Despicable Me 3--The Junior Novel Read online

  “But they’re the best in Freedonia!” Dru cried, shoving one in Gru’s mouth.

  Sirens sounded in the distance. Gru sat there, chewing on his lollipop.

  “The police!” Dru cried, nudging him. “What do we do?”

  Gru hit the accelerator, and the car sped off. The police appeared behind them, lights flashing, but Gru was going so fast they couldn’t keep up. He laughed and laughed, remembering how good it felt to be bad.

  “The police are going to get us! I’m freaking out!” Dru said, panicking.

  Gru kept driving until they came to a pig herder, whose pigs were blocking the middle of the road. Gru slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a stop just inches from a pig’s head. The Freedonian police were right behind them, though, approaching on their bikes.

  “Cops!” Dru cried.

  Gru pushed a button, and the car raised up, letting the police bikes pass underneath them. They rode straight into the herd of pigs. The bikes flew one way, and the policemen flew the other. Gru lowered the car and continued on.

  But when he looked in the rearview mirror, he saw the police were still after them—now they were riding the pigs like horses. A blind man crossed the street up ahead. If they stopped for him, they’d be caught.

  Gru hit another button, and the car burrowed underground, driving through the city wall until the vehicle broke through to the ocean. They flew into the sea and disappeared into the water below, the car transforming into a submarine. Gru kept going, not taking his foot off the gas until he was sure they were safe.

  “Man, that was crazy!” Dru laughed. “We were so close to getting busted!”

  “Tell me about it,” Gru said. “I thought you were going to pee your pants!”

  “I did!!” Dru laughed again.

  They drove the car underwater, Dru directing Gru to a beach that was close to his mansion. The two went ashore and wrung out their clothes. Dru hung them up on a nearby clothesline as Gru stretched out in the sun, feeling better than he had in days.

  “Face it, Gru,” Dru said. “Villainy is in your blood. You can’t tell me you don’t miss the rush. A little?”

  “Well…” Gru couldn’t help but smile. “Maybe a little.”

  Dru lay down next to his brother, tucking his hands behind his head.

  “And now you’ve got a chance to get back on top,” Dru said. “Get your mojo back. Become Gru again! How awesome would that be? Oh please, come on, just one heist. There’s got to be something out there, somewhere, that you still want to steal.”

  Gru closed his eyes. He could see himself, standing before a cheering crowd, holding the Dupont Diamond. Valerie Da Vinci would tell him that she had been rude, that she had been so, so rude and so, so wrong. Lucy would look at him with admiration, and Balthazar Bratt would be stuck in a gum trap, whining about how horrible it was that Gru had outsmarted him.

  “Hmmmm…,” Gru said. “There is something. How about we steal the largest diamond in the world?”

  “Yes! I love it!” Dru cried. “Oh, thank you, Brother! Thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

  They both ran out into the ocean, dancing. They jumped up and down and hugged as the waves rolled in around them.

  “Oh! You know what?” Dru asked. “We should do something to celebrate.”

  Gru stared at Dru’s thick mop of blond hair and smiled.

  “Ohhhh,” he said. “I’ve got the perfect idea.…”

  CHAPTER 14

  Gru and Dru strode into the dining room, trying to keep their faces straight. Gru could barely look at his brother. Dru was wearing a bald cap and the black jacket and striped scarf that Gru usually wore. Gru was dressed like Dru—an all-white suit with this silly blond wig that kept falling in his eyes.

  “Here we are!” Gru announced, looking at Lucy and the girls. They were sitting at the table with Fritz and Kyle.

  “How’s it going?” Dru tried to make his voice more Gru-like. “It’s me, Gru!”

  The two brothers sat down at the table. Lucy and the girls didn’t look amused, but that didn’t stop the brothers.

  “What’s for dinner?” Dru asked. “I probably won’t like it. I’m so grumpy all the time!”

  “Hey! I laugh a lot!” Gru smiled. “And I’m kind of an idiot!”

  Gru and Dru glanced sideways at each other. They couldn’t take it anymore. They both broke into laughter.

  “Look at them!” Dru cried. “They had no idea.”

  Gru removed his wig. “Look, it’s me—Gru!”

