them. “And we need your help.”

Suddenly, Spencer felt a little sting on his hand. When he looked down, he noticed that a boy with huge braces had given him an injection. Before he could complain, he felt a tremendous wave of sleepiness and then everything went black.

When he woke up, Spencer had no idea how long he had been asleep. He also had no idea how he had strapped himself into a leather chair on what looked like a very fancy airplane. He also had no idea who the beautiful woman was who was standing over him, but she made the first two mysteries seem like a lot less of a problem.

“Good evening, Mr. La Peña,” the woman said. “My name is Ms. Holiday, and you’re on board the School Bus.”

“It’s been a while since I was in school, but I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been long enough for them to swap out buses for planes.”