by Laura Dower
We all sucked in a deep breath. Leery adjusted his dark glasses and continued.
“The thing is,” Leery explained, “once a B-Monster comes back to life it will always find its way back to Riddle. But Mega Mantis did this sooner than I expected. And once a B-Monster comes back, its powers increase. Mega Mantis gets stronger by the day.”
I looked over at Stella. She looked scared.
“But that’s not all, Monster Squad!” Leery went on. “You need to know that ifaBmovie is screened more than once . . . a B may come back to life more than once, too.”
We all gasped.
“There may be multiple mantids right there in Riddle, right now.”
“No way!” I shouted.
“Shhh!” Stella socked me in the arm.
Leery went on.
“Monster Squad,” Leery said, “more than one Mega Mantis will invade Riddle in the next twenty-four hours. You four are the only ones who can save our city and the rest of the world. Are you ready?”
CHAPTER 8
WE ARE SO DOOMED
My fists clenched. I could barely imagine one mega-sized praying mantis, let alone multiple mantids. And what if the person with the original Mega Mantis movie watched it on a video loop? That could mean a zillion mantids on the loose.
“We are SO doomed,” I said out loud.
“Yup,” Stella said. She rolled her eyes. “Doomed. And that’s probably the only time I’ll ever agree with you, Molloy.”
“Pay attention!” Ranger said, nudging me. Leery was still talking to us through the computer. I pumped up the volume.
“Years ago,” Leery explained from behind his dark glasses, “my cameraman shot some research footage in Malaysia. We were able to take incredible photographs of a Mega Mantis loose in the jungle.”
Leery flashed us a series of mantis photos. In one picture, the bug was in the process of shedding its skin.
“When a mantis molts,” Leery explained, “it becomes more dangerous.”
“Eeeeeew,” Lindsey said, turning away.
But I stared straight ahead. We had so much to learn about mantids before we could beat these B-Monsters. I didn’t want to miss a thing.
Leery went on.
“After these photos were taken, my cameraman vanished. We recovered the camera, but we never located the man . . . or the mantis.”
We all let out another gasp.
“I believe that the Mega Mantis in these photographs may have gone back to Riddle. Once he sensed that a new bug had been freed from the original reel, he came to find his brother mantis.”
I realized I was shaking. We all were. If what Leery said was true, we were in big trouble. BIG trouble. Fighting Mega Mantis One was bad enough. But fighting a second Mega Mantis? Was that even possible?
“Monster Squad,” Leery wheezed, “we cannot let these creatures destroy Riddle. Are you prepared to fight Mega Mantis and its mates? Prepared for victory? Prepared for triumph?”
“Um, no,” I said aloud to the screen.
Stella whacked my shoulder. “Wrong answer, lame-o,” she said. “Of course we’re ready!”
“I know you must have questions,” Leery said. “If my calculations are correct, an instant-messaging program should appear on your desktop right now . . .”
All at once, a small box popped up on the screen.
Please type your questions here. I’ll do my best to answer.
He’d timed it perfectly! It was the first time we’d get to talk to Leery in person. Of course, Stella typed first. She always hogs all the best moments.
Why r sooo many other bugs flying around Riddle near MegaM?
Stella hit ENTER and sat back. A response came quickly. We were talking to the real, live Leery!
B-Monsters have a tremendous B-Force.
I wanted to ask something else, but Stella typed again.
What’s B-Force?
Leery replied.
B-Force is the chemical power of attraction between a monster and its environment. The B-Force around Mega Mantis is bugs. If there are many bugs swarming, you know the B is close. If a swarm suddenly vanishes, the B has flown away. But it will always come back. So will its B-Force. B-ware!!!!
“Hey! Walter was just talking about B-Force!” I cried. “Remember? He was headed out to the backyard to measure it.”
“This sure explains the growing gnat cloud,” Ranger said.
“And the ants at the castle!” Stella added.
