Attack of the Spider Bots (6 page)

Beamer hadn't worn the boots since they had visited the old trolley terminal. Sure enough, the paper was a memo from the trolley company. It announced a farewell party being held at the company president's house — Solomon Parker's house! The address was in more pieces than anything else, but he could pick out the street name: “onial.” He made a copy of the bottom of the boot on the family's all-in-one printer/ copier, in case the note fell apart when he tried to remove it. Then he taped the gummy note together and carefully pried it off, hoping the tape would hold it together.

He'd never heard of an Onial street. Later that day, Beamer got Ghoulie and Scilla to check out all the maps they could find. But no luck — no Onial. Even Mr. Parker's
street
had dropped off the planet. He still had the copy of the note in his hand at dinnertime when his mom plopped down a plate full of meat loaf, peas, and macaroni.

“What do you have there?” she asked Beamer as she returned to the kitchen. “Uhven two at twenty pahcent; uhven wun, awf,” he heard her say. She'd been getting better at talking to the appliances. Practically nothing in the house worked unless you talked to it — not just in English, but in a Southern accent. His mother, who was usually called Dr. Mac by her kiddie patients, came back in with two more plates. She then looked over Beamer's shoulder at the paper. “What is that a copy of ? Looks pretty old,” she said, seeing all the cracks in the note. “Where'd you get it?”

Suddenly there was a screech and a whisk of wind as Beamer's little brother, Michael, flew around the table and ripped the note out of his hand. “Got it!” he chortled. “The treasure is mine!”

Beamer was on him in an instant. “Give that back, noodle brain; it's not a treasure map!” Before Michael could uncross his eyes from trying to read the note, Beamer had it back. “It's a memo with the address to Old Lady Parker's brother's house.”

“Beamer!” said his mother through tight lips, with her hands on her hips. “It's not respectful to refer to someone as ‘Old Lady.' ”

“Sorry, Mom,” he said with a guilty look. “It's just that I can't find Mr. Parker's street name on any map.”

“Here, let me have a look,” she said, wiping her hands on her apron. She took the note as Beamer propped his elbows on either side of his plate and dropped his head into his hands.

“This is a Xerox of your boot?” she asked incredulously. “Where's the str — ?” she started. “Oh, I see — onial.” She suddenly laughed. “Onial's only part of the name, honey. I'd put my bet on the name being Colonial. There's a Colonial Street just a few blocks away.”

That's how Beamer, Ghoulie, and Scilla found themselves standing in the middle of Colonial Street a few days later. Ghoulie had wondered how they'd find the house without a street number, but that turned out not to be a problem. The houses down one side of the street were no bigger than Beamer's house. There was only one house on the other side of the street. At least they figured a house was there somewhere. All they could see was a wall high enough to hold back King Kong. Whether it was made of brick or stone or Lego blocks, they couldn't tell, for it was completely covered with a thick layer of vines. And on top of the vines was a heavy coat of snow. Frankly, if the gate hadn't been set between two towers, they wouldn't have known where it was. The gate was, however, firmly locked.

“Now what?” muttered Scilla. “It might be easier to get into Fort Knox.”

“There's got to be a calling thingy here somewhere,” Ghoulie said as he started shuffling through the vines on left tower.

“Maybe the place is too old for stuff like that,” said Scilla as she tried shaking the huge iron gate. A snow clod the size of a beach ball immediately fell and plastered her from ponytail to galoshes.

“Great!” she said as she wiped a handful of snow from each eye. She shed more snow as she turned toward Beamer and Ghoulie, who were snickering like a couple of hyenas with the hiccups. She cocked her hip, throwing off still more snow, and gave them a slow burn. A moment later her gaze lifted to a spot on the gate tower behind them. “When you're through polluting the sound waves, you can push that button behind you.”

The boys twisted their heads around and saw the message console only partly cluttered with vines. Beamer reached up and pushed a button. “Hello . . . uh . . . my name is Beamer MacIntyre, and I'm one of the Star-Fighters — ”

Above the button was a small TV screen. It was blank, but they heard a snooty, feminine recorded voice say, “We are not receiving unsolicited visitors at this time. However, if you have a visitor's pass, please enter your code now.”

“I repeat,” said Scilla to her buddies, once again cocking her hip, “now what?”

“The lady on the speaker doesn't sound very friendly to me,” said Ghoulie. “I say we forget Mr. Parker, especially since everybody else seems to have forgotten him.”

“You're probably right,” said Beamer with a sigh. He kicked a rock into the street, walked up to it, and kicked it again to the other side of the street.

“We've got better things to do than chase down people who don't want to be caught,” Ghoulie added as he followed Beamer across the street.

Suddenly the speaker croaked, and a very weak, breathy voice said, “Is somebody there? Who did you say you were?”

7

Lost in the Jungle

“Wait!” Beamer cried as he ran back across the street. He caught the slightest grainy glimpse of an old man's face on the TV screen before it went blank. He pushed the button again and said, “We are the Star-Fighters . . . from Murphy Street — ” The speaker squealed loudly, causing all three kids to hold their ears in pain. Then the speaker was silent. Beamer banged the button hard and said, “Hello, is anyone there? Is that you, Mr. Parker?” This time there was no answer.

Beamer started pacing back and forth in front of the gate.

