Boy Bites Bug, page 1
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ISBN 978-1-4197-2141-0
eISBN 978-1-68335-247-1
Text copyright © 2018 Rebecca Petruck
Cover and illustrations copyright © 2018 Mike Heath
Cover and book design by Julia Marvel
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To Brandy Elena Garcia and her own
creative culinary pursuits
and
My parents, Teri and Duane, for unwavering love and
support, even when I’m a dork-face
The intrusion of stinkbugs clumped on the ceiling in a back corner of the library, a splotch like crusty dried mud. Every now and then, a few bugs dropped onto the shiny green plant on the bookshelf beneath them.
Maybe in some schools, the library would have been evacuated. In Minnesota, with the school near so many cornfields that it might as well be planted in one, the librarian had simply left a note on the checkout desk that she had gone in search of a janitor. After a while, Will Nolan’s social studies teacher went looking for them both. Mr. Hanson probably wouldn’t have left the class of twenty-plus seventh graders alone if it weren’t first period and everyone still half asleep. Will was tempted to put down his head and nap, too, but instead he opened the book he’d been carrying around for weeks.
“Is that The American Revolution for Dummies?”
Will was a little surprised to see Eloy Herrera beside him. Eloy was new and hadn’t talked much in the two months since school started. Now he looked from Will to the distinctive yellow-and-black book Will was reading.
“Because that would be kind of awesome,” Eloy said.
Will tilted the cover so Eloy could read the title, Wrestling for Dummies. “Practice starts tomorrow.”
Will had been on the mats since kindergarten and was no “dummy,” but this year was different. This year he’d be joining the varsity and JV team, which included seventh-through twelfth-grade students. He’d wrestle with guys a lot older and a lot more experienced, guys who placed at state championships. Will wanted to prove he belonged. The book was one way to make sure he brought everything he could to the mat.
Eloy nodded, then just kind of stood there.
“That would be kind of awesome, though,” Will agreed. The American Revolution for Dummies would be more useful for the paper Mr. Hanson had assigned than the teacher’s insistence they use at least three references that were actual books and not websites. Teachers were so old-fashioned.
Eloy gestured at a seat opposite Will, and Will shrugged his OK. He’d taken one of the tables that sat eight so he and his best friends, Darryl and Simon, could spread out. But Darryl had sprawled on one of the couches while Simon poked at the stinkbugs with a metal pointer. Will would be shocked if either of them did any actual work that morning, so while Eloy sat and pulled out his books, Will rested his chin on his hands and went back to his.
Nose in chapter six, “Wrestling in the Right Mindset,” he read: A standard wrestling match lasts six minutes. If you stay focused and mentally tough for five minutes and fifty-five seconds, you’ll lose the match in the last five seconds. Will lost focus that way all the time during matches by thinking too much, caught up in what he should do or should have done until it didn’t matter anymore—he was pinned.
Focused and mentally tough. That was him from now on.
Until the potted plant, the one from the stinkbug hot zone, floated beside him.
He shouted and covered his head.
Simon waved the waxy green leaves near Will’s face again, adding a ghostly “ooo” while Darryl laughed.
Focused and mentally tough, Will reminded himself.
Stinkbugs were bad for crops, damaging leaves, stems, and fruit, but they didn’t hurt people; they weren’t biters or stingers. The smell wasn’t even that bad unless the bugs felt threatened.
“Stunts like this are why you’re not known for your good ideas,” Will said to Simon.
Darryl, Simon, and Will had met in kindergarten and had years of bad ideas behind them. Of course, the smack talk would have been more effective if Will’s voice hadn’t cracked. Stupid puberty.
Darryl smirked, then slapped Will’s book closed. “Why are you even reading that? You’re definitely making the team.”
Actually, all Will had to do to “make” the team was show up and not quit, but Darryl’s confidence was still a boost.
“You should join, too,” Simon told Darryl. “I’d pay money to see you in one of those bodysuits.”
Darryl reached to hook Simon into a headlock. “They’re called ‘singlets,’ and they’re not a joke.”
Simon ducked away, the plant sprinkling stinkbugs onto the table and carpet.
“Careful!” Will said.
Their antics drew attention from several now-less-sleepy people nearby, including Eloy, who watched Darryl cut left and right to block Simon against the table. But that only made Simon laugh and duck and spin and otherwise fake trying to get away—while still brandishing the bug-bearing foliage.
“Will looks like a Tootsie Roll stuffed into that thing,” Simon joked. “One of those miniature ones cheapskates hand out at Halloween.”
Darryl knocked him back against the table for real.
“Hey!” Simon said.
