by Jack Patton
The spiders began to scramble up the Gila monster’s body. At first it clawed them off, grunting in annoyance.
“What are you going to do, tickle me to death?” it grumbled.
But soon there were more spiders than it could deal with. Like a living carpet, they covered the startled reptile, completely enclosing it from snout to tail.
“Deploy webs!” Jet commanded.
The Gila monster struggled as the massive spider army began to wrap him in webbing. Its strength was useless against so many. No sooner had it broken one webbing line than a dozen replaced it.
The spiders worked quickly and silently. Before long, Max couldn’t make out the black-and-orange pattern on the lizard’s body anymore. He looked on with horrified fascination as they turned it into a living reptile mummy.
Eventually there was only a silvery cocoon with the Gila monster’s head sticking out the top. The spiders hoisted it up in the air from a branch. Max remembered reading that spider silk could hold five times more weight for its size than steel.
“Permission to interrogate the prisoner, sir,” Jet asked Barton.
“Granted,” Barton replied.
Jet clambered up the Gila monster’s swaddled body.
“I want answers!” she demanded. “What’s going on in the lizard ranks?”
The lizard laughed. “It’s all over for you bugs. Komodo’s ordered an all-out assault on Bug Island.”
“Why now?”
“To clear the way for us to move here, of course! You still don’t understand, do you? The elder turtles have told us the Great Reptilicus is about to erupt tomorrow. We’re evacuating Reptile Island for good.”
Murmurs swept through the bug ranks.
“This army you’re sending,” Jet demanded, “how big is it?”
The Gila monster laughed even harder this time. “It’s not just the lizard army that’s coming, it’s every reptile on Reptile Island!”
Still laughing, the reptile forced a final feat of strength. The webbing prison bulged and strained, then one of its claws broke free. “And there’s nothing you can do about it!” He hissed in delight.
Jet yelled for the spider squadron, but the Gila monster was already pulling itself out of the torn webbing sack. It fell with a whump, shook itself groggily, and dashed off into the undergrowth.
“Buzz!” Max shouted. “Follow that lizard!”
“Roger that, Max,” Buzz said, dashing off in pursuit.
An eerie silence hung over the shattered bug camp. Some of the fortress was still standing, but the Gila monster had done a lot of damage.
“Why didn’t we see this coming?” Barton said.
“We were supposed to have an early warning system,” Jet hissed. “Looks like your trip wires didn’t work, human!”
“I’m sorry,” Max said, confused. “They’ve always worked perfectly before.”
He racked his brains to think of what might have gone wrong. How could something the size of a Gila monster have come so close without triggering a single one of his trip wires?
Jet glared at him, her eyes full of suspicion, and he could guess why. The lethal black widow must have thought he was a fool . . . or worse, a traitor.
Barton climbed to the top of a ruined termite tower. “One thing’s for sure, my fellow bugs,” he said darkly. “We’ve faced challenges before, but not like this. If every single reptile on Reptile Island is headed here, then this will be the biggest battle we’ve ever faced. The fate of Bug Island is hanging in the balance!”
Max looked at the worried bugs all around him. It was up to him to use his big human brain and help them out.
“Okay, guys, listen up!” he yelled, a plan already whirring through his mind. “The volcano is erupting tomorrow, so we’ve only got tonight to prepare our defenses. When they invade, the lizards are going to come across the lava bridge, right?”
“They have to,” Barton said. “There’s still no other way they could bring so many of their number to our shores.”
“So we need to fortify the beaches,” Max said. “C’mon. I’m gonna need termites, wasps, hornets, and all the bugs you can spare. We’re building a wall!”
The bugs trooped through the jungle and headed down to the sandy beach. Buzz flew back to rejoin the group. “I lost sight of the Gila monster in the undergrowth,” she told Max. “He seems to have injured his leg in the fall from the tree. He won’t be back anytime soon.”
“Join us on the beach,” Max said. “I know you’re our best flyer, but I need your squadron’s nest-building skills for once.”
