The Greatest Power

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  It was then that Dave realized this was not the best way for him to help. He couldn’t risk giving away that he wore an ancient Aztec wristband with mysterious magical powers. He couldn’t risk giving away that he’d battled Damien Black in the past … and won. He couldn’t risk anyone finding out that he was the person people in the city had seen scale sheer walls of tall buildings. He couldn’t risk the policemen realizing that he was the person they called the Gecko.

  So he answered the policemen with a shy “Uh, never mind” and slipped away the first chance he got.

  “So, señor,” Sticky said when they were safely outside. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready?” Dave asked, looking at the gecko’s expectant face.

  “You have walls to walk, señor. Bad guys to catch.” Sticky climbed fully out of the sweatshirt and perched on Dave’s shoulder. “Can’t you feel it?” He tugged on Dave’s ear, leading him down the street to the manhole cover. “It’s time for you to be the Gecko!”

  Dave found a quiet place to take off his red sweatshirt and put on a dark cap and sunglasses. Then he clicked the Invisibility ingot into the Aztec wristband and, poof, he disappeared.

  “Now where?” he whispered to Sticky. “To the mansion?”

  “Sí, señor,” Sticky whispered back.

  “But … how? I can’t ride my bike … and it’s a long way!”

  “Shhh!” Sticky warned as people were passing by. “Leave the bike. We’re taking a zippier way in.”

  Now, you may be wondering why two completely invisible beings would have to whisper, and the answer is quite simple.

  Being invisible does not make your voice invisible.

  Or, rather, it does not make your voice inaudible.

  And hearing voices that are coming from nowhere frightens people. It makes them think they’re in the midst of ghosts.

  Spirits.

  Poltergeists that will walk through their walls and shake their chandeliers.

  Evil entities that will frighten them with chilling gusts of wind and eerie moaning and groaning and woooooooing in the night.

  It is definitely wise to be, shhhhhh, very quiet when you’re invisible.

  And, you may also be wondering, if Dave, and his clothes, and the backpack he carried, and the talking lizard on his shoulder all became invisible, then why wouldn’t his bike become invisible, too, should he hop on it and ride?

  Unfortunately, the explanation is not a simple one. It has to do with particle cancellation and ion phasing and a mysterious rearrangement of the visibility spectrum.

  In other words, the science behind the magic of invisibility is not entirely understood. It’s a little like electricity. It works the way it does, and we just accept that and get on with things.

  What Dave was getting on with at that moment was wrestling back the manhole cover in the middle of the street. “Why am I doing this?” he whispered.

  “Ándale, hombre!” Sticky urged. “People are coming!”

  A manhole cover is a heavy thing, and Dave could not help but moan and groan as he scraped it back, and Sticky could not help but tell him, “Shhhh! Shhhhh!”

  To the people on the street, it looked as though someone was moving the cover from beneath it. So when all that emerged from the opening in the street were intermittent wisps of steam, the moaning and groaning and shhhhhing sounds took on an eerie feel. A ghastly, ghostly feel. A better-run-for-your-life-or-the-sewer-monsters-will-getcha feel.

  By the time a brave passerby had shoved the lid back in place (trapping, he hoped, the under-world spirits for at least a little while), Dave and Sticky had descended the cold metal rungs of a ladder and were standing on the cement shore of a dark, lazy river.

  “It smells awful in here!” Dave whispered (although, at this point, he could really have quit with the whispering).

  “Sí,” Sticky replied.

  “What are we doing down here?”

  “Being superheroes?” Sticky said.

  “We are not superheroes! We are… we are …”

  “Invisible?”

  “Yes! That’s all!”

  “But, señor, right now we should switch to Gecko Power.”

  “Why? So I can be the Gecko? What kind of crazy superhero is the Gecko? I don’t want to be the Gecko!”

  “Ay-ay-ay,” Sticky said. “If people want to call you the Gecko, let them call you the Gecko.” He eye-eye-eyed Dave. “There are worse fates, señor.”

  “Never mind. Just tell me where I am and which way we’re going. And what is that smell?”

