Free The Greatest Power by Wendelin Van Draanen Page A

They make you see.”
    “When do we get to be blind?” Tito asked. Damien pulled a villainous face at Pablo. “Can you make him SHUT UP?”
    Pablo got his ratty face right up to Tito’s. His eyes were like beady little coals of hatred. “We’re going to
pretend
to be blind, you idiot! It’s a
disguise
. Now, do you want to help, or do you want to stay here?” Tito gulped and in a very small voice said, “I want to help.” “He’ll be quiet, boss,” Pablo said, feeling very much like Damien’s right-hand man.
    The treasure hunter glared at Tito for a solid minute beforecontinuing. “The goggles,” he said, strapping an extra-deluxe pair over his own oily head, “have one shaded lens and one
magic
lens.”

    “Magic?” the Bandito Brothers gasped, then hurried to strap on their own goggles.
    “Yes, magic,” the treasure hunter confirmed. “It allows you to see things that aren’t there.”
    “Wow!” the three Brothers gasped, trying hard to grasp what this meant.
    Now, the fact is, these goggles were not magic.
    There was absolutely no hocus-pocus involved.
    They were simply applied science.
    Damien had constructed the goggles so that the right side was a lens like you might find in dark glasses and the left side was an infrared-detecting lens.
    It could “see” heat.
    The warmth of a body.
    Any
body.
    Cow bodies.
    People bodies.
    Rat bodies.
    And (let’s get to the point, shall we?) invisible boy bodies.
    Damien had very cleverly devised the glasses so that the wearer (by closing alternate eyes) could spot something that didn’t seem to be there. (Had both the lenses been infrared, every person walking by would be visible, even the invisible—you wouldn’t be able to tell one from the other. But by having one regular dark lens, the wearer could see both what was visible and what was invisible.)
    This concept, as you might imagine, took a little while to convey to the Bandito Brothers, especially since nothing around them was invisible. But they did eventually get it, and when Damien had taken back the goggles (for safekeeping) and packed a supply of white-tipped canes and tin cups, he blindfolded the Brothers (which made Tito very happy) andthen, in an effort to confuse them as to their whereabouts, led them round and round a circular corridor.
    When Damien was at last satisfied that they were directionally impaired, he led the Brothers to a drafty-shafted elevator that lowered them from the mansion to the garage.
    Once inside the garage, Damien removed the blindfolds and hissed, “If you so much as leave a fingerprint on it, you’re dead.”
    “Oh, Mr. Black!” they gasped, taking in the deep, rich sheen of the Eldorado.
    “It’s … beautiful!” Angelo cried, and his arms went all goose-bumpy, shooting patches of two-inch hairs straight out.
    “I’ve never seen anything like it!” Pablo said, his voice catching.
    “Oooooh, shiny!” Tito cried.
    The Brothers did another round of exclamations (because, honestly, they just couldn’t contain themselves).
    “Unbelievable!” Angelo gushed.
    “In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined such a car!” Pablo sighed.
    “It’s way better than a donkey!” Tito said with an approving nod.
    Secretly pleased with their reaction, Damien slid behind the wheel.
    He inserted the key.
    He powered back the ragtop.
    And with a mighty
va-vroom
, he fired up those ultra-bad Rochester carburetors.
    The hungry growl of the Eldorado echoed around them.
    The entire garage seemed alive with power.
    “Get in, you bozos!” Damien shouted as he pressed the drawbridge’s remote control.
    And with that, they roared out the exit tunnel, across the drawbridge, and down Raven Ridge to the city below.

I’m sure you’re wondering what happened over at the Sanchezes’ apartment after their day was jump-started by a certain caffeine-craving monkey.
    In short, not much.
    Evie went back to bed, Mr. and Mrs. Sanchez sat around drinking (very strong) coffee,