  Dru pulled off his bald cap. “And I’m Dru! We switched places!”

  Margo and Lucy seemed unimpressed. Then Lucy offered a small smile.

  “It’s so nice to see you two are getting along,” Lucy said.

  “Oh, we’re getting—” Gru started.

  “Along perfectly,” Dru finished.

  The brothers turned to each other.

  “Wait,” Gru said. “Did we—”

  “Just finish—”

  “Each—”

  “Other’s—”

  “Sentences?” they said together.

  “Aw, that’s delightful,” Lucy said. “Not creepy at all. And you’re gonna stop, though, now, right?”

  “Sorry,” Gru said. “It’s a twin thing.”

  “So what did you guys do today?” Lucy asked.

  “Nothing!” Gru and Dru said in unison.

  Lucy stared at them. Something was up… but what?

  “All done!” Agnes said, interrupting them. She hopped off her chair and started upstairs to the guest room. “Pardon me! Out of the way! Good night, everybody!”

  She pushed past Fritz, who nearly dropped their fish dinner on the floor.

  “Hey, put the brakes on,” Gru said. “What’s the rush?”

  “I need to go to bed so I can wake up and find a unicorn!” Agnes said. “Good night!”

  Gru watched her go, completely confused.

  “Agnes thinks she’s going to find a real unicorn in the woods tomorrow,” Edith explained. “She’s totally freaking out.”

  Lucy shook her head. “I feel like someone has to tell her the truth.… Not it!”

  Everyone at the table turned to look at Gru. Maybe it wasn’t fair, but he was the best man for the job. Who else would Agnes listen to?

  “Don’t worry,” Gru said before heading upstairs to find Agnes. “Parenting 101. I’ve got this.”

  By the time he got to the guest room, Agnes was in the middle of her good-night prayer. “Ummm…,” she said. “And please bless that when I find the unicorn, he’ll want to come home with me. And sleep in my room. And that I can ride him to school every day. And he will use his magical powers to help me do math. Amen.”

  “So… big day tomorrow,” Gru said.

  “I’m finally going to get to see a unicorn! For reals,” Agnes said. “If I do, can I bring it home, please?”

  “Tell you what,” Gru said, choosing his words carefully. “Every unicorn you find, you can bring it home. I’d better build a big pen, right? But you know… there’s a chance that you might not find one.”

  “Huh?” Agnes said. Her brows furrowed.

  “They’re tricky to find them… and I don’t know…” Gru tried to find the right thing to say. “Maybe, just—maybe unicorns don’t really ex—”

  Agnes’s smile fell. She stared at Gru intensely, scared of what he’d say next.

  “—explore that part of the woods,” he went on.

  “But the man said a maiden could find one if she was pure of heart,” Agnes said, pulling the blankets up to her chin. “And I’m pure of heart, right?”

  Gru’s heart swelled.

  “The purest,” he said, smiling.

  “Can we stop talking?” Agnes said. “I need to get to sleep.”

  Agnes rolled over and started singing to herself.

  Sure, Gru hadn’t really told her the truth. But what was he supposed to say? No, Agnes, your dreams will never come true? Stop
wishing and thinking and hoping to meet a unicorn—it is not going to happen. Ever.

  No, Gru wouldn’t say that. He’d been mean in the past, but he could never be mean to his Agnes. He turned to leave, fell from the huge ladder that led to her bed, and then stumbled back up to his feet.

  CHAPTER 15

  Gru stood at Dru’s state-of-the-art chalkboard, in front of a simple diagram of Balthazar Bratt’s lair. The place was a thin pyramid in the middle of the ocean with a giant Rubik’s Cube on top. Gru had been there before, and he remembered the tower and some of the weapons that protected it. Dru sat behind him, sipping coffee out of a #1 BROTHER mug. Occasionally he raised his hand for Fritz to give him a refill.

  “Okay.” Gru tapped the chalk on the board. “This is Bratt’s lair. It may not look like much, but this place is armed with some of the most high-tech weaponry known to man. It’s considered impenetrable.”

  “But a piece of cake for us, right, Brother?” Dru asked.

