Mutant Mantis Lunch Ladies

by Bruce Hale

  He paused with his hand on the pull bar of the fridge. “Sure. Why?”

  “I keep getting this ‘spiders up the back’ feeling.”

  Benny smirked. “Try changing your shirt every week or so.”

  “Oh, ha ha,” I said. “Your wit’s so bright, who needs a flashlight?”

  “And speaking of light…” Benny opened the fridge and its bulb shone forth, casting even darker shadows into the corners of the room.

  “Kind of big for a flashlight, but it works,” I said.

  Benny poked his head into the fridge and began rummaging around.

  “Seriously?” I said.

  “Hey, you never know. Might be some pudding in need of rescue.”

  I wagged my head. “The sacrifices you make for your school…”

  “Inspiring, isn’t it?” said Benny.

  As he searched for a snack, I headed into the shadowy corner to investigate a mysterious door—the pantry, maybe?—that I could just make out. Beside it, some brooms and what might have been a rolled-up rug leaned against the wall.

  I tried the door. Locked tight.

  Fumbling in my pocket for the skeleton key I’d gotten from a comic-book coupon and always wanted to try, I dropped the danged thing. As it turned out, clumsiness saved my life.

  I squatted to grab the key.

  The shadows stirred.

  And then a thick something-or-other whooshed just above my head, impaling itself in the door with a thunk.

  I LOOKED UP. Above me, I made out a tall, many-limbed form with a triangular head. One of those limbs had nearly speared me like a shish kebab. Now it was stuck in the pantry door, and the creature was tugging to release it.

  “Yaaah!” I cried. Rolling away from the spooky whatchamacallit, I sprang to my feet.

  As I sprinted out of the corner, Benny’s pale face poked around the fridge door. He gripped the can of Raid in his hand.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “There’s something back there,” I said, “and it really hates visitors.”

  The rest of what happened next you already know—how we ran screaming, how Benny blasted the Raid all over the kitchen on the way out, and how we were chased by a six-foot-tall insect creature wearing an apron.

  What you don’t know is how we got out of that pickle.

  Benny and I reached the kitchen door a few feet ahead of the monster, and it hissed with rage. We blasted through, slammed the door behind us, and kept running.

  The door hit the creature with a thud.

  Glancing back, I saw the panel blow open again.

  “Gah!” I gasped. “The door didn’t stop it.”

  “No duh,” said Benny. “You taped over the lock.”

  The bug monster emitted a blistering stream of clicks, rubbed its sore nose, and took off after us. I assumed we’d just been cursed out in insect-ese.

  Hotfooting it across the cafeteria, Benny and I made straight for the exit. I checked behind us again.

  “It’s gaining!” I cried.

  A tall gray trash can stood near the door. Benny, a little ahead of me, grabbed the empty container, whirled, and bowled it toward the monster.

  “Nnargh!” it shouted, in a garbled insect-human voice.

  The creature jumped to clear the can, but not soon enough.

  Tchoom! Its legs (the lower two, anyway) were swept out from beneath it, and the huge insect went down hard.

  His eyes wide and wild, Benny sprayed the Raid in a wide swath at our pursuer. “Take that, you six-legged freak!”

  All it did was make me cough.

  “Come—hack—on!” I yelled, grabbing his arm.

  We hit the exit door’s push bar and blasted out into the cool evening. I don’t think I’ve ever run that fast—not even when Randy Sparks mistakenly came after me for supergluing his desk shut. (It was actually Benny who did the deed.)

  Hurtling across the blacktop, we made for the bushes where we’d hidden our bikes. The giant insect kicked open the door, clicking like a castanet festival. As I watched, two sets of translucent extensions unfurled from its back.

  A full-body shudder rippled through me at the sight.

  “Not fair!” I cried.

  “What?” said Benny, not slowing down.

  “It’s got wings!”

  Benny glanced over his shoulder and his eyes got huge. “Gaah!” he yelled. “I hate nature!”

  The monster beat its wings and lifted into the air.

  “Here it comes!” I panted. My imagination ran wild with images of the creature catching us, biting our heads off, and slurping down our insides like one of those wax-bottle candies you get for Halloween.

