by Bruce Hale
With a smile that made my scalp prickle, Veronica said, “Oh, he’ll turn up soon.”
In a casserole, I thought.
“Carlos, your sister’s experiencing an exciting, challenging time,” said my dad. “We expect you to look out for her, not resent her.”
“I’m trying!” I cried. “But you just won’t listen!”
Mom raised her eyebrows. “Now who’s being dramatic?”
I groaned and let my head sag over the back of the chair. This was like trying to teach a warthog to dance, but even less productive. “Look, forget Veronica for a second. The girls at my school have been getting rough—talking trash, beating up boys.”
“In other words, behaving like boys do?” said my mom.
“Yeah, but it’s—”
“Mijo.” Her understanding smile only set my teeth on edge. “They’re just asserting themselves and breaking out of stereotypical gender roles.”
I shook my head. “But you—”
“Girls are a lot more empowered these days,” my dad said, taking another bite of taco.
“Plus, those hormonal changes hit them earlier and earlier,” Mom said. “I’m sure that’s all it is.”
I didn’t even want to know what “hormonal changes” were. But I knew when I was wasting my time. If my parents didn’t even believe the simple stuff, they would never be able to handle mutant cannibal lunch ladies. I threw up my hands. “Fine, whatever. Can I be excused? I’ve lost my appetite.” And any hope for the future, I thought.
My dad waved me away. “Sure thing, chamaco. Just don’t watch TV. We’ll talk later about that detention.”
I pushed back from the table, carrying my plate. As I stood to go, Veronica checked that Mom and Dad weren’t watching. Then she flashed a devilish smile and clacked her little teeth together, chomp-chomp-chomp.
The fine hairs on my arms stood up. This whole mantis thing was getting way too personal.
Despite spreading crumpled paper all over my floor (to warn of any midnight visits by my mutating sister), I didn’t get much sleep that night. Small wonder. Now that Benny and I knew what we faced, we had to step up our efforts. More than anything, I wanted these mantis monsters out of my school and out of my life, pronto.
Benny had an idea. (It happens sometimes.) He was hoping, if we got to school early enough, we might catch the mutant lunch ladies sleeping, and dispose of them quickly. We’d tie them up and keep them from hurting any more kids. Of course, that meant we had to be awake when we were usually sleeping.
Way too early the next morning, something went tap-tap-tap on my window. I responded with a foggy “Whassamatta?” and sat up. Sometime during the night, a piece of paper had gotten stuck to my face, probably with my drool.
Peeling it off, I went to open the window for Benny. And of course, I stepped all over the crumpled paper covering my floor.
“Ready to be the early bird?” said Benny. His face was scrubbed and beaming.
“Ready to go back to sleep,” I said. “But come in anyway.”
Benny eyed all the papers. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”
He sat on my bed reading a comic book while I did the speed version of getting ready for school. By the time I finished making myself a sandwich for lunch, my dad shuffled into the kitchen looking like a zombie.
“Whuzza?” he said. My dad barely can speak before he gets his morning coffee. I take after him.
“Going to school early,” I said, “with Benny.”
He yawned and scruffled his hair. “Wazza?”
“Big project. Later, Dad.” I dropped my sandwich and an apple into a brown bag and headed out.
“Whavvyu,” he grunted, kissing the top of my head as I passed.
“Me you too,” I said.
Retrieving our bikes, Benny and I set off for school. The air was as chilly as a headwaiter at a fancy restaurant, and the birds chirped like mad, enjoying an all-you-can-eat bug buffet. I wished they’d come eat our giant insects.
My jaw dropped. An idea!
“Wait, birdseed!” I said, slamming on the brakes.
“Um…cucumber?” said Benny.
I turned to look at him. “What?”
“I thought we were doing word association. That’s the first thing that came to mind.”
I blinked. “No, we need birdseed. Where can we get some this time of the morning?”
“Try my garage,” said Benny.
WHEN WE REACHED school, only two cars sat in the lot. The front office was as dark as an undertaker’s belly-button lint. But we heard the wheels of Mr. Boo’s janitorial cart squeaking down the corridors, somewhere out of sight.
