The Bully Bug

by David Lubar

  “Why? So they can eat up the rest of the house? Darn bugs.”

  I couldn’t answer him. What could I say? Guess what, Dad? Your son’s a bug. A real big bug. I couldn’t ever tell him that. He’d go crazy. I could just see him turning the spray on me. I started to walk away.

  “Where you going?” he asked.

  “Outside.” I figured I could hang out in the yard until the air cleared. I was still a little dizzy from Mr. Terranova’s lawn.

  “Stay here,” Dad said. “I need you to work the pump. Got to get two men on this. You pump hard and I’ll spray. Hit ’em with full pressure, really get the stuff into every crack. We’re going to wipe out every single insect in this house.”

  It felt good that he thought of me as a man. It felt bad that I was about to end up in a cloud of bug-killer spray. Maybe I could stay out of the way if I kept behind him. I started pumping. Dad lifted the hose and pointed the nozzle at the floor, next to the door. “Die, bugs.” He pulled the trigger.

  Nothing happened.

  “Darn. Let me see that.” He grabbed the can and shook it. “Empty.” He looked at his watch. “The store’s closed. Don’t worry. I’ll get some more spray first thing in the morning.”

  I put the sprayer back in the attic. Man, it was hot up there. I hurried out. I didn’t want to be changing into a bug any faster than I had to.

  I went downstairs. Dad was in the kitchen. “Maybe it’s not termites,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter what kind of bug it is,” he said. “I’m going to get the good stuff. It’ll kill anything that wiggles, crawls, or flies. Big or small, kills ’em all.” He grinned.

  “Great.” I went out back. Bud was playing monster ape again, knocking over stuff, but I didn’t feel like joining him. I didn’t feel like doing anything. So I just sat and watched him. He was lucky. Tomorrow, he’d be pretty much the same as he was today. And the same the next day. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. But I knew one thing: After everyone went to sleep, I was going to fix the sprayer so it wouldn’t work. Hey, that was almost a joke. I’d said I’d fix it so it wouldn’t work. But if it were fixed, it would work.

  Even my jokes didn’t cheer me up right then.

  I walked over to one of the washing machines. I’d seen the bugs run under it the other day. Maybe they were still there. I didn’t want to get bit again, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get a closer look at them. I flipped over the machine.

  There were plenty of bugs underneath. Except they weren’t moving. My stomach twisted around when I looked at them. They were all dead.

  A breeze came through the yard and scattered the dried-out bodies. Just like that, they were gone. I should have felt glad about them being dead, since they’d done this to me. But I didn’t. I felt sorry for them.

  When we went in for dinner, I forced down some food to make Mom happy. At bedtime, I waited until it sounded like everybody was asleep. We Mellons aren’t the quietest sleepers in the world. Sometimes my parents’ room sounds like a place where people test out chain saws. And May whistles through her nose when she sleeps. It’s almost like she’s playing a flute. Badly.

  I went into the hall and up to the attic. I didn’t want to turn on a light, so I felt my way around. I kept one hand on the door so I wouldn’t get trapped, and reached around for the can.

  That’s when something dropped onto my hand. It must have been a spider. I jumped. Bad move, since the ceiling was pretty low in the attic. I smacked the top of my head so hard, it felt like someone had set off a firecracker inside my brain. For the second time in one day, everything went black.

  The last thought I had as I passed out was how hot it felt. Real hot. Like an oven.

  Seventeen

  TOTALLY BUGGY

  Oh man. It took me a minute to remember where I was. I sat up and felt my head for a bump.

  Something was wrong.

  Please. Let it be a dream.

  My whole head was covered with stiff, pointy hairs. So was my hand. Only it wasn’t a hand. It was too dark to see for sure what it had turned into. I think I was glad I couldn’t see too much. But my hand ended in some kind of claw. It felt like my thumb had gotten bigger and my other four fingers had gotten stuck together.

