Grasshopper Glitch (6 page)

“OK, so we're quite safe here then,” sighed Danny. “But how are we ever going to find Petty Potts if we can't leap up and look around? And what time is it? We'll be late back to school, and then we'll be in trouble. Oh—this is so not good! I thought we might get to have a bit of fun for a change. But oh no, we're just fast food with feelers, as usual.” He spat out another blob of brown goo. “Sorry.”

Petty Potts was annoyed. She'd managed to entice three or four squirrels over to her bench in the last hour. Each of them had scampered off with her special peanuts.

She knew, obviously, that there wasn't much point in trying to get a squirrel to swig a bit of strange-looking potion out of a plastic bottle. No, she had brought a tin cup along in her bag. She'd put a little of the potion into it. Then she dropped some peanuts in it and made them good and S.W.I.T.C.H.y. Then she set the peanuts down, one by one, at the far end of the wooden park bench. She waited for the bold squirrels to show up and steal them. She had been careful to wear disposable plastic gloves. She had no intention of S.W.I.T.C.H.ing herself! One day she might, but she was quite old and might not recover from it.

Petty dug deep into her coat pocket. She pulled out a little green velvet box. Opening it up, she gazed wistfully at the two shining glass cubes inside it. She picked up one of them. She held it up to the light. It sparkled in the sun. The hologram of a tiny lizard could be clearly seen inside it.

“One out of six!” she sighed. She put the cube back in the box, next to the other cube. It had a slightly different hologram inside it. She sighed. “Two out of six. Which adds up to one-third of the formula to make REPTOSWITCH. Well, I'm glad to have you two,” she murmured at the cubes. “But what about the other four, eh? Where did I hide the others? If only that scurrilous waste of space Victor Crouch hadn't burnt out my memory, I would know! I'd have the bug formula and the reptile formula. There might even be mammal or bird formula one day, for all I know! But if Josh and Danny don't find the rest of your little cube family, I may never know!”

Nobody was nearby to hear Petty talking to herself. That was probably just as well. Petty talked to herself quite a lot. She found it was the only way to get an intelligent answer.

“Of course, they don't understand how important this is. I am changing the world! But all they're worried about is getting to school on time. Honestly! Children today have no sense of adventure.”

Petty snapped the little green box shut and put it on her lap. She trained her binoculars back onto the little family of four squirrels. They were running around a warm patch of grass beneath the oak trees. Still no change. Obviously the potion wasn't working as well as the spray. Those squirrels should be hopping about looking very green and confused by now. They should be getting panicky about their sudden lack of bushy tails.

If only she could see just one grasshopper! “AARRGH!” Suddenly a huge grasshopper loomed in front of her. It took a second or two of frantic flapping around her head before Petty realized she was still looking through the binoculars. The grasshopper was right on the lens.

“You crazy old baggage!” she scolded herself. She turned the binoculars around to peer at the insect on the lens. Maybe the potion had worked after all! But…no…all four squirrels were still racing around the grass.

“Just a regular grasshopper,” she muttered. She flicked it away. It landed with a small click, by her left shoe. Then it started to disco dance. Another grasshopper hopped along and joined it. They shimmied left and then right. They whirled their feelers in the air as if they were auditioning for
High School Musical
.

Unfortunately, Petty wasn't looking. She was examining the S.W.I.T.C.H. potion bottle more closely. Suddenly she slapped her palm against her forehead. “You lunatic!” she said, crossly, to herself. “You pudding-brained clod! This is the antidote! Not the potion.” Now she began to rummage in her bag. “Where did I put the potion? And why did I use two of the same kind of bottle? Tsk! Oh, how annoying! The potion bottle must have fallen out in the car.”

“It's not working,” said Josh. He gave up on the disco dance routine. “She's not looking. We'll have to jump up on her knee. If we don't get that antidote soon we might never get back to school—or home—again!”

“Won't we just change back again anyway, after it's worn off?” said Danny. “We did last time.”

“I don't know,” said Josh. “This is the potion version, remember, not the spray. We've never drunk it before. It might last forever for all we know! But if we stay out here much longer, we'll just get eaten anyway. Oh will you stop that?”

“Sorry,” said Danny. He kicked away another brown blob of panic goo.

“Come on—onto her knee!” said Josh. He was just about to jump when a shadow fell across them. He looked up and saw the vast bulk of another human. “Oh no! Someone's come and sat on the bench with her! We can't change back in front of someone else. Even if we do get to the antidote!”

“Morning, Miss Potts,” shouted Mr. Grant. He lived around the corner.

Petty sighed. “Hello, Mr. Grant.” The last thing she needed was some nosy neighbor interfering in her experiment. She put the bottle back into her bag.

“We have to get Petty to notice us!” insisted Danny. He glanced around nervously and gulped. “I don't care who sees! I'm not staying here to get eaten.”

“Nice place to sit and watch the world go by, isn't it?” yelled Mr. Grant. He was a bit deaf. He didn't seem to realize that not everybody else was too.

“Hmm,” said Petty. She tried not to wrinkle her nose. Mr. Grant smelled of stale coffee and unwashed socks. He had liked her for years.

“What's this then?” shouted Mr. Grant. He suddenly picked the little green box up from the bench where it had slid from Petty's lap. He flipped it open without even asking. He peered at the two glass cubes. “Oh! Very pretty!” he grinned, showing off his dark yellow teeth.

“Do you mind?” Petty wrestled the box from him. She jammed it deep down into her coat pocket.

“I've got one of those on my mantelpiece,” belted out Mr. Grant.

“I very much doubt it,” said Petty, crisply.

“Found it in a bird's nest!” he bawled on. “A year ago, when I was cutting down my old hedge. Some magpie had got it. Gave it a wash and put it next to my clock, I did.”

Petty stared at him, her mouth open.

“Nice to find someone to share a bench with,” Mr. Grant shouted, romantically. “Especially at this time of day! When there are no screaming kids about. They should keep 'em all in school a bit longer, I say. Getting out at three? Nonsense. Lock 'em up with their teachers until six o'clock. Give us oldies a chance to have a park bench to ourselves, eh? Ha-ha-ha!”

Petty was still trying to figure out whether she had really heard Mr. Grant say he had a S.W.I.T.C.H. cube on his mantelpiece. Then two grasshoppers jumped up onto her knee and began to wave. Petty blinked. Then her eyes stretched wide, but she didn't say anything.

“Don't you think?” barked Mr. Grant.

“Oh no,” said Petty. She stared at her knee. She suddenly realized where the missing S.W.I.T.C.H. potion must have ended up. “It's Josh and Danny!”

“Don't you?” screamed Mr. Grant. “Don't you think it's nice here? No annoying kids. Just you and me! Ha-ha-ha!” And he slapped his hand down on her knee.

Petty shrieked.

“Oh come on!” roared Mr. Grant. “I'm only being friendly!”

But Petty was staring in horror at her knee. Only seconds before, Josh and Danny had been waving at her there. That idiot Grant had surely just splatted them across her skirt.

She smacked his hand away. She gasped with relief. There was no sign of splatted insect. A chirruping noise made her look down at the little tin cup on the bit of bench between her and her nasty neighbor. Inside the cup there was still a puddle of antidote (which she had mistaken for potion). It was leftover from the peanut dunking. Two grasshoppers were wallowing about in it.

“No need to be hoity-toity!” Mr. Grant was shouting. “I was only saying how nice it was to be here all on our own. Without any irritating, snotty-nosed schoolkids taking up all the benches and—DOOF!” Mr. Grant was abruptly shoved sideways as two schoolkids appeared out of thin air on the bench between him and Petty Potts.