Grasshopper Glitch (7 page)

Petty hooted with laughter. Mr. Grant fainted. By the time he'd regained his senses, he was alone. He took himself off to see the doctor.

“Sorry the boys are late,” smiled Petty. She put her head around the classroom door. Josh and Danny sidled back to their desks. “I had a bit of an emergency. They were helping me.”

“Oh,” said Miss Mellor, checking her watch. “Well, it's only ten minutes. I suppose I don't have to mark it down. What kind of emergency?”

“They had to save me from something creepy-crawly! You know how good Josh is with that kind of thing,” said Petty. She did her best “nice old dear” face. She pushed the S.W.I.T.C.H. potion bottle deep into her straw bag. Josh had run into the bathroom to get it for her just before they came back into class.

“See you at dismissal, boys,” said Petty. She hurried out of the classroom.

“You didn't eat lunch, either of you!” scolded Miss Mellor. “Your lunch boxes are still out on your desks!”

“It's OK, Miss Mellor,” Danny grinned. “We had a lot of salad stuff while we were out. Couldn't eat another thing!”

“Really? Sounds very healthy,” said Miss Mellor, looking suspicious.

“It was!” said Josh. “And we're going to eat more leaves when we get home. Even more than Claudia! We're going to snarf a whole hedge. It tastes great!”

“You must be joking!” Danny held up his hands and shook his head. “No way!”

“But you promised you'd help me!” insisted Petty. “You said you would help me get back all my REPTOSWITCH cubes! Remember—you said you wanted to try out being a python one day. Or a lizard—or an alligator!”

“We didn't say that! You did!” argued Josh.

“Oh nonsense!” Petty slammed the green velvet box down on her kitchen table. She had lured Josh and Danny in, as they arrived home from school. She used the pretense that she was worried about them after yesterday's grasshopper adventure. “I know you want to be an alligator, Josh! You're an eight-year-old boy, for heaven's sake. There would be something seriously wrong with you if you didn't!”

Josh looked at Danny. Petty was right. He did want to try out the REPTOSWITCH one day. Who wouldn't? Danny bit his lip. Josh knew his twin wanted to try it too.

Petty flicked open the box. She pointed to the four empty dents where the missing S.W.I.T.C.H. cubes belonged. She fixed them with a fanatical stare. “One more of these will mean we are halfway there! Halfway toward being able to switch humans into reptiles! Imagine what we could do with that! It's fantastic enough being able to switch you into insects and spiders. But imagine what you could do in reptile form!”

“OK—we said we'd help you look,” said Josh. “And we have been helping. We've been all over your garden and our yard. And we always check out anything we see in the street that shines a bit like glass. But this is different. You're asking us to be burglars!”

“Oh, pee, pickle, and poo!” snorted Petty. “I'm just asking you to take one teensy-weensy sip of potion. Just pop back to being a grasshopper and jump through Mr. Grant's mailbox. Then collect my S.W.I.T.C.H. cube from his mantelpiece and come out with it. No harm done. He won't even notice.”

Josh and Danny looked at each other. There was only the slightest hint on their faces that maybe they might possibly think about Petty's plan. She spotted it and immediately held up a tiny glass dropper. It was already filled with S.W.I.T.C.H. potion. “I've measured it out exactly for your height and weight and body mass,” she said. “It will last precisely ten minutes. Long enough for me to get you to the house. Then five minutes to get inside to find the cube and change back to your human form. Then get the cube back to me. Mr. Grant's out. Wednesday afternoon he always goes to the casino.”

Josh and Danny looked at each other again. Danny shrugged. “Sounds simple enough.”

“EXCELLENT!” said Petty, holding up the dropper. “TONGUES OUT!”

Petty hid the grasshoppers in her coat pocket. They were safely tucked into a small plastic tub with holes in the lid so there was plenty of air to breathe. It was not a pleasant journey. They were jogging along in the tub, which smelled of old curry.

“I hope she's right about this S.W.I.T.C.H. cube being in Mr. Grant's house,” muttered Danny. “We could be at home now, playing with Piddle or filling up the wading pool. Not stuck in a plastic tub in a crazy old scientist's pocket, trying not to be sick. I'm only just holding back the panic goo here, you know!” His green face went a little greener.

Petty had told their mom her sons were helping out in the garden for half an hour. Mom thought that was a nice thing for Josh and Danny to do. She believed Petty was a lovely, harmless old lady.

Suddenly there was a flash of light as the tub rose out of the darkness of Petty's coat pocket. The lid abruptly snapped off and a fresh breeze blew in. Josh and Danny clambered warily up to the rim of the tub. They saw that it was being held up against a long blue cliff, with a rectangle cave set into it. “It's his mailbox, in his door,” said Josh. “She's putting us through!”

Sure enough, the dull yellow metal at the back of the “cave” suddenly flapped backward. Petty's enormous pink fingers poked at it. Josh and Danny leapt through the gap and found themselves gliding down through the cool indoor air of the hallway. They landed on the rough bristles of a doormat, next to a gigantic folded newspaper.

“BURGLARY ON THE INCREASE” read the front-page headline. It made Josh and Danny feel guilty.

“Come on—we haven't got much time,” said Josh. He sprang down the hallway and into the living room. He bounded up onto the mantelpiece above the fireplace in one easy leap. The long pine shelf was full of clutter. Pictures, ornaments, matchboxes, tobacco tins, a pair of pliers, a jar of screws, and lots of thick fluffy dust.

“Eeeww!” whimpered Danny. He was frozen on the other side of the jar of screws, his green mouthparts twitching with disgust. At his feet lay a large, upside-down spider. Hairy, crispy, the color of straw. It was bigger than Danny. It was a good thing it was dead.

“Just turn around and hop away!” advised Josh. He couldn't believe, after all Danny had been through, that he was still scared of a dead spider. Although, he supposed, Danny
had
been the one who was very nearly eaten by a spider a little while back.

Danny turned around and hopped away. Then he let out a chirrup of excitement. “It's here! I've found it!”

Josh jumped along the mantelpiece. He found his brother staring at a large, clear, perfectly cut cube of glass. Even through a layer of dust, it sparkled with rainbow light. Inside, delicately carved by laser, was the hologram of a snake. Its diamond-patterned body was coiled like rope and its head raised up, as if ready to strike. “It's beautiful,” murmured Danny. He wondered which part was the one-sixth of Petty's secret formula.

“It is,” agreed Josh. “Uh-oh!” He felt a strange tingling and knew what was coming. “Better get off the mantel—OW!” He sat up on the carpet. He rubbed his head where it had smacked against the brick fireplace. “That was a quick change!” He hadn't even had a second to hop down off the mantelpiece before he'd thwacked back into being a boy.