Bug Girl Read online

  Amanda reached up to transform her headband into a mask and then spun slowly to take everything in. She looked up and saw an enormous spiderbot perched on the edge of the cliff above it all—it had to be The Exterminator’s mobile-command center. Several of the bot’s “eyes” were shattered. Apparently the battle she’d just joined had been going on for a while! Although the bot was damaged, it appeared to be functional. She was definitely going to have to take that tank out. But first she had to make sure the citizens were safe.

  “Go, Bug Girl! Kick them in their hybridized insecto-trochanters!” a familiar voice shouted. Amanda turned to see a figure clad head to toe in dazzling green lamé standing next to the churro booth.

  “Vincent?” she gasped.

  “Present.” Vincent Verbiglia jogged over, handed Amanda a churro, and stood before her like he was reporting for duty.

  “Wow,” she said, looking her friend up and down. The ensemble Vincent was sporting was BOSS. From the shining boots to the verdant aviator-like helmet (and goggles). “Wow.”

  Vincent shrugged. “I know. I made it myself,” he said proudly. “With a little sewing guidance from your grandfather.”

  “It’s amazing. You’re so talented! So, can you fill me in on what’s going on here? From the look of things, I missed quite a bit.” She jammed most of the churro into her mouth and chewed while she waited for the update.

  Vincent was silent, and Amanda realized he was staring at her, like, really staring, completely agog. He hadn’t heard a single word she’d said to him after “Wow.”

  “Um, hello? Vincent?” She snapped her fingers.

  “Uh, Amanda, I’m, uh, sorry but … it’s just … you’ve … changed. I mean, you’re different. You might want to take a look.” Vincent had an expression on his face that was hard to describe. Awe? Horror? Amanda had basically just rolled out of bed. She couldn’t imagine how bad her bedhead must be to make Vincent stare like that.

  She wiped the cinnamon and sugar off her mouth, looked down, and gasped. This wasn’t about a bad hair day. Her entire body was encased in a new exoskeleton—like her old one, but turned up to eleven! It shone exquisitely and was slickly metallic and shimmered with those cool rainbows that show up on soap bubbles and oil slicks. She turned her leg, watching the colors change. It was amazing, like a Japanese beetle. She hadn’t just been asleep.…

  “I thought you were dying!” Vincent practically sobbed with relief. “But you were in a cocoon! You were metamorphosing!”

  “Say, this sure is glamorous.” Amanda beamed. She looked fierce. And she felt even fiercer. “But we’ll have to admire it later. You need to tell me what’s going on. And then I need to take that old jerk down. He’s probably up there laughing at us!” She pointed up at the cliff.

  Vincent rattled off the latest, waving his arms back and forth, recounting all that had happened. He let her know that as a last-ditch effort, he and the Hack and Rolers had modified his Future Scientists Kiosk experiment to create a makeshift negative electric charge that had freaked out the insects and arachnids. It had worked … temporarily. But it hadn’t affected the centipedes, and now the other crawlers seemed to be back under The Exterminator’s control again and were chasing terrified citizens around the beach.

  “Right,” Amanda huffed. “First I’m going to have to knock these bad bugs out!”

  As the words slipped out of her mouth, Amanda heard a buzzing noise overhead. She looked up just in time to see three of the locusts dropping eggs. The living bombs plopped on all sides and released fresh batches of foes. Vincent shrieked and ran. Flashy hero costume or not, he wasn’t cut out for combat, and he knew it. He would be of more help from the sidelines.

  “Good luck, Bug Girl!” he screamed to his friend as he regrouped with the nerds.

  The monsters swarmed around her, but the outnumbered sixth grader showed no fear. That was the old Amanda. This was Bug Girl! She let loose blasts from her tymbals that sent the mad-science creepies flying left and right. Her sonic powers had been amplified during her big nap. Now they were strong enough to blow the bugs away. By the time she finished, the pile of twitching thoraxes and spasming body segments was taller than she was.

  “Help! Help me!” Bug Girl heard someone scream behind her. She leaped up over the mound of fallen bugs and saw Calypso Jade being pursued by a small legion of large scorpions.

