The Power Potion (12 page)

Or get the itchy-yitchy-yah-yahs.

You see, a curse will work if you think it will.

It is, in short, all in your head.

So. It was the combination of irrational fear and unnecessary revenge that brought Damien Black and the Bandito Brothers to the edge of Gypsy Town.

It was also the combination of irrational fear and unnecessary revenge that made Damien come up with this particularly elaborate and (quite frankly) outrageous plan.

Damien had outfitted the Bandito Brothers as circus-style gypsies. The bigger two—Tito and Angelo—wore brightly colored knit skullcaps, bright, billowy blouses (Tito’s was turquoise, Angelo’s was golden), vests with bright (brass) buttons and lots of bric-a-brac, and broad belts that had drinking cups, rabbits’ feet, weapon sheaths, (rock-filled) coin bags, and various other clinky-clanky items hanging from them.

Tito carried a hand drum.

Angelo carried a lute.

Pablo, on the other hand, carried a tambourine and was dressed (to his dismay) as a gypsy woman.

“Do I have to, boss?” he’d asked Damien again and again, but it became clear that if he refused to put on the flowing skirt, headdress, jewelry,
and scarves, he would be out of the running for the (
ahem
) promotion.

Now, Damien had researched gypsy lore and had gone to great lengths to write a script for the Brothers. (They could not, after all, be trusted to enact his devilishly diabolical plan ad lib.) But because the Brothers could not read the script, Damien had been forced to rig Angelo with an earpiece through which he could feed the script (and also hiss instructions) via the walkie-talkie communicator.

And (as if the three Brothers and their costumes weren’t enough) there was one other member of the (fake) gypsy entourage.

It was Rosie, the Brothers’ bucktoothed burro.

She, too, was dressed in a festive manner, with a wreath of flowers around her neck and colorful ribbons (and little, tinkly bells) tied to her tail.

Now, why on earth would Damien want to have Rosie there?

The answer is (yet again) quite simple: Tito and Angelo may have been sizeable men, but the two together were still not as strong as a single burro (bucktoothed or otherwise).

Not when it came to pulling a wagon, anyway.

You see, Damien had realized (with a joyful jolt) that Yanko Purran’s vardo was a rolling laboratory of potion-making materials.

It had exotic ingredients.

Oddly shaped flasks and a tangly tubed distillery!

And the little cherry on the top of the nefarious plan that Damien had whipped up was that this vardo—this rolling potion wagon—came with its own resident alchemist.

You see, Damien had it on good authority that Yanko Purran was a master potion maker, and Damien believed that the man had simply taken him for someone who could easily be suckered and had tried to pinch a few potion-making pennies.

His payback, then, would be to haul Yanko Purran and his vardo up to Raven Ridge, where he would be kept in a secret (and secluded) cave beneath the mansion. Damien would then make the lousy swindler brew any potion he demanded.

Potions that would equip him with a mighty might.

An awesome brawn!

Potions that would rival the powers of the wristband.

That would, in the end, help him get
back
the wristband.

(Plus, he would never have to pay for potions again!)

It was, undoubtedly, the plan of a madman.

And it was, unfortunately, already well under way.

While the Bandito gypsies put Damien’s elaborate (and cross-dressing) plan into motion, Damien took an alternate route to oversee (or, more accurately,
under
see) the execution of his dirty work.

Damien had no fear of being found (or chased) in these subterranean passageways (better known as the sewer system). And (according to the maps he’d consulted) the system ran under Gypsy Town in precisely the areas he needed it to.

Aboveground, the Bandito Brothers simply walked along, taking left after left as they guided Rosie into the heart of Gypsy Town.

Now, Damien had given his cohorts strict
instructions to move along the streets of Gypsy Town in a lighthearted and casual manner and to sing a merry little song anytime they noticed people watching them. And since the Brothers liked to sing, they imagined people watching them, even when they weren’t.

Tito hit the hand drum, Pablo rattled the tambourine, and Angelo played the lute (which, for the record, is not a flute missing its “f” but rather a stringed instrument similar to a guitar).

And as they beat and jangled and strummed, they sang:

Damien (although not able to carry a tune himself) had written the song, using imagery he’d gleaned from his intense (although miserably
mishmashed) research about Romany culture. It had taken him hours upon hours to write the lyrics and the melody (such as it was), and he was quite proud of the end result.

The Brothers, however, thought it stank.

“It doesn’t make sense!” Angelo had whispered to Pablo.

“The melody is awful, and it doesn’t rhyme right!” Pablo had whispered to Angelo.

