Ant Attack

by Ali Sparkes

  “No, might get seen by a bird,” warned Josh. At least against the speckled gray of the sidewalk they didn’t stand out that much. But they would on red brick. “Better go around.”

  “OK, but we—” Danny stopped because Josh had stopped. Josh was standing still and waving his feelers in the air. There was a big, rumbly, crackly feeling coming in through his antennae. Something big, rumbly, crackly … and hot. Very hot. An incredibly bright light flashed in their eyes.

  “WHAT’S THAT?” shouted Danny. “Josh—what is it?”

  Josh stared back at Danny. His feelers quivered. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this at all …”

  “Smell it!” whispered Josh. He sent great big waves of fear out through his scent-squirting gear. “It smells … like … burning.”

  There was another bright flash, and then they saw it. Something truly terrifying. A huge, brilliant, blindingly white pillar of fire. It was hitting the edge of the sidewalk on the far side. They could sense panic among the ant colony they had just run away from. The terrible rumbling and burning was getting louder and stronger. Josh and Danny could see the pillar of fire moving from left to right, tilting at an angle, like a tornado, but not so shaky. Little pops and bursts of flame kept going off under it. Danny didn’t want to think about what they were.

  “What is it?” gasped Josh. “What could be making that happen? It’s vaporizing everything in its path!”

  Danny gulped and squinted up. Above them—high, high up in the sky, was a round glow, like the sun. Shooting out from the round glow was the pillar of fire. A dim shape loomed up somewhere beyond it. “OH NO!” shrieked Danny. “I know what it is! I know what it is! Josh! Don’t stand there looking! RUN! WE’VE GOT TO RUN BEFORE HE SEES US!”

  “He?” spluttered Josh. He legged it along behind Danny as fast as he could. “Who’s he?”

  “It’s Tarquin!” shouted back Danny.

  “Tarquin? With a death ray? Who made him a god?”

  “YOU did!” Danny reached the bottom of the redbrick tower. “When you let him pick up your magnifying glass! If he likes picking legs off things, I bet he’s into frying things too. He’s making the sun shine through the glass like a laser and frying everything that moves!”

  “Oh no!” wailed Josh. He spun around as he reached his brother and took in the terrible sight behind them. “It’s coming this way! He must have seen us!”

  The crackling, smoking, white-hot beam wandered off to the left for a second, exploding something that looked like a poor little beetle. Then it moved relentlessly toward the brick wall corner that Josh and Danny were now backed into.

  “Quick—we’ve got to run around the bricks and hide!” squeaked Josh.

  “No—up and over! It’s quicker!” yelled Danny. “I don’t care about the birds! We’ve got a death ray to worry about.”

  He scrambled up the wall as fast as his three pairs of legs could carry him. Josh hurried up alongside him. Glancing backward, he could see it was hopeless. The death ray was speeding across the slab, heading straight for them. Any second now, one of them would be toast. And then the other.

  “If he gets me first, just keep running!” gasped Danny. He was also looking back over his shoulder. But the beam, as it got closer, was big enough to get them both. It swept up the wall, sending up a plume of hot, fine, redbrick dust. “Oh no—we’re done for,” wailed Danny. He scrunched up into a ball on the edge of the brick. “Bye-bye, Josh. You’ve been a great brother … for a freaky little bug geek.”

  Josh scrunched up into a ball as well. “Bye, Danny,” he gulped, sadly. “You too … for a skateboard nut.”

  THWACK!

  “You nasty little tick!” Petty Potts slammed her net down over Tarquin’s head. “Are you really setting fire to innocent insects?”

  Tarquin squawked with rage. He dropped the magnifying glass onto the sidewalk and struggled to get the net off his head. “Get off! Get it off me, you horrid old woman! My mother will have the police on to you, I tell you.”

  “Murderer,” muttered Petty. She kept the net firmly in place and waved a small flashlightlike device at the sidewalk.

  “They’re only ants!”

