Meet the Gecko Read Online Free

know…”
    I had already dug out my camera and was heading for the stairwell door.
    “Now hold your horses, Nolan.”
    I shot him a look, and he read it loud and clear: Don't mess with a superhero in pursuit of truth and justice!
    But just to make him feel better, I added, “I'm eleven now, Dad. Don't worry!” Then I ducked through the stairwell door.
    All of a sudden, I felt like I was inside an old mine shaft going down, down, down.
    My eyes were cranked.
    My ears were perked.
    I was feather-footed!
    Fast!
    Smooth.
    Something about the pursuit of truth and justice makes me do things I normally can't do.
    The Mole wasn't in the stairwell. And when Igot to the bottom floor and opened the last door, I could see an EXIT sign to my left and the lobby to my right.

    Dad spotted me from over by the elevators and waved. I could tell that he hadn't seen the Mole, either, but I wasn't ready to give up yet! I signaled my dad to go outside through the front door while I went out the side exit. He frowned and shook his head.
    Obviously he had a lot to learn about pursuing truth and justice.
    I frowned right back and nodded, which made him roll his eyes and sigh, but he headed for the front door.
    Yeah!
    I snuck outside.
    I hid behind bushes.
    I darted from tree to tree.
    But the Mole was nowhere to be found.
    Nowhere!
    I saw my dad heading my way, and I thought for sure he'd make me forget about finding the Mole. But then he slowed down.
    His eyes sharpened on a big bush.
    I looked where he was looking, but didn't see a thing.
    Very slyly, he signaled me to stay put. Then he moved his index finger like he was taking a picture.
    I ducked behind a tree.
    I got my camera ready.
    Then Dad cut across the grass and waved his arms through the air, yelling, “Hey! What are you doing back there? There's no loitering allowed here! Get out of here! Go! Go-go-go!”
    A big bush shook.
    The Mole came out from behind it!
    He ran across the grass, getting away from Dad as fast as he could!
    And in his hurry to get away from my dad, theMole didn't notice me, hiding behind a tree trunk.
    Didn't hear my camera activate as he looked over his shoulder at Dad.
    Didn't have any idea that he was now one digitally trapped Mole.

CHAPTER 6
Time to Slime!
    I didn't want to go back to school.
    Didn't want to meet Mom for lunch.
    Didn't want to open my birthday presents.
    I had work to do!
    “Please, Dad? Please-please-please?”
    Dad frowned. He moved his mouth from one side to the other. He looked at me with one eye-brow up. Finally he flipped open his cell phone and called Mom.
    He whispered a lot.
    He said, “Uh-huh” a lot.
    He shook his head a lot.
    I didn't know what to think!
    When he hung up, he said, “Well, champ…your mother and I have decided that since it
is
your birthday and since you
are
a superhero…”
    “Yes-yes-yes!” I cried. “You're the best!”
    He started the car and said, “I'll just write my ‘Cool Kid Celebrity Visits Cedar Valley’ article at home.”
    The second we were home, I tore down to my room, turned on the computer, and got to work.
    USB cable connected—check!
    Images of the Mole loaded—check!
    Images transferred into Photoshop—check!
    This was gonna be fun!
    I connected to the Internet and did a search for “Ugly Alien Bodies.”
    I got half a million hits!
    I refined the search. I had to get fewer hits! I tried “Disgusting Alien Bodies.”
    Only a few thousand hits.
    Still too many to sift through, though. So I tried “Weird” + “Disgusting Alien Bodies.”
    Only a few hundred hits.
    Time to take a look!
    I scrolled through the first page of Web addresses, and when I saw “Real pictures, Real aliens!” my heart started racing. And when I vis-ited the site and found an image of a huge, slimy green slug dripping with disgusting green pus, I knew I'd found the Mole's new body.
    Oh, yeah!
    I worked and worked and worked until I got the Mole's face superimposed onto the slug's body. It looked great!