They slowly lifted their little heads in the air. They seemed to be sniffing. Then they started hopping in all directions.
Some of the kids began to scream and climb on top of their desks. Most of the kids were laughing.
“Stop that this instant!” I could barely make out Mr. Gosling’s voice above the noise.
Lauren ignored him and moved on to the next cage.
“Free them all!” I shouted. I ran to the chalkboard and grabbed the wooden pointer.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Mr. Gosling demanded. He grabbed my shoulder and shook it hard.
“Look out!” I yelled as I broke free from his grasp. I charged over to the animal cages, waving the pointer like a sword.
The mantis stood over a cage full of fat white mice. Drooling and praying.
Rocking back and forth.
The mice squeaked wildly, jumping up and down like pieces of popping popcorn.
I made my way carefully to the mantis. The pointer kept slipping from my sweaty palm. I crept up behind the creature and jabbed its side. It spun around and yanked the stick right out of my hand—but it backed off a few feet, buzzing furiously.
I knocked the mice cage over and urged the mice out.
“What are you doing with those mice?” Mr. Gosling exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air.
“I’m saving their lives!” I answered, clapping loudly so they would scatter.
“What about the turtles?” Jimmy Peterson called out. Everyone was getting into it now.
“Let them go, too!” I commanded. And he did.
The turtles wouldn’t move—no matter how much anyone yelled at them. A few kids picked them up so they wouldn’t get squashed.
Someone let the garter snake go. The mantis lunged for it. But the snake wriggled under the radiator in a flash. The mantis sent a pincer out, but it couldn’t reach.
“Good!” I shouted. Now I turned to the bat’s cage.
“Not my bat!” Mr. Gosling pleaded, clutching his chest.
The bat was Mr. Gosling’s favorite class pet. He found it on a hiking trip. Its wing was broken and Mr. Gosling nursed it back to health. Mr. Gosling would want me to set the bat free if he could see the mantis, I convinced myself.
I flung the black cover off the cage and pulled open the door. The mantis lumbered in our direction. The bat didn’t move. It hung from its branch, all wrapped up in its wings.
“It’s asleep!” I yelled to Lauren. “And the mantis is headed right for it!”
“Tickle it!” she called.
I brushed it lightly on its underside with my finger. That did it. The bat woke up and burst through the door, excited to be free.
“Get him! Get him!” Mr. Gosling yelled, chasing after the bat.
Someone opened the door to let the mice out, and the bat escaped into the hallway.
Mr. Gosling ran out the door and slammed it behind him.
Suddenly the classroom went quiet. The kids stopped shouting. All the animals had found hiding places.
It felt creepy.
“Where is it now?” Lauren whispered.
“It’s n-not near us,” I stammered. “It’s poking around Corny’s desk.”
“Hey! Who knocked my microscope over?” Corny whined. She hurried back to her desk. Gabby was right behind her. But the mantis was no longer there. It had moved on.
What would it do next? I wondered.
“Ooh, my notes are all wet,” Gabby complained. “And slimy.” She picked them up by the corner.
“Mantis drool,” I whispered to Lauren.
“Where is it now?” she asked.
“It’s—it’s coming this way.”
I spotted the pointer on the floor. I snatched it up and crouched under one of the lab tables. My knees trembled and my hands shook.
“What are you going to do?” Lauren asked. She crouched beside me.
“I’m—I’m going to try to stab it with the pointer,” I said, inching toward the mantis. I could see its thin green legs as it wobbled down one row and up another.
My pulse started to race as it crawled closer and closer. A few more feet—and I’d be able to reach it.
Then the bell rang.
“Lunch!” someone shouted.
The kids gathered up their stuff and stampeded out the door. The mantis joined the crowd.
“Where is it now?” Lauren demanded.
“It’s—it’s gone,” I answered.
“Great!” Lauren cheered.
“There’s just one problem.” I sighed.
“What?” Lauren asked.
“It’s headed for the cafeteria.”
14
“Don’t go!” Lauren shouted as I ran out the classroom door. “Don’t go without this!” She waved the poster in the air.
I grabbed it. Then we scrambled down the stairs and raced to the cafeteria. Just as we reached the entrance, Lauren skidded to a stop and seized my arm. “What’s that noise?”
We both listened.
My stomach churned. “Screaming.”
We raced inside. I was certain the mantis had attacked someone.
An apple whizzed by my head.
“Food fight!” someone shrieked.
Food fight? They were screaming about a food fight?
My eyes darted around the cafeteria, searching for the creature. “I see it,” I whispered to Lauren. “It’s wandering from table to table. And it’s drooling like crazy.”
“Who took my Twinkie?” a skinny, freckle-faced kid shouted.
“Who stole my peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich?” another kid yelled.
I watched the mantis grab a tub of cottage cheese and scoop up a big glob with its pincer. No one even noticed the tub hovering in the air. There was too much food flying around.
The mantis shoved a ball of the cottage cheese in its mouth—and spit it right back out. It flicked a chunk of it right into the lunchroom teacher’s gray hair. Then it began to whip its pincer back and forth with fury, spattering white dots of cottage cheese everywhere.
