Crane Fly Crash

by Ali Sparkes

  Books in the

  S.W.I.T.C.H. series

  #1 Spider Stampede

  #2 Fly Frenzy

  #3 Grasshopper Glitch

  #4 Ant Attack

  #5 Crane Fly Crash

  #6 Beetle Blast

  Text © Ali Sparkes 2011

  Illustrations © Ross Collins 2011

  “SWITCH: Crane Fly Crash” was originally published in English in 2011. This edition is published by an arrangement with Oxford University Press.

  Copyright © 2013 by Darby Creek

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

  241 First Avenue North

  Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

  Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

  Main body text set in ITC Goudy Sans Std. 14/19.

  Typeface provided by Monotype Typography.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sparkes, Ali.

  Crane fly crash / by Ali Sparkes ; illustrated by Ross Collins.

  p. cm. — (S.W.I.T.C.H. ; #05)

  Summary: When their sister, Jenny, is accidentally turned into a crane fly by Petty Potts' SWITCH spray, twins Josh and Danny must transform themselves, as well, and rescue her before she burns her legs off.

  ISBN: 978–0–7613–9203–3 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  [1. Flies—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Twins—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Collins, Ross, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.S73712Cr 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012026636

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/12

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-1125-8 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3113-3 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3112-6 (mobi)

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  Out on a Limb

  Fetch!

  The In Crowd

  This Sucks

  Nozzly Nightmare

  Seeing the Light

  Shady Secret

  Top Secret!

  Recommended Reading

  A horrific murder was about to take place in a dark alley. The victim fluttered helplessly in the shadow of a terrifying spiked weapon that pounded against the wall. It missed only by inches.

  The murderer was cold. Unfeeling. Able to kill with a single blow and then turn away without a moment’s remorse. The victim knew time was nearly up. One more attack and there would be nothing left but a mashed corpse.

  The spiked weapon swung forward.

  “Jenny! Stop it!” Josh leaped across his big sister’s bedroom floor. He grabbed her arm just before it swung the hairbrush down again.

  “Hey! Get off!” yelled Jenny, trying to shake her little brother off her arm. But now his twin, Danny, came running in too. With an excited whoop he threw himself at her other arm.

  “You’re a murderer!” shrieked Josh. “Killing innocent moths! How could you?”

  The poor moth in question flapped limply up the wall from behind Jenny’s bed and bumbled against the windowpane, trying to get away.

  “It’s just a moth, Josh! Not a cat or a dog or a person!” snapped Jenny. Her long blonde hair whipped about as she wrestled with her brothers.

  “Just because it’s small, doesn’t mean it doesn’t have feelings,” said Danny. He climbed onto his sister’s back and made her spin round furiously.

  “Danny! Get off!” Jenny whacked her elbows back. Danny fell onto her bed. Josh had let his sister go. He was now peering closely at the brown moth. Jenny shook her head at Danny. “You don’t even like creepy-crawlies. You go nuts if one lands on you!”

  “True,” shrugged Danny. “They can be creepy. But they are quite amazing too. I should know. I’ve been a spider, you know. And a bluebottle. And a grasshopper. Oh—and an ant. That was amazing!”

  “Yeah, right,” snorted Jenny. “Well, you always creep me out, anyway!”

  Danny laughed. He knew Jenny couldn’t possibly believe what he’d just said. Even though it was true. He and Josh had been all those creatures over the summer. Ever since they stumbled into the secret laboratory in their neighbor’s garden, they had discovered something incredible.

  Their neighbor, Petty Potts, might seem like a batty old lady, but it turned out she was a genius scientist. She had invented S.W.I.T.C.H., a spray that could turn you into a creepy-crawly. Only Danny and Josh knew her secret since the day when they had accidentally got sprayed and turned into spiders. They’d been afraid of her at first. But now they were helping her by searching for some special missing cubes. They’d got four already. If they found just two more, Petty would have the code to make a new S.W.I.T.C.H. spray, which could change you into a reptile. They could find out how it felt to be snake or a lizard or even an alligator!