“Can we go, ‘Ah-reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee-ye-ye-ye-ye-yeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’?” Tito had asked.

“Just sing it like I showed you!” Damien had shouted.

But as the Brothers ambled through Gypsy Town, taking one left turn after another after another, they grew weary of singing the senseless words and decided to switch things up.

Now, while the Brothers merrily continued their journey, Damien navigated the inky, stinky sewer system and arrived at the manhole cover on Moongaze Place (which was right at the turnoff to Moongaze Court). He stuck the communicator’s antenna up through the crowbar hole and discovered that he was getting great reception. He soon realized, however, that the Brothers were butchering his song. And after listening for a horrified moment, he put his mouth up to the communicator and hissed, “That’s not how it goes! Sing it right, you fools!”

“But, boss, the kids love it!” Angelo replied.

Damien recoiled.

“Kids?” he asked. “What kids?”

And then (because Damien found it impossible
to keep his long, pointy nose out of his own business) he pushed up the manhole cover ever so slightly and peeked out.

There was a parade coming his way.

A parade of kids and goats and chickens and dogs, led by his three moronic minions. And the Brothers and kids were all singing at the top of their lungs.

About underwear.

And nose picking!

Like a simmering pot of sinister stew, Damien
spittered and spattered and sputtered under the manhole cover. “You blockheads!” He screeched into the communicator. “What are you doing?”

Now, it had been a long time since the Bandito Brothers had been shown any sort of love, let alone appreciation for a musical performance. So Tito and Angelo (and even Pablo, in his gypsy girl outfit) were eating up the attention.

It reminded them of the parties they used to play in their mariachi days.

The fun they used to have.

So (for once) Angelo didn’t apologize or grovel. Instead, he said, “Lighten up, boss! We’ll get the job done!” and went on singing about nose picking and underwear.

Well! Damien might have flown into another frothy fury, but as the parade approached, it occurred to him that (preposterous as it was) this might work out. After all, who would stop them if all the children in Gypsy Town were singing and dancing and
laughing while the vardo heist was going on? People would assume it was just a friendly frolic. An innocent game. An after-school amusement.

Yes, come to think of it, this tricky tactic would work even better!

(It was, to Damien’s warped way of thinking,
his
genius that made it so.
He
was the one who had instructed the Brothers to be lighthearted and casual.
He
was the one who had written the merry tune [ruined as it was]. And
he
was the one who had dressed them in a way that made the whole parade possible!)

“Repeat after me,” Damien hissed into the communicator.
“We’ve come to take the white-eyed one…”

“We’ve come to take the white-eyed one!” Angelo announced with a grand wave in the air.

“To the great Romany healer!”

“To the great Romany healer!”

“He will be transformed!”
Damien hissed.

“He will be transformed!” Angelo repeated (in an accidentally hissy way).

“Of all those who seek healing
, he
has been chosen!”

“Of all those who seek healing,” Angelo said grandly, “
he
has been chosen!”

Then Damien whispered, “Now. Have Pablo keep him inside—”

“Now!” Angelo announced. “Have Pab—”

“NO, YOU IDIOT!” Damien snapped.

“NO, YOU—” Angelo suddenly caught on and whispered, “Right, right—sorry, boss.”

Damien took a deep, angry breath through his long, pointy nose. “You’re almost there. Just follow the plan. Contain the blind man, connect the wagon, and move out as fast as you can.”

“We’re on it, boss!”

And with that, the Bandito Gypsies and their joyful entourage clomped right over the manhole cover and made their final left turn, onto Moongaze Court.

Meanwhile, in a secluded clearing outside Damien’s mansion, Dave was learning to fly.

Or, at least, wobble in the air.

He’d discovered that flying required a running start and a leap into the air, and that once you were airborne, concentrating on going up (or down) and leaning (left or right) controlled the elevation and direction.

However, after the initial rush of being airborne, Dave quickly became frustrated because, try as he might, he was most definitely not darting, or diving, or zooming through space.

And he could only get about five feet off the ground.

“What am I doing wrong?” Dave wailed.

Sticky shook his little gecko head and said, “It’s a Buzzy Bee,
señor
, not a fierce falcon.”

“Meaning?”

Sticky gave a little shrug. “This is how a buzzy bee flies?”

Now, it’s a well-known fact that when someone makes a beeline, they move lickety-split and get there quick. And although honeybees have been clocked at up to twenty-two miles per hour, bumblebees can only do about ten (and that’s when they’re in a hurry).

Normally, bumblebees are
not
in a hurry.

Normally, they’re hovering around like fuzzy-tummied zeppelins, taking a pinch of pollen here and a nip of nectar there.