“And the other insects that followed us here!” Lindsey said.
I gulped, suddenly realizing what all this meant. “Mega Mantis is closer than we think.”
“But which Mega Mantis?” Ranger asked. “One or two?”
Another message from Leery popped up.
B-Force is usually seen only by people who can see the monsters but sometimes the force is so strong that others may witness swarms or clusters. When a B-Monster has reached maximum power and is about to strike, everyone will see the B-Force bugs.
We stared at the monitor. Ranger leaned over Stella and typed.
So what do we do now???
We waited.
To beat the B-Monster, you need to strike when the time is right. Chances are that the mantids will disappear to shed their skins. When they reappear, they will be ready to battle you. Learn everything you can about the real mantids, including how to destroy them. With the right knowledge, the Monster Squad can and will defeat any B-Monster.
Without warning, our instant-messaging box closed. The screen went back to gray static.
“Where did Leery go?” I pushed Stella out of the way and punched at my keyboard. “How can a few online searches help us fight one massive B-bug? This is nuts!”
“You mean gnats?” Lindsey giggled.
“Let’s review the facts,” Stella declared. “We’re facing more than one Mega Mantis. And we already know each bug is as tall as the screen at the Drive-O-Rama! This really is nuts.”
“You mean GNATS!” Lindsey said again.
“Look. We have a job to do,” Ranger said. “We made a promise to Leery and we have to keep that promise.”
Stella turned back to my computer and took over again. She typed:
PRAYING MANTIS BUG BIG MONSTER
She got 11,473 hits.
Ranger leaned over her shoulder and began scrolling through a list of web links. He clicked on ETYMOLOGY OF ENTYMOLOGY.
Etymology is the study of words. Entymology is the study of insects! This site just for kids has both! Click on a bug name to find out its real meaning.
We looked over the list of bug names and clicked on MANTIS.
Mantis comes from the Greek word for prophet or fortune teller. Mantids are named for their “prayer-like” stance.
“Yeah,” I quipped, “like we better pray they don’t eat us!”
When a mantis is threatened, some species may be aggressive toward one another. They can turn into cannibals.
“Um . . . don’t cannibals eat one another?” I said.
“Haven’t you ever wanted to bite off your friend’s head?” Lindsey joked.
I walked away from the computer and flopped down on my bed. I was losing my nerve again. I couldn’t do this.
“Whoa!” Stella cried out a moment later. “Is that a mantis,” she gasped, “with a man in his mouth?”
“What?” I said, sitting up. “What are you looking at?”
“That looks like our science teacher, Mr. Bunsen,” Ranger cried.
“Huh? No way,” I said, pushing my way over to see the screen. “Let me see what you’re looking—”
“Gotcha again!” Stella said.
Ranger and Lindsey gave each other a high five.
When the three of them laughed at me, I was ready to squash them all like bugs.
CHAPTER 9
MEGA MEGA
Who knew there were so many web pages about mantids?
There were blogs and guides from bug doctors, people who worked in zoos, an
d even students like us. There was even a SUPER MANTIS roller coaster. Someday I’ll have to visit that theme park.
I tore out a sheet of paper and made a list of our facts.
What We Know About the Mantis So Far
Hunts and snatches things
Very fast!!!
Hisses
Camouflaged during both day and night
Rocks from side to side
Sheds its skin, but just before shedding, it does not eat. After shedding, all it wants to do is eat.
Awake in the daytime (diurnal) but also goes for bright lights at night
“I wish I had the power to camouflage myself or change into something other than me,” I said.
“What? Like a bug?” Stella cracked.
“Funny,” I grumbled. I tried to change the subject. “Is anyone thirsty?”
“Yeah,” Ranger said. “Got any bug juice?”
“QUIT IT!” I barked. I wasn’t going to let these losers tease me.
But Lindsey and Stella just cracked up.
“Go ahead and laugh!” I said. I walked out and headed for the sliding doors. I wondered what Walter had been doing in the backyard all this time.
