The Greatest Power Read online

  “We do, Mr. Black! We do!” they all cried.

  “Then you must listen.”

  “We will, Mr. Black! We will!”

  “Shut up, you fools, and just listen!”

  “We will, Mr. Black! We will!”

  “DO IT NOW!”

  The Bandito Brothers made big eyes and zipped their lips.

  Damien took a deep, calming breath. “Here,” he said, handing them each a pair of strange-looking goggles.

  “Do these make us blind?” Tito asked cheerfully.

  “The man said shut up!” Angelo and Pablo hissed at him.

  Damien Black gave Angelo and Pablo a small, twisted smile. “Some of us are learning, I see.”

  Then he turned to Tito. “Quite the opposite. They make you see.”

  “When do we get to be blind?” Tito asked. Damien pulled a villainous face at Pablo. “Can you make him SHUT UP?”

  Pablo got his ratty face right up to Tito’s. His eyes were like beady little coals of hatred. “We’re going to pretend to be blind, you idiot! It’s a disguise. Now, do you want to help, or do you want to stay here?” Tito gulped and in a very small voice said, “I want to help.” “He’ll be quiet, boss,” Pablo said, feeling very much like Damien’s right-hand man.

  The treasure hunter glared at Tito for a solid minute before continuing. “The goggles,” he said, strapping an extra-deluxe pair over his own oily head, “have one shaded lens and one magic lens.”

  “Magic?” the Bandito Brothers gasped, then hurried to strap on their own goggles.

  “Yes, magic,” the treasure hunter confirmed. “It allows you to see things that aren’t there.”

  “Wow!” the three Brothers gasped, trying hard to grasp what this meant.

  Now, the fact is, these goggles were not magic.

  There was absolutely no hocus-pocus involved.

  They were simply applied science.

  Damien had constructed the goggles so that the right side was a lens like you might find in dark glasses and the left side was an infrared-detecting lens.

  It could “see” heat.

  The warmth of a body.

  Any body.

  Cow bodies.

  People bodies.

  Rat bodies.

  And (let’s get to the point, shall we?) invisible boy bodies.

  Damien had very cleverly devised the glasses so that the wearer (by closing alternate eyes) could spot something that didn’t seem to be there. (Had both the lenses been infrared, every person walking by would be visible, even the invisible—you wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. But by having one regular dark lens, the wearer could see both what was visible and what was invisible.)

  This concept, as you might imagine, took a little while to convey to the Bandito Brothers, especially since nothing around them was invisible. But they did eventually get it, and when Damien had taken back the goggles (for safekeeping) and packed a supply of white-tipped canes and tin cups, he blindfolded the Brothers (which made Tito very happy) and then, in an effort to confuse them as to their whereabouts, led them round and round a circular corridor.

  When Damien was at last satisfied that they were directionally impaired, he led the Brothers to a drafty-shafted elevator that lowered them from the mansion to the garage.

  Once inside the garage, Damien removed the blindfolds and hissed, “If you so much as leave a fingerprint on it, you’re dead.”

  “Oh, Mr. Black!” they gasped, taking in the deep, rich sheen of the Eldorado.

  “It’s … beautiful!” Angelo cried, and his arms went all goose-bumpy, shooting patches of two-inch hairs straight out.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it!” Pablo said, his voice catching.

  “Oooooh, shiny!” Tito cried.

  The Brothers did another round of exclamations (because, honestly, they just couldn’t contain themselves).

  “Unbelievable!” Angelo gushed.

  “In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined such a car!” Pablo sighed.

  “It’s way better than a donkey!” Tito said with an approving nod.

  Secretly pleased with their reaction, Damien slid behind the wheel.

  He inserted the key.

  He powered back the ragtop.

  And with a mighty va-vroom, he fired up those ultra-bad Rochester carburetors.

  The hungry growl of the Eldorado echoed around them.

  The entire garage seemed alive with power.

  “Get in, you bozos!” Damien shouted as he pressed the drawbridge’s remote control.

  And with that, they roared out the exit tunnel, across the drawbridge, and down Raven Ridge to the city below.