  “You don’t have to kill him, you know,” Josh told Jenny, still examining the moth. “All you have to do is open the window.”

  “I’ve tried that,” huffed Jenny. “But it just keeps flying back in!”

  “You need to turn your light off,” explained Josh. He reached over and switched off Jenny’s bedside lamp. “Moths get confused and think it’s the moon. They keep flying toward it.” He eased open the window, blew gently on the moth, and smiled as it flew away into the night. “Off you go, hawky!” he called after it. “Go get your tea!” He closed the window and glanced back into the room. Danny was squirming on the bed with Jenny’s foot on his head. “It’s a hawk moth. They feed on nectar by moonlight. Isn’t that sweet? And they can smell their girlfriends from miles and miles away.”

  “Ugh,” commented Danny.

  “Yeah, thanks for the biology lesson, you freaky little bug geek,” said Jenny. She released Danny and switched her lamp back on. “Now get out of my room, both of you. I’ve got to get ready to go out.” And she flounced to her mirror and started to brush her hair with the deadly weapon. She rummaged through all the bottles and pots of hair and makeup stuff. “MOM!” she bellowed, ignoring them. “Where’s my hair spray?”

  Mom didn’t answer. She was singing along to the radio in the kitchen. The doorbell rang as Josh and Danny mooched out of Jenny’s room. They shrugged at each other. Jenny was such a teenager.

  Danny slid down the banister. He leaped off at the bottom step, landing with a thud by the front door and opening it a second later.

  Standing on the doorstep was Petty Potts. As soon as she saw Danny and Josh stepping up behind him, she darted her eyes left and right behind her thick glasses. She hissed, “Excellent! The very people I was hoping for!” Her tweedy old hat was pulled down low over her face. The collar of her old trench coat was turned up. She looked as if she was pretending to be a spy.

  “Shhhhhh!” said Petty, not coming into the house but leaning closer to them. “Now listen. This is very important. Very important.”

  “What is?” said Danny.

  “Hush! Shhhh!” Petty pulled her coat tight across her chest and frowned at Danny. “I need your help. But only you two must know!”

  Josh sighed. Sometimes he thought Petty didn’t even realize that she was a senior citizen and he and Danny were still in elementary school. She behaved as if they were all the same age. “What is it, Petty?” he asked, warily. Whenever they got involved with Petty Potts, they always seemed to end up uncomfor
tably close to being dead.

  Petty glanced around again. “I am going away to a conference in Berlin,” she said, in a low voice. “A very important conference.”

  “Are you going to show off your S.W.I.T.C.H. spray?” asked Danny.

  “No! No! Not yet.” Petty looked quite alarmed.

  “The world of science is not ready. I can’t reveal my secrets now! Not yet. But—if something were to happen to me… ” She peered at them, slowly nodding her head. “Oh yes—something could happen to me. Then my work might never ever be known! And that—that—would be a tragedy!”

  “Do you think someone’s after you then?” whispered Josh.

  Petty squinted at him. “What?”

  “You know,” said Josh. “I mean—you’ve said before that you think people are spying on you. But do you think they’re actually out to get you? Like in movies?”

  “Good grief, no,” said Petty, as if she thought Josh was simple-minded. “I just mean that I might get run over by a bus or something. And of course, that could happen at any time! Anyway, just in case it does, while I am away, I want you to keep this!” And she pulled a plastic spray bottle out of her coat, the kind with a squirty button on the top and a little plastic cap over the button.

  “We don’t want that!” gasped Danny, backing away.

  “Oh for heaven’s sake! It’s perfectly safe—all sealed tight,” said Petty. “Just pop it under your bed or something and keep it until I get back. Then if I don’t come back for any reason, you can take it to New Scientist magazine and reveal my genius to the world.”

