Despicable Me 2 Read online

  Begin Reading

  Table of Contents

  Photo Insert

  Copyright Page

  In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  In the Arctic Circle, there is snow and ice as far as the eye can see. And, man, is it cold! There’s not a lot to do; even if you’re a Russian guard at a top secret research laboratory, time still passes slowly. Unless… you have a deck of cards!

  Using an overturned barrel as a table, the guards engage in a serious game of poker. When one of them wins the game, he happily pulls the coins toward himself and does a celebratory dance, spinning around. When he finally stops dancing, however, he notices that his coins are gone!

  He immediately accuses the other guard of stealing them, but his opponent insists he didn’t. The winner threatens the loser with a shovel, when all of a sudden, it flies into the air! Then the metal barrel follows!

  The guards look up to see a gigantic magnetic ship hovering above the laboratory.

  Suddenly, a lab door opens and a bunch of fellow guards rush out, pointing their guns at the magnetic ship.

  WHOOSH! All of their guns are pulled up toward the ship, along with the guards themselves, who are strapped to the weapons!

  Next, the entire lab begins to move off the ground. Terrified guards and scientists leap out into the snow below. With a final clank, the lab makes contact with the mysterious ship. As it flies away, the remaining guards and scientists watch with open mouths.

  Three weeks later, top secret government agents view the security footage of the research station being magnetically stolen.

  “We’re still no closer to cracking this?” a portly man asks in an uptight British accent.

  When there is no response, he gives an order: “Bring him in.”

  Gru surveys the scene in front of him. Yep, it’s time. He grabs a menacing-looking weapon, pulls the trigger, and… out comes a unicorn balloon! He puts it next to the other ones lining the windowsill and smiles, knowing they look just perfect for Agnes’s sixth birthday party.

  Not long after, the party is in full swing. The yard is decorated with balloons and streamers, along with a big bouncy house shaped like a castle. But this is no regular party with boring party games. This is a party thrown by Gru!

  In one corner, two little girls fish in a small kiddie pool. One of the girls gets a bite and happily pulls up a toy fish… until a real-life piranha jumps out and eats the toy fish! In another part of the yard, a boy and a girl sword fight. The boy does a bunch of fancy moves, but the girl is not impressed. She waits patiently for him to finish showing off, then pounds him with a club.

  Agnes goes down a slide, a giant grin on her face. “This is the best party EVER!” she declares. Her friends are dressed as duchesses and countesses, while Agnes is dressed as a princess riding a unicorn, which is her favorite animal in the whole entire world!

  Meanwhile, Edith is dressed as a ninja. She climbs across the monkey bars, just as a bunch of boxing gloves and blades shoot up from below. She avoids them with skill and ease. She then jumps to the ground, narrowly avoiding a bear trap.

  “Ha-ha! Yeah!” she exclaims.

  Just then, Agnes runs into the middle of the yard and screams, “Oh no! A dragon is approaching!”

  All the kids turn to see Gru’s pet dressed as a dragon. His name is Kyle, and he has long, spiky teeth. Kyle is not thrilled to play the part of the dragon and grumbles, causing the kids to scream and huddle around Agnes.

  Then Agnes’s oldest sister, Margo, comes out dressed as Joan of Arc. She is wearing a suit of armor and carrying a mighty sword.

  “Fear not,” announces Margo. “For here come the gallant knights!”

  She gestures to a group of Minions wearing tiny suits of armor and holding different medieval weapons. The kids cheer as the Minions charge toward Kyle. But Minion One accidentally pokes another with his sword. A spiked mace hits another Minion. A fight breaks out, and soon the Minions are fighting one another, rather than Kyle, the dragon.

  Meanwhile, Gru is busy grilling burgers by the barbecue and talking on his cell phone.

  “No, no, no!” he screams into the phone. “What do you mean she’s not coming? I have a backyard full of these little girls who are counting on a visit from a fairy princess!” He listens for a minute and then says, “I don’t want a refund! I want a fairy princess. Please! I am begging you!”

  But the person on the other end of the line still says no.