  I’m sure you’re wondering what happened over at the Sanchezes’ apartment after their day was jump-started by a certain caffeine-craving monkey.

  In short, not much.

  Evie went back to bed, Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez sat around drinking (very strong) coffee, and Dave kept checking the window for signs of the rhesus.

  “He’s gone, Dave,” Mr. Sanchez finally said. “And even if he weren’t, you couldn’t keep him.”

  Mr. Sanchez, of course, had no way of knowing that Dave was far more concerned about the monkey coming back than he was about keeping him.

  After all, what if the monkey led Damien Black to the apartment?

  What if Damien Black appeared at their door wielding his double-bladed axe?

  What if he bwaa-ha-ha’d his way into the apartment and demanded the powerband?

  Dave tried to calm himself with the thought that he could simply click in the Invisibility ingot and disappear, but another terrifying thought kept creeping into his mind.

  What if Damien Black held his family hostage for the powerband?

  He would, Dave feared, be willing to kill them to get it back.

  In the end (as much as he hated to admit it), he decided that Sticky was right: the monkey was trouble.

  Dave had other worries. For starters, he had a backpack crammed full of stolen stolen cash. He had to get it (and the ring) back to the bank (which, because it was Saturday, would be open from ten a.m. to two p.m.).

  But his parents would (if this was anything like all the Saturdays that had come before) insist that he help with chores.

  How would he ever get away?

  As the minutes of the morning ticked away, Dave busied himself around the house. He swept the kitchen; washed, dried, and put away the dishes; cleaned fingerprints off the refrigerator door; and wiped down counters (which had, not surprisingly, little monkey handprints on them).

  “My,” Dave’s mother said after a while. “All this without being asked?”

  Dave simply smiled and continued cleaning, keeping a watchful eye on the clock. It was already nine-thirty, and he had yet to come up with an ex-cuse for leaving the apartment.

  Think! he told himself. Think, think, think! (Which, of course, had the exact opposite effect.)

  It was Evie who (unwittingly) came to his rescue.

  “We’re out of milk!” she whined from inside the refrigerator. “Mo-om! Dave drank all the mi-ilk!”

  Dave had, in fact, not drunk the milk. There had been no milk to drink. But the instant Evie began whining, Dave said, “I’ll go get some.”

  “Really, mo’jo?” his mother asked from the couch (where she was mending a split in a pair of Evie’s pants). “That would be so nice.”

  So, lickety-split, Dave grabbed his bike, his backpack, and Sticky (who’d been enjoying a sizzly siesta out on the flower box) and escaped the apartment. He knew he’d be in trouble for taking too long to return with milk, but (being thirteen) he figured he’d figure that out later.

  Right now he was focused on only one thing:

  Getting to the bank.

  Unfortunately for Dave, this was also Damien Black’s sole focus. As Dave was speeding into town on his bike, Damien (along with the Bandito Brothers) was cruising to the exact same destination in his Eldorado.

  D
amien, you see, was banking on one thing:

  The boy who’d stolen his stolen money was a doggone do-gooder who would return the money to the bank. (The fool!)

  And (because of the magic wristband) the doggone do-gooder would want to stay anonymous.

  And so (because he was a doggone do-gooder with a magic wristband who’d want to stay anonymous) he’d go invisible to return the money to the bank.

  And he’d do it as soon as possible (because that’s what doggone do-gooders with magic wristbands do).

  So yes, there were, in fact, four things Damien was banking on, and it just so happens that he was right about all four.

  Now, to Dave’s credit, the thought of keeping the money (or any small portion of it, say one slim, crisp one-hundred-dollar bill that no one would eeeeeever miss) never even crossed his mind. He just wanted to get the money (and the ring) back to the rightful owners.

  So as Dave hurried to the bank on his bike, the Blind Bandito Beggars arranged themselves (with, as you might imagine, much bickering) in various places near the bank.

  Tito sat on the edge of a fountain (and immediately began fishing for pennies).

  Pablo chose a place on the grass beside a DO NOT WALK ON GRASS sign (thinking how clever and convincingly blind he was).

  Angelo settled on a bench near the base of the steps that led up to the bank.

