Beetle Blast 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: Beetle Blast” 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.

  Beetle blast / by Ali Sparkes ; illustrated by Ross Collins.

  p. cm. — (S.W.I.T.C.H. ; #06)

  Summary: On a trip to a pond with a local nature group, twins Josh and Danny accidentally eat a muffin laced with Petty Potts’ SWITCH spray and are transformed into very stinky beetles.

  ISBN: 978–0–7613–9204–0 (lib. bdg. : alk. paper)

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

  PZ7.S73712Ant 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012026637

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  1 – SB – 12/31/12

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-1126-5 (pdf)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3114-0 (ePub)

  eISBN: 978-1-4677-3115-7 (mobi)

  For Freddie (junior)

  Let Them Eat Cake

  Bottom Breathers

  Evil Wet Ones

  Dippy Chick

  Important Points

  Jarring Moments

  Victor-y

  Whose Granddad?

  Top Secret!

  Recommended Reading

  By the time the toxic cloud reached him it was already too late. Josh went cross-eyed. He grabbed his throat and gurgled. He slumped onto the bed. His face went purple.

  “Mmm—mmm—mo—” he rasped. His poisoner stood over him, smirking. He was immune to the gas.

  “Mo—” gasped Josh, falling off the bed and crawling toward the door. “MOM! Danny’s farting at me again!”

  Danny grinned proudly. His twin brother fell out onto the landing, sucking in grateful breaths of clean air.

  Mom was less amused. She put her head around their bedroom door. She withdrew again quickly.

  “Danny! That’s revolting! Go to the bathroom at once!” she called from the other side of the door. “Good grief! What is going on in your innards?”

  “You feed me,” pointed out Danny.

  “Don’t be smart!” snapped Mom.

  “It’s OK—I’ve stopped now,” said Danny. He stepped out to see his twin slumped against the banister. Josh flapped a hand in front of his face.

  “Well, I hope so!” said Mom. “I don’t want you embarrassing Josh at the Wild Things meeting.”

  Danny blinked in surprise. “Wild Things? I don’t go to Wild Things! I’m not the freaky little bug geek. That’s just Josh!”

  Josh was identical to Danny on the outside (although a lot less fluffy on the hair front and without the skater-boy clothes). But on the inside, the brothers couldn’t have been more different. Danny loved loud music, skateboarding, and kicking soccer balls around. Josh loved peering at nature through a magnifying glass. That’s why Josh had signed up for Wild Things. He went every week with a bunch of other freaky little bug geeks. Danny had no intention of joining him!

  “I’m sorry, but you have to go,” said Mom. She took some towels into the bathroom. “Your soccer coach called to say practice is canceled. I’m going to pick up my new car. There’s nobody to look after you. You’re going with Josh.”

  “Oh no!” wailed Josh. “He’s going to fart all the way through!”

  “Ah well,” sighed Danny. “I’ll just have to set up my own Wild Things gang—the Stink Bugs.”

  “Just try to act interested,” hissed Josh as he and Danny joined the other Wild Things at the Blackthorn Wildlife Center. They met every Monday after school. They did experiments, nature hikes, and looked at things through microscopes. Today they were going pond dipping to see what they could find.

  “Danny, meet Ollie, Milo, Biff, and Poppy,” said Josh. He pointed to each of his fellow bug geeks in turn. They all wore “nature freak” clothes, Danny noticed. Lots of green and brown and little vests with lots of pockets. Just like Josh. Danny, in his bright orange sweatshirt and baseball cap, looked like a traffic cone by a hedge.

  “Hi, Danny,” said Biff. He had a pair of binoculars around his neck.

  “Greetings,” said Ollie and Milo, together. They both had glasses and funny green hats, just like old people wore.

  “Hi, Danny, nithe to meet you,” lisped Poppy. She had brown braids, freckles, and a rather alarming number of teeth. She rattled a little plastic tub at him. She whispered, “Antth’ eggths!” with her eyebrows going up and down.

  “Er … yeah,” said Danny, backing away.

  “Look—Granddadth come to help today,” said Poppy. She pointed to a tall man in a low-brimmed hat who was standing nearby, gazing out the window. Danny noticed he had a strange, black, pointed fingernail on the little finger of his left hand. Well, weirdness obviously ran in the family.

  “I think she likes you,” sniggered Josh. Poppy smiled scarily at Danny and stroked the lid of her plastic tub. “She wants to take you home…”

  “Shut up!” hissed Danny. He hurried away toward some interesting buttons near a collection of wildlife pictures. They made wildlife-y noises when he pressed them. Ribbit. “Toad,” said Danny. Chirrup. “Grasshopper,” said Danny. Zzzzzzz. “Bluebottle.”

  “See,” said Josh. “You’re quite good at this stuff.”

  “Only because…” said Danny, “… we’ve either been one of them or nearly been eaten by one of them.”

  “Shhhh!” hissed Josh, looking around uneasily. “Don’t tell everyone!”

  “What? That our crazy next-door neighbor keeps turning us into creepy-crawlies?” said Danny, making no effort at all to be quiet. “Yeah, right. Everyone’s going to believe that!”

