Mutant Mantis Lunch Ladies

by Bruce Hale

  “What is this,” said Benny, “National Rudeness Week? No ‘hello’? No ‘how’s the family’?”

  Tenacity pointed at the exit. “Take that trash out of here!” she snapped.

  Normally, I don’t do that well with conflict. I’d rather avoid it than argue. But this time, there was too much on the line.

  “Our, um, trash,” I said shakily, “is exactly what this school needs. Come on, Benny.” Jerking the cart backward, I tried to guide it around the stubborn lunch monitor.

  She latched on with both hands. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Oh yes we are,” snarled Benny, yanking the rig toward us.

  “Oh no you’re not,” growled Tenacity, pulling it back.

  “Are too,” said Benny.

  “Are not,” said Tenacity.

  “He can keep this up all week long,” I told her, “so you better let us go.”

  As we tugged the cart back in our direction, I caught Benny’s eye and murmured, “Zoe.” No need to say anything else. The next time the lunch monitor jerked the rig away from us, Benny and I shoved with all our might.

  Down went Tenacity with a squeal.

  One of the great things about a longtime friend is that you develop a kind of shorthand. With just that one word, Benny knew I was talking about the time he had a tug-of-war with his sister Zoe and won the same way.

  But Tenacity didn’t know that.

  She tumbled into a tableful of treats, making it rain brownies left and right.

  “Sweet!” said Benny, offering me a fist bump.

  “Literally,” I said, returning it.

  Our tussle had attracted attention. Several PTA parents started in our direction, but more importantly, so did all three lunch ladies. Their eyes were as full of evil as a Voldemort family reunion.

  “Ready?” I asked Benny.

  “Ready,” he said.

  “Then here goes nothing.”

  And with that, we powered the loaded cart straight at the monsters.

  TIME SLOWED TO a syrupy flow. As Benny and I plowed forward, yelling our battle cry, I had time to notice a wealth of little details….

  The rich smell of chocolate in the air.

  The cold metal of the cart’s rail in my hands.

  The wide eyes of a PTA dad.

  The principal’s glower.

  And the shimmer of the lunch ladies’ bodies flickering momentarily into mantis mode as they squared off against us.

  I had time to think, If the sight of us makes their disguises slip, just wait till they get a load of our cargo.

  Ten feet away, I shouted, “Now!” and dug in my heels. Sneakers squeaked on the tile floor as Benny and I wrenched the handcart to a halt.

  “Loose the roaches!” he cried.

  With knives and forks we tore holes in the garbage bags. Instantly, the stench of the city dump poured out. Along with it rolled a foul brown tide of cockroaches, their legs and antennae wiggling like a hutful of hula dancers.

  I couldn’t suppress a shiver at the sight of all those nasty little bugs. Out they surged, off the cart and onto the floor. Driven mad by the scent of all those yummy treats, they scattered in every direction.

  The crowd screamed.

  People scooted away from the cockroaches like a pack of preschoolers escaping at bath time. PTA moms and dads leaped onto the tables, squashing cakes and smooshing pies. I saw the music teacher, Mrs. Tanaka, faint dead away. When roaches ran up his leg, the PE teacher—gruff, burly Mr. Lewis—squealed like a teenage girl at a boy-band concert.

  “Nooo!” wailed the lunch ladies.

  In that instant, they faced a choice: let the roaches devour all the baked goods and derail their evil plan, or blow their disguises and chow down on the pests.

  Hunger won out.

  In the blink of an eye, three sweet lunch ladies transformed into three giant insects.

  The mob screamed even louder, hurdling tables and shoving slowpokes aside. In a blink, I saw Principal Johnson’s expression turn from disapproving to amazed to terrified. Mr. Boo had snatched up a push broom to attack the roaches, but the sight of the man-size bugs froze him in his tracks.

  And through it all, the disco music kept thumping.

  The mutant mantis lunch ladies ignored the music and the horrified humans around them. All their eyes were on the roaches. With mandibles clicking like a flamenco dancer’s heels, they dived into the brown horde.

