Sinister Substitute

by Wendelin Van Draanen

  And although they might well have gone over the bridge or explored the foil hose, Tito discovered something that kept them on the right path. He picked up a small grassy chunk from the cobblestone pathway and murmured, “More Rosie poo-poos?” (placing emphasis on the second oo like a fancy Frenchman).

  And yes, that’s exactly what Tito had discovered.

  Dave, you see, had been walking around with Rosie’s intestinally processed weeds (and arugula) caught in the deep tread of his sneakers. And as he had sneaky-toed through the mansion, he had unwittingly dropped little stink nuggets.

  Tito had spotted two of these nuggets at the rim of the Bottomless Pit (which, as we have learned, wasn’t bottomless at all). And now, after a quick analysis (known, I’m afraid, as the sniff test), Tito scratched his head and wondered, What are Rosie poo-poos doing here?

  And then, in a sudden (and uncharacteristic) moment of clarity, he understood.

  “This way!” he cried to Angelo and Pablo. “Follow the poo-poos!”

  “What?” the Brothers asked (each giving Tito a feather-faced squint). But as Tito disappeared up the steps, they (for once) tagged along without a fight.

  And so it was that by following this trail of nuggets (or, if you prefer, poo-poos), the Brothers managed to track Dave to the skybox just as Dave sneaky-toed inside.

  So! Let’s take inventory, shall we?

  There’s a devilishly demented villain wrapping duct tape around the scalpel-happy hands of a conked-out (and securely blindfolded) science teacher.

  (Check, and check.)

  There’s a boy and his klepto-gecko hanging from the ceiling of the skybox.

  (Check, and check again.)

  There are three men wearing bandoliers of (useless) ammunition—two of them covered in fluffy-wuffy feathers, the other holding a collection of donkey doo.

  (Check, check, and stinky-winky check!)

  Which brings us to the point where the poo-poos hit the fan.

  “There he is!” Pablo cried, muscling his way past Angelo and Tito into the skybox.

  Damien’s head snapped around at the sound of Pablo’s voice, his eyes burning like dark coals of anger. But as he rose to unleash his fury upon them, he saw that Pablo and Angelo were … tarred and feathered?

  And that Tito was holding … donkey doo?

  “Look out, boss!” Pablo cried, pointing at the ceiling above him.

  But as Damien looked up, Dave let loose and did a flying twist, bombing the demented villain with a body slam that knocked him off his feet and into the open coffin.

  “You fools!” the treasure hunter screeched from inside the coffin. And although his voice was muffled, it still carried such venomous anger that (for a moment) the Brothers recoiled.

  Dave, however, was on adrenaline overload and couldn’t let a little thing like a venomous voice from inside a coffin stop him. He shoved Damien’s flailing legs into the coffin, slammed down the lid, and fastened one of the latches. Pablo was almost upon him now, so, lickety-split, Dave escaped by zippy-toeing up the wall and across the ceiling, dropping down beside Ms. Veronica Krockle (who was slumped in the chair with a roll of duct tape dangling from her wrists).

  “Asombrrrrroso!” Sticky said. “You are getting the hang of being a gecko!”

  Then, as he watched the Bandito Brothers, he whispered, “So, señor. What now?”

  What now, indeed! It was three men (and a screaming coffined villain) against one boy (and a lizard). And in order to get Veronica Krockle out of the skybox, Dave and Sticky had to wheel her past the Brothers (who were smack-dab in the way).

  It appeared that they were trapped.

  Outsized and outnumbered.

  In a word, toast.

  But something very strange was happening.

  Or, more accurately, not happening.

  Rather than pouncing on Dave, all three Brothers simply stared at him. (Well, Tito was staring at Sticky, waving and pulling silly faces, but the point is, none of them were pouncing as one might expect.)

  Then Angelo said, “He’s bewitched, I tell you. Or he’s not of this earth.” His voice was raspy. His knees were rubbery. The hairs all over his tarred and feathered body were shaking in their roots.

  “Let me out! Let me out!” Damien screeched from inside the coffin.

