Bug Girl Read online

  “Poppy, have you seen the news?” Amanda asked, peering outside. The coast was still clear of any of those … things.

  “Yes, I read all the scuttlebutt. Oyster Cove’s seeing a bit of action,” he huffed. “Just like old times, I’d say!”

  “Right. That. So what are we going to do about it? No one believes me when I ask for help!” Amanda waited for some major pearls of wisdom to slip from her grandfather’s mouth. He must know what to do; otherwise her mother wouldn’t have instructed her to call him.

  “We’ll get to all that in a minute, don’t you fret.” Poppy smiled, then yawned widely. His chin was dusted with stubbly whiskers, making him look a little like a wet plum that had been dropped in white sand. “Is it lunchtime yet? I’m peckish. Let’s eat and then we’ll talk about this situation your mother’s got herself into.”

  Amanda looked at the clock. It was almost five A.M. It was definitely not lunchtime. “I can make you an egg?” she offered.

  “Can’t stand ’em. I’ll have two. Poached. That is, if you don’t have any pasta in the house. Got noodles?”

  Amanda hurried to the kitchen and put a small pot of water on the stove. She checked the cupboard for dried pasta, but her mother tried to avoid white flour, so all she found was a mess of quinoa.

  Waiting for the water to boil for eggs, Amanda stared out the window and wondered if she might be dreaming. The early hour added to the surreal quality of the situation. Outside, not even the fireflies were flickering.

  When Amanda went back into the living room carrying two poached eggs on gluten-free toast and a cup of tea, she found that Poppy had dozed off. But clearly he was not something she’d cooked up in Slumberland. He was real, and he was really there.

  “Ehr-hehrm.” Amanda cleared her throat so his snack wouldn’t get cold. Poppy jerked upright. “Where’s your mother?” he asked loudly. He looked around the room. Apparently the micronap had perked him up.

  “Oh. Right, right. You don’t know,” Poppy said, before launching into some epic mumbling. “Probably some heroic theatrics. That girl. Always sticking her neck out. She told me she was done with all that, but I knew better. I should have been here. Never should have moved to Florida. People there drive slow, you know.”

  Poppy was rambling to himself, but it was obvious that he knew more about her mother’s secret life than Amanda did. And he seemed to be taking her mother’s disappearance in stride—how, she was not sure. Just thinking about the situation again was making Amanda panic.

  Amanda’s pulse quickened, and her antennae began to emerge involuntarily. Her skin started to take on the sheen it’d had before. She was changing! Feeling a little shy, she turned to flee as Poppy put his fork into the yolk of his early-morning nosh, scooped it up, and froze. He held the bite aloft for a moment before putting it in his mouth.

  “Hold up there, missy. I don’t know if it’s a good idea to flaunt what you got going on there around town.” Poppy waved his fork in circles, flinging yolk. “You best keep that hidden.”

  “I’d like to, but…” Amanda squeezed her eyes shut. She could not believe she was talking about her … bug stuff … with her grandpa! She tried her hardest to calm her antennae, but the more she tried to make them retract, the more they continued to grow. “I can’t!”

  “Take a breath, Mandy,” Poppy instructed, lazily chewing. “Now think about spaghetti.”

  Amanda frowned. How could she think about food when she was mutating in front of her grandfather? Talk about awkward. But just thinking about thinking about spaghetti seemed to do … something. Her feelers began to withdraw. She chanted the names of every type of pasta she could think of under her breath.

  “Capellini, rigatoni, fettuccini, macaroni…”

  And watched in the mirror over the fireplace as her antennae retracted entirely. The macaroni meditation made her skin go back to normal. Poppy was on to something!

  The old man nodded and returned to his snack.

  “Poppy?” Amanda asked cautiously. “About Mom … Have you ever been in our basement?”

  “So, you’ve found the lair, huh?” Poppy wheezed. “Of course I’ve been in that basement! I helped your ma build it back when she was just a spring chicken. Took a lot of work, too. You try finding a supercomputer around these parts that can tap into the world’s crime-fighting networks, and see how easy it is!” He waved his fork again, flinging more yolk onto the floor.

