by Ali Sparkes
“That’s the brilliant bit! Nothing!” Josh was grinning with his funny insect mouth and laughing so much there were tiny air bubbles streaming up from it. “For once, we are the predators!”
“You mean to tell me that there’s no big ugly fish coming after us?” said Danny.
“Nope. Because this is a small pond. There aren’t any big goldfish in it. Just little minnows and sticklebacks and frogs and stuff. They won’t bother us. And even if they try…” He grinned again, which looked rather alarming on a beetle. “… we’ve got a secret weapon!”
“What’s that?” asked Danny. “A sting? Nasty bite?” He’d noticed that Josh’s jaws looked pretty fierce.
“You’ll see,” said Josh. He spun around and rowed along again. Danny moved with him. Then he noticed something long and brownish-green scurrying along under a rock.
Danny screamed.
Because Josh was wrong. Josh had got it badly wrong.
Lurking under the rock, staring balefully right at Danny was a CROCODILE.
The crocodile loomed toward him. Its tail rippled in the water behind it. Its pale yellow belly shone through the green gloom.
Danny was terrified. “CROCODILE!” he screamed. Then he let off an absolutely rip-snorting fart that bubbled through the water like a mini volcano. “Eww!” Danny had never been affected by his own farts before. But this one was truly revolting and was spreading in an icky warm cloud all around him.
Josh doubled back to see what the rather musical bubbling noise was. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve found your secret weapon.”
“CROCODILE!” gurgled Danny. But the crocodile was swimming away. Fast.
“Yup,” said Josh. “When you think you’re being attacked by a predator, you can let off a really evil wet one. Another reason the fish don’t like you much.”
“I don’t like me much!” gasped Danny. He got his back legs going and powered away from his cloud of stinky wet fart. “But Josh—what about the crocodile? You said we didn’t have any predators!”
“You donkey!” laughed Josh. “That was a newt!”
“But…”
“You could eat him if you really wanted to.”
“But … why do we need the killer farts if we don’t have predators?”
“Well, we haven’t got any predators in here,” said Josh. He landed on a large rock and hung onto it with his rather sticky front feet. “But we have up there.” He looked up through the gloopy skin of the pond’s surface. It broke into waves and widening rings every so often and made booming, singing, pinging noises as creatures moved around on it or dived through it. “Herons mostly. They’ll try to get us.”
“OK—that’s one predator too many!” Danny was still shaking after the crocodile scare. “We’ve got to get somewhere safe!”
“We’re probably safer here than anywhere else,” said Josh. “We can just wait here until the S.W.I.T.C.H. wears off. Then we’ll splash up out of the water when we turn back into boys.”
“Haven’t you forgotten something?” asked Danny. “Ugh!” He jumped as two small but very ugly wiggly brown things swam past. They stared at him with big dull eyes and grimaced with sharp spiky teeth.
“Watchoo lookin’ at?” one of them said and then vanished under some boggy leafy stuff.
“Yeah?” said the other as it followed.
“Dragonfly nymphs,” explained Josh. “Don’t mind them. They’ve got issues. They’re going to be gorgeous one day, but for now, they’ve got faces like a smashed toilet.”
“Ri-ight,” said Danny. “But not predators, eh?”
“Nah—we could take ’em if we wanted. Although they’d put up a fight,” said Josh, happily. It was a wonderful experience to be at the top of the food chain for a change.
“Anyway,” went on Danny, clinging to the rock alongside Josh. “I said, aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?” said Josh. He eyed a small winged creature struggling on the pond surface. He felt a bit hungry.
“Well … let me see … Biff, Ollie, and Milo—the pocket freaks. And lovely Poppy with her fascinating tub of ants’ eggs? What are they going to make of you and me suddenly shooting up out of the water? Huh? We’ll get banned from Wild Things—definitely!”
Josh ran his front leg across his mouthparts and managed to crease his beetle face into a worried frown. “It is going to be hard to explain,” he agreed. “But they’ve probably nearly finished the pond dipping now. They’ll go back inside soon to look at what they’ve got.”