  Now, perhaps you’ve given some thought to what’s beneath manhole covers as you walk across them or bump over them on your bike (or, for that matter, thump over them in a car).

  Dave never had.

  Manholes were manholes. Holes where men could work on … who knows what. He did not realize that beneath the street was a whole maze of channels and tunnels and corridors. That along the walls and ceiling of some of these corridors were pipes and cables and strange industrial boxes and grates.

  He also did not realize that the dark, lazy river that ran through the maze was a collection of many things, but mostly water and waste.

  So when Dave said, “Just tell me where I am and which way we’re going,” Sticky very calmly replied, “I think a light-stick would help, señor.”

  He scurried to a side pouch of Dave’s backpack and hefted the small (but powerful) flashlight that Dave had learned to take everywhere. And when Dave clicked it on and took a look around, he said, “What in the world is this place?” He shined the light on the lazy river. “And what is that?”

  “This is Sewer City, señor, and that is exactly what it smells like.”

  Dave looked at Sticky. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Sticky gave a little gecko shrug. “And unless you want to go through it, you should switch to Gecko Power.”

  Dave most definitely did not want to go through it, so he switched out the Invisibility in-got (being careful not to drop it into the inky, stinky river), then clicked in Wall-Walker.

  “Ándale, hombre!” Sticky said, holding the flashlight like a headlight as he perched on Dave’s shoulder. He pointed upstream. “Thataway!”

  So, lickety-split, Dave scurried along the channels, moving like an oversized gecko with his hands and feet against the walls. He turned this way and that as Sticky commanded until, finally, he asked, “Are you sure you know where we’re going?”

  “Sí, señor.”

  “How do you know where we’re going?”

  “We’re following skid marks, señor.”

  “Skid marks? What skid marks?”

  “See? Right there!” Sticky said, flashing the light over a black gash on the wall. “You should see that loco honcho ricky-race around this place.”

  “Who? Damien Black?”

  “You know any other loco honchos?”

  “But … on what?”

  “Oh, one of his get-there-quick machines.”

  Which was just the easiest way to describe Damien Black’s Sewer Cruiser.

  (Or, if you will, PU Cruiser.)

  It was small like a moped, but with ape-hanger handlebars, and gadgets, mirrors, and gizmos galore. It was (of course) black, with a wicked rocket-fuel-injected motor that could go from zero to one-fifty in four point six seconds and wheels that turned sideways, transforming it into a sewage-spewing Jet Ski.

  And as Dave geckoed his way along the walls, he began seeing more and more skid marks left behind by Damien’s Sewer Cruiser. “We’re getting close, aren’t we?” he panted.

  “Sí, señor,” Sticky said, but his voice was small, and his little gecko heart was clacking like castanets.

  “You okay?” Dave asked.

  But just then they turned a corner, and Dave saw a strange contraption glistening in the flooding light of a mega-watt bulb.

  It had ape-hanger handlebars.

  Gadgets, mirrors, and gizmos galore.

  And it was parked
, kickstand down, next to a narrow spiraling ladder that wound around a wide metal pole.

  “We’re here, aren’t we?” Dave whispered as he came to a halt.

  They were, indeed, there. And although they could have turned around and gone back the way they’d come (or could have found the nearest manhole cover and quickly escaped to fresh air and clear skies), the die had been cast. The momentum built. They’d traveled the entire distance from City Bank to the underbelly of Damien Black’s mansion.

  There simply was no going back.

  Damien Black’s mansion looms like a monster high above the city on Raven Ridge. It’s a house that seems held together by the unyielding forces of evil. With tall, pointy spires, shutters dangling from a single hinge, and odd, creaky, turning-pulling-cranking thingamajigs mounted in inexplicable places, the mansion appears to have a life, a purpose, of its own.

  The mansion, however, is but the tip of the iceberg, as what is visible aboveground is a fraction of the vast heebie-jeebie creepiness concealed underground.

  Deep beneath the floorboards of the mansion’s first story are odd caverns.

  And caves.

  And dark, diabolical dungeons.

  There is also a massive den of dastardly disguises.

