Ant Attack (3 page)

“Oh great. Just great,” said Josh. He lay on his back at the bottom of a deep, dark chasm. He did a quick leg count.

“How many legs this time?” wailed a fearful voice behind him. “Please don't say it's eight. Please don't say it's eight. Please d—”

“Six! It's six!” called back Josh. “Relax.”

Danny scrambled to his six feet. He looked around the shadowy gorge they had fallen into when they shrank to creepy-crawly size. Again. “Where are we?” he whispered. His voice echoed back quickly off the rocky walls on either side of him.

“And what are we?”

“I reckon we're down in a crack in the sidewalk,” said Josh. “So we must be pretty small.” He turned around to peer at his brother. They both gave a little shout of shock.

“Eeeww!”

Each brother was staring at a glossy dark-brown head with small round black eyes and long twitching feelers. Their almost-black bodies were sleek and shiny. They were made up of three parts: a big oval head with small pincerlike jaws; a little bottle-shaped bit in the middle, from which their six muscular but elegant legs sprouted; and the biggest bit at the back, which tapered off into what looked like a stinger.

“Wow! We're ants!” breathed Josh. A rich scent wafted around him.

“Could be worse,” gulped Danny. He didn't much like any creepy-crawlies but definitely coped better with the little six-legged ones.

“This is amazing,” marveled Josh. “I mean … we're talking—right?”

“Well, obviously,” said Danny. He shrugged and turned his feelers up like the palms of his hands.

“But we're not making any noise!”

“Don't be stupid! I can hear you,” said Danny.

“No! You only think you can hear me. But I'm actually not talking out loud! Ants can't do that. They talk to each other by making smells and prodding with their feelers!” squeaked Josh, excitedly. He prodded Danny with his feelers.

“OK,” said Danny. “So—I'm not hearing a word you say …? I'm just smelling them.”

“And feeling them!” added Josh with another prod.

“All right,” said Danny, prodding Josh back sharply. “I get it. But all this sniffy, poky chatting isn't getting us anywhere. We're tiny insects—again! And you know that every time we turn into tiny insects, something tries to eat us.” He looked fearfully up and down the narrow dark gorge. It seemed to be deserted.

“I'll tell you what else is weird!” said Josh. He turned around in a circle, looking back down his new body.

“What?” said Danny. “What could possibly be more weird than turning into an ant?”

“Well … um …” Josh stared at Danny. His feelers shuddered. “We're not just ants. We've changed a little bit more than that.”

“What are you talking about?” Danny poked Josh between the eyes with one feeler. “Get to the point before something decides we're its midmorning snack!”

“We're girls.”

Danny staggered backward. “We're what?”

“You heard me. We're not boys now. We're girls. Check it out!” He pointed over his shoulder with his front right leg. “No wings!”

“But we're ants! Not flies.”

“Ah—but if we were boy ants, we'd have wings. All the other ants are girls. Even soldier ants are girls.”

“Oh great,” muttered Danny. He peered back over his own shoulder now. “Are you sure? I mean, couldn't there be wings tucked inside somewhere?”

“Nah—that's beetles. Face it, Dan, we're ants and we're girl ants.”

“I'm never going to forgive Petty Potts for this!” Danny spat. “And if you ever tell anyone…”

He stopped dead, suddenly picking up a vibrating sensation. Josh was looking scared.

“What's that?” he whispered.

He and Danny peered along the narrow chasm. They could feel warm air blowing against their feelers. There was a strong smell. To Danny, it was a bit like the time when they'd gone on the subway. While waiting in the station, they'd noticed the weird warm wind coming out of the tunnel just before the train hurtled through.

“Something's coming!” squeaked Josh. “Something fast and big!”

The vibrations seemed deafening—even if they couldn't actually hear them. The smell was very strong. Danny scrambled up the wall into a small alcove. He reached down and grabbed Josh's head with his strong jaws.

“WHOO-AAH!” shrieked Josh. His legs flapped wildly as something hurtled along toward him like a runaway train. “It's going to hit me! It's going to hit me!” Then his screams were abruptly stopped.

Josh's breath was bashed out of him as he flipped up and over. Below him the thundering got even more intense and there was a blur of red. He found himself suddenly upsidedown next to Danny, who was still biting his brother's head. Danny was scared to let go as the air around them rushed along and tried to suck them out of their alcove.

“It's a train! A subway train!” squawked Josh, even though he knew it couldn't be.

“No—it's something worse,” said Danny. “Subway trains don't ever try to eat you. But I bet that would!”

“Danny! O-ow! Do you mind?” said Josh. Danny at last un-bit him. Josh looked down to see the blur of red slowing down. Now he could make out legs. Lots of legs, on either side of a long, glistening segmented body. “It's a centipede!” he whispered.

“Looks like a millipede to me!” replied Danny.

“All those legs!”

“I wish it was,” groaned Josh. “Millipedes are vegetarians. But that's a centipede all right. You can tell by the way its legs are quite long and its body is in segments. And the long leggy things at the back.” As he said this, the long leggy things swept past below them. Josh heaved a sigh of relief.

Then he sucked it all back in again as the centipede slowed to a halt. Its long back legs were twitching and then, slowly, began to creep backward.

“Oh no,” groaned Danny. “This is not good. This is so not good! Do they—do they eat ants?”

“Yep,” gulped Josh. “They're the most incredible hunters. They've got poison fangs. They go for anything that moves—even each other.”

The red train below them was still backing up. Leg after leg rippled backward. Then a reddish-brown face suddenly lurched up at them, its fangs quivering. Danny and Josh didn't wait to say hello.

Instinctively they swung around and shot something out of their abdomens into the centipede's face. The creature flinched backward with an angry grunt. Then they took off along the wall as fast at their six legs would carry them.

“GO! GO! GO! GO!” squeaked Danny. Josh's berry-shaped backside scooted along in front of him. It took him several seconds to realize that he and Josh were both running sideways, along the wall.

He also realized that the centipede wasn't chasing them. “Hey! Hey, Josh!” he shouted—although he knew it wasn't really a shout at all, just a waft of some kind of whiffy chemical. “We got away! We did it!”

Josh turned around on the wall and stared back along the gorge. It was true. The centipede was gone. “Ha!” said Josh. “He didn't much like a bit of acid in the face!”

“What—you mean we just kind of peed acid?” Danny waggled his feelers excitedly. They reached a corner where some sunlight shafted in and a clump of large furry green leaves with some heavy bell-shaped purple flowers grew. “How cool is that? Killer pee!”

“Formic acid,” said Josh. “Look—see what happens when I do this.” He aimed his backside at one of the flowers and squirted out some more. The petals shook as the jet of liquid hit them. Then they began to change color—from purple to pink to a paler pink. “See,” said Josh. “It makes them change color. Acid. Ant defense!”

Danny clapped his feelers together. “Ants are brilliant!” he giggled. Then he remembered he was a girl. He stopped giggling.

“This is serious, though,” said Josh. “Of all the things we've been so far, this is the tiniest. We're going to get eaten or squashed at any moment. We have to get back to being human again.”

“Well,” said Danny. “We know S.W.I.T.C.H. spray is temporary. We just need a safe place to hide until we change back again. Or should we try to get to Petty?”