Lizard Loopy (2 page)

The alligator was not distracted. It smelled meat. Not veg.

“NO! NO! NO!!!” screamed Claudia Petherwaite, trying to scramble up the bars but failing because her shiny shoes were too slippery and her hands were slidey with fearful sweat.

The alligator laughed—at least it looked that way. Its snaggletoothed snout lifted and its huge mouth opened wide, getting ready to snap down on a limb.

“Shouldn't we help her?” screamed another girl, cowering by the stack of gym mats. “She's going to be eaten alive!”

“It's awful,” sobbed another, just behind her. “But she was so mean to Danny in biology this morning. Maybe it's a bit harsh . . . but I—I suppose if
anyone
had to get eaten alive by an alligator . . .”

The alligator's mouth got wider still. Rows of vicious pointed teeth gleamed in the midday sun that shafted through the tall hall windows. Its stubby clawed feet dug into the wooden floor as it raised its scaly head on a thick, muscular neck. It roared and belched, and the stink of a recently dismembered gazelle wafted up toward Claudia,
who was now babbling wildly, swinging on a gym rope just inches away from the ravening reptile's gaping jaws.

“I know—I know I was horrible to Danny,” she shrieked. “And it was so wrong of me to say he was stupid because he couldn't spell “crysalis.” I never should have laughed at him. And now, as I'm about to be eaten alive, I just wish I could say sorry to him first . . . and tell him that he's actually very clever and handsome and fabulous in e-every wa-a-ay . . . ayayaaaargh MY LEEEEEEG!”

“And then I bite her leg off,” Danny said. He made a cracking and squelching noise and followed it with a gurgling scream. He rested his elbows on the gatepost and smiled happily.

“You need help,” Josh said. “Professional mental help.”

“What—just because I want to S.W.I.T.C.H. into an alligator and bite Claudia Petherwaite's leg off?” Danny shrugged at his twin. “Oh, come on! She's
asking
to have her leg bitten off. I bet you half the kids in school would agree with me. There was never a girl so obviously in need of losing a leg to a killer reptile. It would probably make her a much nicer person. SO—come on! Let's GO! I WANT TO BE AN ALLIGATOR!”

Josh just folded his arms and stared at him—so Danny jumped up and down and squeaked like an over-excited toddler. “Come ON! I WANT TO BE—”

Josh thwacked him on the back of the head with his hand.

“Get a grip,” Josh said. “You're eight, not three!”

“But I want to be an alligator,” whined Danny. “NOOOOOOOW!”

“You've acting crazy again,” Josh said. “I'm taking you home.” He grabbed his twin brother by the arm and yanked him up the path, away from their neighbor's scruffy old red brick house. Away from any chance of Danny becoming an alligator.

“You can just pretend for now, like you do in those embarrassing dragony questy role-play games with Scott and Zac,” went on Josh, shoving Danny ahead of him down the side passage to the back garden. His twin was still so overexcited he was bouncing off the brick walls.

“They're not embarrassing. They're a laugh,” chirruped Danny. “And last week I was the High Lord of Rifflescape and they were Elven Frogsprites—and I melted their heads.”

Josh sighed and shook his head. “You're beyond help,” he said. “There's no way you'll ever be safe as an alligator.”

Back in their garden, Josh shoved Danny down by the jungle gym and called to Piddle, their dog. As Piddle (named after a habit he had when stressed) trotted over, Josh picked him up,
plonked his small furry black and white body into Danny's excitable lap and said, “SIT!”

“Both of you!” he added, as Danny and Piddle tried to spring up again. They both sat, and one of them let his tongue hang out sideways.

“I'm serious, Danny!” Josh went on. He gazed across the top of the fence toward Petty Potts's back garden. Deep within its overgrown weeds and brambles stood a small, ordinary-looking wooden shed. And deep within the shed stood a small, ordinary looking door. And beyond the door nothing was ordinary ever again.

“Let me just remind you of a few things,” Josh said, trying to sound like their dad. “Only a few weeks ago, we were shivering in terror about that
place.” He jabbed his finger across the far side of the fence. “Since then we've been nearly eaten too many times to remember! And weren't YOU the one who once said we would NEVER go back there again? Not EVER!”

“Yeah, well,” Danny said, playing with Piddle's floppy ears and looking just a little bit less excitable. “That was to start with. I was freaked out. I mean, it's not every day your grumpy old next-door neighbor suddenly turns out to be a genius scientist and changes you into a spider.”

