For the first time since the wedding, Dave was very, very happy, and it showed. No longer did he spend his days brooding in his private corner at the laboratory. The morning after Gru "left on a top-secret mission," Dave was bouncing on an imaginary trampoline as he wheeee'd and whooo'd while dancing the samba and devouring a foot-high six-flavor sundae. It was as though somebody had injected him with an overdose of oxytocin, honey and rainbows.
His fellow minions more than welcomed the positive change in Dave's mood. Of course, none of them were emotionally intelligent enough to correlate the wedding and Gru's leaving with Dave's behavioral changes.
That didn't mean that Dave was done yet. He still had other tasks in his agenda for execution.
Meanwhile, Lucy spent most of her free time being a mother to the girls. It was obvious that they enjoyed each other's company. During the weekend, they went shopping for clothes, spent hours at the spa and salon (which Lucy and Margo loved), took yoga and capoeira classes (which Edith especially enjoyed), and other things, and culminated the day with a trip to the amusement park (which Agnes had been looking forward to all week).
During school days, they would hang out at the mall for supper and dessert. Sometimes, they brought a few minions along (and Dave was always happy to oblige), but more often than not, they didn't. Girls' days out usually didn't include the minions, since they were mostly male.
Despite always being free to do their girl stuff without the man of the house, the ladies all missed Gru. They often wished that he would be back soon. Every few days, they received messages from Gru's e-mail address, talking about the mission and being homesick. They would write back, telling him of their day-to-day adventures and how much they missed him too. Little Agnes, who was the favorite of her father, wrote more than her sisters did, sending him messages twice a day.
Of course, it wasn't Gru who was responding to those messages. He had been unconscious in his glass prison for so many days now. His warden, the new master of his e-mail address, had studied his erstwhile boss' communication style so carefully that he was able to mimic it very convincingly. Being quite imaginative, Dave did not have much trouble concocting the story of a man on a dangerous mission that was progressing slowly, but well... and of how he wished he were in his warm home with his family instead.
He especially looked forward to the messages from Lucy, who often sent letters, pictures and videos of the erotic variety. Ah, how Dave wished he could respond in kind, as himself, as a minion! Nonetheless, he feared that it wouldn't be long before Lucy suspected that something was wrong, since Gru wasn't sending any naked pictures of himself. This would have to be remedied quickly.
Two days later, at around noon, the principal of the school where the girls were studying was engaged in an urgent appointment with the diplomatic representative of a foreign country. Within an hour, Margo, Edith and Agnes were in a red car en route the local airport.
Thankfully, for Dave, the fourth part of the plan had been underway.
(to be continued)