Danny gazed up through the skin of the pond surface. He saw vague shapes and colors moving around. It wasn’t unpleasant, sitting here in the pond. OK, the inhabitants weren’t too pretty. But at least they weren’t trying to snack on him.
“Ooh—ooh! Come and see this!” said Josh. He pushed off the rock and scudded toward some green and brown stems. They snaked up through the water and connected with big, round, flat green and pink platforms on the surface. Lily pads, Danny figured out. Among the stems were some clumps of fine drifting weeds. There was a large silvery bubble lodged in one of these drifts.
“Come on,” called Josh, and half of him vanished inside the bubble. Danny hurried after him. Danny noticed another one of those weird nymphs coming at them from under a stick.
PLOLLOP! With great surprise Danny found himself looking into a little dry chamber. It was like a diving bell with a green stick running up through it. Josh was gazing around it, only his head and two front legs poking into the bubble. It wasn’t big enough for them to get right into it.
“What is it?” breathed Danny. His voice sounded more normal without all the water pressing in on them.
“It’s someone’s home,” whispered Josh. He noticed some little silky threads wound around the green stick and a small bundle, wrapped tightly in white strands, among them. He wondered whether he should tell Danny what it was. Danny would probably freak out.
“Whose home?” asked Danny. But he didn’t need to ask. The homeowner was getting back from work. A long, fine brown leg pierced the wall of the air pocket, followed by another. And another.
“Oh … I don’t like this,” gulped Danny. The elegant shape of the legs—four of them now—and the fine hairs running along them looked horribly familiar.
All of a sudden, with a “thwip,” four more legs, a brown body, and several eyes arrived too. The face around the eyes looked none too pleased to see them there.
“SPIDER!!!” shrieked Danny, trying to hide behind Josh. He knew he shouldn’t be afraid anymore. After all, he had been a spider. He knew they were amazing creatures. It was just hard to forget that he’d once nearly had his insides slurped out like soup from a thermos by one of these creatures while he was a bluebottle trapped in a web.
The spider stared at them, and they stared back.
“It’s OK,” whispered Josh. “She can’t get us. We can eat her!”
The spider reared up with her front legs and said, “Well, I call that rude!”
“Oh,” Josh looked very surprised. His feelers shot up like astonished eyebrows. “Sorry. I didn’t think you could understand us. The last spider we met didn’t speak English …”
“Well—I can!” huffed the spider, her mouthparts flipping about like twitchy fingers. “And if you think you can eat me, just try it!” “Nah … not really very hungry, thanks,” said Josh. He edged backward out of the air pocket.
Danny continued to stare, appalled, at the spider. She glared back at him angrily. Then he was dragged suddenly out of her home by his rear end. He was delivered back into the water world by his brother. “SPIDERS!” he yelled at Josh. “You didn’t tell me there were spiders—down here!”
“Sorry,” said Josh. “Water spiders. They’re cool, though, aren’t they? I love that little air pod. Brilliant! This is the best thing we’ve been!”
Danny shuddered. But scooting powerfully through the water was pretty cool. He began to relax and enjoy himself. “Anything else good about
us?” he asked.
“We-ell,” said Josh. “There’s something you should probably know. It’s happened before. We were fine, so don’t freak out.”
“What?” demanded Danny, his antennae twitching nervously.
“We’re girls again.”
“NO! No—I refuse to be a girl again!”
“It’s no big deal,” said Josh, scooting on through the golden-green underwater glade. “When you were an ant girl, you’d never have known if I hadn’t told you.”
“Apart from all the giggling,” grunted Danny.
“Well … yeah, there was the giggling,” grinned Josh.
“How do you know we’re girls?” demanded Danny.
“It’s our stripes,” explained Josh. “You don’t get ’em on boy great diving beetles. Just the girls. Let it go, Danny.”
Danny shuddered again. And this time the water shuddered around him. Then it shuddered again. A very BIG shudder.
Josh and Danny spun about and stared at each other. “What’s that?” whispered Josh, sounding scared for the first time.