  The cockroaches were too small for the mantises to spear with their forelegs. So the mutants got creative. Ducking down, they scooped armloads of the bugs into their gaping maws.

  It was revolting. It was fascinating.

  It was nature in action.

  Working as a team, the three monsters surrounded the cockroaches. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen ten garbage-bagfuls of insects, but there were a lot of bugs on that floor. The mantises needed every scrap of their lightning-fast reflexes just to keep up.

  They gobbled, they gulped, and they gobbled some more. And still the cockroaches scattered.

  Benny and I had retreated to a safe distance to watch the carnage.

  “It’s totally gross,” said Benny.

  “Totally.”

  “But I can’t look away.”

  I smiled. “Me neither.”

  For the first time in days, I felt almost at peace. Dr. Sincere hadn’t come through for us, but we’d come through for our school. Nothing left to do now but watch the monsters gorge themselves and see whether his prediction was right. With any luck, I thought, our fight was over.

  Silly me.

  “Hey, morons!” a voice yelled.

  I turned. Stomping toward us was a very ticked-off Tenacity. Behind her ranged a pack of snarling girls, including Tina, Gabi, and my sister, Veronica. Their hands were like claws, and their eyes were pools of madness.

  “You bobbleheaded boys,” rasped Gabi.

  “You wrecked everything,” growled Tina.

  “And now you’ll pay!” cried my sister.

  She was such a little kid to be making such a big threat. I would’ve laughed.

  But it wasn’t funny.

  “Uh-oh,” said Benny.

  “Girl power!” shrilled Tina, clenching her fists.

  “Girl power!” echoed the others.

  I held out my palms. “Chill, all of you!” Pointing at the mutant mantises, I said, “Your girl-power leaders aren’t even girls.”

  “They’re women,” snarled Tenacity without looking.

  “No, they’re not,” I said. “See? They’re giant bugs!”

  None of Tenacity’s group even glanced that way. They just kept on coming.

  “Logic isn’t working,” said Benny. “Let’s book!”

  What else could we do? We turned and booked.

  Blasting past the bingeing mutants, Benny and I raced toward the kitchen at the back. By now, most of the parents and kids had cleared out, so our path was open.

  I glanced back. Tenacity and her crew of crazies were giving chase. Behind them, by the door, stood Mr. Boo. His hands were full of broom, and his face was full of confusion. He wasn’t the only one.

  “Boys aren’t supposed to run from girls,” Benny panted. “It’s not natural.”

  “Tell them that,” I said.

  It was the oak-tree standoff all over again. Only this time, we had nowhere to climb. And Mom wasn’t going to save us.

  Rounding the corner, Benny and I dashed along the back wall. Luckily, the girls hadn’t figured out that they could split up and head us off.

  Yet.

  The kitchen door hung partway open. “Almost there!” I gasped.

  Just as we rushed up to it, a PTA mom with a tray of cookies stepped from the kitchen into the doorway. When she saw us, and all the looniness behind us, her smile dropped so fast it must’ve bruised itself.

  “Yaahh!” Heaving the cookie tray at Benny and me, the woman slammed the door in our faces.

  I batted aside the tray a
nd reached for the doorknob.

  Locked.

  Of course.

  And the deranged girls were closing in.

  “GO, GO, GO!” I told Benny.

  “I’m going!” he cried. “This is me going!”

  We whirled and dodged under the outstretched hands of Tina and Tenacity. Then we dashed back across the center of the room. If only we could escape outside, Benny and I could grab our bikes and leave these lunatics in the dust.

  I glanced over at the mutant mantises. They had devoured over half of the roaches and were still going strong. All three were noticeably swollen, like someone had pumped them full of air.

  Just keep eating, I thought.

  As we neared the exit, Mr. Boo waved his broom at the giant insects. “Should I…?” he said.

  “Stay back!” said Benny.

  “But be ready to sweep up the leftovers,” I called.

  Benny and I were just seconds away from freedom, when someone stepped into the doorway in front of us.

  “Not again!” I cried.

  “You two!” Mrs. Kato barred our way, buzzing with anger like wasps trapped behind a window. “You wrecked my bake sale.”