  A breeze from somewhere broke through the heat. I could feel it over my whole body. And the smell of flowers. Real strong. It was coming from outside. Mom had planted a cherry tree in the yard years ago. I could smell the blossoms. I could taste them, too. But my mouth was closed. I realized I could taste them with my arms. No joke. Where the air hit my arms, I could taste the flowers.

  I stood up, making sure I didn’t hit my head again. I needed to know what I’d become. There was a bulb in the middle of the attic, with a chain. I felt around for the chain, then gave it a yank.

  The attic filled with light.

  I’d forgotten that Dad stacked up a bunch of old mirrors against the far wall.

  When I saw the reflections, I jumped.

  But this time, I didn’t bang my head. I spun around with my belly toward the ceiling. My hands—or whatever they were—and my feet hit the ceiling and stuck. I’d done it without thinking. Like how a cat lands on its feet. Or how a ninja in one of those karate movies leaps around. I felt strong and light. I could have hung there all day with no trouble.

  I took a step, then another. The breeze was coming through the vent holes Dad had cut. I didn’t even have to wonder whether I could fit through. I knew there was enough space. I crawled down the ceiling to the floor, and then slipped through the opening.

  I crawled up to the roof. The sun was rising. The world filled with greens and blues and a color I had never seen before. Everything curved around from the center to the corners of my eyes. It was hard to describe, but it was sort of like those giant movie screens that wrap around a wall. It helped me know how far away everything was.

  The sun felt wonderful. My skin, or whatever it was, soaked up the heat. It made my whole body feel good.

  After a while, I crawled down the side of the house. The ground felt great. I could taste the grass through my hands. I’d decided to still call them hands, even though they looked more like claws. I stood up and looked around, thinking about what I’d seen in the mirror.

  The eyes. That was the strangest thing. My eyes were huge. My head was bigger, too. And I had small antennas on top of it. If tonight was Halloween, I’d be the coolest kid on the planet. But it was spring, and I was nothing but a giant bug. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about going back to the bedroom and getting Bud. But what could he do for me? I wasn’t smart enough to figure anything out, and I was smarter than Bud. Besides, if Dad saw me, he’d flip. And I didn’t want to scare Mom. She wasn’t afraid of bugs, but she’d never seen one this size. I guess nobody had.

  Something else felt wrong. My pajama top was tight. I took it off, but that didn’t help. I kept seeing a shape out of the corner of my eye, like when you have stuff stuck to your nose and you almost can’t see it. But this was on my shoulder. No, it was over my shoulder.

  I turned my head around and saw that I had wings. Big ones. After a while, when I got over the shock, I found out I could move them. When I shrugged my shoulders, the wings moved. I tried flapping them together. First just one big flap. Nothing happened. Then I tried a couple faster flaps.

  Whoa.

  It was like someone had grabbed me under my arms and lifted me up. Right off, I went up a foot or two.

  I stopped flapping and dropped to the ground.

  Okay. This could be interesting. I flapped a bit slower. This time, I didn’t shoot up into the air. I went up slowly. Not bad. I flew a little higher and looked down. It was weird, seeing my feet dangling like that, not touching the ground.

  So I could go up. But that wouldn’t do me much good unless I could also go other ways. I wondered how I could go forward. I tried leaning, then almost toppled over. No. That wasn’t the way to do it. Then I tried flapping back a little wi
th my wings.

  It worked.

  Except I shot forward real fast. Right into the side of the house.

  Kasplat!

  I felt like a bug that had smacked a windshield. I slid to the ground.

  I guess it was like driving a car. You could go places easily, but if you messed up, you got hurt. I turned away from the house and tried again. This time, I managed to fly around the yard without slamming into anything.

  I flew around the yard a couple more times.

  “Luuuudddddd! Where are you?”

  Oh man. May was calling for me. I thought about just flying away. But then Mom would worry. I fluttered back to the ground and stood by the side of the house.

