Bug Girl Read online

  But today of all days, Amanda felt like a small glimpse of those wondrous women battling evil—right here in her own hometown—might give her strength. Instead, searching online in vain made her feel worse. In spite of the fact that Dragonfly and Megawoman fought for respect, decency, and kindness, and always, always won … they’d been pretty much forgotten. Forsaken by their followers.

  Of course, the pair hadn’t actually been seen in real life for over a decade. Their absence led some folks to believe that the heroes had up and abandoned their town. Others claimed the city’s champions were in hiding. And there were even kids in Amanda’s class who thought, in spite of vintage video footage and firsthand accounts, that the amazing women were made up!

  In her heart of hearts, Amanda knew the heroes were real. She hoped someday to see, live and in person, Dragonfly’s powers of strength and flight and the withering stare Megawoman employed to stop criminals cold. But first, she was going to have to deal with this birthday party.

  “Ready?” Amanda’s mother asked, stepping outside and jangling her keys.

  “Mom, do I really have to?” Amanda asked. Slowly she got up from the porch swing. “You know she hates me.”

  “Yes, you have to, Peanut,” her mother responded. “It won’t be so bad.”

  Amanda shuffled toward the car. She figured the party could go one of two ways: She could either be the main focus of the other girls’ attention and they would spend the entire evening insulting every aspect of her personality, or the other guests would actively ignore her, making her sit alone and stare off into space. Either way, the trendy girls would intentionally make the fun they were having seem even more fabulous in order to make her feel even more horrible.

  As they pulled out of their driveway, Amanda saw glowing yellow dots blinking on and off at the edge of the thick woods beside her house. The fireflies’ dance transfixed her. She loved fireflies (after all, they were insects) and looked forward to their return each summer. To her, they were magical and wondrous, a prime example of how amazing nature could be. When she was younger, the other kids in the neighborhood used to run around and catch them, shoving them into jars, and then …

  It was hard for Amanda to think about. She’d told the other girls that glowing nail polish wasn’t worth what they were doing to those beautiful bugs. She could hear herself saying it in her head, even now. For your information, that stuff is called luciferase, and fireflies produce that to attract members of their own species, she’d announced as the other girls applied the bioluminescent goo to their fingers. Not one of them shared her concern.

  “Mom, why do you make me go to Emily’s when you know she and I don’t get along anymore?” she asked, turning away from the window.

  “You know, when kids are your age, they’re, well, going through changes,” her mother tried to explain. “And that’s what’s happening with Emily. She’s dealing with adolescence in her own way. She doesn’t really hate you.”

  Amanda didn’t buy it. Wasn’t thinking you hated a person the same thing as actually hating them? And why didn’t adults understand that not everything that happened in middle school could be explained away by hormones?

  “I know she hasn’t been very nice lately, but Emily will get over it, you’ll see. You’ve been friends since you were babies. She won’t just throw that away.” Her mother gunned the engine and shot through a yellow light. “It’s important.”

  “But why is it important?” Amanda asked, unconvinced. She suspected it was because her mom was big on maintaining connections, and no connection was bigger than the one between her mom and Emily’s. The ladies had been best friends forever, since before Amanda’s father died (which happened so long ago, Amanda couldn’t remember him at all). The two moms’ bond was why Emily and Amanda were practically forced into being friends. And they had been friends. But now they weren’t.

  “Don’t fret, Buttercup. Just cut Emily some slack. When the time’s right, you’ll know,” Amanda’s mother replied, implying bigger things. Amanda wished Emily would cut her a little slack. She nearly said something but stopped herself as the security guard standing watch outside Emily’s gated community waved them in.

  I must be like the wasp beetle, Amanda told herself. If, like the brave wasp beetle she admired, she could accurately resemble the more dangerous party guests, there was a chance they wouldn’t recognize her as an easy target. It was a slim chance, but it was the only chance Amanda had.

  WASP

  Fun Bug Fact: The wasp can sting multiple times, and it bites!