“Nest-building?” Buzz repeated to herself, confused.
Max climbed to the top of a dune and looked out over the sea. The lava bridge to Reptile Island lay before him. The volcano was still belching black smoke.
The bug camp might have been in ruins, but at least the watchtower was still standing, up on the cliff above the beach. The termites had built it from mud, dung, and leaves so that they could watch the lava bridge for approaching lizards. They’d need it more than ever in the hours to come.
“We’re going to build a wall across this beach as a first line of defense. You bugs are going to need to work together like never before,” Max told them. “Here’s the plan . . .”
With Scuttler acting as foreman, Max organized the bugs. They had a big wall to build, and precious little time to do it.
First, they needed building materials. The termites couldn’t work with dry sand, so they needed a constant supply of mud and vegetation. That was where the ants came in. Since the ants were hard workers who could shift surprisingly huge loads, they were ideal supply bugs—and just as quick as the ones in Max’s science fair project.
The ants formed themselves into a living chain, ferrying materials across from the jungle to the construction site. Within minutes of Max giving the order, little heaps of earth and debris were already starting to form along the beach.
“Great work!” chirped the termite leader.
Max clapped his hands briskly. “Now we need some wood for the wasps and hornets to chew up. Dobs?”
“HERE!” Dobs, the giant dobsonfly, boomed.
“I need you and the other dobsonflies to go get plenty of twigs and bark, so the nest builders don’t have to keep flying back to the jungle.”
“WE’RE ON IT!”
“Cool. Okay, termites: I need pillars here, here, and here. Hornets: Once the wood gets here, you fill up the space between with nest material.”
After he’d given all the orders, Max sat down exhaustedly to watch his plans unfold. He’d done all he could. Now it was up to the bugs.
The bugs worked like crazy, fetching, carrying, chewing, and pasting. Termites squished together lumps of dirt, mixing it with gluey saliva to make stuff like clay to build with. Ants and dobsonflies kept the supplies coming. Buzz and her team of hornets chewed wood into pulp, building papery nests between the sturdy termite mounds. Alongside her, wasps did the same.
Spike came trotting across to him, along with Webster and Barton. “Max, Webster has an idea.”
Max sprang to his feet. “I’m listening. Right now I’ll take all the suggestions you’ve got.”
“W-we need a second line of defense,” Webster whispered. “I thought maybe something a bit like, well, um, like what I do . . .”
“Spit it out, Webster!” Spike gave his spider friend a helpful pat on the back that nearly flattened him.
“An underground trap!” Webster gasped.
Patiently, Max listened as Webster explained his idea. He thought a group of bugs should wait underground, beyond the wall. Webster himself liked to lurk underground in his burrow, so he knew it was an effective tactic.
“That way, any lizard who makes it over the ramparts will run straight into our trap!” he finished.
“That’s a great idea!” Max said. “Which bugs should we have wait in the underground burrows?”
Max spoke to Scuttler, and between them they decide
d that bullet ants would be a good choice for the underground trap. They were fierce warriors with powerful, painful stings—which was where the name came from. Being stung by one was like being shot!
Suddenly it began to feel like the plan was coming together. This might actually work, Max thought with a grin.
Hours later, Max found Jet inspecting the fortifications. The black widow was watching the bullet ants that were burying themselves in the ground, digging down next to the half-built wall.
“I don’t like it,” she snapped.
“You don’t like anything,” grumbled Spike.
Max rolled his eyes at the grumpy black widow. “What are you worried about?”
“If any of the lizards get through, we’ll be completely exposed. I’m not sure this is how we should be spending our pre-battle time.”
Max looked down to where Scuttler and the others were hard at work. The wall was taking shape. Termite mounds were rising up like fence posts and the wasps and hornets were busily filling the space between them with nest-like papery stuff. Scuttler waved his antennae in greeting and Max waved back.
“The head of defense seems happy,” he told Jet.
