The Power Potion (7 page)

So you see, Damien Black had gone to great lengths to avoid Moongaze Court. His one trip there to arrange for the potion had left him battered and weak, and had given him nightmares for weeks. (I’m sure you’ll agree that being cornered and rammed up a tree by a six-horned goat would give anyone baaaaad dreams.)

But there was also the curse that he was sure he’d heard a little gypsy girl mutter as he’d fled the nightmarish maze. It played again and again in his head:

This, Damien believed, was the real reason he couldn’t sleep.

He’d been cursed.

Again.

The Bulgarian curse still haunted him, and now this?

He would not, could not, return to Moongaze Maze.

And yet…what about his revenge?

He had a score to settle!

A wrong to right!

He’d been duped!

Swindled!

Suckerooed!

(And of all the deceitful, duplicitous, double-dealing things someone could do to him, suckerooing was by far the worst.)

And so (between great gurgling bouts in the bathroom) he consulted large, scrolled maps of the city, more large, scrolled maps of the underlying sewer system, and dusty, crumbling texts from the massive oak bookcases in his great room.

His dark, diabolical mind stewed and brewed
and chewed until at last it produced a wickedly delicious plan.

“Bwaa-ha!” he chortled. And as he paced the floorboards, he began seasoning his plan with a dash of evil here and a shake of vengeance there, until at last he began muttering, “Where
are
those buffoons? What is taking them so long?”

Yes, for the first time since they’d blundered into his life, Damien Black wanted the Bandito Brothers to be there.

His devilish plan required the Brothers.

They were, after all, delectably disposable.

And if all went well,
they’d
be the ones cursed, and that deceitful, duplicitous, double-dealing gypsy would be the one suckerooed!

So! Now that you know what happened up on Raven Ridge, let’s quit stopping in our tracks and get back to Sticky and the sound he heard, shall we?

It was, as you may recall, a sound Sticky recognized.

One that was worse (much worse) than the hissing and spitting of a turbocharged cat.

“Reeeek?”

Sure enough, a satchel-toting monkey swung in through the Sanchezes’ kitchen window.

“
Ay caramba
, no!” Sticky cried, moving lickety-split across the kitchen ceiling. “Out! Leave!
Vámonos!
”

The rhesus simply bared his teeth at Sticky and ambled across the counter toward the coffeemaker.

Now, I’m sure you’re wondering why (given all the coffeemakers in all the kitchens in the city) the rhesus came to Dave’s apartment to brew his coffee.

It is, after all, a perfectly reasonable thing to be wondering.

The answer is (again) quite simple: Monkeys are creatures of habit. (Although, in this case, things were slightly more complex, as this monkey was a creature of habit
with
a habit.)

You see, aside from Damien Black’s house, the only place the little rhesus had actually brewed coffee was the Sanchezes’ apartment. And in the days since his last swing through the Sanchezes’ kitchen window, the little monkey had survived by snatching to-go cups from coffeehouses, haphazardly lifting straight brews, lattes,
mochas, and double shots (with the occasional
ptttttth
-inducing chai).

And despite cries of “Hey, that’s my coffee!” and “Excuse me…. Ex
cuse
me…!” and (simply) “Stop that monkey!” he’d managed (for the most part) to avoid the debilitating headaches that are characteristic of caffeine withdrawal.

Still. Jacking to-go joe was a lot of work. And dangerous. Plus, nothing he’d snatched compared to Damien’s Himalayan blend.

So now that he had a supply of the good stuff and a coffeemaker within reach, the rhesus wasn’t going to let a little thing like an angry lizard stop him from brewing a wicked good cup of coffee.

“Reeeeeeek!” he warned Sticky, baring his teeth again.

It was clear to Sticky that there was no reasoning with this rhesus.

It was also clear that there was no fighting
him. With opposable thumbs, a long, agile tail, and a killer craving for coffee, the furry beast was just too fearsome a foe.

But as he watched the rhesus slam through drawers and cupboards for a filter, a mug, and a spoon…as he watched the coffee sputter and steam and then stream into a waiting mug, an idea formed in Sticky’s little (but very powerful) gecko brain.

It was, as you might already be guessing, yet another very bad idea.

One that involved a certain potion that was still sitting on the counter near the coffeemaker.

“Ay-ay-ay,” Sticky muttered, and although “ay-ay-ay” can mean many things (or, on occasion, nothing at all), this “ay-ay-ay” meant one clear, specific thing:

“Do I dare?”

Ah, poor Sticky.

He was flirting with temptation.

In his head, a little voice was telling him that if he had a minute of super-strength—just one little minute—he could fling that monkey right out the window.

Adiós
, monkey nose!

And…if he had
another
few minutes, he could lickety-split straighten things up quick before anyone came home.

And
…if he had just a few
more
minutes…

Yes, this is what happens when you flirt with temptation—temptation is happy to flirt right back. In the wink of its wicked eye, you find yourself reaching for the potion, telling yourself you’ll only use it to help you through this bad situation, swearing you’ll only take one drop (or maybe, at the very most, two).

Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), the monkey had been
keeping a wary (and now re-caffeinated) eye on the lizard. So perhaps it was the way Sticky was approaching the bottle.

Or the obvious intensity of Sticky’s mission.

Or perhaps the monkey was just in a playful mood.

Regardless, the little rhesus seemed to sense what Sticky was after, and with a playful
swoosh-snatch
he scooped up the little bottle of potion and smiled. “Reeeek?”

“No!” Sticky cried as he scampered up the monkey. “Give it back, you
bobo
baboon!”

