Return of Mega Mantis

by Laura Dower

Then the bug cyclone whisked back into view. It was twice its previous size and whirling toward us.

  “We have to run!” I cried.

  Backpacks on, we ran to safer ground near the Snack Shack. The sound of trumpets blared over the Mega hissing and the swarm buzz. All at once, the very bright Drive-O-Rama lights dimmed.

  “Oh no! The movie is starting!” I cried.

  “What are your parents showing tonight?” Ranger asked.

  Up on-screen, the title appeared in bold letters.

  MEGA MANTIS

  Starring G. W. Stinx and Sandra Lee

  “I forgot all about the movie schedule!” I cried. “And I just checked it yesterday! How could I have forgotten to tell you guys?”

  “What else did you forget to tell us?” Stella moaned.

  “Hey!” Lindsey shouted. “Maybe the Drive-O-Rama has the original reel?”

  “Good thought,” I said, but I shook my head. “Unfortunately Dad ditched most of his reels last year. He uses DVDs now.”

  “That’s still some crazy coincidence,” Ranger said, chuckling.

  “Yeah,” I said, looking up at a giant bug on the screen. I would have laughed, too, if I wasn’t about to get body-slammed by one of the giant bugs in the parking lot.

  Rrrrrrarrrrrrkkkkk!

  Mega Mantis One and Mega Mantis Two moved toward each other like freight cars out of control. They made the ground shake so much, I thought it would split open. The bugs collided, legs thrashing. With one low swoop, Mega Mantis One leaned in and opened its jaws wide. Then cruuuunch.

  One bit off Two’s head!

  “Eeeeeeew!” we all yelled.

  Lindsey snapped a photo just as Mega Mantis One spit out the head.

  Bleeeech! I thought I was going to throw up.

  The large mantis head bounced into the parking lot like a volleyball from Coach Dunne’s gym class. The headless bug body crumpled to the ground.

  Up on-screen, Mega Mantis the movie finally began. Mega Mantis One turned to the screen and raised his front legs like he was about to attack. He thought the movie mantis was real!

  B-Force spun through the parking lot, whipping up dirt and grass and litter off the ground. I saw some ordinary people acting differently. Couples rolled up their car windows. Kids let out squeaks and screams. It was just like what Leery had said. If the B-Force was strong enough . . .

  Everyone would see the bugs.

  The Drive-O-Rama had become Chaos-O-Rama. Thankfully, the crowds of people only saw the bug tornado. If they’d seen Mega Mantis and the other enormous mantids, who knows what would have happened?

  The Monster Squad watched as headless Mega Mantis Two staggered into the field next to the drive-in. Mega Mantis One turned away from the movie screen and raised his large front legs. Something was coming. His antennae stood straight up.

  Rrrrrrarrrrrrkkkkk!

  Out of nowhere, Mega Mantis Three swooped down and crash-landed on Mega Mantis One. Their combined screeches sounded like a bunch of dolphins with the volume turned all the way up. I thought my ears would explode.

  Sqweeeeeeeeeeee.

  “Damon? Damon, is that you?”

  Somehow, I heard a voice calling me through all the noise.

  Mom?

  “Damon! Thank goodness you’re all right,” Mom said. “What’s happening? Where did all these bugs come from?”

  “Um . . . um . . .” I was completely speechless. Was I supposed to tell her the truth?

  “Have you seen Rachel?” Mom cried. “She was with us in the Snack Shack and then she vanished . . .”

  Vrooooooooom.

  I glanced up as Mega Mantis One and Mega Mantis Three took off like airplanes. The downdraft nearly blew us over. We ducked as the massive bugs zipped around in a loop-dee-loop formation. Then they landed back near the Drive-O-Rama screen. They were still drawn to the too-bright screen light and the movie mantis!

  Mom looked a little bit panicked, but she only seemed worried about the little bugs. Thankfully she could not see any of the Mega B-Monsters . . . yet.

  “Mom, maybe you should go back into the Snack Shack and look for Rachel,” I suggested. “I’ll look out here.”

  “Okay, but hurry,” Mom said. “The TV says there’s a big storm coming. We have to find your little sister!” She ran back to the Snack Shack.

