by Ali Sparkes
A slurping noise above them turned out to be a chubby green caterpillar munching through a leaf. It burped. It winked a big black eye at them. It went, “Pardon.”
“Oooh—lovely! Leggy snackage! I was feeling peckish,” came a voice just behind them. Danny spun about in horror. Above them on the branch was a humongous bird. A blackbird, he thought. It had a bright orange beak. And the beak was jabbing right down toward them.
“AAAAARGH!”
Danny ran up the branch and then found himself sliding off the edge. For one horrible second he tipped sideways into thin air, ready to plummet down. And then he realized he was still running. He ran right around under the branch, Josh hot on his many heels. All of a sudden, the world was upside down. Their incredible little hooky feet were keeping them attached to the craggy bark of the tree. They were defying gravity!
“Like Spider-Man!” marveled Josh, under his breath.
“Has it gone?” whispered Danny.
For a few seconds they hung there, petrified. Then there was a terrifyingly loud whistle. A huge black-feathered head swung around the branch and gaped its beak at them.
“Aah—nearly lost you,” it said. “Brace yourself. Got the munchies.”
“Noooooooo!” shouted both Josh and Danny. Below they could hear Scratch and Sniff desperately shouting at the bird to get away.
“Now look!” said the bird, tilting its head on one side and regarding them patiently. “Stop messing around. I need a snack and you’re it. That’s the pecking order. Get over it.”
“Drop!” yelled Josh. “Just let go!”
Danny didn’t need telling. He’d rather splatter on the ground than get eaten alive. He let go and found himself once again wheeling around in free fall.
Ooh. That was an unexpectedly soft landing.
As Danny lay dazed, he realized he was on some kind of material. A short distance away Josh was also flopped onto the material, feverishly counting his legs. Danny looked at the crisscross of green and brown wool threads. From its round shape and a few gray cables of hair on it, he guessed it was a hat. And now it was tipping up.
Shrieking, Josh and Danny ran up the material, grabbing hold after hold with their hooky feet. But whoever was holding the hat determinedly shook it until they fell again, this time with a plop, into a large see-through container. Inside it Josh ran around and around, shooting something weird out of his bottom.
“Eeeuw!” said Danny. “Spider-Man never did it like that!”
Josh was making an emergency web. He was shooting silk out of the spinner on his abdomen to create a network of strong rope, which he was sticking all over the see-through plastic at very high speed as he ran around. They would be able to use it to climb up.
But Danny could see it was hopeless. Above them a lid crashed down shut. And now the super-sized face of none other than Petty Potts loomed slowly into view, peering in at them. Josh could see mammoth bristly hairs up inside her cavernous pink nostrils.
He slumped down into his useless emergency web and sighed. “I really didn’t ever want to see that.”
“OOOOOH DDDEEEEEEAR!” roared Petty Potts, in a slow deep voice.
“TIIIIIIIME TOO GEEET YOUUUU FFFIIIIIXXEEED UUUUPPPP.”
Josh felt quite seasick as their plastic tub swung along in the old lady’s hands.
He clung on tightly to the stout see-through silk cables that he had unexpectedly produced. He was rather proud of his web, in fact. Even if it had come out of his backside.
Danny was hanging on too, his furry face looking rather green. “Now what?” he whimpered.
Josh thought hard. He didn’t think Petty Potts would hurt them deliberately. But maybe she would want to experiment on them. After all, it sounded as if she knew who they were. She must be pretty excited. She had succeeded in turning two mammals into spiders!
At last they reached the huge dark cave of her laboratory behind the shed. She set their tub down on a gigantic table and peeled off the lid. She spoke at them, but it was too roary and loud and slow to make any sense. Her big warm gusts of breath smelled like cheese.
