The Chameleon Attack

by Jack Patton

  With special thanks to Adrian Bott

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  BIRTHDAY BUG

  CLOSE CALL

  CLIFF CLIMB

  BIG DIG

  INTO THE MOUND

  UNDER SIEGE

  BUG MONSTER

  BEACH BATTLE

  BRIGHT IDEA

  REAL LIFE BATTLE BUGS!

  PREVIEW - BATTLE BUGS 5: THE COBRA CLASH

  COPYRIGHT

  Max Darwin shuffled down the driveway toward his mom’s car, keeping his black cape wrapped tightly around him.

  His mom looked at her watch, rolled her eyes, and opened the passenger door. “Hurry up, or we’ll be late for the birthday party!”

  “I’m coming!” Max protested, bunny-hopping the rest of the way and wriggling into the backseat. He could have moved a lot faster if he’d just let the cape go loose, but that would have ruined everything. Carefully, he set his backpack down beside him, not revealing the slightest glimpse of what might be inside his costume.

  “I know you want to surprise Tyler, but I don’t know why you can’t let me see what you’re wearing.” His mom sighed, starting up the car and accelerating onto the road. “After all, you did raid my fabric stash to make it!”

  “I’m pupating,” Max insisted, as if that explained everything.

  “Oh, right,” his mom continued. “So you can’t come out of your cocoon too soon?”

  “Exactly!” Max grinned, jiggling with excitement as his mom drove them through the streets toward Tyler’s house. He already knew what his best friend would be dressed as. Tyler was just as obsessed with superheroes as Max was with bugs. But Max’s costume had been a closely guarded secret so far.

  “How about I guess?” his mom suggested.

  Max just groaned—she’d never be able to figure it out.

  “Let’s see. A pretty butterfly?”

  “Nope,” Max said.

  “Hmm. Maybe … a moth?”

  “Wrong again.”

  “Something nastier? A wasp?”

  Max laughed. “No. You’ll just have to wait!”

  “Fine, fine, you win. I give up.” His mom laughed. “Now, where are we? Furze Avenue … oh. Oh, no!”

  Max sat bolt upright. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  “Tyler’s present!” she wailed. “I don’t remember putting it in the car. Last time I saw it, it was on the kitchen table! We need to turn the car around …”

  “Wait!” Max called, already rummaging inside his backpack. He pulled out the long, gift-wrapped package—a light-up power sword he’d chosen for Tyler.

  “Got it!” he shouted. “It’s right here.”

  “Phew,” his mom said. “Crisis averted. It’s a good thing one of us has their head screwed on right!”

  While he had his backpack open, Max felt inside for the huge, heavy shape of his Encyclopedia of Arthropods. Sure enough, the book was in there, along with the magnifying glass that went with it. Ever since his mom had brought it back from an estate auction, the book had never been far from Max’s side.

  The mysterious old book was not only full of bugs of all different types that Max could look up, it was also full of a strange magic, capable of transporting Max to an amazing world of talking bugs. He’d already had adventures on Bug Island, and the bugs could need him back at a moment’s notice.

  His mom glanced back at him and groaned. “Do you have to bring that dusty old encyclopedia everywhere you go?”

  “Of course,” Max said. “Bugs are everywhere!”

  “Sometimes I worry you might turn into a bug overnight,” his mom joked.

  Max couldn’t think of anything cooler!

  As they pulled up outside Tyler’s house, they could hear music blasting from the backyard. Still hugging his black cape close to his body, Max jumped out of the car and sprinted down the path that ran alongside the house. He almost collided with Tyler, who was running the other way.

  “Max! You’re here!”

  “Happy birthday!” Max called, looking Tyler up and down. “Awesome costume!” Tyler looked like he belonged on the cover of a comic book, with his scarlet cape, blue bodysuit, and mask.

  “Thanks,” Tyler said. “But this isn’t all … You have to check out my Fortress of Power.”

  “Your what?”