  Bug Girl rushed closer. Calypso was barely keeping ahead of the scampering scorps, but she was trying her hardest. As she overtook the group, Bug Girl flipped up and over the giant arachnids and landed between them and Calypso.

  The trembling socialite stood and gawked for a second before hightailing it, leaving Bug Girl standing on the fishing pier with seven enormous scorpions before her. “Seriously?” Bug Girl called after her. “No ‘thank you’?” The scorpions’ stingers were all arched overhead, ready to strike, and their claws were opened in full attack mode. She was cornered.

  “Oh … so not good.” Bug Girl fidgeted. She was brave, but she was not stupid. She turned and ran, figuring she could jump into the water to get away if she had to. She was a good swimmer, and she was betting the giant arachnids weren’t. Close behind her she heard the clacks of their claws snapping. How were these things so quick? She was running faster than she had after Emily’s party, faster than Olympian Goddess speed, faster than ever before, yet they seemed to be keeping pace. Just a few more yards, and she’d be in the water. She prepared herself for impact and took a giant gulp of air as she ran right off the edge of the pier!

  Bug Girl braced.

  But there was no impact. She heard the scorpions splash down into the bay one by one and looked down.

  She wasn’t even close to the water! In fact, she was actually higher than she had been before she’d jumped off the pier.

  Bug Girl was flying!

  “Amazing!” she heard Vincent shout in the distance. “Bug Girl, you’re amazing!”

  Bug Girl felt … amazing. And unusually light. She heard a strange hum resonating behind her and turned to see just what was going on back there. What she saw made her suck in her breath. One of the locusts was zooming toward her, snarling crazily. But more shocking than that was the enormous pair of iridescent wings holding her aloft. Wings. Her wings.

  Below her, Oyster Point was getting smaller and smaller as she climbed higher and higher.

  And then, right there in midair, with the maniacal beast still in pursuit, Bug Girl took a moment. She looked at herself gliding through the sky—she was radiant in the sunlight. Even more amazingly, she had sprouted wings and she knew how to use them! Her see-through flappers were beating faster than a hummingbird’s, keeping her just out of range of her attacker.

  They were miraculous.

  Bug Girl could not believe she could do something like this so naturally, like an insect taking its first flight. It was … instinctual. And she hadn’t even dared to hope that her powers would include something as radical as flight.

  She hovered for a split second and then boldly turned to face the leviathan roaring after her. She launched herself directly at it with fists extended, planning to make contact with this jerk and send it spiraling into the ocean to meet up with its nasty friends.

  She connected with the monster at full power, but it didn’t scream and it didn’t fight back. It just burst into a spray of powder like a puffball fungus. There wasn’t anything to it!

  Bug Girl surveyed the sky. There were eight or nine more of these things fluttering around with sacs ready to drop. She had to take them out.

  Bug Girl sailed swiftly through the air, pounding each flapping trooper and sending the eggs out to the sea, where they landed with a plop. Orange dust from the locusts drifted down onto the sand.

  Having vanquished the suppliers of new insectile infantry along with their deadly eggs, Bug Girl touched down next to Vincent to catch her breath.

  “Z-zowie,” Vincent stammered. “I have never been so jealous of a single human being
in my entire life. You can fly!” He circled around her to look at her wings, but they were now safely tucked back under their elytra. “Where’d they go?” Vincent demanded.

  “I don’t know how to turn them on yet.” Bug Girl shrugged. “I guess I just have to run and jump, and they’ll open up—a theory I’ll get to test, like, any second now.”

  At that, Vincent started jumping up and down excitedly. “Oh my gosh, oh my gosh!” Vincent yelled, waving his arms up and down as if he were trying to fly, too. “I totally forgot to tell you something really important! When you burst out of that eyeball thing up there, you left Emily inside. She’s trapped in that spider … and so are your mothers!”

  28

  Bug Girl’s jaw dropped. Her mother was within her grasp, directly above her on the cliff. In the big spider mech! And she could save her!

  Bug Girl looked around. Hundreds of people were in need of immediate help. Yes, she had annihilated the air locusts and the army’s ability to grow, but who knew what other tricks The Exterminator had up the sleeve of his lab coat?

