The Power Potion by Wendelin Van Draanen

bullet at a time, the guns were highly accurate and had outstanding muzzle velocity and (mostimportantly) smooth bores, which made the bullets they fired untraceable.

    And they were so much more spiffidy-doo-dah than modern handguns that their size and limitations were, to Damien’s mind, not an issue.
    He was, after all, a deadly and merciless shot.
    Damien lifted both pistols from their box, then hesitated. One had always sufficed in the past, and he did have a lot of other things to manage.
    But there was something about wearing a brace of pistols that made him feel fully loaded.
    Fueled for duel.
    So Damien cut the moment of hesitation short and proceeded to load and holster both pistols. And then, with another dramatic
whoosh-swoosh
, Damien clicked off the light and exited his inner sanctum through a
second
revolving bookcase, leaving Sticky trapped inside.

Chapter 20
TRAPPED!
    Clicking the light back on was not a problem for Sticky.
    Admitting he was trapped inside was.
    But there were no windows, no vents, no chimney or visible ductwork…and the revolving bookcases were much too heavy for him to push.
    “Freaky
frijoles
. Are you serious, man?” he muttered. “I’ve got the Buzzy Bee! I’ve got to get out of here!”
    Unfortunately, the Flying ingot (or, if you prefer, the Buzzy Bee) was of no use to Sticky. It was useless without the powerband, and the powerband was useless on Sticky. (Not only was it way too big, but it only seemed to work on humans.)
    Besides, what good would flying around a room do?
    There was still no way out.
    “If only I had the potion,” Sticky grumbled, “I could push through the turning books and
vámonos
!”
    Sticky may not have had the Moongaze potion, but there
was
a funkydoodle phone. He didn’t like the looks of it (as a bird claw, taxidermied or not, is a fierce and frightening thing to any lizard), but after realizing he was most definitely trapped, he climbed up Damien’s devilishly carved desk and approached the contraption.
    The Sanchezes, of course, had a phone in their apartment.
    A regular, plastic, push-button model.
    And (having lived inside the apartment awhile now, and having heard it repeated enough) Sticky did know the Sanchezes’ phone number.
    And (after witnessing Damien’s use of it) herecognized that this funkydoodle contraption on the villain’s desk was, indeed, a telephone.
    One that needed to be dialed.
    And so it was that Sticky wrestled the receiver off the cradle and began making his first phone call.
    It was a difficult process.
    One full of flubs and blubs and boo-boos.
    Time and again the dial got away from him, and time and again he had to start over. It was, indeed, a difficult process, but with each bobble, Sticky grew more determined.
    He had to get the Buzzy Bee to Dave.
    He just had to!
    Meanwhile, Dave (who was done with his afternoon deliveries) was coming home to an empty house.
    Now, by “empty,” I do not mean that all the furniture and dishes and appliances had been stolen.
    By “empty,” I mean lonely.
    There was no “Hey,
señooooor
!”
    No “
Excelente picante!
You’re home!”
    No “I’m out here,
señor
! Having a sizzly
siesta
.”
    Just quiet.
    Sad, lonely quiet.
    Dave parked his bike, dumped his backpack, and heaved a sigh. It had been a day even rougher than most. This was due, in part, to the sneers and jeers (and kitty-cat jokes) made by Lily and her sassy, saucy friends. But it was also because Dave now realized that his old friends had somehow drifted away. Regrouped. Left the kid with the strange habit of talking to himself behind.
    Not that Dave was actually talking to
himself
. He’d been talking to Sticky.
    Worrying about the powerband.
    Obsessing over Damien Black.
    But today, as he’d made a real effort to reconnect with some old friends, he’d discovered thatthey weren’t interested in reconnecting with him. Over the past few months, he’d become known as a dorky dude with spastic