by Jack Patton
“No!” the ant said. “This is storm damage!”
Max and Spike exchanged looks. “Phew. Thought they’d attacked early,” the scorpion said.
Barton appeared on the battlements, with Buzz hovering alongside. “Max! Good to see you’re safe. I was about to send a search party.” Buzz zoomed down to give Max a lift to the top of the encircling wall.
Max quickly told Barton and Buzz all about the hidden mountain pass and the sneaky chameleon spies. “The lizards are planning an attack tomorrow at noon,” he finished.
Barton summoned a fire ant officer. “I want all bugs working double time to rebuild the fortress,” he ordered. “Max, I want you to join me, Buzz, Spike, and Webster in the war room.”
Barton’s “war room” turned out to be the inside of a hollow log. Some helpful wasps had built a model of Bug Island out of chewed paper pulp. Barton pointed to it with his antennae as he spoke.
“Buzz, take your hornet squadron for a flyby of the mountain pass. I want regular air patrols, understood?”
“Roger that, sir.”
Max, Barton, Spike, and Webster discussed battle plans. Barton was obviously counting on Max to come up with a brilliant idea, but he just couldn’t think of one. Spike suggested loading the hornets up with bombardier beetles and dropping them on the lizards like bombs, but Barton refused: “They are soldiers, Spike, not ammunition!”
“We could always send the termites in,” Spike joked.
“What good would they be?”
“Once the lizards have eaten ’em all, they’ll be too fat to move.”
“That will do, Spike,” said Barton darkly. “We all do our part, even the termites.”
“Sorry, sir,” mumbled Spike.
As for Webster, he barely spoke at all, and his only suggestion was: “We could all hide under a big rock,” to which Barton didn’t even bother responding.
Max felt sorry for Webster. After all, without his help they never would have known the chameleon spies were there. Maybe there was some other way they could use webbing …
“The golden orb weavers!” Max yelled. “Of course! They can weave sticky webs between the two sides of the mountain pass.” He remembered seeing the golden orb weaver do that when he was camping. “That’ll slow the lizards down.”
“Excellent,” Barton said. “Spike, let’s assemble the golden orb weavers and put Max’s plan into action.”
Max hung back while the others prepared to leave camp. He looked around for Webster, who had retreated into the depths of the log. “Webster, I have another idea—only to be used in case of emergency.”
“What is it, M-Max?” Webster asked.
“Webs are amazing, but some spiders are good at digging, too. Can you and your trapdoor spider friends make some burrows in the middle of the camp?”
“I think so,” whispered Webster. “How many?”
“As many as you can. Dozens would be good. Hundreds would be better.”
“What for?” asked Barton.
“Emergency defense,” said Max. “Which I’m hoping we won’t need.”
Max spent the night curled up in an empty egg casing, which was soft, rubbery, and comfortable. In the morning, Barton prodded him awake. “It’s invasion day. Time to head out to the front line and meet with Spike.”
Soon they were climbing up into the crevice at the bugs’ end of the mountain pass. They headed up a pile of recently fallen debris. It reached high enough to give a good view of the mountain pass, but wasn’t too sheer for Max to climb. He felt dizzy with excitement. The lizards were coming … but the bugs were ready for them.
The golden orb weavers had been hard at work all night. Hundreds of webs, as golden as honey and twice as sticky, now blocked the pass. They looked like nets stretched tight between the two cliff faces. As a second line of defense, Barton had stationed the bug battalions behind them. Fire ants and stag beetles waited to unleash the might of the Battle Bugs on any lizard that blundered into the webbing.
“Is it noon yet?” Spike asked impatiently, twitching his stinger.
Max looked up at the sun, which was high in the sky. “Almost.”
“Do you think they’re still coming?”
“They will come,” said Barton gravely.
Just then, Max heard the familiar sound of Buzz’s wings beating frantically. The hornet came in for a fast landing, slamming down on the gravelly ground next to them. “The lizards are on their way through the mountain!” she gasped. “I just saw them heading out. There are dozens of them.”
