by Bruce Hale
“Eating…”
“They’d even beat Joey Chestnut. Heck, they’d probably eat Joey Chestnut.”
And then I saw it—a way to use the mutant mantises’ strengths against them. A way to defeat them once and for all.
If we could only solve one small problem.
“Hey, Benny?”
“Yeah?”
“Where can we get our hands on a truckload of cockroaches?”
It was the sort of mission we couldn’t handle on our own, no matter how resourceful and heroic Benny and I tried to be. No, for this one, we needed help. Preferably the kind that could drive a car.
Mr. Boo turned us down. Can’t say I blame him. After all, we couldn’t tell him the whole story, so we must have sounded a bit whacked. And we couldn’t get help from our parents either. No matter how much they love you, no mom or dad will lend a hand on a project like this. Heck, it’d be hard enough getting them to even believe what was going on.
“Got any dirt on your big brother?” I asked Benny.
“Not enough to blackmail him into it,” he said. “What about your grandma?”
“Nah.” I shook my head. “For a musician, she’s pretty old-fashioned. She wouldn’t understand.”
That left us one last choice. But unfortunately, her help came with conditions.
“No way,” said Mrs. Tamasese when we called her. “I’ll help, but I won’t be part of you ditching school, no matter what.”
“But there might not be a school unless we act now,” said Benny.
“Tough,” she said. “Education is too important. I’ll pick you up right after classes end, no sooner.”
“Awww,” I said.
“You want my help or not?”
“Yes, please,” Benny and I chorused.
In the end, we had no choice. We were out of ideas and out of options. And if we wanted to save the boys (and okay, certain girls like my sister and Tina), we had to follow Mrs. T’s rules and hope we wouldn’t be too late.
Somehow Benny and I made it through the next couple hours of class, though my nerves were as raw as a rug burn and Benny’s eyes were practically bugging from his head. We suffered through more disruptions from the girls (but probably not as much as Mr. Chu did).
A mere ice age or two later, the bell rang. Benny and I blasted out the door before Mr. Chu could finish his usual “That’s all for today, kiddos” announcement. In fact, we motored so fast I barely caught Tina’s “Nerd alert!” shout. But it did sting a little.
Shoving our way through the hall, we made more than our share of enemies. I slammed into a wandering third grader, knocking her flat. And when a fifth-grade boy knelt suddenly to tie his shoe, Benny and I both vaulted right over him.
No matter what, we kept on moving—pushing, weaving, bobbing, and darting. At last we reached the street. As promised, a purple-and-gold van waited at the curb. On its side the words SAMOAN STRONG arched above an illustrated ocean wave that would’ve made Mr. Boo drool.
The side door slid open. “Hop in,” said Mrs. Tamasese.
We dove into the backseat. “Drive! Drive!” Benny shouted.
The former wrestler turned from her handicapped-accessible controls. “Seat belts,” she said.
Benny made an exasperated sound as we fumbled with the straps. “Can we get going, please?” I said.
“Like the wind,” said Mrs. T. “Soon as you’re strapped in.”
“Some getaway driver you’d make,” Benny mumbled.
Cupping a hand behind her ear, she said, “What’s that? You say you’d rather walk?”
“Nooo!” Benny and I cried together.
At last we were buckled in. And once we were, I saw why she’d insisted. The custom van tore away from the curb, slamming us back into our seats with a squeal of tires and the stench of burning rubber. We cut off a minivan, and the mom at the wheel shook her fist.
“Amateur,” muttered Mrs. Tamasese. She gunned it, blasting us out of the neighborhood and across town in record time. “You might want to check your supplies,” she said, gesturing behind us. “I think I got everything.”
Benny and I pawed through the grocery sack on the floor. “Garbage bags, check,” he said.
“Extra-sweet peanut butter and powdered sugar, check,” I said.
“Duct tape, check.”
I looked up at Mrs. Tamasese. “Thanks, we’re good,” I said.
With a wild swerve and a squeal of tires, she roared down the gravel road into the city dump. “And here we are,” she said, slamming on the brakes. The van stood beside the Himalaya Mountains of trash.
