Gecko Gladiator (3 page)

“Alligators!” continued Danny, forlornly biting into his second slice of cake. “Fwee fwant koo be falligators!”

“Don't talk with your mouth full,” chided Petty. “And don't be so selfish! Can't you see? They're closing in! If my lab gets discovered, I'll be kidnapped and tortured for all my secrets! And so, very possibly, will you! I don't think it's safe for you to come around here and see me anymore.”

“What?” Danny stood up. “After all we've done for you! You're just going to chuck us off the S.W.I.T.C.H. Project?”

“Don't be so melodramatic, Danny!” Petty stood up too. “I mean, I think you'll have to meet me somewhere else … in my new secret lab!”

“Your new lab? Is it ready?” Josh asked.

“Very nearly,” Petty said. “In fact … I will let you see it tomorrow. Take this.” She dug into her other pocket and then handed Josh a small, white spray bottle with a big
G
written on it in marker. “It will allow you to find your way in. Do NOT
use it before you reach the new address. Josh—I'm trusting you not to let Danny persuade you before then.”

“Hey!” Danny said, looking wounded.

“Only when you get there!” went on Petty. “Or I won't trust you again. And make sure you're not followed.”

Josh grabbed the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray bottle. A surge of deep excitement ran through him. “Which S.W.I.T.C.H. is it?” he breathed.

“You'll find out soon enough,” Petty said. “Meet me here …”—she handed Danny a scrap of paper with an address written on it—“… at 2 p.m. tomorrow.”

“Here?” Danny said, puzzled.

“All will become clear,” Petty said, making what she obviously thought was a mysterious expression but looking really more as if she had a bad case of gas. “Now—off you go. Unless you want to help me apply baking soda to my pustules …”

“Oh no,” Danny said. “Oh no, oh no, oh no!”

“Errm,” added Josh.

This was worse than they had imagined. Far worse.

The brothers stood, frozen, in front of a large warehouse-style shop. It was located in a strip mall about twenty minutes' walk from their house. Mom and Dad thought they'd gone up to the park. They would be amazed if they saw where their sons really were at this moment. Standing outside PRINCESSLAND.

“This has got to be a mistake!” Danny peered at the address on the note again. But no—the number above the door of Princessland was unmistakably 18. Danny had been surprised enough when Petty had written down Unit 18,
RAINBOW BUSINESS PARK—but this? “This can't be right,” he went on. “She's a genius scientist! She should be building her lab in a hollowed-out extinct volcano!”

“Not many of those around here,” pointed out Josh.

“All right then—an old water tower. An abandoned nuclear waste dump—I don't know. Anything but this!” Danny's voice wobbled as he stared up again at Princessland. It was a shop filled with lovely things for lovely girls. Dresses and shoes and tiaras and tie-on fairy wings and dollies and little shiny handbags and strawberry-flavored lip gloss and …

“Face it,” Josh said. “Petty Potts has gone to Princessland.” It sounded a bit like a kind way of saying someone had died or gone mad … and as far as Danny was concerned, it was the same.

“I'm not walking in there!” he said. “Let's use the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray and go inside in disguise.”

“No,” Josh said. “For one thing, we don't know what we're going to turn into, do we?
G
could stand for anything in the reptile world … It could be a Gila Monster. Half a meter long with a venomous bite. Or a Galápagos tortoise—way too slow to get away before the Humane Society shows up. And for another thing—read that!”

There was a note at the bottom of the address. It read: “Go to the lobby at the back and S.W.I.T.C.H. to get in under the red door. BEWARE! NOBODY MUST SEE! Keep a low profile.”

“Keep a low profile?” spluttered Danny. “In Princessland, when we're
boys
? Is she nuts?”

Josh shrugged. There was no need to answer that one. He grabbed Danny's arm. “Come on. If we stand out here much longer, we'll attract attention. Just walk in. We can pretend we're
buying a birthday present for our sister.”

“Jenny's fourteen. I think she's grown out of fairy wings!” Danny hissed.

“We can pretend she's four,” Josh said.

Inside Princessland, it was every bit as bad as Danny had feared. As soon as they stepped through the door, three sparkly fairies on springs bounced down into their faces, saying things like, “Hi there, best friend!” and “The fairies love YOU!” and “Let's go shopping in the Fairyland mall!” Danny screamed and swatted them away as if he was being attacked by wasps. Wasps styled by Disney.

Danny ducked away and nearly knocked into a big whiteboard with PARTY TIME! written on it in glittery purple pen. “Princessland welcomes Princess Megan and all her friends to a Damsels' Party at 4 p.m. today!”

“I mean—what does that even
mean
?” he found himself wondering. “Does anyone really know what a damsel is?”

“It's a kind of princess, I think,” Josh said. “Usually in distress. And they seem to wear cone-y things with ribbons on their heads …”

“You know too much,” muttered Danny, darkly.

He shuddered and turned to look at the large shop floor. It was festooned in glittering pink, yellow, and purple displays of girly stuff. There were huge TV screens dangling from the ceiling all around the store. Endless commercials with nonstop tinkly music advertised all the girly toys available. Even the
Darcy Show
was getting in on the act. Mom and Jenny's favorite talk-show host, wearing her trademark yellow jacket and black sequinned pants, was gushing about her own tiny
doll—the Diddly DeeDee—and her own brand of toy microphone. A rack of sparkly yellow My Little Microphones stood to their left, just behind the attack fairies. Danny and Josh stared past it, trying to work out the quickest route to the red door that Petty had mentioned. It was clear they would have to cross all the way to the back of the store.

“Do we really have to do this?” Danny wailed.

Josh grabbed his arm again. “Stop freaking out!” he snapped. “Remember! Low profile!”

But Danny's fight with the fairies had already attracted attention. At least six girls were now peering at them, giggling in pairs. One small girl and her mother just glanced at them with disdain and then hurried around a corner. Josh dragged Danny along the Diddly DeeDee aisle. Its tall shelves were packed with tiny, pink dolls and a phenomenal amount of clothes and accessories, most of which could fit into a matchbox. “Why do they have to be so yellow and purple and pink?” Danny murmured. “Why are girls so nuts about pink? PINK!”

“Just don't look,” Josh advised his brother, as Danny's eyes started to get fixed. “Now—you see the My Tiny Horsey rotating display? We've got to get to the far side of that …”

“My Tiny Horsey?” whimpered Danny, his eyes going glassy. He'd seen the commercials for My Tiny Horsey on TV. My Tiny Horsey had eyelashes and necklaces and manes and tails of different colors. And you could put special glittery nail polish on its hooves …

“Snap out of it!” hissed Josh, whacking Danny on the back of the head. “It's just girls' toys! Pretend they're all called DEATHKILL STALLION and they're black and gray and carrying machine guns and you'll be OK!”

Danny did his best. Despite some giggling very close behind him and a definite whiff of glittery hoof polish, he got to the far side of the display alongside Josh. Here they nearly collided with the mother and daughter who had scurried away from them earlier. Both wore identical long, lumpy, dark coats, even though it was quite warm outside. And both of them had identical curly brown hair and gray eyes, which they narrowed suspiciously at Josh and Danny. The girl was not much older than Josh and Danny. But she looked as disapprovingly as her mother as they stalked away, wrapping their coats tightly around them.

“I thought they were going to start hissing at us for a moment there,” Danny said. “What's their problem?”