Suddenly there was an ear-splitting crash. The water churned about wildly, sending them spinning away from each other. Dancing fragments of light, waterweed, and tiny see-through creatures flew in all directions. Danny felt himself being thrown around uncontrollably.
He shut his eyes, hoping he was returning to being a boy. And that nobody would see. But when at last the storm around him calmed down, he realized he was still a great diving beetle.
Light streamed all around him in a very odd way. It was coming from above—and around—and underneath. He tried to swim through it and find Josh but—CRACK. His head whacked into a solid force field that sent him spinning back again. What? Danny tried again. CRACK! And then he understood why it was so bright. And why he couldn’t travel for even three pushes of his legs before being smacked in the face.
He was in a jar.
He had been pond dipped.
Josh lay on his back, waving his legs in the air. For a few seconds he thought he must have morphed back into being a boy. He waited for everyone to start shouting at him for falling in the pond.
But after a few seconds he opened his eyes and realized he was still a beetle. A beetle on its back. On the bank of the pond. A flash of white and gray zoomed across the blue sky. A heron? Josh let off a killer fart and flipped himself over onto his front. He scurried under the shelter of a rocky outcrop. He gasped with shock (and disgust—wow—that fart was awful!). Now, he thought, as he surveyed the nearby water and the clumps of bog weed, where was Danny?
“Oooooh!” came a familiar voice. “Oooh, Scratch, look! Someone’s left chocolate cake! Look! Oh, it’s our lucky day!”
Josh peered around the edge of the rock. He saw two brown rats sniffing at something in the undergrowth, not far from the picnic bench, which now rose up like a huge wooden monolith. “WAIT! STOP!” yelled Josh, scurrying toward the rats. “DON’T EAT THAT!”
The rats paused and looked over toward him. “What’s that about?” murmured one of them.
“Oh, I expect he wants a bit for himself. Well, tough luck!” said the other one, turning back to the crumbly brown treat.
“SCRATCH! SNIFF! STOP!” bellowed Josh. All of a sudden he found himself up in the air. His wings had shot out of their cases. He was flying, low to the ground, straight for the rats. He had to save them from being S.W.I.T.C.H.ed. After all, they’d saved him and Danny from death quite a few times!
“Josh? Is that you?” asked Sniff, her delicate spray of whiskers twitching as she peered at the beetle flying toward her. “Oh my! What has she changed you into this time?” Scratch and Sniff knew all about Petty and her S.W.I.T.C.H. spray. They had spent time in her lab, listening in as she talked loudly to herself.
“Yes—yes it is me,” said Josh, landing at their feet. “And you mustn’t eat that cake! Petty’s put S.W.I.T.C.H. pellets in it! That’s how I ended up like this.”
“Oh, you poor love!” clucked Sniff. “She just keeps getting you, doesn’t she?”
Josh sighed. “Well, she doesn’t deliberately try to get us. It just seems to keep happening!”
Sniff gave her husband a look. He shrugged back at her. “Whatever you say, dear,” she said to Josh. Then she gazed sadly at the cake. Sniff loved chocolate cake. Danny or Josh occasionally put some under the shed in their back garden, where Scratch and Sniff lived. Sometimes the rats would come out to eat it with them. When they were in boy form, Danny and Josh couldn’t understand what the rats said. But the happy waves of thanks worked well enough.
“Such a shame,” sighed Sniff, turning her back firmly on the contaminated cake. “But where’s your brother?”
“That’s just it,” said Josh. He looked around anxiously. “I don’t know. He was in the pond with me. Then there was a big sort of waterquake, and now he’s gone.”
“Well—that’s what caused your waterquake,” said Scratch. He pointed his brown furry paw at the looming shapes that moved around the pond. “Your human friends were splashing about in the water with jars.”
Josh gulped. “Oh. Oh no. They were pond dipping! What if Danny’s been pond dipped?”
“Well, he might not have been, love,” said Sniff. She gave a reassuring smile that revealed her long yellow front teeth. “He might just still be in the water, wondering where you are.”