  Someone poked Danny hard in the ribs and said, “Shhhhh, you numbskull! You never know who might be listening! And I am not crazy. I am a genius!”

  Danny and Josh spun around, gaping with shock. There stood Petty Potts, the old lady from next door. She was wearing a tweedy hat and glasses, carrying a straw bag and smiling sweetly. You would never guess what she truly was. A brilliant scientist with a secret laboratory hidden beneath her garden shed! Earlier that year Josh and Danny had stumbled into it. She was in the middle of one of her astonishing experiments—to change things into creepy-crawlies.

  They had gotten caught up in a jet of her S.W.I.T.C.H. spray and shortly afterward morphed into spiders. That was a bit of a shock. It was a small miracle that they hadn’t been squashed flat, drowned, or eaten. And since then, despite trying really hard to steer clear of any further spraying, they had each been turned into a bluebottle, a grasshopper, an ant, and a crane fly. Thankful
ly, only temporarily.

  “What are you doing here?” spluttered Josh. “It’s a free country!” said Petty. “I’m allowed into my local wildlife center, aren’t I?”

  Danny eyed her bag nervously, looking for the telltale plastic spray bottle.

  “You needn’t look so petrified, Danny!” she said. “I haven’t got any S.W.I.T.C.H. spray with me today.”

  Danny sighed with relief. It wasn’t so much the “being a creepy-crawly” he minded. More the “nearly being eaten” so very often. He’d also once spent more time than he wanted to remember hiding in a cat’s ear while he was a grasshopper. And he was haunted still by the things he’d eaten when he was a bluebottle.

  “No,” said Petty, reaching into her bag and pulling out a small tin. “No spray today. This time it’s in pellet form. I want to S.W.I.T.C.H. a rat. I need to try out more mammals—other than you two. I’m going to hide the pellets in some food!” She leaned in toward them and whispered. “Don’t forget to keep looking out for the REPTOSWITCH cube! Only one more to find.” She looked edgily around her. “And never forget you might be being watched! Victor Crouch’s people are everywhere!” And she strode off, before Danny or Josh could say anything else.

  Josh shrugged. “Well, at least there’s no chance we’ll get fooled by pellets,” he said. “Let’s just pretend we don’t know her.”

  “She’s never going to let up about that blinkin’ cube, is she?” muttered Danny. “We’ve found four of them, and she already had one. You’d think she’d be happy with that!”

  “Yes—but without the last cube, she can’t figure out the REPTOSWITCH code, can she?” said Josh. “And without the code she’ll never be able to make the spray. And we’ll never get a chance to be alligators or snakes.”

  Josh and Danny looked at each other and bit their identical lips. Most of their adventures as creepy-crawlies had been terrifying. But they’d also been exciting and, at times, quite awesome. Both boys knew how it felt to fly, to leap twenty times their own body length, to run up walls, and to walk upside down along ceilings. It was just the nearly getting killed …

  But being a reptile would be different! Most reptiles were tough and much, much bigger than a creepy-crawly. It would be amazing to become a big scaly predator! That was why they had agreed to help Petty find her missing cubes, so she could crack the REPTOSWITCH code.

  “Come on,” said Josh. “We’re not going to worry about the last cube here. She didn’t hide it half a mile from her house.”

  “We’re not going to worry about being watched by government spies, either,” grinned Danny. “All that ‘Victor Crouch is after me’ business! That’s all in her head!”

  The Wild Things went to scoop creatures out of the pond. Danny mooched along after them. He was bored and trying not to notice Poppy smiling and waving at him with her little glass jar on a bit of pink string. He did not want to get to know a dragonfly nymph or a newt—or Poppy. It was a stupid waste of time. He sat down at a picnic bench while the others squelched about by the edge of the water. They oohed and aahed about tiny splodgy brown life-forms.

  Danny’s stomach rumbled. He noticed a plate left on the table. On it was a sticky chocolate muffin from the wildlife center café. With just a bit broken off. A rich sweet chocolaty smell was wafting across from it. Danny’s mouth watered. He looked around to see if anyone was coming to claim it. Nobody seemed to be. He peered at it a little closer. No wasps on it.

  Another chocolaty waft reached him. Danny couldn’t resist a moment longer. He grabbed the abandoned muffin and bit into it.

  “Mmmmm,” he groaned, happily.

  “Danny! Come and see this!” said Josh, who was crouching in some bog weed. The other Wild Things had wandered off to the other end of the pond on the other side of some bushes. Danny felt he could bear to show some interest with Poppy no longer goggling at him.

  He took the remaining bit of muffin with him and ambled over to his brother.

  “See!” said Josh, pointing at a muddy pebble. “A great crested newt!”

  “Hey. Wow. I mean, that’s, err, great.” Danny shrugged.

  “What are you eating?” asked Josh, sniffing at his brother.

  “Muffin. ‘ave some,” said Danny, handing the last chunk to his brother.

  Josh held up his muddy hands. “Stick it in for me, will you?” he said, opening his mouth. Danny shoved it in.