But when I opened the drapes, it was pitch-black.
“Huh? Hey, Ranger! What time is it?” I called out.
“Five forty-two,” Ranger yelled back. “Why?”
“You guys better get down here,” I cried.
The girls ran to the window first. “Ewwwww!” they cried in unison. “BUGS!”
They were right, of course. The window was smothered with wings and gummy little bodies. Everything oozed so thick it blocked the remaining daylight.
Where had they come from?
“We should look outside and see what’s going on!” Stella cried. She ran for the door first.
“Wait!” I yelled. “Mega Mantis is probably out there!”
“Exactly,” Stella said.
Ranger and Lindsey followed Stella to the back door.
“Um,” I called out, “I think I’ll stay inside. Just in case.”
“Come on,” Ranger said, tugging my sleeve. “We’re in this together, remember? You can do this.”
I took a breath and followed the other three.
We looked up at the house to see a massive blanket of bugs spread out across the entire second floor. Bugs blocked all the windows at 18 Cicada Lane.
And Walter was nowhere to be found!
“Do you hear that?” Lindsey asked. She grabbed my arm.
The noise sounded like two sticks rubbing together, only way louder.
“I hear it!” Stella declared.
“There!” Ranger said, pointing to the edge of the field.
“I’ll investigate,” Stella announced. And before we had a chance to stop her, she slipped into the high grass. A moment after she went in, we lost sight of her.
“Stella?” I called out loudly. “Come back!”
I expected her to jump right back out of the field. It would be another one of her “Gotcha!” moments.
But Stella didn’t reappear.
“This is just some kind of Stella trap,” I said. “I go in after her; she scares the macaroni salad out of me. You know the drill.”
“But what if she isn’t setting a trap?” Ranger asked.
“What if Mega Mantis found her?” Lindsey asked.
Chi-chi-chi-chuuuuuut.
We all froze.
“What was that?” Lindsey asked.
That noise wasn’t coming from the direction of the field. It was coming from the direction of the house. We turned around, slowly.
Mega Mantis was right behind us. It was way more mega than I could have ever imagined.
The giant mantis stood between us and the house like some great, armored tank. It had sharp pincers and bulbous eyes with bumps on them. Mega’s body was dark green and speckled with bug scars—or at least they looked like scars. This mantis had done battle before. It must have been the mantis from the jungle! Slimy, blue drool dripped off its fangs into puddles on the ground as it stood there, twitching madly. It raised its antennae high in the air, listening.
To us?
“Let’s get out of here!” I panicked. We all panicked.
“What about Stella?” Lindsey cried. She turned toward the field.
“And Walter!” Ranger said. “We have to find them both.”
We looked up at the roof. The gnats on the house windows had lifted into another enormous black cloud. The larger swarm hovered around Mega’s head. It was just like the school bus cloud and the Nerve Mountain cloud—only much bigger!
“We have to go!” Lindsey yelled at me.
We ran into the field. But where were we running to? Stella was missing. Walter was missing. My arm was . . . itching?
I looked down and saw a cluster of furry caterpillars crawling up my arms and legs. They were all over Ranger and Lindsey, too. It was Leery’s B-Force—times ten! The B-Force had gotten stronger when Mega came into the yard.
“More bugs?” Ranger cried.
“Drop to the ground!” Lindsey said. “Treat it like a fire. Stop, drop, and roll!”
There was no time to think. We fell down flat and wriggled around on the ground. I couldn’t get those furballs off me fast enough.
A moment later, we were up on our feet again, running deeper into the grassy field. I couldn’t see anything or anyone.
Squeeeeeeeeeeeee.
Now Mega Mantis was coming! What would he do to us?
Thwack.
I fell backward onto the ground and rubbed my head. It took me a minute before I realized that I’d collided headfirst into another person.
“Stella?”
Her eyes were wild. She and Walter had been hiding out in the grass together. They both looked so scared.