  And Damien.

  Ah, Damien.

  He treated himself to a double-shot espresso mocha latte supreme and found perfect outdoor seating at the coffee shop across the street.

  Meanwhile, two blocks from the bank, Dave pulled into a quiet alcove, put on his hat and shades (just in case), clicked the Invisibility ingot into the wristband, and, poof, disappeared.

  Then, feeling confident and determined, he set out on foot, heading (as you already know) right for Damien’s diabolical trap.

  Sticky was the first to notice the peculiar blind man sitting on a bench at the base of the bank steps. And although to Damien Black, the Brothers looked nothing like themselves, Sticky had lived with the Bandito Brothers and had seen Angelo without his bandoliers before. It didn’t take the little gecko long to realize who the man really was.

  “Uh, señor,” he whispered in Dave’s invisible ear. “We’ve got trouble.”

  “Huh?” Dave replied.

  This was not the response “We’ve got trouble” deserved, but Dave was concentrating on piggy-backing into the bank. There was an elderly woman nearly at the door, and he wanted to jet up the steps and swoosh in behind her.

  “I said,” Sticky whispered, “we’ve got trouble.” Then, to avoid another “Huh?” he pulled on Dave’s ear until Dave’s head was facing the blind panhandler they were passing by. “That’s Angelo!”

  Dave had never seen the Bandito Brothers without their bandoliers or sombreros, so he did not believe that this was Angelo. “That’s just some deranged hobo asking for money. See how he’s talking to that paper bag? Now let go of my ear!”

  Angelo was, indeed, talking to a paper bag.

  It wasn’t, however, just a paper bag.

  Inside the paper bag was one of Damien’s gidgety-gadgets: a walkie-talkie communicator. And as Dave and Sticky hurried to catch up to the elderly woman, the voice of Damien Black was hissing so hard inside the bag that the bag was pouffing up with very angry air. “There he is, you fool! Nab him! Nab him NOW!”

  “Where, boss? I don’t see him!”

  “He’s going up the steps! Right behind that old witch with the hat!”

  “I don’t see him!”

  “WHICH EYE DO YOU HAVE OPEN?”

  And that was the problem exactly. As they had been waiting, Angelo had done his best switching between his left eye and his right eye, but in the process of toggling back and forth, he had gotten tired, confused, and (finally) stuck.

  When he switched eyes now, however, he saw Dave’s infrared form (which, for the record, looked white, not red) hurrying up the bank steps. “There he is!” Angelo cheered, and immediately started after him.

  The instant Angelo made his move, Tito and Pablo sprang into action (as was the plan). But Damien’s voice (which was so angry it now crinkled the paper sack) stopped them. “IT’S TOO LATE, YOU FOOLS! Back to your posts! We’ll get him on the way out!”

  Damien was (as I’m sure is already obvious) furious. His deliciously diabolical (and double-crossing) plan was now partly foiled. He’d wanted to nab the boy, steal the stolen stolen cash, and get (at long last) the wristband back. Then he’d put the wristband on, disappear, and leave those Bandito bozos holding the boy (getting them arrested and de-ported and out of his life for good—bwaa-ha-ha).

  But although, at first, the volatile villain was furious, he calmed down when he realized that the only thing he’d lost at this point was the cash.

  There were, he told himself, plenty of banks.

  What really mattered was the wristband.

  If he had the wristband, he could walk into any bank (or jewelry store or 7-Eleven, for that matter) and take all the loot he needed.

  Yes, he decided as he took a soothing sip of his mocha latte supreme, getting his hands on this particular stash of cash was nothing compared to getting his hands on this particular wristband. He just had to wait and watch. And if worse came to worst and those bumbling Bandito bozos couldn’t handle it, he’d nab the boy himself.

  So while Damien regrouped (barking new commands at the Brothers through the communicator), Sticky tried to warn Dave that some Damien-driven plot was under way. “I swear to you, hombre, that’s Angelo! That loco honcho is nearby, I guarantee!”

  “Shh! We’re invisible, okay? Even if they are here, they can’t see us! We’re safe.”

