Return of Mega Mantis

by Laura Dower

  “Beef!” I cried.

  This was not good.

  Beef grunted and stood p. Stella’s food dripped down his back. But he looked right at me and growled.

  “You did this?”

  One of Beef’s friends sneered at me and hurled a dish of pudding at my head. I ducked and it hit Ranger in the shoulder. Some splattered on Lindsey.

  There was no turning back now.

  The food fight was on.

  It took a few minutes for security to arrive. But by then, the entire lunchroom was one splattered canvas of potatoes, ketchup, turkey slices, orange peels, chocolate chip cookie crumbs, spaghetti sauce, and pink yogurt.

  Somehow, we got the blame for starting it.

  “I’ll see you four instigators downstairs,” growled Security Guard Spiker.

  “What are we supposed to do now?” Lindsey asked as we shuffled down the hall.

  “Maybe Mega Mantis will attack the school and we’ll get out of being punished,” I said. I was only half kidding.

  Spiker sat us down on a row of hard, wooden chairs outside Principal Pickle’s office.

  “Wait here and don’t move a muscle,” Spiker said.

  “But this stinks,” I mumbled.

  “That includes mouth muscles!” Spiker snapped.

  As soon as Spiker walked away, Lindsey panicked.

  “They’re going to call our parents!” she blubbered. “Dad will take my camera away. He always does that when he gets angry.”

  I glanced up at the clock. “Maybe it’s not so bad,” I said. “If we have to sit here for the entire next period, I’ll miss that vocabulary test.”

  “You’ll just have to retake it tomorrow,” Ranger said.

  “Why aren’t we talking about the bugs?” Stella said. She made a fist and pounded the inside of her palm. “The B-Force is back. We have a job to do!”

  “Mega Mantis is getting close again,” Ranger said. “That can’t be good.”

  Just then, the principal came out. He had on a dark green pin-striped suit. His name was Pickle and he looked like one, too.

  “Hello, Principal Pickle,” we said, lowering our heads and trying to look sorry.

  “I am very disappointed,” Principal Pickle said. “I phoned your parents. They should be here any minute. Why don’t you wait in the other office?”

  The principal shuffled us into an empty room and shut the door.

  Lindsey looked miserable. “I told you this would happen!” she said, collapsing onto a chair.

  “Everyone remain calm,” Ranger said, pacing. “We’re not in any big trouble yet.”

  “I’m not in big trouble ever!” Stella crossed her arms. “I didn’t even participate in that stupid food fight anyway!”

  “Wait one minute,” I growled. “You threw the first lunch tray, Stella Min. So don’t go playing Miss Innocent, because you’re guilty just like the rest of us.”

  Stella’s face dropped. Lindsey and Ranger looked stunned, too.

  “We’re in this together, right?” I said to everyone. “That means good and bad, right?”

  “You’re right,” Lindsey said. She lifted her camera up to take my photograph. “Say cheddar, Damon!”

  I made a face.

  The room fell silent for a moment, until Lindsey cracked, “So what’s up with the principal’s pickle suit?”

  We all chuckled at that one. Even Stella was grinning.

  Then the door swung open.

  “I hope you aren’t laughing at this situation, students,” Principal Pickle said. I spotted my dad standing just behind him. Ranger’s dad was there, too, next to Stella’s and Lindsey’s mothers.

  “Your parents and I agree,” Principal Pickle declared, “that the four of you can return to classes as normal for the rest of the day, but you will report to the school cafeteria lunch staff to help serve and clean for one full week.”

  I imagined being up to my elbows in a vat of our school’s superglue mashed potatoes. Could there be any worse torture than that?

  The girls took off with their moms. Ranger and I faced our dads.

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Ranger started to say. His dad interrupted.

  “Jesse, I think you learned a valuable lesson here, don’t you?” his dad said.

  “Indeed,” my dad piped up. “Never start a food fight, unless you can’t get caught!”

  Both dads laughed hard. Ranger and I just rolled our eyes. Welcome to Embarrassment City, I thought to myself. Then I got an idea. I turned to Ranger’s dad.

  “Mr. Ranger, you’re a scientist, right?” I said. “Well, can you answer a scientific question?”