  WASP BEETLE

  Fun Bug Fact: The wasp beetle doesn’t bite or sting, but its wasplike coloring makes you think it might!

  5

  Emily lived in one of those newer and extraordinarily pricey neighborhoods chock-full of large McMansions. Langoustine Estates, this one was called.

  Even by megahouse standards, Emily’s home was colossal. It was quite possibly the biggest house in Oyster Cove, built with the money her father had stockpiled after accidentally inventing some sort of computer-chip thing.

  Amanda felt her stomach churn as they turned off Scallop Drive and made their way up a seahorse-shaped court, passing tacky mollusk statuary and crustacean-shaped planters. When she finally stepped out of her mom’s economy hybrid onto the Battfields’ driveway, she could hear the shrill shrieks of sugared-up girls mixed with the sound of laughter and backed by an obnoxious pop soundtrack. From the outside, at least, the party sounded dreadful.

  Amanda’s mom jumped out of the car, pulling her gym bag over the backseat, and rang the bell while Amanda shuffled closer, looking desperately for an escape.

  “Karen!” Emily’s mother belted, opening the door and grabbing Amanda’s mother in a powerful hug. “You look fabulous! Come in! Come in! Amanda, the kids are in the family room.” Mrs. Battfield dismissed Amanda with a wave of her wrist before taking Amanda’s mother by the arm and dragging her off into the dark inner reaches of the labyrinthine house. She was talking very fast about the kids being “fine on their own” and “something brewing.” Probably coffee. Though Amanda thought Mrs. B was acting like she’d had quite enough caffeine.

  Amanda stood in the large foyer listening to the mothers’ voices fade. She paced and then kicked at the wall, wishing it would stop time. Because she knew that as soon as she stepped into the other room, it would be just like school. Horrid.

  She was considering hiding behind the huge potted plant in the hall and waiting it out when the mothers suddenly reappeared.

  “Sugar Beet! Why are you still standing here?”

  “Where are you going?”

  Mrs. Battfield held up a silver-studded gym bag. “We’re going out. I’m just dying for your mom to try this new yoga-pi-latte method class I’ve been doing at the Om Shanty,” Mrs. Battfield gushed. “It’s ah-maaaaazing.”

  Amanda’s mom nodded in agreement. “Now go on and play with the girls, Peach Blossom!” She gave Amanda a tender shove. Frida, the Battfields’ housekeeper, silently appeared to help escort Amanda toward the festivities.

  With a sad glance back, Amanda allowed herself to be gently pushed around the corner. The brightly lit room looked like a war zone. The remnants of a piñata explosion covered the floor and furniture; candy and toys that had been picked through and rejected speckled the shag carpeting. Pillows and shreds of wrapping paper dotted the den in a haphazard fashion. Frida looked at Amanda. The dark-haired woman didn’t utter a word, but Amanda felt somehow bolstered, like she might be able to endure this moment after all.

  Wasp beetle, Amanda thought, remembering her camouflage tactic. Maybe I can go unnoticed. Maybe I can just sink into the carpet with the cast-off piñata innards and wait for my mom to retrieve me.

  Maybe. If she was lucky.

  But Amanda was not lucky.

  “Ooooohhh. Look who’s here,” Prissy Jo Feingold cooed, making Amanda’s presence known. Every head in the place turned. Amanda looked over her shoulder for F
rida, but she’d disappeared noiselessly, leaving Amanda to face the party alone. She stood by the counter, where the party mix and punch bowl sat.

  “Happy birthday, Emily,” Amanda said softly, spotting the guest of honor on the far side of the room.

  The group reacted as if Amanda had run into the center of the celebration, performed a triple twist, and blown her nose, single-nostril trucker-style, onto the carpet. They all stopped what they were doing and stared at her, horrified. She heard the words “Bug Girl” being whispered—always followed by an “eww.” Time stood still as she waited to see what would happen next.

  “Oh. Hi,” Emily said unemotionally. She turned back to what she’d been doing without making eye contact. One by one the other girls followed her example, turning their backs, as well.