I led the way to the cafeteria and tried the outer door. Locked. We circled around to the kitchen and noticed a light shining through the window.
“Bummer, they’re awake,” said Benny.
“Good, they’re home,” I said, reaching for the first bag of birdseed. Ripping open the top, I began to scatter handfuls of the seed on the ground in front of the closed door.
Within seconds, a few sparrows discovered the feast. Word spread quickly. A minute or so later, the ground was thick with birds. Their chirps were nearly deafening.
“Very generous,” said Benny. “So what’s the plan?”
I emptied the last of my bag, tossing seeds right up against the door’s threshold. “Remember how we decided only a condor was big enough to prey on giant mantises?”
“Yeah.”
“What if instead of one big bird, we had lots of little birds?” I said. “That should keep the lunch ladies busy for a while.”
Benny grinned. “Yeah!” He fished the second bag out of his backpack and began scattering the seeds.
“Wait,” I said, “I’ve got a better idea. Give me a fistful and get ready to heave the rest inside when the door opens.”
“Check you out,” Benny said, “Mr. I’ve-Got-a-Plan.”
He prepared for action while I tried the doorknob. Finding it locked, I rapped on the door as hard as I could.
More birds swirled down from the skies. By this point, the ground was practically a feathered carpet, with finches, robins, doves, crows, and jays crowding right up to our feet. A couple of hungry sparrows even fluttered around my seed-filled fist.
I pounded on the door again. This time a stiff voice called, “What? I am coming.”
When the door opened wide, Benny and I cast handfuls of birdseed right into the round face of Mrs. McCoy. She spluttered and retreated a few steps, raising her arms defensively. I caught just a flicker of her mantis form as she transformed in surprise, then switched back.
That was all it took.
Suddenly the sky grew thick with wings, as the birds sensed their favorite food and decided to help themselves. They zoomed at the lunch lady in a mismatched flock. I don’t know if they smelled her, or glimpsed her transformation, or what.
But any way you cut it, the birds were hungry for bug.
“Go get ’em!” Benny cried.
The mutant lunch lady screamed as the first wave of feathered foes plowed into her like a pack of parents at a pre-Christmas sale. Pecking wildly, their little beaks began to draw blood. Mrs. McCoy batted at them. She staggered back, back…
And just like that, she changed into a jumbo-size praying mantis.
Benny and I gasped and cowered. No way could we have tied up something that big and strong. But the birds weren’t bothered. If anything, they redoubled their attack.
That’s when Mrs. McCoy went on the offensive.
Her sharp forelegs darted out, spearing bird after bird. Her triangular head snapped, gulping down attackers left and right like a hungry tourist with a pupu platter.
“Hang in there, birdies!” I called.
But the tide had turned.
Some of the smaller birds scattered. The monster that had mimicked Mrs. McCoy made three loud clicks and a high keening sound. In a handful of heartbeats, two more giant mantises appeared behind he
r, mandibles clacking. One joined her in chowing down on our feathered friends.
The other rushed the door.
“Gah!” I cried, backpedaling. This was our attack—the lunch ladies weren’t supposed to come after us.
Benny hurled his half-full seed bag into the huge bug’s face and danced away from the door. The mantis didn’t even blink. It stared at us with its enormous, soulless eyes, and glanced past us at something. Then it hissed once and slammed the door.
Thoroughly spooked, Benny and I bolted. We put a playground’s worth of distance between us and the mutant freaks before we slowed down.
“Wow,” I said, catching my breath, “that didn’t go quite the way I’d pictured it.”
“Y-you think?” said Benny.
I wagged my head. “Dang, those things are hard to kill.”
Just then, I noticed our school custodian and his cart near the corner of the nearest building.
“Hey, dudes!” called Mr. Boo. He motioned to us to join him, so we did. Then he made a big gesture at the sunrise. “As the Beatles say, Here comes the sun, and I say, it’s so tight.”
“Um, right,” I said. My legs were still trembling.