  Tyler practically dragged Max into the backyard, where a huge crowd of their school friends had already gathered. Everyone was in costume: from pirates to zombies to ice princesses.

  Rising above them all was Tyler’s jungle gym. It was a set of two wooden towers with a slide, rope ladders, and a walkway between the two. For Tyler’s birthday, it had been transformed into a fortress. Plastic sheets with brick patterns changed the wooden walls into castle ramparts. There were even realistic flame-effect electric torches flickering from the tower tops.

  “We’re going to have the best siege ever,” Tyler said. “Dad’s been making ammo all day.”

  “Ammo?”

  “Water balloons. It’ll be total chaos.”

  “Count me in!” Max said, glancing around to see his mom and Tyler’s mom hurrying over.

  “Do I get to see your costume before I go?” Max’s mom asked.

  “Come on Max, what’s under the cape?” Tyler urged.

  Max took a deep breath, counted to three, and unfurled his cape with a flourish. The inside was painted a bright orange, with two black dots on either side and a line across the middle—just like a pair of eyes and a mouth. Little extra legs made from stuffed black socks dangled along his sides. The whole thing looked like a giant human face, sure to scare away any bug predators.

  “I’m a man-faced stinkbug,” he said, beaming proudly. “Cool, huh?”

  Tyler stared, too amazed to laugh.

  Max’s mom just chuckled. “I never would have guessed that! But I think it’s more like a boy-faced stinkbug.”

  Everyone burst out laughing.

  Max’s mom turned his way. “Okay, stinkbug. I’ll pick you up at six.”

  “See ya, Mom,” Max said as he headed to the Fortress of Power with Tyler.

  “Hold on a sec,” Tyler’s mom called. “You might want to put your things inside, first.”

  “Okay,” Max agreed. “I’m just dropping off my bag,” he called to Tyler.

  Max hurried across the deck and into the house. All the bags had been piled up in the corner of the kitchen, and the table was laden with presents for Tyler. Max pulled his backpack open, fished out his own present from under the glowing encyclopedia, and put it on top of the pile.

  Wait. Glowing encyclopedia?

  He quickly double-checked. No mistake—the pages were pulsing with an eerie greenish light. That meant the Battle Bugs were calling him!

  Great timing, Max thought. The party will just have to wait!

  He couldn’t risk being discovered. Even though everyone was outside in the yard, someone might wander in and see Max vanishing into the pages of his book.

  With the encyclopedia under his arm, Max went through the house checking all the doors. Luckily, he spotted a closet under the stairs. He pushed through the door and found himself in a small space where old coats and boxes of clutter had been stored. There were even some nice, thick spiderwebs at the back. Perfect!

  Max shut the door carefully, making as little noise as he could. He took off his cape with the attached legs. It would really slow him down on Bug Island! Then he sat cross-legged among the boxes, opened the encyclopedia to the map of Bug Island, and took out his magnifying glass.

  Everything began to swirl around him, faster and faster, like bathwater going down the drain. He felt himself shrinking smaller and smaller as the map loomed up before him, and he vanished insid
e.

  Max shut his eyes tight and braced himself for the impact. Every time he fell onto Bug Island, he always landed with a bump.

  But this time, he didn’t. The feeling of falling just kept going on and on. Wind whistled past his face.

  Puzzled, he opened his eyes and looked around …

  “Aaaaaaaargh!”

  The yell of panic burst out of him before he could stop it. He was falling out of the sky! He was plummeting like a skydiver who’d just jumped out of a plane—and he didn’t even have a parachute!

  Max looked down as the green jungle and the glittering sea of Bug Island came rushing up toward him. By sheer luck he was above the bay, where it looked like the sea had taken a big blue bite out of the land. If he could land in the water, he might have a chance.

  He spread his arms and legs out, trying to control his fall. The cove loomed bigger and bigger beneath him.

  I’m going to splat like a bug on a windshield, Max thought. I have to do something!

  Then he realized, if he curled himself up into a ball, maybe he could shoot through the waves like a speeding bullet.