  For once, my imagination may not have been exaggerating.

  We plowed into the bushes, grabbed our bikes, and hopped onto them. The monster followed, touching down on the ground every five or ten feet. I guessed that its wings couldn’t carry it for very long. By now the sun had set, and the school’s amber security lights winked on, turning the creature the yellowish green of fresh snot.

  Its eyes were huge, soulless, and hungry.

  Benny and I pumped our pedals for all we were worth, speeding across the blacktop. I was never so grateful for wheels in all my life. Gradually—not soon enough for me—the monster fell behind. By the time we reached the road outside the school, the creature had given up. With a last faint cry of “Kreeaugh!” it wheeled and headed back to the cafeteria.

  Still, Benny and I didn’t slow down until we were halfway home. Side by side, we jetted down the street past late afternoon joggers, parents returning from work, and a handful of kids still out playing in their driveways.

  Everything looked so normal. And yet we knew this town was anything but.

  My heartbeat gradually slowed from speed-metal to something like classic-rock tempo. But my brain was still as jumbled as a bowlful of taco stew.

  “¡Ay no!” I gasped.

  “You said it,” said Benny. His face was whiter than a polar bear’s ghost.

  “Th-that,” I stuttered. “That thing?”

  “I know, right?” he said. “Dang.”

  I sucked in a deep breath. “What is it with Monterrosa and monsters?”

  “Beats me,” said Benny. “But you’d think, after we’d tackled were-hyenas, that a giant bug would be no big deal.”

  “But you’d be wrong.” I shivered.

  The last of the twilight was fading, swallowed by the night. We cycled onward.

  “I mean, how is that even possible?” I asked. “A six-foot insect?”

  “How is it possible that they canceled Commando Nanny before even airing an episode?” said Benny. “Some things just are.”

  I cocked my head, considering. “True.”

  “The real question is: What are we going to do about it?”

  We pedaled in silence for half a block, thinking it over.

  “We could try to find their spaceship,” I said, “assuming they’re aliens.”

  “And then destroy it?” said Benny. “Might work, or might just make ’em madder.”

  “But what if that thing’s not an alien?” I said.

  “Uh…” Benny scrunched up his face in thought. “We call an exterminator?”

  “Yeah,” I said, “because your can of Raid worked so well. Maybe we should just go ahead and tell someone, like Mrs. Johnson, or our parents?”

  “Are you kidding?” Benny scowled. “Whatever happened to being a hero? Whatever happened to toughing it out, because that’s what heroes do?”

  “Well, I—”

  “Do heroes run to mommy and daddy every time things get a little scary?”

  “Uh, no,” I admitted.

  “So are we heroes or are we wusses?” Benny said.

  I lifted a shoulder. “Is wussy hero one of the choices?” But I knew he had me—we would see this thing through, no matter what.

  He swerved to avoid a pothole in the road. “Problem is, we don’t know enough about this kind
of insect.”

  “We could look it up,” I said.

  “Nope, we need more—the inside scoop. We need to talk to a bug guy, pronto.”

  “I think they’re called entomologists,” I said.

  “Woo, check out the big brain on Carlos,” said Benny.

  I spared a hand to polish my knuckles on my chest. “Extra-credit vocabulary word,” I said. But the gesture was as hollow as a drum. I was still shaken.

  “So where do we find this…entomologist?” asked Benny as we turned onto my street.

  “I dunno,” I said. “But I know a guy who might.”

  “Who’s that?”

  Pulling to a stop in my driveway, I smiled. “Our old friend Mr. Google.”

  ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Benny and I decided to brown-bag it the next day. Never mind that the bizarro lunch ladies might be spiking our food; it just didn’t seem sanitary to have your lunch prepared by giant bugs. (I tried to convince Veronica to follow our example, but she just chucked a carrot at me.)

  Also, I realized that if that monster had recognized us last night, we might not get the warmest reception at the cafeteria.

  Now we had twin problems: one, staying out of the lunch ladies’ clutches, and two, stopping whatever evil buggy plans they had cooked up for our school.