“Yuck! Who’s throwing this stuff?” a kid in a Dodgers baseball cap complained. “It’s disgusting.” He scraped it off his blue shirt and slung it at someone else.
“Is the mantis doing all this?” Lauren asked.
“Most of it,” I answered. “I can’t see too well. Corny still has my glasses.” I can’t wait till I get my hands on her, I muttered to myself.
“What is it doing right now?” she asked.
“It’s weird, Lauren,” I said as I squinted at it. “Its snatching food and sniffing it—and flinging it away. It isn’t eating anything.”
“Maybe it’s not hungry,” Lauren replied.
I shook my head. “It’s hungry all right. It’s dripping pools of drool. I just don’t get it.”
Suddenly I remembered the Fun with Insects book. I yanked it out of my back pocket. I flipped to the praying mantis page.
“Uh-oh,” I moaned.
Lauren tried to read over my shoulder. “What, Wes? What?”
I took a deep breath. “According to this book, the mantis prefers its food alive.”
“Alive?” Lauren’s huge blue eyes grew wide. “As in walking, breathing alive?”
“Uh-huh.”
PLOP. A big glob of carrots landed on my sneaker. Well, at least it doesn’t have a cow eye in it, I thought as we both stared down at it—the way the carrots did yesterday. I wished that day had never happened. Because that was the day I first saw the twins’ Mystery Stereogram.
Why couldn’t I see the mantis that day? I wondered. How come I could see it now? What was different? What—
“What’s it doing now? What’s it doing now?” Lauren interrupted my thoughts.
I searched the room. It was way in the back of the cafeteria. At that distance I couldn’t see it at all.
CRASH!
A huge crash from the back. Followed by a long, terrifying scream.
“What’s happening,
Lauren? I can’t see!”
“A table flipped over by itself!” Lauren yelled.
“I doubt it.” We raced to the back of the cafeteria.
I really wish I had my glasses, I thought. “My glasses! That’s it!” I shouted.
“What’s going on?” Lauren asked the kids gathered around the upside-down table.
“Cornelia is trapped under there,” a girl in a bright purple T-shirt answered.
“Yeah,” Chad Miller added. “I tried to pull it off her—but something cut me.” He held up his hand. A deep jagged scratch ran across the back. “I couldn’t see what it was. It was like—invisible or something.” Chad shook his head, confused.
Lauren and I pushed through the crowd of kids—and there was Corny. Her legs were pinned under part of the table. But that wasn’t what was holding her down. The mantis was draped across her chest!
Her hands thrashed the air as she screamed, “Get it off me!”
“Lauren! It’s sitting on Corny. I have to get my glasses from her!”
“I know she’s a total jerk. But shouldn’t we help her before we worry about the glasses?” Lauren protested.
“No! I mean yes . . . I mean . . . the first time I saw the poster, I had my glasses on and everything was okay,” I quickly explained. “But when I look at it without my glasses . . . I make it come alive. I think.”
I stared down at Corny to check the mantis. A long strand of drool stretched from its mouth to the floor. And it was rubbing its front legs together—praying.
I shoved some kids aside and knelt next to Corny. The mantis started to rock back and forth.
“Give me my glasses,” I ordered.
“First get me out of here,” Corny screeched. “Something’s on top of me! But I can’t see it!”
I stared at her hard. “If you want to get out of here alive, give me my glasses. Now!”
Corny’s face grew pale. The mantis was rocking. Rocking back and forth. Corny’s eyes darted frantically to see what was pressing against her.
The mantis raised its pincers.
It opened its huge, gaping jaw.
A thick wad of drool oozed out on Corny’s arm.
Corny screamed.
“Now!” I yelled at her. “Now!”
“Here!” She slid my glasses out of her pocket.
I leaped up and shoved them on. I had only seconds before the mantis would strike.
I concentrated on the mantis.
Nothing happened.
“Is it working, Wes?” Lauren whispered.
“Ssh,” I said. “I have to concentrate.” Beads of sweat dripped down my face as I focused.
The mantis moved slightly. It was crouching.
Getting ready to spring.
To lunge for Corny’s neck.
I stared as hard as I could.
My head ached.
My eyes throbbed and burned.
I wanted to close them. I needed to close them.
My eyelids started to drop—and then it happened.
Tiny dots began to appear. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Orange, green, pink, and yellow. Fluorescent dots all over the mantis’s body.
They began to glow. Brighter and brighter.
Don’t blink. Don’t blink, I chanted to myself.
The dots began to swarm. They swirled and raced up and down the mantis’s legs. All the way up its body. Up to its feelers. Up to its head.
Then the dots whirled apart. It was like watching an explosion in slow motion.
The dots flooded the cafeteria. Bouncing off the tables. The chairs. The kids. Buzzing. Buzzing.
And then they were gone.
Corny wiggled out from under the table. “Thanks for nothing, Wes,” she muttered.
“Did it work?” Lauren asked softly.
I unrolled the poster clutched in my hand.
The blank space was—gone.
I breathed out the longest sigh of my life.
“It’s back in the poster, Lauren.”
“Yes! You were right!” she cried. “We’re safe!”
