Grasshopper Glitch Read online

  Books in the

  S.W.I.T.C.H. series

  #1 Spider Stampede

  #2 Fly Frenzy

  #3 Grasshopper Glitch

  #4 Ant Attack

  #5 Crane Fly Crash

  #6 Beetle Blast

  Text © Ali Sparkes 2011

  Illustrations © Ross Collins 2011

  “SWITCH: Grasshopper Glitch” was originally published in English in 2011. This edition is published by an arrangement with Oxford University Press.

  Copyright © 2013 by Darby Creek

  All rights reserved. International copyright secured. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc., except for the inclusion of brief quotations in an acknowledged review.

  Darby Creek

  A division of Lerner Publishing Group, Inc.

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  Minneapolis, MN 55401 U.S.A.

  Website address: www.lernerbooks.com

  Main body text set in ITC Goudy Sans Std. 14/19.

  Typeface provided by Monotype Typography.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sparkes, Ali.

  Grasshopper glitch / by Ali Sparkes ; illustrated by Ross Collins.

  p. cm. — (S.W.I.T.C.H. ; #03)

  Summary: After accidentally drinking some of mad scientist Petty Pott’s SWITCH potion while at school, twins Josh and Danny become grasshoppers and this time they may not change back without help.

  ISBN 978-0-7613-9201-9 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

  [1. Grasshoppers—Fiction. 2. Brothers—Fiction. 3. Twins—Fiction. 4. Science fiction.] I. Collins, Ross, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.S73712Gr 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012026634

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/12

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-1123-4 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3108-9 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3109-6 (mobi)

  For Elena

  Twitchy Travelers

  Bad Soda

  Toilet Trouble

  A Whisker from Death

  In Ear

  Sit Tight

  Bug-Eyed Burglary

  Cubes, Cackling, and Cake

  Top Secret!

  Recommended Reading

  Danny was jumpy.

  “Stop making that noise!” snapped Josh as they waited at the gate. Danny was making a peculiar screechy-scrapey noise through his teeth. He was trying to learn to whistle. He only managed to sound like a rusty bike chain. A chain being repeatedly dragged against a tin tray.

  He didn’t pay Josh any attention.

  “Will you stop it!” Josh whacked his lunch box against the back of Danny’s head. His twin glared at him. He rubbed his spiky blond hair.

  “I can’t help it. I’m nervous!” Danny muttered, eyeing the car at the curb. The car that would take them to school this morning. Mom couldn’t drive them in today. Their next-door neighbor, Petty Potts, was giving them a ride. She was just getting her bag from the house. Soon they would be going.

  Josh stared at the car too. He felt that his brother had some cause to be jumpy. Petty’s car was so old that it was actually made of wood. The back half of it looked like a chunk of old boat. The dark green leather seats inside were like furniture from a museum. Piddle, their terrier dog, was cocking his leg against one of the back wheels.

  “It can’t be legal to drive this around on regular roads!” hissed Danny. Petty emerged from her gate with a large open-topped woven straw bag in her hands. “I mean—do you think she’s even got a license?”

  “Come along, you two. Hop in,” said Petty. She opened the door. She tipped forward the front passenger seat so they could get into the back.

  “Oh, get away from my tires, you nasty leaky creature!” She glared at Piddle. He grinned up at her doggily. Then he shot back into the yard and up the side passage where they heard Mom shutting the gate.

  Petty tutted and went around to the driver’s door. She was in her brown raincoat. She was wearing her usual tweedy hat, pulled down low over her glasses. She looked exactly like someone should look driving such an ancient wreck, thought Danny. He made a face at Josh. They clambered in across the bouncy cracked leather seat. It also smelled like a museum.

  “Where are the seat belts?” asked Josh looking left and right.

  “It’s a classic car, Josh,” said Petty. She ground the gears as the engine coughed into life. “They didn’t always put in seat belts back in 1966. Just hang on tight. I’m not going to crash.” She turned around and put her bag in between them on the seat. She creased her face into what she probably thought was a reassuring smile.