A short while later, there were two thuds, and two dark bundles, wrapped in white material, bounced down between them. They smelled fantastic. Danny suddenly realized how incredibly hungry he was. These were flasks of hot meaty soup! He was sure of it. He could smell it. He scuttled across to one of them and quickly ripped off the wrapping. The flask had six legs, two wings, and an anxious expression. But Danny didn’t stop to think about this. Yum! The soup was great!
It was only when he’d gulped it all down that he noticed the look on Josh’s face. His brother’s mandibles were stuck up straight like shocked fingers. One of his eyes twitched. “Nice lunch?” he whispered.
“Ah…yes,” admitted Danny. “Er…bluebottle soup. Not Mom’s, but not bad.” He shuddered and felt a little queasy.
“ARGH!” said Josh and Danny agreed with him. The tub was tipping up, and they were sliding out onto the tabletop. The surface was cold stone of some kind. Quite smooth. Now a glass bowl was slammed, upside down, over them. Through a round gap in the top, a yellowish fog was hissing and blooming down.
“She’s killing us! We’re done for!” whimpered Danny. But Josh thought he was wrong. It would be much easier to kill them with a shoe than with gas. A few seconds later, though, he wasn’t so sure. His head felt funny and his legs gave way and his ears were all muffled and…and…and…
“Can’t say I ever thought you two would be welcome in my lab. But today has changed my mind and no mistake,” said Petty Potts. She had stopped roaring and her mammoth face was now back to its usual size, Danny realized. He sat up, his legs—just the two of them now—dangling off the edge of the table.
“You—ba—ca—wa—you—ca—wa—ba—you!” he spluttered.
“Yes, I know what you mean,” she said, beaming. Her brown eyes were lively behind their rather smeary glasses. Now Josh sat up, making similar noises.
“I know exactly what you want to say. Why on earth would I change you both into spiders, yes? Well—I didn’t—not deliberately. I was having a crack at changing your little pee-soaked dog into a spider, I admit. But then you two blundered in and got the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray on your legs instead. You know, I did try to stop you from running off into danger. You’re lucky to be alive. If I hadn’t found you in time, stamped on that toad, frightened those rats off, and then whipped you away from that blackbird, you’d be floating in some creature’s digestive juices by now.”
“Well, thanks!” muttered Josh.
“How did you find us?” asked Danny. “We were tiny!”
“Aah!” Petty Potts held up a small device that looked a bit like a mini flashlight. A blue light flashed on the end of it. It gave off a crackly noise.“This is a S.W.I.T.C.H.ee detector. It only works within about ten feet of a S.W.I.T.C.H.ed creature, but it’s a help when they wander off. It gets brighter and louder, the closer I get.”
“You do realize we could be dead by now—thanks to you?” said Danny, glaring at her. “Or if your gadget thingy hadn’t worked, we’d be spiders for life!”
“No, you wouldn’t. The S.W.I.T.C.H. spray doesn’t last.” Petty Potts sighed and shook her head. “I haven’t quite perfected it. But I also have an antidote for emergencies, which I just used on you. Thought you might like a little snack first, though. So I dropped in a couple of flies, already prepared by another spider behind my fridge. I guess it was Danny who scoffed one, wasn’t it?” Danny nodded, looking a little green. “So—tell me! What does it taste like?” She perched on a stool and stared at him. Danny stared back at her, horrified.
“And how was it? To be a spider? It must have been so exciting!” She was nodding and smiling at both of them now. There was a notebook and a pen in her hand. “SPIDER-SWITCH is my latest spray. I wasn’t sure it would work, as it’s an arachnid serum, not an insect one. And of course, I’ve never tried any of my S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays on mammals until today. So—what does
it feel like?”
Danny snapped. He jumped off the table. “What do you think it feels like, you crazy witch?” he squawked. “Terrifying, that’s what! We’ve been nearly flattened, drowned, eaten, and pecked to death!”
Petty Potts sighed again and nodded some more. “I can see it’s been a bit upsetting for you. Why don’t you come to tea tomorrow and tell me all about it then?”