The monkey gave him an insulted look, then simply shook Sticky off as he leapt onto the kitchen floor. “Reeeeek?” he said, wagging the bottle at Sticky.

Sticky knew that chasing the monkey would be, as he would say,
estúpido
.

So instead, he tried to outsmart the rhesus.

He zippy-toed across the counter and dragged a banana from the fruit bowl. “Here, monkey-monkey-monkey,” he said, hoping the monkey would just drop the bottle and take the bait.

Instead, the monkey tucked the bottle inside his satchel (which was still slung across his chest) and
then
snagged the banana.

“You
zonzo
Bonzo,” Sticky muttered, but
when he tried to retrieve the bottle from the satchel, the monkey simply leapt to the floor again.

“Reeeek?” the monkey said. He bared his squishy-banana teeth and made a laughing noise, then scampered around the corner toward the bedrooms.

“What the jalapeño am I going to do?” Sticky cried as he zippy-toed after the rhesus. When he caught up to him, he found the monkey leaping around Dave’s room, tearing things up, tossing things around, making an eeky-shrieky mess of the place (as naughty, hopped-up monkeys are prone to do).

“Freaky
frijoles
!” Sticky cried. “Get out! Go!
Ándale!
”

But the monkey had discovered a stash of shiny objects, including the grill Dave had worn to make the Raven Ridge delivery. He cocked
his head and inspected the silver and blue teeth. “Eeeek?” he asked softly.

Suddenly there was a noise at the front door.

The monkey froze.

His eyes went wide.

His mouth pushed out into a little “oo.” (Or, perhaps more accurately, a little “uh-oo.”)

And in a furry flash, he scampered into the kitchen, leapt onto the counter, took one last (extremely satisfying) gulp of coffee, then swung outside onto the flower box and escaped.

It was Dave who fumbled through the front door, famished and exhausted and just glad to be home. He’d been up half the night working on his social studies project, he’d had to run the mile twice in P.E. (once for health and once because Eli Unger had stolen Mr. Wilson’s whistle and nobody dared fink), and his after-school deliveries had taken him to far ends of the city (although, thankfully, to neither Moongaze Court nor Raven Ridge).

Dave needed food!

Rest!

(And, of course, to get going on his homework.)

Instead, he got a topsy-turvy house that smelled suspiciously of Himalayan coffee.

He pushed his bike farther inside, calling, “Mom? Dad?…
Evie?
”

There was, of course, no response from any of them, as Evie spent her after-school hours with her mother at the Laundromat where Mrs. Sanchez worked until five, and Mr. Sanchez rarely arrived home before six.

The response came, instead, from Sticky. “It was that crazy
gata
!” he cried, racing toward Dave. “And the monkey! It’s a miracle I’m alive! I
told
you that fuzzy-faced monster was trying to kill me!”

“But…,” Dave gasped, looking around at the damage. “Topaz
and
the monkey? How did they get in?”

Sticky shot up to his familiar place on Dave’s shoulder. “The window!” he said, pointing.

Dave (certain that his parents would blame
him
for the chaos) began cleaning the kitchen.
“So the monkey opened the window and then Topaz came in?” Dave asked, trying to come to grips with what had happened as he picked up the half-eaten banana.

“I tried to stop them, but what can one lizard do?” Sticky asked (neatly avoiding the question).

Dave was still stunned. “They were here at the same time?”

“
Horroroso
exploso!” Sticky moaned. “Monsters everywhere!”

“This place is a disaster!” Dave groaned, moving into the family room. “How long were they here?”

“A lifetime!” Sticky cried. Then (very slyly) he added, “The minute they heard you at the door? Zippity-doo-dah, they were gone!”

“So they
just
left?”

“Sí, señor.”

Dave was righting the furniture in the family room when he noticed the scratch marks on the
wall and the claw marks in the ceiling. “How in the world…?”

“That cat went
loco
-berry burritos trying to get me!
Now
do you believe me?”

Suddenly Dave was mad. Lily’s cat
was
a beast! She really could have caught and killed Sticky!

He also suddenly felt guilty. Why hadn’t he paid attention to what Sticky had been saying about the cat? He’d been complaining about Topaz for weeks.

Now, a calm, collected person would have realized that a normal cat (ill-tempered or otherwise) could not possibly have created such chaos. But Dave was neither calm nor collected. He was shocked, stunned, and now angry.

And so it was that Dave took Sticky at his word and marched out of his apartment and pounded on the Espinozas’ door.

A short minute later, Lily answered and (with
her typical sassy scowl) said, “Wassup, delivery boy?”

“Your cat tore up our apartment, that’s what’s up!”

Lily gave him a smirk. “Oh, really.”

“Yes, really!” Dave said, then grabbed her by the arm and pulled her along.

Now, Dave was never commanding or demanding (or even firm) with Lily. And this change in him was so surprising to Lily that she simply let him drag her next door.

“See?” he said, pointing at the scratched wall.

Lily, however, didn’t look at the wall. Instead, she took in the topsy-turvy state of things. “Nice housekeeping,” she said.

“Thanks to your
cat
,” Dave snapped. He moved across the room and pointed above his head to the gouges in the ceiling. “See those? Your cat is a monster!”

Lily looked around. “You think a
cat
did this?” She laughed. “You’re funny, delivery boy.”

Dave started throwing cushions back onto the sofa and chairs. “She came in through the kitchen window, she tore around after my pet lizard—”

“Oh, so now you’re admitting it’s your pet?”

“Look,” Dave snapped, “it comes in and out, okay? It’s, you know, a good-luck charm.”