  Petty Potts’s reassuring smiles never really worked somehow. Danny grabbed on to a little leather strap above the window. He narrowed his eyes at her.

  Josh did the same.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, you two!” she huffed. She turned back and started to drive up the road in a lurching fashion. “You might have a little faith in me. I’m not going to kill you!”

  Danny and Josh raised identical eyebrows at her in the rearview mirror. Petty had never tried to kill them, true. But she had certainly brought them closer to a bizarre and grisly death than any other grown-up they knew. They’d stumbled into a secret underground laboratory hidden beneath her garden shed. And they’d come close to being crushed, drowned, splatted, pecked hollow, swatted, mummified, and eaten. More times than they wanted to remember. Petty might look like a nice old biddy, but she was the genius inventor of SW.I.T.C.H. spray. It could change you into a creepy-crawly with just a few squirts. Josh and Danny had already been transformed into spiders and flies. And that was really quite enough.

  Naming her Serum Which Instigates Total Cellular Hijack “S.W.I.T.C.H.” made it sound rather fun. And it was. If you didn’t mind getting eaten, drowned, turned into soup, or splattered with a giant sandal.

  “Any more side effects from your housefly adventure?” Petty called back, cheerfully, over the rumble and clunk of the fifty-year-old engine.

  “No. We’ve stopped sniffing around the trash can now,” said Josh. “And Danny hasn’t spat on a doughnut or tried to walk up the kitchen window since last Tuesday.” He sighed and then grinned to himself. Being a bluebottle was very exciting. Even Danny had loved it. Well, apart from the bit when he’d been on the lunch menu for a hungry spider.

  “Good, good, good,” said Petty. “You know, I thought it was a disaster when you two first accidentally ran into a jet of my Spider S.W.I.T.C.H. spray. But actually it was the best thing that could have happened. If you hadn’t found your way into my secret lab, I might never have moved on from trying to S.W.I.T.C.H. rats and dogs!”

  “Er…thanks,” muttered Josh, raising his eyebrows at Danny. He was shaking his head and looking annoyed. The dog Petty had been trying to spray was their dog, Piddle. It was when they were rescuing Piddle that they had first got caught in a jet of Petty’s S.W.I.T.C.H. spray.

  “And of course, rats could never tell me what the experience was like!” went on Petty. “And you two are so helpful! I’m so delighted you’ve agreed to be my assistants on the S.W.I.T.C.H. project.”

  “Look—we just said we’d help you out by looking for your missing cube things,” said Josh. They reached the traffic lights near their school.

  “We’re not trying out any more S.W.I.T.C.H. sprays!”

  “I never asked you to!” protested Petty. She looked all innocent and injured. “And finding my missing cubes is absolutely the most important thing. Without them
I will never be able to rediscover my formula. Or be able to move on to turning things into reptiles. And you’ll never get the chance to find out how it feels to be a giant python or an anaconda or a Komodo dragon!”

  “We don’t want to find out!” squawked Danny. “Haven’t you heard us? Being turned into other creatures is just too dangerous!”

  “Yes, of course, of course…” Petty smiled ferociously into her rearview mirror. “Although I can’t imagine how anyone could hurt you if you were a twenty-four-foot python!”

  Danny and Josh looked at each other. There was just the faintest twinkle of excitement in Josh’s eyes. He thought about Petty’s promise. If they could find the last four missing cubes that held the secret of the REPTOSWITCH spray, she would be able to temporarily turn them into amazing reptiles. Josh loved wildlife—being a lizard or a snake would be incredible! The BUGSWITCH was amazing enough but a REPTOSWITCH? It would be hard to resist trying that spray out. And nice to be less easy to eat or squash! This was a definite downside to being a creepy-crawly.

  “Josh!” hissed Danny, narrowing his eyes at his brother. “Don’t even think about it! You don’t even know she’s telling the truth! She’s as fishy as fish fingers in fish sauce in a fish-shaped dish!”

  Josh had to admit Danny was right. Petty claimed some pretty crazy things. She had the BUGSWITCH sprays figured out. But she insisted a man who had worked with her had stolen the rest of her research. She said he even burnt out bits of her memory. She’d forgotten where she’d hidden the special glass cubes that contained the secret REPTOSWITCH formula. That was why she needed their help to find them. And they had found one.

