The Bully Bug (9 page)

She looked up. And then she screamed.

I must have scared her bad. Because Dawn isn't the kind of girl who goes off screaming for no reason. But I guess I was a whole lot of reasons.

I ran away.

Man, I could run fast, too. Before I knew it, I was blocks from her house, right by the school. I ducked back in the trees. I felt awful. I didn't want to scare anybody. I didn't want anybody screaming just because they saw me.

But that look in her eyes—the terror. I'd seen it before. I just hadn't paid too much attention to it. I'd seen it all the time in smaller kids. And every kid in school was smaller than me. Except for Bud. I'd seen that look in the nerd's—I mean, in Norman's eyes every day. And he was helping me.

Man, I really was a bug. Even back when I looked like a human, I guess I was really nothing better than a scary insect. The only difference now was that my outside matched my inside. Maybe I should just stay a lousy bug.

I was so busy thinking about all of this that I didn't pay any attention to the rumbling I felt. It was weird. I could feel the ground shaking through the hairs in my legs. I looked over and saw a truck. A couple guys jumped out of it and pulled a hose from the back. It wasn't a fire truck. It was some kind of truck with a tank.

The guys slipped masks over their heads and onto their mouths and noses.

They pointed the hose at the trees.

There was a hiss, and this big, foggy cloud sprayed out of the hose. It shot over the trees and started to sink down.

On the side of the truck, I saw the picture of the dead bug. The one on its back with its feet in the air. I looked up over my head. The fog was drifting down. All around. There was no way I could get out in time.

And I couldn't fly up. I'd go right through the spray.

If it touched me, I figured I was one dead bug.

 

Nineteen

CAN YOU DIG IT?

 

There was no time to think. Even if there was, I never was any good at thinking my way out of trouble. Norman had said I did stuff by instinct. Maybe that was my only hope. I shut my brain down—that wasn't so hard—and let my body take over.

It worked.

I dropped to the ground and started to dig. My arms were so strong and fast, I made a hole right away. I slipped into it and I kept on moving. It was easy. It sort of felt like swimming through something real thick. I just scooped out some space ahead of me and then pushed my way forward. I didn't need to make much of a hole, since I could squish through just about any small space.

It was dark, but that didn't matter. I knew exactly where I was. I moved toward Norman's house. Every inch of my body helped tell me things. There were thousands of clues. I could feel and hear stuff all around me. I knew when I was under a road. I felt the cars rolling along.

It was nice underground—cool and wet. It was tempting to close my eyes and rest. Maybe take a nap, down here safe and dark, surrounded by soil. Nice and safe. Maybe just stay here. Sleep for a while.

No. I realized I was starting to think more and more like a bug. If that happened, I might never get better. I kept digging.

Finally, I popped up from a hole in the middle of Norman's front yard. I shook the dirt off my body and climbed up the side of the house. The window was open, but there was a screen on it.

He was lying in his bed, reading.

“Hey,” I called. “It's me.”

He looked over. Then he jumped up and ran to the window. “Good grief. I told you to avoid hot places. What did you do, spend the night in a furnace?” He pulled off the screen and stepped back.

I crawled in. “Attic,” I told him.

“Well, this pretty much verifies the heat hypothesis,” he said. “Though I imagine that's much more satisfying a realization for me than it is for you.”

“What do I do?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don't know yet. But I'll figure something out.”

His doorbell rang.

“Wait here,” he said.

I started to sit, then decided I'd feel better off the ground. So I crawled up the wall and across the ceiling to the corner over his bed.

I heard two sets of footsteps a moment later. He came back into the room with his show-off friend, Sebastian.

“Lud,” Norman said, “I brought someone who can help.”

I watched as Sebastian looked around the room. “What are you talking about, Norman?” he asked. “There's nobody here. Let me guess—you have a new imaginary playmate.”

I dropped down from the ceiling, landing lightly on Norman's bed.

Sebastian snapped his head toward me. He opened his mouth to scream. But no sound came out. Instead, his eyes rolled back and he fainted. Dropped right down on the floor with a thud.