  “I will certainly try,” Ranger’s dad said to me.

  “Can mantids grow to be extra large?” I asked.

  “Extra large?” Mr. Ranger said, laughing. “What? Like Mega Mantis?”

  My dad laughed even louder. “Do you watch those old flicks, Ranger? Damon loves B-Monsters, don’t you, son?”

  Ranger and I shifted uncomfortably.

  “Seriously, Dad,” Ranger butted in. “Can mantids attack people for real?”

  “Gee,” Ranger’s dad said thoughtfully, “I know of only one real Giant Mantis attack. It took place in a remote village in . . . Malaysia, I think. A colleague of mine told me about it once . . .”

  Malaysia? That was where Leery had last seen Mega!

  “Why the sudden interest in insects, boys?” my dad asked. “Damon, I thought you hated bugs . . .”

  “Yeah, well,” I turned back to Ranger’s dad. “Who was that colleague you mentioned?”

  “Name is Dr. Von Rosenhof. And I do believe he just returned from a research trip. He has studied mantids extensively throughout his career.”

  “Really?” This sounded like a guy we needed to meet.

  “Believe it or not, Dr. Von Rosenhof lives right here in Riddle, right up the road from the school,” Ranger’s dad added.

  “That’s a coincidence!” my dad chuckled.

  Ranger flashed me a look. I knew exactly what he was thinking.

  This was no coincidence.

  It was a clue!

  CHAPTER 11

  SQUAD FOR ONE, SQUAD FOR ALL

  It took all my strength to get through the rest of the school day. After our temporary detention, I had to take that vocabulary quiz. What a bust. I didn’t recognize half the words.

  When the end-of-day bell rang, I met up with the others at our lockers. Our dads had given us a major clue. We had new information and we had to adjust our plan of action. The four of us headed to the library to look up Dr. Von Rosenhof’s address in Riddle. We found it in the white pages. Stella recognized the street and house number right away.

  “I know exactly where he lives!” Stella said. “You can’t really see the house from the road because of this tall fence but he has these bright spotlights on the property.”

  “Okay,” Ranger asked. “What now?”

  “Let’s go to Von Roffenfoffer’s place!” I cried.

  Stella knuckle-noogied my shoulder. “It’s Von Rosenhof, Molloy. If you can’t even get his name right . . .”

  “Von Rosenhoof, Von Foofenpoof,” I groaned. “What difference does it make? We wouldn’t even have his name if I hadn’t asked Dr. Ranger . . .”

  “Let’s call! Stella, you have a cell phone,” Ranger said.

  Stella dialed his phone number, but no one picked up. Not even an answering machine.

  “So now what?” Lindsey said.

  “Plan B,” I said.

  “We’re already on Plan B, Molloy,” Stella moaned. “Enough planning. Let’s pounce!”

  “Stella’s right. We should figure out a way to beat the bugs on our own,” Lindsey said. “Just in case Dr. Von Rosenhof doesn’t turn up before we have to face them.”

  “What about using one of those zappers Walter had at the castle?” Ranger suggested. “We could zap the bugs into a radioactive coma.”

  “I don’t think zappers are what we nee
d,” Stella said. “We need explosives! Let’s blast the bugs into bits.”

  “And blast ourselves, too?” Ranger said.

  “Have we completely given up on the space laser thing?” I asked.

  “That’s it!” Lindsey cried. “We don’t have a real space laser but we could invent a bug weapon of our own.”

  “We can certainly try,” Ranger said. “My dad’s laboratory is open. He has a bunch of tools and supplies we could use.”

  “After we do that, we need to lure the bugs somewhere,” Stella said.

  “We can totally lure them. This is a great plan!” Lindsey cried.

  Everyone lifted their palms for a group high five. On contact, Ranger pulled his hand away and wiped it on his pants. He looked right at me.

  “Damon, what is wrong with your hand?”

  I looked down. My hand was so super-duper sweaty, it was dripping.

  “That’s disgusting, Molloy!” Stella cried, shaking her own hand out.

  Lindsey smiled at me. “Really disgusting. Good one.”

  “Squad for one and squad for all!” I fake-cheered.

