Since the day that Dave had first seen the Bandito Brothers in town, he’d watched for them while he was out making his Roadrunner Ex-press deliveries.
Each time he found them, they had moved closer to his neighborhood.
Each day he saw them, he grew more and more nervous.
And each time Sticky had to tell him, “You would be safer to ignore them, señor. They are looking for a boy in red and white sneakers and a snake hat.”
But Dave seemed unable to ignore them. He couldn’t help wondering if they were asking about a boy with a pet gecko. Sticky had been lying low, but a lot of the kids at school knew he had a pet gecko. A lot of his neighborhood knew it.
What if the Bandito Brothers found out where he lived?
What if Damien Black came to his apartment?
What if that demented villain hurt his family?
Well, his sister, that would be one thing. But his parents?
Then one day Dave was racing through the streets on his bike, making a delivery to a business on the outskirts of the city, when he heard the metal-munching, windshield-crunching pileup of cars.
“Ay caramba! What was that?” Sticky cried, jolting awake from his siesta.
Dave coasted for a moment, then turned down a side street toward the sound. He could hear people shouting, and everyone on the sidewalks seemed to be funneling toward the commotion.
“What a mess!” Dave said as the intersection came into view.
It wasn’t just a two- or three-car crash.
There were cars crunched in all directions.
People were shouting.
Crying.
It was a doozy of a disaster.
And then Sticky choked out, “Hopping habañerosl Look!” as he pointed to the very heart of the chaos. “It’s Rosie and Tito!”
Now, it’s a well-known fact that gravity pulls. There’s the gravity of the earth, which keeps us and our buildings and our bikes and burros all securely on the ground. It’s a very strong force, and the truth is, no one completely understands it.
A situation also has a pull to it, depending on its gravity. It’s not the same kind of gravity as the gravity of earth, but it has a similar effect.
People are pulled to it.
The more grave the situation, the stronger the pull. So in this particular case, in this particular city, this particular metal-munching, windshield-crunching pileup had what might be called extreme gravity.
Everybody wanted to get a closer look.
Now, when Dave saw that the nucleus of this pileup, the very heart of this pull, was one badly bucktoothed burro, he, too, wanted to get a closer look. But he was encumbered by his bike. So he backtracked to a basement stairwell, locked his bike against the railing, then returned to the chaos in the intersection.
Word of the wreck had radiated out quickly, and more and more people were funneling in to see.
Sirens wailed in the distance.
People began shoving and bumping.
And then a familiar voice called through the crowd, “Dave!”
“Ay chihuahua, not her!” Sticky said, ducking for cover.
It was, indeed, Lily, who had spotted Dave’s bright red sweatshirt and was now squeezing between people to get to him. “Did you see what happened?”
Dave shook his head.
“What’s a donkey doing here? And who’s that guy on it? Why is he wearing a bandolier? Is that ammunition real? Does he have a gun?”
Dave knew the answers to all these questions (or, at least, he believed he did), but he wisely chose not to answer them. Instead, he did what he usually did when he was around Lily.
He stood there staring at her, feeling totally dorky.
And it was while he was standing there, feeling (and, I’m afraid, looking) totally dorky, that something strange happened.
Something very strange indeed.
A hat came out of the sky and landed with a loud thwap between Dave and Lily.
It was a purple ball cap.
With a diamondback snake design.
Dave stared, not believing his eyes.
Was this his hat?
Lily snatched it off the ground. “Is this your hat?” she asked, understandably confused, as Dave was wearing his bike helmet.
“N-no,” Dave lied, staring at the hat.
Then Lily looked up. Up to where the hat had thwapped down from. And then Lily, being a very vocal sort of girl, let out an ear-piercing, heart-spearing scream as she backed away from the building.
Soon everyone was looking up at the dreadful sight above, talking, pointing, and yes, screaming.
And that’s when Sticky, who had been slyly watching the exchange between Dave and Lily, looked up, up, up and saw poor Luis dangling down, down, down from the roof of the building.
“What the jalapeño is that?” he cried. But then, because geckos have keen eyesight, he figured out what the jalapeño it was. “Señor! Ay caramba! Señor!” he said, pulling frantically on Dave’s ear. “It’s Damien Black!” And then, being one smart gecko, he put it all together lickety-split. “The hat! Hopping habañeros, hombrel That evil hombre’s got a boy he thinks is you!”
Dave looked around frantically.
There wasn’t a policeman in sight!
He could hear sirens, so he knew they were coming (or at least trying to), but by the time they got there, it might be too late.
Someone had to do something!
Why was everyone just standing around?
Then, in his ear, he heard Sticky’s voice. “Why are you standing there like a bobo saguaro?”
“Huh?”
Dave looked at the gecko. “Move? Move where?”
Sticky blinked at Dave.
He stretched out his little gecko spine.
He crossed his little gecko arms.
Then he gave Dave a stern, hard look and said, “Climb the building, man! Save the boy!”