  “We have been looking for your cubes,” Danny was saying. “And we will keep looking for them. But don’t think you’ll ever change us into anything again. Not unless we agree to it!”

  “Well, of course not! What do you take me for? Some kind of monster?” huffed Petty. “I would never dream of such a thing. But…I just wanted to tell you that I think I have perfected a S.W.I.T.C.H. potion now. You can drink S.W.I.T.C.H. instead of spray it on. It’ll have the same effect.”

  “We’re not drinking anything!” declared Josh.

  “Of course you’re not. But if you ever did, it’s all quite safe. Look, there’s a S.W.I.T.C.H. antidote potion too! I made it just in case drinking S.W.I.T.C.H. makes the changes last longer than the spray. It gets right inside, of course, so it probably lasts longer. But the antidote can stop it all at anytime like the gas back in my lab. I’ve got both the potion and the antidote in my bag.” With one hand on the wheel, she turned around to rummage in the bag between them. She was just hauling out a small plastic bottle when Josh shouted,

  “LOOK OUT!”

  There was a screech of elderly brakes. All three of them jerked violently forward. Petty’s car nearly collided with the crossing guard. School bags, lunch boxes, and Petty’s stuff went flying everywhere. It was good that Josh and Danny had been hanging on to the little leather straps above their heads. They might well have shot through the windshield.

  Petty had bashed her nose on her steering wheel. “Oh, all right! All right! Keep your stupid shiny hat on!” She was shouting at the crossing guard. He was waving his yellow STOP sign around and looking very angry.

  “Please—just drive around the corner, so we can get out,” wailed Josh. He kept his head down behind the front seats in case anyone from their school was watching. He and Danny scrabbled about, picking up their bags, books, and lunch boxes.

  “My bun’s all squashed!” moaned Danny. He picked up a sweet pastry bun that now looked more like a cookie.

  “Well, mine had a pretty hard whack too. Thanks for your concern!” sniffed Petty. They pulled at last around the corner, away from the angry crossing guard.

  “My buNNN! BuNNN—not BUM!” squawked Danny. He gave a horrified shudder.

  “Thanks for the ride,” said Josh. They fumbled with the tipping front seat and the passenger door. He and Danny grabbed their school stuff. They got out as fast as they could, slamming the door behind them.

  Petty rubbed her nose. She called to them. “I’m off around the park to try the potion and the antidote out on the squirrels. I’ll let you know how it goes!” She did a violent U-turn, nearly knocking a passing cyclist off his bike.

  “Come on,” said Danny. He shoved his drink and flattened pastry back into his lunch box. He slung his bag over his shoulder. “I never thought I’d say this, but I can’t wait to get to school, where it’s safe.”

  He went on through the school gates. He had no idea that something very, very unsafe was slurping about in his bag.

  “Who is making that noise?” snapped Miss Mellor.

  Everyone in the class froze and widened their eyes. Then they looked around for the culprit. The room was silent.

  “That scrapey, scratchy noise! It’s really irritating,” went on Miss Mellor. She put down her spelling test grading, stood up, and folded her arms.

  “Don’t know, ma’am,” muttered a few innocent pupils.

  Josh nudged Danny, but his brother just shrugged.

  “Well, whoever it was, stop it at once,” commanded Miss Mellor. She sat down again, heavily. She picked up her red pen. She sent a warning glare around the classroom.

  A few minutes passed as the class got on with “quiet reading.” Then the noise began again. Scratch, scrape. Scratch, scrape. Scratch, scrape.

  Josh nudged Danny again. But his brother was engrossed in his book. He was quite unaware that he was moving his legs up and down against each other. The seams of his new school pants and the Velcro tabs on his school shoes kept scraping and scratching.

  “Teacher! It’s him! It’s Danny,” called Claudia Petherwaite. She pointed at her classmate with a smug look on her face. Josh narrowed his eyes at her.