  “I’m out here,” I called. My voice sounded nearly normal. Maybe just a little bit buzzy. Hey, I thought of a joke. If my voice was kind of rough, that made me a hoarse fly. “I got up early. I’m heading out for school.”

  “What about breakfast?” May called.

  “I ate already,” I said. I looked over at the trees next to the house. Sure enough, I’d munched down on one of the branches. So I wasn’t lying.

  “There ain’t no school,” May called. “It’s Saturday.”

  “I want to get a head start for next week,” I told her.

  I slipped out of the yard before May could argue with me. But I hadn’t gone more than a couple steps when I heard Bud shouting, “Hey, Lud! You out there? Wait for me. Okay? Wait for me, Lud.”

  “I’ll meet you later,” I called back. Then I hurried down the street. I was only wearing my pajama bottoms, but the way I looked, that didn’t really seem to matter. With luck, nobody would see me.

  It’s amazing how bad luck can be when you need it to be good.

  Eighteen

  SEE YOU

  I flew above the town. At first, I followed the streets. Then I realized I didn’t have to. I could go wherever I wanted, even right over houses and trees. Somehow, I knew exactly how far away everything was. I knew how long it would take to get to Norman’s house, or back home, or anywhere else. Once I got the hang of it, I didn’t even have to think.

  This was even better than having my own airplane.

  After a while, my shoulders got tired, so I came down and started walking.

  That’s when I ran into her.

  Dawn. The last person I wanted to scare. She was coming down her porch steps, holding her collie on a leash.

  She looked up. And then she screamed.

  I must have scared her bad. Because Dawn isn’t the kind of girl who goes off screaming for no reason. But I guess I was a whole lot of reasons.

  I ran away.

  Man, I could run fast, too. Before I knew it, I was blocks from her house, right by the school. I ducked back in the trees. I felt awful. I didn’t want to scare anybody. I didn’t want anybody screaming just because they saw me.

  But that look in her eyes—the terror. I’d seen it before. I just hadn’t paid too much attention to it. I’d seen it all the time in smaller kids. And every kid in school was smaller than me. Except for Bud. I’d seen that look in the nerd’s—I mean, in Norman’s eyes every day. And he was helping me.

  Man, I really was a bug. Even back when I looked like a human, I guess I was really nothing better than a scary insect. The only difference now was that my outside matched my inside. Maybe I should just stay a lousy bug.

  I was so busy thinking about all of this that I didn’t pay any attention to the rumbling I felt. It was weird. I could feel the ground shaking through the hairs in my legs. I looked over and saw a truck. A couple guys jumped out of it and pulled a hose from the back. It wasn’t a fire truck. It was some kind of truck with a tank.

  The guys slipped masks over their heads and onto their mouths and noses.

  They pointed the hose at the trees.

  There was a hiss, and this big, foggy cloud sprayed out of the hose. It shot over the trees and started to sink down.

  On the side of the truck, I saw the picture of the dead bug. The one on its back with its feet in the air. I looked up over my head. The fog was drifting down. All around. There was no way I could get out in time.

  And I couldn’t fly up. I’d go right through the spray.

  If it touched me, I figured I was one dead bug.

  Nineteen

  CAN YOU DIG IT?

  There was no time to think. Even if there was, I never was any good at thinking my way out of trouble. Norman had said I did stuff by instinct. Maybe that was my only hope. I shut my brain down—that wasn’t so hard—and let my body take over.

  It worked.

  I dropped to the ground and started to dig. My arms were so strong and fast, I made a hole right away. I slipped into it and I kept on moving. It was easy. It sort of felt like swimming through something real thick. I just scooped out some space ahead of me and then pushed my way forward. I didn’t need to make much of a hole, since I could squish through just about any small space.

  It was dark, but that didn’t matter. I knew exactly where I was. I moved toward Norman’s house. Every inch of my body helped tell me things. There were thousands of clues. I could feel and hear stuff all around me. I knew when I was under a road. I felt the cars rolling along.