  So, no pressure.

  Our Internet search the night before hadn’t turned up much in the way of local insect experts. No surprise there. Our town’s not that big. When we asked my mom and grandma about it, Abuelita said she knew an entomologist at the natural history museum with the unlikely name of Dr. Memphis Sincere.

  But since we couldn’t see him until after we’d served detention, Benny and I decided to make the best use of our time before school. (And speaking of detention, I kinda sorta forgot to mention it to my parents. I considered it a public service to them—they had enough on their minds.)

  First, we woke up ugly-early and rode our bikes to the neighborhood around Monterrosa Elementary. While other kids were still yawning and brushing their teeth, we wheeled through alleyways and vacant lots, searching for any place you could stow a spaceship.

  The whole time, I was jumpier than a froghopper on a hot rock. I really didn’t want to stumble across that giant bug again, but you can’t be a hero without going through some scary stuff.

  The fields were empty of flying saucers. And unless the spaceship was disguised as a trash bin, the alleys were too. We briefly considered the town water tower, but since the tank had been there forever and didn’t look particularly flight-worthy, we abandoned it. I secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Running into monsters so early in the morning can put a crimp in your whole day.

  Arriving well before school would start, Benny and I locked up our bikes. A light burned in the front office, but the rest of the buildings lay dark, deserted. When we headed over to the cafeteria, another light shone through the filthy kitchen window, and the faint clatter of pots and pans reached us.

  The lunch ladies had beaten us there.

  “Man, I’d really like to get a look inside that pantry,” I said. “What if they’re stashing Veronica’s friend in there?”

  “Little Jethro?” said Benny.

  “Justin,” I said. “His parents called my dad last night, asking if he was staying over with Veronica. He’s still missing.”

  “You don’t think they…?” Benny brought his hand to his mouth in an eating gesture.

  “His parents ate him?”

  Benny rolled his eyes. “No, dummy. But maybe the lunch ladies did.”

  Wow. It hadn’t hit me until that moment, but given what we’d seen last night, I could now believe they were the kind of insects that might eat a second grader.

  “Maybe…” I said, feeling queasy. I paced. “I sure hope not. Is there anything else three giant bugs might want with a little kid?”

  “Staging a remake of ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’?” When I frowned, Benny held up a hand. “Bad joke. Hey, but I bet I know someone who could get us into the pantry.”

  Hope quickened my heart. “You mean…?”

  “The one and only Mr. Boo.”

  And that’s how we found ourselves outside the boys’ bathroom with a shaggy janitor before the start of school. Mr. Boo’s cart in the hall had tipped us off to his location, and we discovered him mopping ferociously at a black spot on the floor.

  “Geez, think you dudes could try spitting out your gum in a trash can sometimes?” he said.

  I winced. “On behalf of all fourth-grade boys, I apologize.”

  Mr. Boo nodded. “Apology accepted. What’s shakin’, amigos?”

  “It’s about the cafeteria kitchen,” I began.

  “Have you ever been inside the pantry?” said Benny.

  The custodian leaned on his mop handle and scratched his head. “Me, personally? No.”

  “If there was something funny going on in there, could you get in?” I asked.

  One corner of his mouth quirked up. “Something funny? Are the lunch ladies serving clown fish?”

  I offered a polite smile at his feeble joke, and glanced at Benny. How much should we tell him? I wondered. We needed the custodian as an ally, and for some reason, I thought that raving about giant bugs might drive him away.

  “You heard about that missing boy?” I asked.

  “Which one?” said the custodian.

  “What do you mean?” Benny stiffened.

  Mr. Boo waved his hand in a poof gesture. “Two boys have gone missing: Justin Delgado and Nathan Sakamoto. We searched all over school for them.”

  Benny gnawed his lip.

  A sour taste filled my mouth. Two kids gone? This was getting out of hand.

  “Um, did you search the pantry?” I asked.

  The janitor frowned. “No, just the kitchen. Why? You think they might be in there?”

  “I’d check it out,” said Benny. “They could have wandered in when the lunch ladies weren’t looking, then gotten locked inside.”