  I glanced at the parking lot. Or what was left of it. There was a shrill scream we heard above the rest of the commotion.

  “HELP ME!”

  “Molloy! On the ladder!” Ranger said, pointing. “It’s your sister!”

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. Rachel was climbing up the side of the Drive-O-Rama movie screen and she was stranded on the ladder.

  “Rachel! Don’t move!” I yelped.

  It looked like Mega Mantis One and Mega Mantis Three were about to have her for a Mega snack.

  CHAPTER 14

  STOMPTACULAR

  “Don’t worry! I’ll save you!” I cried out.

  I ran toward the movie screen. Ranger tried to stop me.

  “Hey, man, I think maybe we need to slow down, you know, because these bugs aren’t so friendly and well, what if the mantids try to . . . eat you?”

  “No!” I insisted, climbing onto the bottom rung of the ladder. “I have to save her!” I threw the pack off my back and started up.

  “Go, Damon, go!” Lindsey cheered after me. She had her camera up and snapping. Gulp. I hoped these wouldn’t be the last pictures ever taken of Rachel or me.

  As I climbed toward her, Rachel looked so scared. Then I realized something pretty important.

  Rachel saw Mega Mantis One and Mega Mantis Three. She saw them. But how?

  As I reached her sneakers, I turned. My stomach flip-flopped. Both mantids were close enough to swallow us in one gulp.

  “Get away from us!” I screamed. Every part of me was shaking.

  So why weren’t the giant mantids attacking?

  Neither Mega Mantis seemed to notice that I was within chomping distance. They turned their heads around 180 degrees and moved into the field.

  “Are you okay?” Lindsey cried. She was still taking photos. I saw her flash go off.

  “Where are they going?” Stella shouted from below the ladder. “Can you see from up there?”

  “I think the Mega Mantids are headed for Riddle Air Base,” I yelled down, following them with my eyes.

  “Of course!” Stella yelled. “The hangar! It’s home! Bright lights! Lots of space! Just like Leery’s movie!”

  Rachel was just above me now. She was a quivering mass of Jell-O, too. I reached up and grabbed her hand. Then we went back down the ladder together.

  “You saved my life!” Rachel gushed once we stepped onto the ground.

  “Yeah, well, duh,” I said and tried to play it cool. “I’m not just going to stand there and do nothing. Mom would ground me forever.”

  “I swear on a stack of B-Monster Galaxy magazines that I’ll never, ever laugh at you again,” Rachel said.

  “Don’t get carried away,” I grumbled.

  Stella raced over to us. She handed me my pack back.

  “We have to go to the Air Force Base!” she yelled. “Now!”

  I looked at my sister. “Rachel, what did you see up there?” I whispered.

  “Everything,” Rachel whispered back. “The little bugs. And the big bugs, too. I saw one in our backyard, too, the other day. I know I should have told you. But it was way more fun watching you be scared.”

  I was dumbfounded. I couldn’t believe she’d seen it all. Was she one of us?

  “We have to talk later,” I told her. “But right now go straight to the Snack Shack and find Mom.”

  I raced across the field and followed the rest of the Monster Squad to the hangar.

  When we came up to the air hangar, something was humming. I looked around and spotted the generator for the big lights on the runway. Those lights went on every night like clockwork. The runway was an emergency landing
strip for the area.

  Stella saw something else in the grass. “Look!” she cried. “It’s glowing!”

  There on the edge of the field was the headless body of Mega Mantis Two. Next to it were more Mega Mantis skins.

  Finding the skins, of course, seemed pretty cool right then. But it was actually not a good thing. Skins meant that the mantids were here and ready to fight. They were probably ready to destroy our entire town and the rest of the world until they ate everything and everyone and burped away life as we knew it.

  The Monster Squad couldn’t let that happen.

  “Fire on sight,” Ranger ordered like some kind of major general.

  I shifted my pack to make sure all my cans were ready to spray. They were so heavy. My back was killing me.

  “Look! More mantids!” Lindsey cried.

  I squinted into the light. I spotted Mega Mantis One and Mega Mantis Three, and then I freaked.

