Читать книгу Slime Time - Joe Miller - Страница 6

Zap opened his eyes and stretched his wings. Along with the rest of the Bug Buddies, he’d curled up in the tree trunk and had managed to sleep through the night, despite the rainstorm howling outside. Now the rain had cleared, but where were his friends?

He crawled out of the hollow to see that the ground was covered in sticky mud.

“About time, sleepyhead,” cried a familiar voice.

Zap looked round to see Crunch and Buzz crawling towards him.

“Where’s Lurch?” he asked.

“Here!” shouted Lurch, appearing from behind a bush. He was pushing a large dung ball, which kept getting stuck in the thick mud.

“Perhaps we should rename it Muddy Wood!” said Lurch, puffing.

“I’m so excited about today, I couldn’t eat breakfast,” said Buzz.

“Really?” said Zap, surprised.

“Well … I only had one serving instead of two,” replied Buzz.

Zap laughed as he flew off. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s give this wood a new name!”

Zap, Buzz and Crunch flew towards Gonzo’s Rock, with Lurch crawling along with his dung ball beneath them. A strange glistening kept on catching Zap’s eye. He felt uneasy as he looked about. The wood seems different somehow, he thought, but I can’t quite figure out why.

Zap whizzed round a corner to fly up Leafy Lane and stopped dead.

“Whoah!” said Crunch. “What’s wrong?”

“Take a look,” said Zap, pointing his antennae.

Leafy Lane, where the box elder bugs lived, was usually full of lush trees and shiny green and white hosta plants. But now the trees were stripped of their leaves and the plants had been eaten back to their stalks.

“Giddy grasshoppers!” cried Buzz.

“Looks like the box elder bugs were even hungrier than Buzz,” said Lurch.

A group of them crawled towards the Bug Buddies. Their deep red eyes looked sad.

“It wasn’t us,” said a small box elder. “It was like this when we woke up.”

“We can’t even eat what’s left,” said another, his tummy rumbling. “Every plant is covered in sticky slime.”

Zap looked around. Trails of slime criss-crossed the lane, glistening in the sunlight. He’d seen that same glistening all over the wood this morning …

“We need to talk to Gonzo, right now!” he said.

The Bug Buddies arrived at Gonzo’s Rock to find lots of bugs crowded around the grasshopper.

“We’re starving,” said a green tiger beetle. “All our food is gone.”