Josh stared at the large green lake. It was going to take a while to search through it. It was probably a better idea to check the pond-dipping jars first. He could fly into the wildlife center building and have a quick look. If Danny wasn’t in a jar, he could zip back to the pond and look for him there. Of course, Danny might just turn back into a boy at any time and burst out of the pond anyway. And Josh knew he could change at any time too. He would have to be careful to land as soon as he felt that peculiar feeling that came just before the change back occurred.
Then Josh shivered.
“What’s up, mate?” asked Scratch.
“If Danny is in a glass jar…” murmured Josh, … what’s going to happen to him when he changes back to being a boy?”
The rats and the beetle stared at one another. They looked as worried as it’s possible for two rats and a beetle to look.
“You’d better get going!” advised Scratch. “We’ll stay here for a while, in case you need us.”
“OW!” Danny’s head smacked against the lid of the jar. He had remembered that he had wings. He had shaken them out of their cases and then tried to fly up out of the captured pond water. But he’d only succeeded in knocking himself silly and splashing back down again.
He noticed something looking at him. It was one of the ugly little dragonfly nymphs. “Watchoo tryin’ to do?” it sneered at him. “Yous crazy, huh?”
Danny ignored it and eyed the lid of the jar through the ever-shifting water. The jar itself had been set down now on an orange shelf. Danny knew it must have been put into the learning center. He could just make out the room beyond his curved glass prison. How was he going to get out of here?
“Ain’t no good tryin’ to get out,” said the nymph. “Weez well prizzed up.”
“No—I can fly out!” argued Danny.
“Me too, bruv,” warbled the nymph. “Just gotta wait a while. Deze wings’ll be full growed in a while, yep.”
Of course, remembered Danny, Josh had said these weird little creepy-crawlies turned into dragonflies. This one didn’t look as if he was going to change anytime soon though. Danny gulped. He could change at any moment, he suddenly realized. Back to a full-sized eight-year-old. But what if he changed now? While he was trapped in a glass jar? What would that do to him? What would give? The glass? Or him?
Danny stared out into the wavy lines of the room where he’d hung around, bored, only minutes ago. He thought he had, truly, never been more terrified. There was a musical thud on the other side of the glass as the string attached to the jar flopped down across it. It was pink string.
Danny
gulped again. He had seen that pink string before. Where … ?
You don’t want to know! whispered a voice in his head.
Then a giant, warped, freckly face suddenly wrapped itself around the jar, grinning and steaming up the glass.
No, no, no, whimpered the voice in Danny’s head. I said you didn’t want to know!
But Danny did know. It was too late to block out the awful truth. Poppy had caught him in her pond-dipping jar. Poppy might very well be taking Danny home …
Petty Potts sat in the sun. Through her binoculars, she watched a pair of rats under the picnic bench. They were definitely sniffing around the S.W.I.T.C.H. pellet-infested cake.
“Come on! Why aren’t you eating it?” she whispered. She tapped on the little plastic tub she had brought to collect newly morphed creatures in. She usually had a few seconds to get them while they flapped about in confusion.
Petty huffed to herself. Nothing was going according to plan today. She really hadn’t meant for Josh and Danny to end up getting S.W.I.T.C.H.ed again. It was all Danny’s fault for being such a greedy little so and so. She hoped the brothers were getting along OK as great diving beetles. At least they were a bit less likely to get eaten this time. There wasn’t much in a pond that would take on such a ferocious predator.
It was a relief when all the children finished their pond dipping and went back inside. At least when Josh and Danny morphed back into human form again, they wouldn’t be in full view of all their friends and the grown-ups who ran the Wild Things group. Petty knew she must sit tight and wait for Josh and Danny to come back. They would need help in explaining what had happened to them. Petty would have to come up with something to convince everyone that they had just fallen into the pond. Maybe while helping her to retrieve her hat or something. Petty took off her hat and threw it out onto the pond, just in case.
She looked at the rats again, while she waited. They were still not eating the cake. Rats, though, were very intelligent. Maybe they’d smelled something and decided not to take the risk. Not that being very intelligent always helped you through life, reflected Petty, with a sigh. She was superintelligent. But she had still gotten tricked by her old friend, Victor Crouch, when they worked together in the government’s top secret underground labs.