  But Pablo (who was standing right beside the latched latch) didn’t budge. He, too, just stared at Dave, petrified by what he’d witnessed. “I believe you now,” he said to Angelo, his teeth chattering. “He has no suction cups.”

  “Let me out, you fools, so I can kill you!”

  “Señor,” Sticky whispered ever so quietly in Dave’s ear. “Yell something. Make your voice low and horrible, then charge!”

  “But you told me never to speak around them!” Dave whispered through his bandanna.

  “That’s the madman, not them!” Sticky whispered. “He’s the one who remembers voices!” But after a moment, he added, “Okay, señor, I’ll do it.” He paused. “Ready?”

  “You bungling bozos! LET ME OUT!”

  “Ready,” Dave whispered.

  And with that, Sticky blasted the room with a deep, growling …

  “MOVE!”

  The Bandito Brothers hit the walls like they’d been swept aside by shock waves, and (although his ear was now ringing with pain) Dave wasted no time. He engaged the tricked-out tires of Damien’s chair and wheeled Ms. Veronica Krockle out the door and down the pathway toward Goose Island.

  Chapter 21

  TRAPPED ON GOOSE ISLAND

  Dave had not been thinking past the skybox door. His focus had been wholly and solely on getting himself (and the conked-out Ms. Krockle) around the Bandito Brothers and away from Damien Black. So, as he barreled along the cobblestone pathway, he was, at first, simply relieved.

  He was moving!

  Fast!

  And the chair was amazing!

  It was taking the bumps and dips and twists and turns like an ATV!

  He even hitched himself on during the straightaways and flew.

  Poor Dave. He wasn’t thinking about the five steep steps at the end of the pathway. Or that the chair had no brakes. (Or parachutes or air bags or bumper guards, for that matter.) He wasn’t thinking that if the chair broke, he’d have no way to wheel Ms. Krockle out of there. That he’d have to carry her. Or that she almost certainly weighed more than he did, and that carrying her would require more than Gecko Power—it would require Super Strength. (Which was, in fact, a potential power, but not an ingot he happened to possess.)

  No, Dave just blithely barreled along until Sticky whispered, “I think she’s waking up!” in Dave’s ear.

  Dave now noticed that although his science teacher was still slumped over, her hands seemed to be moving and her blindfold seemed to have slipped. Dave thought this might be the result of all the thumping and bumping they were doing and said, “Check, would you?” as he steered through a sharp turn.

  So, lickety-split, Sticky zippy-toed off Dave’s shoulder and onto Ms. Veronica Krockle.

  The blindfold had, indeed, slipped, but her eyes were shut.

  Except, Sticky now noticed, there were slits.

  Little sneaky-peeky slits.

  Still. He wasn’t sure.

  So he zippy-toed closer, reached up, and pried an eyelid back with his sticky-toed hand.

  Well! Ms. Veronica Krockle was, indeed, awake. She had simply been doing her bumpy-bouncy best to figure out why in the world she was flying along a cobblestone walkway in a turbocharged office chair. But she now found herself eyeball to eyeball with a lizard.

  A gecko lizard who seemed to be cocking an eyebrow.

  A gecko lizard who seemed to be scowling at her.

  A gecko lizard who snorted, then opened his mouth and grumbled, “Faker.”

  Ms. Veronica Krockle screamed, then immediately fainted.

  Dave (distracted by the commotion with Sticky and Ms. Krockle) realized too late that straight ahead of them we
re steps.

  “Aaaah!” he cried, pulling back on the chair.

  Unfortunately, office chairs (be they turbo or standard issue) are not equipped with seat belts. So although the chair’s momentum was halted at the edge, Ms. Veronica Krockle’s was not.

  She took off like a shot.

  Catapulted like a rock.

  Flew like a teacher torpedo!

  And Sticky (who was still on her lab coat at liftoff) went flying, too. “Holy hurling habañeroooooos!” he cried, flailing through the air.

  “Sticky!” Dave shouted, and as he raced to his little buddy’s side, the turbo chair slipped away and landed with a clunky-crunchy crash, breaking both a leg and an arm.

