LAB RAT

LAB RAT

by

Elias Cooper

(age 11)

Chapter 1: Knocked Out

11 year-old Jasper Kanagal trudged toward home from the Creation Club in pure misery. The rain came down in torrents on his unprotected body. No one, not even the weather stations, had foreseen this summer storm. So he had not worn a jacket.

Jasper had slipped several times in the muddy streets of New York City and almost got killed by a speeding car. “I hate this place,” he moaned to no one in particular. 

Just then, a white Mercedes Benz chugged around the corner, stopped and the passengers disembarked. Jasper did not pay it much heed. (Later he would say he wished he had paid attention.) A burly man with a rifle slung over his shoulder stepped out. He raced across the street, much to the dismay of the many cars crowding the roadways. When Jasper finally heard the footsteps, he whirled around into to meet a gloved fist. Then Jasper crumpled to the ground.

“Whaaaa? Where am I?” Jasper groaned. His head pounded with a raging fury. 

“Yer at the police station, kid.” Jasper looked up to see a police officer staring down at him.

“What why? What’d I do?”

“Ya did nothin’. Yer bein’ questioned, after disappearing for a week and whatnot.”

“A WEEK???!!! I’VE BEEN MISSING???!!! WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!!???WHAT THE CHEESE???!!!”   

The police officer stayed calm. “Yer’ve been missing a whole stinkin’ week and ya don’t know?” he inquired. 

“NO!” came the frantic and confused reply. 

The police quizzed Jasper for hours, in which he learned he’d been missing and the police had been hunting him for a long time. “We found ya in the Bronx sewers, if ya believe ‘et.” said the officer, whose name was Kent. 

When Officer Kent finally released him, Jasper walked straight into his father, mother, brother, and six sisters. They swarmed him with hugs, kisses, and questions, until his mother saw he was tired and ordered everyone--including herself--to stop “pestering” him. She combed her fingers through his wavy, brown hair. “I missed you,” she whispered. His father crushed him in another bare hug. “Good to have you back, son,” he said with a grin. Unlike his huge father, Jasper was a small slim boy. 

When they arrived home, Mrs. Kanagal ushered her son to bed. That’s when the rats came. Rats had never been in Jasper’s home before. Hundreds of rats swarmed his room, on top of him under him, and next to him. But Jasper wasn’t afraid. But it was annoying having rats all over him. “Go ‘way.” He muttered crankily. To his surprise, the rats scurried away, into the hall and out the windows. 

Miffed by the rats obedience, Jasper picked up a ball and bopped it. It sailed threw his open window and hit a building on the other side of the street. “Wow.” was all he could say. Did he have superpowers? 

No one will ever know if he just remembered or if the word “superpower” triggered his memory. But Jasper Kanagal remembered how he had woken up in a room full of government scientists. How they had injected potions and liquids into his body. How when he’d asked, “What are you doing” a woman had laughed and said, “Giving you superpowers!” He’d heard a scientist say, “If we inject these superpower-giving thingie majigs into bombs like the government wants...we’d be unstoppable!” They’d used him like a lab rat. 

Then Jasper also figured out his superpower. He could control rats, or more rats would help him with stuff. And as a bonus, he had super strength! “Wow.” he whispered again into the darkness. Then he thought What terrible things will the government use this for? He’d heard people talk about very horrible things.

1.   Use this SPP (Super Power Potion)  to make America a Communist country

2.   Put the SPP in bombs, guns, missiles , etc and causing world havoc

3.   Killing the President and putting Jeff Algansor into office. (Jeff Algansor believed in destroying Israel, China, Japan, and the Koreas forever).

4.   Stop the would-be communist government from destroying Israel, China, Japan, and the Koreas forever.  

  Now for a superhero name. Every superhero had a name. “Rat King? Nah.  Super Rat? No. Rat Baron? Nah. Extreme Rat? No way. How about...Lab Rat?” Jasper said aloud. “Yeah. I like that. Lab Rat.”

 But the next day, everything went wrong.

(to be continued)

(original and unedited)

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Signed,

Wiggles the Polliwog