Meet the Gecko (6 page)

I had the powerful urge to hiss.

Damien Black is sooooo nasty!

The Gecko was around the corner, trying to switch the power ingot in his magic wristband from super-strength to wall-walker. He was trapped! And since the magic wristband only allows for one power at a time, he was in trouble!

“And cut!” the director cried. Then he called, “Live gecko inside Chase's sweatshirt. Let's go!”

I whispered, “This is so cool, Dad! Thank you! Thank-you-thank-you!”

People scurried all around, moving cameras, moving chairs. Chase grinned at me and tossed his head back a little like, Hey! while a lady patted powder on his nose and forehead.

I waved and smiled.

Was I dreaming?

My mother squeezed my arm and smiled at me. “Pretty interesting, isn't it?” she whispered.

I nodded. It was amazing to be on the set of my favorite show.

And very… strange.

Someone gave Chase a gecko.

A gecko? What was I thinking? They gave him Sticky!

The funniest sidekick of all time!

Chase stroked Sticky on the head and talked to him quietly. Sticky looked kind of small. And brown. The real Sticky's orange. With yellow stripes. And sometimes sunglasses!

I took out my binoculars and zoomed in on the two of them. Wow. Sticky might look different, but Chase was really talking to him. And I swear Sticky was talking back! I could practically hear him saying,
“Ay-chihuahua.
Eees theees the best you got?”

Then Chase put Sticky inside his sweatshirt, held on to him, and gave the director a nod.

I kept watching through my binoculars.

“Quiet on the set!” the director called. “Close-up on his shoulder. And… action!”

Chase let go of Sticky and put his hand back on his power-band. In a flash, Sticky wriggled out of the sweatshirt and up onto Chase's shoulder. His head moved from side to side, then he sort of jumped on top of Chase's ball cap and looked around.

After a second of Sticky looking around, the director called, “And cut!”

Everyone started talking at once.

Chase was grinning from ear to ear.

The director was, too. “Unbelievable!” he said. “On a first take, too! And that bonus jump on the head! Beautiful! Brilliant! That's what I like from my radical reptiles! Whatever you said to him, Chase, nice work.”

Chase was taking Sticky off his hat, still grinning away. “Hey. Just call me the guy who talks to geckos!”

Everyone laughed. Then Mom whispered across me to Dad, “I always
thought it was some kind of robot. Or computer animation.”

Dad nodded. “They tell me that most of it is computer-generated. They have a toy gecko and a remote-controlled gecko, but they use a live one sometimes, too.” He laughed. “They sure couldn't have gotten the remote-controlled one to jump on his head!”

“They must've gotten lucky with that.”

Dad nodded. “Oh, very!”

A remote-controlled gecko? Computer-animated? So what if the gecko Chase had wasn't orange. It was still Sticky! I'd just seen him in action! What more proof did people need?

Sticky was real!

I tried to tune my parents out and watched the people who were scurrying around to set up the next scene. Damien Black would be coming down the rest of the stairs. The Gecko would click in the wall-walker ingot at the last minute.

He'd climb up the wall!

He'd…

“How do they make it look like he's climbing walls?” Mom asked Dad.

“Shhhh!” I told her. “He'll have the wall-walker ingot in!”

Mom looked at Dad.

Dad looked at Mom.

They both raised their eyebrows.

“Picture's up!” the director called. Then he said, “Quiet on the set. …And… action!”

Boom! Crash! Clank!

Everyone froze.

I looked around. Was this sound effects?

Thump!

The saloon doors burst open, then closed, then burst open again. But no one came through!

“Let go!” a voice inside the saloon cried. “I just wanna meet The Gecko!”

I couldn't believe my ears. I whispered, “That
sounds like—” but before I could say his name, Bubba Bixby crashed through the door.

“CUT!” the director shouted. “Who's that clown? Get him
out
of here!”

Bubba tried to touch Chase, but before he could, men in black T-shirts were all over him. And as they hauled Bubba away, Bubba reached for The Gecko, saying, “Hey, I just want to shake your hand! I just wanna…” The men muscled Bubba along as he shouted over his shoulder, “Man, I'm your number one fan!”

Everyone was scowling.

The director looked mad!

Bubba's head swept around as he turned to face forward, but then, like in slow motion, his head turned back.

And his eyes stopped.

And locked!

Right on me.

“Wow,” my mom whispered. “That boy's gotten big.”

