Beetle Blast Read Online Free Page A

being a boy?”
    The rats and the beetle stared at one another. They looked as worried as it’s possible for two rats and a beetle to look.
    â€œYou’d better get going!” advised Scratch. “We’ll stay here for a while, in case you need us.”
    â€œOW!” Danny’s head smacked against the lid of the jar. He had remembered that he had wings. He had shaken them out of their cases and then tried to fly up out of the captured pond water. But he’d only succeeded in knocking himself silly and splashing back down again.
    He noticed something looking at him. It was one of the ugly little dragonfly nymphs. “Watchoo tryin’ to do?” it sneered at him. “Yous crazy, huh?”
    Danny ignored it and eyed the lid of the jar through the ever-shifting water. The jar itself had been set down now on an orange shelf. Danny knew it must have been put into the learning center. He could just make out the room beyond his curved glass prison.
How
was he going to get out of here?
    â€œAin’t no good tryin’ to get out,” said the nymph. “Weez well prizzed up.”
    â€œNo—I can fly out!” argued Danny.
    â€œMe too, bruv,” warbled the nymph. “Just gotta wait a while. Deze wings’ll be full growed in a while, yep.”
    Of course, remembered Danny, Josh had said these weird little creepy-crawlies turned into dragonflies. This one didn’t look as if he was going to change anytime soon though. Danny gulped.
He
could change at any moment, he suddenly realized. Back to a full-sized eight-year-old. But what if he changed now? While he was trapped in a glass jar? What would that do to him? What would give? The glass? Or
him
?

    Danny stared out into the wavy lines of the room where he’d hung around, bored, only minutes ago. He thought he had, truly, never been more terrified. There was a musical thud on the other side of the glass as the string attached to the jar flopped down across it. It was pink string.
    Danny gulped again. He had seen that pink string before. Where … ?
    You don’t want to know!
whispered a voice in his head.
    Then a giant, warped, freckly face suddenly wrapped itself around the jar, grinning and steaming up the glass.
    No, no, no
, whimpered the voice in Danny’s head.
I said you didn’t want to know!
    But Danny did know. It was too late to block out the awful truth. Poppy had caught him in her pond-dipping jar. Poppy might very well be taking Danny home …

Petty Potts sat in the sun. Through her binoculars, she watched a pair of rats under the picnic bench. They were definitely sniffing around the S.W.I.T.C.H. pellet-infested cake.
    â€œCome on! Why aren’t you eating it?” she whispered. She tapped on the little plastic tub she had brought to collect newly morphed creatures in. She usually had a few seconds to get them while they flapped about in confusion.
    Petty huffed to herself. Nothing was going according to plan today. She really hadn’t
meant
for Josh and Danny to end up getting S.W.I.T.C.H.ed again. It was all Danny’s fault for being such a greedy little so and so. She hoped the brothers were getting along OK as great diving beetles. At least they were a bit less likely to get eaten this time. There wasn’t much in a pond that would take on such a ferocious predator.
    It was a relief when all the children finished their pond dipping and went back inside. At least when Josh and Danny morphed back into human form again, they wouldn’t be in full view of all their friends and the grown-ups who ran the Wild Things group. Petty knew she must sit tight and wait for Josh and Danny to come back. They would need help in explaining what had happened to them. Petty would have to come up with something to convince everyone that they had just fallen into the pond. Maybe while helping her to retrieve her hat or something. Petty took off her hat and threw it out onto the pond,