  “And they didn’t think to pound on the door?” said the custodian.

  I could tell Mr. Boo wasn’t convinced yet. “You know how little kids are,” I said. “They probably cried themselves to sleep.”

  Or the lunch ladies gagged them.

  Or ate them.

  The custodian nodded. At least he was considering it.

  “On a completely different topic,” Benny said, “got any mega-jumbo-size cans of Raid?”

  MUCH LIKE A patient in a dentist’s waiting room, the school day simmered with anxiety. And it wasn’t helped by the discovery that AJ was absent and no one knew why. Was he just sick? Or had something happened to him?

  Something bug-related?

  At lunch, Benny and I cautiously patrolled the lunchroom, even though we’d brown-bagged it. Today, Mrs. Perez was supervising the serving area. When we entered, her dark eyes locked onto us like heat-seeking missiles.

  “See that?” Benny muttered.

  “Mm-hm,” I said. Although I knew she wouldn’t try anything with so many witnesses, my stomach flip-flopped like a circus acrobat.

  We walked deeper into the cafeteria, and the lunch lady’s gaze tracked us, unblinking. As if she’d been summoned, Mrs. Robinson emerged from the kitchen. She too stopped and stared. I wouldn’t swear to it, but it seemed like their heads swiveled farther to keep us in sight than a human head could swivel.

  Tearing my eyes away from the creepy cooks, I scoped out the lunchroom. At first glance, it looked the same as before, including separate meals for boys and girls. Then Benny spotted something.

  “Check out the girls,” he said.

  “What about them?” I asked.

  And then I saw it. At table after table, the girls were the noisiest, rowdiest, and most active. I saw Gabi Acosta give a boy a wedgie, Cheyenne Summers steal José’s dessert, and Tina Green put some guy in a headlock.

  “Look at how they’re acting,” said Benny. “Loud, rude, and obnoxious. They’re acting—�
��

  “Like us,” I said. “Like boys.”

  It was true. Usually, most girls at our school fell into the “Why can’t you be more like her?” category. But today, they could have been residents of the monkey cage at the zoo.

  “Why aren’t the lunch monitors doing anything?” Benny wondered aloud.

  Scanning the room for their blue vests, I soon saw why. “They’re all girls,” I said. “AJ’s gone, and I don’t know what happened to the other boy.”

  We were so busy checking out the scene, Benny and I nearly bumped into one of them.

  “You two,” said the girl, a tall fifth grader with thick, braided pigtails like Pippi Longstocking. “Why are you here?”

  “We came to use the Jacuzzi,” said Benny. “Obviously.”

  Her face darkened. Not a big fan of sarcasm. I noticed her laminated name tag read TENACITY. “We’re in the cafeteria,” she said. “There’s no Jacuzzi here.”

  Benny lifted a shoulder. “I was misinformed.”

  Tenacity’s fists landed on her narrow hips. “Okay, buster. Get lost.”

  Holding up my bag, I said, “We just want to eat our lunch.”

  Her hands shot out, surprisingly strong, and gripped our upper arms. Spinning us toward the door and hustling us along, Tenacity said, “Take your pitiful peanut-butter sandwiches outside.”

  Benny shrugged her off. “It’s a lunchroom,” he said. “We can eat wherever we want.”

  “Not on my watch,” she growled. “No brown-baggers. Especially not boys.”

  Then the lunch monitor shot out both hands and shoved Benny’s chest. Backward he staggered, until he stumbled and fell.

  “Hey, you can’t treat my friend like that!” I cried, my body tensing.

  “Watch me,” she snapped. Grabbing my arm, Tenacity slung me after him. I couldn’t help it; I tripped over Benny.

  Applause and hoots came from the girls at the nearest table. “So graceful!” one of them called. “You should be on Stumbling with the Stars!”

  My blush smoldered like a bad sunburn, and I couldn’t help clenching my fists as we got up. But as every boy knows, you’re not supposed to hit a girl. Especially if she’s bigger than you.

  “Maybe we will eat outside,” said Benny. “It stinks in here.”