  If only my clammy palms could defeat Mega Mantis. Then we’d really be in business.

  CHAPTER 12

  BUG VS. BUG

  For someone who couldn’t stand the sight of a fly one week earlier, I was getting used to the B-Force bugs.

  Dr. V would have been really helpful right about now. He could have lectured us on the weaknesses of the average mantis. But he still wasn’t answering his phone and we didn’t want to show up at his place unannounced. It wasn’t like Leery Castle, where we knew we were welcome to just walk in and snoop around.

  Instead, we headed for Ranger’s dad’s laboratory. When we parked our bikes outside, I noticed lots of spiders around the place. I guess B-Force attracts eight-legged creatures the same way it attracts six-legged ones.

  Mr. Ranger’s lab was full of amazing stuff. He’s working on a special machine that can wash your clothes while you’re still wearing them. I don’t really understand how that’s possible, but it sure sounded cool.

  Mr. Ranger wasn’t around; Jesse gave us the grand tour.

  “What are we looking for?” Lindsey asked.

  “Helpful gadgets,” Stella said.

  “Like this?” Lindsey held up an oversized swatter. “S’wat do you think, Damon?”

  “Buzz off!” I joked back.

  Everyone laughed except for Stella. She was in one of her serious moods.

  Bins and buckets were crammed into every corner of Mr. Ranger’s lab. Objects had been neatly stored and labeled in bold letters.

  BOLTS

  CLASPS

  PUMPS

  But the whole place wasn’t just bits and pieces. There were some old or non-working inventions piled up around the place, too. Like the Amazing Electric Melter, an eggbeater that sent out heat rays! Could this melt bugs? Probably not. It was way too small to fry even the most miniscule mantis.

  I found a fifty-foot Rope-O-Matic buried under some boxes. Ranger said it was a tape measure for cowboys. Instead of tape inside, it had enough rope to lasso a bull.

  “Let’s lasso Mega Mantis!” I suggested.

  Stella thought it was a fun idea, but we agreed it would be tough to rope all six bug legs at once.

  In a far corner of Mr. Ranger’s lab, Lindsey found something that would work. She spotted a stash of spray cans with hoses still attached. They looked a little like water guns, only with bigger barrels and buttons all over.

  These had potential. I grabbed a couple.

  “I remember those!” Ranger said. “They were supposed to shrink things but Dad could never make them work. He could never come up with the right formula.”

  “Shrinking potion sounds cool,” I said thoughtfully. “But I have another idea. If we can’t shrink ’em, let’s squirt ’em!”

  I’d already spotted the poison: RID.

  Everyone knew RID was the go-to poison for rats, bugs, fungus, and lots of other gross stuff. My mom kept some locked up under our sink. It was marked extremely dangerous but I knew it was exactly what the Monster Squad needed to beat this B-Monster.

  “We can pour the RID into the discarded spray cans!” Ranger said.

  “If we spray enough at the exact same time,” Lindsey said, “we can stun the mantids. Those bugs won’t know what hit ’em.”

  I opened up the cans so we could pour in the RID. It smelled so bad, like wet dog. But we managed to fill two cans each with the stuff. Mr. Ranger would have freaked out if he saw us handling these hazardous materials. But we carefully put on gloves and safety masks that we also found in the lab.

  In no time we were armed and ready to take down some bad bugs. Our specially rigged backpacks were ready. Whoever spotted Mega Mantis first was supposed to yell, “SPRAY!” Then we’d all shoot at the target.

  “Let’s go over Molloy’s list again,” Ranger said. He took a pencil from his dad’s lab desk and made notes. We needed to use the information we’d gathered so far. It would help us to figure out where to look for Mega and its pals next.

  What We Know About the Mantis So Far

  Hunts and snatches things—like us???

  Very fast!!!—can even FLY!!!

  Hisses—makes loud squeeeeee before appearing. Very loud.

  Camouflaged during both day and night—except for the fact that it is as big as a tour bus!!!

  Rocks from side to side—have not seen this

  Sheds its skin, but just before shedding, it does not eat. After shedding, all it wants to do is eat—Stella SAW skins; they are real. Do we go back to the field???