  Petty gulped. It was ants she was looking for. Her S.W.I.T.C.H.ee detector was bleeping off the scale. Now she was certain that Josh and Danny had been S.W.I.T.C.H.ed—and very likely barbecued. That would be a little awkward. Shoving Tarquin out of the way, she knelt to peer at the bricks where the loathsome child had been directing the magnifying glass. She could just about make out two of the little creatures. They were cowering close together on the top edge. Could that be Josh and Danny? Could it? If so, they should be about to return to their proper shape any moment now, judging by her calculations. She turned off the S.W.I.T.C.H.ee detector and checked her watch.

  “GET THIS OFF ME!” shouted Tarquin again. He was still struggling pathetically with the net.

  Petty flicked it off the boy. “Go—shoo, you repulsive little gargoyle!” she told him. Tarquin ran away, much to her relief. Now, were those two really Josh and Danny? Or was that just wishful thinking?

  “Danny!” whispered Josh, unscrunching a little. A cloud of hot brick dust swirled around him, stinging his eyes. “Danny? Are you there?”

  Danny looked out from his own scrunch and waggled his feelers shakily. “Yes. I’m here. What happened?”

  “It’s gone! The death ray—it’s gone!”

  They stared all around them. There was no sign of the death ray.

  “Phew-hoo!” hooted Danny, running over to Josh and doing a high five with him, with one feeler. “We’re not little piles of anty ash!”

  “It’s gone,” sighed Josh. “We’re safe.”

  “Josh—Danny—is that you?” whispered Petty, screwing up her eyes and trying to see. Oh, here was the magnifying glass. That would help.

  Considering she was a genius, Petty had occasional moments of being very, very stupid. This was one now. She picked up the glass and held it over the two ants.

  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!” screamed Josh and Danny as a blast of white heat suddenly hit them.

  Petty was just beginning to realize that she was in fact killing the little ants she was hoping to help. Then she was walloped in the face.

  It was Danny who bashed her glasses sideways and nearly flattened her nose. To be fair, he was just about to perish in a sea of flame when he abruptly returned to human form. So you couldn’t blame him for lashing out a bit. The sea of flame did cause a slight mark on his knee, he later discovered.

  Josh didn’t smack anyone in the face. He just sprawled into the sandbox. The blaze that had started on his right eyebrow was instantly put out.

  “Oh! Oh! Oh! What a relief!” gasped Petty, fanning her face and swaying on her knees.

  “Give me that!” Danny grabbed the magnifying glass. He shoved it safely into his pants pocket.

  “It wasn’t me trying to incinerate you!” protested Petty. “I was just trying to find you and save you. Sorry it got a bit hot, though. I forgot about that magnified sunlight business for a few seconds there. No—the one who was trying to kill you was that ghastly child from around the corner.”

  “What—that ghastly child?” said Josh standing up. Tarquin came back into the garden holding on to their mom’s hand. He was looking wounded and sulky.

  “Now, now, boys—Tarquin says you won’t play with him,” said their mom. “Oh, hello, Miss Potts.”

  “Hello, dear,” said Petty standing up. “Just looking at insects with your sons. I’m sure Tarquin is very welcome to join in. I’m off now—see you all later.”

  And she hurried out of the garden with her S.W.I.T.C.H.ee detector, whistling with relief.

  “No, he’s not welcome,” said Josh. “He just tried to kill us.”

  Mom looked astonished. “Really, boys, don’t be so silly! What possible harm could little Tarquin do?” Little Tarquin smirked at them from under her arm.

  “Well, if he�
�d got the chance he’d have pulled our legs off,” said Danny.

  Mom laughed. “You boys! Really! Here—I’ve brought some Popsicles for you all.” She gave them to Danny to hand out and went back into the house.

  Danny grinned. He’d had an idea. He whispered to Josh as Tarquin ripped off his Popsicle wrapper and began slurping noisily. “Shall we?” said Danny, and Josh grinned back and nodded.

  “Come on then,” said Danny. “Let’s sit here.” He led Tarquin over to sit on the sidewalk. As they walked, Danny mashed his own Popsicle in one hand. He let it drip onto the ground.

  They all sat down. Danny melted more Popsicle while Josh kept Tarquin talking. Soon the sweet little yellow blobs made a pathway from a crumbly bit of soil at the edge of the sidewalk. Right up to their visitor’s pants legs and a little way inside. Then Danny shuffled closer to Tarquin. He patted him on the back a few times, in a friendly, sticky way.