  Gru’s voice gets low, and he says, “You know what? I hope you can sleep at night, you crusher of little girls’ dreams!” He hangs up with a huff and turns to see Agnes standing in front of him.

  “Ooh, ooh! When’s the fairy princess coming?” she asks expectantly.

  Gru stares down at Agnes’s large, excited eyes. He opens his mouth to tell her the truth, but he just can’t do it. “Any minute now!” he says instead.

  “Yayyyy!” Agnes squeals with excitement and gallops off.

  A worried look crosses Gru’s face. What am I going to do now? he thinks.

  He spots two Minions and instructs them to keep the children entertained for a few minutes.

  The Minions get right to work, directing the kids to sit in a semicircle on the grass. Then the Minions dress up as magicians and ask Edith to be their assistant.

  One Minion blows up a balloon and puts it in Edith’s mouth. Then the other pulls out a chain saw and heads straight for her!

  Luckily, Margo is there to intervene. “Whoa! Whoa! Okay, all right. That’s enough of the magic show!”

  “Awww,” the Minions and Edith say, disappointed.

  Margo suddenly looks around. “Wait, did you hear that?” she asks the little girls. “It sounded like the twinkling sounds of magical fairy dust!”

  The kids gasp and look around.

  “It’s the fairy princess!” exclaims Agnes. “She’s coming!”

  “Look!” yells Margo, pointing to the sky.

  Up in the air is the fairy princess: Gru! He is dressed in a puffy pink dress, fairy wings, glittery eyelashes, and a tiara, and is holding a wand. Edith’s jaw drops at the sight, and the inflated balloon slips out of her mouth and flies up into the air.

  Up on top of the house, many Minions struggle to lower the fairy princess down on a rope. But when Edith’s balloon floats up and passes them, they get distracted. The Minions let go of the rope, and Gru swings wildly, smashing into the wall of the house before crashing to the ground.

  “Aaaaaahhhh!” Gru screams.

  Then he stands up and regains his fairylike composure. Adopting a high-pitched voice, he says to the girls, “It is I, Gru… zinkerbell! The most magical fairy princess of all! And I am here to wish Princess Agnes a very happy birthday!” Agnes beams with joy!

  Gru sprinkles the other partygoers with glitter as they simply stare at him, frozen in their spots.

  Then a little girl raises her hand. “How come you’re so fat?” she asks.

  Gru grits his teeth and forces a smile. “Because my house is made of candy, and sometimes I eat instead of facing my problems.” Before the same little girl can ask another question, Gru says, “Okay! Time for cake!”

  As the kids cheer and run to the table, Agnes approaches Gru. “Thank you, Gru-zinkerbell. You’re the best fairy princess ever!”

  Gru smiles. In the high-pitched voice, he repli
es, “You are welcome, little girl.”

  Agnes runs off but quickly returns. She whispers in Gru’s ear. “I know it’s really you, Gru. I’m just pretending for the other kids.”

  Gru watches Agnes join her friends. He couldn’t be prouder… .

  Then Jillian comes into view. She is an annoying mother of one of the kids at the party and is always pestering Gru.

  “Sooo…,” she begins. “I’m going to go out on a limb here, but my friend Natalie is recently single and—”

  “No, no, no, get off the limb right now,” Gru says as soon as he realizes what Jillian is saying. “No limb!”

  “Come on,” Jillian continues. “She’s a riot. She sings karaoke. She has a lot of free time—looks aren’t that important to her.”

  Gru shakes his head. “No, that is not happening. Seriously. I’m fine.” He begins to walk away from her.

  Jillian calls after Gru. “Okay, fine. Forget Natalie. How about my cousin Linda?”

  “No!” answers Gru.

  “Oh, oh!” exclaims Jillian. “I know someone whose husband just died!”

  Just then, a Minion with his helmet on backward walks over and accidentally smashes Jillian in the shin with his club.

  “Ow! Hey! Ow!” Jillian says as she limps away.

  Gru is secretly grateful for the Minion. He just wants to relax and enjoy the rest of the day.

  Too bad that’s not the plan. Gru has no idea who’s lurking just beyond the driveway… .

