CHAPTER 13

Zero to four hundred in three seconds!” Dru yelled over the sound of the engine. “Able to withstand a nuclear blast, armed to the teeth!”

He pushed a button on the dashboard and dozens of guns, bombs, and spikes popped out of the car from all sides. Gru stared at them in awe.

“Okay, that’s pretty nice,” Gru admitted. He could barely move. They were going so fast his whole body was glued to the seat, his cheeks blown back by the force. Dru turned the corner, and a tractor was coming right at them. He smashed through a roadblock, and the car flew off a cliff. They were in free fall, plummeting down to the ocean.

“Ahhhh!!” Gru screamed, seeing his life flash before his eyes: tucking Agnes into bed, playing with little kitten finger puppets, watching the girls dancing in their tutus. Lucy.

Dru hit another button on the dash. Two grappling hooks flew out of the front of the car, metal cables spiraling behind them. They dug into the cliff’s edge, and the car swung down, its tires landing against the rock. Dru slammed on the gas, and the car drove right up the rock wall and back onto the road.

“Help me!” Gru screamed, his eyes only half open.

Dru didn’t seem to notice. He kept going just as fast until they approached a village. The car screeched to a stop.

“Wait for me here!” Dru called as he hopped out. He ran over to a candy truck that was parked on the side of the road. A sign on the door read CLOSED DUE TO CHEESE FESTIVAL. Dru picked the lock and went inside. Seconds later an alarm sounded, and Dru emerged with two huge lollipops. He pushed Gru into the driver’s seat.

“Did you just steal candies?” Gru asked.

“Yes!” Dru said cheerfully.

“That was a lot of effort for two lollipops.”

“But they’re the best in Freedonia!” Dru cried, shoving one in Gru’s mouth.

Sirens sounded in the distance. Gru sat there, chewing on his lollipop.

“The police!” Dru cried, nudging him. “What do we do?”

Gru hit the accelerator, and the car sped off. The police appeared behind them, lights flashing, but Gru was going so fast they couldn’t keep up. He laughed and laughed, remembering how good it felt to be bad.

“The police are going to get us! I’m freaking out!” Dru said, panicking.

Gru kept driving until they came to a pig herder, whose pigs were blocking the middle of the road. Gru slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop just inches from a pig’s head. The Freedonian police were right behind them, though, approaching on their bikes.

“Cops!” Dru cried.

Gru pushed a button, and the car raised up, letting the police bikes pass underneath them. They rode straight into the herd of pigs. The bikes flew one way, and the policemen flew the other. Gru lowered the car and continued on.

But when he looked in the rearview mirror, he saw the police were still after them—now they were riding the pigs like horses. A blind man crossed the street up ahead. If they stopped for him, they’d be caught.

Gru hit another button, and the car burrowed underground, driving through the city wall until the vehicle broke through to the ocean. They flew into the sea and disappeared into the water below, the car transforming into a submarine. Gru kept going, not taking his foot off the gas until he was sure they were safe.

“Man, that was crazy!” Dru laughed. “We were so close to getting busted!”

“Tell me about it,” Gru said. “I thought you were going to pee your pants!”

“I did!!” Dru laughed again.

They drove the car underwater, Dru directing Gru to a beach that was close to his mansion. The two went ashore and wrung out their clothes. Dru hung them up on a nearby clothesline as Gru stretched out in the sun, feeling better than he had in days.

“Face it, Gru,” Dru said. “Villainy is in your blood. You can’t tell me you don’t miss the rush. A little?”

“Well…” Gru couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe a little.”

Dru lay down next to his brother, tucking his hands behind his head.

“And now you’ve got a chance to get back on top,” Dru said. “Get your mojo back. Become Gru again! How awesome would that be? Oh please, come on, just one heist. There’s got to be something out there, somewhere, that you still want to steal.”

Gru closed his eyes. He could see himself, standing before a cheering crowd, holding the Dupont Diamond. Valerie Da Vinci would tell him that she had been rude, that she had been so, so rude and so, so wrong. Lucy would look at him with admiration, and Balthazar Bratt would be stuck in a gum trap, whining about how horrible it was that Gru had outsmarted him.

“Hmmmm…,” Gru said. “There is something. How about we steal the largest diamond in the world?”

“Yes! I love it!” Dru cried. “Oh, thank you, Brother! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

They both ran out into the ocean, dancing. They jumped up and down and hugged as the waves rolled in around them.

“Oh! You know what?” Dru asked. “We should do something to celebrate.”

Gru stared at Dru’s thick mop of blond hair and smiled.

“Ohhhh,” he said. “I’ve got the perfect idea.…”