  “It’s a good thing I’m here,” he continued, losing interest in his eggs. “You, missy, are going to need help just like your ma did. We’ll get you set up right, don’t you worry. How about we start with you telling me about those deelyboppers on top of your head?”

  “This stuff just started yesterday,” Amanda explained, looking anywhere but at Poppy. “It comes on all of a sudden. Like when I’m scared or nervous. My skin turns hard, and I can run really fast, and … those things…” Amanda stopped there. She wasn’t ready to talk biochemical emissions with Poppy just yet. “And I guess when I calm down it all goes away.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Poppy nodded, slowly chewing. “You take after your ma, all right—bug stuff. But like I said, you best stuff that business under your hat. Your mother was careful to keep you out of her dealings for a reason.”

  “But how am I supposed to keep my bug stuff a secret when it just … pops up? Just think about noodles all the time?” Even if noodle thoughts worked in her living room, it was clear that fear (and even just anxiety) made her insectness appear whether she wanted it to or not. “There is no way I can go back to school,” she said out loud.

  “Of course you can. And you will,” Poppy announced. “It’s going to be business as usual around here. We shall carry on like nothing has happened.”

  Yeah, nothing except I’m part bug and my superhero mom’s been hijacked and my grandfather may not be the freshest egg in the basket, Amanda thought.

  “Now you go try and get some rest,” Poppy ordered. “You’ll need it! We’ll discuss these shenanigans later. And don’t you worry your little head. Compared to some of the messes your mother and I’ve been through, this is a walk in the park. You’ll see! Giddyap on out of here and get to bed.”

  Amanda didn’t think she would be able to sleep at all, but she shuffled reluctantly to her room. As the sun was rising, she finally drifted off—but her slumber was fitful and filled with nightmare images. She tossed and turned, watching horrors playing out in her head, the worst of which left her spooked and sweaty: a vision of her mother rendered moth-size, flying closer and closer to one of those awful blue porch zappers.

  11

  Amanda’s nightmares finally faded, and she fell into a deep sleep. When she woke, she was surprised to discover that it was dark outside. Of course she’d been exhausted, but she’d never expected that she’d be able to sleep through an entire day. Certainly not at a time like this! She must really have needed it. She looked at her clock. It read 7:15. There was no more time to lose.

  Amanda padded barefoot into the living room to find Poppy reading the newspaper and looking right at home.

  “Quite the show the other night, I see,” he commented. He held up the newspaper. There, front and center, was a giant beast harassing pedestrians downtown.

  “More like a horror movie,” Amanda said, rubbing sleep from her eyes.

  “So these are the guys that took your ma and her trendy pal?” Poppy poked a gnarled finger at the picture.

  “No…” Amanda was unclear about who or what had actually taken them. The greenies had lured them, that was for sure. But then the hole … and the arms … “Those booger things weren’t even real. I mean, they had no substance. I actually passed right through one!” she boasted. “Something else … something horrible got my mom. All those green hologram things just took off after the sinkhole opened.”

  “Took off, huh?” Poppy repeated, sounding a little less surprised than Amanda would have expected. “Sounds like there’s more to this business than meet
s the eye. My guess is you’ll be able to get to the bottom of it. Just like your mother used to back in her day. She was quite the feisty one, you know—didn’t put up with any arkymalarkey.”

  Mom. Amanda gulped. She had about a billion questions about her mom, questions she wanted to ask her mother in person.

  “So, Poppy, when did my mom find out she was … different?” Amanda hoped Poppy would give her a direct answer. She couldn’t quite understand how he could be so laid-back about everything. He acted like her mother being swallowed alive was an everyday occurrence. And then she realized, maybe at one time it had been.

  “Your ma’s always been a little special,” Poppy started, “buzzing after bad guys since she was a whippersnapper. That gal just couldn’t be stopped. But it wasn’t until she and that partner of hers met in college that things got more … interesting.” Poppy hunkered down to tell a long tale, fussing with the newspaper all the while. And Amanda sank into the couch to listen. “Your ma and that pal of hers were roommates their freshman year. Best friends from the start. And it didn’t take long before they learned they had more in common than attending rallies and going to concerts.”