“I forgot about his fear of bugs,” Norman said. He looked at me. “Wait here while I get some water.” He ran out, then came back a minute later with a glass of water.

Norman managed to get Sebastian to wake up. But as soon as he saw me, he fainted again. Finally, on the third try, Norman said to him, “It's just Lud. Try to deal with it.”

Sebastian nodded, though I noticed he wouldn't look in my direction.

“I can see where he'll be a lot of help,” I said.

“He will be,” Norman said. “As flaky as he might appear, I know I can count on him in an emergency. Except for this irrational problem he has with insects, he's really pretty brave. He's been through a lot. Actually, he went through something like you did, but not quite so hairy an experience. Now, me, I was a lot hairier. Thank goodness that's over with.”

I didn't know what he was talking about.

He turned back to Sebastian. “You okay now?”

Sebastian nodded. He sat up. Then Norman told him what had happened to me.

And after all that, neither of them had any idea what to do to help.

I got up and walked over to a small mirror on Norman's wall. Man, I was ugly. Big fly eyes. My jaw was all funny, like it could move sideways. I didn't seem to have a nose. And my body was just as bad, all stiff and hard and covered with those thick hairs. “Why couldn't I be a butterfly or something?” I said. “I had to be something ugly.”

“That's it!” Norman shouted.

“What?” I asked.

“I have an idea. It's dangerous, but it might be your only chance. Are you willing to take a risk?”

I glanced back at the mirror. I thought about how scary and ugly I was. But I could fly. And I could dig. And I could figure out how fast a plane was going just by looking at it. For a kid who never got anything better than a C on a math test, that was something pretty cool. And if I became me again, was I any better off? People would still be scared of me. I'd be stupid and ugly, and I wouldn't be able to fly.

“I have to think about it,” I told him.

“You'd better think fast,” he told me.

“Why?”

“There isn't much time,” he said. “Pretty soon, I suspect you won't be able to think at all.”

 

Twenty

KEEP THE CHANGE

 

I didn't know what he was talking about.

“You're like a bug on the outside,” he said. “But you haven't changed completely. You can still talk. And a bug can't do that. It can make sounds, but not anything resembling human speech. So I think you're still changing inside.”

“That's crazy,” I said. But as I spoke, I realized that my voice sounded even rougher than before. Maybe my throat was changing inside, like he said.

“Even worse, your mind is changing. Right now, you can still think. But eventually, you'll be all insect. Both your body and your mind. You probably don't even realize you're grooming yourself.”

I looked at my hands. I was in the middle of licking one, and I was running the other up and down one of my antennas.

“There's another thing,” Norman said. I could tell from his voice that this was the worst news of all.

“What?”

“Mimic bugs are ephemeral,” he said. An instant later, he howled—“Ouch!”—as my hand clamped on his arm. “That means—”

He stopped and looked at Sebastian.

“Tell me,” I said.

“It means they don't live very long.”

I thought about the dried bug bodies underneath the washing machine. “Maybe it'll be different for me,” I said. “People live longer than bugs.”

“I'll tell you something,” Norman said. “I know what it's like to be different. You and me, we're both different. I'm smart and, let's face it, a nerd. You're big and scary and kind of rough. But you know what?”

“What?” I asked.

“As long as I'm human, I'm not alone.” He looked over at Sebastian. “There's always someone. Always a friend somewhere.”

“And I'll give you another reason to do whatever it takes to stop being a bug,” Sebastian said.

I looked over at him. “What?”

“No human could possibly drool as much as you are right now,” he said. He smiled like that was some great joke.

“Watch this,” I said to Sebastian. I waited until I was sure I had his attention. Then I turned my back to him and spun my head around so I was staring him in the eyes. He fainted again. But he woke up on his own this time.

“What's your idea?” I asked Norman.

