Grasshopper Glitch Read Online Free PDF Page B

you promised you’d help me!” insisted Petty. “You said you would help me get back all my REPTOSWITCH cubes! Remember—you said you wanted to try out being a python one day. Or a lizard—or an alligator!”
    â€œWe didn’t say that! You did!” argued Josh.
    â€œOh nonsense!” Petty slammed the green velvet box down on her kitchen table. She had lured Josh and Danny in, as they arrived home from school. She used the pretense that she was worried about them after yesterday’s grasshopper adventure. “I know you want to be an alligator, Josh! You’re an eight-year-old boy, for heaven’s sake. There would be something seriously wrong with you if you didn’t!”
    Josh looked at Danny. Petty was right. He did want to try out the REPTOSWITCH one day. Who wouldn’t? Danny bit his lip. Josh knew his twin wanted to try it too.
    Petty flicked open the box. She pointed to the four empty dents where the missing S.W.I.T.C.H. cubes belonged. She fixed them with a fanatical stare. “One more of these will mean we are halfway there! Halfway toward being able to switch humans into reptiles! Imagine what we could do with that! It’s fantastic enough being able to switch you into insects and spiders. But imagine what you could do in reptile form!”

    â€œOK—we said we’d help you look,” said Josh. “And we have been helping. We’ve been all over your garden and our yard. And we always check out anything we see in the street that shines a bit like glass. But this is different. You’re asking us to be burglars!”
    â€œOh, pee, pickle, and poo!” snorted Petty. “I’m just asking you to take one teensy-weensy sip of potion. Just pop back to being a grasshopper and jump through Mr. Grant’s mailbox. Then collect my S.W.I.T.C.H. cube from his mantelpiece and come out with it. No harm done. He won’t even notice.”
    Josh and Danny looked at each other. There was only the slightest hint on their faces that maybe they might possibly think about Petty’s plan. She spotted it and immediately held up a tiny glass dropper. It was already filled with S.W.I.T.C.H. potion. “I’ve measured it out exactly for your height and weight and body mass,” she said. “It will last precisely ten minutes. Long enough for me to get you to the house. Then five minutes to get inside to find the cube and change back to your human form. Then get the cube back to me. Mr. Grant’s out. Wednesday afternoon he always goes to the casino.”
    Josh and Danny looked at each other again. Danny shrugged. “Sounds simple enough.”
    â€œEXCELLENT!” said Petty, holding up the dropper. “TONGUES OUT!”
    Petty hid the grasshoppers in her coat pocket. They were safely tucked into a small plastic tub with holes in the lid so there was plenty of air to breathe. It was not a pleasant journey. They were jogging along in the tub, which smelled of old curry.
    â€œI hope she’s right about this S.W.I.T.C.H. cube being in Mr. Grant’s house,” muttered Danny. “We could be at home now, playing with Piddle or filling up the wading pool. Not stuck in a plastic tub in a crazy old scientist’s pocket, trying not to be sick. I’m only just holding back the panic goo here, you know!” His green face went a little greener.

    Petty had told their mom her sons were helping out in the garden for half an hour. Mom thought that was a nice thing for Josh and Danny to do. She believed Petty was a lovely, harmless old lady.
    Suddenly there was a flash of light as the tub rose out of the darkness of Petty’s coat pocket. The lid abruptly snapped off and a fresh breeze blew in. Josh and Danny clambered warily up to the rim of the tub. They saw that it was being held up against a long blue cliff, with a rectangle cave set into it. “It’s his mailbox, in his door,” said Josh.