  Poppy smoothed several sheets of paper onto the divan. “The day they discovered each other’s secret abilities was the day a villain known as the Cowboy of Doom came hootin’ and hollerin’ onto campus. That creepy cowherd rode in mounted on a robotic horse and wearing a dusty blue hat. Then, while everyone stared at his BeDazzled boots, the nasty redneck threatened to round up all the students who were attending the college’s Annual Ham Toss and Cotillion! He was apparently mad and bent on revenge, and after raising a ruckus, he corralled a bunch of students on the Ham Runway.”

  Amanda was rapt. Poppy began folding as he talked.

  “Just when it looked like there was no hope of completing the Ham Toss, not one but TWO costumed heroes rushed in to save the day and the game. While one hog-tied the cowpoke—that’d be your ma—the other released the trapped students,” Poppy finished, satisfied.

  “And the Ham Toss was saved!” Amanda exclaimed, guessing at the happy ending.

  “That’s right.” Poppy nodded. “And before the pork flew or the dust settled, our two heroes decided to team up. When they found a private moment to reveal their secret identities to each other, they laughed to beat the band. They just knew it was destiny that made them best friends and fighting partners—and that their mission was to keep Oyster Cove free of evil and chaos.” Poppy smiled with evident pride and blew a puff of air into his intricately folded paper. It inflated into the shape of a frog.

  “Your ma and her partner did every little thing together for many years. They were unstoppable,” Poppy continued while Amanda sat in awed silence. “They graduated college. They took down a crime syndicate or two. They got married in a double ceremony. They even ushered in the ‘Great Time of Peace.’ Then they both got pregnant. Soon as they were in the family way, those gals saw things a little differently,” Poppy explained.

  When the new mothers decided to start raising babies, they had to make some serious decisions. They made a pact and decided to “retire.” But only after they’d vanquished all known villains.

  “They didn’t want to leave any loose ends,” Poppy said with a nod.

  Amanda was silent a moment longer. Poppy’s story explained a whole lot about how and why her granola mama and Emily’s sequin-encrusted mother were best friends. And made her worry even more about how hard they’d pushed to keep their daughters together.

  “So, Mom and Mrs. Battfield weren’t planning to come back, you know, as their superselves? Ever?” Amanda asked. She thought retiring from such an exciting job might have been hard. Her mom always said becoming a mother was the best thing she ever did—but was she comparing that with protecting a community? Vanquishing evil? Saving the world?

  “Oh, I don’t know if that was the plan.” Poppy chuckled to himself and began folding the newspaper into hats.

  “Was she ever going to tell me?” Amanda asked.

  “I think she planned to tell you one day. When you were ready,” Poppy said, trying on one of the hats. It was rather piratey, so he tore himself an eye patch and began hobbling around the room with one lip curled.

  Amanda ignored him while she processed it all. For as long as she’d been alive, peace and tranquillity had prevailed in her sleepy town. She supposed that the heroes’ reputation alone had been enough to stave off danger after they ceased active duty. She and Emily had known nothing of giant monsters or sinister scoundrels with mad plots growing up—just picnics and trips to the beach and lazy summer vacations.

  “This swashbuckling garb needs a little something.… Ah! A parrot!” Poppy hooted to himself.

  “But, Poppy,” Amanda said, to keep him focused, “how did Mom know this was going to happen? She was all dressed and ready.”

  “Oh, yes. Your ma called to warn me that something was up,” Poppy said apologetically. “Said they’d gotten word through the Global Hero Network about some anonymous lunatic who was boasting about ‘seeking revenge’ and attacking Oyster Cove, blah, blah, blah. But I wasn’t worried. I figured she could handle it. But … maybe she’s rustier than I realized.”

  Amanda swallowed hard. Poppy resumed walking around the room with a lurching limp, like he had a wooden leg. When he saw the stricken look on Amanda’s face, he stopped.

  “Don’t get your knickers in a knot, Mandy. She’ll be back. She always comes back. Now, about that parrot?”

  “But, Poppy, what about you?” Amanda asked, scooting forward a little. “You said you helped her.”