Darryl got in close to Simon, chest out. “Will’s one of us. You make fun of him, other people will think they can, too.” He glared at the onlookers, making them drop their gazes, and landed on Eloy, who only cocked an eyebrow before cutting his eyes to Will, making Will shrug. Darryl got touchy about stupid stuff all the time, and Simon had a knack for setting him off without meaning to.
While Will wasn’t wild about being compared to a tiny Tootsie Roll, it wasn’t as if Simon was wrong. The Lycra singlets were designed so an opponent couldn’t control a wrestler by grabbing his clothes; they were basically a tight tank top and bicycle shorts combined into a one-piece, and no one looked good in them.
“I was only joking,” Simon huffed.
“You’re always joking,” Darryl said through clenched teeth.
“We’ve got other problems,” Will said to distract them and because they did: Lots of stinkbugs were on the loose.
The library’s large windows let in a creamy, November-morning light that glowed softly on the warm brown of the octagonal table—and now on the gray-brown of the dozen stinkbugs on its surface. They bobbled like weather-worn boats on a calm sea.
Will reached for his book, carefully tilting stinkbugs off its slippery yellow cover.
Eloy pushed back his seat, except the chair legs stuck on the carpeted floor, and he ended up jostling the table.
“Nobody move!” Simon thrust out his hands, dislodging a last few die-hard bugs from the plant, which he finally set down—in front of Will.
“To heck with that,” Darryl said. He yanked Wrestling for Dummies from Will and made to smash bugs.
They’d all crushed stinkbugs before, on dares or by accident, but usually only one at a time. Will didn’t want to find out the nasal damage squishing a lot of them at once could do.
Will threw himself in front of Darryl at the same time Eloy said, “Are you crazy?!”
“No one asked you, cholo,” Darryl snapped back.
Will inhaled sharply. It felt like the world went into slo-mo.
Darryl’s face went red, like he knew he’d crossed a line, but his jaw squared, too—he wasn’t taking anything back.
Eloy narrowed his eyes like he planned to cross some lines, too, but Will
Why the heck had Darryl called him a name like that? Will wasn’t sure it was actually a bad name, but Darryl sounded like he’d meant it to be.
It wasn’t as if Eloy was the only Hispanic kid in the school or even in their class. A quarter, maybe a third, of Triton students were Hispanic, enough that rooms had Spanish signs beside the doors like the one to the Laboratorio de Computación right behind him. As far as he knew, none of the Hispanic kids needed the signs; they all talked like everyone else Will knew. Mom said the signs were for some of the parents who didn’t speak great English yet, to make them feel more welcome at the school and get them to attend more events and stuff.
The silence had gotten too loud. The entire class was looking their way, and Will felt that he should say something, but his brain was stuck. Darryl was quick to lose his temper and sometimes blurted stupid stuff he didn’t mean the way it sounded, but Eloy didn’t know that.
“Listen,” Will said, though he didn’t have anything for them to listen to. He was probably freaking over nothing anyway. Darryl was a decent guy. Look at how he’d defended Will about the wrestling singlet. And Eloy didn’t look like he was going to cry or anything.
But it still felt like something was digging at Will’s gut.
“Uh, Will?” Simon pointed at Will’s chest.
When Will looked down, he was face-to-face with a stinkbug.
It was reflex to jerk back, though Will couldn’t escape his own chest or the stinkbug sitting on it. “We will not cower in the face of tyranny,” he mumbled to himself, inspired by their American Revolution homework.
“I will,” Simon said. “Stinkbugs stink!”
“Then you shouldn’t have messed with the plant,” Eloy said.
Simon nodded. “I see your point and raise it an ‘Aha.’”
“Whatever,” Darryl said, raising a hand to swat the bug off Will.
“Stop!” Will shouted. It was only a stinkbug, but if it freaked out and sprayed, he’d be smelling skunk for hours. Instead, Will inched an index finger toward it and slid his nail under the front feet. He barely held in a shudder, not wanting any sudden movements to make the bug retaliate.
“What are you doing?” Eloy whispered.
“Shh!” Darryl hissed, his breath much harder than Eloy’s —and more disturbing to the bug. It darted forward, all the way up the back of Will’s hand.
Will jerked at how fast it was, but the bug didn’t lose its footing. The tips of its leg were scratchy, like Velcro. Will kept his hand still as he bent his head closer to inspect the bug.
A whiff of something like cilantro and old milk emanated from it, but not strongly. Brown-and-beige–banded antennae twitched at Will from a too-small head resting on extra-wide shoulders. It looked like a miniature football player in pads. Speckles like the dimples on a golf ball dotted its brown body and thick outer wings. Poking from beneath those was another set of wings so pale and thin, they were nearly see-through.
