by R. McGeddon
Simple, really!
* * *
Instead of the dainty glass beakers they had used previously, they used a giant bucket. Instead of one Bunsen burner, Arty hooked up all twenty-five of them in the classroom, making an intense flame that burned blue like an angry sea.
Sam and Emmie watched through the door’s window as a whole host of giant spiders came rustling down the corridor.
“Quickly,” said Sam. “We need as much as possible.”
Arty and Felicia worked fast, measuring ingredients and filling up a huge container full of the spider-growth elixir, but the spiders were soon peering through the door, trying to knock it down.
“I can’t hold it!” Sam gasped, barring the door with his shoulder.
“Here!” said Emmie. She ran to the nearest stool and propped it under the door handle. Hopefully it would save them some vital minutes.
Just then a fizz and a pop ripped through the room. The bucket full of growth elixir sprang into life, sending yellowy-orange goo fizzing in every direction.
“That’s the stuff!” Arty cried.
With the mixture complete, it was time to get out of there.
“Guys, go!” Sam yelled, grabbing the bucket as the spiders bashed against the door once more. Emmie, Felicia, and Arty all clambered over the desks and out the broken windows, shinnying down the drainpipes to the relative safety of the outdoors.
Sam smiled at the spiders through the glass. “See ya later, suckers!” he shouted. Letting go of the door, he ran for the open window as the spiders rushed in after him. Then he leaped to freedom.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sam, Arty, Emmie, and Felicia had a plan to put into action. While Sam and Emmie stayed at the school ready to spring a trap, Arty and Felicia would lure all of the spiders in Sitting Duck there. Right now, they were pedaling furiously around town, like a pair of rogue cowboys on wheels, to round them up. (Or should I say spiderboys? No, that doesn’t quite work.)
Arty and Felicia were counting on spiders being hungry for more of the elixir. They were going to create a trail of it right from the center of Sitting Duck, back to the school, and they rode out into the center of town to corral the spiders like the Wild West.
When they reached Main Street, they stopped to review the situation.
“Right,” said Arty. “Here’s what we do.”
He poured some of the elixir into the bikes’ water bottles, making sure to store them upside down. His idea was to open them up and let the elixir fall out while they pedaled, creating a trail that would lead the spiders to the trap. He put the bottles in place and climbed off his bike to yank the lids off two garbage cans.
“Grab one of these,” he said to Felicia. “You’re gonna need it.”
Felicia looked at it, puzzled. Arty clambered back onto his bike and held his up like a shield. “We’ll need protection,” he began, “when we go through that.”
Felicia looked ahead and saw a huge mass of spiders congregating. “Oh,” she said. “Good call.”
Felicia grabbed the trash-can shield in one hand and a handlebar in the other.
“You ready?” Arty asked.
Felicia nodded. She had a tear in her eye and a sigh in her heart, but she knew it was pretty much destroy the spiders or they would destroy everything else. And then how could she do experiments and go to fun school dances? Awesome giant spiders are one thing, but, you know … priorities!
Arty and Felicia popped their water bottles open and began pedaling.
They hit the first wave of spiders, which reared up and gnashed their jaws. Arty and Felicia fought back, batting them with their makeshift shields. They fought their way through the crowd to the top of Main Street, which joined with the town square.
“It’s working, Felicia,” Arty shouted. “Look!”
As the food dripped out behind them, more and more spiders raced in pursuit like the hungry bugs they were. They even abandoned the prisoners they’d captured in their sticky webs to follow Arty and Felicia.
Felicia braked sharply as a tarantula reared up ahead of her. It made to clamp down on her lovely hair with its not-so-lovely fangs, but she drew the garbage-lid shield up in front of her and brought it crashing down on the tarantula’s legs. It seemed that she finally got the message: small spiders good, giant spiders bad. It reeled in pain behind her, but then picked itself up from the ground and followed her once more.
She motored on through the swarm, Arty encouraging all the way.
“That’s it,” Arty said. “We’re nearly there.”
As they rejoined the road that led up to Sitting Duck school, what followed was like a nightmarish version of the Pied Piper. Instead of leading rats or children through the town, Felicia and Arty were leading a hungry band of giant spiders to their deaths. Although actually, I’m pretty sure the Pied Piper would have approved.
Eventually, they came to the school gates and pedaled inside. They crossed the yard and went straight to the open door. They cycled down the corridors, spiders clambering after them, and headed straight for the school gym.
“I hope they’re ready,” Arty panted.
Oh, they were, Arty. No need to panic.
While Felicia and Arty had been pedaling around town, Sam and Emmie had gotten down to work. The school dance was supposed to take place tomorrow night, but Sam and Emmie had decided they were going to have a party of their own a little early.
Arty and Felicia frantically burst into the hall.
“Sam, Emmie, where are you?” Arty cried as he and Felicia ditched the bikes—there was nowhere left to pedal.
“Up here!” Emmie shouted.
Arty and Felicia followed the voice until they spotted Sam and Emmie, perched halfway up the bleachers by the side of the wall. Arty and Felicia scrambled up toward them, and, panting, made it up to the final steps.
“What now?” Arty gasped.
“Now,” said Sam, “we take them down.”
With a flick of a switch, the gym was suddenly bathed in bright, colorful light. The disco ball that had been set up twirled in the center, sending multicolored rays spinning across the ground. The spiders, packed into the gym like the world’s worst dance attendees, hissed and screeched, but now there was nowhere left to run.
The group put on the protective masks they had found in Marty’s van.
“Hit it!” Emmie cried.
Sam hadn’t been that keen on the idea of the school dance, but the one thing he did think was cool was the fog machine. It was supposed to be for the romantic number at the end of the night. You know, the one where everyone gets all smoochy-smoochy, and people start mashing their faces together like seals fighting over a mackerel? Anyway, the point is, the school had a fog machine. Except it wasn’t going to be used for harmless smoke this time. No. It was going to be used for bug poison. And the spiders were going to dance to their doom.
“Take that!” Sam cried, and flicked the switch. Clouds of poison from Marty’s van seeped across the school hall. White smoke billowed into the eight-legged creeps, and despite their best efforts, it took them down, one by one.
Meanwhile, Felicia, Emmie, and Arty used their spray packs to fight off spiders that tried to get close to the bleachers. In a couple of minutes, the school gym was like a battlefield, and the spiders had clearly lost.
Sam gave Emmie a high five.
“We did it!” he cried.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Just as they were about to celebrate, one last spider came to spoil the fun. This time, it was the biggest, baddest, and meanest of them all.
“Uh-oh,” said Sam. “Looks like Gerry is not too happy.”
Not content with biting off poor Mr. Nerdgoober’s head, Gerry the ogre-faced spider was back for more and ready to kick butt.
Our trusty heroes ran out of the school gym, where the poison from the fog machine was slowly thickening. Even with masks, they had to get some fresh air. As they burst out into the open, Gerry eagerly followed the
m.
“Quick!” Arty shouted. “Use your sprayers!”
Sam, Arty, Emmie, and Felicia dove into formation and tried to fire off more of the poison, but only a pathetic dribble came out of the hoses. Their weapons were empty, and Gerry was closing in for the kill.
“Quick, run!” Emmie cried. But before she could go anywhere, Gerry rubbed his front legs together and cast a net in her direction. She let out a muffled cry as the sticky web pinned her to a nearby wall.
“Emmie!” Sam cried. He and Arty rushed toward her and tried to pry her out of the sticky morass.
Gerry hissed and let out another high-pitched squeal. He rubbed his legs together again and spun more silk into a net. This time, he cast it in Sam and Arty’s direction. If he were an evil villain, he would have said something like “Don’t get tangled up!” But Gerry wasn’t an evil supervillain; he was just your regular giant spider going about his business. And he couldn’t form complex sentences or make hilarious spider-based puns.
What he could do was fling his sticky net out toward Sam and Arty. They both yelped in panic, but it was no use. The web completely covered them and pinned them to the wall alongside Emmie. Sam and Arty struggled under its sticky grip, but it was no use.
“Argh!” Arty yelled. “Get us out of here!”
Felicia was left alone against the eight-legged monster that she herself had created. She backed away from the creature as he slowly advanced toward her.
“I can’t,” she yelled. “The size differential between this arachnid and my humanoid frame is such that the equitable force needed to shift its—”
“Felicia!” Emmie cried. “Quit with the science chat and get us out of here.”
Gerry sent a web flying in Felicia’s direction. She ducked it with a squeal and rose back to her feet. Past Gerry, she noticed Sam’s baseball bat lying in the road. This was her moment. This was where she got to be a heroine, instead of the dangerous science girl who created this whole mess in the first place.
She rolled between Gerry’s legs and grabbed the baseball bat. Then she rose to her feet and stood firm in front Gerry’s ogre-y face.
“Take this, you oversized, genetically modified, ugly-faced teacher killer!” she screamed, swinging the baseball bat right at Gerry’s face. She thwacked him right on the spider nose—which, actually, is not a real nose. It’s an area of hair on the spider’s legs that picks up smells and transfers them to the spider’s tiny brains. So, what I should have said was, Felicia thwacked the spider on the legs.
The spider groaned and toppled forward. As he fell, Felicia finished him off with a nice strike to the head, which knocked him out completely.
“You did it!” Arty cried.
Felicia raised the baseball bat in the air in triumph and danced around like she’d just scored the winning touchdown at the Super Bowl.
“Okay, yeah,” said Emmie. “It’s great fun watching you dance, Felicia, but is there any chance you can get us out of here?”
“Oh right,” Felicia said.
She helped Sam, Arty, and Emmie out of their gunky prison and got them back on their feet just as a whole cavalcade of police cars and fire trucks and ambulances came whirring into the school’s parking lot. Flashing lights filled the night sky and sirens blasted out into the air as the kids walked out of the gym to greet them. In the crowd, they saw the familiar car of their principal, Mrs. Strictheart.
“Kids!” someone exclaimed. They turned to see the burly chief fireman, Harlow McWaters. “We’ve come just in time. We’re here to save Sitting Duck.”
The children just looked at one another. Every. Single. Time. The adults really had no idea what was going on in this town. They were about as useful as a bear in a tutu—but much less hilarious.
“Oh, okay,” Sam said to the fireman. “The danger’s in there!” He thought it was best for the authorities to just get on with their thing. No use telling them that the whole of Sitting Duck and the world had been saved by four kids. The town’s firefighters and police all piled into the Sitting Duck school, desperately attempting to solve a problem they were far too late to solve.
Mrs. Strictheart got out of her car and strode toward our heroes.
“Do you know how many science teachers we’ve gone through?” she asked. “We’ve had more of them than we’ve had dinners!”
The kids looked on shamefaced.
“Who is responsible for this?” she demanded.
Felicia stepped forward and offered herself up. “Me, I suppose,” she began. “Is this the part where I get my Nobel Prize for scientific discovery and a special award for bravery?”
Mrs. Strictheart scowled. “No,” she said curtly. “Come with me.”
Arty looked on wistfully as Felicia was escorted away to yet another expulsion. He gave her a little wave, and she swooshed her hair as if to say “good-bye.” It was sad, really. She’d obviously seen the error of her ways. Probably. For five minutes, at least.
Sam looked across to Arty. “No dancing for you two I’m afraid.”
Arty slapped his forehead. “Don’t mention the dance, you fool!”
“Hey, yeah!” said Emmie. “I almost forgot!” She rummaged around in her backpack and found just what she was looking for: a green sequined dress. Darn it, Arty thought, it’s not red.
Arty reluctantly put it on over his clothes. In the flashing police lights, I think he looked quite nice.
“A bet’s a bet,” said Emmie.
“I guess,” Arty said. “Way to get over your phobia, Sam.” But he grinned.
Sam just laughed. “It was totally worth it!”
Read them all!
Disaster strikes the town of Sitting Duck again … and again … and again.…
DISASTER DIARIES
ROBOTS!
Read on for a sneaky look at the disaster-defeating wisdom you don’t want to miss out on in this other book.…
Sam, Arty, and Emmie get more than they bargained for when Arty creates CHARLES for the school science fair. CHARLES is meant to be a helpful chore-completing robot, but when he malfunctions, he proves to be a maniacal droid bent on destruction—all in the name of “tidying up” the town of Sitting Duck for good.
When CHARLES raises his robot army—complete with pesky hairdryers and dangerous refrigerators—Sam, Arty, and Emmie must take on their own creation to save the town once more!
CHAPTER ONE
It was the day of the school science fair, and the eyes of the world had once more turned on the sleepy town of Sitting Duck.
Well, not the whole world, obviously. That would be silly. Everyone in the whole world hadn’t gathered together to watch a small school science fair. They wouldn’t all fit in the hall for a start, and the line for the bathrooms would have been a mile long.
In fact, if I’m honest, there were mostly just teachers and students wandering around making the place look untidy—but if you hold your school science fair in a school, what else can you expect?
Tables were lined up inside the hall, each one displaying a different project. A lot of them were modeling-clay volcanoes that fizzed white foam out of the top when you poured vinegar in. But, in an interesting twist, one was white foam that supposedly shot vinegar out of the top when you dropped a volcano in. Although no one had thought to bring a volcano with them, so it couldn’t be put to the test.
As well as all that stuff, there was one thing even more important in the school hall that day—friendship. And heroes.
Okay, that’s two things.
In fact, here come a couple of those friendly heroes now: Sam Saunders and Emmie Lane.
What can I say about Sam that hasn’t already been said? Well, he’s probably about your height, actually, or maybe a bit smaller. Or taller. Depends what height you are, really. He’s roughly around your height—let’s just say that.
Sam loves sports. Like, really loves them. Whether it’s baseball, football, soccer, basketball, or dodgeball, he can’t get enough of that st
uff. When he’s not playing sports, he’s hanging out with his best friends, being liked by everyone he meets, and saving the frickin’ world!
Emmie, I’ll be honest, isn’t liked by everyone. But that’s fine, because she doesn’t really like everyone, either. It works out quite well, actually, as it means most people try to avoid talking to her in case she shouts at them or something.
Her hobbies include being angry, plotting elaborate escapes from her great-aunt Doris’s house, and leaving sarcastic comments on YouTube videos. Oh, and saving the frickin’ world!
Sam and Emmie were strutting like a pair of champions through the hall, clutching their own science projects and checking out the competition. As they approached one table, a creature with a dozen eyes popped up from behind it and let out a high-pitched squeal. Instinctively, Emmie lunged at it, ready to wrestle the thing to the ground, but Sam caught her just in time.
“Relax,” he said. “It’s just Phoebe.”
“Like, of course,” said Phoebe. “And what do you mean ‘just’ Phoebe?”
Phoebe Bowles was Emmie’s all-time worst enemy, and considering Emmie had recently battled a power-hungry mad scientist with a brainwashing machine, that was really saying something. Emmie was very much your average running-around, climbing-trees, punching-supervillains-in-the-face type of person, while Phoebe loved nothing more than … well, herself, really.
“What are you wearing?” Emmie asked, her eyes drawn to Phoebe’s hat. It was a fluffy blue beret, but sticking out from it at all angles were six metal arms. At the end of each arm dangled a little mirror, making it look like a hundred eyes were reflecting outward.
“It’s a rotating mirror hat,” sniffed Phoebe, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“What’s a rotating mirror hat?” asked Sam.
“Are you kidding me?” Phoebe snorted. “It’s, like, a hat with mirrors on it. So you can see yourself from every angle. It’s my science project.”