“Not yet,” I corrected her. “We’re not safe until we destroy this poster for good.”
15
“The scissors are in the top drawer, next to the refrigerator,” I told Lauren. We had a long talk when we got home from school about the best way to get rid of the mantis. This was all we could think of.
“Are you sure it’s safe?” Lauren asked.
“I hope so,” I said.
I read a note stuck to the refrigerator. “Mom says she and Dad took Vicky shopping. So this is the best time.”
I made certain my glasses were firmly in place. Then I rolled the poster out on the kitchen table.
Lauren handed me the scissors.
I laughed nervously. “My hands are shaking.”
I swallowed hard. “Here goes.” I turned the poster from side to side, trying to decide where to cut. Actually I was stalling. I didn’t know what would happen if I cut the poster. Would the mantis burst out if I sliced through the dots?
I squeezed my eyes shut and snipped into the paper. I did it really quickly. I was scared.
No buzzing.
I opened my eyes and snipped again. This time I cut the poster in half.
“Think it worked?” Lauren asked.
I stared down at the two pieces. “I don’t know.”
“Are you going to make sure?” she asked.
I nodded. “I guess I have to.”
“Be careful. Have your glasses ready,” Lauren warned.
My stomach clenched. “I will.” I slid my glasses down my nose. Then I peeked over the top of them at the left half of the poster.
I jerked my head away and shoved my glasses up. “It’s still there,” I groaned.
“Okay, okay,” Lauren said. “Let’s stay calm.” But she didn’t sound calm. “Maybe we just need to cut it in smaller pieces.”
Lauren picked up the scissors. “I’ll do it this time.” She made a tiny cut, then glanced over at me. “Turn around, okay? It makes me nervous when you stare at the poster—even with your glasses on.”
I turned away from the kitchen table.
Snip. Snip. Snip. I grew more and more nervous with each little snip.
I heard Lauren slam the scissors down on the table. Then I heard a tearing sound.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m ripping it up. It’s quicker than the scissors,” she explained.
Riiiip. I hated that sound even more than the scissor snips. A drop of sweat rolled down my cheek. I wiped my clammy hands on my jeans.
I heard Lauren rip the paper again and again and again.
What if it’s still there?
What if we’re only making things worse?
What if we’re making the mantis angry?
“That ought to do it,” she announced. “You can turn around now.”
I whirled to face her—and gasped. A mound of paper filled the center of the table. Tiny pieces about the size of the fingernail on my pinky.
Lauren’s face flushed pink. “I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“I guess I should check it again,” I said. I hoped she would say I didn’t have to.
But she nodded. I knew she was right. We had to be sure the creature was really gone.
I pulled my glasses down to the end of my nose. The pieces were so tiny. I could barely see them.
I leaned over the table.
I still couldn’t be sure.
A drop of sweat ran down my chin and plopped onto the pile.
I bent my head lower and lower. Closer and closer.
The blood pounded in my ears.
“Be careful not to—”
Before Lauren could finish her warning, it was too late.
A tiny pincer lashed out at my face.
My glasses went flying.
I heard them hit the floor.
“Lauren! Get my glasses!” I yelled.
“W
here did they go?” she cried, searching the floor on her hands and knees.
“I don’t know!” I answered. “Hurry!”
Tiny legs burst out of each piece of the poster.
Tiny eyes glared up at me.
Sharp little pincers clicked open and shut.
They swarmed over the table.
Hundreds.
Hundreds of miniature praying mantises!
16
“They’re back!”
“Huh? They?” Lauren shrieked.
“They’re pouring out of all the pieces!” I cried.
“Oh, no!” Lauren moaned. “What do we do now?”
“We’ve got to find my glasses!”
“I’m checking under the table,” she called.
“Wait!” I yelled. But it was too late.
The mantises marched down the table legs—toward Lauren. The kitchen filled with their horrible buzzing.
I grabbed a dish towel from the counter and whipped it at the little monsters.
“Get out of there! The mantises are headed right for you!”
Lauren scrambled out from under the table. “They’re on me! They’re on me!” she cried, jumping up and down. “I think they’re in my hair!” She leaned forward and slapped at her head.
“Hold still!” I yelled at her. “Let me look!” The buzzing grew louder and louder. I could hardly think.
She shook her head violently. “I can’t hold still, Wes. I just can’t! Do something! Please!”
I grabbed her head to hold it still. The green insects swarmed over her hair—burrowing deeper and deeper.
I tried to pick them out, but it was impossible. They lashed out with their sharp pincers. “Quick! Go to the sink!”
“Water!” Lauren shouted. “Perfect. We’ll drown them.”
Then I turned on the cold tap full force and guided Lauren’s head under it.
I turned to check the table. “Oh, no!” I spotted a mantis launch off the table and soar into the air. “They can fly.”
“It’s not working,” Lauren called from the sink. “I can feel them. They’re starting to bite!”
“No, it is working, Lauren,” I said, peering at her head. “I can see them spilling off.”
I felt a sharp sting on the back of my neck. Then on my forehead. My nose. One of my ears.
The mantises swarmed around my head.