  Sticky, it turned out, was fine. (He’d had much worse falls before and survived them no problem.) But if a chair is going to break a leg and an arm from a tumble, you’d expect a human being to fare much worse.

  In this case, however, there were geese.

  And it just so happened that Ms. Veronica Krockle torpedoed straight into a gathering of geese that didn’t have the chance to scatter before she landed on them.

  Can you say “pâté”?

  If not, never mind. The point is, she survived, and once Dave and Sticky had regrouped, they were left with a very real dilemma:

  How would they ever get the conked-out Ms. Krockle over the island and through the gate before Damien showed up?

  “Just wake her up!” Sticky said, then zippy-toed up to her chest and started slapping her cheeks.

  “Stop!” Dave said, then got busy refastening her blindfold. “I don’t want her to see me if I can help it!”

  Sticky crossed his arms. “So, señor, how are you going to get her out of here?”

  Dave looked around. “I have no idea.”

  Sticky gave a slow nod. “Good thinking.”

  “Hey! We got her this far, didn’t we?” Then, miffed by Sticky’s superior attitude, Dave grabbed the back collar of Ms. Krockle’s lab coat and began dragging her toward Goose Island.

  Sticky stayed aboard Ms. Krockle like he was riding a slow-moving surfboard. “Ouchie-huahua,” he said with a tisk. “That is going to hurt.”

  “Got a better idea, big shot?” Dave snapped over his shoulder.

  Sticky didn’t. And instead of continuing to surf along on Ms. Krockle and snipe at Dave, he scurried up to Dave’s shoulder and mumbled, “Sorry, señor.”

  “Look,” Dave said. “I can’t worry about her bumps and bruises. I’ve got to get her out of here. That madman’s going to show up any minute, and when he does, it’s all over.”

  And so Dave trudged along while Ms. Veronica Krockle thumpity-wump-bumped behind (leaving high-heeled-boot skids in her wake). Over the rickety bridge they went, across the island, over a half-drowned log, until they were (at last) at the gate.

  The very tall, very locked gate.

  Not that there was a padlock.

  Or a handprint scanner.

  Or a death laser.

  It was just… locked.

  Unopenable.

  Rattle, kick, shake, and pummel proof.

  And after trying everything he could think of, Dave gave the bars one final shake and said, “There’s got to be a release lever somewhere!”

  Then several things happened all at once:

  Ms. Veronica Krockle began to groan. (And really, who could blame her?)

  Sticky scurried off Dave’s shoulder, calling, “I’ll be right back, señor!” because he had noticed something odd about a nearby goose.

  And finally, Damien Black entered the cave (followed in breathless pursuit by all three Bandito Brothers).

  “Bwaa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Damien laughed as he swooped down the steps. He hurried toward Dave with an evil sneer. “You are trapped, boy! You are mine.”

  Dave’s heart hammered in his chest.

  He looked around frantically.

  He was doomed!

  Chapter 22

  THE GHASTLY GOOSE

  While Damien was swooping toward Dave and Dave was looking around frantically for an escape, Sticky was discovering that the odd goose he’d spotted was, in fact, a fake goose. A metal one, with lopsided eyes, painted poles for legs, and sadly patchy feathers.

  And it ticked.

  Or, more accurately, ticktocked.

  Sticky did not for an instant think that it was a bomb.

  Perhaps he should have, but he didn’t. After all, why would Damien have a decoy bomb in the midst of his gaggle of geese?

  Think of the mess it would cause if it went off.

  Think of the feathers!

  No, knowing Damien Black as he did, Sticky immediately suspected that this ghastly goose was some sort of diabolical doodad that did … something.

  Opened a trapdoor?

  Whooshed down a net?

  Something.

  And, given the perilous predicament they presently found themselves in, Sticky reasoned that something was better than nothing.

  But how to make that something happen?

  Sticky could find no levers, no buttons, no switches… just feathers!

  But then he discovered a smooth crack at the base of the neck.

  Not a crack … a joint!

  Which meant that the neck moved somehow.

  But how?

  Sticky followed the crack around to the chest and realized that the whole, long neck was a lever (and the head was the handle).

