Gru’s eyes widen. That incompetent guy he met in the lobby had stolen the pyramid?
Hastily, Gru tries to bring the conversation back to himself. “So, as far as getting the money for the rocket…?”
“Get the Shrink Ray,” Mr. Perkins tells him. “Then we’ll talk.”
Feeling defeated, Gru trudges out of Mr. Perkins’s office and into the lobby. There, he sees Vector trying to stick the piranha back into his gun. Gru looks around and then casually pulls out his Freeze Ray and freezes Vector’s head.
Stunned, Vector moves his eyes to look at Gru, before his body falls over onto the floor. As Gru walks away, he sees the piranha jump on top of the now defenseless Vector. Gru smiles to himself. Now about that Shrink Ray…
CHAPTER FIVE
“Now maybe you’ll think twice before you freeze someone’s head!”
On the far side of the globe, on a top secret island, in a top secret facility, a top secret experiment is under way. A worker pushes a cart through the halls and into a lab. On the cart sits the coveted Shrink Ray. The worker picks up the futuristic-looking weapon and places it in the center of the testing room. Opposite the Shrink Ray stands an elephant. The animal has no idea what it’s doing there, but it doesn’t have a good feeling.
From behind a window, two scientists in green lab coats look in. All around them are flashing lights and monitors constantly scrolling data. One scientist nods to the other, and then a switch gets flipped.
The Shrink Ray begins to hum, and lights flash. It is charging up. The scientists look excited. Things are looking good! Then the Shrink Ray hums louder and begins to glow. The scientists grab each other. This is it!
FZZZZCHEEWWW! A bolt of energy shoots out and hits the elephant across the room. The huge animal suddenly shrinks down to the size of a mouse! It makes a meek, high-pitched trumpet sound.
The scientists embrace and dance around ecstatically until they hear… VZZZHHHT!
The scientists look up to see a laser cutting a large circle in the ceiling of the lab. It’s Gru! His massive aircraft hovers just above the hole. Within seconds, one of his minions rides down on a giant claw. The minion grabs the Shrink Ray from its stand and then smiles arrogantly as the claw is retracted.
“Ha ha! Suckers!” says the minion. He isn’t looking where he’s going and bumps his head on the ceiling. “Ow!”
He repeats, “Suckers!” and tries to exit again. But he still doesn’t make it through the hole. Minions are great for some things; making a dramatic exit is not one of them. Finally, he lines the claw up correctly and goes up through the hole to the waiting aircraft that Dr. Nefario designed for Gru.
As the plane takes off into the sky, the claw places the Shrink Ray and the minion into a glass case. Gru and another minion celebrate their success until they hear… VZZZHHHT!
A laser cuts a hole in the plane’s ceiling, right above the Shrink Ray. A different giant claw enters Gru’s aircraft and grabs the case with the Shrink Ray! The claw shakes the case until the minion falls out.
Gru and the minions are stunned. Gru turns to look out the front window and exclaims, “What? No no no no!”
A larger white ship hovers above. It belongs to Vector, the ridiculous villain from the bank.
Vector yells down to Gru. “Mwa-ha-ha! Now maybe you’ll think twice before you freeze someone’s head!” Now in possession of the Shrink Ray, Vector blasts off.
“Quick! We can’t let him get away!” Gru tells his minions.
The chase is on. Gru orders a minion to fire a machine gun. But all the bullets miss Vector’s ship. Gru engages all the rockets he has on board and fires. But Vector easily avoids every one of them.
“How adorable,” Vector mocks.
Gru clenches his jaw and lines up another shot. “Got you in our sights. Like taking candy from a—”
Gru is speechless as he watches Vector stand on top of his ship. He’s aiming the Shrink Ray directly at Gru and his minions!
“Hey, Gru, try this on for size!” Vector says with a wicked laugh.
ZZZZTTTT! Gru’s ship starts to shrink! Gru’s seat belt shrinks so much that it breaks.
“This is claustrophobic,” says Gru, struggling as the ship continues to get smaller and smaller around him and the minions.
Vector laughs victoriously and takes off with a roar of the engine.
By this time, Gru’s ship has flipped upside down.
“Too small,” groans Gru. “This is too small for me.”
Gru and the minions are squeezed out the front of the cockpit like toothpaste. Gru holds on to the upside-down ship as the minions grab his legs. Finally, they right the ship, but they struggle to keep their balance on top of the now tiny aircraft.
“I don’t like that guy,” Gru mutters as the ship coasts down toward the ground.
CHAPTER SIX
“I’m going to need a dozen tiny remote-controlled robots that look like cookies… Cookie Robots!”
Gru is not a villain who gives up easily, and he is certainly not someone who admits defeat to a nerd like Vector. So Gru puts his next plan into action. Dressed in a disguise with a wig of dreadlocks and a knit hat, Gru walks a mechanical puppy down the street where Vector’s house is located. The house is more like a fortress, with a huge white dome and a wall protecting all sides of it. A security camera atop the wall rotates and tries to focus in on Gru. He leaps backward and pins himself flat against the far side of the wall.
After a moment, nothing bad happens, so Gru activates the puppy into periscope mode. The dog’s mechanical head rises and peers over Vector’s wall.
Inside, Vector lounges on his couch playing video games. A shark and a school of fish swim beneath the glass floor. Yeah, it’s a pretty cool fortress.
Suddenly a security alert blares. Vector clicks a tiny remote, and a monitor shows the spying puppy periscope. Vector puts down the video game controller and picks up a much larger remote control. He pushes a button. Instantly, a large laser gun emerges from the dome atop his lair. It fires—burning the puppy periscope to a crisp!
Gru groans and tries to get into the fortress another way. He just has to get that Shrink Ray back. After all, he stole it in the first place!
But it isn’t easy. When Gru tries to pole-vault over the wall, mechanical boxing gloves repeatedly hit him. When he uses a jetpack to fly up and land on the roof, a giant catapult flings him right back. He tries to scale the wall, but giant saws slice through his ropes. The shark even pops out of a manhole and bites him! Every way that Gru tries to get into Vector’s fortress, he’s thwarted.
That doesn’t stop Gru from returning the next day. He still has no luck getting inside, but you have to give him points for his determination.
While Gru sits across the street, bruised and battered from his latest failed attempt, he sees three girls approach the fortress and ring the buzzer.
“Good luck, little girls,” he laughs bitterly.
Gru puts a pair of binoculars to his face and watches as the security cameras activate.
One girl speaks into the camera. It’s Margo. “Uh, hi. We’re orphans from Miss Hattie’s Home for Girls.”
“I don’t care. Beat it,” Vector says through the intercom.
“Come on, we’re selling cookies, so, you know, we can have a better future,” Margo explains.
“Oh, wait, wait… do you have Coconutties?” asks Vector, suddenly nice.