  Tarquin didn’t notice the crazy sugar pop festival for quite a while. Not until it had gotten up across his jacket, scurried down inside his collar, and marched some way up his pants leg.

  “Who was screeching?” asked Mom a few minutes later. She emerged from the house with Tarquin’s mom.

  “Is that my Tarquin, doing a little dance down along the garden?” said Tarquin’s mom.

  “Nothing to worry about,” said Josh, with a happy smile.

  “He’s just got ants in his pants,” said Danny.

  Tarquin had at last gone home with his mother, wearing a spare pair of Danny’s shorts and crying loudly. Mom brought a cup of tea and some little cakes out to them in the garden.

  “Just to say thanks,” she said. She handed them the tray as they sat on the garden bench. “For trying. He’s an annoying boy. Gives you heartburn.”

  “You’ll never know,” mumbled Danny, through a mouthful of cake.

  Josh picked up the pink-iced sponge cube and stared at it as Mom went back indoors.

  “Well go on, then,” said Danny. “You love French Fancies.”

  Josh raised his eyes up above the cake. He stared at Danny, a slow smile spreading over his face.

  “Now I know what I saw in the ants’ nest!” he breathed.

  “Yes,” said Danny. “Ants. A lot of them.”

  “Not just ants! I saw a tiny turtle too!”

  “A tiny turtle too?” echoed Danny, wondering if Josh had decided to start making up funny songs. “A tiddly turtle too … having a piddly poo?” he ventured.

  Josh sprang to his feet and slammed the cake down on the plate. “DANNY! I KNOW WHERE ANOTHER REPTOSWITCH CUBE IS!” And he began to run toward the sidewalk. “COME ON! Petty’s going to get another of her missing cubes back today! That’ll be four out of six. Maybe that will be enough to crack the reptile S.W.I.T.C.H.code. You never know!”

  At the sidewalk, they peered down into the crumbly brown nests in the cracks. “I saw sparkly glass in the ants’ nest tunnel, just before we ran back out,” explained Josh. “And while I was looking into it, I saw a turtle looking back up at me! It couldn’t have been a real turtle. Not in an ants’ nest. It must be a hologram! A hologram in another one of Petty’s missing cubes!”

  He poked his fingers down into the nest, scattering dozens of panicked ants. “Here! This is where we came out, I’m sure. Danny, help me get the slab up!”

  “What are you two doing?” called Mom, looking out of the kitchen window.

  “Just looking at an ants’ nest,” called back Danny.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” said Mom. She disappeared back through the window.

  The slab was heavy, but between them, Josh and Danny managed to pry the edge up and lift it away. Underneath, a secret world was revealed. A flat gray plain of soil and grit and roots, with centipedes and woodlice fleeing across it as the daylight struck them. A complicated network of passages wriggled across the surface, and scores of ants were running along them in a frenzy.

  Josh and Danny knew that the tunnels went much deeper than this. “How far down was the cube, then?” asked Danny.

  “Can’t be that deep—maybe ten inches …?” guessed Josh. “Look—there’s the main entrance.”

  He pointed to a larger hole through which a long chain of ants was hurrying.

  A shadow fell across them. Josh and Danny glanced up, and there stood Mom. She was holding a glinting deadly weapon in her hand. A kettle.

  Steam rose from its spout in menacing curls.

  “Look out,” said Mom. “I’ve been meaning to do this all week. We’ve got far too many ants.”

  “NOOOOOOO!!” screamed Josh and Danny, both together.

  Mom blinked. She had expected Josh to protest a bit—but Danny? He didn’t even like creepy-crawlies! She’d poured boiling water on nests before, and he’d never batted an eyelid!

  “You can’t!” cried Josh. “It’s cruel! You’ll wipe out an entire family and all their babies.”

  “DON’T DO IT, MOM!” begged Danny.

  Mom stepped back, shrugging. One steaming splash of water hit the nest. It left a crater of hot mud. “All right! All right!” she said. “But don’t blame me if you get ants in your pants like Tarquin!”

  “We won’t mind!” said Danny.