  Awake in the daytime (diurnal) but also goes for bright lights at night

  “Wait! Reread the last one!” Lindsey said. “The mantids are diurnal. That has to be the clue we need.”

  “But it can’t be the right clue,” I said. “It’s not diurnal anymore. It’s nighturnal.”

  “Nocturnal,” sneered Stella.

  Night. Noct. Dark was coming fast.

  I was beginning to wonder if we’d missed our chance to get the bugs until daylight tomorrow.

  “Wait!” I put a finger into the air. “What if the mantids can be fooled by fake bright light? Like the ones in Dr. Vanfoofenpoof’s yard?”

  The other three stared at me like I was dense, but I knew exactly what I was talking about.

  “Damon,” Stella moaned. “Those aren’t that big. Where can we possibly find enough fake light to trick three giant mantids in Riddle?”

  “The Drive-O-Rama!” I cried.

  CHAPTER 13

  BUG TORNADO

  As we left Mr. Ranger’s laboratory, the last bit of daylight faded from the sky. But we were still on the hunt for Mega Mantis One and the others.

  The Drive-O-Rama’s bright lights would be flickering on right about now, so we had to hurry. We wanted to get the bugs, destroy them, and then find the owner of the original reel and destroy that, too.

  That was a lot of homework for one night, but we were on the move!

  It was tough riding our bikes over to the Drive-O-Rama with those mammoth-sized packs on our back, but we did it. We came up over a small bluff and spotted the neon sign: Drive-O-Rama. The lights at the drive-in were as bright as baseball stadium lights. Mega Mantis couldn’t resist this place.

  We’d been so busy rushing around to get to the Drive-O-Rama that we didn’t notice the swarm was back. It was bigger than ever.

  I slapped Ranger’s back—hard. “Yee-ouch!” he yelled. “What did you do that for?”

  “There was a moth the size of my palm on your back!” I said. Then I realized that I’d touched bug goo with my bare hand. I couldn’t wipe it off fast enough on my jeans.

  “Back off, bugs!” Stella yelled at the swarm, trying to stomp and shoo at the same time. “Kiiiiiiya!”

  Why did she think that a karate kick was the answer to everything?

  “We’ll be eaten alive before Mega Mantis even
shows up,” Ranger said.

  All at once, I heard a loud snap.

  Out of nowhere, a cold gust of wind blew past us.

  Whooooooosh!

  The bugs around us got sucked up into the air like they were being picked up by the world’s largest vacuum cleaner. A tornado of insects whipped across the parking lot.

  I saw where they were headed.

  “Over there! It’s here!” I screamed. “Mega Mantis One!”

  Mega Mantis One was as big, green, and mean as it had been in my backyard. Its battle scars glinted in the Drive-O-Rama lights. It looked like a B-Monster, but this bug was real. It opened its pincers like it was about to strike.

  Then, without warning, a second mantis crash-landed nearby! Mega Mantis Two raised its front arms and hissed loudly. It looked just like Mega Mantis One, except that it didn’t have as many scars.

  Squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

  “Ack!” I said, covering my ears.

  I scanned the parking lot. Why didn’t other people here see what we saw? Some just sat in their cars like statues. Others strolled over to the Drive-O-Rama Snack Shack as if everything were normal. Kids played on the swings located underneath the giant drive-in screen. Didn’t anyone notice the fifty-foot bugs with the blue drool? Wasn’t the B-Force big enough yet? What did it take for ordinary people to see Mega?

  “Unbelievable!” Ranger pointed up at the dark sky. There, in the middle of the blue-black, Mega Mantis Three flew into view! It circled overhead like a bird.

  Mega Mantis One knew Three was there, though. One reared on its four back legs.

  Hisssssssssss.

  Stella reared back on her two legs and struck a ninja pose. “We need to fire our spray cans—now!”

  “We can’t!” I cried. “If we shoot RID at the drive-in, we’ll poison all the people!”

  “And that would be bad,” Lindsey said.

  Mega Mantis Two moved toward Mega Mantis One. They were grinding their cannibal jaws. I knew what that meant. They were hungry for each other and probably for us, too.