Pickering opened his eyes and sat up. His head collided with Humphrey’s shoulder.

“Wake up.” He pinched Humphrey’s arm. “WAKE UP! You’re sitting on my legs!”

Humphrey opened his eyes as Pickering’s hand slapped his face. He turned and punched Pickering in the head.

Pickering’s head bounced back off the mattress and butted Humphrey’s shoulder. “Get off me!”

“Where am I?” Humphrey groaned. “My head hurts.”

“You’re on my bed, in my bedroom, sitting on my legs!”

“Keep your hair on,” Humphrey said. Leaning forward and grabbing the door frame, he heaved himself to his feet, and the end of the bed that was hanging in the air clattered to the floor.

Pickering wailed. He could see his feet, but he couldn’t feel them. “You’ve broken my feet!”

“They do look a bit wrong,” Humphrey conceded, scratching his head. Pickering’s feet were pointing in the opposite direction to normal.

Pickering tried to stand up and fell over, flipping around the floor like a fish out of water. “I hate you. I hate you. I hate you!”

Humphrey snorted in amusement. “It’s not the end of the world, Pickers. They’re only feet. They can be fixed.”

“Is it eight o’clock yet?” Pickering gabbled. “Lucretia Cutter’s coming . . .”

“Oh yeah.” Humphrey smiled.

“. . . and the beetles are going.”

“Oh yeah.”

The sound of engines approaching made them lift their heads. Humphrey looked out of the window.

“That’s her, and there’s a van, too. They’re parking opposite.”

“Oh no! Are you sure it’s her?”

“Uh-huh.” Humphrey nodded.

“But I can’t walk!” Pickering howled.

“Sorry about that,” said Humphrey, unapologetically.

There was a knock at the front door. Humphrey headed out of the room.

“No!” Pickering flapped his arms. “Where are you going?”

“To answer the door.”

“Not without me, you’re not!”

Humphrey grinned meanly.

“You broke my ankles, so you are going to have to carry me down the stairs.”

Humphrey pretended to be thinking about it for a moment and then shook his head. “Nope.”

Pickering started screaming. “Humphrey Winston Gamble, if you don’t pick me up and carry me down those stairs, I’m going to tell Lucretia Cutter that you broke my ankles on purpose, and that you can’t be trusted, and that you plan to run off with all her money and . . . WE HAD A DEAL! YOU ODIOUS FATHEAD!”

Humphrey grunted, picking up Pickering roughly in his arms. “Anything to shut you up,” he snarled, and then bellowed down the stairs, “Coming!”

It was the second step that gave way beneath Humphrey’s feet. He stumbled forward, dropping Pickering down the stairs. He pulled his left foot free, only to put his right foot through another floorboard, which was dotted with tiny holes.

“What’s wrong with this place? It’s falling apart!”

“What’s wrong with you, more like.” Pickering rubbed the lump that was already forming on his forehead. “You need to go on a diet!”

“Shut up, or I’ll throw you all the way to the bottom.” Humphrey grabbed up Pickering again angrily, slinging him over his shoulder. Pickering suddenly found his head resting against Humphrey’s enormous buttocks.

Wary of the stairs now, Humphrey descended slowly, testing each one before stepping down.

“Be there in a minute,” he bellowed, carefully stepping over each hole-speckled stair. As he made his way down to the front door, he noticed with some satisfaction that his bedroom door was ajar. He must have been confused last night when he thought he couldn’t get it open. That boy, the one who had mysteriously escaped them, was haunting him. He’d started to see him everywhere, in the street, in Pickering’s junk out in back, he even thought he’d seen him outside Towering Heights yesterday. He shook his head and made a mental note not to kidnap any more children.

“Just a second,” he called, almost able to taste the piles of cash that were waiting for him on the other side of the front door.

He opened the door to find two men in black suits.

“Who are you?” Humphrey asked.

“Dankish,” said a man who looked like he kicked puppies for fun.

“And I’m Craven,” the taller, leaner man said with a nasty smile. “We’ve come for the beetles.”

“Is she here?” Pickering asked Humphrey. “I can’t see anything but your huge backside.”

Ignoring the two men, Humphrey strode across the road to Lucretia Cutter’s car, Pickering slung over his shoulder, oblivious to people’s stares. The darkened window dropped to reveal gold lips and dark glasses.

“Hello,” Humphrey giggled. “Thanks for the champagne.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lucretia Cutter’s eyebrows shot up above her glasses. “Have you been drinking?”

“Turn around. Turn around!” Pickering slapped Humphrey’s backside.

Humphrey swung him around.

“Hello, my dear Lucretia, fancy seeing you here,” Pickering said, trying not to look upside down.