  I hope this works, he thought as he tucked his arms and legs up tight.

  As the water loomed up in front of him, Max took a deep breath and braced himself for impact. The next moment, he slammed into the surface.

  THOOOOM! Max plunged under the waves with a roaring rush of noise. He tumbled through a shadowy, watery world with bubbles streaming around him, salt water flooding his nose and mouth.

  Kicking his legs and thrashing his arms, Max powered to the surface and took a big gulp of air.

  “Blurgh-gh!” he gasped, spitting out a mouthful of salty water. He rubbed the sea-foam out of his eyes and looked around. Max couldn’t believe his luck—he’d survived!

  He took a look around as the waves bobbed him up and down. Luckily, he was close to the shoreline, with the lava bridge a ways off to the left of him and huge cliffs to his right. Even in his soaking wet clothes, he could swim to dry land easily. He began a front crawl through the gentle waves.

  As Max swam toward the shore, he spotted a group of bugs on the sand, looking out to sea. They must have been the ones who’d called him here. As he peered into the distance, he was sure he could make out the familiar shape of General Barton, the titan beetle, looming over the other troops.

  “Guys!” he yelled happily as he swam. “I’m coming as fast as I can!”

  Then he noticed something strange. The bugs looked like they were doing a sort of dance, waving their legs and pincers and antennae and hopping around.

  What are they up to? Max thought. Some kind of bug beach party? Max liked the idea of playing volleyball against a team of crickets.

  However, the closer he swam, the more frantic the bugs became. They were yelling at him now. He could just make out General Barton’s deep voice booming across the water, and suddenly his blood turned cold.

  “Max, look out!”

  “What?” he called.

  “Lizard!”

  Lizard! The bugs were trying to warn him!

  Max turned his head and looked behind him. He gasped in horror. There, on one of the rocks surrounding the bay, sat the unmistakable shape of a lizard basking in the sun.

  Max felt a surge of fear as he recognized what the lizard was and understood why the bugs were panicking. From the curved frill on its head and its bright green color, the reptile could be only one thing: a basilisk lizard. And basilisk lizards, he knew, had a very special trick up their scaly sleeves: They could run on water!

  “Uh-oh,” Max muttered.

  As if on cue, the lizard slithered down from the rock. It launched itself across the water, skimming briskly across the waves on its back legs. It was heading right for him!

  “Get out of there!” roared General Barton.

  “I’m coming!” Max cried, putting on a burst of speed.

  Max knew he’d be snapped up in seconds if the lizard caught him. He swam with all the strength he had, straining to reach the shoreline that was still far away. The basilisk moved across the water with unbelievable speed, racing over the surface like an Olympic runner, claws outstretched.

  Coughing and spluttering, Max struggled on. He pummeled the water with his best front crawl, but he wasn’t going to make it to the shore, and the basilisk lizard must have known it. It bore down on him, hissing, only seconds away now.

  The shadow of the lizard fell over him. “I’ve got you now!” it hissed, lunging out with its claws.

  Max braced himself for the lizard’s jaws to close around him.

  Then, out of nowhere, a gigantic spider came skittering out across the water. Max barely had time to wonder how it was able to run on the surface before the spider crashed into the basilisk. Startled, the lizard lost its rhythm and plunged under the water, struggling and gasping.

  “Go!” the spider urged him in a strange, bubbling voice. “Leave the reptile to me!”

  Max didn’t need telling twice. He swam hard for shore, gasping with the effort, until at last he struggled into the shallows. General Barton, the leader of the Battle Bug army, gently gripped him with his huge pincers, picked him up, and carried him safely up the beach.

  Breathing heavily and soaking wet, Max rested flat on his back for a moment. Then, once he’d gotten his breath back, he sat up and wrung the water out of his costume.

  “Thanks, Barton. I thought I was finished back there.”

  “Don’t mention it,” Barton said modestly, giving his huge beetle wings an airing.

  “What was that on the water?” Max asked.