Jet glowered at him.
Spike tapped Max on the shoulder. “Wow, my legs are stiff. I could use a walk. Want to come with me?”
Max followed Spike up the beach, away from Jet. “I don’t really have stiff legs,” Spike whispered. “I just wanted a quick word.”
“I thought so.” Max smiled. “What’s on your mind?”
“Something’s just not right.” Spike settled himself down into the sand.
“What do you mean?” Max asked.
“I’m not exactly sure. But somehow the lizards are smarter than ever. They seem to know what we’re up to even before we do!”
Max rubbed his chin, thinking. He glanced over his shoulder at the construction site, and at the hunched figure of Jet, who was silently watching the bugs work.
“I don’t know about you, Spike, but I think we might have a bad bug in our ranks.”
Spike flexed his stinger and nodded.
Time was running out. As the crimson sun set over the beach, Max stood and looked up and down the length of the newly built defenses. Mantis sentries stood in place at the towers, and bombardier beetles trooped up and down the connecting walls.
Although he couldn’t see them, Max knew the secret ambush force of bullet ants was waiting under the sand just beyond the wall. If an enemy lizard somehow made it over—or through—the defenses, the bullet ants would rush up and overwhelm them.
“Fantastic work, everybug,” he called out. “Now get some rest—we have a lot of work ahead.”
Max went to join Barton and the other commanders in the sentry towers. Inside were little tunnels that led up to a platform in the middle. Max scrambled up and onto a ledge. It gave him and the bugs a spectacular view of the beach and the lava bridge.
“I’m impressed,” Scuttler said. “These defenses ought to stop any reptile invaders in their tracks the moment they step onto Bug Island.”
“Don’t count your grubs before they’re hatched,” Jet warned.
“Aw, come on, give Max some credit!” Spike snapped. “This wall is so big and strong that even Komodo himself couldn’t break through.”
Jet was silent. Max turned to look out at Reptile Island, wondering when the first of the lizards would come.
Then he leaped to his feet. Something was creeping across the lava bridge right now. It was a lizard—and a big one!
“Incoming!” he yelled, pointing.
“Looks like we’ll be putting Max’s defenses to the test right now,” Jet said.
“Everyone to their battle stations!” Barton roared.
The bugs sprang into action, readying their stingers and claws. Bombardier beetles primed their explosive blasts and aimed at the oncoming lizard. Now the lizards will see how good our defenses really are, thought Max. This guy doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into . . .
“Is it Komodo?” Spike squinted through the gathering darkness, trying to see.
“No,” said Glower, the firefly intelligence specialist. “It’s a desert monitor lizard. Probably Komodo’s second-in-command, Lothar.”
“He’s on his own. Is he here to discuss terms? A treaty?” Buzz wondered.
“I doubt it,” Barton said. “Lothar is as tough as they come.”
Max patted the hard, compact mud of the wall. “I don’t care how tough he is. He’ll never get over the ramparts,” he told the bugs confidently.
Steadily, Lothar approached. He was a sleek lizard with a long tail, almost as large as Komodo. He slithered from the lava bridge onto the sand of the beach, glanced up at the wall, and grinned.
“Well, look what we have here. You went and built yourselves a wall, right across the beach.” His long tongue flicked out, mockingly. “Wouldn’t it be a shame if something happened to it?”
Max was about to yell at Lothar that he was only one lizard, and he didn’t have a hope of getting over the wall. But then he saw how worried Barton looked. He wondered if he’d overlooked something.
In the next second, Lothar threw himself into a frenzy of digging. His powerful claws flung up huge amounts of sand. His entire body vanished under the beach. All anyone could see of him was a sandy hump showing where he was burrowing . . . and that he was heading straight for the wall.
Max’s mouth fell open. Of course. Desert monitor lizards were burrowers.
Panicked buzzing and clicking sounds came from the bugs guarding the wall section to his left. It was quivering, and the sand below it was shaking.
