In the Desert : In the Desert (9780307496126) (2 page)

“Erf!” said ant-sized Andrew Dubble. He was inside an empty bottle cap, bouncing into his cousin Judy.

Their uncle Al had glued the bottle cap to the dashboard of his jeep. It made a safe perch for Andrew and Judy to see the Australian desert as Uncle Al drove through it. Uncle Al had even made them tiny sunglasses from a strip of dark plastic.

“Get off of me, Bug-Brain,” said Judy, shoving Andrew away. “It’s
soooo
hot in here!”

“Urp!” Andrew burped a big garlicky burp.
That pizza crumb sure tasted good
, he thought.

“Disgusting boy!” said Judy.

Uncle Al turned his eyes from the black ribbon of road and glanced in their direction. He adjusted the leaf he had arranged above their heads like a bug-sized umbrella to shade them from the sun.

“It’s a rough trip through the desert, guys,” said Uncle Al. “The air conditioner isn’t working, so you’d better settle in for a long, hot, bumpy ride.”

meep
… “Desert air hot, hot, hot!” came a squeaky voice from Andrew’s shirt pocket. “Desert sand even hotter. Can fry egg on desert sand.”

It was Andrew’s little silver robot friend, Thudd. Uncle Al had invented him.

“I’m getting hungry again,” said Andrew.

Uncle Al smiled and mopped his face with a handkerchief. “Well, we won’t be stopping for sandy fried eggs,” he said. “It’s almost three o’clock. We’re supposed to meet up with
my partner, Winka, by eight p.m. She’s taking pictures of meteor showers deep in the desert. Winka has an idea about how to get you guys unshrunk.”

Andrew’s latest invention, the Goa Constrictor, was supposed to shrink garbage. But the first time Andrew tried it, he ended up shrinking himself, and Judy and Thudd, too.

Andrew nodded. “Winka helped us escape from the dinosaurs sixty-five million years ago,” he said. “I’ll bet she can help us now.”

“Before we get stepped on or swatted,” said Judy.

The afternoon sun burned through the windshield.
This must be what it feels like to get cooked
, thought Andrew.

The yellow sand stretched on forever. Here and there, patches of tall, prickly grass looked like sleeping herds of spiny porcupines. Sometimes a scraggly tree poked up like a skeleton. Now and then, a tumbleweed
rolled across the road. There wasn’t a house or a sign of another human being anywhere.

“The desert is like an empty planet,” said Andrew.

Uncle Al shook his head. “It looks that way now,” he said. “But the desert is full of life. Lots of strange creatures are resting or hiding underground during the hottest hours. They’ll come out to hunt when the sun goes down.

“The plants look pretty scraggly. But when rain comes, the desert looks like a flower garden. Some seeds and plants come to life almost instantly with just a little water.”

“Humph,” said Judy. “I haven’t even seen a cactus.”

Uncle Al nodded. “There are no native cactuses in the Australian desert,” he said.

Oinga! Oinga! Oinga
! came a sound from the front of the jeep. The jeep was slowing down.

Plunk … plunk … erk
…

The jeep rolled to a stop. A ribbon of steam was curling from under the hood.

Uncle Al shook his head. “I’ll find out what’s wrong,” he said. “And while I’m doing that, I want you guys to stay put. The desert is a dangerous place. Some of the most deadly animals in the world live here. And not all of them sleep during the day.”

“Okey-dokey Unkie!” squeaked Thudd.

Uncle Al got out of the jeep and opened the hood. A cloud of steam puffed out.

“We’ve got a leak,” yelled Uncle Al from the front of the car. “I need to check underneath the jeep. This may take a while.”

The heat was making Andrew sleepy. He rested his head against the edge of the bottle cap.

Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew caught a glimpse of something moving. He turned to see a dark cloud whirling near the ground. It was spinning like a top and whipping up the sand. It was heading straight toward the jeep!

Andrew climbed out of the bottle cap and onto the dashboard.

“Get back here, Bug-Brain!” yelled Judy. “Uncle Al told us to stay put!”

“Wowzers schnauzers!” hollered Andrew. “There’s a tornado out there! Uncle Al is under the jeep. I’ll bet he doesn’t even see it!”

“Cheese Louise!” said Judy.

meep
… “Called dust devil,” squeaked Thudd. “Australian people call it willy-willy.

“Air near sand get super-hot. Super-hot air light, light, light! Little shove from breeze make air spin. Spinning air pick up sand. Make willy-willy.”

“Stuff a sock in it, Thudd!” said Judy. “The windows are wide open! We’ll get blown away!”

meep
… “Time for purple-button message!” squeaked Thudd.

There were three rows of three buttons on Thudd’s chest. All the buttons glowed green except for a big purple one in the middle. This was the button for sending an emergency message to Uncle Al’s Hologram Helper.