  Sticky, however, was sure they weren’t. “Señor, there is something going on. Did you see those funkydoodle shades?”

  “Sticky, shhhh!”

  “And Angelo got up. Did you see that? He started after us.”

  “You’re being paranoid, you know that? It wasn’t Angelo. It was just some crazy hobo.”

  “Ay-ay-ay, why don’t you listen?”

  “Ay-ay-ay, why don’t you be quiet?” Dave whispered frantically. “You’re going to give us away!”

  Dave whooshed into the bank behind the old lady and went directly to Ms. Kulee’s office.

  And Sticky was quiet.

  For all of three seconds.

  “Is there a back door to this place, señor? Because I think we need to find it and use it.”

  “No! There’s not! Now shhhh!”

  So Sticky shhhh!ed, but when he saw the note Dave left beside the sack of cash on Ms. Kulee’s desk, he could no longer stay silent. “‘Disappearing Dude at your service’?” he read aloud, his face scrunched completely around. “Are you loco berry burritos? You’d rather be Disappearing Dude than the Gecko? Being the Gecko is cool, man! Being Disappearing Dude is lame-o insane-o!”

  “Shhh,” Dave said, zipping closed his backpack. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Disappearing Dude,” Sticky grumbled, shaking his little gecko head. And knowing that he’d be wasting his breath to argue with or cajole a thirteen-year-old boy, Sticky decided to take matters into his own hands. As Dave headed out Ms. Kulee’s office door, Sticky jumped off his shoulder and ran, lickety-split, back to Ms. Kulee’s desk, where he crumpled up the note and tossed it in the trash.

  And this, really, was all he was planning to do, but at the last minute, he saw the large ink pad on Ms. Kulee’s desk, and this tickled his brilliant gecko brain into doing something more.

  He opened the ink pad.

  He did a quick flop-flop-flop across it.

  Then he plopped the blackened bottom of his body smack-dab in the middle of Ms. Kulee’s large desk calendar, leaving a nice gecko inkblot (plus a few scurrying-away gecko footprints).

  After a quick foot-and-belly wipe with a Kleenex, he zipped across the bank, scurried up Dave’s leg, and, poof, disappeared, catching a ride on
Dave just before he reached the front door.

  Dave was so intent on whooshing back out of the bank that he didn’t even notice that Sticky had been gone. And Sticky, being so intent on setting the record straight, didn’t notice that there were now three very familiar men (all wearing funkydoodle glasses) waiting at the top of the bank steps.

  “Holy tacarole!” he gasped as they whooshed out of the bank.

  Unfortunately, it was too late.

  The Bandito Brothers pounced.

  Dave let out a surprised “Aaaaagh!” but Pablo immediately slapped a hand over his mouth.

  Sticky dived for cover inside Dave’s shirt, certain that Tito (who’d been particularly fond of Sticky) would snatch him if he could.

  To the rest of the world, it appeared as if three obviously deranged blind men (wearing what could only be described as funkydoodle glasses) were struggling with thin air.

  “They’re crazy,” people whispered as the Bandito Brothers dragged Dave down the steps. And not wanting to be insensitive to the struggles of deranged blind men in funkydoodle glasses, people politely averted their eyes and simply went about their business.

  “Excellent,” hissed the paper sack. “Keep coming. Just keep coming!”

  “It’s that evil hombre,” Sticky cried. “I told you!”

  Dave, of course, now knew that Sticky had been right but couldn’t exactly apologize with his mouth muzzled the way it was. (Besides, had he been able to speak, he would most certainly have shouted “HELP!” instead.)

  “Sticky?” Tito whispered in glee. “Where are you, little buddy?”

  “Forget that blasted backstabber!” Pablo commanded (sounding disturbingly like his demented idol). “Help us here! This kid is strong!”

  Dave was, without a doubt, putting up quite a fight.

  He kicked.

  He elbowed.

  He pulled and pushed and twisted.

  But in the end, the Bandito Brothers overpowered him.

  “You’re almost there,” hissed the paper sack as they approached the street. “Don’t worry about traffic—it’ll stop for you. You’re blind men, remember?”