“He’s breaking up the wall!” Max said in horror.
Sure enough, the wall suddenly sagged in the middle and giant chunks of papery material broke away. Beetles tumbled from their guard posts and landed on their backs, wiggling their legs helplessly in the air. Once the wall was half collapsed, the sand around the next section began to shift, too.
“They’ve sent the perfect reptile to sabotage our defenses!” Max raged. “They knew exactly what to do to get the better of us!”
“We’ve still got the bullet ants,” Webster whispered.
“Are you sure about that?” Jet snarled.
On the near side of the wall, the bullet ants came scuttling out of the ground, fleeing in a mad panic. They hadn’t expected to be attacked from below.
Lothar’s head burst from the sand. His jaws were wide open and he was laughing. He turned and looked right at Max.
“That wall of yours didn’t last long,” the lizard mocked. “Hope you didn’t waste too much time building it.”
“Battle Bugs, attack!” Barton yelled. “Take him down!”
“I don’t think so,” Lothar gloated. He twisted around so he could vanish back into the tunnel he’d dug under the sand. “Good luck when the rest of my forces arrive! You’ll need it, without your precious defenses!”
Laughing, the lizard dived back into his tunnel.
“There he goes!” Barton and the other bugs tried to follow him, eager for a fight, as he disappeared back under the sand and toward the lava bridge.
Max was about to go after them, too, but a lean black spider leg held him back.
“You need to follow me,” Jet said.
“What?” Max asked, eager to join the fight.
“Lothar won’t go straight back to the lava bridge. He’s too cunning. I think I know where we can ambush him.”
Max hesitated for a moment. “Okay. Let me just tell Spike first.”
“No time for that,” Jet urged. “We have to move, now!”
Max looked on as the other bugs quickly burrowed under the sand in hot pursuit of the lizard. Maybe she’s right, he thought. Maybe we can head him off.
“Okay, let’s do it,” he said. “Where to?”
“This way,” Jet said. “Follow me.”
The black widow led Max away from the bug fortifications and up toward the jungle
on the edge of the beach. They ran swiftly up the sand dunes and over the ridge, until lush green foliage and brightly colored flowers dwarfed Max all around.
“How much farther?” Max complained after they’d trudged through the jungle for what felt like ages. The light was beginning to dim in the sky, and already the beach was well out of sight.
“Only a little ways now,” Jet assured him. “We’re almost there.”
“You said that five minutes ago! And there’s been no sign of Lothar.” Suddenly, a sinister thought crossed Max’s mind. “We’re not going after the lizard at all, are we?”
“No, we are not.” Jet spun around to face him. Her eyes glittered in the gathering darkness. She had a hungry look on her face.
“What’s going on?” Max demanded. His heart was thumping with fear. Jet had lured him well away from any bugs that could help him now.
“You know very well, traitor!” Jet hissed.
Max’s blood ran cold. How could she think such a thing? “I’m not a traitor!”
“Don’t bother denying it!” Before Max could try and reason with her, Jet had rushed forward, knocking him to the ground. She rested one hairy spider leg on his chest and bared her fangs.
“Everything you’ve done to defend us has failed,” she said. “The lizards avoided your trip wires and they knew just how to destroy our wall. There is a lizard spy in our midst and I know that it’s you, human. You’re not one of us!”
“That’s not true!” Max protested. “I’m on the Battle Bugs’ side. Ask Barton!”
Jet’s eyes glittered. “For you, the bug war is over.”
Max groggily opened his eyes. He tried to move his arms and legs, but they were held fast. He peered down and saw he was wrapped in a tight cocoon of sticky spider webbing. His cocoon swayed back and forth, suspended from a high branch in a tree. Suddenly he felt dizzy.
As the sun steadily rose across the bay, dark thoughts began to race through Max’s mind. It’s not my fault that the lizards knew all about the defenses! he thought sourly. But Jet was right about one thing: The Battle Bugs have a traitor.