Spider Stampede (4 page)

They were plummeting, legs flailing wildly around them, into a dark, dark hole. Who knew where it ended? wondered Josh, frantically. It smelled like soap and old water. Spinning and tumbling, Josh wondered what it would be like to suffer eight broken legs. Or maybe have one come off altogether. Spiders were always losing legs. That had to hurt!

But the next moment he landed with a thud on something quite soft and springy. The moment after that, his brother landed on top of him.

“Where are we?” Danny whimpered.

“Down the drain,” said Josh. He shoved one of Danny's legs off his face. “Obviously.”

“But…where down the drain?”

Josh looked around. His eyesight was pretty good considering how dark it must be. But of course, most spiders were nocturnal. Out and about hunting by night. Danny had scrambled up onto his feet now. He was also staring down.

“Oh—oh yuck!” he said. “You know what this is? What we've landed in?”

“What?” Josh looked at the soggy matter underneath them. It looked like a rather sticky, oozy pile of tangled cables.

“It's Jenny's
hair
! That's what it is!”

Both boys shuddered. “All those times Mom told her not to let big clumps of hair go down the drain after her shower,” said Danny. “She always said it plugged up the pipes. And now we know she was right. Yeeee-uk!”

“Good thing Jenny didn't pay any attention to Mom,” said Josh. “Her hair gave us a soft landing. She saved our lives.”

Danny shuddered as he looked at Josh. “Am I really a spider? Just like you? Or am I dreaming this?”

“Yep. You're just like me,” said Josh. “And I think this is real.”

“Oooow…” wailed Danny. “I was really hoping this was a dream! How can this be real? How can it?”

“Shhh!” said Josh, looking up into the dark. There was a gurgle above them.

“Ulp,” said Danny.

“She might have saved our lives…” said Josh. There was a splosh.

“But she's trying to kill us again now!” he screamed. “She's turned on the FAUCET!”

The water hit them in a big lump. It knocked them off the shelf of hair and on down through the dark pipe. Plunging down in a whirling, spinning cascade, Josh felt his legs flapping about in all directions. He prayed that a leg wouldn't snap off. Then there was a brief, brilliant flash of light. They shot out of the end of the downpipe that ran along the outside of the house. Then all was dark again as they were carried on down into the pipes that led to the sewer.

Splat! Danny hit a brick and lay draped soggily over the edge. Splodge! Josh landed on top of him. They were on a ledge of some kind. Above them the dark round hole of the pipe dumped still more water on them, but it was now a light shower. Then it dwindled to just a few drips. Jenny must have put the plug in to fill up the bathtub, thought Josh.

Groaning, they gradually untangled their limbs. They got up into a sitting position. Below them was a sort of canal through which water slowly flowed. It smelled a bit rotten eggy to Josh. And not in a good way. It was dark, but a chink of light fed down from the world above them. He knew that spider sight meant they could see much better than they would have as boys.

“I don't like this,” whimpered Danny.

“You don't say!” muttered Josh.

“Look,” snapped Danny, “it's bad enough that you're a spider without being sarcastic too!”

“WE are spiders. Not just me!” grouched back Josh. He stepped over a toenail clipping the size of half a bike wheel.

“But—but how? How can this be happening?” gulped Danny. His eight eyes were wide and scared.

“It must have been that yellow stuff,” said Josh.

“It's done something to us.”

“And now we're stuck in a sewer with six more legs than we ever wanted,” groaned Danny. “And I'm scared to death—of
me
!”

“There are other things you should be scared of, mate!” came an unfamiliar voice. Danny and Josh spun around to look. Then all the screaming started again. Towering over them, with glittering black eyes and sharp yellow teeth, was a huge brown hairy monster.

“Oh, do give it a rest,” said the monster. “We could hear you screaming all the way down the drainpipe. You should hear yourselves, honestly.”

Josh and Danny stopped screaming. They just gulped and gasped a bit instead.

“My name's Scratch,” said the monster. He held out a clawed paw. Danny stared at it. Josh carefully put out a leg to shake.

“And this 'ere is my missus—Sniff.” Another, smaller, monster put her head around the furry shoulder of the first. She smiled kindly. “We live under your shed.”

“Hello, love,” Sniff said. “Don't look so scared. We won't bite.”

“But…but…don't you want to eat us?” squeaked Danny.

Sniff made a face. “What—spider legs? Stuck in my teeth? I don't think so!”

“We're rats,” went on Scratch. “We have more refined tastes. Don't you know? Now, a nice bit of
cake
—oooh yes!”

“Chocolate cake,” sighed Sniff, dreamily. “With no frosting.”

Rats! Of course. Now that they were slightly less terrified, Josh and Danny could make out the rodenty shape of Scratch and Sniff.

“And anyway—you're not
regular
spiders, are you?” said Scratch. He narrowed his beadlike black eyes.

“Can you tell?” gasped Josh.

“Oh yes. It's the smell,” said Scratch. “And all the talking. Spiders aren't normally so chatty.”

“You've been got, haven't you, love?” said Sniff. “By that mad scientist—Petty Potts.”

Danny and Josh scuttled around. They exchanged sixteen blinks of surprise.

“Oh you needn't be surprised. We rats know a lot about what humans get up to!” said Scratch with an airy stroke of his whiskers. “We're your closest cousins, don't you know? Nobody else in the animal world more like humans than rats. We're omnivores and scavengers—just like you!”

“O…K,” said Josh. “But what can you tell us about Petty Potts? Exactly
what
has she done to us?”

“It's her S.W.I.T.C.H. spray,” said Scratch. “She's been working on it for years in that secret lab of hers. We pop in from time to time for the sandwiches (she never finishes a cheese-and-pickle sandwich!). Anyway, she finally made a breakthrough a few weeks ago. And she started to S.W.I.T.C.H. things!”

“
Switch
things?” said Danny.

“S-W-I-T-C-H,” said Scratch. “It stands for…now…let me think…”

“Serum Which Instigates Total Cellular Hijack!” said Sniff. She suddenly sounded like a chemistry professor.

“Um…what?” said Danny.

“It's a serum. That's what she calls it,” went on Sniff. “It forces all your body cells to be different kinds of cells. Like each cell has been hijacked by another cell, you see? So—Serum Which Instigates Total Cellular Hijack! We've only heard her say it about a 150 times! She spent ages trying to come up with a smart-sounding name. She was going to call it Serum To Initiate Process Of Morphing. But STIPOM just doesn't roll off the tongue so well.”

“How do you
know
all these words?” gasped Danny. “I mean…you're
rats
!”

“Danny!” Josh poked his brother with one hairy leg. “Rats are very intelligent!”

“Well, we watch a lot of TV,” said Sniff.

“Hear a lot of public radio too,” said Scratch.

“Anyway, at first she was just doing little things with this S.W.I.T.C.H. spray,” went on Sniff. “Insects. A bee into an ant. A beetle into a spider.”

“Not an insect—an arachnid,” pointed out Josh.

“Is he always like this?” Sniff asked Danny.

“Yes,” Danny sighed. “He's a freaky little bug geek.”

“So,” went on Sniff, “just tiny creatures at first. We thought that was all there was to it. But only this week she was saying she wanted to try the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray on bigger things. Reptiles, perhaps—maybe even mammals! We kept well out of her way when we heard that!”

“Good job she talks out loud to herself,” added Scratch. “Or we might never have known. She had her eye on us, I can tell you! In fact, she was just setting a rat trap for
us
. Then your little dog came in and peed on her floor.”