He clapped his hands together. “It's great. We're going to make you metamorphose. I mean, we'll make you change shape. What you said about butterflies. It made me think. Why not make a cocoon for you? It has to make you change. With luck, you'll be human when you come out.”

“Or a butterfly,” Sebastian said.

“No way,” Norman said. But he didn't sound real sure.

I wasn't sure about that, either. But I knew I had to do something. “How can you make a cocoon?”

“Tape,” Norman suggested.

“Yeah,” Sebastian said. “My dad has tons of it. Let's go to my house.”

“Someone will see me,” I said.

“We'll carry you,” Norman told me. “Sebastian has all kinds of monster models and stuff. We'll just pretend you're a dummy.”

At the word
dummy,
my hand shot out. “Ouch!” Norman shouted. “Not that kind of dummy. A model. Okay?”

“Sorry.” I let go of his wrist.

“Come on,” Norman said to Sebastian, “you want to take the head or the legs?”

Sebastian's face went pale. He took a step away from me.

“Stop being such a baby,” Norman said. “Head or legs?”

“Legs,” Sebastian said, taking a deep breath. “Definitely legs.”

“Grab a butterfly,” Norman said. “We might need it.”

Sebastian shook his head. “Not me.”

Norman sighed and picked up one of his samples—a butterfly between two pieces of stiff plastic—and put it in his pocket.

I leaned back and Norman grabbed my shoulders. Sebastian picked up my legs. “Don't move,” Norman said as they carried me down the stairs. “Pretend you're a dum—a model.”

I held still.

“My word, what's that?” someone asked when we reached the bottom of the stairs. I figured it must be Norman's mother.

“Well, it's either Sebastian's new model or a huge kid from my school who looks a whole lot like an insect,” Norman said.

“Very funny. Just get it outside,” his mother said. “It's dripping on the floor.”

“Right away.” I heard the door open, and then we were outside.

They ran into a couple of people along the way. I stayed still and nobody figured out I wasn't a model. We'd just reached Sebastian's house when someone shouted, “Wait! Stop!”

 

Twenty-one

WRAP IT UP

 

“Oh man. It's Bud Mellon,” Sebastian said. “We're dead.”

“He won't hurt you,” I said. Or tried to say. My voice was more like a buzz now.

“That's my brother,” Bud said, running up to us. Pit was with him.

“Ssshhhh,” Norman said. “Let's talk about this inside. We're pretending he's a model.”

“I got a model,” Pit said, holding up his Captain Spazmodic figure.

“How'd you find us?” Norman asked.

“He ditched me yesterday to go to your house. I figured he'd done it again. I shouldn't even be coming after him, the way he ditched me. But he's my brother. And we Mellons stick together.”

“Thanks,” I said. It was mostly a buzz.

They carried me inside, then took me upstairs. Sebastian ran out of the room. I crawled up the wall. It felt good not having to hold still. When Sebastian came back, I crawled down and they started wrapping me in the tape. Norman explained his idea to Bud.

Bud just stood there, watching me.

“Angry?” I asked, trying very hard to say the word clearly.

Bud shook his head. “No. Just thinking.”

Whoa. I'd never heard Bud say he was doing that before.

They had my legs taped by then and were starting on my body. I stood still, wondering whether this was a good idea. But I figured doing something was better than doing nothing. Hey—I thought of a joke. I was the world's biggest tapeworm.

They had my stomach done now. I crossed my hands on my chest, feeling like a mummy.

“Hold this,” Norman said, putting the butterfly in my hands. “With luck, you'll mimic it and change.”

Sebastian turned on his stereo. I guess, since they were wrapping me, it was wrap music. Oh man, if I became a total bug, I was really going to miss making jokes. Not that anyone ever got to hear them.

“Wait,” Bud said. “It's wrong.”

“What's wrong?” Norman asked.

“He copies stuff,” Bud said. “Right? He's a mimic bug. That's what you told him.”

Norman nodded.

“So give him the right thing to copy. We don't want him to be a butterfly. We want him to be human.” Bud reached out and grabbed Captain Spazmodic from Pit.