Spider Stampede (6 page)

That's the end of me
, thought Josh.
Funny. Only felt a little bump!
He opened one eye. Then six or seven more. The sticky tongue was still attached to his shoulder (or thorax, if he was being correct). But the other end was no longer attached to a toad. It lay flattened under a giant black boot.

Someone had stamped on the toad! STAMPED on it!

Behind him Josh could hear anguished cries from Danny and Scratch and Sniff. They must think he was done for. Josh stood up. He found all his legs were shaking with fright. Then he ran away before whoever it was could stamp on him too. The tongue followed him. Eeewwww! It came away from the edge of the boot. It snaked along behind him like a weird scarf. It skipped and bounced over the rocks and fallen trees, which had once been just twigs and pebbles when he was a boy.

As he reached Danny and their rat friends, Josh yelled—for the first time ever—“GETTITOFF! GETTITOFF! GETTITOFFMEEEEE!”

Scratch leaned over. He tugged the half a tongue with his teeth. It squelched and popped as it finally came off.

“We thought you was a goner, son!” said Scratch. He spit out the tongue and hustled them all beneath an old log. “We thought you was lunch! Nobody's ever got away from Gripper. Not ever! If he hadn't just got stamped on, you'd be down his throat by now.”

Poor Josh gulped. Danny went to put a comforting arm…er…leg…around him…but just couldn't make that work somehow. (
Whoever got comfort from a spider's leg?
he wondered.) “We've
got
to find a way to get back to being humans again,” he said. “Or we'll never make it to dinnertime.”

“Well, I hate to say it,” said Sniff. “But Petty Potts is most likely the only one who can help you.”

“But how will she know it's us? She might just stamp on us like someone just stamped on that toad,” squeaked Danny. He looked around, anxiously. The owner of the boot, who had been screened from view by the leaves of a large bush, seemed to have gone.

“No, she wouldn't stamp on you. She never wastes insects,” said Scratch.

“Arachnids,” corrected Josh. Everyone gave him a
look
.

“And didn't you see? It was Petty Potts who just stamped on Gripper,” added Scratch. “She was probably after him for another one of her experiments.” Scratch peered out from under the log. “She's made a gap in her back fence so she can get down here and kidnap innocent creatures for her lab! Can't see her now though. She must have gone back in with Gripper's gooey bits. I think we should take you back there too. Maybe she'll help you. Maybe you can find a way to show her who you are.”

“Well, at least let's check for any more toads, before we go,” said Josh, with a shiver.

He edged out from under the log and looked all around. Then he ran up a tree. Yes! He ran right up it so fast he shocked himself. “Look at me! Danny! Look at me! I'm up the tree!” he yelled, excitedly. He forgot to be afraid.

Danny lost no time in catching up. He was the athletic one, after all. He wasn't going to be beaten to the top by Josh. “Woo-hoo!” he called, overtaking Josh. “I'm a superhero! I can walk up walls!!!”

“Steady now,” called up Scratch from the lower part of the trunk. He was scrabbling a little way up. “Lots of things up there looking for lunch! Best come down.”

But Josh and Danny had now run along to the tip of a high branch. They were staring, amazed, at the view. From here they could see across their yard and into the yards on either side. Everything lay below them like half the country, seen from an airplane. So incredibly colorful and interesting and BIG! Butterflies flapped past them like giant kites. Bees and flies zoomed in all directions, sounding like helicopters and never bumping into one another, as if they were being guided by air traffic control.

A slurping noise above them turned out to be a chubby green caterpillar munching through a leaf. It burped. It winked a big black eye at them. It went, “Pardon.”

“Oooh—lovely! Leggy snackage! I was feeling peckish,” came a voice just behind them. Danny spun about in horror. Above them on the branch was a humongous bird. A blackbird, he thought. It had a bright orange beak. And the beak was jabbing right down toward them.

“AAAAARGH!”

Danny ran up the branch and then found himself sliding off the edge. For one horrible second he tipped sideways into thin air, ready to plummet down. And then he realized he was still running. He ran right around under the branch, Josh hot on his many heels. All of a sudden, the world was upside down. Their incredible little hooky feet were keeping them attached to the craggy bark of the tree. They were defying gravity!