  As dusk falls over the town, Gru takes Kyle out to the front yard. The creature lifts up his leg next to Gru’s flowers.

  “Kyle! No! Do not do your business on the petunias!” Gru scolds. He picks up Kyle and places him next to his neighbor’s bush. “There you go. Those are Fred’s. Go crazy.”

  Kyle does, and the bush immediately withers and dies. Gru chuckles. “Good boy.”

  A stranger’s voice startles the pair. “Mr. Gru?”

  Gru turns and sees a tall, redheaded woman standing there.

  She holds up her badge. “Hi! Agent Lucy Wilde of the Anti-Villain League.” She realizes her badge is upside-down and flips it. “Oh, whoops!” Lucy clears her throat and changes her voice to a more serious tone. “Sorry, you’re going to have to come with me.”

  “Oh, sorry, I—Freeze Ray!” Gru whips out his Freeze Ray and fires it. A wall of ice heads for Lucy.

  But before it reaches her, Lucy pulls from her purse a Mini-Flamethrower, which instantly melts the ice.

  “You know, you really should announce your weapons after you fire them, Mr. Gru,” Lucy says. “For example…” She pulls out a tube of lipstick and fires it at Gru. The tip flies through the air and hits him in the chest. ZAP! His body begins flailing in different directions before he finally passes out.

  “AVL-Issued Lipstick!” Lucy calls out with glee.

  Unfortunately, when she tries to load Gru into her car, he is a lot heavier than she expects. She finally gets him into the trunk and is about to close it, when two Minions come around the corner.

  Tom and Stuart see their boss in the trunk and exchange horrified looks. “Boss!” they call out as the trunk is shut and Lucy gets into the car.

  The two Minions take off after the car, running as fast as their little legs can carry them. They catch up to it and Tom leaps up onto the trunk. He reaches his hand out to Stuart, who is falling behind.

  Stuart jumps and Tom catches him by the strap of his overalls. Then the car begins weaving in and out of traffic. Stuart skis behind the car as sparks fly from his shoes. He runs into a clothesline and gets caught in a sheet, which turns into a sail and causes him to float! Lucy spots the commotion in her side mirror and slams on the brakes. Both Minions fly through the air.

  Seeing this, Lucy quickly opens the convertible top on the car, causing the Minions to land right in the passenger’s seat. Tom and Stuart strike threatening karate poses. “Hi-YA!”

  Lucy zaps them, and they quickly pass out. She continues driving until she reaches a pier. But she doesn’t stop! She drives right off the end of the pier and lands in the ocean with a splash!

  The car transforms into an underwater vehicle as it submerges. Not long after, the Minions wake up. The vehicle speeds through the water, when suddenly an octopus slams onto the windshield. Lucy turns on the windshield wipers, which slap the octopus in the face until he’s had enough and swims off, leaving an inky cloud.

  “Whoa…,” the Minions say in awe.

  Lucy honks at fish, which part as a hungry shark comes right for them! She expertly steers out of the way just in time.

  Finally, they arrive at a giant submarine with the letters AVL on the side. A hatch opens, and Lucy’s vehicle goes inside.

  Inside the sub, the water drains out from a holding dock. A hair dryer and buffer appear to dry off Lucy’s car. The car is then lowered into a room filled with blinking lights and monitors, where busy AVL agents work in the background. As Lucy and the Minions get out of the car, she pushes a button on her keychain, and Gru is ejected from the trunk.

  “What… where… ah… foot’s asleep… ah… pins and needles…,” Gru says groggily. He realizes he has a starfish on his head and a sea urchin stuck to his pants and pries them both off. He looks around and has no idea where he is.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Gru,” says a portly British man named Silas. “I apologize for our method of getting you here.”

  Before Gru can answer, Lucy pipes up. “I don’t. I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’m not going to lie. I enjoyed that—every second of it. Gave me a bit of a buzz, actually. It’s like—”

  “That’s enough, Agent Wilde,” interrupts Silas.

  “Sorry, sir,” Lucy says, taking a step back.

