Sinister Substitute (13 page)

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.

Getting Ms. Veronica Krockle away from Damien’s property was no small feat.

And Dave’s Gecko Power was of no help whatsoever.

The duct tape, however, was. And after draping the (still-unconscious) science teacher over Rosie’s back and securing her with rounds of tape, Dave and Sticky made it through the frightening forest (without interference from even one bwaa-ha-cawing raven), retrieved his bike, and led Rosie and (the snoring) Ms. Krockle to a house about a mile down Raven Ridge. There, they (very carefully) laid Ms. Krockle on the porch (with duct tape and blindfold removed), set Rosie free (with a sharp “Arrrrrreee!” from Sticky), and did a classic ding-dong ditch.

After they saw (from their spy spot) that a lady answered the door and called, “Harold, come quick! A woman’s collapsed on our porch!” they continued down to the city on Dave’s bike.

“They’ll get her to a doctor,” Dave said into the wind.

“Sí, señor,”
Sticky called from inside the Roadrunner Express sweatshirt Dave had switched into.

“She’ll tell the police!” Dave called.

“Sí, señor!”

“Damien will get arrested!”

“Sí, señor!”
Sticky called, then muttered, “Unless he’s already dead.”

“What was that?” Dave called.

“Never mind,
señor!”

And so Dave tore into town and did his deliveries (two of which wound up late, but forgivably
so), raced home, and fell into his regular routine of spatting with his sister, doing his homework, and dragging through his chores.

But he was alive, right?

And he’d saved Ms. Krockle, right?

And all’s well that ends well, right?

And since I have, admittedly, gone on rather long already, now would be a good place to stop.

Right?

Hmm. But if I stopped right now, you would never know that Ms. Veronica Krockle did
not
report what had happened to the police.

Or that Damien Black
did
survive.

Or that there was another strange science substitute at school the next day.

Or that Lily approached Dave at school and whispered, “So where were you during drama yesterday, delivery boy?”

No, you’d know none of that.

You also wouldn’t know that it was because of
the Bandito Brothers that Damien’s life was spared. They had (in a bumbling, you’re-so stupid-no-you’re-so-stupid sort of way) managed to rescue Damien by using controls in the skybox to lower a craned net into the dragon pit.

Damien, of course, acted furious once he was safe, shouting, “You bumbling blockheads! You nettling numskulls! You idiotic idiots! You miserable morons! You dim-witted dunces! You … you feather-faced freaks!” as he stormed back into the house.

What upset him so much wasn’t just that he’d almost been killed by his precious dragon, or that his prisoner had escaped, or that he’d spent three agonizing days as a substitute at the wrong school, or that the boy had (once again) gotten away … it was also the Brothers. He wanted so badly to be rid of them, but (as if things weren’t bad enough already) they were now reminding him at every turn how they had saved his life.

Ah, poor Damien. He fretted, he brooded, he pouted, he stewed.

How had things come to this?

Was he losing his touch?

His grip?

His stranglehold on all things evil?

So they saved him, so what! They were fools! Why couldn’t he just toss them to the dragon and be done with it?

It was, indeed, a dark and dismal day for Damien Black. But it could have been much worse had Veronica Krockle told the police her story. Oh, she babbled on about a dashing man and a magnificent dragon, but no one could make sense of what she was saying. In the end, she was hospitalized and evaluated for psychiatric care, but even she wasn’t certain the whole matter hadn’t been but a dream.

Except for the fact that there were four painful bumps on her head.

And her backside was all battered and bruised.

Plus her lab coat was destroyed, and her boots were ruined.

So she knew it was not, in fact, a dream, but it still felt like it. And when she was at last released to her own care, she took a leave of absence from teaching and vowed that someday, someway, she would be reunited with her dashing man and his magnificent dragon.

She was, after all, in love, and love has power stronger than anything.

(Even stronger, perhaps, than a magic Aztec wristband.)

So you see? If I had ended earlier, you would know none of that.

You would also not know that Damien Black is already back at his dastardly drawing board master-minding a new, doubly diabolical plan (with grisly gadgets to match). And oh, what a doozy of a plan it is! Not only is he plotting to—

Ah, but I really must stop now.

I am, after all, way over time.

For now, Dave is safe.

Sticky is happy.

The wristband is in the hands of good, not evil.

And so, my friend, for today, the time has come to say …

Adiós!