Benny yanked open the door. “Go, go go!”
We grabbed our supplies and leaped out, staring up at the massive mounds of garbage around us. The van’s automatic door slid closed.
“Get ’em, boys!” said Mrs. Tamasese. “I’ll turn this baby around so we’re ready to jet.”
“Thanks, Mrs. T!” I waved, thinking, If only all grown-ups were so understanding.
Benny put his fists on his hips. “Now, where does a dude find Cockroach Central?”
I SCANNED THE MOUNDS of moldy clothes, old newspapers, broken appliances, scrap wood, and general household crud. Lots of junk. Very few bugs.
“Um, follow your nose,” I said. “Roaches like rotting food.”
Trotting along the edge of the trash mounds, we sniffed and scanned, sniffed and scanned. The minutes ticked away. By now the lunch ladies would be assembling their trays of treats. Kids and parents would be gathering in the cafeteria, where who knew what kind of mayhem was about to break loose.
If we didn’t find some cockroaches quickly…
“Whew!” said Benny, fanning the air. “Welcome to Stinkville.”
I gagged. This part of the dump was unspeakably foul. Spoiled milk, rotten meat, mushy brown bananas, and too many decomposing foods to count sent up their mingled odors. If smelling bad were a sport, this would be the World Series of Stenchiness.
In the shade of a busted fridge to our right, I spotted movement—the telltale scuttling of little brown bodies. “There!” I cried, pointing.
Benny set down the grocery bag, and I lifted out the powdered sugar, ripping open the box. I shook out trails of the sweet stuff, leading from the trash heap off to one side. Meanwhile, Benny pulled ten big black garbage bags off their roll. Working together, we smeared peanut butter and shook more powder into the sacks, then laid them on the ground at the end of the sugar trails.
Preparations complete, we stood back and watched. A few roaches began tucking into our powdered-sugar banquet. But not enough. Not nearly enough.
“Here, roachie-roachie-roachies!” Benny called.
“It’s too slow,” I moaned.
“How do we get them to go in the bags?” said Benny, pacing back and forth.
“I dunno.”
“But it’s your plan!”
I glared at Benny. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’m making this up as I go along. Feel free to help.”
Benny held out a hand toward the bugs and made smoochy noises with his lips, like he was calling a cat. “Yum, yum, yum! Nice roachies!”
Circling around to one side, I stomped into the pile of trash, hoping to scare some of the bugs toward our bags. Benny must have had a similar idea, because he headed the other way, until he vanished behind the trash hill.
“Can you see?” I called. “Is this working?”
“Hang on,” yelled Benny. Then I heard a sound like whoomp, followed by a crackling like cellophane being crumpled.
I stomped some more, getting rancid cottage cheese in my shoes. More roaches fled my approach, although they didn’t all flee the way I wanted them to go. I began to see why Dr. Sincere’s experiments with militarizing bugs hadn’t worked out.
They didn’t follow orders.
Suddenly a sharper scent cut through the rotting garbage—something like burning olive oil and cheese. Over by where Benny had disappeared, I spotted a column of black smo
ke.
“Benny!’
“Yeah?”
“Is everything all right?” I called.
“Yeah,” he shouted. “But you might want to run.”
I frowned. “Run? Why?”
And then I had my answer. Orange and yellow flames crested the garbage mound Benny had vanished behind.
He’d set the trash on fire!
“¡Dios mío!” I cried, scrambling over the hills of crud and making for the road.
Benny was already waiting, not far from our line of trash bags.
“Are you nuts?” I cried. “You want to burn this whole place down, and us with it?”
He held out his palms. “Relax. Most of this stuff won’t even light—I had to use some old olive oil to get things going.”
I spluttered. “We’re gonna be in so much trouble. Why would you do that?”
Benny shrugged. “Well, you wouldn’t let me burn out the lunch ladies.”
“Benny!”
“And besides,” he said, “it’s working.” He pointed to the trash bags we’d spread on the ground.
