Crane Fly Crash (5 page)

“Eww!” she said, as she noticed her discarded leg being licked up by a tongue the size of the kitchen table. The leg disappeared as a shaggy white mouth snapped shut.

“Come on then!” yelled Jenny, bobbing up and down in front of the most terrifying sight she had ever seen (but just not believing it). “Have another one!”

And she yanked off another leg and threw it in Piddle's face. “FETCH!” she shouted.

Josh scuttled around the lamp and hid behind the hairbrush. “JENNY!” he wailed. “STOP IT! You're going to get EATEN!”

The snappy, yappy jaws were back, wide open. The tongue was quivering up and down between sharp, yellowy canine teeth. Jenny watched her second leg sail in and the jaws snap shut. Now she had only four legs left. She stood, laughing and bobbing up and down, in the face of doom. She looked a bit like a foldout camping table.

“You want another piece of me?” she yelled. “See if I care!”

She looked around and was trying to decide which leg to pull off next. Josh made a run for it. He grabbed her around her spindly middle and began to drag her away. “STOP pulling your legs off!” he gasped as she flapped around, angrily. His wings went into overdrive. He managed to drag her up into the air before she could turn herself into a tripod.

“This is
my
dream!” snapped Jenny, struggling hard. “And I'll pull as many legs off as I want! Get out of my dream! You're always coming in and messing with my stuff. I'm telling Mom! Get—”

“—OFF!” yelped Danny and grabbed Piddle by the collar. He yanked the dog away from the bedside table. He couldn't see any insect life there at all. He stared, horrified, into the terrier's mouth. Piddle was panting excitedly, his tail wagging. His tongue was lolloping about between his sharp teeth. And on the tongue were a couple of legs. Crane fly legs. “
Oh n
o,” whimpered Danny. “Josh! Jenny!
Noo!
”

Then a movement caught his eye. He saw a bundle of legs and wings floundering up the wall toward the window. Two crane flies! There were still
two
! The leg count didn't look great for one of them, but they were still alive!

Danny bundled Piddle out of the room. He shut the door fast. He lay back against it, his heart thumping in his chest. He'd had such a scare. He'd really thought his dog had just eaten half his family. As he watched Josh and Jenny fluttering along the windowsill, he started to calm down again. He would just sit here, nice and calm, until they popped back up as humans again. That's all. Nothing else.

“Josh? Danny? Jenny? Are you in there?” called Mom from down in the bathroom. Oh no! She must have heard him shut the door after he'd chucked Piddle out. If she came in now, he would never be able to stay and protect Josh and Jenny. Especially if they started that idiotic lightbulb-butting thing again.

Danny looked around him in a panic as Mom switched off the vacuum. She stepped out onto the landing. She was heading back to look in Jenny's room again. This time she was suspicious, so she was
sure
to look behind the door.

She would haul him out, tell him off, and send him to his room. And then anything might happen to Jenny and Josh! Danny gulped as he heard Mom walk across the landing toward Jenny's door. Maybe he should just tell her everything and hope she would believe him and … “Oh come
on
!” he said to himself. Then he grabbed the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray. He dove down behind the bed and squirted a yellow blast of it at his head.

Danny had only just enough time to shove the spray bottle under Jenny's bed before it shot up to the size of a telephone booth. The walls and ceiling of Jenny's room rushed away from him, stretching out to the size of a football stadium.

He knew, of course, that nothing had gotten bigger at all. It was just he—along with Josh and Jenny—who'd gotten suddenly a lot smaller. Danny stood up carefully, trying to sort out his weird eyes. It was that funny multi-lens thing again. A bit like looking through one of those glass things that gave you tons of the same view in many tiny hexagons. After a few seconds, though, he got used to it. His vision seemed quite normal. He tested out his legs. At least this time—for once—he had
known
what he was going to turn into before he got sprayed. He tried out his wings. He soon found himself rising up beside the vast football field-sized bed, in a rather wobbly way.

It was nowhere near as good as being a housefly or a grasshopper. Now,
those
things knew how to move! Still, it would have to do.

