The Gecko & Sticky are a fabulous crime-fighting duo! This quartet of funny adventures will appeal to fans of superheroes both young and old, and would make terrific all-family read-alouds. Dave Sanchez, crime-fighting courier, has just been handed the scariest package he's ever seen, and it's addressed to none other than the dastardly Damien Black! Dave is well award that he should deliver the package, but when he sees the evil-looking potion inside, he knows he can't. So he comes up with a totally clever ruse to trick the villain and . . . it backfires. Big-time. Soon he's facing off with six-horned goats, terrifying tarantulas, a java-junkie monkey--and, of course, Damien Black! Don't miss the other Gecko & Sticky Adventures: 1. The Villain's Lair, 2. The Greatest Power, 3. Sinsister Substitute, and 4. The Power Potion.  Praise for the Gecko & Sticky books: " A dastardly good read.  Written with gleeful wit, rapid-fire pacing and snappy dialogue." --  Kirkus Reviews " Fearsome is rarely this much fun.  Van Draanen has a super imagination, to which she never applies the brakes. Readers who enjoy loony adventures will love this ride." --  Children's Literature " Consistently entertaining  . . . reaching a frenetic level of energy and comedy as the story's tension builds." --  Booklist "Peppered with exaggerated alliteration and the excitable lizard's Spanish-tinged 'Stickynese,'  the wisecracking narrative bounds from one slapstick scenario to another. " --  Publishers Weekly WENDELIN VAN DRAANEN spent many years as a teacher before devoting herself to writing full-time. She loves reading, running, writing, and rock 'n roll!   Her books for younger readers include The Gecko & Sticky quartet and The Shredderman quartet. For middle graders check out the Sammy Keyes mysteries and  Swear to Howdy .  For tweens and teens, look for  Flipped, The Running Dream, Confessions of a Serial Kisser,  and  Runaway. Stephen Gilpin developed a taste for drawing strange things at an early age and hasn't looked back since. He graduated with honors from New York City's School of Visual Arts, where he had studied painting and cartooning. He currently lives in Kansas with his wife and their four children. Chapter 1   A Warning     It began as an ordinary after-school afternoon for Dave Sanchez. He pulled on his red Roadrunner Express sweatshirt, clipped on his bike helmet, and pedaled away from Geronimo Middle School to the sneers and jeers of Lily Espinoza and her sassy, saucygirlfriends.   "Hurry, hurry! You don't want to be late, delivery boy."   "Have fun couriering packages!"   "Don't forget to say please and thank you!"   Dave ignored them and pedaled like mad to put distance between him and his alter-life as a dork. This was not just because it's humiliating and intimidating and incredibly infuriating to be sneered at and jeered at by sassy, saucy girls.   Oh no.   It was also because the behavior of Lily and her friends made it terribly tempting for Dave to throw down his bike and say, OH YEAH? and give away a secret so secret that "top-secret" didn't even begin to describe it.   It was more a tippity tip-top secret.   A zippity zip-lip secret.   A spill-the-beans-and-you'll-lose-everything sort of secret.   Fortunately for Dave, he did not spill the beans. Instead, he pushed the pedals. And before long he was downtown, picking up his first delivery envelopes at City Bank.   "Here you are!" Ms. Kulee said, handing him three large envelopes. Ms. Kulee had given Dave his start in the business and took real pride in Roadrunner Express's success. "They're all places you've delivered to before," she said as Dave looked over theaddresses.   Dave thanked her and started to move away but stopped and pulled from his pocket a pickup request that had come in from a new customer. "Do you know where Moongaze Court is?"   Ms. Kulee thought a moment, then shook her head. "But I can look it up for you," she said brightly.   "That's all right," Dave said. "I'll just look it up at the gas station."   "Are you sure? It'll only take me a minute to punch it into my computer."   But Dave, being an impatient thirteen-year-old boy, did not have time to waste on what would surely become ten minutes of unexpected interruptions and "quick" phone calls. Instead, he said, "No, that's okay," and hurried out the door and down the stepsto his bike.   Dave, you see, often looked up addresses on a map posted in the office window of a gas station that was located in the old industrial part of the city (a route he took to avoid downtown gridlock). It wasn't so much a gas station as it was an old-fashionedservice station. One with a tired old dog in the office, a soda machine that held glass bottles, and a side lot full of broken-down cars.   So, after completing his downtown deliveries, Dave rode over to the service station.   Unfortunately, the map posted in the office window was about as old as the axle-greased man who ran the place. "