A brown tidal wave of many-legged bodies surged away from the flames, down the trash heap, and straight for our peanut-butter-lined roach palaces. I snatched up some sticks and used them to prop open the garbage bags. Benny followed suit.
Although many of the roaches ran over our shoes, up our legs (ugh!), or across the road, many more fled into the dark, peanut-buttery safety of the trash bags. In less than a minute, every sack was bulging.
“Quick!” I cried, tossing Benny the duct tape. “Close them up.”
Ripping strips of tape off the roll, he and I sealed the wiggling, writhing bags of bugs as fast as possible.
“Eeugh, ugh!” I cried.
My skin crawled (literally) as I kept flicking roaches off my arms and legs. Finally, all the bags were taped closed. I raised my eyes to the trash heap and found that Benny was right: the fire hadn’t spread. By now it had almost completely died out. Only wisps of greasy black smoke remained.
Like any good getaway driver, Mrs. Tamasese had backed her van up the road to where we were. She popped the rear hatch, but did a double take when she saw what we were carrying.
“Hey!” she called. “Make sure those bags don’t come open. And spread the sheets before you bring those filthy buggers into my ride.”
We obeyed, and after carefully brushing off excess roaches, hefted the bags into the back of the van. The sacks weren’t that heavy, but they bulged and shifted alarmingly. Benny slammed the hatch, and we jumped back inside.
“Let’s roll!” Benny yelled. “Chop chop!”
After getting one whiff of the garbage-scented air inside her van, Mrs. T scowled. “I’m changing our agreement.”
“No!” I cried. “You can’t back out now.”
Tearing down the gravel road and out onto the streets, the former wrestler cut her eyes to watch us in the rearview mirror. “Who’s backing out?” she said. “I’m just adding some work to your end, to make us square.”
“What do you mean?” Benny gave a suspicious squint.
“Instead of one day, you’ll each give me three days of helping out after school.”
“Done,” I said. “Just hurry!”
“Already hurrying,” said Mrs. Tamasese. “But if you turn this van into a roach motel, you’ll be working it off at my store till you’re a hundred and ninety-three.”
MRS. TAMASESE MADE the drive in record time. I’ve seen jets that didn’t travel that fast. Rather than dropping us by the office, she raced down the driveway that led to the trash bins behind the cafeteria. The van screeched to a halt, whipping us back and forth, and startling some crows into flight.
“Hope we’re not too late.” I wrenched open the door.
Visions of Veronica as a pint-size mantis monster flashed before my eyes. My insides quivered like pudding on a roller coaster. She might be a brat sometimes, but she was still my sister.
“Hurry,” said Benny.
But when we opened the back hatch, I smacked my head. “Argh!”
“What?” said Benny. “Stray cockroach?”
“No. Too many bags for us to carry in one trip. We need help.”
Mrs. Tamasese glanced over her shoulder at us. “Sorry, boys. This wheelchair doesn’t come with roach-carrying attachments.”
Scanning the area, Benny suddenly smiled. “No sweat.” He pointed. “I think we’ve got it.”
And there, as if waiting for us, sat Mr. Boo’s custodial cart.
Wrestling the gray trash cans off of it, we pushed the cart over to the van. Then Benny and I loaded up the ten sacks of cockroaches, being very careful not to tear holes in the plastic.
I was about to jump out of my skin, I was so crazy with impatience. From back here, we couldn’t see anybody, but the faint murmur of voices drifted from the cafeteria.
Benny gripped my arm. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They haven’t started yet.”
“How do you know?”
“We’d hear a lot less chatter, and a lot more screaming.”
“Cheerful thought,” I said. “Thanks.”
We trundled the loaded rig around the building, to Mrs. T’s cry of “Get ready to rummmble!” As we cleared the corner, I noticed a few kids and parents ambling toward the cafeteria door, and the sound of disco music thumping. A sweet, nutty smell filled the air.
Painfully slowly, the old cart squeaked its way up to the double doors. “He couldn’t oil these wheels once in a while?” griped Benny.
As we approached the entrance, I caught a glimpse of many people inside, browsing long rows of tables.
“We’re not too late,” I said.