  At last, Mom went away. They breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was one thing to wipe out a nest of ants when you’d only just noticed them by your toes. Quite another thing when you’d met them all and been in their house.

  “OK, I’ll be careful,” said Josh. He prodded his fingers gently and slowly down through the main entrance. After only a few seconds, as the crumbly earth gave way, he felt a cold, hard angle of glass. In a moment he had seized it and wiggled it out of the embrace of the grass roots.

  He knelt back and held it up to the light. One perfect glass cube, with a tiny, delicate hologram of a turtle inside it. He and Danny stared at each other, grinning excitedly. Then they leapt to their feet and tore around the house. Seconds later, they were hammering on Petty’s front door.

  Petty Potts pulled them into her hallway and slammed the door. Then she took the cube from Josh’s hand and stared at it, thrilled.

  “Where was it?” she whispered.

  “In an ants’ nest in our yard,” said Josh. “We would never have found it if we hadn’t been turned into ants ourselves.”

  “Oh yes,” said Danny, suddenly remembering.

  “What were you thinking of, giving S.W.I.T.C.H. spray to Tarquin?”

  “I didn’t give it to him, you donkey!” said Petty. She was still smiling mistily into the cube. “He just grabbed it when I left it on the wall for ten seconds.”

  “You’ve got to be more careful,” said Josh.

  “I am careful,” insisted Petty. “And anyway, if you hadn’t been turned into ants, we would never have got this back!”

  They didn’t bother to go on arguing because she was too entranced by the cube to pay any attention. She walked into the kitchen and got two boxes down from a high shelf. One was red velvet, and one was green velvet. The red one, as she opened it, revealed a set of six perfect glass cubes. The BUGSWITCH cubes. Their six holograms contained the six parts of the code for making BUGSWITCH spray.

  Now Petty opened the green box. In this lay three cubes and three empty dents. Petty pressed the fourth cube into its dent and sighed happily.

  “Just two more to find!” she murmured. “Two more and the REPTOSWITCH code will be mine again! Mine! MINE!”

  She glanced at Josh and Danny and coughed. “I mean … ours.” She smiled at them. “And when it’s complete, you two will be the first humans on Earth to know how it feels to be a reptile! An alligator! A giant lizard! A python! Whatever you want! I will be able to make the spray…”

  “Will it make us rich?” wondered Danny. Danny liked money.

  “Of course,” said Petty. “But more importantly, it will make us the most famous scientists in the world!”

  A shadow moved outside Petty’s kitchen window. She flinched and went to sta
re outside. “Did you see that?” she whispered.

  “What? It was probably just a cat,” said Josh.

  Petty turned away from the window and stared at them both. “You ought to know…” she said, her eyes glittering, “… that the closer we get to finding the REPTOSWITCH code, the more dangerous it could get.”

  Danny blinked. “Look, we’ve been nearly eaten by a centipede and then burnt alive by a magnifying glass today. I think we know how dangerous it gets.”

  “No, I mean … we’re probably being watched.” Petty flicked a glance back over her shoulder. “By them …”

  “Them?” said Josh.

  “They have a file on me,” said Petty. “I might have been expelled from the government’s secret laboratories, but they’ve always been watching me. The mailman, the milkman, the lady who delivers fish … any one of them could be a government spy working for Victor Crouch. He might have burnt my memory out, but he’ll always have someone on the lookout, just in case. Watching and waiting. Waiting for a sign that my work goes on! He failed to steal it properly before. The he burnt out my memory before he realized his stupid mistake—that the notes he stole from me were all faked. He will always wonder if it’s possible for me to start again. And just in case, he will always have someone watching.…”

  “O … K,” said Josh. “Time for us to go home now. Byeeeee.”

  “I tell you! They’re like ants! They’re everywhere!” insisted Petty, snapping the velvet boxes shut. “Be on your guard! Tell me if you see anything suspicious! Anything at all …”

  “She’s bonkers,” said Danny. Petty closed her front door, and they walked down the front garden path. “Every bonkers person thinks the government is spying on them.”

  “Yep,” said Josh.

  Across the road, the man emptying the mailbox finished filling up his sack. Then, when nobody seemed to be looking, he took out a pair of binoculars and trained them on Petty Potts’s house …