  “Ah!” Barton looked pleased with himself. “You’ve just been introduced to my newest recruits: the fishing spiders. Impressive, don’t you think?”

  “Very!” Max laughed. Down at the shore, the fishing spider who’d saved his life was scuttling up the beach toward them, shaking the water off its long brown legs.

  “Instead of balancing on a web, they balance on water,” Barton explained. “They can detect tiny vibrations in the water and rush across to attack prey. That makes them the perfect arachnids to patrol the shore.”

  Max nodded. The basilisk lizard was only able to run on the water as long as it kept moving, but the spider could stay balanced indefinitely by spreading its weight.

  “We need all the help we can get patrolling the shores,” Barton continued. “There’s even recruits dug into the sand below your feet, ready to attack.”

  “Cool!” Max cried. “Can I see them?”

  “All in good time. They’re my secret weapon.” Barton chuckled. He gently poked at the bug design on Max’s shirt. “I see you’re finally becoming one of us!”

  “Sorry, it’s only a shirt.”

  “Ah. What a pity. Maybe if you grew some wings, we wouldn’t need to keep saving you all the time.”

  Max laughed.

  Barton bowed his head, turning serious. “We need your help, though, Max. The lizards are more of a problem than ever.”

  “I thought you might. What’s the trouble this time?”

  General Barton paced back and forth. “We need to improve defenses here on Bug Island. The lizards are still coming across the lava bridge, and they’re setting up bases here before we can react. They’re even crossing the water, as you’ve seen.”

  “What about the fireflies? Can’t they send warnings out?” Max knew all about the secret underground intelligence network that passed information around the island.

  “Not if we don’t see the lizards coming.” Barton sighed. “And that’s the trouble. They always catch us unawares. We need some way of spotting them before they attack.”

  Max looked around the Bug Island bay, trying to think what the bugs could do. Cliffs rose up on either side of the water, almost rivaling the distant Fang Mountain in height. For some reason, he thought of Tyler’s birthday party and the Fortress of Power.

  Right then, an idea struck him.

  “Of course!” he yelled. “It’s o
bvious!”

  “Well, spit it out, then,” Barton cried. “What should we do?”

  “Look around us,” Max said. “We’re surrounded by giant cliffs.”

  The bugs were camped out on the edge of the beach, the waves lapping toward them. They’d built little more than a few mounds of earth with praying mantises perched on them, looking out to sea—they could definitely use more defenses.

  “What if we built a fortress watchtower on the top of Howling Cliffs?” Max suggested. “That way we’d have a clear view of the lava bridge and the water, and we could spot the lizards if any more of them tried to cross over.”

  Max thought back to the fateful day when the volcano had erupted. For years, the sea had separated Bug Island and Reptile Island from one another, and the bugs had lived in peace. But lava flowing down from the volcano had cooled into a rock bridge between the islands, and Bug Island’s problems had begun.

  General Komodo, the reptile commander, was as sneaky as he was brutal. His lizard forces were constantly crossing the lava bridge and making trouble for the bugs. Some of the lizards, like the chameleons, were camouflage experts—it was tricky to spot them.

  “If we got the termite builders on the case, they’d have it done in no time,” Max continued.

  “Good thinking,” Barton said. “I like the sound of that!”

  Together, they made their way across the sand toward the beach fortifications. The mantis sentries at the camp saluted and let them through. Inside, Max spotted his old bug friends: Spike, Webster, and Buzz.

  “Morning, Max!” shouted Spike, the emperor scorpion. “You’re soaking wet! Been for a nice swim?”

  “Don’t be s-s-silly,” stammered Webster, the shy trap-door spider. “Didn’t you hear? It was dreadful! Max nearly got … he nearly got …”

  “Nearly got eaten,” droned Buzz, the giant hornet. “I’m sorry, Max. I only just heard. My squadron was on nectar break after a long patrol.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Max patted Buzz’s bristly thorax.

  “The one time he falls out of the sky, and I wasn’t there to save him!” Buzz grumbled to herself.