Beetle Blast (6 page)

He could see his fellow Wild Things dotted around the room. Huge lumps of colorful human, ambling about and making a lot of noise. Good! The noise would hopefully disguise the sound his wings were making. The pond dippers had all come back into the learning room now. They had put their jars in a row along an orange shelf, ready to be inspected. Poppy's grandfather was already peering into them. He was holding a notebook and pencil and tapping against the jars with one peculiar pointed black fingernail. Josh flew high over his head. He wished the old man would move away so he could inspect the jars for signs of Danny.

Then Poppy ran up to her grandfather and grabbed his hand. The old man turned away. Josh flew down to the jars and began to work his way along them all. Most of them had lots of weeds, a couple of water snails, and not much else. Most of the pond creatures were way too quick to get caught by pond dippers. The third jar, with the pink string on it, had a bone-crunchingly ugly face peering out of it through a drift of green weeds. A dragonfly nymph. It saw Josh peering in at it. It mouthed “Watchoo lookin' at?” Josh was just about to move on when another face suddenly bloomed through the weed. A great diving beetle.

“Josh! Is that you?!” mouthed the beetle. Josh could just about hear Danny's voice behind the glass.

“Yes! It's me!” he called back. “Danny! You've got to get out of there!”

“
Tell
me about it!” yelled Danny. “It's no fun being stuck in here with nymphy boy!”

“Hey! Is youz dissin' me?” demanded Nymphy Boy.

“I can't get out!” yelled Danny. “I've tried to fly up, but the lid's on!”

Josh landed on the lid. It had a couple of air holes punched through the tin. They were too small to get through. And there was no way he could twist off the lid.

“Come on, Josh! Think of something!” begged Danny. “A few more minutes and there's going to be some very nasty jam in this jar!”

“I'll have to get help!” cried Josh, through the air holes. “Scratch and Sniff are out by the pond. And Petty—somehow I'll have to get them to help. Just … hold on and don't go anywhere… ”

“Oh, all right. As you've asked so nicely, I'll just cancel my plans and stay here then!” snapped Danny.

Nymphy Boy loomed up at him, looking even uglier, and spat: “Yo, Beetle Boy. I iz not a boy. I iz a
girl
.”

“Yeah,” muttered Danny, with a wince. “Me too, sister.”

“Scratch! Sniff! I've found Danny!” gasped Josh. He landed under the picnic table in a spray of dust and grass seeds.

“Good!” said Sniff.

“
Not
good!” said Josh. “He's in a jam! Worse … he's in a jam
jar
. He's stuck inside it with the lid on. I can't get it off. And he could change back into being a boy at any moment and then … and then …”

“
Squelch
,” shuddered Scratch. Sniff elbowed him in his furry chest. She glared at him.

“How can we get it open?” asked Josh.

“Well,” said Scratch. “I don't know if we can open it. But we can certainly knock it off the shelf and smash it. Would that help?”

Josh stared at them. “It's not the
best
way out,” he said. “But it's better than nothing.” He just hoped that Danny wouldn't get cut in half by shattered glass.

“No time to lose then,” said Scratch. He and Sniff ran toward the learning room.

“Be careful!” Josh yelled after them. He knew what they were doing was very dangerous for them. The wildlife center staff could try to trap them if they saw them. Rats might be wildlife too, but the people at the center said there were too many and numbers had to be kept down. Rising up in the air, Josh scouted around for the root of all these disasters—Petty Potts. He saw her sitting on a bench by the pond. Without her usual hat, her silvery hair was blowing around her head.

He buzzed down in front of her face. She didn't flap him away but sat up straight. “Danny? Josh? Is that you?” she said, in a voice that came out loud, deep, and boomy to Josh's beetle ears.

“Follow me!” shouted Josh, although he knew Petty would only hear a buzzing noise. Her giant human ears weren't set up to hear such tiny creatures. If only he could just switch back to human now and explain, life would be much easier. But it was never possible to predict exactly when the change back would happen. And he didn't know how much S.W.I.T.C.H. pellet he had eaten compared to Danny. It could be either one of them first …

He turned and flew back to the learning room after Scratch and Sniff. It looked as if the rats were Danny's only chance.

“Where'th Danny gone?” said Poppy to the other Wild Things. “And where'th Josh?”

“I reckon they both went off around the back,” said Milo, busy writing notes on his worksheet.

“Well, they thould be back now!” said Poppy, looking annoyed. “I wanted to thow Danny my pond life, Grandad!” she said to the man in the hat. He took his hat off and rubbed around where his eyebrows should have been. Then he put the hat back on again.

“Yes, Poppy,” he smiled. “And I really wanted to meet Danny too. And Josh. Don't they live over on Chestnut Lane?”

“Yeth,” said Poppy. She led Granddad over to the rows of jars. Then she let out a little shriek. Two furry shapes had just shot up the wall and onto the shelf.

“UGH!” shrieked one of the ladies handing out worksheets. “RATS!”

There were more screams. Then a crash as the rats bashed one of the jars off the shelf and onto the floor, spilling pond water, weeds, and three water snails across the tiles. Then another jar toppled over. This one had pink string on it.

“Oh help! That'th my jar!” squeaked Poppy.

“Oh help!” gurgled Danny as he tumbled through a twisting vortex of water, weed, and madness. The jar was falling. He was a second away from being in a broken glass and pondweed stew. Maybe he'd make it though. Maybe he'd be able to fly away.

WHOMP! SLOOSH!

Suddenly the jam jar stopped falling. A storm of water churned up, down, and around, and then Danny realized the glass was still intact. A hand grasped it firmly, pale long fingers wrapping around. One black, pointy fingernail tapped against the glass.

“Thank you, Granddad!” squeaked Poppy.

Just outside the window, Josh saw the old man in the hat stop Danny's jar from falling. “Oh no!” he moaned, hovering up and down with his wings in a frenzy. “How will we get Danny out now?”

Then he crashed onto the decking below with a loud thud. Everyone in the learning room ran to the window and the door to see what had just fallen. An eight-year-old boy lay on his back, his arms and legs flapping, looking dazed and confused.

“Josh?” said Poppy.

“You all right?” said Milo.

Josh saw Poppy's grandfather lean out behind her, the jam jar still swinging in his hand. He knew it was now or never, while he still had them all surprised and confused. He leaped to his feet. He snatched the jam jar from the old man and ran across the wildflower meadow before anyone could stop him.