  There were five more bugs, and they were all getting ready to fight one another from the looks of it! A fight like that would destroy Riddle. Which meant that we had to kill seven mantids at once! Impossible!

  Their mouths were hanging wide open. Fangs dripped with blue drool.

  “Ready?” Stella howled at the top of her lungs.

  We steadied our cans and hoses.

  “Aim . . .”

  I held my breath and braced myself.

  “SPRAY!”

  Those B-Monster bugs didn’t know what hit them. The spray gushed out of all our hoses in a powerful burst. The formula seemed to sting the bugs. They made that noise like at the drive-in.

  Squeeeeeeeeeee.

  One hose worked fine. But when I went to reload, it jammed. I was stuck with a bad can. I reached around to my backpack to fix it, when I saw something incredible.

  The seven Mega Mantids began to shrink!

  They went from mega to mini in a matter of seconds.

  “How did that happen?” Lindsey asked. “I thought you said your dad’s invention didn’t shrink?”

  “It didn’t!” Ranger cried.

  “Something must have happened when the RID mixed in with the shrinking formula that was left in the cans,” I said.

  Down on the ground, the Mini Mantids began to wriggle away.

  “Hey!” Stella cried. “We can’t let them go!”

  Without thinking, I raised my foot and stomped. Hard. Bug guts splurted everywhere! It was like when Dad swatted the two flies at once in my room. With only a few strategically placed steps, I got every single mantis under my treads.

  It was stomptacular!

  But we weren’t done with Mega Mantis yet.

  We still had to search the entire Air Force Base to make sure we got all of the mantids. Then there was the problem of that headless mantis at the edge of the field. What were we supposed to do about that? Plus, we needed to find the original Mega Mantis reel and make sure no one had watched it and released another B-Monster into the world.

  This was messier than my room at the end of the week.

  Ranger and Stella were arguing about what we should do first. They wanted to head back to Leery Castle to give Walter an update. But I nixed that idea.

  I had a much better plan.

  “Forget the castle,” I said. “We need to get the reel and I have a feeling I know where it is. Walter can meet us there.”

  CHAPTER 15

  THE DOCTOR IS IN

  “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry!” I said. I liked being in charge. “We have to get to Dr. Von Rosenhof’s place fast!”

  I had a hunch that Dr. V’s place was where all the trouble started. I’m no genius when it comes to vocabulary, but I get pretty good hunches.

  Stella hated this hunch. She looked at me like Mega Mantis One looked at Mega Mantis Two before it chewed off its head.

  We still had the spray cans on our backs when we climbed aboard our bikes. We’d used Stella’s cell phone to call Walter. He said he would drive the limousine down to meet us right away.

  As we pedaled along, I felt tired. I couldn’t wait to get my huge pack off my back. Everyone else’s cans were drained from the mantis assault. I still had one full can of RID sloshing around inside mine.

  Stella had been right about one thing. Dr. V’s property was mysterious. We could hardly see the house from the road thanks to a giant fence. But I wasn’t scared. What could be scarier than being attacked by giant mantids who escaped from a B-Monster movie?

  We ditched our bikes and tiptoed behind a row of bushes toward an enormous bay window at the back. Inside was flickering blue. The four of us peered through the glass.

  “We could just ring the front doorbell,” Ranger said.

  “Nah,” Lindsey said, holding up her camera. “Sneaking is half the fun. Say parmesan, Jesse!”

  He smirked. She snapped. Some guy was asleep on a chair inside, but the camera flash didn’t make him move.

  Off to the side of the guy’s chair, I saw a television. I couldn’t hear, but movie credits scrolled down the screen.

  Directed by . . .

  “Nooooooooo!” I wailed and banged on the glass.

  “What are you doing?” Ranger said.

  “You’ll wake him up, dork!” Stella said, insulting me.

  “I know!” I cried. “That’s the idea. Look!”

  The scrolling credits were from none other than Mega Mantis.

  And Dr. V was watching the movie from a reel-to-reel projector!

  “Let’s go around to the front door!” I cried.

  We rushed around the side of the house to ring the bell. As we moved past a row of bushes, I saw a dark figure lurking in the shadows by the front door. As we drew closer, it moved!