Thudd pressed the purple button. It blinked three times and went off.

Andrew glanced around. Nothing on the dashboard could protect them from the powerful wind.

Then he looked toward the window. He grabbed Judy’s arm. “Come on,” he said, pulling her toward the opening.

“Are you nuts-o?” said Judy pulling away.

“Hurry!” yelled Andrew. “We can hide in the space where the window goes down!”

They rushed toward the window on the driver’s side.

Whewwwwwwwwww
… came the windy sound of the willy-willy from the passenger’s side.

They were an inch away from the window when the hot gust hit them. Andrew felt that a giant hair dryer was blowing burning sand against his skin. He closed his eyes to keep out the stinging grains. A sneeze tickled the back of his nose.

Whooooooooosh
!

Andrew felt his feet lift off the dashboard. He was blowing away like a candy wrapper in a hurricane!

“
Aaaaaaaaah
!” came Judy’s voice through the sound of the wind. Judy was squeezing his arm like a boa constrictor.

Andrew’s stomach jumped and sank as the wind hurled them up and dragged them down and spun them round and round.

WHOOOOOOOOOOOSH
!

The wind drowned Judy’s screams.

Where will the willy-willy take us
? Andrew wondered.
How will Uncle Al ever find us in this humongous desert
?

Spinning and spinning, Andrew got too dizzy to think about anything but feeling sick. “
URP
!” A giant garlic burp exploded from his stomach.

Just as it seemed the willy-willy would drag them through the desert forever, the twisting wind began to slow. Andrew felt himself dropping.

“Yeeeouch!” His butt had slammed into something hard. And he was underwater! His feet couldn’t touch the bottom and there was water up his nose! He held his breath and popped to the surface.

“Blaaargh!” Judy spluttered.

“Holy moly!” said Andrew, opening his eyes. As he treaded water, Andrew saw they had landed in a big, warm puddle beneath a scrawny bush. Judy was bobbing next to him.
Thudd had pulled himself up out of Andrew’s pocket, crept up his shirt, and climbed on top of his head.

“It rained in
this
part of the desert! A
lot
!” said Andrew.

“
Yoop! Yoop! Yoop
!” said Thudd. “Like Unkie said. Maybe not get lotsa rain for lotsa years. When rain come, water collect in holes. Stay for little while.”

“Better drink while we can,” said Andrew. He dipped his head and began to slurp.

“Yikes!” yelped Judy. She splashed madly toward the edge of the puddle. “Something bit my foot!”

meep
… “Dinosaur shrimp!” said Thudd. “Little shrimp hatch from tiny eggs when rain come. Grow fast. Lay eggs in few days.

“When puddle dry up, shrimp die. But eggs can live lotsa years till rains come. Then eggs hatch.”

Andrew dog-paddled quickly after Judy.

They reached the puddle’s shore and climbed onto the shady sand beneath the bush.

Andrew took in the landscape. Clumps of spiky grass were like islands of giant needles in an ocean of sand. Stony mounds rose high above the grass.

They look as big as skyscrapers to me
, thought Andrew.
But they’re probably as tall as Uncle Al
.

Far away a huge wall of rock glowed orange in the sun.

But there was no jeep, no Uncle Al. This wasn’t the part of the desert they had been driving through.

“Where
are
we?” asked Judy.

Andrew shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe Uncle Al will know when he calls us back. There’s a little shade under this bush and we’ve got the puddle for water. We can wait here till Uncle Al comes to get us.”

Cheweeet! Chweet! Ch … ch … ch … Chaweeet
!

A flock of brightly colored birds, blue ones and green ones, swooped overhead.

“Parakeets!” said Judy.

meep
… “Lotsa birds in desert,” said Thudd. “Lotsa bugs for birds to eat.”

“I don’t see any bugs,” said Andrew.

Judy tucked herself close to the stem of the bush. “
We’re
bug-sized, Bug-Brain!”

meep
… “Some bugs got colors that hide them,” said Thudd. “Called camouflage. Other bugs just hide.”

“KAA-muh-flahj” flashed across his face screen.

“Look!” said Thudd. He pointed to a dark bump in the shady sand under a twig.

Andrew crept over to see. The bump had two wiry antennas sticking out of it—and two round black eyes!

“Aw,” said Andrew. “A dead bug.”

“Noop! Noop! Noop!” said Thudd. “Live cricket. Bury itself in sand to hide, to keep cool. Sand cool underneath.”

Suddenly something snapped around Andrew’s
chest from behind. “YEEEEOUCH!” he hollered as sharp spines dug into his ribs.

Andrew’s feet made a tiny trail in the sand. Then something dragged him up into the bush.