“Like Spider-Man!” marveled Josh, under his breath.

“Has it gone?” whispered Danny.

For a few seconds they hung there, petrified. Then there was a terrifyingly loud whistle. A huge black-feathered head swung around the branch and gaped its beak at them.

“Aah—nearly lost you,” it said. “Brace yourself. Got the munchies.”

“Noooooooo!” shouted both Josh and Danny. Below they could hear Scratch and Sniff desperately shouting at the bird to get away.

“Now look!” said the bird, tilting its head on one side and regarding them patiently. “Stop messing around. I need a snack and you're it. That's the pecking order. Get over it.”

“Drop!” yelled Josh. “Just let go!”

Danny didn't need telling. He'd rather splatter on the ground than get eaten alive. He let go and found himself once again wheeling around in free fall.

Ooh.
That
was an unexpectedly soft landing.

As Danny lay dazed, he realized he was on some kind of material. A short distance away Josh was also flopped onto the material, feverishly counting his legs. Danny looked at the crisscross of green and brown wool threads. From its round shape and a few gray cables of hair on it, he guessed it was a hat. And now it was tipping up.

Shrieking, Josh and Danny ran up the material, grabbing hold after hold with their hooky feet. But whoever was holding the hat determinedly shook it until they fell again, this time with a plop, into a large see-through container. Inside it Josh ran around and around, shooting something weird out of his bottom.

“Eeeuw!” said Danny. “Spider-Man never did it like
that
!”

Josh was making an emergency web. He was shooting silk out of the spinner on his abdomen to create a network of strong rope, which he was sticking all over the see-through plastic at very high speed as he ran around. They would be able to use it to climb up.

But Danny could see it was hopeless. Above them a lid crashed down shut. And now the super-sized face of none other than Petty Potts loomed slowly into view, peering in at them. Josh could see mammoth bristly hairs up inside her cavernous pink nostrils.

He slumped down into his useless emergency web and sighed. “I really didn't ever want to see that.”

“OOOOOH DDDEEEEEEAR!” roared Petty Potts, in a slow deep voice.

“TIIIIIIIME TOO GEEET YOUUUU FFFIIIIIXXEEED UUUUPPPP.”

Josh felt quite seasick as their plastic tub swung along in the old lady's hands.

He clung on tightly to the stout see-through silk cables that he had unexpectedly produced. He was rather proud of his web, in fact. Even if it had come out of his backside.

Danny was hanging on too, his furry face looking rather green. “Now what?” he whimpered.

Josh thought hard. He didn't think Petty Potts would hurt them deliberately. But maybe she would want to experiment on them. After all, it sounded as if she knew who they were. She must be pretty excited. She had succeeded in turning two mammals into spiders!

At last they reached the huge dark cave of her laboratory behind the shed. She set their tub down on a gigantic table and peeled off the lid. She spoke at them, but it was too roary and loud and slow to make any sense. Her big warm gusts of breath smelled like cheese.

A short while later, there were two thuds, and two dark bundles, wrapped in white material, bounced down between them. They smelled fantastic. Danny suddenly realized how incredibly hungry he was. These were flasks of hot meaty soup! He was sure of it. He could smell it. He scuttled across to one of them and quickly ripped off the wrapping. The flask had six legs, two wings, and an anxious expression. But Danny didn't stop to think about this. Yum! The soup was great!

It was only when he'd gulped it all down that he noticed the look on Josh's face. His brother's mandibles were stuck up straight like shocked fingers. One of his eyes twitched. “Nice lunch?” he whispered.

“Ah…yes,” admitted Danny. “Er…bluebottle soup. Not Mom's, but not bad.” He shuddered and felt a little queasy.

“ARGH!” said Josh and Danny agreed with him. The tub was tipping up, and they were sliding out onto the tabletop. The surface was cold stone of some kind. Quite smooth. Now a glass bowl was slammed, upside down, over them. Through a round gap in the top, a yellowish fog was hissing and blooming down.

“She's killing us! We're done for!” whimpered Danny. But Josh thought he was wrong. It would be much easier to kill them with a shoe than with gas. A few seconds later, though, he wasn't so sure. His head felt funny and his legs gave way and his ears were all muffled and…and…and…