  “Aaaaaah!”

  “AAAAAAH!”

  “Walter?”

  “Monster Squad! There you are!” Walter cried. “I just parked the limousine. Shall we ring Dr. Von Rosenhof’s bell?”

  We nodded and I pressed the doorbell. It sounded more like a door gong.

  All at once, a bright light flooded the front doorway and surrounding yard. Only then did I notice that Dr. V had enormous floodlights all over his yard. It was almost too bright to see.

  Click, click, click.

  I shivered as the door unlocked. What would Dr. V say to us, four random kids and Walter showing up at his creepy house out of nowhere? But even more importantly, how could we find out if his reel of Mega Mantis was an original reel?

  “Hello?” Dr. Von Rosenhof said curiously as he opened the door. “May I help you?”

  I was about to explain, when he saw Walter.

  “Block! Walter Block! Is that you?”

  Walter stepped right up and the two of them shook hands. They started to chat, but I wanted to get right to the point.

  “Dr. Von Rosenhof,” I said, interrupting, “are you watching the Oswald Leery movie Mega Mantis at this very moment?”

  Ranger, Lindsey, and Stella looked impressed by my take-charge question, I could tell. But Dr. V looked at me funny.

  “How on Earth did you know what I was watching?” Dr. V said.

  “We saw from the window,” Lindsey explained. “And we know a little bit about that particular movie, sir.”

  “You were spying on me?” Dr. V asked.

  “No!” we all cried at the same time. “We’re not spies.”

  “So what are you?” he asked. “Walter? Are these kids with you?”

  “We have a little bit of a situation on our hands, Von Rosenhof,” Walter said quietly, as a form of explanation. “Can we come inside?”

  Dr. Von Rosenhof pulled his front door wide open and the five of us pushed inside. Stella shoved in first, of course.

  My eyes scanned the room. The inside of this house was how I imagined Dr. V’s place might be, with insect parts on display. It was a little like Ranger’s father’s lab, but with more books and definitely more bugs. The lidded glass jars were everywhere! One entire shelf had different breeds of mantis—including a two-headed o
ne.

  But there was no time to look at jars now. I headed for Dr. V’s projector and quickly removed the reel from the machine.

  CHAPTER 16

  INSECTA MANITODEA

  On the edge of the reel, I found an aging sticker with four little words I couldn’t peel off: Mega Mantis/Original Reel.

  “Oh no!” I blurted.

  Stella rushed over. “Great,” she groaned. “You found it.”

  “We need your help, Dr. Von Rosenhof,” I said. “Oswald Leery needs your help. The human race needs your—”

  “Get to the point,” Stella snarled. “We think that the original Mega Mantis movie may be . . . mega dangerous.”

  “How many times have you watched this reel?” Lindsey added.

  “Why do you keep asking me strange questions about the movie?” Dr. V replied.

  “Because every time you watched this reel,” Ranger explained, “a real Mega Mantis got loose.”

  “What?” Dr. V turned to Walter. “Is this true?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Walter admitted. “Leery had a few problems keeping the movie B-Monsters under control. They figured out a way into our world. It’s a long story.”

  “According to my research, a mantis the size of Mega Mantis would—” Dr. Von Rosenhof gulped. “How many came through?”

  “Eight,” Stella said. “That includes seven we just zapped at the Air Force Base . . .”

  “And one that lost its head at the Drive-O-Rama,” Lindsey said.

  “Although there may be more,” Ranger piped up.

  “More?” Dr. Von Rosenhof’s face went white. “How many more?”

  “It depends,” I said. “How many times did you watch the original reel of Mega Mantis, Doctor?”

  Dr. Von Rosenhof grabbed a pad of yellow paper off a table and began to scribble. He was muttering to himself.

  “Hmmm . . . let’s see . . . I watched Mega Mantis once a few years back and then last month . . . and last week a few times . . .”

  “How many in all?” Stella asked, as impatient as ever.

  “I believe I watched the movie eight times in all,” he said.

  “Eight viewings. Eight dead bugs,” Lindsey said. “Whew! So this is a wrap! That was such a close—”