Will turned over his hand slowly, the stinkbug moving in spurts toward his palm. It turned in a circle there, antennae flexing.
“Maybe you’ll get superpowers like Spider-Man when he got bitten,” Simon said.
“He doesn’t need superpowers to stink,” Darryl heckled.
“Ha-ha.” Will made an effort to grin, relieved that Darryl had cooled off enough to talk smack. But Will still had a stinkbug in his hand. “You’d have to eat one of these to improve your breath,” he smack-talked back to Darryl.
“Omigosh, yes!” Simon said to Darryl. “I totally dare you to eat a stinkbug.”
Darryl’s face went red, which might have been from anger in someone else but which Will could tell was from embarrassment when Darryl darted looks at the people who had gathered around or who were watching from a safe distance. “Me? No way. Dare the Mexican. I’ve seen stuff on TV—they eat bugs all the time.”
“Dude, I’m from Rochester,” Eloy said.
Will didn’t say anything. His tongue was frozen in shock at hearing the friend he’d known since kindergarten talk like that. The Mexican? What the heck was wrong with Darryl? He knew better than to talk trash about people because of where they came from. Heck, Eloy might not even be Mexican—he sounded like everyone else in Minnesota—but that wasn’t the point. Darryl hadn’t meant it as a descriptor of where Eloy was from, and everyone around them knew it. Including the two other Hispanic kids in their class, one who had drifted closer to Eloy and the other who was now practically buried in a couch.
Simon giggled the way he did when he was nervous, but it probably seemed to Eloy that he was being laughed at, and suddenly Will was crazy ticked at his friends. They were making the three of them look like prejudiced jerks.
It wasn’t right. Will’s chest was hot, like he was incubating an alien. He almost closed his hands into fists but remembered the bug in time.
The stinkbug.
The stinkbug that could prove at least Will wasn’t a jerk.
“You’ve been dared, Darryl, so you’d better get your bug ready,” Will said. “’Cause I’ll go first, but you’re next.”
Then he tossed the stinkbug into his mouth.
Everyone gasped. For that moment, Will had the power of their total attention. He was a superhero.
Except.
There was a bug in his mouth.
A stinkbug.
Alive.
And crawling around.
He had tossed it too far, practically down his throat, and now it skittered onto a tonsil. The feeling made him gag. He bent over, coughing to dislodge it, while the others were frozen in shock. It was Eloy who finally tried to help by thumping Will’s back. That’s when the bug’s defense mechanism kicked in.
The stinkbug sprayed.
Instinct took over. Will’s tongue scraped the bug forward to spit it out.
Instead, it squished against his teeth.
Will had crushed a stinkbug. In his mouth.
An oily substance coated his tongue. Skunklike fumes stung his throat. His mouth began to go numb, like at the dentist, but not enough to disguise the feel of the crushed exoskeleton, broken legs and antennae, wings, and gooey insides.
Will spat, not caring about the carpet. Or about spreading the smell, which made everyone take a step back and Eloy say, “Careful.”
“You really did it!” Simon said, nose plugged but eyes wide with awe.
Will tried to smile, but his throat burned and his stomach flipped like a worm trapped on a hot sidewalk. His voice was scratchy when he said to Darryl, “Your turn.”
“No way. It sprayed stink in your mouth!” Darryl waved a hand in front of his nose, backing farther away.
“Stop!” Eloy said, staring at the floor, but it was too late.
Not all the stinkbugs were on the table. A lot had fallen or crawled to the carpet near their feet.
Feet that now crushed at least a dozen stinkbugs. A cloud of fresh fumes roiled into the air.
Will puked.
Triton had three towns’ worth of kids combined into a K–12 program in one building with three wings for the elementary, middle, and high schools. So Will’s mom, who taught kindergarten, got to him fast. And backed away faster when the smell hit her. Fastest went her sympathy when she found out he had eaten a stinkbug on purpose.
The library was evacuated.
Eloy was aired out.
Darryl and Simon were aired out and their shoes removed, planted on the brittle November grass by the front doors.
Will was planted on the frozen grass next to the shoes.
Officially, he had been given his coat, hat, and gloves and was asked to wait in the vestibule. But the stinkbug stink was too strong. Whether or not the smell was only in his head or really did fill the small space between the two sets of doors into the school, Will couldn’t stand it. He went outside while Mom called Dad to pick him up.
Though they hadn’t had their first snow yet, the suggestion of it was all around. Windchill lifted stink off his clothes while air crisped with dry leaves and pine cleared his lungs. Thick frost on the sidewalk had been defeated with salt, and the chemical crystals glinted rainbow sparks in the sunlight. The sight cheered him. Though he had suffered, it had been for a good cause.