  “Danny. What on earth are you doing?” demanded Miss Mellor. “You sound like some kind of insect!”

  “Sorry, ma’am,” mumbled Danny, looking a little pink. “I didn’t know I was doing it.”

  “Well, now you do, stop it!” She sat down again and snatched up her pen once more. She was not in a good mood.

  Claudia smirked at Danny, who stuck his tongue out at her. He managed to keep quiet for the rest of the lesson.

  Just before lunch Miss Mellor stood up and did a sudden lunch box check. All that week the school had been working on a healthy eating project. Those who brought lunch from home had to show what was in their lunch boxes. They got a score out of ten for how healthy it was.

  Those who had school lunch sat back and watched. They didn’t have to go through this. But about fifteen kids went to get their lunch boxes to open them for inspection.

  “Not bad, Billy,” said Miss Mellor. She peered into Billy Sutter’s plastic lunch box. “Egg and watercress. White bread though. Should be whole wheat really. Raisins…good…”

  Josh and Danny peered anxiously into their lunch boxes. Their lunches were as identical as they were. Ham sandwiches, grapes, a sweet pastry bun, and a soda. The bread was white though.

  “Claudia, what’s in yours?” asked Miss Mellor. Claudia opened her little basket-weave box as if it were a birthday present.

  “I’ve got homemade whole wheat rolls. They’re filled with organic roasted vegetables and low-fat hummus,” she declared proudly.

  “Hummus? Isn’t that something you get off the compost heap?” hissed Danny. Miss Mellor clucked approvingly at Claudia.

  “And I have crudités,” went on Claudia. She held aloft a little bundle of cut-up carrot and cucumber sticks. “With wild mushrooms and couscous.”

  “Couscous? Sounds like the cat bringing up fur balls,” muttered Danny.

  “Looks like it too,” said Josh. Claudia held out something sludgy in a dainty plastic dish.

  “And what do you have for dessert?” asked Miss Mellor.

  “Oh, Mommy doesn’t give me a dessert,” said Claudia. She glowed with pride. “She says sugar rots my teeth. I do nibbl
e on sun-dried mango. But only on weekends.”

  “Gosh.” Even Miss Mellor looked slightly appalled. “And to drink…?”

  “Just water, of course. Soda is full of sugar. And the sugar-free stuff kills children’s brain cells,” explained Claudia. She closed her lunch box with a satisfied snap.

  Miss Mellor moved on to Danny and Josh with a rather fixed grin. Then she peered down into their open lunch boxes. “Hmm…that looks OK. Some fruit. White bread, though—tsk! And pastries?”

  “There are raisins in them!” said Josh hopefully. But Miss Mellor’s lips didn’t unpurse. She lifted Danny’s plastic bottle out. “Soda?”

  “Yep. Lemon,” said Danny, with a sassy grin. “Full of sugar! Yeah!”

  “Your teeth will drop out!” cooed Claudia, happily, as the bell for lunch rang.

  “I’ll risk it!” said Danny. Miss Mellor went back to her desk. He unscrewed the bottle and took a slurp. “Ugggg!” he spluttered. “This isn’t our usual soda! Yuck! Mom must have got some different stuff by mistake.”

  Josh put his schoolwork into his desk. He unwrapped his sandwiches. The “cold lunchers” ate at their desks while the “hot lunch” crowd went off to the lunchroom. “Better just get some water from the sink in the bathroom then,” he said.

  Danny didn’t say anything.

  Josh took a big bite of his sandwich. “Great ham, though,” he mumbled. His mouth was full. “Ham’s my favorite. What’s yours?”

  “Chirrup.”

  Josh looked around at the chair next to him. Danny’s lunch box was open. His sandwiches half unwrapped. His bottle of yucky soda still had its lid off. Danny was nowhere to be seen. He must have gone for water.

  But sitting on his blue plastic seat, chirruping was a bright green grasshopper. Josh grinned. That’d give Danny a scare when he got back.

  It was only a matter of seconds before the screaming started. Daisy and Emily spotted the grasshopper first. It suddenly launched itself through the air and landed on their table.