“Stay out of the way,” she said, and the black window rose, ending the conversation.

Humphrey dumped Pickering on the pavement outside the Laundromat. “You frightened her away,” he complained. “I hadn’t finished talking to her.”

“They’re our beetles.” Pickering scowled at Craven and Dankish, who were getting dressed in protective suits beside the back of their open van. “Why do those two get to have all the fun? We should get to do some beetle killing, too. I want a go on one of those poisonous gas guns.” He enviously eyed the row of yellow canisters marked with a black skull and crossbones.

“Wouldn’t the poisonous gas kill us?” Humphrey asked.

Pickering grabbed Humphrey’s ankle and pointed. On the floor of the van was a stack of spare gas masks.

“Not if we’re both wearing one of those.”

 

 

“This is it,” Virginia said to Marvin as she peeped through a gap in the boards covering the Emporium window. “There’s Lucretia Cutter’s car, and there are her henchmen.” She looked at the frog-legged leaf beetle in the palm of her hand. “We’d better go and brief the troops.”

Virginia tiptoed back through the shop to the stairwell behind the cupboard door and crept up to Pickering and Humphrey’s kitchen. She pushed open the door and gasped.

Legions of armored beetles were lined up before her in orderly rows, prepared for war. Every beetle with jaws or claws, antlers or horns, weaponry or skill was there, gathered into regiments, hissing and spitting and flicking their antennae defiantly.

On the floor, a multitude of black-armored rhinoceros beetles—Baxter’s brothers—were lined up beside stag beetles, who shook their monstrous antlerlike mandibles, eager for a fight. On the sink draining board, ranks of emerald-green tiger beetles, who move faster than the eye can see and whose scythelike jaws tear their prey apart, were shoulder to shoulder with titan beetles, equal in voracity but huge and mighty, with mandibles that can cut human flesh. Beside them were the courageous and carefree blister beetles lined up alongside the diabolical ironclad horde and the bombardier beetles. On the front line of the beetle army, in shining bronze, were the dung beetles, bringing powerful ball rollers to the battlefield.

Awestruck, Virginia knelt down before them. “They’re outside now,” she whispered clearly, hoping the beetles understood her. “There are two men wearing helmets and protective suits. They each have a tank of poison on their backs. We need to get those helmets off their heads. They can’t use the gas if they’re not wearing a helmet.

“Once the front door is closed, I’ll signal the attack. Dung beetles and bombardier beetles, you take the offensive positions at the top of the stairs. Remember, we have the advantage of surprise. They aren’t expecting a fight.”

The beetle horde vibrated to show they understood.

“Blister beetles, tigers, and those of you with a strong bite”—Virginia looked around—“you need to get into position on the ceiling of the front hall. You are the downpour squadron. Darkus has told you what you need to do?”

The harlequin beetles reared up and the tiger beetles chittered to one another.

“Blister beetles, you’re in charge of opening up those escape routes for your fellow soldiers. We don’t want to leave casualties behind if we can help it. Diabolical ironclad, you and I have a special mission to complete from the banisters. Stags, rhinos, Atlas, Hercules, the final offensive is down to you.”

A familiar vibrating noise came up the stairwell behind her. Virginia got to her feet as Goliath flew into the room.

“Sir,” she saluted.

The regal beetle landed and took his position in the heart of the front line.

This is how an adventure feels, Virginia thought as her heart roared like a lion in her chest. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door onto the landing and took up her position at the top of the stairs as the beetles marched out behind her, sounding like a storm of hailstones on a tin roof.

 

 

Bertolt checked the clock. It was eight a.m. The Laundromat should have just opened. Trying his best to look normal, he left Uncle Max’s flat, carrying a laundry basket.

He crossed the street, walking nervously past Lucretia Cutter’s car, and was relieved to see the OPEN sign on the Laundromat door.

Once inside, he called out, “Hello?” checking to see that the Laundromat was empty, and then dropped down behind the washing machines in the window, lifting the towel that covered his backpack in the laundry basket.

Newton flitted and flickered nervously above his head.

“You need to stay hidden, Newton,” Bertolt whispered as he pulled out a detonator board the size of a coloring book. “Someone could come in at any minute.”

Screwed to the detonator were four switches, a bunch of wires, and an antenna. He reached into the backpack and pulled out his stopwatch, getting into a position where he could see the action in the street.

Lucretia Cutter’s henchmen were wearing what looked like space suits and checking bright yellow canisters strapped to each other’s backs.

Bertolt felt his heart tap-dancing on his rib cage. He wondered if they sent children to prison for colluding with insects to blow up buildings.