  “This is bogus!” Gru declares. “I don’t know who you people think you are, but—”

  “We are the Anti-Villain League,” explains Silas. He summons a map that shows all the AVL offices around the world. “It’s an ultrasecret organization dedicated to fighting crime on a global scale. Rob a bank? We’re not interested. Kill someone? Not our deal. But you want to melt the polar ice caps? Or vaporize Mount Fuji? Or even steal the moon? Then we notice.”

  “First of all, you’ve got no proof that I did that,” Gru says, his arms folded. “And after I did do that, I put it back!” he adds.

  “We’re well aware of that, Mr. Gru,” says Silas. “That’s why we’ve brought you here. I am the League’s director, Silas Ramsbottom.”

  Upon hearing the name, the two Minions start giggling.

  “ ‘Bottom,’ ” repeats Tom, pointing to Silas’s big butt.

  Silas bristles. “Hilarious,” he says, with a roll of his eyes. He instructs Lucy to continue with the debriefing.

  “Oh, me now,” she says nervously. “Um… recently an entire top secret Russian lab disappeared from the Arctic Circle. Yeah, the entire lab! Just whoosh! Gone. Where did it go?”

  On a screen above them, an image of the magnetic ship that stole the laboratory appears.

  The screen switches to show footage of a cute, furry bunny in a science lab.

  “The lab was devoted to experiments involving PX-41, a transmutation serum,” continues Lucy. “What is PX-41, you ask? Um, it’s pretty bad. Look…”

  Gru and the others watch the video footage of a lab technician approaching the bunny. The technician holds a syringe that contains purple liquid. As soon as it’s injected, the bunny transforms into a hideous purple monster bunny! Then it goes crazy and attacks the scientist, the technician, and even the camera!

  “Hmm, you usually don’t see that in bunnies,” says Gru.

  Silas’s voice grows serious. “As you can see, in the wrong hands, the PX-41 serum could be the most devastating weapon on Earth. Fortunately, it has a very distinct chemical footprint. Using the latest chemical-tracking technology, we found traces of it in the Paradise Mall.”

  Gru skeptically questions, “A mall?”

  “Precisely,” Silas answers. “And
we believe that one of the shop owners is a master criminal. That’s where you come in.” He looks directly at Gru. “As an ex-villain, you know how a villain thinks, how a villain acts.”

  Lucy explains the details. “The plan is to set you up undercover at a shop in the mall, where hopefully you’ll be able to—”

  Gru shakes his head and says, “Okay, I can see where this is going with all the Mission: Impossible stuff, but no. No! I am a father now. And a legitimate businessman. I am developing a line of delicious jams and jellies.”

  Silas shoots him a look. “Jams and jellies?”

  “Oh, attitude! That’s right!” Gru says proudly. “So, thanks, but no thanks. Oh, and here’s a tip: Instead of zapping people and kidnapping them, maybe you should just give them a call! Good day, Mr. Sheepsbutt!”

  “Ramsbottom,” corrects Silas, fuming.

  “Oh, yeah, like that’s any better!” Gru replies. He turns and heads for the door, followed by the two Minions. Gru exits AVL headquarters, which he now sees is on a submarine.

  Lucy stops him. “Look, I probably shouldn’t be saying this,” she begins, “but your work as a villain was kind of amazing, so if you ever want to get back to doing something awesome, give us a call.” She hands him her business card, which Gru takes.

  Then he and the Minions row back to shore, wondering what on earth just happened.

  Gru gently carries a sleeping Agnes upstairs. Inside the girls’ bedroom, he is surprised to find Margo texting and Edith out of bed.

  “Hey, I told you guys to get to bed.”

  Edith changes the subject. “So when are you going on your date?”

  “What?”

  “Remember? Miss Jillian said she was arranging a date for you,” explains Edith.

  “Yeah, well, she is a nut job,” Gru tells her. “And I’m not going on any date.”

  Edith looks puzzled. “Why not? Are you scared?”

  Gru stares into space and starts remembering a time long ago when he was a little boy on the school playground. He was staring at a cute blond girl named Lisa, and he was totally lovesick… .