Ant Attack (5 page)

“YOU'RE JUST JERKS! BOTH OF YOU!” shouted Tarquin. He shook the spray bottle and stamped his foot. “COME OUT OF HIDING! I'LL TELL YOUR MOM! I WILL.”

Still there was no movement or sound around the yard. Tarquin had already looked behind or under everything he could see. There was no sign of Josh or Danny. He knew they were playing a trick on him. Maybe they'd gone next door into that old lady's garden. They'd dropped their water pistols on the ground, so at least they weren't planning another ambush. Maybe they'd got something else to throw or squirt at him and were just waiting for him to climb up and put his head over the wooden fence.

“WELL, I'M NOT PLAYING, ANYMORE!” yelled Tarquin. He turned and stomped back along the sidewalk. The old lady from next door was walking back down it on her side of the wall. As she passed him, she gave a shout, reached over the wall, and scooped the spray bottle out of his hand.

“What are you doing with my bottle?” she demanded.

“Nothing!” snapped Tarquin. “Not anymore! I only got the chance to give them both one squirt before they ran away and hid.”

Petty Potts grabbed him by the ear. “You did what?”

“Owww! I told you! I just squirted at them once. What's the fuss? It was only a bit of water.”

Petty glared at him angrily and said, “It was my bit of water, and you had no business stealing it!”

“Well, how was I to know?” whined Tarquin. She let him go, looking very worried.

“They disappeared, you say?”

“Yes, they must have run off and hid while I was wiping water out of my eyes.”

“Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Petty. She bit her lip.

“Batty old trout,” muttered Tarquin. He made his escape and ran back around through the front door.

Inside the house, Piddle the dog heard him coming. He scrabbled into the front room and behind the sofa with another whine. Tarquin stamped up the stairs and went to find something to play with in Josh and Danny's room. There wasn't much he liked. He wasn't into all those stupid Legos or those silly battling card games. But he picked up the magnifying glass and decided to take it into the yard. The sun was shining, and he was in the mood for a particularly nasty game.

It was warm in the ants' nest and filled with “home” and “family” smells. These smells instructed the family to do all kinds of things. Feed the young, mend broken walls, look after the queen, go out and forage for food, and so on. Once they were in the nest, Danny and Josh got a bit confused. The ants weren't all chanting the same thing anymore. There were lots of different chants and instructions going on.

Josh turned around and stared at Danny. He stood there, waggling his feelers for a few seconds, while ants streamed past him in all directions. He finally said, “Danny! What are we doing here? Why did we follow the others in?”

“I don't know,” said Danny with a shrug. He stared around at the complicated brown-walled tunnels that led off at every angle. Knotty roots dangled here and there and seemed to hold all the chunks of soil and grit together. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“Well, it's not a good idea now!” said Josh. He looked around at the endless traffic of super-busy ants. Even though there were huge numbers of them, they never seemed to bump into one another. Not even the ones walking upside down on the ceiling. “We've got to get out of here and get to the sandbox!” He began to work his way back up the tunnel. “Come on! We can't stay here. If all that chanting starts again, we might find ourselves feeding larvae forever!”

“Well, just until the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray wears off and we suddenly burst through the nest, back to our usual size!” said Danny.

“Danny, we're down underneath the sidewalk! If we suddenly shoot up to full size, we'll crack our heads open!” shuddered Josh. “Come on—we can't stay here a minute longer!”

Danny hurried after his brother. Josh was running over a shiny piece of glass, wrapped in winding grass roots. The glass sparkled in the narrow shaft of light that fed down from the nest entrance. Josh stopped.

Danny cannoned into him. “COME ON, JOSH! YOU SAID WE'VE GOT TO GET OUT FAST!”

“Yes, but …” Josh was peering down at the glass that glimmered up between the roots.

“This … this is …” He thought he could make out a tiny turtle peering up at him. It was stirring up a memory. What about? He shook his head and scurried after Danny. Clearly all the ant chanting was driving him a bit crazy. What would a tiny turtle be doing in an ants' nest?

They found their way out by following the scent of the air above them. But as soon as they reached the nest exit, Danny started to look dazed.