  “Petty,” said Josh, “have you ever noticed that we’re not grown-ups? I mean … you do realize that we’re only eight, don’t you?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” said Petty, thrusting the bottle into Josh’s hands. She turned and walked back down the path. “See you next week, all being well! Take care, now. And keep searching for the cubes!”

  Josh and Danny closed the door and stared at the bottle. “Wonder which type of spray it is,” muttered Danny. “Maybe … bee or wasp. Or centipede… ”

  “We are not going to find out,” said Josh.

  Danny nodded. Their creepy-crawly adventures had been exciting. But they had both been nearly eaten far too many times now to want to take a chance with Petty’s latest spray.

  It was still hard to believe, but Petty Potts had created S.W.I.T.C.H. spray in the underground lab in her garden. She used a secret formula she had worked out during her years with the government in a top-secret science department. She might be there still if her so-called friend, the eyebrow-less Victor Crouch, had not tried to steal her work and then wipe out her memory.

  His plan was foiled, though, because Petty had suspected foul play. She had put a fake formula in her work desk and hidden the real secret S.W.I.T.C.H. formula inside six little glass cubes. Then she had re-created it at home when bits of her memory began to come back. It really worked. Josh and Danny ought to know. They’d been S.W.I.T.C.H.ed four times now.

  “Come on,” said Josh, heading up the stairs. “Let’s take this up to our room and find a place to hide it. She’s better off not having it, probably. She sprays way too much of this stuff around.”

  “We really should just try to stay away from her! Not answer the door next time,” said Danny.

  “I know,” said Josh. “But … if we ever did find all her other lost secret formula cubes … well … ” He bit his lip, but his eyes shone. Petty had made a second secret formula. It was to create a spray that could switch them into reptiles. She put it into another six cubes. Only she’d lost them. So far they’d only found four. Without the last two, it could never work.

  “Imagine,” continued Josh. “I could be a snake!”

  “I could be an alligator!” said Danny.

  “If we ever find the last two REPTOSWITCH cubes … ” sighed Josh. Petty had begged them both to search for her. But who knew where the missing cubes could be? The first four they’d found around the yards and houses in their neighborhood. But they might never find the last two. Petty had hidden them too well. That bit of her memory—about where they were—had not come back.

  “I could be a giant tree lizard … ” went on Danny.

  Suddenly something swung down from the top of the banister. “Hey! You little monsters! I knew you’d been messing with my stuff! Gimme my hair spray now!” And Jenny swiped the bottle out of Josh’s hands before he could even squeak.

  “HEY NO! NO! JENNY, THAT’S NOT YOURS!” shouted Josh. In reply, Jenny just slammed her bedroom door. Josh and Danny stood on the stairs and stared at each other in horror. Then they hurtled up to the landing and across to Jenny’s room.

  “JENNY! DON’T USE THAT! DON’T SPRAY IT!” they shrieked, in utter panic, crashing her door wide open.

  “OUT of my room!” shouted Jenny. She had taken the plastic cap off the spray bottle. She was holding it up to her swept-back hair.

  “Jenny! Please!” begged Josh, feeling his head reel with panic. “DO NOT USE THAT SPRAY! It’s not what you think it is!”

  “Oh ha-ha!” said Jenny. “Very funny.” And she sprayed a huge cloud of S.W.I.T.C.H. spray all over her head.

  “What are you staring at?” demanded Jenny, slamming the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray onto her dressing table as the pale yellow mist settled on her hair and shoulders. “Get out of my r—”

  And then she disappeared.

  Danny and Josh stood very still. They didn’t dare move. Jenny could be anything. And she could be anywhere! If she was a fly or an ant, she could be right where they might tread if they moved.

  “Can you see anything?” whispered Danny, his eyes round and shocked.

  “No!” whispered back Josh, desperately scanning the room. He listened for buzzing or chirping. All he could hear was Piddle the dog barking in the yard and the far-off drone of the vacuum cleaner. Mom was vacuuming the dining room.