And then, a figure stepped in front of us, blockading the door.
“You can’t bring that in here.” It was the ponytailed PTA mom, the one Mr. Boo had called Mrs. Kato. She wore a fancy green shirt, and a scowl mean enough to make a grizzly bear turn tail.
“Um, we’ve got a load of emergency ingredients,” said Benny. “In case they sell out and have to bake more goodies.”
Mrs. Kato’s glower deepened. “Then why is everything in plastic garbage bags?”
“Uh…” Benny glanced at me.
“Because they bought in bulk. Easier to carry this way,” I said.
Looking from one of us to the other, the PTA mom said, “I don’t know….”
I willed her not to check out the bags, which were definitely wiggling. “It’s all good, really it is. Mr. Boo—um, Decker knows all about it.”
In a stroke of luck, the custodian happened to be passing through the cafeteria not far from the entrance.
“Isn’t that true, Mr. Boo?” Benny called.
The custodian turned our way. “Say what, dude?”
Marching over to him, the PTA mom said, “These boys claim they’re bringing in baking supplies and that you know all about it.”
A broad smile crossed Mr. Boo’s face at the sight of her, and he smoothed back his shaggy hair like a lion in love. “Hi, Mrs. Kato,” he crooned.
“Well?” she said. “I didn’t see any extra orders for supplies. Are these little scoundrels telling the truth?”
We used the distraction to edge the cart through the doors. The PTA mom’s back was to us, so Benny and I made pleading faces and pantomimed Go along with it! to Mr. Boo.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “The boys can use the cart—it’s fine by me.”
“But why haven’t I heard about all this?” said Mrs. Kato. “Good gravy, I am head of the cafeteria committee, after all.”
As we wheeled our cartload of roaches farther into the room, I made the “stretch it out” gesture to the custodian.
He grinned down at the PTA mom. “You’d have to ask the lunch ladies about that,” he said. “Your hair looks great, Amber. Have you lost some weight?”
Benny and I rolled the cart toward the kitchen, trusting the custodian’s flirting to provide cover for us. “I really hope this works,” I
said. “If the mantis monsters don’t go for the bugs, Mr. Boo will never forgive us.”
“No worries,” said Benny. “If they don’t go for the bugs, they’re going for us. So there won’t be anything left to forgive.”
I wagged my head. “How do you keep such a positive attitude?”
“Just naturally sunny, I guess,” said Benny.
I spared a glance for the cafeteria. The PTA moms and dads had gone all out for the event. Red construction paper and blue crepe streamers covered the walls, balloons bobbed everywhere, and an all-butter statue of Betty Crocker stood in the corner, beaming at the crowd. (Or it might have been Hillary Clinton. I’m not sure.)
At one end, two backdrops from The Music Man (the sixth graders’ musical) framed the stage. It gave things an old-timey look. We rolled onward, searching for the lunch ladies, and hoping against hope that Dr. Sincere would show up.
He was nowhere to be found.
Kids and parents wandered up and down long tables piled with a mind-boggling amount of treats. There were cupcakes and brownies, crullers and croissants, muffins, pies, and cakes, plus every size and shape of cookie imaginable.
Despite myself, my mouth began to water.
“Wow,” said Benny. His eyes were the size of Frisbees.
“Just remember they’re full of evil mantis-ness,” I said.
“Right, right. But still…”
On the far side of the room, I spotted my sister, Veronica, and her little friends in the female mob around the GIRLS ONLY table of treats. Two of the three lunch ladies lurked nearby.
“There they are,” I said.
“But where’s Mrs. Perez?” asked Benny. “I mean, where’s the mutant mantis pretending to be Mrs. Perez?”
I scanned the crowd. “I don’t know, but we’ve got to get all three together.”
Steering toward the knot of girls, Benny and I trundled the cockroach-laden cart along the wall. I kept swiveling my head, searching for the missing mantis. Which was probably why I didn’t see the lunch monitor until she grabbed the other side of the rig. We stopped dead.
“You!” she spat. It was Tenacity, the girl who’d thrown us out of the lunchroom just yesterday.