“Take it easy, Beamer,” said Scilla. “You'll wear a hole in the sidewalk.”

“Something's wrong,” he said. “We have to get in there.” He charged the wall and leaped onto the vines, trying to pull himself up. He kept sliding back down as one vine after another shredded beneath his weight. He finally gave up and sat on the sidewalk with his chin in his hands.

“You . . . Tarzan,” said Ghoulie, mimicking the deep, staccato way Tarzan spoke in the old movies. “No swing on vines in Middle America.”

Beamer's attention, however, was focused down the street. “Come on!” he said suddenly and scrambled toward a tree that had grown up next to the street. “What do you think you're going to do?” asked Ghoulie as he and Scilla chased after him. “That tree's a good seven feet from the wall. Unless you've got wings or a rocket backpack, you'll never be able to jump that far.”

Beamer wasn't even sure the tree would hold him; it was tall, but its branches were very thin. In fact, the tree shook as he started climbing, shedding what little snow it held like a white cloud.

“Beamer — ” Scilla shouted, “you'll break your stupid neck trying to get to that stupid wall from that stupid tree!”

Beamer kept on climbing. In fact, he kept on climbing even when he passed the height of the wall.

“Beamer!” both Ghoulie and Scilla kept yelling at him.

The tree was now teetering back and forth from his weight on a high branch. It was a little scary, but that is what Beamer wanted it to do. Finally, the tree swung over far enough for him to kick at the snow pack atop the wall. But it wasn't far enough for him to leap onto the wall. So he sidled up the tree to a higher and even more feeble branch and tried again. Once more he swung out over the wall. He was feeling pretty good about himself. One more second and he'd just drop onto the wall. But then he heard a loud
crack,
and his stomach jumped into his throat. The branch had broken! He was falling!

Suddenly he stopped with a harsh jerk. With his heartbeat up around 100 beats per second, Beamer opened his eyes to see that he was dangling high over the sidewalk, like a gymnast holding on to a high bar. He looked over to see that the far end of the branch had fallen onto the wall, while the broken end had lodged into a
V
between two lower branches.

“Beamer!” both of his friends cried together. “Are you all right? Beamer?”

His arms felt like stretched-out bubble gum. He smiled weakly to his buddies below and said in a high-pitched whimper, “Well, I've found a way in.”

Beamer slowly pulled himself across the branch to the wall while Ghoulie and Scilla reluctantly followed his route. After much complaining and grumbling, they all huddled at the foot of the wall inside Mr. Parker's yard.

The bad news was they still couldn't see the house. The other bad news was the yard was more of a jungle than a yard.

“Are we still in Middle America?” Scilla asked.

“If not, we're on a very unfriendly planet,” said Beamer with a gulp.

It had been so long since anyone had mowed the yard that there wasn't anything left to mow. The trees planted long ago had become a forest. The weeds had grown into heavy brush and thin, spidery trees which wild vines wound around like boa constrictors. You couldn't stroll through this forest; you had to climb through it.

“What if he's got guard dogs or — ” Scilla whispered.

“Laser guns or SWAT teams?” Ghoulie finished for her.

“Who needs guard dogs when you have a jungle guarding the way?” said Beamer with a lump growing in his throat. The coating of snow made it look all the more eerie. Instead of magical, the winter here seemed bleak and threatening. We might oughta throw out a few heavy-duty prayers.” He was sure he saw one of the winding vines move.
Do snakes
come out in the winter?

“Well, might as well get eaten on the run as stay sittin' here waiting to be surrounded,” Scilla finally said with a hard swallow. “It can't be too far to the house. This block's not that big.”

They made their way slowly through the brush, crawling and climbing around and through the tangle of vines, weeds, and twisted trees. Eyes wide, they listened for the sound of snarling dogs or for anything slithering or hissing. What made things worse was that they kept having to stop to untangle their clothes from snags and thorns. Just when Beamer was sure they were going in circles, they finally glimpsed the roof of a house.

“Okay, what are we supposed to do now?” asked Scilla through the corner of her mouth. “Knock on the door and say howdy?”

“Yeah, what's the plan, Beamer?” Ghoulie asked as he hunched down beside him.

“It took all the plannin' I had in me to get over the wall,” said Beamer. “It's your turn now.”

“My turn? You're the guy who's been so hot to find Mr. Parker. So go find him.”

That's when the storm troopers arrived, or storm buggers . . . or whatever. A whirring sound filled the trees all around them like a swarm of locusts. The next thing they knew, the spindly branches high in the trees seemed to be falling down on top of them. Then those spidery branches started spreading out in groups of eight, each group suspended beneath a central pod. Before the kids could run out of the way, they were each in a kind of birdcage created by a surrounding set of eight tall legs.

“They are
spiders
,” screamed Scilla on the verge of panic. “Giant, long-legged spiders!”

8

Dragon Lady

“Do not move,” several metallic voices said in perfect unison, “and you will not be harmed.”

The voices came from the central pod, or body, of each spider, which was propped up on legs that were about twice as tall as the kids.

“They're mechanical spiders,” said a wide-eyed Scilla.

The pods were dome-topped metal cylinders about the size of large trash cans with rivets all over them. There were four eyes spread evenly around each pod at the base of the dome. By itself, the pod looked something like the old robots Beamer had seen pictures of from back in the 1930s and 40s.