“You must be joking!” said Danny. “We will NEVER, EVER set foot on this side of the fence again. EVER. And don’t you ever come over our to side! If you want to find out what it feels like to be changed into a spider, S.W.I.T.C.H. yourself!”
They jumped off the table. They ran back home barefoot, scraping through the gap in the fence at high speed and never looking back.
Back in her lab, Petty Potts smiled to herself. She picked up a little red velvet box from a high shelf. She lifted the lid, revealing six shiny glass cubes. Each had a tiny hologram of an insect or bug inside it and a series of strange symbols running along beneath it. Danny would have recognized them. Last week he had been to an ancient Egypt exhibition with school. He would have said they were “hieroglyphics”—the mini pictures that made up the ancient Egyptian alphabet. To Petty, though, these were “code.” The most amazing code to the most astonishing formula in the world, if you know how to crack it. And Petty knew.
Petty ran her fingers lovingly across the cubes before closing the box. She returned it to the shelf. Then she picked up the green velvet box beside it. She opened this one with a sigh. Inside was a single glass cube with a tiny lizard hologram inside it and more of the hieroglyphics. There were five other square dents. Empty.
Petty’s smile vanished. She thwacked her forehead with her palm. “Oh, you stupid, stupid old woman! Had to get your memory burnt out, didn’t you?! What if you NEVER find them again, eh? Then you’ll never get the next code. And you’ll never get any further than bugs!”
“Danny! I can’t believe you’re not eating your cake!” said Mom. She stared at Danny’s uneaten dessert in astonishment.
Danny gave her a wobbly smile. “Um—it’s just that I’m still full since…since…lunch.” When he remembered what he’d last eaten, his smile went even more wobbly.
“He ate the insides of a bluebottle earlier,” said Josh, through a mouthful of his chocolate cake. Danny flinched. “It wasn’t quite dead, either.”
“Ooh—you two are so revolting and creepy,” shuddered Jenny. Her hair was still wrapped up in a towel. She’d only got out of the bath five minutes ago. She could set a world record for staying in a bath, reading magazines. “Stop talking about disgusting things, or I’ll kill you both!”
“Not again,” moaned Danny. “You’ve already tried twice today.”
He got up and went into the yard with his cake. He went to the shed, knelt down, and then put the plate down next to it. Josh followed him. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“Seeing if Scratch and Sniff are in,” said Danny. “They told us they live under our shed, remember?”
“Oh yeah,” said Josh. He sat down next to Danny. “We never did thank them for saving our lives.”
Behind him there were squeaks and then the familiar snouts of Scratch and Sniff emerged. They twitched at the lovely scent in the air.
“This is to say thanks,” said Danny. He tipped the cake off the plate. “You probably can’t really work out what I’m saying. But thanks anyway. For looking after me and Josh.” Sniff clasped her little paws together. She rolled her eyes with delight. “No frosting on it,” said Danny.
“See you around,” said Josh. Their friends bit into the cake and dragged the whole thing back under the shed with little grunts of effort and delight.
“Maybe we won’t,” said Danny. “I think we should probably just forget the whole thing! Nothing like that will ever happen again. We’ve boarded up the fence so Piddle can’t get through. And we will never go next door—ever again.”
“So right,” said Josh. “I love wildlife. But I don’t want to be it.”
Danny and Josh ran inside. Jenny was holding her hair dryer. The cord was stretched around to the outlet just outside the downstairs bathroom where she liked to do her hair and makeup. She stalked out and ripped the plug out of the socket, huffing and glaring at Mom through a curtain of wet hair.
“How many times do I have to tell you, Jenny?” snapped Mom. “STOP drying your hair over the sink.”
“NO!” shouted Danny. “Let her! Let her dry her hair over the sink! It saves lives!”
Jenny and Mom stared at him—and at Josh who was nodding vigorously in agreement.
