Fly Frenzy (7 page)

“Oh for heaven's sake!” snapped Mrs. Sharpe. “Stop crying, Tarquin!”

“But, Mother! One of them scratched me when I tried to kick it. I might have caught the Black Death,” sniffed Tarquin.

“For a genius, you really are an oaf, Tarquin!” was his mother's tender reply.

Jammed behind the sofa, Josh wondered what to do next. The evidence of cheating in the Best Garden Contest was right in front of him. But now he was trapped! The window was just above his head. But if he tried to escape through it, Mrs. Sharpe and Tarquin would see him. They could call the police and then hide the evidence of their own crime before the police arrived. Even with Danny backing him up, who was going to believe two eight-year-olds against Mrs. Sharpe and her son?

And where was Danny?

This was not going as planned. Not at all. Josh sighed. Then he felt something digging through his jeans pocket. His new camera! Josh grinned. He got the camera out and turned it on. He focused the zoom lens through the gap. Then he took a picture of Mrs. Sharpe and her son. Not a very flattering one . . .

“It's like a plague in here!” muttered Mrs. Sharpe. “First flies, then rats—whatever next? A swarm of locusts?” Just as she reached for Mom's favorite hedge bird her eyes widened and she paused.

“What was that clicking noise?”

“Locusts?” breathed Tarquin, looking scared.

“It came from behind the sofa!” she whispered. Mother and son turned to stare right at the spot where Josh was hidden. He could see them through the gap, but could they see him?

“Tarquin—go and look behind the sofa!” ordered Mrs. Sharpe.

“But—I don't want to!” wailed Tarquin. “It might be more rats . . . ”

“If you want any dessert today, you'll do as you're told!” snapped his mother.

Tarquin crept toward the sofa. He curled his bony fingers across the top of it and pulled. Josh cringed. He was about to be found out, skulking behind the furniture in a neighbor's house, like a burglar.

“AAAARGH!” screamed Mrs. Sharpe. “RATS! RATS! THERE THEY GO AGAIN.”

Josh laughed silently with relief. Scratch and Sniff had run into the room, done a loop around the carpet, and run off out again.

Mrs. Sharpe and Tarquin hurried out after them. Josh leapt to his feet, jumped over the sofa, and gathered Mom's hedge birds into the trash bag. He slung it over his shoulder and then climbed through the front room window. He landed on the immaculate front lawn. With Mrs. Sharpe's screams and Tarquin's shrieks echoing from the house, he ran for the gate and made straight for home.

As he reached the corner of the road, he ran right into Danny.

“There you are!” cried his brother. “We thought you'd been swatted!”

Petty could be seen hurrying along the road behind Danny. “Oh, thank goodness!” she puffed. “You've not been eaten! Now—you naughty boys. Don't ever do such a thing ever again!”

Josh and Danny turned and gave her a very hard stare.

“Oh, all right,” she muttered, adjusting her spectacles. “I just like to pretend to be a normal grown-up sometimes . . . ”

The camera memory stick slid into Petty's computer. It clicked and whirred.

“It's very powerful but a bit slow,” said Petty, in the green light of the laboratory.

“Um . . . one thing I've been wondering about . . . ” ventured Danny.

“Yes, Danny?” said Petty. She pushed her glasses up her nose and jabbed at the keyboard.

“Why aren't I stark naked?”

Petty blinked in surprise. “Because it's a little chilly today?”

“No—I mean why aren't there a couple of piles of clothes in the plastic tent thingy where we got S.W.I.T.C.H.ed?” went on Danny. “When we turned into flies we should have flown right out of our pants, shouldn't we? And then, when we came back to being human, we should've been stark naked!”

Petty laughed. “A good point, Danny. It's to do with how S.W.I.T.C.H. works. It actually changes all your cells' energy patterns. And everything that's connected to them at the point when you are sprayed gets changed too.”

“Energy patterns?” repeated Josh.

“Yes. All you need to know is that everything immediately connected to you changes with you. OK?”

Josh and Danny nodded, slowly.

“And a jolly good thing too,” added Petty. “A pair of identical streaking eight-year-olds is the last thing we need when we're working together on a top secret project.”

“Are we . . . ?” said Danny, looking at Josh.

“Working on a top secret project? With her?” Josh shrugged. He hadn't decided yet. No matter how exciting it was to think of being a dragon one day, it was just so dangerous. Only an hour ago, Danny had nearly been a spider's lunch!

There was a ping.

“Ah!” said Petty. “Here are your photos, Josh.”

A series of photos opened up across her large screen. Josh's finger. Josh's eye. Danny, his head sideways, laughing hard at Josh for trying to take a photo with his new camera backward and sideways. Then pictures of Mom in the garden, a close-up of the rockery, Danny pretending to be a giant fly, Danny sitting up behind Jenny's shoulder, Jenny hitting him with her rolled-up magazine . . .

And then, three really clear shots of . . .

“What?” squawked Josh. “Oh no! Where's Mrs. Sharpe and Tarquin? Now we've got no evidence!”

“You must have messed up the angle,” muttered Danny. “What a waste of time!”

“Nonsense,” said Petty Potts, leaning in close to peer at the photos. “You got the hedge birds back for your mom, didn't you?”

“Yes, but I wanted the police to go around and arrest Mrs. Sharpe and Tarquin!” huffed Josh.

Petty had maximized one photo on her computer so it filled the whole screen and was now peering so closely at it that her nose was against the monitor. “Who cares about them?” she said, with growing excitement in her voice. “Josh! Where is this?” She jabbed her finger at the picture of Mom's rock garden. Josh noticed, for the first time, that something bright was shining under one of the rocks. Probably a bit of a broken bottle.

“I took that in the front garden,” said Josh. “Why?”

“Take me there! Right away!” demanded Petty, springing to her feet. Josh and Danny shrugged at each other and led the way. Two minutes later, Petty Potts was on her hands and knees, scrabbling through the rockery. It was a good thing Mom had gone inside after wiring the hedge birds back on. She would have been horrified. But after just a few seconds, Petty leapt to her feet. She held up something covered in dirt. “YESS!” she cried. “Look! Josh! Danny! I can't believe it!”

They stared closely at the thing in her hand. Some of the loose dirt fell away from it. It was a glass cube.

“Wow—it's—it's one of those S.W.I.T.C.H. cube thingies!” breathed Danny.

Now he could see a holographic image inside the glass. It looked a bit like an alligator.

Petty Potts held the cube to her cheek. “Another REPTOSWITCH cube! I knew they couldn't be far away! I knew it. Now . . . if only I could remember where I'd hidden the rest.”

“Are you sure you hid them?” said Josh.