  We tried to slip past her, but the PTA mom was quicker than she looked. She caught Benny and me by our shirts and held us. “You’ll stay right here until the principal comes.”

  The principal wasn’t what had me worried.

  “But the monsters!” I shouted. “The crazy girls!”

  “Geez!” Benny struggled in vain. “Is every female at school against us?”

  I twisted, but Mrs. Kato had my shirt in an iron grip.

  The lunch monitor and her posse were nearly on top of us.

  We were so dead.

  Or were we?

  “Snakeskin!” shouted Benny. (Another inside joke.)

  In a flash, we popped our heads through our neck holes and slipped backward, leaving Mrs. Kato holding our shirts. Bare-chested, we sprinted the only way open to us: toward the front of the room.

  Thundering up the side steps, Benny and I dashed across the stage. Unfortunately, our pursuers had wised up and divided; a second group was heading for the stairs on the far side to cut us off. So Benny and I ducked through the red velvet curtains.

  Backstage was dim, dusty, and crowded, with painted flats dangling above us and props stacked willy-nilly. And then, salvation! Over by where a bunch of ropes were tied off to cleats, I spied a side door.

  “Bingo!” cried Benny, spotting it too. We made for the exit.

  The curtains swirled behind us as the girls sought the opening. A few steps ahead of me, Benny pelted up to the door and tried the knob.

  “Locked!” he wailed. “Nooo!”

  “Mr. Boo picks now to be thorough?” I said.

  We turned, cornered at last. Tenacity and her girls burst through the curtains in two places. The ringleader’s face was lit with an evil smile.

  “Now we’ve got you, nincompoops,” she said.

  “Nincompoops?” I asked Benny.

  He lifted a shoulder. “I think it’s the same as doody-heads.”

  Spreading out into a wide line, the eight or so girls began stalking toward us like tigers closing in on a tethered goat. It may have been my imagination, but it seemed like their eyes were almost glowing.

  “You don’t have to do this, you know,” I said.

  Tina growled. “Boys have been in charge too long, mistreating girls.”

  “And we’re really sorry about that,” said Benny.

  “Boys should be taught a lesson,” snarled Gabi.

  “Is it math?” said Benny. “’Cause I love math.”

  Step by step, the girls kept advancing.

  I held up my hands. “Okay, we’re not perfect,” I said.

  “Hah!” said Tina.

  “But that doesn’t mean we deserve to be eaten.”

  “Eaten?” said Tenacity, like that was the last thing on her mind. But then her eyes glazed over and a weird half smile teased her lips. “Yesss. Eating your enemy makes you stronger!”

  “Eating your enemy makes you stronger,” echoed the other girls.

  My legs quivered and my bladder threatened to let go.

  The mantises’ brainwashing was taking effect.

  But despite the girls’ bloodthirstiness, a spark of hope flared up in me. The conversion wasn’t complete. These girls weren’t mutant mantises—yet. And if we could survive long enough, we just might be able to make them normal again.

  Or as normal as girls get, anyway.

  “Can’t we all just live in peace?” said Benny.

  “Tear their heads off!” screeched Veronica. “Suck out their guts!”

  “Yeah!” shrilled the others, taking another step closer.

  “You do, and Mom and Dad will ground you for the rest of your life!” I said.

  My sister blinked and frowned, like she was working out a mildly tricky math problem. Maybe I was getting through to her.

  Or maybe she was just wondering whether her little hands would actually be able to rip off my head.

  Another step back, and I hit the wall. One of the cleats dug into my shoulder blade, and something touched my hair. I brushed it away.

  Rope.

  Instinctively, I glanced up, noticing that the lines from my cleat led to one of the wood-and-canvas flats dangling above the stage.

  Dangling above the deranged girls.

  I groped behind me and began unwinding the rope from its cleat. “Look, I agree with you,” I told the wannabe mutants. “Girls don’t have it easy, but neither do boys.”

  “Eat the enemy!” Tenacity cried, stalking forward.

  Benny, noticing what I was up to, unwound the rope from the cleat behind him. “Carlos is right. It’s hard being a kid sometimes, whether you’re a boy or a girl.”

