Lizard Loopy (5 page)

“What if it's
not
Zac or Scott?” Danny said, his eyes shining. “What if it's not a game? It could be for real!”

“What . . . hunt the marble and find your destiny?” Josh was unimpressed. With all the amazing S.W.I.T.C.H. adventures they'd had over the past few weeks, “hunt the marble” was a bit of a comedown.

“We just have to get up there,” Danny said. He was convinced he'd solved the clue and certain that something had been put up in the nest. “Give me a leg up!”

Josh frowned. “If this was earlier in the year, I wouldn't help you. She could have owlets up there—but by now they should all be fledged.” He sighed, shook his head, and stooped over, leaning one shoulder against the trunk of the tree and knitting his fingers tightly into a foot sling to give his brother a boost. “You'll never do it,” he warned. “It's too high and there aren't any branches.”

Danny tried anyway. He was pretty fit and sporty and actually got halfway up the trunk toward the owl hole before he had to give up.
There just wasn't enough to grab hold of. He slid back down, grazing his arms on the rough bark.

“There
must
be a way!” he puffed as he landed with a thump on the soft woodland floor. He leaned against the trunk and peered at it. The bark ran like a frozen river of green and brown with a grooved pattern of deep ridges. Ants were trolling up and down it with no problem. If you were little it was a breeze!

“Waaaaiit!” breathed Danny, his eyes widening in excitement. “A lizard could get up there in seconds!”

Josh narrowed his eyes. “You're not thinking . . . ?”

“Yes! Yes, I am!” Danny bounced up and down. “We could borrow some Lizard S.W.I.T.C.H. spray, and I could get up there easily. Lizards are good at climbing, aren't they?”

“Well, yeah . . .” Josh said. “Usually . . . but . . .”

“Ah, come on! Don't be a wuss!” Danny was already running back toward the hedgerow.

“No—that's normally your job!” puffed Josh as he caught up and then shoved back through the prickly hedge. “What happened?”

“REPTOSWITCH happened!” chuckled Danny as they crossed the street and ran down the side passage to the back garden. “I was a DRAGON! Nothing eats a dragon!”

“Well, technically, you were a sand lizard,” argued Josh as Danny worked the loose plank by the compost heap away from the fence post. It opened up a gap they could go through into Petty's garden. “And as for what eats them—cats, dogs, foxes . . .”

But Danny was already through the gap and running for Petty's shed. Josh paused outside. He felt uneasy again. Not just because he knew Danny was doing something he shouldn't—Petty would be furious if she found out—but because he was getting that eerie feeling again. As if they were being watched. Was the person who had left them the marble hidden away nearby, peering at them? He glanced around the garden and across to Petty's rather scruffy old house. He couldn't see any sign of anyone watching. Although Petty often warned them that government spies had her under surveillance and were keeping a top secret
file on her, she was a bit bonkers and they didn't really take her seriously . . . but now . . .”No! You're turning into crazy Petty Potts! Stop it!” Josh told himself.

“Got 'em!” hissed Danny, leaping back out of the shed, patting his bulging jeans pockets. “She must be in the house, still investigating the broken window. Come on! Let's go!”

He was back through the fence, along the side passage, across the street, and back inside the wood in under a minute. Josh caught up with him as he jogged back to the oak tree.

“Look—er—Danny,” he puffed, trying to keep up. “Don't you think it's a bit funny . . . Petty's window getting broken and then us finding the mystery marble? Don't you think they might be connected?”

“Nah—that's just kids messing about, breaking Petty's window,” Danny said. “There were two window breaks in Florence Road last week. The Neighborhood Watch guy came around to talk to Mom about it, remember?”

“But—what if it's not kids . . . ?” Josh persisted as he and Danny arrived back at the foot of the oak. “What if Petty's been telling the truth about the government spies? I mean, we thought she'd made up Victor Crouch, but he did show up in the end, didn't he?”

“Yeah, I guess,” Danny said, pulling the spray bottles out of his pockets. “But we don't know that he was a government spy, do we? Anyone can buy a walkie-talkie and act tough. How can we be sure that he wasn't just some old boyfriend from bingo who fell out with her? How can
she
be sure, with her messed up memory?”