  “Oh, I helped, all right.” Poppy chuckled. “When your ma told me about her new partner, I gave her my blessing. But I also told her I’d be her backup. Her behind-the-scenes guy. Every hero needs one of those. We started with that secret room downstairs. Then I helped her come up with some fancy training routines to get her powers in tip-top shape—obstacle courses and such. Can’t have a hero going into battle if she can’t dodge a laser blast or two.…” Poppy paused for effect.

  “And whenever your ma went out on her adventures, or missions or what have you, I’d be plunked right down in front of Betsy—that’s my nickname for that souped-up computer of hers—and I’d give your ma updated information via earpiece thingamajigs. Keep her up to speed, you understand. One step ahead of the competition.”

  Amanda gazed at her Poppy with new eyes. He was cool as a cucumber. She was about to ask him how he stayed so calm (was it the pasta thing?) when everything began to shake the same way it had the evening before.

  Panic took over. “This is how it started last night!” Amanda shouted. In a split second her antennae were exposed and radioing emergency messages to her skin to armor up.

  Poppy put the newspaper crafts down as sirens started to blare outside. “Why, those alarms haven’t been in action since World War Two!” He slapped his knee and shuffled to the window like a kid who’d heard the ice cream truck. It was the fastest Amanda had seen him move since he’d arrived.

  She raced to the window and stood next to him, both of them peering out into the darkness. Within minutes, searchlights crisscrossed the sky. The sirens continued their plaintive wails. Helicopters appeared overhead, beaming floodlights onto the streets below. And then the green ghouls materialized.

  The beasts flooded the streets, looking for pedestrians to pursue. They swirled into backyards and around cars, searching for anyone out in the open.

  “Why are they back? Didn’t they get what they came for?” Amanda was a little embarrassed to hear the whine in her voice. “There’s not even anybody out there!”

  It was true. The sidewalks in Stubby Oaks were abandoned. A lone dog barked frantically at one of the creeps, but the monster paid the animal no mind.

  “Maybe that’s why,” Poppy mused. “It’s all flimflammery. Barnyard glitter. The old razzle-dazzle.”

  Amanda gave her grandfather a look out of the corner of her eye.
She was ready to take back that “cool as a cucumber” thing. More like dotty as a Dalmatian …

  “My guess,” Poppy postulated, “is that we’re gonna see a lot more of this. It’s a distraction technique, so we don’t notice what else is going on. Something bigger is brewing, Mandy, and I bet it’s a whopper.”

  Just then a horseshoe crab and rhinoceros combo swooped close to the window. Amanda shuddered. Her antennae twitched. She knew the monsters weren’t solid, but they sure were ugly.

  The same urgent drive she’d felt on Saturday welled up inside her until Amanda could not stand it any longer. “Poppy, I’ve got to go do something about this!” she shouted. She wasn’t sure what she could do, exactly, but she felt irresistibly drawn into the action. With her antennae extended and her carapace glistening, she started toward the door.

  “Hold it right there, Miss Whippersnapper,” Poppy called after her.

  Amanda stopped.

  “Your mother can take care of herself for a skinny minute. We’ve got work to do.”

  “But, Poppy, I need to help! Isn’t that what being a hero is all about?” Amanda stomped, rattling her mother’s crockery collection. She wasn’t usually pouty, but COME ON!

  “Being a hero is about lots of things. We’ll start with these.” Poppy looked around, bewildered, for a moment and then unfolded one of the paper hats. “Ah, here! We’ll start from square one, just like I did with your ma. Wrote this up last night.”

  On the back of the funnies he had scrawled a list.

  1. Powers

  2. Instincts

  3. Skills

  4. Outfit

  5. Secret Identity

  6. Partner

  “Until you’ve got these things sorted out, you’re of no use to anyone. You’re just a kid with fancy headgear.”

  “But”—Amanda plopped down on the couch—“there’s not enough time. How am I going to acquire all those things, and…” Amanda let her voice trail off. It was hard to admit, but she knew Poppy was right. She couldn’t race into this blindly. She needed to train, get outfitted, figure out exactly what she could do, and how.…