  Tina’s lip curled. “Boys’ parents don’t tell them, ‘Don’t be such a tomboy’ when they’re just doing what they love.”

  “Well…” said Benny.

  “Boys don’t get told, ‘Speak in a nice, soft voice, and don’t make waves,’” said Zizi.

  “That’s true.” I felt a twinge of sympathy for them. But not enough to stop what I was doing and let them shred me.

  “Maybe you should work with us, instead of twisting off our heads,” said Benny. The ropes were nearly free. From the corner of my eye, I noticed the flats above jerking and swaying. A weight dragged on my line.

  “Never!” snarled Tenacity. “We will put down anyone who’s against us.” Her hands curled into claws. Only six feet away from us, she gathered herself to spring.

  I unlooped the last curl of rope. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  Tenacity crouched, teeth bared.

  Then, with a squeal of pulleys, two wide, wood-framed flats came plunging down on the savage girls with a schoooomp-whack! Shrieks erupted. Girl-shaped lumps stirred under the painted image of a library, and someone’s foot punched through the fabric.

  I hoped Veronica and the rest weren’t hurt, just stunned. I also hoped that this would slow them down long enough for us to escape death by munching.

  Benny whooped, slapped me a high five, and took off running toward the curtains. I joined him. Within seconds, we had slipped out onto the front of the stage.

  Bad move.

  A pack of sixth-grade girls ambushed us. Several of them were waiting behind the curtains, and when we stepped out, they shoved us off the front of the stage. My body stiffened, bracing for impact. But rather than the hard landing I’d expected, we fell into the arms of more lunch-lady disciples.

  I’m not sure, but I may have screamed.

  Kicking and twisting, Benny and I fought back. But there were just too many of them. And sixth-grade girls are scary. Rough hands gripped us and dragged us along.

  “To the makers with them!” someone cried. “The makers must feed!” The rest of the pack echoed the call. They hauled us down the rows of trashed tables to where the muta
nt mantises stood.

  “Carlos!” Benny cried.

  I twisted to see him. “Yeah?”

  “Remember when I said I wanted to be a hero?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  The merciless mutant wannabes carried us past trampled tarts, crushed cookies, and battered brownies. Between our captors, I caught glimpses of the rest of the room. All the other kids and parents had vanished, leaving us alone in the mess with these sadistic schoolgirls.

  I clutched at one last hope. Could our plan have worked? Had the mantises finally burst?

  But then I saw the mutants, still alive. Worse, they were as huge as those Easter Island statues I’d done my history report on.

  Maybe the last report I’d ever do.

  “Help!” I yelped, writhing. “Someone help us!”

  “Anyone?” cried Benny.

  But nobody was coming.

  We were on our own.

  And in just a second or two, Benny and I were going to learn what the inside of a mutant mantis looked like.

  Up close and personal.

  THE PACK OF ruthless girls set us down on our feet before the monsters. Hands gripped our arms, shoulders, and necks so tightly Benny and I could barely move. We faced our fate.

  And what a fate.

  Now that they’d scarfed down nearly ten bagfuls of cockroaches, the three mutant mantises had swollen to alarming proportions. In fact, they were barely recognizable as mantises, looking more like six-legged green blimps. Their triangular heads were dwarfed by their massive bodies.

  But they hadn’t exploded. So much for Dr. Sincere’s theory. And so much for his offer of help, the big faker.

  “Behold the troublemakers,” said a mean redheaded girl with a fistful of my hair in her grip and a flair for the dramatic. “Feed, O Mighty Ones!”

  Though clearly terrified, Benny mouthed, O Mighty Ones? Even to the end, he hated corniness.

  The monsters ignored the redhead, instead scuttling about after the last handfuls of cockroaches. By this time, they had to shove aside the debris to find the pests’ hiding places.

  “Those are our prisoners!” cried a voice that sounded a lot like Tenacity. “Let them go!”

  Mean Red turned, which meant that my head was wrenched around, since she didn’t release my hair. “Finders keepers, losers weepers,” she sneered.