  Amanda let out her breath in a grateful sigh. Though she had not passed herself off as one of them, it appeared they were going to ignore her.

  Alone in the crowd, Amanda turned her attention to the buffet. There were lots of goodies to choose from, including seven different types of cake. There was a healthy-looking vegan carrot cake made especially for Sadie Bimmins, who had never tasted anything having to do with the animal kingdom (Amanda often admired Sadie’s lifestyle choice but wished that Sadie included humans in her list of animals to be cherished); a beautiful, tiered vanilla cake with artisanal sugar flowers; and even a dark-chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and curled chocolate shavings on top.

  The chocolate had clearly been the party favorite. There was only one piece left. Amanda reached for it, happy to have something to enjoy at this party, even if it was only cocoa and butterfat. But before she could slide it onto her plate, it was snatched away from her by one of the other guests.

  “Oh, sorry, did you want that?” Calypso Jade asked as she took a bite. She squished up her face in fake pleasure. “It’s soooo good, I just had to have another piece.” Calypso was notoriously mean, so her cake snatching wasn’t a surprise to Amanda at all. Just another disappointment.

  “Whatever,” Amanda responded under her breath. She’d have the vegan cake. It didn’t look too bad. And there was plenty of it. But as she prepared to get a piece of the cruelty-free concoction, Lorricent Grandy pushed it away from her.

  “You don’t really need to eat any cake, you know,” Lorricent said, making an obvious show of checking out Amanda’s body as if it were something to be pitied.

  “Okay, I get it,” Amanda said, holding up her hands. “You don’t want me here. I don’t want to be here. So why don’t you just go do what you were doing and I’ll stay out of your way?” she suggested. It wasn’t that difficult. She took a few steps toward a chair in the corner. She did not hear the irritated intake of breath.

  “Who do you think you are, telling us what to do?” Calypso hissed, showing lots of chocolate on her teeth.

  “Seriously, Dumpelstiltskin … don’t ever talk to us like that!” Lorricent shrieked loud enough to draw the attention of all the girls in the room.

  Amanda sensed Emily on the far side of the party turning in her seat. She swore that she could feel the heat of Emily’s stare, two grape-size circles of hot anger boring into the skin of her scalp, before she even looked up.

  As Amanda tried to slip around Mikki Folders—another hostile party guest—without touching her, Mikki extended her Mary Jane–clad foot, sending Amanda hurtling toward the buffet table. Amanda collided with the counter, elbowing the huge bowl full of sherbet-and-soda punch. It fell, spewing orange foam all over the snack mix, the curtains, and the expensive carpet. Amanda toppled with it.

  Mikki, stunned by the success of her prank, let out a whimper and sank to her knees beside the other girls, who had all begun to emit a bizarre noise that was a hybrid of laughter and fear.

  Emily stood and planted her feet firmly shoulder-width apart. “Why do you have to ruin everything?” she demanded, as if the fall were Amanda’s fault and lying in a puddle of orange foam was something she was enjoying and had maybe planned.

  Stomping her foot and placing her half-eaten slice of cake on the coffee table, Emily took two steps closer. Amanda squirmed in the sticky puddle, struggling to right herself. The fact that Emily was freeing her hands added to Amanda’s unease: Something bad was about to happen. Amanda crawled to the far corner of the room and pulled herself into a molded plastic chair.

  Unmoved by Amanda’s act of surrender, Emily continued to advance. “Every time I try to do something nice, this happens!” she screamed.

  Emily was getting to the point of no return in her tantrum, Amanda could tell. Her face had gone from its usual milky glow to a hue similar to cranberry sauce, and her eyes looked as if they could light fires. Amanda had seen Emily mad many times before. But never this mad, and she could not predict exactly what was going to happen next. She looked around, searching for cover.

  One thing Amanda knew for sure—when Emily was angry, the world needed to steer clear. The girl enjoyed throwing things. She was skinny as a rail but had a hidden strength and extraordinarily accurate aim when angered.