“Brace yourselves!” Barton roared to the troops.
Just then, Max heard a scurrying, hammering sound like many different drums pounding at once. He knew immediately it was the oncoming lizard army. Their footfalls echoed through the mountain pass.
The invading group rounded the corner, and Max got his first good look at them. The front rank was made up of burly lizards with rows of spines down their backs. Mountain lizards, Max thought. Close behind them came large-headed lizards with striking, collar-like bands of color around their necks. The horned mountain lizards stampeded up the pass. They saw the webs but charged forward anyway.
As the lizards barged into the webs, sticky strands tangled around their eyes and mouths. They pressed forward, trying to break through. Some of the webs tore under the weight of all the lizard bodies pressing against them, but the main barrier held.
More lizards charged into the backs of the stuck ones, like a pileup on the highway. The farther the ones at the front were shoved into the web, the more hopelessly entangled they became. Their heads and feet were masses of webbing.
It’s working! Max thought excitedly. They can’t see and they can barely move.
“Buzz!” boomed Barton. “Launch the hornet squadrons. Those lizards are packed tight down there, and they’re stuck fast. Should be easy targets.”
“Yes, sir!” Buzz said.
The hornets zoomed in, raining down stings on the helpless lizards. “Stay away from the webbing!” Max yelled. If the bold hornets were caught in their own side’s defenses, they’d be sitting ducks.
Chaos and confusion swept through the lizard ranks. They had been a proud army, on their way to ambush a helpless foe. Now, suddenly, they were blinded, attacked from all sides, and struggling to move. The golden orb weavers kept on spinning, adding more and more webs to the barricade.
Max grinned, but the grin suddenly faded as he saw a fearsome, bulging-eyed lizard hacking and slashing its way through the golden webs. The creature’s body was covered with thorny spikes, just like the sharp prickles on a rose bush. Like a nightmarish living cactus, it clambered over the unmoving, tangled lizards and made straight for the main webbing barricade.
“Max, do you recognize that creature?” Barton asked.
“It’s a thorny devil lizard,” Max told him. “It’s using its spikes to rip the webs away. The orb weavers are in danger—we have to warn them!”
Before Barton could stop him, Max took off running down the pile of rubble. He scrambled to the base of the ravine and headed right for the front line.
The thorny devil lizard was slowly plowing through the webs like a lawnmower through thick grass. The other lizards advanced behind it, letting it clear the path for them. Their eyes gleamed with hunger. Some of them even snapped at Buzz’s hornets as they swept in to attack.
The orb weavers were between Max and the advancing lizards, still spinning their webs!
Max ran closer, wading into the web-strewn mess that the spiders had made of the ravine floor. “Retreat!” he shouted up to them.
“But we’re needed!” shrilled an orb weaver.
“The webs can’t stop them now. You need to let the stag beetles take over!”
The lizards were almost through. The orb weavers hurriedly skittered away, looking glad to fall back and leave the fighting to sturdier bugs.
Now Max just had to get himself out of the way. If he stuck around, he could get eaten or e
ven caught in a cloud of boiling beetle acid. He turned to run but his feet wouldn’t move. His legs were caught in a tangle of sticky golden ropes. He’d waded farther into the orb weavers’ webs than he’d thought, and now he was trapped.
Max grabbed his right leg with both hands and heaved. The webs made a sucking, stretching noise, but stayed stuck fast to his feet. It felt like he was standing in a massive wad of chewing gum.
From up ahead came the thoom, thoom, thoom of heavy lizard footsteps. The thorny devil lizard was tearing its way through the last few webs. It peered down through the webbed barrier at the struggling Max and smiled slowly.
“A little soft bug with no shell,” it said. “Nice little morsel for me. Then I can tuck into the main course of Battle Bugs!”
The lizard was so close now, Max could smell its meaty breath. One web after another was torn away, and he still couldn’t move.
The thorny devil ripped down the last golden web. “GOT YOU!”
Just as it opened its jaws and lunged, there was a whirr of wings from overhead. It was Barton, flying in with Spike in his grasp. Barton dropped the emperor scorpion right in front of the lizard.
