Return of Mega Mantis (7 page)

“What if Mega Mantis found her?” Lindsey asked.

We all froze.

“What was
that
?” Lindsey asked.

That noise wasn’t coming from the direction of the field. It was coming from the direction of the house. We turned around,
slowly.

Mega Mantis was right behind us. It was way more mega than I could have
ever
imagined.

The giant mantis stood between us and the house like some great, armored tank. It had sharp pincers and bulbous eyes with bumps on them. Mega’s body was dark green and speckled with bug scars—or at least they looked like scars. This mantis had done battle before. It must have been the mantis from the jungle! Slimy, blue drool dripped off its fangs into puddles on the ground as it stood there, twitching madly. It raised its antennae high in the air, listening.

“Let’s get out of here!” I panicked. We all panicked.

“What about Stella?” Lindsey cried. She turned toward the field.

“And Walter!” Ranger said. “We have to find them both.”

We looked up at the roof. The gnats on the house windows had lifted into another enormous black cloud. The larger swarm hovered around Mega’s head. It was just like the school bus cloud and the Nerve Mountain cloud—only
much
bigger!

“We have to go!” Lindsey yelled at me.

We ran into the field. But where were we running to? Stella was missing. Walter was missing. My arm was . . .
itching
?

I looked down and saw a cluster of furry caterpillars crawling up my arms and legs. They were all over Ranger and Lindsey, too. It was Leery’s B-Force—times ten! The B-Force had gotten stronger when Mega came into the yard.

“More bugs?” Ranger cried.

“Drop to the ground!” Lindsey said. “Treat it like a fire. Stop, drop, and roll!”

There was no time to think. We fell down flat and wriggled around on the ground. I couldn’t get those furballs off me fast enough.

A moment later, we were up on our feet again, running deeper into the grassy field. I couldn’t see anything or anyone.

Now Mega Mantis was coming! What would he do to us?

I fell backward onto the ground and rubbed my head. It took me a minute before I realized that I’d collided headfirst into another person.

“Stella?”

Her eyes were wild. She and Walter had been hiding out in the grass together. They both looked so scared.

“Did you kids see Mega Mantis?” Walter asked.

“Uh,” I said, “it’s a hundred feet tall. Kind of hard to miss . . .”

“And it’s not alone!” Stella gasped.

“What?” Lindsey cried. I clutched my chest. “Leery was right,” Stella said. “There are at least
three
Mega Mantids in the field. And there are probably more in Riddle.”

“More? How is that possible?” Ranger asked.

“I saw a pile of mantis skins out there!” Stella cried.

We all knew that when a praying mantis shed its skin, the skin looked just like the creature. Even its eyes and mouth were preserved. That was one photograph Lindsey couldn’t resist. She pulled out her camera and headed in the direction of the skins.

“Stick together!” Walter said.

All at once, a sonic booming noise shook the ground. We hit the dirt.

Something sped over our heads. It was like a jetliner, only louder.

“WHAT’S HAPPENING NOW!?” I screamed.

We lay there, stunned. Then, just as quickly as it boomed, the air got very still.

“Did I dream it, or did Mega Mantis just fly over our heads?” Lindsey asked.

“Not just one mantis,” Walter said. “Three!”

“Three?” I said. My voice quavered.

“But where did they go?” Stella asked.

“And when will they be back?” I cried.

“We have to wait,” Walter instructed.

“Here?” Lindsey asked.

“No, go back home. I’ll head back to the castle. This will take some time. Go to school tomorrow. The mantids will show up again when they’re hungry,” Walter explained.

“Hungry?” we all said at the exact same time.

“Of course!” I cried. “Remember what Leery said? We have to do our homework. We need to research the bugs and learn how to fight them
before
the big attack.”

Stella gave me a look. “Since when did you get so smart?” she cracked.

I puffed out my chest.

“Since I joined Monster Squad,” I said.

Pat and Seamus gave me the cold shoulder at lunch the next day. I knew why. I sat with the Monster Squad instead of them—
again
.

But I didn’t have a choice. Once this B-Monster thing started, there was no splitting us up. We stuck together when we fought Slimo and that worked great. Why should now be any different?

Since the Mega sighting in the field near the Drive-O-Rama, there had been no new signs of the mantis or its friend, Mega Mantis Two. But we just kept waiting, like Walter said we should. No news should have been good news. But it wasn’t. The bugs were all we could think about.

