Fly Frenzy (5 page)

Josh pivoted in the air like an expert pilot. He zoomed off toward some giant trees at the end of the garden. Danny followed. Being a fly felt amazing!

“I can't believe I ever thought flies were annoying!” he called to Josh. He zoomed up behind him and looped the loop. “They're brilliant!” He felt rather guilty about the brilliant flying machine he had pulped against the bedroom wall with a rolled-up comic just last week. And even guiltier about the one he ate when he was a spider.

In no time at all, they were across the back fence, between the huge tree trunks, and over Mrs. Sharpe's neat and pretty back garden. They headed for the house. Now they had to get inside and find out whether the Sharpes had ruined their mom's hedge.

They shot in through an open upstairs window. They found themselves in a vast bathroom. Huge vats of smelly potions sat on a glass shelf. It made Josh's sensitive antennae twitch. A boulder-sized lump of greeny-white stuff on the basin sent up an intense minty whiff. Toothpaste! Josh realized.

“Everything smells ten times stronger, doesn't it?” he shouted to Danny. “Danny? Oh—yuck! Danny! Stop that!” shouted Josh.

Danny jumped and rose up with a shudder.

“You weren't really going to drink that, were you?” asked Josh.

“No—of course not!” spluttered Danny. “I—I didn't realize I was on the edge of the toilet, did I? I didn't know what it was . . . It just smelled . . . ”

“Kind of . . . tasty?” muttered Josh. “Like bathroom soup.”

Danny pivoted around in the air to stare at his brother. “It's because we're flies, isn't it?”

“Yep,” said Josh. “To a fly, pee is soup.”

“And that really nice smell from near Piddle's basket . . . ?”

“Let's just get going, shall we?” said Josh, briskly. “We've got work to do!”

They flew around the edge of the bathroom door. They dropped through the warm updraft of air from downstairs. Now they could hear voices. Heavy, slow, and human.

Following the voices, which vibrated around them, they arrived in the kitchen. It smelled incredibly sweet. Mrs. Sharpe was making cakes. Tarquin was with her. He was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Shhh!” said Josh. “Let's wait here and listen for a while. See if they own up to chopping up Mom's hedge.”

And then the room flipped over.

It didn't seem strange that the room had flipped over. To Josh and Danny, now standing on the ceiling, being upside down felt like the most natural thing in the world.

“This is so cool!” said Danny. “And ooooh, that cake mix smells so good!”

“Sshh! We need to listen to them!” said Josh. It wasn't easy. Just like the last time, when they'd shrunk into spiders, human speech sounded much deeper and slower than usual. After a while, though, Josh felt his quick fly brain adapt. He began to understand what Mrs. Sharpe and Tarquin were saying.

“Good work, Tarquin,” said Mrs. Sharpe. “Are you sure nobody saw you?”

“Of course not, Mother!” sniffed Tarquin. “I am not an idiot, you know!”

“Good. Just as long as you're sure. Even though my garden is obviously the best in town, the judge could have been charmed by those dreadful tacky topiary birds. Now there's not much chance of that! Did you hide them, like I said? I wouldn't put it past her to cheat and wire them back on.”

“Yes, Mother. They're in the front room.”

Josh and Danny gasped. Petty was right!

“The front room? Are you crazy? What if the judge comes early and finds the evidence all over the carpet?” Mrs. Sharpe waved her wooden spoon around in fury. A large blob of cake mix splodged onto the floor. A wonderful scent hit Danny like a wave. He just couldn't help himself. He dropped down from the ceiling, turning a somersault in the air. He buzzed straight for the floor.

“Danny!” called Josh. “We haven't got time for snacks! We have to find Mom's hedge birds!”

“I can't . . . help . . . myself . . . ” wailed back Danny. He landed on the pale yellow blob, which rose up like a small hill from the red floor tile. His proboscis stuck out of his face and squelched down into the glorious squidgy mess.

Something gooey shot out of the end of his proboscis, making the cake mix go squishier still. Now he could suck it up like a milk shake. Oooh! It was delicious!

Josh landed beside Danny with a plop. “Come on,” he said. “Time to go!” But before he could say another word, his own proboscis had shot out and was busy spitting goo out too. A second later, Josh was also sucking up cake mix and fly-spit smoothie.

Then there was a sudden whoosh of wind behind them. A terrifying thrumming noise. Josh and Danny looked up to see a huge orange crisscross square hurtling toward them.

“ARRRGH!” yelled Danny, shooting high into the air. His proboscis snapped back into his face like a pinged rubber band. “It's a flyswatter! They're swatting us!” Josh had figured this out too. He zoomed across the kitchen so fast his vision blurred. Danny flew close behind him, yelling, “GO! GO! GO! GO!”

A second later, they were in the hallway. Then Josh turned left. He flew into the front room. “Look!” he yelled, angrily, pointing with one of his front legs. There on the vast field of swirly red carpet lay three leafy, twiggy birds, cut from Mom's hedge.

Now Tarquin was marching into the room with Mrs. Sharpe at his heels. She still held the flyswatter. Tarquin had a trash bag in his hand.

“Pick them up then,” said Mrs. Sharpe. “No—wait. We'll have to pull them to pieces first. Just in case the garbagemen spot them.”

And she went to pick up Mom's favorite hedge bird creation.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” yelled Josh and dive-bombed Mrs. Sharpe's face. He aimed for her nose—a huge pink outcrop on the massive pink slab of her face. Before he could rethink the idea, he had shot right up her left nostril.

It certainly distracted her. As Josh rolled over in the nasty, windy, hairy cavern, Mrs. Sharpe shrieked and spluttered and sneezed. Josh hurtled back out again in a blast of nose goo.

He ended up stuck to the leather sofa in a green globule. Danny, meanwhile, flew down and shot under the sofa. He zoomed low over the thick clumps of dust and hair and the twisted sculptures of candy wrappers on the shadowy carpet. He aimed for the line of light at the far side. He planned to shoot quickly up the back of the sofa and get ahold of Josh from behind. He didn't want to attract the flyswatter that Tarquin was now twitching about in the air. But just a few inches up the back of the sofa, something pushed hard against Danny's head. It stopped him in flight.

It felt as if he'd flown into the goal during a soccer game. Like a big net. A big, sticky, net. A big, sticky, shivering net. Danny shouted and tried to get back down off the net, but it stuck to him like . . . like . . . like . . . A WEB!

In the dusty darkness, eight red eyes suddenly lit up. Eight long, hairy legs began to pick their way down the silken ropes toward Danny.

Danny didn't know as much about wildlife as Josh did. But he knew this much—the spider was coming to meet him for lunch.

And Danny was on the menu!