Max gasped in surprise. It looked like Barton’s wing had finally healed—and just in time!
“Pick on someone your own size!” Spike roared, and jammed his stinger into the lizard’s open mouth. As it howled in pain, Spike quickly scissored through the webs with his pincers, setting Max free.
“Am I glad to see you, big guy,” Max gasped. He climbed on top of Spike and they dashed back along the pass, swerving out of the way of the oncoming force of stag beetles, with Barton following overhead.
As they scrambled down the ravine, they heard a roar from behind them.
Max looked over his shoulder. What he saw made his blood turn as cold as any reptile’s. Over the heads of the oncoming lizard army loomed the fierce and terrifying figure of General Komodo.
Facing Komodo was the closest Max would ever get to looking a live dinosaur in the eye. A gigantic monitor lizard, Komodo towered over the other reptiles, glaring down at the bugs. He hissed, making some of the smaller beetles quiver in fear. A forked, snakelike tongue appeared, flickering out and back.
“Was this seriously your plan, Barton?” Komodo roared. “A few pathetic scraps of web were supposed to stop my army? It took only one lizard to tear them down!”
Yeah, but we took out dozens of lizards first, Max thought. Those lizards were still tangled in webbing, struggling feebly.
“This island will be mine before sunset,” Komodo gloated. “It will be Bug Island no more. I will rename it Komodo’s Palace! Your pathetic bug warriors will provide our victory feast.”
Barton swaggered through his troops toward Komodo, showing them he wasn’t afraid.
“Are you sure you’re a lizard?” he called. “Because you’re puffing yourself up like a toad. I’ll have to let some of that hot air out of you!”
The beetles laughed, and Komodo snarled.
“My spies have found out all about your fortress. I will tear it down myself.”
“You’ll have to get past me first,” Barton said. He slowly opened his huge pincers and snapped them together with a sharp crack.
Komodo flinched—and everybody saw it. A murmur ran through the ranks on both sides.
Barton beckoned Max to sit on his back. Together they headed to the very front of the battle line, where the stag beetles stood braced to charge, facing off against a row of mountain lizards.
“Battle Bugs! Attack!” shouted Barton.
The brave beetles charged. The army swept down the valley like a scuttling black river. It crashed into the advancing lizards.
The lizards snapped their jaws and fought, but the bugs’ sheer numbers overwhelmed them. The stag beetles used their strong pincers to nip at the lizards’ legs, pulling them off balance. Barton yelled orders, telling the next wave of stag beetles where to strike.
The valley rang with the sounds of furious battle: beetles buzzed, lizards hissed, and the two commanders yelled orders and encouragement. Komodo bellowed at his troops to stop letting the bugs walk all over them: “Just eat them, you fools!”
Barton yelled to the stag beetles to hold the line: “Onward, Battle Bugs! Pull them down!”
No matter what the lizards did, the bugs kept coming. The lizards’ problem was that they were just too close to the ground, shuffling forward on all fours. It was easy for the living carpet of stag beetles to rush over them. While one beetle pinched a lizard’s mouth shut so that it couldn’t bite, others would pull its legs out from under it. Soon the lizard would be struggling on its back, unable to move. That made it an easy target for Spike’s sting. The orb weavers waited patiently, twiddling their legs, preparing to wrap up lizard prisoners in strong spider silk.
“Over there!” Max pointed. “That little beetle’s in trouble!”
Barton raced over to where a lizard was whipping its head to the left and right. A small stag beetle, anxious to prove how brave he was, had taken on the lizard by himself. Now he was hanging on to the lizard’s lower jaw for dear life.
“I’m fi-i-ine, sir!” squeaked the beetle. “I can handle him!”
Barton grabbed the beetle in his pincers, pulled him away, and dropped him safely to one side. The lizard lunged at the fallen beetle, trying to swallow him, but Barton swung his colossal pincers and knocked the lizard sprawling.