“Did you kids see Mega Mantis?” Walter asked.
“Uh,” I said, “it’s a hundred feet tall. Kind of hard to miss . . .”
“And it’s not alone!” Stella gasped.
“What?” Lindsey cried. I clutched my chest. “Leery was right,” Stella said. “There are at least three Mega Mantids in the field. And there are probably more in Riddle.”
“More? How is that possible?” Ranger asked.
“I saw a pile of mantis skins out there!” Stella cried.
We all knew that when a praying mantis shed its skin, the skin looked just like the creature. Even its eyes and mouth were preserved. That was one photograph Lindsey couldn’t resist. She pulled out her camera and headed in the direction of the skins.
“Stick together!” Walter said.
All at once, a sonic booming noise shook the ground. We hit the dirt.
Va-vroooooooooom.
Something sped over our heads. It was like a jetliner, only louder.
“WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW!?” I screamed.
We lay there, stunned. Then, just as quickly as it boomed, the air got very still.
“Did I dream it, or did Mega Mantis just fly over our heads?” Lindsey asked.
“Not just one mantis,” Walter said. “Three!”
“Three?” I said. My voice quavered.
“But where did they go?” Stella asked.
“And when will they be back?” I cried.
“We have to wait,” Walter instructed.
“Here?” Lindsey asked.
“No, go back home. I’ll head back to the castle. This will take some time. Go to school tomorrow. The mantids will show up again when they’re hungry,” Walter explained.
“Hungry?” we all said at the exact same time.
“Of course!” I cried. “Remember what Leery said? We have to do our homework. We need to research the bugs and learn how to fight them before the big attack.”
Stella gave me a look. “Since when did you get so smart?” she cracked.
I puffed out my chest.
“Since I joined Monster Squad,” I said.
CHAPTER 10
HELLO, PRINCIPAL P
ICKLE
Pat and Seamus gave me the cold shoulder at lunch the next day. I knew why. I sat with the Monster Squad instead of them—again.
But I didn’t have a choice. Once this B-Monster thing started, there was no splitting us up. We stuck together when we fought Slimo and that worked great. Why should now be any different?
Since the Mega sighting in the field near the Drive-O-Rama, there had been no new signs of the mantis or its friend, Mega Mantis Two. But we just kept waiting, like Walter said we should. No news should have been good news. But it wasn’t. The bugs were all we could think about.
“Let’s break it down,” Stella said, poking at her plate of mashed potatoes. “The mantids flew away. But Leery told us they always come back. We have to figure out where they’ll show up next.”
Lindsey took a bite of salad. She’d nearly drowned it in ranch dressing.
I pushed my fork through the ziti on my plate. But I wasn’t really hungry.
Who could eat that at a time like this?
“Molloy!” Ranger cried, waving his hands at me. “What’s that on your plate?”
“Pasta, bro,” I said, holding up a forkful.
“Mmmm, I don’t think so . . .” Ranger said.
I dropped my fork with a clang. These weren’t ziti tubes! There were wriggling larvae on my tray!
“Yo, Ranger!” I winced. “You have bugs, too . . .”
“Smother them in Lindsey’s ranch dressing,” Ranger cried. He grabbed Lindsey’s salad plate and dumped it on the larvae.
But Lindsey’s plate had bugs of her own!
“Ewwww!” Lindsey said. “I thought those little black things were seeds. They’re ants!”
Stella looked down at her plate and nudged a lettuce leaf. From underneath the salad, a line of beetles marched from the plate onto the tray.
“UGH!” Stella squealed. “I ATE LIVE BUGS, TOO! GROSS!”
Normally, Stella Min shoulda, coulda, and most definitely woulda handled herself like a cool and calm ninja. But today she stood right up and flipped out. In fact, she flipped her entire lunch tray. Her plate sailed off our table into the back of an unfortunate student with an even more unfortunate name.