There was a sudden breeze. Danny whirled around to see the door opening and the humongous silhouette of what must be his mom. He'd only just sprayed himself in time! Over on the windowsill, which now looked like a very wide flat runway on the edge of a cliff, Danny could see Josh and Jenny. They were clinging to the windowpane and bobbing up and down in that nervous crane fly way.

“How are you doing?” he asked, casually, landing behind them. He glanced back into the room but couldn't see Mom now. Maybe she'd gone back out onto the landing

“Danny! What are
you
doing here?” asked Jenny. “It's bad enough having
one
annoying little brother in my dream, let alone two! I don't get any peace, even while I'm asleep!”

“Hey!” protested Josh, flickering his funny fingery mouthparts. “I just saved your life!”

“No, you didn't!” argued Jenny. “You just had to interfere! I was going to wake up, if you hadn't come along. But now I'm still in this stupid dream, thanks to you. And now it looks like—” she glared at Danny “—it's just gotten a lot stupider!”

“Dream?” muttered Danny, fluttering closer to Josh.

“Yep. That's what she thinks this is,” Josh muttered back. “She just pulled her own leg off! She doesn't think it's anything to worry about…”

“Ah,” said Danny.

“What are you doing here?” said Josh. “You're supposed to be guarding us until we get back to normal. And you're not doing a great job of it, are you? Piddle nearly ate us!”

“I know. I'm sorry,” said Danny. “I shut the door. But then Mom came in looking for us. I had to hide. Then she didn't shut the door properly, and so Piddle got in. I stopped him! I put him outside again.”

“And you're here now—because?” snapped Josh.

“Because she came in again. I had to shrink down and hide, or she'd make me go out. I couldn't guard you then, could I?”

Josh batted his feelers together wearily. “OK. How do you think you can guard us now, Danny? Now that
you
need guarding too!”

“Oh,” said Danny. “I never thought of that.”

“Ah well,” sighed Josh as Jenny fluttered up and down the windowpane, singing a little song. “It can't last much longer, anyway. Jenny's got to change back soon. Then I will—and I'll have to guard you until you do. So we must stay safely on the windowsill until then. I just hope the light thing doesn't start up again.” He stared wistfully at the golden glow beside the bed. Danny looked too. It did look incredibly lovely …

“NO!” said Josh, grabbing Danny's wings before he could take off. “There's nothing for you there. Except a burnt face!”

Josh and Danny joined Jenny. They scuttled up and down the windowpane, staring through the thick glass, out into the garden. It was almost dark, and the streetlights were coming on.
They
looked nice too … apart from the tickle-tickle-tickle noises of their feet on the glass, it was all quite peaceful.

“Oh look! It's Chelsea and Louise!” Jenny suddenly squeaked. “Hey! Chelsea! Lou!”

Outside they could see two of Jenny's friends walking along the street toward the house, chatting together. “Chelsea! Lou!” shouted Jenny, excitedly. “Up here!” And she flapped her pathetic legs against the glass.

“Umm … Jen,” said Josh. “I don't think they can hear you!”

Suddenly, with a vroom of her spindly wings, Jenny shot up the windowpane. Josh and Danny realized, to their horror, that she was heading for a narrow gap where one of the small top windows was ajar.

“Jenny! NO! Don't go out!” yelled Danny. But it was no good. Jenny wasn't listening. She was already mostly outside, one last leg flicking through after her.

“Now what?” gasped Josh. “How did
that
happen? We're supposed to be keeping her safe!”

“Quick! After her,” yelled Danny. He hurtled up the glass and through the gap after his sister.

The cool evening air was quite refreshing as Danny and Josh drifted through it, trying to see where Jenny had gone. It smelled of damp grass and late summer blossom. Moths and midges zoomed around them, thrumming and whining.

“There!” said Josh. “She's down there! Oh no! What does she think she's doing?”

Jenny had always been popular with the girls at school. Somehow, tonight, they weren't so interested. As she glided toward them, calling out their names, the girls at first ignored her. This wasn't so bad.