The Power Potion Read Free Page B

for his buddy. “Where?”
    “Here,” Sticky said, emerging from behind the bedroom window’s half-drawn shade. “You gotta do something about that crazy
gata, señor
. She came at me again with those fishy-hooked feet!I was taking a nice, sizzly
siesta
in the flower box when—”
    “Not now, Sticky. I’ve got—”
    “You don’t care that that squooshy-faced monster almost killed me?” Sticky scowled at Dave from the windowsill. “You cut me to the quick,
señor
.”
    Dave rolled his eyes. “I
care
, but I—”
    “She tried to open our window! Ay-ay-ay! You should have seen her!” Sticky clawed his hand through the air. “Rreeeer, rreeeeer, rreeeeer!
Señor
, if she could open our window, I’d be dead right now. You have to do something about her!”
    “Right, right, okay, okay,” Dave said, producing the cardboard mailing tube. “But first we have to do something about
this
.”
    Sticky’s eyes grew wide as he read the label. (He could, in fact, read, though he had never explained to Dave’s satisfaction how he had learned.) “Holy tacarole!” Sticky gasped. Helooked at Dave. “You’re telling me you have to make this delivery?”
    “That’s what I’m telling you,” Dave said, then quickly told Sticky about the strange elephant-eared man in the strange circus wagon in the strange goat-infested neighborhood.

    “Holy guaca-tacarole!” Sticky gasped. And then, after a brief moment of chin tapping, he cocked his head and said, “So…what’s inside it?”
    “How should I know?” Dave snapped. “I don’t open the packages I deliver.”
    Sticky scratched the back of his little gecko neck. “For this one,
señor
, I think you should maybe break that little rule.”
    “But…” Dave shook his head. “Even if I wanted to, I can’t. It’s got this weird wax seal, see? If I open it, he’ll know.”
    Both caps of the tube did, in fact, have a hardened wax seal dripped over their edges. But the stamp imprinted in the wax was a simple five-pointed star, and as Dave and Sticky studied the seal in silence, they simultaneously reached the same conclusion:
    They could open the tube, inspect the contents, and then close it back up and reseal it by reheating the wax and making their own five-pointed star.
    Like, with a paper clip.
    Or something.
    “Do it!” Sticky whispered, as he could see the gears clickety-clacking inside Dave’s head.
    And so, in a moment of rash impulsiveness (as, no, he hadn’t thought through the possible repercussions), Dave pried up one end cap, breaking the wax seal.
    Ah, poor Dave.
    He had just opened a Pandora’s box.
    Your classic can of worms.
    (Or, perhaps more accurately, a tube of tantalizing trouble.)
    “What is it?” Sticky whispered as Dave carefully removed the straw packing material that surrounded a small amber bottle.
    The lid of the bottle had a built-in eyedropper, and there was a small note attached to it with a thin piece of twine. The writing on the note was shaky and rough, and Dave struggled to make out the words as he read the note aloud: “One drop. Two at most. Tested. Works.”
    Dave turned to Sticky. “What do you think it does?”
    Sticky shook his little gecko head. “Beats me,
señor
, but if I had to guess? Something evil.” He looked up at Dave. “Maybe it’s a death potion.”
    “A
potion
?” Dave frowned. “C’mon, Sticky.”
    Sticky crossed his arms. “Okay,
amigo
. So what do
you
think it is?”
    Dave shrugged. “Maybe some sort of medicine? Maybe that guy was, you know, a medicine man?”
    “That black-hearted
ratero
is sick, all right,” Sticky muttered, thinking of Damien Black. He considered the situation for a moment, then said, “There’s only one thing to do,
señor
—you need to dump it out.”
    “What?” Dave’s face scrunched and twisted. “And then what? I have to deliver
something
.”
    Sticky shrugged. “Then you refill the bottle with water, put on a disguise, and deliver it to that