Gecko Gladiator Read Online Free PDF Page A

good. What will Mom and Dad say when we get arrested? For shoplifting?!”
    â€œWe’re innocent!” repeated Danny. “They’ll believe us! And there must be security cameras or something, where we can show them the real shoplifters!”
    â€œBut … Mom and Dad will want to know why we were here,” pointed out Josh.
    Danny’s face went serious. “Oh no …” he moaned. “What if people we know find out that we were in Princessland? We’ll have to move! Leave town!”
    â€œThere’s only one thing for it,” Josh said. “We’ve got to escape before they make us tell them our names and addresses.” He pulled the bottle of GeckoSWITCH out of his pocket. “And this is how!”

    Danny jumped to his feet. “Spray me! NOW!”
    When the security guard and Mr. Butch came back to tell the two young criminals that the police were on their way, they were shocked into silence. As soon as they unlocked the door and stepped into the tiny office they could see the inmates had vanished. Completely.
    â€œWhaaa-aaa-aaa?” inquired the security guard. Mr. Butch just stood with his mouth opening and closing, no sound coming out. They checked under the desk. In a cupboard. Even behind some coats that hung from hooks on the wall.
    â€œBut—but—but … how?” spluttered the security guard. His eyes bulged with disbelief. “We locked them in! And that’s a proper deadlock, that is! And there’s no window to the outside … and no way they could have gone through the floor … it’s solid concrete!”
    â€œWell, I’m … flabbergasted!” Mr. Butch said.
    They continued to stare all around the room. Eventually they even looked up at the ceiling. If they’d done that as soon as they’d walked in, they might have gotten a clue as to how Dannyand Josh escaped. They might have seen a sleek leopard-skinned gecko and a shiny pink gecko dart across the ceiling tiles.
    But by the time they’d even thought to look up, Josh and Danny had long since run down the wall and out through the top corner of the open door.
    â€œWho-hoooo! Score!” cheered Danny. They ran speedily along the ceiling of the store, skittering with great ease around light fixtures and suspended signs. It was a fabulous ceiling to walk on—smooth and white with enough obstacles to be fun. He didn’t even mind that he was still pink and Josh had got to be the cool leopard-skinned version again.
    â€œHead for the door,” called Josh. “We’d better get outside before we change back. We don’t want to drop from this height when we S.W.I.T.C.H. back into boyaaaaaaaaaagh!”
    At this point, Josh S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back. Two seconds later, Danny did the same.
    They both plummeted to the floor.

The ceiling was high. A good three meters higher than in a normal house. And beneath it lay sparkly white tiles laid over a solid concrete floor. Had Josh and Danny been a meter off to one side, they would have smacked onto the unforgiving tiles and broken several bones.
    Happily, they had been scurrying across the ceiling just above the FLUMPYWUMPY display. A round, shallow, plastic container rather like a large wading pool stood up on six sturdy legs at table height. It was filled with hundreds of Flumpywumpies … strange fluff-filled, glittery creatures that were all the rage among girls at school right now. If you pulled a string on a Flumpywumpy’s back, it would gurgle, “Flumpywumpy wuvvs you!”
    Danny and Josh hit the Flumpywumpies at great velocity, sending a shower of them into the air and over the edge of the display. Several of them told Josh and Danny they “wuvved” them—in spite of the crushing and the throwing.
    â€œQuick!” Josh hissed, scrambling through a multicolored cascade of Flumpwumpies and onto the floor. But as soon as he spoke, he knew something was wrong.