The custodian wore jeans and a striped blue-and-green hoodie like surfers bring back from Baja vacations. His tied-back mane of gray-blond hair was still damp.
“S-s-surf s-s-session this morning?” Benny stuttered. His eyes were wider than the blue Pacific.
“Wow, you guys should be detectives or something,” said Mr. Boo.
I winced. “Or something. Only we’re not so hot at it.” I cut a glance at the cafeteria to make sure nothing bug-related was coming our way. All clear.
The lanky custodian speared two candy wrappers from the ground without even looking. “Don’t sell yourself short. You were right about the pantry.”
Benny and I perked up a little. “You checked it out?” he said.
“Did you find the missing kids?” I asked, shifting from foot to foot.
Mr. Boo shook his head. “No, but I found out that the lunch ladies changed the locks—without telling me.”
“Really?” I said.
Tucking a stray lock of hair behind his ear, the custodian said, “And when I told them that all lock changes should go through the Boo, they apologized. But not like they meant it.”
“Did they give you a duplicate key?”
Mr. Boo frowned. “No. Every time I asked, they kept changing the subject. You know, I never did get it.”
Benny gave a little cough. “Something’s going on in there.”
We exchanged meaningful looks. They said something like Should we tell him? No, what if the lunch ladies go after him too? Let’s let Dr. Sincere do his thing and keep Mr. Boo out of danger.
Amazing how much a look can convey if you’ve known someone a long time.
“Any chance you can open that door somehow?” I asked. “Maybe when they’re not around?”
Shrugging a shoulder, Mr. Boo said, “Not without a locksmith, and that has to be approved by Mrs. Johnson.”
“Who thinks the lunch ladies can do no wrong,” I said.
Stumped, I rubbed my chin and gazed out across the schoolyard. By now, my heart rate was returning to something like normal. A couple of teachers had opened up their rooms, and a cluster of early-bird students headed for the swings. School was coming to life for the day.
We’d run out of time to fight the monsters without getting innocent kids caught in the cross fire.
“Could you sneak a locksmith in,” said Benny, “just this once?”
“Normally, I might try,” said Mr. Boo, “but not today.”
I cocked my head. “Why not today?”
The custodian pointed at a poster on the wall. “After-School Bake Fest,” he said. “Don’t you listen to the daily announcements?”
Benny gave me a blank look. “Must have missed that,” he said.
“Maybe we had one or two other things on our mind,” I said.
Heads close together, we scanned the poster. It announced that the PTA was holding a massive bake fest this afternoon in the cafeteria to raise money for the lunch program. AND OUR OWN LUNCH LADIES WILL BE PROVIDING THE TASTY TREATS! it proclaimed.
A bad feeling stomped its way across the pit of my stomach like a rhino in golf cleats. The bake fest! Of course. That was when the mutants would make their big move and start chowing down on students. I just knew it.
“That must be Mrs. Ponytail’s project,” I mused.
“Who?” said Benny and Mr. Boo.
“You know,” I said, “the nasty PTA mom with the ponytail? The one who’s always hanging around the cafeteria?”
Light dawned in the custodian’s eyes. “Ah, you mean Mrs. Kato. She is a little scary…but cute.”
“Ewww,” said Benny and I simultaneously.
“Do you know if she’s dating again after her divorce?” he said.
“Ewww!”
I cut in. “That’s not the point here. The point is that the lunch ladies are up to something evil—”
“Well, we don’t know they’re evil,” said the custodian.
“Oh, yes, we do,” said Benny and I together.
Mr. Boo blinked.
“And they’ll probably open up a can of, um, whatever trouble they’ve been brewing at today’s bake fest,” I said. I didn’t want to reveal too much, but I did want Mr. Boo to be on his guard.
The custodian frowned. “We don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do,” said Benny and I together.
I raked a hand through my hair. “So that gives us just a few hours to come up with something better than spreading a bunch of birdseed to distract them.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Carlos,” said Benny. “It could’ve worked.”
“Birdseed?” said Mr. Boo.
