BY MICHAEL BUCKLEY
The Sisters Grimm
Book One: The Fairy-Tale Detectives
Book Two: The Unusual Suspects
Book Three: The Problem Child
Book Four: Once Upon a Crime
Book Five: Magic and Other Misdemeanors
Book Six: Tales from the Hood
Book Seven: The Everafter War
Book Eight: The Inside Story
Book Nine: The Council of Mirrors
A Very Grimm Guide
NERDS
Book One: National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society
Book Two: M Is for Mama’s Boy
Book Three: The Cheerleaders of Doom
Book Four: The Villain Virus
Book Five: Attack of the BULLIES
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for and may be obtained from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-8109-8986-3
Text copyright © 2010 Michael Buckley
Illustrations copyright © 2010 Ethen Beavers
Book design by Chad W. Beckerman
Published in 2010 by Amulet Books, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. Amulet Books and Amulet Paperbacks are registered trademarks of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
Amulet Books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact specialmarkets@abramsbooks.com or the address below.
115 West 18th Street
New York, NY 10011
www.abramsbooks.com
For Nikki Mock,
Janet Vaughan,
and all the kids
at Hammond Hill
Elementary in North
Augusta, South
Carolina: the place
where NERDS
was born.
The goon woke in a hospital with a bandage wrapped tightly around his ribs and an IV dripping sedatives into a vein in his arm. Though he could not remember how he had been injured or how long he had been unconscious, his first thought was to call the office and find someone to cover his shifts. He had a busy week of beating people to a bloody pulp, and his victims weren’t going to punch themselves in the face. He couldn’t leave his bosses in the lurch. He was evil, but he was professional.
Perhaps it was his dedication to his work that had built him such an impressive resume: fifteen broken jaws, fifty-seven legs, a hundred arms, and more noses than he could count. He had knocked out thousands of teeth, pushed a few people off bridges, and once buried a guy in concrete up to his neck. He had been nominated for Goon of the Year nine times by OUCH (Organization of United Criminals and Henchman), and had won its highest honor, the Brass Knuckle, seven times. At the office, he showed up early and left late. He had his lunch on the job, frequently beating people as he ate his peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches. You didn’t get on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list by taking a sick day! He leaned over to the IV line that fed his body sedatives and yanked out the needle. He couldn’t have predicted how much it would sting. The pain brought back a wave of memories.
The goon had been in the employ of an eleven-year-old evil mastermind who wore a black mask with a white skull painted on it. It had been a fiasco. “Simon,” as he called himself, had made some rookie mistakes that had led to bigger problems. His first mistake was working with a mad scientist named Dr. Jigsaw—a kook with a doomsday device that was supposed to pull Earth’s continents back together. Second, the kid had spent a fortune building a secret fortress at the North Pole for said kook. Naturally, some heroes came along and destroyed the place just before the overly complicated plan could be unleashed on the world, which was Simon’s third-biggest blunder; he should have killed the heroes as soon as they arrived. Instead, he took them hostage. Even babies know that heroes have a tendency to escape just in time and ruin a villain’s plan. Sure enough, the heroes destroyed Dr. Jigsaw’s continental-shift machine. During this calamity, something fell on the goon. Then everything went black and he woke up in this hospital.
Now the goon’s cell phone rang. Someone had set it on the table next to him, and as he reached for it, he realized he was missing a hand! In its place was a hook. The goon studied it for a moment, then the closest thing to a smile his mouth had ever produced appeared on his face. Most people would have been devastated to see a menacing metal hook where their hand should be. Not the goon. The hook was just the kind of thing that would win him his eighth Brass Knuckle award.
He reached over with his real hand and snatched up the phone. When he saw that the caller ID said SIMON, he answered it.
“Hello,” the boy’s voice said over a tremendous racket. It sounded as if he were trapped in a storm. “It’s me. I see you survived the explosion.”
“Not quite. I lost a hand. I had a doctor clean it up. They put a hook on my arm.”
“Cool,” Simon said.
The goon almost smiled again. It was cool, but he didn’t like to brag. “It actually hurts a lot and I have to give up the piano,” he said.
“Oh. Your sacrifice is noted and appreciated.”
“I’m sorry about the plan, boss,” the goon said. Through the wind he heard laughing. Then again, it might have been a cry for help. He couldn’t be sure. “Boss? Are you OK? It sounds like you are laughing.”
There was a long pause followed by a number of grunts and groans, then Simon’s voice returned. “Your concern is amusing, my friend, but completely unnecessary. You see, Jigsaw and his little machine were just part of a much bigger plan, one that is going exactly the way I want. Take care of yourself. I’ll contact you when I need you again.”
Then the phone went dead.
“Hello, it’s good to see you awake,” a doctor said from the doorway. He was tall, with gray hair and a kind face. “I wanted to talk to you about your hand. I know you must be very troubled to find the hook—it sort of looks like a prop from a pirate movie. Fortunately, it’s just temporary. We’re ordering a new one that looks and acts a lot like a real hand. It should be here in a week.”
In response, the goon tossed his pillow into the air, then used his hook to slash it in two. Feathers flew around the room. “Actually, I think this will be just fine.”