  “This is not like stealing lollipops.…”

  Gru hit a button on the side of the board, transforming the diagram into a 3-D view of the lair. Dru grabbed a bowl of popcorn from the table and started chomping fistfuls of it. “Whoa!”

  Gru drew missiles and guns popping out of the side of the tower. The diagram zoomed out to reveal fighter planes coming toward it from either side. The fighter planes were destroyed in just two shots.

  “This security system can detect an air assault from any direction,” Gru explained. “So we’ll have to approach low and close to the water.”

  Gru drew a motorboat with a man inside. The chalkboard animated it, showing it racing through the ocean below Bratt’s lair. The man seemed happy—confident even.

  “Then there are these deadly spikes,” Gru said, pointing to a set of spikes that popped out of the water. “Even if they don’t impale you, the poison will do significant damage.”

  Suddenly the man was ejected from the boat. He hit a spike with full force, and his whole body exploded. “Geronimo!” he yelled as his head floated away. “Ouch!”

  Dru stopped eating his popcorn.

  “Good to know,” he said.

  “So here’s the plan,” Gru went on. “You’re the getaway driver. So you’ll wait in the boat.”

  “Wait, hold on.” Dru frowned. “Wait in the boat? But I want in on the action!”

  “Dru…,” Gru started, trying to find the perfect way to spin it. “The getaway driver is the most crucial part of any plan. Do you know how hard it is doing nothing, touching nothing, with all of the adrenaline coursing through your veins… and you must wait. Can I count on you?”

  Gru stared at Dru, hoping what he’d said had sunk in. Nothing. Do nothing. Touch nothing. Absolutely nothing. He couldn’t risk Dru messing things up.

  His brother crossed his arms over his chest. “I guess so…”

  “So I’ll climb up the cube and enter here,” Gru said, drawing an arrow to the Rubik’s Cube. “Then once I’m inside, somehow I’ll find the diamond. I’ve underestimated Bratt before. This is not going to be easy.”

  “I think we can handle it.” Dru smiled. He leaned forward, pushing a button on the table. Two action suits popped up. “Dad’s villain suits!”

  Gru and Dru ran over and pulled them on. The suits covered their entire bodies except for their mouths and eyes. Gru’s was pitch-black with gold piping along the seams. Dru’s was identical, except it was white.

  “It’s go time!” Gru announced.

  CHAPTER 16

  Gru la poyak! Gru la cogaf! Go, go, go! Eh, Peter—c’est pa la!” Mel said to the Minions around him.

  They responded, “Ah, okay! Okay!”

  The Minions walked through the prison, searching for anything they could use. They caused mayhem everywhere they went. One Minion stole a fan from a security guard’s office. Toilets seemed to “walk” their way out of bathroom stalls—one with a man still occupying it.

  They had gathered supplies to build a machine for their escape. Now it was time to piece it together. Three Minions flipped over a bathtub, while another screwed a toilet into a platform. The area was being monitored by a security camera. Minions walked away, hidden inside a washing machine, followed by Minions inside other large objects. They froze in place when the camera looked at them and continued onward once it began scanning again.

  The Minions worked together to create a flying machine. One of them was electrocuted, which made his eyes glow through his goggles like headlights. Minions stole laundry baskets and sewed together their prison uniforms to create a big sail; they used the light-up Minion as a lamp.

  The Minions lifted a dryer into the machine. Finally, the flying machine was assembled. They were ready.

  “Bello! Bello! Bello!” the Minion dressed as a flight attendant said, welcoming the passengers who climbed aboard the flying machine. Then the Minion gave the safety instructions. “Pull le mikola mi coden. Pursoo le mikodela—” he said, but before he could finish, his life vest inflated so big he couldn’t finish his speech.

  Mel started the engine and lifted the sails. Another Minion guided the ship to take off, running along behind it; but then the flying machine lifted up into the air, leaving him behind in the prison yard.

  Mel stared out at the sky in front of them. It was finally happening—they were on their way back to their leader.

  CHAPTER 17

  Edith tried to keep the camcorder steady. She panned across the Crooked Forest, past the trees and rocks and mountains.