I shook my head. “Never mind.”
He leaned on his trash spear and eyed us. “Dudes, I get the feeling that there’s a lot more going on than you’re telling me.”
“There is,” Benny said, “but you really don’t want to know.”
I leaned forward. “Still, there is one thing you could do….”
“Oh yeah?” said Mr. Boo.
“Find some way to unlock that pantry,” I said. “We’ve got to know what’s inside. Could be those missing kids.”
“Or the makings of some evil plot,” said Benny.
“Or a boatload of canned beans,” said Mr. Boo.
“Whatever it is,” I said, “we need to know. People’s lives may depend on it.”
“You can count on me,” said the janitor.
“Like a six-foot abacus,” said Benny. We both gave him a strange look. “Come on,” he said. “That was funny. Abacus, counting?”
“Say good-bye, Benny,” I said.
“Good-bye, Benny,” he said.
Even mellow Mr. Boo sighed.
SOMEHOW, the morning passed, as full of tension as a steel-spring factory. Every spare moment between lessons, Benny and I traded notes on stopping the lunch ladies. Our solutions got wilder and wilder.
Smash them with a giant flyswatter was one of Benny’s more out-there ideas.
Put superglue on an anvil, get them stuck to it, and drop it down a mine shaft was one of mine.
All great—if this were a cartoon.
The clock was ticking.
And we still hadn’t heard a word from Dr. Sincere. I was seriously wondering whether Benny and I would have to handle this giant bug problem all by ourselves.
Meanwhile, our class was getting weirder and weirder. When Mr. Chu put on an actual knight’s helmet to tell us about the Middle Ages, quiet Zizi Lee rolled her eyes and boomed, “The Middle Ages are bo-ring. Makes me want to go knighty-knight.”
Tyler Spork’s eyes goggled. “She’s stealing my lines,” he huffed to Big Pete. “Not fair!”
When Mr. Chu read to us from James and the Giant Peach, using fun character voices, Cheyenne and Amrita mocked him and thr
ew spit wads. By lunchtime, nearly half the girls in class had visited the time-out corner—and for things that us boys were normally busted for.
Just before lunch, Tina Green stood up and announced, “Girls, let’s ask Mrs. Johnson for a woman teacher. Men just don’t cut it.”
The girls cheered and hooted.
Mr. Chu’s jaw nearly hit the floor. But the lunch bell rang before he could send Tina to the time-out corner, so he just massaged his temples and waved everyone out the door. I felt sorry for him. The best teacher in school, and half his class was sassing him.
“Don’t feel bad,” I told him on the way out. “It isn’t you; it’s the girls.”
“You’re still awesome,” Benny said.
Our teacher eyed Gabi and Emma shoving boys out of their way at the door. He shook his head. “Maybe it’s hormones.”
We left before he could tell us what hormones were. Some mysteries are best left unexplored.
Since we didn’t dare go through the cafeteria line, Benny and I ate our brown-bag lunches in a quiet corner of the playground. All around us, the world had turned upside down. Girls were hogging the basketball courts, cutting in line for tetherball, crowding guys off the baseball diamond, and just generally acting up.
“Look at that,” said Benny. “It’s disgusting.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “It’s what us boys always do, only more so.”
“Yeah, but…” He trailed off. “Okay, I get your point. It’s not right when we do it either. But still—”
“I don’t care about right or wrong,” I said. “I just want our old school back.”
Benny gulped down the last of his fried tofu sandwich, belched, and balled up his lunch bag. “Any brilliant ideas? ’Cause I’m drawing a blank.”
I bit my lip. I was almost desperate enough to try Benny’s stupid-dangerous plan of burning down the cafeteria to flush the mantis ladies out. “Too bad the birds didn’t work. They really had that Mrs. McCoy monster going.”
Benny chucked his trash in the bin and gave a rueful grin. “Yeah, until she and the other one started chowing down on them. Man, they ate like they’d never stop.”
“Never stop…” I mused.
“I bet if you put one of those mutant mantises in an eating contest, they’d win for sure, hands down.”