  It was nice underground—cool and wet. It was tempting to close my eyes and rest. Maybe take a nap, down here safe and dark, surrounded by soil. Nice and safe. Maybe just stay here. Sleep for a while.

  No. I realized I was starting to think more and more like a bug. If that happened, I might never get better. I kept digging.

  Finally, I popped up from a hole in the middle of Norman’s front yard. I shook the dirt off my body and climbed up the side of the house. The window was open, but there was a screen on it.

  He was lying in his bed, reading.

  “Hey,” I called. “It’s me.”

  He looked over. Then he jumped up and ran to the window. “Good grief. I told you to avoid hot places. What did you do, spend the night in a furnace?” He pulled off the screen and stepped back.

  I crawled in. “Attic,” I told him.

  “Well, this pretty much verifies the heat hypothesis,” he said. “Though I imagine that’s much more satisfying a realization for me than it is for you.”

  “What do I do?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll figure something out.”

  His doorbell rang.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  I started to sit, then decided I’d feel better off the ground. So I crawled up the wall and across the ceiling to the corner over his bed.

  I heard two sets of footsteps a moment later. He came back into the room with his show-off friend, Sebastian.

  “Lud,” Norman said, “I brought someone who can help.”

  I watched as Sebastian looked around the room. “What are you talking about, Norman?” he asked. “There’s nobody here. Let me guess—you have a new imaginary playmate.”

  I dropped down from the ceiling, landing lightly on Norman’s bed.

  Sebastian snapped his head toward me. He opened his mouth to scream. But no sound came out. Instead, his eyes rolled back and he fainted. Dropped right down on the floor with a thud.

  “I forgot about his fear of bugs,” Norman said. He looked at me. “Wait here while I get some water.” He ran out, then came back a minute later with a glass of water.

  Norman managed to get Sebastian to wake up. But as soon as he saw me, he fainted again. Finally, on the third try, Norman said to him, “It’s just Lud. Try to deal with it.”

  Sebastian nodded, though I noticed he wouldn’t look in my direction.

  “I can see where he’ll be a lot of help,” I said.

  “He will be,” Norman said. “As flaky as he might appear, I know I can count on him in an emergency. Except for this irrational problem he has with insects, he’s really pretty brave. He’s been through a lot. Actually, he went through something like you did, but not quite so hairy an experience. Now, me, I was a
lot hairier. Thank goodness that’s over with.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  He turned back to Sebastian. “You okay now?”

  Sebastian nodded. He sat up. Then Norman told him what had happened to me.

  And after all that, neither of them had any idea what to do to help.

  I got up and walked over to a small mirror on Norman’s wall. Man, I was ugly. Big fly eyes. My jaw was all funny, like it could move sideways. I didn’t seem to have a nose. And my body was just as bad, all stiff and hard and covered with those thick hairs. “Why couldn’t I be a butterfly or something?” I said. “I had to be something ugly.”

  “That’s it!” Norman shouted.

  “What?” I asked.

  “I have an idea. It’s dangerous, but it might be your only chance. Are you willing to take a risk?”

  I glanced back at the mirror. I thought about how scary and ugly I was. But I could fly. And I could dig. And I could figure out how fast a plane was going just by looking at it. For a kid who never got anything better than a C on a math test, that was something pretty cool. And if I became me again, was I any better off? People would still be scared of me. I’d be stupid and ugly, and I wouldn’t be able to fly.

  “I have to think about it,” I told him.

  “You’d better think fast,” he told me.

  “Why?”

  “There isn’t much time,” he said. “Pretty soon, I suspect you won’t be able to think at all.”

  Twenty

  KEEP THE CHANGE

  I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “You’re like a bug on the outside,” he said. “But you haven’t changed completely. You can still talk. And a bug can’t do that. It can make sounds, but not anything resembling human speech. So I think you’re still changing inside.”

  “That’s crazy,” I said. But as I spoke, I realized that my voice sounded even rougher than before. Maybe my throat was changing inside, like he said.