Read Online Villain's Lair by Wendelin Van Draanen - Free Book Online

window. A kitchen window that was located (due to kitchen plumbing conveniences) alongside Dave’s family’s kitchen window.
    And it just so happens that while the grounded Dave was whispering to Sticky, the grounded Topaz was sunning herself on the sill of her owners’ kitchen window, listening.
    Now, don’t worry. I am not going to tell youthat the cat could hear and understand and speak. This is, after all, a true story, and everyone knows that cats don’t speak.
    They can, however, hear sounds, and they do recognize familiar sounds. Sounds such as the neighbor boy talking to the flower box.
    Again.
    Cats also have very good memories. And what this particular cat on this particular sill remembered was that the last time the boy was talking to the flower box, she had managed to get outside and almost caught one fat and (surely) tasty lizard.
    The memory made her pace the windowsill. Made her mew pitifully. And that pitiful mewing is what brought Lily, the sassy, saucy, thirteen-year-old girl who lived there, to the window.
    â€œWhatssamatter, sweetie?” she purred to her kitty (whom she found adorable, despite the tiger-temper and squooshed-in face). And that’s when she heard Dave’s voice scolding the flower box.
    Again.
    What a geeky, dorky weirdo, she thought. And since geeky, dorky weirdos are too easy a target for sassy, saucy girls to resist, she lifted the window farther and called out, “Talking to yourself again, Dave?”
    Well! There went Topaz, like a bolt of fuzzy, squooshy-faced lightning! Out the window, across the flower box, and then
whoosh
, over seven stories of nothingness (into which you and I would have plummeted to our deaths) and onto Dave’s flower box.
    â€œCatch her!” the sassy, saucy girl cried. “Grab her quick before she falls!”
    The minute Sticky saw Topaz coming, he abandoned his siesta and zoomed lickety-split across the box and up Dave’s arm. ‘Ay
caramba!”
he panted. “Here we go again!”
    â€œGrab her, Dave! Grab her!”
    Sticky’s preference would have been to let thecat fall on its face, but it would have made no difference (to its face, anyway).

    Besides, cats have nine lives.
    She would be back.
    â€œDave, what are you waiting for? Grab her!”
    Evie was at the window now, singing, “Davy’s got a girlfriend, Davy’s got a girlfriend!”
    â€œShut up, Evie!” Dave snapped, lunging for the cat. He snagged her by the nape of the neck and hauled her in, clawing and mewing like she was being tortured. (Which, in fact, she was not. She was just furious that she’d missed the lizard again.)
    Dave held her out like a furry, clawy, stinky diaper and met Lily in the hallway. “Oh, thank you! Thank you so much!” she gushed, acting neither sassy nor saucy.
    â€œHasta la vista
, uuuuuugly,” Sticky muttered at the cat from inside Dave’s sweatshirt.
    â€œWhat did you say?” Lily asked.
    â€œHuh? Oh.” Dave cleared his throat. “Hastabe awfully hard for her, being cooped up inside all day.”
    Lily smoothed back Topaz’s fur, making the cat’s flat face seem even squooshier. “Don’t I know,” she grumbled. “I’m grounded for grades.” She gave him a sassy, saucy smirk. “Why are you home? Don’t you have rounds to make, delivery boy?”
    She was making fun of his after-school job, but this was nothing new. And he might have said, I don’t do deliveries on weekends, but instead, something inside him made him want to brag.
    â€œNah. I’m grounded, too.”
    Her eyebrows shot up. “You?
Grounded?”
    He nodded, pleased with her reaction. “Got home too late on Friday night.” He turned to go back into his apartment. “Well, see you at school tomorrow,” he said, then left her in the hallway with her jaw dangling.
    It was enough to make him forget all about