  “There!” hissed Danny and pointed to the flowery duvet on Jenny’s bed. Something was dancing along the yellow flowers. Something that looked confused and panicky. Of course, this thing always looked confused and panicky to Danny. It was a crane fly.

  “A crane fly,” murmured Josh. “Quick—Danny—shut the door!”

  Danny got the door shut in two seconds. He bounded back to the bed to stand next to Josh and stare in wonder at their six-legged sister.

  “Wow,” said Danny.

  “Yup,” agreed Josh. “Never expected this to happen.”

  The crane fly fluttered along the flowery duvet like a nervous and not very talented dancer. It jiggled to the left and shimmied to the right and then clung to one of the cottony peaks in a shivery way.

  “She must be freaking out!” marveled Danny. “What should we do?”

  “Well,” Josh put his head to one side and considered. “She’s quite safe in here. There are no predators, probably.” He looked at the quivering insect and sighed. “I suppose one of us ought to spray ourselves and go and look after her. That would be the nice thing to do.”

  Danny raised an eyebrow. “And since when has Jenny ever been nice to us?” he asked.

  Josh shrugged. “She is our sister.”

  “Right then—off you go!” Danny handed the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray to Josh.

  “Well—can’t we toss a coin or something?” said Josh.

  “You’re the one who wants to be nice!” said Danny.

  Josh sighed, took the bottle and sprayed a short blast on his hand. Any part of the body seemed to do. “Just make sure you stay here and don’t let Piddle in. Until we’re human agai—” he said, before he too vanished.

  “AARRGGH!” commented Jenny, as soon as she laid eyes on the creature frolicking toward her. Unaware that it was her little brother trying to manage more knees than could ever be right.

  “I know what you mean,” said Josh. “But you don’t look so great, either, Jen!”

  His sister’s face was long, horselike, and light brown. She had
two thin finger-type things poking out where her mouth should be. Two short feelers stuck up from between a pair of eyes that were large, round, bulbous, and a shimmering green-black color. Josh was still adjusting to his own eyes. They gave him a view as if he were looking through hundreds of tiny lenses all joined together. He’d had vision like this as an insect before. It didn’t take him long to get used to the strange effect. Or to the fact that he could see almost behind him with these amazing eyes.

  “Josh? Josh?” shrieked Jenny. She whirled around in a circle, her long, elegant brown legs staggering over the thick tufts of cotton that tangled across her duvet. Up this close, the cotton weave looked like thick woven mesh. The kind of thing you might see in a metal cable factory. “Josh?” shrieked Jenny again. “Where are you? Help me! There’s a monster coming for me.”

  Josh sighed. “Jen-eee! I’m he-ere!” he called.

  Jenny whirled her long, skinny brown body back around to face him. She screamed loudly and then fell into a crumpled heap.

  “Oh do stop that!” said Josh. “Yes—I’m a crane fly! So are you! Get over it!”

  “How—how—how can I be?” whimpered Jenny.

  “It’s a long story,” said Josh. “But don’t worry—it won’t last. It’s just for a short while. You’ll go back to being normal at any time.”

  “My room’s g-gone all b-big,” gibbered poor Jenny. “I don’t know what’s going on …”

  Josh frowned. Actually, he couldn’t be sure how long Jenny’s S.W.I.T.C.H.ed state would last. He and Danny had only ever had quite short, quick sprays. The effects had lasted about half an hour. The one time they had drunk S.W.I.T.C.H., in a special potion form, it had lasted probably ten minutes longer.

  But Jenny had really sprayed a gallon of the stuff at her hair. Maybe she’d be a crane fly for hours.

  “I—I’ve got six legs!” she was murmuring now. She turned around in slow circles to get a better look at her strange new body. “And wings. I can fly—sort of. Look!” And she whisked her wings into a thrumming motion. She rose up a little way above the duvet like a spindly helicopter. She wasn’t very graceful. Her legs dangled about like long socks on a washing line. After a few seconds, she flopped back down on the bed. She twitched the strange brown fingery things at her mouth area and stared at Josh. “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” she said.