“Let’s break it down,” Stella said, poking at her plate of mashed potatoes. “The mantids flew away. But Leery told us they always come back. We have to figure out
where
they’ll show up next.”

Lindsey took a bite of salad. She’d nearly drowned it in ranch dressing.

I pushed my fork through the ziti on my plate. But I wasn’t really hungry.

“Molloy!” Ranger cried, waving his hands at me. “What’s that on your plate?”

“Pasta, bro,” I said, holding up a forkful.

“Mmmm, I don’t think so . . .” Ranger said.

I dropped my fork with a clang. These weren’t ziti tubes! There were wriggling
larvae
on my tray!

“Yo, Ranger!” I winced. “
You
have bugs, too . . .”

“Smother them in Lindsey’s ranch dressing,” Ranger cried. He grabbed Lindsey’s salad plate and dumped it on the larvae.

But Lindsey’s plate had bugs of her own!

“Ewwww!” Lindsey said. “I thought those little black things were seeds. They’re ants!”

Stella looked down at her plate and nudged a lettuce leaf. From underneath the salad, a line of beetles marched from the plate onto the tray.

“UGH!” Stella squealed. “I ATE LIVE BUGS, TOO! GROSS!”

Normally, Stella Min shoulda, coulda, and most definitely woulda handled herself like a cool and calm ninja. But today she stood right up and flipped out. In fact, she flipped her entire lunch tray. Her plate sailed off our table into the back of an unfortunate student with an even more unfortunate name.

“Beef!” I cried.

Beef grunted and stood p. Stella’s food dripped down his back. But he looked right at
me
and growled.

“You did this?”

One of Beef’s friends sneered at me and hurled a dish of pudding at my head. I ducked and it hit Ranger in the shoulder. Some splattered on Lindsey.

There was no turning back now.

The food fight was on.

It took a few minutes for security to arrive. But by then, the entire lunchroom was one splattered canvas of potatoes, ketchup, turkey slices, orange peels, chocolate chip cookie crumbs, spaghetti sauce, and pink yogurt.

Somehow, we got the blame for starting it.

“I’ll see you four instigators downstairs,” growled Security Guard Spiker.

“What are we supposed to do
now
?” Lindsey asked as we shuffled down the hall.

“Maybe Mega Mantis will attack the school and we’ll get out of being punished,” I said. I was only half kidding.

Spiker sat us down on a row of hard, wooden chairs outside Principal Pickle’s office.

“Wait here and don’t move a muscle,” Spiker said.

“But this stinks,” I mumbled.

“That includes mouth muscles!” Spiker snapped.

As soon as Spiker walked away, Lindsey panicked.

“They’re going to call our parents!” she blubbered. “Dad will take my camera away. He always does that when he gets angry.”

I glanced up at the clock. “Maybe it’s not so bad,” I said. “If we have to sit here for the entire next period, I’ll miss that vocabulary test.”

“You’ll just have to retake it tomorrow,” Ranger said.

“Why aren’t we talking about the
bugs
?” Stella said. She made a fist and pounded the inside of her palm. “The B-Force is back. We have a job to do!”

“Mega Mantis is getting close again,” Ranger said. “That can’t be good.”

Just then, the principal came out. He had on a dark green pin-striped suit. His name was Pickle and he looked like one, too.

“Hello, Principal Pickle,” we said, lowering our heads and trying to look sorry.

“I am very disappointed,” Principal Pickle said. “I phoned your parents. They should be here any minute. Why don’t you wait in the other office?”

The principal shuffled us into an empty room and shut the door.

Lindsey looked miserable. “I told you this would happen!” she said, collapsing onto a chair.

“Everyone remain calm,” Ranger said, pacing. “We’re not in any big trouble yet.”

“I’m not in big trouble
ever
!” Stella crossed her arms. “I didn’t even participate in that stupid food fight anyway!”

“Wait one minute,” I growled. “
You
threw the first lunch tray, Stella Min. So don’t go playing Miss Innocent, because you’re guilty just like the rest of us.”

Stella’s face dropped. Lindsey and Ranger looked stunned, too.

“We’re in this together, right?” I said to everyone. “That means good and bad, right?”

“You’re right,” Lindsey said. She lifted her camera up to take my photograph. “Say cheddar, Damon!”