“Oh, yeah,” I choked out, thinking about how Bubba'd find some way to pound me at school the next day.

“How'd he get in here?” Dad said.

“He's Bubba, Dad. He has ways.”

Everyone was just starting to settle down when Chase said, “Has anyone seen Sticky?” He was patting himself all over, looking around.

After a minute of Sticky not showing up, some woman announced, “We've got a gecko on the loose. Come on, people, let's find it.”

Everyone looked around.

On the floor.

All around the furniture.

I looked up. Geckos love to climb. They can hang upside down, no problem!

Geckos are way, way cool.

And seeing how this gecko was Sticky, well, he could be anywhere! “They should check the cash register!” I whispered to Dad. “Or the safe!” I grinned and asked him, “You still got your watch?”

Sticky is such a kleptomaniac!

Dad laughed and put his arm on my shoulder. “You are just kidding, right?”

I shrugged and smiled, but part of me really wanted to check the cash register.

Just in case.

Someone probably should have, too, because Sticky didn't show up. Finally the director called, “Get the gecko wrangler! Everyone else, lunch, half hour! We've got miles to go before we sleep.”

Most people filed into the tan green room. Some people ran upstairs. I was dying to go over and thank The Gecko for inviting me to watch, but I didn't have to.

He came over to me!

“Hey, Nolan,” he said. “Glad you could make it.”

“Thanks for inviting me!” I told him.

He turned to Mom and Dad. “Cool kid you got here.”

Mom was smiling big. She put out her hand and said, “I'm Eve Byrd, Nolan's mother.”

He nodded. “And I'm Chase Morton”—he wiggled his eyebrows my way—“The Gecko!”

Just then Henna Blockwell came over with a paper in her hand and a grin on her face. A grin that didn't seem to really
go
with her face.

It was…
goofy.

“Chase,” she said, then looked around at the rest of us. “Sorry for interrupting, but…” She
handed Chase the paper. “This came via fax. Maggie sent it from L.A. You're not going to believe it.”

I saw the paper as Henna passed it to Chase.

So did Dad.

And Mom.

Our eyes got big.

We tried to make them stay small.

Tried to act cool.

But our mouths and shoulders and heads were twitching all around. Even as a murky fax copy, there was no mistaking my Slug-Mole!

The Gecko read the article. He was grinning so big I thought his ears would push right off the back of his head! Finally he looked at Henna and said, “Who wrote this?”

“Well, it's David Egbert's column, but obviously his source is a mystery man.”

“Yeah,” Chase said. “Shredderman.”

Henna was still grinning. “It's hilarious. And even funnier when you realize that Egbert's column is syndicated—this piece will be in papers all around the country!”

Chase laughed and kind of danced in place. “This is so cool! This is…brilliant!”

Slick as a semiconductor, my dad asked, “What's this all about?”

Chase handed over the paper, saying,
“Remember the Mole? The guy you warned me about yesterday?”

Dad nodded. “Mr. Bowl?”

Chase snickered. “Yeah. Well, some guy named Shredderman is giving him a dose of his own medicine.”

Dad was skimming the article, nodding. “I've heard of this Shredderman character.”

“Really?”

Dad passed the paper to me, saying, “He's something of a local hero.”

Chase seemed very interested. “Any idea who he is?”

Uh-triple-oh! I hadn't thought about it until now, but who else knew the Mole was in town? Who else would try to expose him?

Bullets started shooting out my sweat glands.

Dad stayed totally cool, though. He shrugged and said, “I'm actually investigating that for the
Gazette.”

“Well, when you find out, would you let me know? You have no idea how many people would want to thank him.”

My heart was pounding double-speed as I read the article. It was everything I'd sent in my e-mail, plus the writer's own stories about the Mole.

Henna eased the paper out of my hands and said, “I'm going to make copies and pass them around. This is just too good!”

Chase said, “Great idea!” then grinned at me and said, “We've probably got time for a quick game of Tekken 3. You up for it?”

Henna grabbed him by the arm. “No way! Absolutely no way.” She dragged him along, saying, “As a matter of fact, they need you in wardrobe. No more disappearing acts.”

Chase pointed to his magic wristband as he grinned at me and wiggled his eyebrows. “See ya later, Nolan!”

I laughed and waved, and when he was gone I followed Mom and Dad to the side so we'd be out of the way. And while they were debating how long we could stay without wearing out our welcome, a man with a bushy brown goatee went by, pushing a cart of food.