CHAPTER 3

Gru turned the car in to the parking lot of the Sunset Retirement Home. The wheels screeched as he slammed his foot on the brake.

“And it’s not just that Bratt got away!” he said. “It’s that he’s so smug about it!”

Lucy got out of the car and walked inside, Gru following behind her. His face was still pink from his rant. She said hello to the receptionist, and they passed the common room. Two mannequins in gray wigs sat beside each other on the couch.

“And it was just so humiliating,” Gru went on. “Dangling there in the bubble-gum Speedo.”

He picked up the old woman mannequin and moved her to the coatrack. Lucy did the same with the old man mannequin. Then they both sat down on the couch. Gru scanned his palm print on the arm of the couch as he continued on.

“And I didn’t have time to go to the gym this week! And I had a big breakfast! I was feeling a little bloated!”

The sofa propelled them up to the top floors of the building. They rode it through the streets and into the air, soaring toward the AVL blimp.

“You know what? He’s not even worth talking about. I don’t even want to waste another breath about the guy.” He sighed, but it wasn’t more than two seconds before he remembered something else. “And another thing!”

As they got to the blimp lobby, Lucy and Gru walked past another receptionist.

“Next time I see Bratt, I will moonwalk all over his stupid face!” Gru said.

Inside the auditorium, Silas Ramsbottom was already onstage. He was a huge man with a neck that spilled over his collar. The audience was filled with AVL agents. “It is with great sadness that I inform you that as of today I am being replaced as the head of the AVL.”

A few agents in the crowd gasped. One started sobbing.

“Anyway,” Silas said, “your new leader is coming directly from head office, effective immediately. She is the very gifted, very ambitious Miss Valerie Da Vinci.”

A young, tough-looking woman stepped onto the stage. She looked very put together and professional. Silas smiled at her and then continued, “As I look out over all of your faces, I am flooded with so many memories. I—”

“Blah blah blah,” Valerie interrupted. “We understand. You’re old, you’re fat, you’re done.”

He lowered down into a hatch in the floor. Valerie pushed him in the rest of the way, slamming the door behind him.

“First order of business,” she said, scanning the crowd. “Which one of you losers is Agent Gru?”

Gru stiffened. “Uh… that would be me. Although I don’t know if I’d say ‘loser’ per se, kind of a—”

Before he could finish, his phone rang. It was his adopted daughters. He fumbled with the phone, trying to switch the ringer to silent, but he couldn’t figure out how.

“Hey!” Valerie yelled. She stepped down from the stage, approaching him. “How could you let Balthazar Bratt, the AVL’s most-wanted villain, just get away? That is the opposite of what we do here!”

Gru took a step back.

“Okay, okay, yes, maybe he got away,” he said. “Again—but he didn’t get the diamond! And I am this close to bringing him in. This close!”

Valerie looked him up and down. “Uh-huh. Okay. You’re off the case.”

Gru glanced sideways at Lucy, who seemed stunned.

“What?” he asked. “You can’t do that! Look at my record: I’ve caught El Macho.”

“Dopplegänger,” Lucy added.

“Dopplegänger,” Gru repeated.

“Argue-tron…”

“Argue-tron!” Gru said. “Boy, that guy was tough. He kept complaining, like ‘No, you didn’t catch me.’”

“Huh. Interesting.” Valerie brought her finger to her chin, as if she were deep in thought. “You know what? I’ve changed my mind. You’re not off the case.”

“I’m not?” Gru smiled.

“No. You’re fired!” she yelled.

“Whaaaaaaat?” Gru said, barely able to get the word out.

Lucy couldn’t take it anymore. Who did this Da Vinci character think she was, talking to Gru like that? Acting like he was a big nobody?

“Gru is a great agent!” Lucy said, pointing a finger in Valerie’s face. “You know what? If you fire him, you’re going to have to fire me, sister sister. And do you really want to do that? Do ya?”

Valerie didn’t bother answering. Instead she pointed to two agents who grabbed Gru and Lucy by their arms and led them to the door of the blimp. The receptionist handed them each a box and then—whomp!—they were given a swift kick out.

“Well, I guess she did!” Lucy yelled as they fell ten stories through the sky, plummeting toward earth.

Their parachutes opened as they cascaded toward the ground. It didn’t feel real. Was Gru’s life at AVL really ending so soon after it had begun?