Max directed Barton to the other side of the valley, where a group of mountain lizards were breaking through the battle line. With Barton lending his strength, the stag beetles soon forced them back.
“We’re beating them,” Max said with a grin. This is going a lot better than I expected, he thought to himself.
“Yes, but they’re too stupid to know when they’re beaten,” Barton said. “We need to break their will to fight. But how?”
Max thought about it. “Unleash the fire ants! Their stings hurt like anything. They’ll get the lizards to turn tail and run.”
Barton lifted his head and buzzed so loudly, Max had to cover his ears.
The fire ant legions poured into the valley. They were a terrifying sight, their copper-red bodies gleaming in the sun, their mandibles gaping and ready to bite, their stingers packed full of venom. One fire ant on its own was nothing to be scared of, but hundreds and hundreds of them together with their red-hot stings were enough to make any lizard think twice.
The ants rushed between the much larger stag beetles, plowing into the lizards and stinging wherever they could. Lizards reared up, moaning in pain, with red sting marks on their noses and bellies. A few of them, stung from head to tail, had had enough and turned to flee.
“Go on,” yelled Max. “Run! Back to your own island!” The fire ants cheered.
“Foolish bugs,” roared General Komodo. “You think we would give up that easily?” He lumbered forward. “Collared lizards! Execute battle plan RAPTOR.”
All at once, the collared lizards rose up and stood on their hind legs. Max remembered hearing they could do that, but he’d never seen it happen in real life.
The effect was stunning. Now that the lizards loomed above the bugs, the beetles couldn’t swarm over them. The fire ants couldn’t sting their faces and bellies. The lizards were free to stride forward through the beetles, snapping and chomping wherever they liked.
In seconds, the Battle Bug victory turned into a disaster. Max saw fire ant soldiers snatched up by collared lizard jaws. Powerful legs kicked stag beetles onto their backs, where they lay helpless, unable to turn right-side up again.
Komodo laughed, an ugly sound. More and more collared lizards came sprinting from behind—running on their hind legs, they were fast.
The front rank of bugs turned and ran. That was the worst thing that could have happened. The collared lizards swept down upon them. The fleeing bugs barged into their own rear guard, causing panic and total confusion.
“We’re losing!” Spike shouted in despair. �
�Commander, what do we do?”
Barton turned to Max. “We need a new plan!”
Max shook his head. “It’s no use. We have to retreat.”
“FALL BACK!” The cry went up from bug to bug, across the army.
The Battle Bugs ran as fast as they could. The narrow ravine was a choked mass of bugs, with insects scrambling over one another in their haste to get out.
The collared lizards chased after them, laughing cruelly. “Don’t bother running,” one of them hissed. “You’ll only die tired!”
Max jolted around on Barton’s back. The collared lizards were only a few paces behind. He fought to keep his nerve at the terrifying sight. All around him, bugs were being knocked out of action. A few even got caught in the orb weaver webs, which had seemed like such a good idea before.
“Where do we retreat to?” called Spike as he banked up the side of the ravine.
“Back to camp!” Max yelled.
“No!” Barton told him in horror. “We can’t lead the lizards there. They’ll destroy it, and then the whole island will be theirs.”
“We have no choice. It’s an emergency.” And if Webster has done what I asked him, Max thought, leading them back to camp might be our only hope.
“I’m putting my trust in you, Max. I hope you don’t let me down.”
They reached the end of the ravine. The bugs poured out like a living waterfall. Now that they were no longer trapped between the cliff walls, they could spread out and run freely. The lucky ones who could fly opened their wing cases and took to the air. The poor fire ants, who had been a proud fighting force that morning, had to run for their lives through the foliage of the forest floor.
“When you reach camp, take to the trees or to your burrows!” Barton shouted.
“Whatever you do, stay away from the lizards,” added Max. “Leave the fortress to us.”
Only minutes later, Max and Barton rode through a tiny gap in the camp wall. The termites had done a wonderful job of rebuilding it. The walls looked strong, the towers sturdy. Max just hoped Webster and his trapdoor spider friends had dug the burrows.