Josh clambered up the climbing frame and perched on the top two bars. He stared at the roof of the ordinary shed and bit his lip. The truth was, he was very nearly as excited as Danny this time. He couldn't
wait
to try out Petty Potts's brand new S.W.I.T.C.H. spray. REPTOSWITCH! Even the name was exciting. And what it stood for. Reptile . . . Serum Which Instigates Total Cellular Hijack. He would LOVE to be a reptile for half an hour . . . BUT . . .

Josh shook his head and took a deep breath. “Danny—let's just do a checklist about how
the other S.W.I.T.C.H.ings have worked out, shall we?” He counted across his fingers. “ONE. SpiderSWITCH. Nearly squished by Jenny's sandal, washed down the drain, me nearly swallowed by a toad. TWO. HouseflySWITCH. Both of us nearly swatted into bluebottle jam, you wrapped up in a spider's web, me trapped in a giant booger—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” sighed Danny. And he did know. He was usually, in fact, the more likely of the two of them to say no to any dealings with Petty Potts. For a start, while Freaky Little Bug Geek Josh loved them, Danny HATED all kinds of creepy-crawlies. He had been terrified of his own legs the whole time he was a spider. But . . . BUT . . . now that Petty had the full secret formula to make REPTOSWITCH, things were different.

There weren't nearly as many predators after reptiles, were there? They were higher up the food chain!

“THREE!” Josh went on. “GrasshopperSWITCH. Nearly splatted by a math book, nearly chewed up by a cat . . . FOUR! AntSWITCH. Turned into zombie Ant Queen-serving machines and nearly
burnt alive. FIVE! Crane FlySWITCH. Almost eaten by Piddle! Nearly vacuumed to death . . . do I need to go on?”

Danny shrugged. “No. You don't. Being creepy-crawlies was 95 percent pure terror! Although the grasshopper jumping was pretty cool . . . and the housefly aerobatics . . .”

“And the great diving beetle bit . . .” Josh couldn't help smiling as he remembered. “Being able to swim under water
and
fly!”

“Being a frog at summer camp was cool too . . . apart from you—” Danny stared into Piddle's innocent fluffy face and narrowed his blue eyes accusingly—“trying to bite my legs off!”

Piddle whined guiltily.

“Point made!” Josh said.

“But don't you see? Yes—the main problem with being S.W.I.T.C.H.ed is the nearly getting eaten!” Danny said. “But
nothing
eats an alligator, does it? NOTHING!”

“You're right,” came a voice from the other side of the fence. They both jumped, and Josh could see the top of Petty Potts's tweedy old hat,
while Danny could make out one of her eyes behind its thick glass spectacle lens, peering through a knothole in the wood. “NOTHING eats an alligator,” went on Petty. “Don't you two think it's time you came back to my lab? REPTOSWITCH is waiting.”

There was a long silence in the garden, broken only by a soft whimper from Piddle. He was scared of Petty. With good reason. He got up and ran back into the house.

“Come on,” went on Petty. “We're all in this together now. You are part of the S.W.I.T.C.H. Project. If you hadn't found all my missing REPTOSWITCH cubes with the secret code in them, I never would have gotten past insects, beetles, and arachnids. We've already done amphibians—and now REPTOSWITCH is perfected! It's what you've been waiting for all summer! It's finished. It works! It's time to have your reward and try it out!”

Still Josh and Danny said nothing. Petty Potts was amazing. But dangerous. She really couldn't be trusted.

“Very well,” sighed Petty. “I wouldn't dream of
making
you try it. Let's just forget it. I'll go back to my lab.” Her voice took on a tragic tone. “And go on with the S.W.I.T.C.H. Project alone. Don't you worry your little heads about me ever again. Maybe I'll see you at the post office someday . . . Goodbye.” Petty waded across her garden, waist deep in weeds, and went into her shed. Through the door at the back. Down the secret passageway. And into her underground lab.

Danny joined Josh on the top of the jungle gym, and for a long time they stared across the fence. Danny ran his fingers through his messy blond hair and frowned. “We
want
to be alligators!” he whimpered. “Why aren't we jumping over the fence?”

“Because,” Josh said, scratching his own much shorter, neater blond hair. “Whenever Petty asks us into her lab, it's like a spider inviting us into its web.”

“So. We don't go,” Danny said, a few seconds later. “We just . . . forget about it all.”

“That would be the sensible thing,” Josh said.

They stared over the fence some more.

“Let's go, then,” Danny said.

They were in Petty's lab fifty-seven seconds later.