“I tell you, Mom,” said Jenny. She pointed at them with the hair dryer. “They’re another species, these two. Another species!”
abdomen: the main part of a spider’s body
antidote: a medicine that can reverse the effects of a poison
arachnid: another name for a spider. Arachnids are joint-legged (they have more than one joint on each leg) and are invertebrates (animals without spines)
cellular: something made from a group of living cells
hieroglyphics: ancient Egyptian pictures and symbols that represent words
hijack: to take control of something by force
hologram: a picture made up of laser beams that appear three-dimensional (3-D)
insects: animals with six legs and three body parts: the head, thorax, and abdomen
mammals: animals that give birth to live young and feed them with their own milk. Humans and rats are mammals.
mandibles: a spider’s mouthparts that are used for clutching food
morphing: the process by which an object changes into something else. For example, Danny and Josh morph from boys into spiders.
nocturnal: animals that hunt at night and rest during the day
omnivore: an animal that can eat plants or other animals. Humans are omnivores.
palps: feelers that spiders use to search for food
prey: an animal that is hunted by another animal for food
reptiles: cold-blooded animals. Lizards and snakes are reptiles.
scavengers: animals that gather things discarded by others or that eat the remains of prey left by another animal
thorax: the section of a spider’s body between the head and abdomen
venom: poison that can be squirted from the fangs of an animal to kill or stun its prey. Some spiders are venomous.
BOOKS
Want to brush up on your bug knowledge? Here’s a list of books dedicated to creepy-crawlies.
Glaser, Linda. Not a Buzz to Be Found. Minneapolis: Millbrook Press, 2012.
Heos, Bridget. What to Expect When You’re Expecting Larvae: A Guide for Insect Parents (and Curious Kids). Minneapolis: Millbrook Press, 2011.
Markle, Sandra. Insect World series. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications, 2008.
WEBSITES
Find out more about nature and wildlife using the websites below.
BioKids
http://www.biokids.umich.edu/critters/
The University of Michigan’s Critter Catalog has a ton of pictures of different kinds of bugs and information on where they live, how they behave, and their predators.
National Geographic Kids
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/kids/animals-pets-kids/bugs-kids
Go to this fun website to watch clips from National Geographic about all sorts of creepy-crawlies.
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
http://www.fws.gov/letsgooutside/kids.html
This website has lots of activities for when you’re outside playing and looking for wildlife.
CHECK OUT ALL OF THE TITLES!
#1 Spider Stampede
Eight-year-olds Josh and Danny discover that their neighbor Miss Potts has a secret formula that can change people into bugs. Soon enough, they find themselves with six extra legs. Can the boys survive in the world as spiders long enough to make it home in time for dinner?
#2 Fly F
renzy
Danny and Josh are avoiding their neighbor because she “accidentally” turned them into bugs. But when their mom’s garden is ruined the day before a big competition, the twins turn into bluebottle houseflies to discover the culprits. Will they find who’s responsible before it’s too late?
#3 Grasshopper Glitch
Danny and Josh are having a normal day at school…until they turn into grasshoppers in the middle of class! Can they avoid being eaten during their whirlwind search to find the antidote? And will they be able to change back before getting a week of detention?
#4 Ant Attack
Danny and Josh are being forced to play with Tarquin, the most annoying boy in the neighborhood. But things get dangerous when the twins accidentally turn into ants and discover that Tarquin kills bugs for fun….Can they find a safe place to hide until they turn human again?
#5 Crane Fly Crash
When Petty Potts leaves town, she puts Danny and Josh in charge of some of her S.W.I.T.C.H. spray. Unfortunately, their sister, Jenny, mistakes it for hair spray and ends up as a crane fly. Now it’s up to the twins to keep Jenny from being eaten alive.
#6 Beetle Blast
Danny is forced to go with his brother, Josh, to his nature group, but neither of them thought they would turn into the nature they were studying! Both brothers become beetles just in time to learn about pond dipping…from the bug’s perspective. Can they avoid getting caught by the other kids?