  Now, Sticky is one speedy gecko, and all this zipping around the ghastly goose had taken him only about ten seconds. Unfortunately, that was enough time for Damien and the Bandito Brothers to make it halfway across the island.

  Sticky knew there was no time to lose. He took a deep breath, then turbo-toed up the ghastly goose neck, and with a mighty flying kick, he slammed down on the goose head, then flipped around, slid down the face, and held on to the beak, pulling the creaky neck lever down … down … down.

  Immediately there was a noise.

  A whirring, sucking, high-winds noise.

  Immediately the large foil hose shot out from the cave wall and began whipping back and forth like an enormous elephant trunk.

  Immediately Damien Black reacted in a way he had never (I promise you ever) reacted before.

  He screamed.

  He danced about, dodging the hose.

  He screamed again.

  Yes, the calculating, conniving, coldhearted Damien Black did what diabolically devilish men rarely do.

  He totally lost it.

  Sticky, you see, had overridden the automatic timer on the Komodo dragon’s feeding hose. A feeding hose that sucked geese into the dragon pit during periods when Damien was, say, traveling.

  Or incarcerated.

  Or just too lazy to feed the oversized reptile himself.

  And now Damien was nose to hose with a vacuum so strong that it could whisk him through a hundred feet of tubing and drop him with a painful plop into a man-eating dragon’s sand pit.

  He was, to put it mildly, in deep, diabolical doo-doos.

  “What is that, boss?” Pablo yelled over the whirring, sucking, high-winds noise.

  But before Damien could shout, “Dive in and find out, you fool!” the tube swung straight for him and, with a WHOOSH, SLURRRRRP, “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH,” swallowed him up.

  Ah, poor Damien.

  Foiled by his own foil tube.

  Now, while all this screaming and whooshing was going on, Ms. Veronica Krockle had staggered to her feet, crying, “Darling!” But blindfolded and bound with duct tape, she stumbled about, fell against the gate, and hit her head.

  Conked out again.

  And although the ghastly goose neck had creaked its way to an upright position (and Sticky had skedaddled back to Dave), one cock of the lever activated the tube for a full two minutes. It flailed back and forth, slurping up one goose, then another while the Bandito Brothers (very wisely) backed away.

  Then Pablo looked over at Dave and saw him moving his arms from side
to side as though he were conducting the hose. “HE’S A DEMON!” Pablo screamed, and the three Brothers ran back to the cobblestone pathway as fast as they could.

  “Genio beanio!” Sticky cried when the Brothers were gone and the hose had retracted. He slapped five on Dave. “That was asombroso, señor!”

  “You’re the one who saved us, Sticky! How did you know about that fake goose? And what is that hose thing?”

  Sticky’s little eyes got big. “Ay caramba. I’m afraid to think about it, señor. Did you hear the way that evil hombre screamed?”

  Dave shivered, then looked around. “Let’s get out of here, huh?”

  But the question remained: How?

  And even if they could break out, how would they ever get Ms. Veronica Krockle down from Raven Ridge? Dave couldn’t see balancing her on his handlebars. And dragging her that far was out of the question (no matter how much he disliked her).

  So how?

  The answer came in the form of a butterfly.

  A cheerful little yellow butterfly that flittered and fluttered through the bars of the gate and into the goose cave.

  And no, little yellow butterflies (or butterflies of any kind) cannot transport thirteen-year-old boys and their conked-out science teachers out of a cave, down a mountain, and into the city. (This is, after all, a true story.)

  But what followed the little yellow butterfly was something that could help them.

  “Rosie!” Sticky called through the gate, and although he and the bucktoothed donkey had a history together, Rosie did not, in fact, understand a word Sticky was saying.

  She did, however, recognize his voice.

  And she did move closer.

  And as Dave reached out to grab her (thinking who knows what), he stepped on the bottom brace of the gate (just like your mother always told you not to), which (ironically enough) activated the gate’s release mechanism.

  “Ay caramba!” Sticky cried as the gate swung open. “We are free!”

  And, indeed, they were.

  Chapter 23

  WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW