by Ali Sparkes
Books in the
S.W.I.T.C.H. series
#1 Spider Stampede
#2 Fly Frenzy
#3 Grasshopper Glitch
#4 Ant Attack
#5 Crane Fly Crash
#6 Beetle Blast
Text © Ali Sparkes 2011
Illustrations © Ross Collins 2011
“SWITCH: Fly Frenzy” was originally published in English in 2011. This edition is published by an arrangement with Oxford University Press.
Copyright © 2013 by Darby Creek
All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.
Darby Creek
A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.
241 First Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.
Website address: www.lernerbooks.com
Main body text set in ITC Goudy Sans Std. 14/19.
Typeface provided by Monotype Typography.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sparkes, Ali.
Fly frenzy / by Ali Sparkes ; illustrated by Ross Collins.
p. cm. — (S.W.I.T.C.H. ; #02)
Summary: Mad scientist Petty Potts asks her neighbors, twins Josh and Danny, to help with her experiments and when her SWITCH spray turns them into flies, they are able to investigate the sabotage of their mother’s garden.
ISBN 978-0-7613-9200-2 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)
[1. Flies—Fiction. 2. Brothers—Fiction. 3. Twins—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Collins, Ross, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.S73712Fly 2013
[Fic]—dc23
2012026632
Manufactured in the United States of America
1 – SB – 12/31/12
eISBN: 978-1-4677-1122-7 (pdf)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-3106-5 (ePub)
eISBN: 978-1-4677-3107-2 (mobi)
For Gregory
Horror at the Hedge
Call Me Petty
Bush Ambush
Bathroom Soup
Snot Funny
A Narrow Squeak
Happy Snappy
Picture Perfect
Flying Finish
Top Secret!
Glossary
Recommended Reading
“Buzz off, you revolting little pest!” Jenny thwacked Danny on the head with her rolled-up magazine.
Josh tried not to giggle. His sister had been reading peacefully for five minutes. She was unaware that Danny was crouched on the back of the sofa behind her. He was rubbing the backs of his hands together, sticking out his tongue, and rolling his eyes madly. A half-eaten cookie in her hand, Jenny hadn’t even noticed Josh standing in the doorway. He was taking pictures with his little digital camera.
It was only when Danny started buzzing that things turned ugly.
“Go and play outside, you creepy little horrors!” yelled Jenny. She was fourteen, so she thought she could boss them around. She whacked Danny again. He fell off the sofa and rolled across the living room floor, laughing and buzzing.
Josh tucked his camera into his pocket. He strolled out toward the front yard with his twin brother. “Of course, if you really wanted to be a fly, you should have spit stomach acid on her cookie. Then walked all over it until it was mush. Then eaten it.”
Danny biffed the back of Josh’s neat, blond head as they went down the hallway. “And Mom says I’m the disgusting one!”
“It’s just nature,” shrugged Josh. He biffed Danny back on his spiky, blond head. “Flies are amazing. I can show you one under my microscope if you like.”
“Yuck! I don’t like!” shuddered Danny. It was one thing pretending to be an insect to annoy Jenny. He hated the real thing.
“You ate one quite happily a couple of weeks ago,” Josh reminded him.
Danny stopped dead on the front doorstep. “I thought we agreed never to talk about that again!”
“Well, yeah, but—”
“NEVER!” said Danny.
Outside, Mom was by the front hedge. She was talking to Mrs. Sharpe from down the street. Mom’s garden looked fantastic. It was carefully trimmed and mowed. It was full of flowers, bushes, and little trees, all overflowing with colorful blossoms. The hedge, though, was her real pride and joy. For years she had trimmed and trained it into three little bird shapes along the top. It was a special skill called “topiary,” she had explained to Josh and Danny. She called them her “hedge birds.”
“Come to help with the weeding, boys?” she asked when she saw them. Mom was in the best garden competition in their town. Last year she’d come in third. This year she was determined to win. Piddle, their terrier dog, had been banned from going anywhere near the front garden. He was shut in the backyard today, out of harm’s way. “Can’t see any weeds!” said Josh.
“There are some there,” said Mrs. Sharpe. She pointed at the rose bed. “And over by the marigolds. Quite a few really. Of course, my garden is completely weed free now. With only one day to go before judging, I couldn’t possibly allow anything wild to start messing it up.” She smiled smugly at them all. “Have to make sure I keep the cup again this year, don’t I, Tarquin?”
A thin, pale boy of about Josh and Danny’s age slithered around from behind his mother. He gave their garden a look of great disdain. “I think your trophy is quite safe, Mother,” he said, in a high-pitched voice.
“Well,” said Mom. She twisted a dead rose bloom off its stalk with some force. “How nice to have a supportive son, Mrs. Sharpe.”
“He is a darling,” sighed Mrs. Sharpe. “And did I tell you that he scored top in his whole school for math this week? He’s Mommy’s little genius!” She patted Tarquin’s neatly parted hair. “Of course, not every child can be a genius, can they?” She smiled pityingly at Josh and Danny. “But that doesn’t matter, does it?”
Danny made being sick noises. Tarquin made ugly faces at them.
“Well, must keep working!” Mom knelt down and drove her trowel viciously into the soil. “We never know who might win this year, do we?”
“Don’t we?” smirked Mrs. Sharpe. “Well, have fun trying. It really is quite a nice little garden . . . ” And she stalked off with her son. He was still sticking his tongue out at Josh and Danny.
“Come on, you two,” said Mom. “Pay no attention to the genius! Weeding, please!”
Josh and Danny worked their way along the wall. They pulled out very tiny weeds and threw them into Mom’s wheelbarrow. “Wee-aargh!” shrieked Danny, wildly flapping his hand. A small spider dropped off it and scuttled away.
“You know, I’m surprised you haven’t got over your fear of spiders,” said Josh, quietly. “Considering you’ve been a spider.”
“DON’T remind me!” Danny looked around warily for more eight-legged foes. “I’m trying to forget it ever happened.”
“What—that we got hit by Miss Potts’s S.W.I.T.C.H. spray? And we got changed into spiders, fell down the drain, got rescued by rats. Then we were almost eaten by a toad and a blackbird, and then got made human again—all before dinner?” Josh grinned as Danny narrowed his eyes at him.
“I don’t know how you can be so calm about it!” grunted Danny, brutally pulling up a dandelion.
“I’m not!” said Josh. “It gives me the shivers just to think about Petty Potts. She’s hidden away in her secret lab behind the shed, turning all kinds of poor creatures into bugs just for fun. But it was kind of exciting too—wasn’t it? And she did turn us back again.”
“Exci
ting? It was terrifying! I was a spider! A spider! I was scared of my own legs!”
Josh chucked another handful of weeds into the wheelbarrow. “Well, don’t worry. It’s all in the past now. We haven’t even seen Petty Potts since. And we’re never going next door again!”
“Ah!” said Mom to someone at the gate. “Good timing! I’m just about to go to the garden center now. Is it still OK for the boys to come over to your house?”
Danny and Josh looked up from their weeding. Their mouths fell open in horror.
Standing by the hedge was their next-door neighbor: Petty Potts.
“NOOOOOO!” shouted Josh and Danny. They stared aghast at the secret scientist who had transformed them into spiders.
“Josh! Danny!” Their mother looked at them crossly. “How can you be so rude?”
“We—we—we mean . . . ” gabbled Josh. “We mean we wanted to come along to the garden center with you. Th-that’s all . . . ”
Danny just gibbered.
“Well, you can’t come! I have a lot to do if I’m going to win the contest. I don’t need you two running around and climbing up the trellises!” Mom put her hands on her hips. They knew it was no good arguing when she did that. But Danny tried anyway.
“We could help . . . ” he began.
“No! You couldn’t! I would leave you here, but Jenny’s going out. Miss Potts has very kindly offered to babysit you. Now, isn’t that nice of her?”
Petty Potts smiled sweetly at them. To Danny she looked like a wolf in a tweed hat and glasses. “Come on in,” she said, heading back to her house. “I have cake . . . ”
“Right,” said their mom. “Off you go then.”
“But she’s . . . weird!” hissed Danny.
“Nonsense,” said their mother. “She’s very nice once you get to know her. I know she was always complaining about your noisy playing before. But just recently I think she’s become rather fond of you both.”
“It’s only because she wants to use us for experiments,” muttered Danny.
Mom laughed. “You and your crazy ideas, Danny! Now, on your best behavior, please, both of you. What are you waiting for? She said there’s cake!”
“DON’T YOU TRY ANYTHING, MISS POTTS!” warned Josh, the moment Petty Potts’s front door closed behind them. Her hallway was dark and old-fashioned. It smelled like damp wood.
“Oh, do call me Petty. And stop being such a ninny,” she said. “I have no intention of wasting good S.W.I.T.C.H. spray on you again. I’ve already tried it on you and it worked. No need to repeat the experiment.”
“Why are you being all nice to Mom, then?” asked Danny, with a suspicious glare.
“I’m just trying to be a good neighbor.” She beckoned them down the hall and into her warm kitchen. There was, indeed, an iced sponge cake on the table. And cups of orange pop next to it. Petty sat down at the table. She waved her guests toward two neighboring chairs. “But—all right—if you must know. I have been wondering whether your little spider adventure has had any aftereffects. How have you been?”
“Fine,” grunted Danny. He sat down as Josh took the seat beside him. He eyed the cake, tormented. It looked so good but . . . “Have you put something in that?” he asked. “Are you trying to turn us into spiders again?”
Petty stood up and looked at them squarely. “Now, listen. I know you both think I’m some kind of old witch. But I am merely trying to work on my experiments. I didn’t ask you to come running into my lab and stand in front of the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray jet, did I?”
“No,” said Josh. “But you were trying to spray Piddle!”
“I beg your pardon?” Petty raised an eyebrow behind her spectacles.
“Our dog! Piddle! You were trying to spray him, weren’t you?”
“All right, I’ll admit it,” she said. She sat back down at the table and cut the cake. “But let’s not bicker about it. It would only have been temporary. I promise I won’t try to spray Piddle again. Or either of you.” She took a big wedge of cake and bit into it. “Sheee?” she said. “It’sh quite shafe to eat!”
The cake was too good to resist. After a few bites, they started to relax. Petty also sipped from one of their cups of pop to prove these weren’t full of S.W.I.T.C.H. juice.
“All quite safe. However,” sighed Petty. She had a wistful look on her face. “A little part of me was hoping . . . ”
“Hoping what?” asked Josh, his cake frozen halfway to his mouth.
“No—no, it doesn’t matter,” said Petty. She picked up crumbs by squashing them together on her finger. “Nothing.”
“What?” demanded Danny.
Petty licked the crumbs off her finger. She eyed them both as if she was adding something up. “Well, the fact is, I need help.”
“You’re not kidding,” grunted Danny.
“I meant I need help with my amazing research,” said Petty. “I’ve been working alone for far too long. If I had some assistance . . . Well, put it this way, we wouldn’t just be talking about spiders or ants or flies.” She paused dramatically. “We’d also be talking about . . . dragons.”
Josh and Danny stared at her.
“Close your mouth, Danny,” said Petty. “I can see your munched-up cake.”
“Dragons?” echoed Josh. “You mean you could make us turn into dragons?”
“Doesn’t matter, though, does it?” said Petty, briskly cutting another slice of cake. “Because you don’t want anything to do with the S.W.I.T.C.H. Project. It’s far too dangerous.”
“H-how? How can you turn us into dragons?” gulped Danny.