  “Here we are,” she said, “in the dark and creepy Crooked Forest, in search of the mythical unicorn. For some reason.”

  She panned over to Agnes, who was marching in front of her, scanning the trees for any signs of the unicorn. “And here she is,” Edith went on, “our fearless unicorn hunter, seeking the—”

  “Stop it!” Agnes said. “You’re gonna scare away the unicorn!”

  “If somehow we actually find a unicorn, I’m gonna film it and get rich,” Edith said.

  “Over there!” Agnes said, pointing to a clearing a few yards off. A pillar of sunlight cut through the canopy of trees. There was a small, grassy hill, and a pond with a waterfall. A rainbow spread across the sky. It looked like something out of a fairy tale.

  Agnes ran and stood in the sunlight.

  “This is it!” she cried. “This is where we’re gonna see it! Unicorns, here we come.”

  Agnes emptied her backpack on the ground, making a pile of marshmallows, licorice, lollipops, and chocolate.

  “What’s that for?” Edith asked.

  “Bait!” Agnes grabbed Edith’s hand and dragged her behind a large rock. “Now all we have to do is wait.”

  Hours later, Edith and Agnes were still hiding behind the rock. Every time Edith had tried to get up, Agnes had insisted they stay just a little longer. She was certain a unicorn would come eventually.

  Edith yawned. She loved Agnes, but how long were they supposed to wait?

  “Can we go back now?” Edith asked finally.

  “Already?” Agnes said. “Just a couple more hours!”

  “We have to be home before it gets dark,” Edith tried. “Plus, you know, I put itching powder in Fritz’s underwear drawer, and I don’t want to miss all the fun.”

  Agnes stared at the pile of bait in the middle of the clearing. It was right where they had left it. “I don’t understand,” she said, sighing. “I did exactly what the man said.”

  “Right,” Edith said, trying to think of the right words to say. “You mean that one-eyed, scar-faced man that everybody laughed at? Look, Agnes, maybe we’re not—”

  Before she could finish her sentence there was a rustling in the bushes. Something was out there—something was coming for the bait. Agnes stared at a nearby bush. There was something behind it… something furry and white.

  “My whole life has been building to this moment!” she whispered.

  Just then a goat burst through the bush. It was
small and white. And it was missing one horn.

  “Um,” Edith started. “It’s a—”

  “Unicorn!” Agnes cried. She ran and hugged the tiny goat. “I can’t believe it! I’m gonna name you Lucky!”

  The goat licked Agnes’s nose. Edith opened her mouth to explain how it wasn’t a unicorn, how it was really just a goat with one horn, and that unicorns didn’t really exist—but then she saw Agnes’s face. She’d never seen Agnes so happy.

  “Yeah,” she said under her breath as Agnes hugged the unicorn’s neck. “I’ll let someone else burst her bubble.…”

  CHAPTER 18

  Dru’s doorbell rang. When Lucy opened it, the little Freedonian boy from the cheese festival was standing outside. He held a piglet in his hands.

  “Hello, mother of Margo,” he said. “I am Niko. I present you with pig to confirm my engagement to your daughter.”

  Lucy let out a loud, raucous laugh, but then her expression turned serious. “Hey… what now?” she said.

  Margo came up behind her, noticing Niko standing on the front steps.

  He raised his eyebrow at her and smiled. “Hello, my schmoopsie poo,” he cooed.

  “Whoa! Hey!” Margo took a step back.

  “He seems to think you’re engaged,” Lucy explained.

  “What?” Margo was horrified. “We’re not engaged!”

  “But you took bite of engagement cheese!” Niko cried.

  “But I didn’t know it was engagement cheese!” Margo said. “And how is engagement cheese even a thing?”

  She turned to Lucy, raising her eyebrows as if to say Help me out here! Lucy knew it was technically her fault. If she hadn’t insisted Margo go onstage at the cheese festival, this never would’ve happened.

  “Look, Niko,” Lucy tried. “You seem like a very nice boy. With a very nice pig. But you are not engaged. Okay? It’s not happening.”

  Niko’s shoulders slumped. “I understand. Who was I kidding? A dumpling like me with a goddess like you? But I promise: I will never forget you, Margo. Never.”