Josh shuddered. Victor Crouch was tall and bony and had no eyebrows. He couldn't imagine Victor Crouch, with his oddly bald brow and extra long pointy nail on one little finger, being anyone's boyfriend!

“And anyway, whether he was a spy or not, she S.W.I.T.C.H.ed him into a cockroach, so that was probably the end of him,” Danny said.

“Yeah, but . . . we always managed to survive. And if he did too and S.W.I.T.C.H.ed back . . .” insisted Josh.

“JOSH! You're turning into Petty!” Danny plonked the spray bottles in his twin's hand. “Now shut up and S.W.I.T.C.H. me! Use the one with S on it. That must be for sand lizard.”

The other bottle had a C on it, presumably for common lizard. Petty's labeling was a bit unreliable, but this time it was correct. Three seconds later a brilliant green sand lizard shot up the oak tree. Josh marveled at the way Danny climbed the slightly slanted trunk, like shiny liquid flowing upstream. He would be sensible and wait for Danny to come back—probably with nothing—after investigating the owl hole.

Hmmm. Something about that last thought prickled at him. Owl hole. Lizard . . .

“AAAAAARGH! DANNY!!!” Josh shrieked. “DON'T GO IN THERE!”

With a bolt of horror, Josh had come to his senses. There was very possibly going to be an OWL in that hole! Very likely a hungry owl. And Danny had just S.W.I.T.C.H.ed himself into a sparkly green Meals On Heels delivery!

But Danny didn't seem to have heard him. He was wriggling up the trunk at great speed, his strong lizard fingers and toes hooking effortlessly into the groovy bark, licking up a few ants as he went.

Josh groaned and shouted again, but Danny went on climbing. He was so excited about that stupid marble he was just about to offer himself up as owl food without even realizing it!

There was nothing else for it. Josh couldn't climb up after him as a boy. He looked at the bottles in
his hand, picked up the C one (swiftly remembering a common lizard had better camouflage on a tree trunk) and S.W.I.T.C.H.ed himself.

Danny reached the owl hole in no time at all. Running up the tree had been amazing and much easier than the climbing wall at their summer camp. His long-fingered hands and feet, with their sharp curved claws, had anchored easily into the deep ridges winding through the bark. There were even tasty snacks along the way! Danny tried not to think about what those snacks were. They'd been great . . . he was sure they hadn't really had wriggling legs. No—they were just seeds which he'd picked up in passing by darting out his quick long tongue. Little, browny seeds. Little moving browny-black seeds with anxious faces . . . Eeeerrm . . .

But then he reached the lip of the big hole and forgot all about the snacks as his heart sped up with excitement. Whatever it was their Mystery Marble Sender wanted them to find, he was certain it was here.
Where the silent wise one slumbers . . .

There was a strong smell coming from the hole. A musty, sharp smell that made Danny shiver as he clung to the curved woody lip of the oval entrance to the chamber. His lizard sight was good, and as his golden eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could see that the floor of it was covered with . . . eurgh . . . broken bits of bone and feather in a lumpy porridge of dark gray owl pellets and paler gray owl poo. That was one nasty carpet.

“The carpet of death!” he muttered to himself, and it seemed as if a horror film-style shriek went off somewhere in the distance.

The gruesome flooring led around a corner, past a shoulder of ancient rotting wood. There was nothing that looked like a marble sitting on it. The marble must be tucked farther in. He shivered. He really didn't want to go across the carpet of death and into the inner chamber. But if he didn't all his efforts would be for nothing. Even if it was just a joke, he still wanted to get that marble.

He stepped onto the carpet. It crumbled under his front foot, sending up some unpleasant dust and a worse smell. Danny reminded himself he was a dragon (sort of) and put another foot bravely forward.

“Daaaneeeeee!” He froze. That was Josh. But he didn't sound as if he was down on the woodland floor. He was closer than that. Suddenly another lizard popped up behind him.

“Hey! You want to come in with me?” grinned Danny, very relieved. It would be much less scary going around that bit of rotting wood with his brother. He didn't tell Josh how creeped out he'd been, though.

“No! No! Danny—stop!” panted Josh, who had run up the tree at top speed.