  She needed to get up to the fogey’s base and free Emily and their mothers. Together, the four of them would be unstoppable against this toad and his ghouls.

  “Vincent, I need you to wait here,” Bug Girl ordered.

  “Um, okay.” The boy nodded. He stood back and watched in awe as Bug Girl sprinted forward and jumped into the air. Her first attempt was a dud. She landed on the sand and looked sheepishly back at Vincent.

  “I didn’t say anything,” Vincent protested. “I’m just jealous. Now get up there!”

  Bug Girl took a deep breath before launching a second attempt. She exhaled, clenched her hands into fists, and propelled herself forward until she was running full tilt. She took a few tenuous hops, but nothing clicked. Finally, she dug deep into her brain and pictured her mother, helpless, held prisoner by that demented goat with the revolting dentition. Then, with one final leap, she felt her wings splay outward from beneath their protective coverings and begin beating. She had done it! She was zooming straight up toward The Exterminator’s base of ops.

  Nestled on the edge of the cliff, the spiderbot hadn’t moved. Bug Girl flew back through the hole she’d burst out of earlier and found Emily glued in position, her eyes wide with surprise. And envy. Amanda totally knew what Emily was thinking: Why can’t I fly?

  Skidding to a halt, Bug Girl knelt beside her reluctant partner. She tugged at the binding threads, but she could not snap them. The web was unbreakable!

  In order to save their mothers, Bug Girl was going to need Emily’s help. Her frustration grew, and so did a gurgling in her gullet, not like she was hungry but like something was churning inside her—gastric liquids from two separate locations. The gurgling subsided briefly, and she began to fidget. What was going on? Was she about to explode? Again she felt the bubbling.

  Instead of totally freaking out, Bug Girl considered the possibility that this was another amazing insect power manifesting itself. The bombardier beetle, when threatened, mixed two chemicals produced within its own body and shot the hot, toxic concoction as a defense. That could be what was happening to her. She hoped.

  The bubbling rippled through her again. She felt the chemical combo swirling in her abdomen. Once the compounds mixed, they heated up to a ridiculous temperature—surely she would be burning alive right now had she not gone through her … um, changes. Suddenly the mixture shot out of her mouth in a controlled burst, hitting the wall behind Emily. And, ew. It tasted really bad.

  Bug Girl coughed and spat and looked over at where the compound had landed. Sure enough, the biochemical cocktail had burned a sizable hole in the wall, with smoke rising from the edges. This stuff meant business!

  “Okay, Emily, I’m going to get you out of there. But whatever you do, promise me right now that we are never going to talk about it. Do you promise?” Emily attempted to move her head. “I’ll take that as a yes.”

  Gurgling again, Bug Girl felt a new batch of chemicals brewing. She had to be careful not to burn Emily.

  Bug Girl took aim and spat small blobs of burning, acidic juice directly onto the strands that held Emily tight. The cords sizzled and smoked and slowly began to dissolve. With impressive precision, she dissolved more and more of the sturdy fibers.

  Emily pulled her arms apart forcefully, and the bindings yielded at last. A few carefully placed spitballs on the webbing around Emily’s head, and she was free! Emily reached up to clear her mouth. Bug Girl waited for the gratitude she was sure would follow.

  “That was completely gross.” Emily shuddered.

  “I told you not to talk about it!” Bug Girl grumbled.

  “Well, it was gross, but … thank you,” Emily added, rubbing her wrists and kicking her legs to get the blood flowing again. “I never thought I’d be saved by loogies.”

  “For your information, that was not a loogie. It was a defense mechanism that wards off predators,” Bug Girl corrected, slightly hurt.

  “Okay, okay!” Emily dismissed the conflict and pointed outside. “Let’s not fight. We’ve got to get to that other eye and save our moms!”

  For the first time, Amanda looked over and saw her mother and Emily’s bound in the next cell.

  But before the duo had the chance to make a move, the spiderbot lurched. Emily lost her footing and slid down toward the gaping window. She scratched at the smooth floor, unable to get a grip. The giant machine heaved again, pitching forward and sending the two girls right through the broken eye and over the edge of the cliff.