  A mammoth chamber for sneaky-peeky surveillance doodads.

  An enormous workshop that, besides the standard saws and hammers and wrenches, is chock-full of thingamajigs and thingamabobs, doohickeys and whatsits, and widgety-gadgety gizmos.

  I could go on and on about the layered labyrinth beneath Damien Black’s mansion, but for now, let’s get back to Dave and Sticky, shall we? They are, after all, headed (in a roundabout way) straight into danger.

  After ascending the narrow spiraling ladder for a few turns, Dave whispered, “I feel like I’m climbing up a big piece of rusty DNA.”

  “DNA?” Sticky asked, for he had, of course, never heard of deoxyribo-anything.

  “Never mind,” Dave said absently.

  “Never mind? Señor, how can you say never mind?”

  “Easy,” Dave said, looking up, up, up the twisty, rusty ladder. “Like this: Never mind.”

  Sticky stood on his back legs and crossed his arms, staring at Dave as they continued up, up, up. “You think you’re such a hotshot, hombre, knowing what this DNA is? Well, heeeere’s a leeetle news flash: I know lots of things you don’t.” He got down on all fours. “Like, say, where we’re going.” He gave Dave a sneaky-peeky look and added, “But, then, that’s something you’re probably better off not knowing.”

  Dave stopped. “I know where we’re going! We’re going into the mansion. We’re getting back Ms. Kulee’s ring. And the bank’s money. We’re …” He squinted at Sticky. “What don’t I know?”

  Sticky squinted right back at him. “Tell me what DNA is.”

  “Oh, good grief.” Dave started climbing the twisty, rusty ladder again. “It’s deoxyribonucleic acid. There. Are you satisfied?”

  “And what is dee-oxy … rybo … new-clay-ik acid?” Sticky asked, pronouncing it with careful respect. “It sounds dangerous, señor.”

  Dave heaved a sigh. “It’s not dangerous. It’s what you’re made of. What I’m made of. It’s like the blueprint inside of living things.”

  Sticky’s eyes grew wide. “And it looks like a big, twisty, rusty ladder? Ay-ay-ay!”

  “It’s not big. It’s tiny, in your cells. And it’s not rusty! It’s—”

  “So it looks nothing like a big, twisty, rusty ladder?”

  “Stickyyyyy!”

  “What?”

  Dave rolled his eyes. “Never mind.”

  “Never mind? How can you say never mind?”

  It was at this point in their argument that they came upon a landing. It was simply a wide metal platform that led to a wide dirt path on the shadowy left and another wide dirt path on the shadowy right.

  Dave hesitated at the landing, looking to the shadowy left, to the shadowy right, and then to the shadowy up-above (as the twisty, rusty ladder continued up, up, up).

  At last, he asked Sticky the obvious question: “So? Which way should we go?”

  Sticky leaned off Dave’s shoulder, then ran, lickety-split, across Dave’s back and leaned off the other shoulder. “Thataway,” he said, pointing to the left.

  “Why thataway?” Dave asked.

  “Footprints,” Sticky said. “Fresh ones.”

  Dave now saw that there were, indeed, fresh footprints leading to the left, away from the rusty DNA ladder. “Where does that way go?” he whispered.

  “Everywhere,” Sticky whispered back, then shuddered and added, “They all lead to everywhere.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” the gecko said.

  “Never mind? How can you say never mind?”

  “Eeeeasy, señor.” He gave a sneaky little gecko smile. “Like this: Never mind.”

  And so their argument started up again, only this time they kept one eye on the hard-heeled footsteps left by Damien Black.

  The pathway was cold.

  Convoluted.

  And increasingly dark.

  But ahead of them there eventually appeared a faint golden glow. Through Dave’s mind flashed the notion that the glow could come from an enormous cavern of gold, but he tried to drive the thought away.

  He was here to recover a ring.

  And the bank’s money.

  Discovering a cavern of gold was not part of the mission.

  Besides, a cavern of gold?

  It was ridiculous.

  Preposterous.

  Totally and wholly unlikely.

