Grasshopper Glitch Read Online Free

were large and round with short feelers set above them like pointy eyebrows. Josh thought Danny’s long face looked rather solemn. Then his brother started wiggling his little fingerlike mouthparts about with enthusiasm.
    â€œWhat are Billy and Jason going to think when they find you’ve disappeared?” he giggled. His voice was not too unlike his own considering he had a grasshopper’s mouth.
    â€œI’m more worried about what Miss Mellor will think. We could get detention for a week!” said Josh. He rubbed his legs nervously against his wings.
    â€œOoh!” Making the noise himself, it was incredibly loud and croaky. “That’s how grasshoppers make their chirruping noise!”
    â€œCareful,” said Danny, looking around. “It’s bad enough being chased by stupid kids who want to squash you. You don’t want to attract predators too! What eats grasshoppers, Josh?”
    Josh gulped. “Well…we don’t taste great. That’s why we’re quite bright green and shiny. It’s to warn anything that wants to eat us that we’re a bit—I dunno—sour. We’re still not safe though. Birds, mice, snakes, spiders. All the usual ones. They’ll try. We should keep moving. We need to get the antidote.”
    Danny nodded. “Which way, do you think?”
    â€œThat way,” said Josh. He waved his feelers firmly to his left. He didn’t know how he could be so sure. It was something to do with the way the sun was shining and the smell in the air. He felt a rumble inside him. He hadn’t had much lunch.
    â€œI’m starving,” said Danny. They catapulted themselves high into the air again. Of course, he hadn’t had any lunch at all. “Wooooo-hooo! Oh yeah! No, I’m really hungry.”
    â€œOf course,” called Josh. He flew alongside his brother with his rather dashing green cloak wings.
    â€œGrasshoppers are big eaters. They eat at least sixteen times their own body weight—every day! I’m hungry too. But we can’t stop.”
    Three seconds later they stopped. They landed on a large leafy bush that grew up against a low brick wall. It smelled as good to them as a doughnut factory at snack time. Josh found himself cramming his mouth with thick, juicy chunks of green leaf.
    Danny settled on a leaf next to him. He began to demolish it with loud chomping noises.

    â€œOoooooh, this is so good!” munched Danny. “How come we never ate leaves before? There’s tons in our garden! We just ignore them…”
    When the empty feeling inside him began to ease off, Josh looked up. He was surprised to see that Danny had stopped eating. Danny’s big green eyes were bulging. Suddenly Danny spat out something brown and sticky right onto his lovely leaf.
    â€œUGGGH! MANNERS, PLEASE!” said Josh. “Did you eat a gross piece?”
    Danny shook his head. He stared at Josh, his enormous eyes shining like glass beads. Somewhere in his brain Josh knew that spitting brown stuff was a bad sign. It was something grasshoppers did when—
    â€œJUMP!” yelled Danny. He pinged up into the sky. Which helped Josh to remember. Ah yes…grasshoppers chucked up brown goo out of fear. Usually fear of…PREDATORS!
    All Josh saw, when he finally turned around, was a huge mouth. A gigantic pink diamond-shaped pair of jaws with sharp white fangs and a pointed pink tongue with hundreds of spikes on it. Blecch! He spat out his own brown blob.
    His slingshot legs threw him high into the air. But then he collided, with a whump, against a thick furry log, which was falling from the sky.
    When five razor-sharp white claws shot out of it, Josh realized that it was actually a paw.
    He found himself splatted back down on the leafy wall, with a gigantic furry face pressed right against him. A moist pink nose nudged him, and a fan of fine white spiky things drooped down on either side of him.