  Emily crossed the room to the table where the cakes were displayed. She plunged her fingers into the frosting and pastry, but just as she was about to hurl two huge balls of floury, sticky fury, she paused. Something was wrong—everyone in the room could feel it. For several seconds it seemed as though time stood still.

  Then the entire house started to shake. Stacked plates, cups, and silverware clattered. The legs of the rosewood credenza threatened to buckle, and hanging light fixtures swung like pendulums. Blaring car alarms and horn blasts rippled through the neighborhood a moment later. All the girls scrambled for cover as the room trembled, scattering pictures and dishes to the floor.

  The shaking subsided after the longest minute of Amanda’s life, but an eerie green glow remained, pulsating almost like a heartbeat.

  And then the screaming started.

  6

  Amanda could not see. Clawing at her eyes, she scraped away some fallen dessert. When her vision cleared, Amanda surveyed the damage. It was bad. The room looked like a battle had been waged within its walls—shattered vases, toppled chairs, and tangled beaded curtains littered the parlor. The dust in the air glowed a hazy avocado as the light from the outside worked its way in.

  Struggling to push the couch away, Amanda stood up. She swabbed the remaining cake from her face with her sleeve. Around her, other girls were flailing. Their high-pitched shrieks made Amanda wince.

  Quickly, Amanda made a check. She swept the room with her eyes, taking a mental inventory—all the guests were safe with their limbs in the right places. She may have wished many of them permanently silenced, doomed to bad haircuts, or cursed with ill-fitting footwear—but she didn’t wish any living creature bodily injury. It simply wasn’t in her.

  The green glow continued to pulsate as Amanda became aware that the terrified screams were coming from outside as well as in. Whatever was happening, it went beyond this room, and it did not sound good. It sounded, to put it plainly, terrifying.

  But for some strange reason, Amanda’s curiosity overwhelmed her fear. Something within her was compelling her to run outside into the fray to find out what was going on. She didn’t just want to, she needed to.

  Without hesitation, Amanda darted past stunned girls and fallen furnishings. The closest exit was an open window over the credenza. Amanda leaped onto the sideboard, popped out the screen like she’d done it a thousand times before, and hurled herself outside.

  Thud! She landed in the middle of Mrs. Battfield’s postage-stamp-size Zen garden—winner of Oyster Cove’s prestigious Garden Guru Peace Cultivator award—nearly squashing a bonsai sequoia and scattering the carefully raked patterns in the gravel. She didn’t have time to contemplate her offense to serenity, however. She had to find out what was making everyone hysterical.

  The screams grew in number, a rising chorus of terror, as she hustled toward Prawn Parkway. The green light that had seeped i
nside Emily’s house glowed even more brightly outside. It drowned all other colors in its wretched hue and made Amanda feel slightly ill. Then, as she reached the street, Amanda detected a new sound in the din: the thundering footfalls of a stampede.

  Before she could gain her bearings, a flood of people poured over the hill toward her, panicked and practically trampling one another in their haste to flee.

  And then, with a terrific roar, the first glowing monster made itself known to Amanda. Its gaping fangs lunged ahead of a snakelike body, skeletal wings, and at least ten long, hideous legs. It snarled over the herd of hapless citizens of Oyster Cove as it continued on its path.

  “Oh, snap.” Amanda blew out all her breath.

  Amanda paused by the rail of the overlook at the end of Prawn Parkway. The hillside terrace afforded residents a view of Oyster Cove’s urban center. From there, she could see the entire town sprawling out to the bay. And peppering every neighborhood like a bad rash were glowing green globules.

  Just below her in Saltwater Flats, giant scaled yetis zoomed after scrambling children. Twisted dragons soared on bony wings, maws agape, toward petrified people in the Munch-n-Bowl parking lot. Creatures that looked like a cross between tyrannosaurs and vampire bats hovered in alleys and around corners, cutting off escape routes.

  It appeared that the entire city had been invaded by glowing monsters! But what were they? Where were they coming from? And what did they want?