  Who but a madman would keep a cavern of gold in a place like this?

  But, then again, Damien Black was a madman….

  The arguing ceased as they pressed onward because, despite his efforts to push the thoughts away, Dave’s mind was now filled with visions of gold.

  Until, that is, there was a piercing screech in the distance.

  “What was that?” Dave whispered, his heart bending and twisting inside his chest.

  “It might be wise,” Sticky whispered, “to switch to Invisibility.”

  Again there was a screech. This time louder.

  And longer.

  And … screechier.

  Dave’s blood was suddenly running extra-twisty.

  “Right,” he said, and with a simple click-twist, twist-click, Dave removed the Wall-Walker ingot from the powerband and replaced it with Invisibility.

  Immediately both Dave and Sticky disappeared.

  Unfortunately for them, Dave’s footprints did not.

  The blood-twisting screeching grew louder as Dave and Sticky crept along the pathway. “What is that?” Dave whispered again.

  “Something eeeeeechy-screechy,” Sticky whispered back.

  “Do you think we’re in danger?” Dave asked.

  “We’re always in danger, señor.”

  “But we’re invisible!”

  Invisible or not, Sticky was shivering on Dave’s shoulder. “Whatever that is sounds verrrry mad.”

  “Maybe it’s one of that madman’s crazy recordings?”

  This was, in fact, a possibility. Dave had delved inside the underbelly of the mansion before and had been tricked into a state of extreme fear by a cheesy pre-recorded message.

  Perhaps, he reasoned, what he was hearing was simply pre-recorded screeching.

  Still, despite the fact that they were completely invisible (except for those pesky footprints), they sneaky-toed along, hugging the chilly wall, their eyes peeled back as if whatever was screeching might suddenly spot them and pounce.

  The golden glow grew brighter.

  Warmer.

  And as they reached the turn that led to the glow, the screeching was suddenly silent.

  “Ay-ay,” Sticky whispered.

  Now, “ay-ay” can, as I’m sure you’ve already determined, mean many different things. But in this particular instance, it meant, quite simply, Uh-oh.
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  “Shhh,” Dave whispered (which meant in this and, it’s safe to say, all instances, Why do you always have to talk when we’re in mortal danger? Why can’t you just be quiet? What do I have to do? Cork you? If you say one more thing, I swear I’m going to leave you behind next time because you know what? You talk too much. Not only do you talk too much, you talk at the wrong time. Be quiet, why don’t you! Just be quiet and don’t—).

  “Señor?”

  “Shhh!”

  “But why are we just standing here?”

  “Shhh!”

  A few moments later, they were still just standing there, so Sticky (quite understandably) whispered, “What are you? Petrified wood?”

  “Shhhhhhh!” Dave whispered frantically. “Whatever it is heard you! Why else would it have stopped screeching?”

  “Me?” Sticky said, pointing a little gecko finger at his little gecko chest.

  “Shhhhhh!”

  “Ay-ay,” Sticky grumbled, and, as I’m sure you might imagine, this time it most definitely did not mean Uh-oh.

  Dave stood there for another minute, maybe two.

  His invisible back was against the wall.

  His invisible eyes were cranked wide.

  He was waiting.

  Listening.

  Imagining.

  Sticky, you see, was right—Dave was, quite frankly, petrified. To be an all-knowing thirteen-year-old boy and suddenly not know anything (like what to do, or where you’re going, or what that blood-twisting screeching was) would be, I’m sure you’ll agree, entirely discombobulating.

  And although the rest of him might have been stock-still, Dave’s imagination was in overdrive. In his mind, he saw a heaping mountain of gold protected by a terrifying beast with sharp claws and long, oozy, needle-sharp teeth. A beast so vile and disgusting that a mere whiff of its sewer-laced breath could knock its prey out cold. A beast so mutated and ugly that—

  “Hombre!” Sticky urged, pulling on Dave’s invisible ear. “Let’s mooooove!”

  And so it was that Dave was forced to face the beast.

  He took a deep breath.

  He squared his invisible shoulders.

  Then he stepped forward and came face to face with …