Return of Mega Mantis by Laura Dower Read Free Book Online

started, there was no splitting us up. We stuck together when we fought Slimo and that worked great. Why should now be any different?
    Since the Mega sighting in the field near the Drive-O-Rama, there had been no new signs of the mantis or its friend, Mega Mantis Two. But we just kept waiting, like Walter said we should. No news should have been good news. But it wasn’t. The bugs were all we could think about.
    “Let’s break it down,” Stella said, poking at her plate of mashed potatoes. “The mantids flew away. But Leery told us they always come back. We have to figure out where they’ll show up next.”
    Lindsey took a bite of salad. She’d nearly drowned it in ranch dressing.
    I pushed my fork through the ziti on my plate. But I wasn’t really hungry.
    Who could eat that at a time like this?
    “Molloy!” Ranger cried, waving his hands at me. “What’s that on your plate?”
    “Pasta, bro,” I said, holding up a forkful.
    “Mmmm, I don’t think so . . .” Ranger said.
    I dropped my fork with a clang. These weren’t ziti tubes! There were wriggling larvae on my tray!
    “Yo, Ranger!” I winced. “ You have bugs, too . . .”
    “Smother them in Lindsey’s ranch dressing,” Ranger cried. He grabbed Lindsey’s salad plate and dumped it on the larvae.
    But Lindsey’s plate had bugs of her own!
    “Ewwww!” Lindsey said. “I thought those little black things were seeds. They’re ants!”
    Stella looked down at her plate and nudged a lettuce leaf. From underneath the salad, a line of beetles marched from the plate onto the tray.
    “UGH!” Stella squealed. “I ATE LIVE BUGS, TOO! GROSS!”
    Normally, Stella Min shoulda, coulda, and most definitely woulda handled herself like a cool and calm ninja. But today she stood right up and flipped out. In fact, she flipped her entire lunch tray. Her plate sailed off our table into the back of an unfortunate student with an even more unfortunate name.

    “Beef!” I cried.
    This was not good.
    Beef grunted and stood p. Stella’s food dripped down his back. But he looked right at me and growled.

    “You did this?”
    One of Beef’s friends sneered at me and hurled a dish of pudding at my head. I ducked and it hit Ranger in the shoulder. Some splattered on Lindsey.
    There was no turning back now.
    The food fight was on.
    It took a few minutes for security to arrive. But by then, the entire lunchroom was one splattered canvas of potatoes, ketchup, turkey slices, orange peels, chocolate chip cookie crumbs, spaghetti sauce, and pink yogurt.
    Somehow, we got the blame for starting it.
    “I’ll see you four instigators downstairs,” growled Security Guard Spiker.
    “What are we supposed to do now ?” Lindsey asked as we shuffled down the hall.
    “Maybe Mega Mantis will attack the school and we’ll get out of being punished,” I said. I was only half kidding.
    Spiker sat us down on a row of hard, wooden chairs outside Principal Pickle’s office.
    “Wait here and don’t move a muscle,” Spiker said.
    “But this stinks,” I mumbled.
    “That includes mouth muscles!” Spiker snapped.
    As soon as Spiker walked away, Lindsey panicked.
    “They’re going to call our parents!” she blubbered. “Dad will take my camera away. He always does that when he gets angry.”
    I glanced up at the clock. “Maybe it’s not so bad,” I said. “If we have to sit here for the entire next period, I’ll miss that vocabulary test.”
    “You’ll just have to retake it tomorrow,” Ranger said.
    “Why aren’t we talking about the bugs ?” Stella said. She made a fist and pounded the inside of her palm. “The B-Force is back. We have a job to do!”
    “Mega Mantis is getting close again,” Ranger said. “That can’t be good.”
    Just then, the principal came out. He had on a dark green pin-striped suit. His name was Pickle and he looked like one, too.
    “Hello, Principal Pickle,” we said, lowering our heads and trying to look sorry.
    “I am very