The “ON. MUST FEED YOUNG” chant was so loud out here. “DANNY! DON'T LISTEN!” yelled Josh. His brother started to turn and rejoin the marching ants. “DANNY! SING! SING WITH ME!”

Danny looked back at his brother, and Josh started singing.

Happy ant day to you!

Happy ant day to you!

Danny joined in.

Happy ant day, dear anty.

Have some more aphid poo!

“YES—AGAIN!” shouted Josh. By the time they'd sung it through three times, they were away from the long line of chanting ants. They went over a bridge of hairy green moss to the next slab of sidewalk and ran toward the sandbox.

For a few seconds, it seemed as if they were clear. Then there was a thundering sensation, and a stampede almost swept them off their feet. This ant line was much less ordered, and the chanting was wild and excited. “Sweet! Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!” Danny and Josh found themselves carried along, toward something that filled the air with an even more sugary smell than the aphids.

“LOOK!” gasped Josh.

A wide lake lay before them. It gleamed red in the sun and sent out the tantalizing smell. “What is it?” murmured Danny.

“Whatever it is, it's sweet!” said Josh. All around him the ants were saying the same, “Sweet! Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!” And they were all clustering around the edges and gleefully drinking from it. Across the middle of the lake, Josh could make out a very long wooden walkway. Some of the ants were scurrying along it to get to the rosy syrup beneath it. It was tipping sideways rather dangerously. Josh suddenly declared, “I know what it is! I know!”

“What?” said Danny. “It smells amazing. Shall we have some?”

“No, it's too dangerous,” said Josh. “Look!” And he waved his feelers toward two or three ants that had become trapped in the gloopy red liquid. They were struggling hopelessly. “They're never getting out of it. You've killed them.”

“Me? What are you saying?”

“It's your fault. You left half of your Popsicle there on the sidewalk this morning. You ate the top part and then left the strawberry part still on the stick. So it's melted, and now it's a sugar lake feeding frenzy. Ants will drown in it! They always do…”

Danny gulped. “But they seemed so sensible before—so organized. Now they're going bonkers!”

He was right. Hundreds of ants were now charging to the lake. It looked like some kind of wild rock festival going on. They clambered over one another and shoved one another aside to get to the front.

“Sugar. Drives them nuts,” sighed Josh. “Especially in the summer. You want to meet a few thousand ants? Just drop a Popsicle on the ground and wait. Crowds of spaced-out sugar zombies that can't think straight. It's nearly as bad as our last birthday party.”

Danny felt bad. “Come on,” he said, fighting his way back through the crowds of sugar-crazed ants. “We've got to get to the sandbox.”

“We're nearly at the edge of the sidewalk,” yelled Josh. “We just have to go past those old bricks that Dad put there.” The angle of red bricks had been cemented to the corner of the slab when Dad decided to make a barbecue. He hadn't done any more yet, so the bricks weren't very high. Unless you happened to be an ant. Now they loomed up like great tower blocks.

“Could go over them,” said Danny, as they drew closer. “We can run up walls, no problem.”

“No, might get seen by a bird,” warned Josh. At least against the speckled gray of the sidewalk they didn't stand out that much. But they would on red brick. “Better go around.”

“OK, but we—” Danny stopped because Josh had stopped. Josh was standing still and waving his feelers in the air. There was a big, rumbly, crackly feeling coming in through his antennae. Something big, rumbly, crackly … and hot. Very hot. An incredibly bright light flashed in their eyes.

“WHAT'S THAT?” shouted Danny. “Josh—what is it?”

Josh stared back at Danny. His feelers quivered. “I don't like this. I don't like this at all …”

“Smell it!” whispered Josh. He sent great big waves of fear out through his scent-squirting gear. “It smells … like … burning.”

There was another bright flash, and then they saw it. Something truly terrifying. A huge, brilliant, blindingly white pillar of fire. It was hitting the edge of the sidewalk on the far side. They could sense panic among the ant colony they had just run away from. The terrible rumbling and burning was getting louder and stronger. Josh and Danny could see the pillar of fire moving from left to right, tilting at an angle, like a tornado, but not so shaky. Little pops and bursts of flame kept going off under it. Danny didn't want to think about what they were.