Gru is stunned. He never placed that call!
“I also purchased a Spanish dictionary,” continues Miss Hattie. Then she slaps Gru across the face with it. “I don’t like what you said!”
At that moment, Gru hears someone behind him clearing his throat. He turns to see Dr. Nefario across the room. He gives Gru a thumbs-up. Gru is shocked that Nefario has made good on his promise. The scientist had called the orphanage.
Feeling utterly trapped, Gru soon realizes he has no choice. He turns back to Miss Hattie and mutters, “I’ll get the girls ready.”
A little while later, Gru carries the girls’ bags to the car. Despite the girls’ eyes welling up with tears, Gru does his best not to let any feelings show.
Suddenly, Agnes grabs Gru’s leg. “Don’t let her take us back, Mr. Gru,” she pleads. “Tell her that you want to keep us.”
Gru wants to respond, but he can’t do it. The disappointment he sees in the girls’ faces devastates him.
Miss Hattie snorts. She’s had enough of this nonsense. “All right, girls. Come on, let’s go.”
Gru watches the car drive away, his heart breaking.
Happy to see the girls leave, Dr. Nefario is ready to get back to business. “I did it for your own good. Now, let’s go get that moon!”
Gru looks at him but just can’t summon up the same degree of excitement. Dr. Nefario watches as Gru heads back into the house, clearly depressed. From the windows, the minions watch as well, sobbing uncontrollably.
That day Gru sees the girls everywhere he turns. He picks up the dolls they have left behind. He watches the minions clean the wall where the girls drew themselves below the family tree. Finally, in an effort to stop feeling so blue, Gru throws himself into his mission to steal the moon.
With his space suit on, Gru walks through his lab and stops to look up at the rocket. He has to admit that it is impressive. Along with a minion, he rides a lift to the top of the rocket. The minion hands him something.
“What is this for?” asks Gru. He looks down and realizes it is a ticket for the dance recital. He pushes down his true feelings and yells, “I am the greatest criminal mind of the century! I don’t go to little girls’ dance recitals!”
Gru throws the ticket in the air and turns back to the rocket, ready for the moon heist. What he doesn’t see is that the minion has caught the ticket and has secretly stuck it into one of Gru’s space suit pockets.
Stepping into the hatch, Gru sits in his seat in the cockpit and fastens his seat belt. Dr. Nefario appears on a video monitor. “Opening launch bay doors,” he tells Gru.
KA-CHONG! A slit of sunlight appears through the cockpit window as massive hangar doors open overhead. Dr. Nefario begins the countdown on the video monitor.
“Commencing launch sequence, and we are good to go in T-minus ten seconds. Ten… nine… eight… seven…”
The rocket rumbles, and smoke whirls all around the engines.
“Six… five… four… three… two… one!”
Lifting off, the rocket soars into the air. Down on the ground in Gru’s backyard stands a surprising spectator: Vector! Gru’s nemesis immediately pulls out his Squid Launcher, aims it at the rocket, and fires.
SPLAAAT! The squid connects with the rocket and sticks to it. It is attached to a line, which is attached to Vector. The line quickly takes up slack and whoosh! Vector is yanked into the sky after the rocket.
The rocket tears through the sky toward space with Vector still attached. He climbs up the line to the rocket and looks through the window. “Boo-yah!” he says, startling Gru.
Once Gru recovers from his shock, he pushes down the toaster button on the control panel. Now the whole rocket is electrically charged.
“Aaaaiiigghhh!” screams Vector as he is blown off the rocket. He falls through the air, heading straight for the ground far below. Is this the end for Vector?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“But he pinkie promised!”
Vector plummets back toward Earth. Then he remembers he’s wearing a flight suit! He pulls a ripcord, and sails unfurl on either side of his suit, making him look like a flying squirrel. A very large, very ugly flying squirrel. The wind catches the sails, and Vector soars across the sky.
“Oh, yeah!” he shouts triumphantly. “Once again, the mighty Vector—”
SPLAT! He smacks right into an electrical tower. Stunned, Vector slides to the ground.
Gru’s rocket begins to glow, burning hotter as it reaches the edge of Earth’s atmosphere. Gru holds on for dear life as the rocket violently shakes and rumbles. The view through the cockpit window changes from blue to purple to the blackness of space. Suddenly the shaking stops, and everything is still. Gru looks out the window at the moon in the starry distance. He smiles.
He maneuvers his rocket closer and powers down the engines. The ship silently hovers above the lunar surface. Gru pushes a button, and doors open. He holds the Shrink Ray in his hands and faces the enormous moon. Gru can’t believe how large it actually is. But it won’t be large for long!
ZZZZZZEEEET! A bolt of energy fires from the Shrink Ray and engulfs the moon. Then slowly it begins to shrink. Gru reaches out to grab the tiny moon. It’s the size of a baseball!
“Ha! I’ve got it! I’ve got the moon!” he shouts. Not bogged down by gravity, Gru does a flip and floats around jubilantly in his space suit. Then his mood shifts and his smile fades. Somehow, having the moon isn’t as satisfying as he thought it would be. Silently floating in the vastness of space, Gru feels small and alone.
Just then, something drifts out of his pocket. It’s the ticket to the dance recital. Gru stares at it and feels overwhelmed. He really wants to see the girls. He checks his watch. “I can make it,” he says with determination.
Back on Earth, the changes are immediate. Without the moon, surfers suddenly lose their waves. A werewolf howling at the moon changes back to a man.
Worse, however, is what happens in the lab. Dr. Nefario watches the rocket on his monitor and then turns to see the tiny minion that had suffered a blast from the Shrink Ray begin to grow! Within seconds the minion returns to its normal size! Uh-oh!
“Wait a minute. How…?” Dr. Nefario starts. He runs to a door and opens it. He sees that the spaceship Vector shrunk is now back to its original size, too. “Oh, no.”
Dr. Nefario grabs the radio. “Gru? Gru, can you hear me? The Shrink Ray effects are only temporary!”
But Dr. Nefario hears only static. Gru’s ship has reached the edge of Earth’s atmosphere, and the radio isn’t working. Gru pushes hard on the throttle to try to get to the dance recital on time.
On the ground, Dr. Nefario thinks for a moment. “We’ve got to warn him! Let’s go!” he says to the minions, and they all rush out of the lab.
Decorations cover the entrance to the dance studio. Margo, Edith, and Agnes peer out from behind the curtain, dressed in their ballerina costumes. Agnes sees the empty chair in the audience. “He’s still not here,” she says sadly to the other girls.
“Why would he come? He gave us up,” Margo points out.
“But he pinkie promised!” cries Agnes.
“Girls, places!” calls the dance teacher.
“No, we can’t start yet!” insists Edith. “We’re still expecting someone!”
Agnes looks up at the teacher with her best puppy dog eyes. “Can we just wait a few more minutes?”
The dance teacher sighs. “All right. But just a few more minutes.”