  “Mmm, nice chunky chocolate chips,” mumbled Josh.

  “Hey!” said a sharp voice behind them. “Who ate my muffin?”

  Danny spun around, guiltily. Standing by the picnic bench was … oh no … Petty Potts. Suddenly Danny had bigger things to worry about than being caught for muffin theft.

  Petty stared at him and then at Josh, who had turned around too. “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” she said, spotting the chocolate crumbs around their mouths.

  “Okay, out with it. What kind of ‘oh dear’?” asked Josh, sounding a little bit squeaky.

  “Ummm,” said Petty. She looked sheepishly at the little metal container of pellets in her hand and then at the empty plate on the picnic table. “Well …”

  Then there were two small pops. No further point in explaining. Josh and Danny wouldn’t have understood.

  When the remaining Wild Things came around from the other side of the pond, they were surprised to see that Josh and his bored brother had disappeared. An old lady was peering anxiously into the pond, saying not very polite words.

  “Don’t tell me,” snapped Josh. “Just don’t tell me!” He had his eyes screwed shut and refused to open them.

  Danny waggled his feelers in annoyance. “All right. I won’t tell you! You can guess!” He climbed up a thick green plant stem. He stared down into the mirror reflection of the water below.

  “That was the food that Petty put the S.W.I.T.C.H. pellets into, wasn’t it?” huffed Josh, still with his eyes shut. “She poked them into a chocolate muffin. Then you went and ate it! And fed it to me too!”

  “Sorry,” said Danny. “But you should look now. This is pretty cool.” His six legs clung to the green blade, and he leaned over for a better look. A rather handsome face peered back up at him from his reflection. His eyes were wide apart and gray, like metal buttons, set into a smooth black face. He had a shiny gray mouth area with some delicate feelers around it. His body was smooth and gently striped with black and dark brown lines. His legs and underparts were a rather nice yellow.

  “Check out these legs!” Danny raised up his chunky back pair. They were curved into thick furry segments and felt very powerful. He tried to get a better view of them in the water by leaning off the huge blade of grass a bit further. And then …

  “Whoaah!”

  SPLASH!

  He was deep under the water.

  And Danny couldn’t swim.

  The SPLASH! made Josh at last open his eyes. He stared in alarm down at the pond below him. He too had arrived in his new creepy-crawly form standing on a wide green leaf, just above the water. The world around him looked totally unlike the normal world. It was absolutely huge, for one thing. An alien spaceship suddenly swooped past him, making a deafening thrumming noise. Except it wasn’t a spaceship. It was a dragonfly. It had a stunning blue-green body, sparkling wings, and a nasty killer instinct.

  “Danny!” shouted out Josh, ducking under the leaf for safety. There was no reply. Just a widening ring across the water where something had fallen in. Something, Josh realized, that was almost certainly Danny.

  “Oh no!” wailed Josh, wondering what to do. Then he caught sight of his reflection, wobbling below him. He found himself laughing. Actually laughing. For once—just for once—he and Danny didn’t need to be scared! “It’s OK, Danny! I’m coming!” chortled Josh. He dived into the water.

  Danny held his breath for as long as he could. He tumbled slowly over and over, sinking down in the green soupy liquid. Fronds of weeds brushed against him. Wriggling see-through creatures scurried away into the glo
om. The water was cool and somehow thicker than he remembered. It seemed to slide around him in an odd way. He could see in it perfectly well now that he was getting used to it. A forest of underwater trees and shrubs waved gently to and fro. A gigantic brown water snail ambled past him up a stem, blowing a large bubble in his face.

  I’ve got to get to the surface! said a panicky voice in his head. He wished he’d tried harder to learn to swim. He was quite an athletic boy but more of a soccer and baseball kind.

  Suddenly there was a booming noise. All the watery trees and bushes waved extra fast as a body tumbled down from the surface. It spun around and began to row quickly toward Danny. Danny stared at it, scared. Meeting other creatures when you were S.W.I.T.C.H.ed was nearly always highly dangerous.

  “Danny? Danny!” shouted the other creature. Danny heaved a huge sigh of relief as he recognized Josh shooting toward him. His voice was rather strange and musical through the water.

  “Hang on!” said Danny out loud. “How can I breathe a huge sigh of relief? I’m underwater!”

  “Yes—but you’re a great diving beetle!” laughed Josh.

  “Oh, thanks,” said Danny.

  “No—I mean—that’s what we’re called,” explained Josh. “We’re great diving beetles. We can breathe underwater. We carry our own air pocket with us—see.” He jabbed his front leg against his face. Danny saw a silvery line dimple in under it. Yes—it was as if they were traveling in little sacks of oxygen. “We have to go up to the surface every so often and get more air,” explained Josh. “We sort of suck it up with … well … with our butts.”

  “OK. Whatever you say, you weirdo! But it’s the last time you yell at me for farting!” said Danny. He turned in the water. He used his strong back legs like his brother was doing. They moved like oars on a rowboat. He scudded along through the water at great speed. Josh sped along beside him.

  “OK—so what’s going to eat us?” said Danny, nervously. Something always tried to eat them.