  Emily shrieked hysterically, flailing her arms. She was careening toward the beach, falling faster and faster … about to slam right into the ground!

  BOMBARDIER BEETLE

  Fun Bug Fact: The bombardier beetle has a defense mechanism that allows it to spray noxious chemicals from its abdomen. The beetle has two reservoirs of chemical compounds inside that react together to create heat and gas, which drive the eruption of its spray.

  29

  Bug Girl grabbed Emily and the two girls glided through the air to the beach, Bug Girl’s wings folding into place as they touched down.

  Bug Girl looked at Emily as they landed in the sand. Emily looked like she wanted to hit something. She looked like she wanted to sprout her own wings. Or maybe rip Bug Girl’s off.

  “Those are stunning,” Emily finally said, pointing to the hero’s latest appendages. Then she swallowed and made a face—the combination of Exterminator glue and pride was foul, but she kept it down. “Thank you again, Amanda,” she mumbled.

  “You’re welcome. And call me Bug Girl,” she chirped back. She knew this wasn’t easy for Emily. But she kind of liked it. “Now, what’s our plan?”

  The two girls looked up at the teetering spiderbot at the same time. They needed to save their mothers—and get some help. Dragonfly’s crushing powers would be superhandy in decimating the beach bugs. And Megawoman would be able to wipe out swarms of them with her patented withering stare.

  “Get me back up there,” Emily barked, pointing at The Exterminator’s hub.

  Bug Girl linked arms with the silver-clad girl and ordered her to run. “Faster,” she barked. The attempted takeoff wasn’t pretty. Two more awkward tries and Amanda could feel her lungs and cheeks burning.

  “Sorry, this is kind of new to me,” she apologized.

  “Never apologize,” Emily said. “You’re stronger than you think.”

  Surprised by Emily’s praise, Bug Girl smiled gratefully. “How about I lift off first and come back for you?”

  “Great. But do it now.” Though the pair had landed pretty far from the mayhem occurring at the festival, a few of The Exterminator’s mutant army had spotted them and were making their way over on waaaay too many legs.

  Bug Girl took off like a pro without the extra weight. She swooped back around low and grasped Emily under the arms, and the pair was airborne. They were gaining altitude when out of nowhere came a new threat. Horrid multicol
ored wasps dove down to attack them, emitting a deranged percussive screech. There was no way Bug Girl could maneuver through so many new menaces. She touched down on the beach with the intention of beating the bad bugs at their own game.

  “Let’s show these jerks,” Emily shouted, Bug Girl at her side. Together they unleashed a battery. Bug Girl blasted the wasps with her sonic powers—her tymbals were infinitely more powerful than theirs—while Emily hurled rocks and insults.

  “Nasty gnats!” Emily screeched, taking down two with one stone. “Creepy crawlers!” She took out another.

  Bug Girl upped her energy and, with a final lungful of air, blasted the remainder of the buzzers out of the sky. “Wimpy wasps, more like,” she retorted.

  “Bugs.” Emily shuddered. “No offense.”

  “None taken.” Bug Girl nodded. “Nice arm.”

  Suddenly the screams and cries of the crowd at Oyster Cove Day increased in pitch and fervor. The young heroes turned to look down the beach.

  “Looks like our moms are going to have to wait,” Bug Girl shouted, grabbing Emily and dragging her closer. “The people of Oyster Cove need our help now!”

  “But there are so many of those nasty things!” Emily shouted back. “How can we stop them?”

  Bug Girl paced on the sand. “Let’s start with the beetles. If we flip them over on their backs, they can’t get up!”

  “Wait.” Emily stopped and stared at Bug Girl. “You mean, touch them? Can’t we just get a giant can of Spray-a-Bug or something? Besides, they’re not all beetles. What about those things with the stingers and those ugly ones with, like, nine million legs?”

  Bug Girl was momentarily stunned by the fact that Emily knew the difference between insects, arachnids, and myriapods. Perhaps she had been doing more than braiding her dolls’ hair all the years that they were friends. Perhaps she’d been listening.