“Well, in fact, I can’t,” said Petty. “Not yet. Not until I’ve found something which I lost. Once I’ve found it, there will be no stopping me! I will work my way up from insects to reptiles. Maybe even mammals and birds. But not until I have found it.”
“Found what?” asked Josh.
Petty peered at them hard. “My memory,” she said. Josh and Danny peered back at their weird neighbor, astonished.
“Well, in fact I didn’t lose it,” she went on. “It was destroyed. By Victor Crouch.”
“Victor Crouch? Who’s he?” asked Danny. This was starting to feel like a very odd guessing game. Petty suddenly drove the cake knife into the table with a vicious crack.
“Victor Crouch and I used to be good friends. We both worked for the government. In the best laboratories in the world, hidden underground somewhere in Berkshire. That’s where I first stumbled upon the formula to create the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray. But I kept the secret to myself. Then Victor discovered my diary, read it, and decided to steal my work!”
She pulled the cake knife out of the table. Danny and Josh flinched as she stabbed it back in again, with even more force. “So he stole my notes, claimed the S.W.I.T.C.H. Project was all his own work. And then . . . he burnt my memory out and got me fired!”
Josh and Danny gulped. “How did he burn your memory out?” breathed Danny.
“Oh—there are all kinds of clever ways to do that!” muttered Petty. “I only know it happened because of my nose.”
“Your nose?” queried Josh.
“Yes—it doesn’t work properly anymore! And one thing I do remember about my old government agency days is that when you burn out part of someone’s memory, you mess up their sense of smell too. I can’t smell things correctly. This cake smells like cheese. Cheese smells like coal. And so on . . . ”
“So how come you’re still working on your project then?” asked Josh.
“Well,” grinned Petty, “what Victor didn’t know was that I had expected something like this to happen one day! So I transformed all my notes into a secret code. And then I left fake notes in their place! Just in case someone ever tried to do the dirty on me! The real secret code for each S.W.I.T.C.H. Spray is chopped into six parts. And each part is hidden inside one of these.” She pulled something from a red velvet box on the table. She held it up to the light. A small cube of glass twinkled in her fingers. Inside it was a
hologram of a spider—and some strange symbols in a line beneath it. “It’s a S.W.I.T.C.H. formula cube,” she said.
“Inside this one is part of the code for what I call the BUGSWITCH Spray. I have the other five of these. The complete set of BUGSWITCH cubes.”
She turned the red velvet box around. They saw five more cubes. They glinted in the light through the kitchen window, each with slightly different holograms.
“That’s why I can make BUGSWITCH Spray.” She pressed the cube into the dent in the box beside the others and snapped the lid shut. “BUT—there are more! I know there are REPTOSWITCH cubes too! Because I have just one cube in this box. And five empty spaces.” She flipped open the green velvet box and held up another cube. This one had a tiny lizard hologram inside it and more strange symbols.
“And there might be mammal cubes! There may even be bird cubes! I can’t be sure. I don’t know how far I got before Victor Crouch did a smash and grab on my brain. But first of all, I have to find the REPTOSWITCH formula hidden in the missing cubes.”
She rolled the rather beautiful, single REPTOSWITCH cube around in her palm. She held it closer to Danny and Josh. “So . . . if you were to become my assistants and if we were to find all the REPTOSWITCH cubes, . . . who’s to say you couldn’t find out what it’s like to be a dragon?”
Josh and Danny were silent. They gazed at the glass cube with its holographic lizard. “But,” said Josh, after a while, “there’s no such thing as a dragon. We know you can do spiders. But they’re real. Dragons are just make-believe.” Josh knew a lot about wildlife. For an eight-year-old he was really quite an expert. He was quite certain dragons did not exist.
“Well, what about the Komodo dragon?” said Petty.
“OK—there is a Komodo dragon,” admitted Josh.
“And a water dragon,” added Petty.
“Well, yes—all right! But they’re just types of lizards,” said Josh. “They can’t fly or breathe fire.”
