Free Chameleon Chaos by Ali Sparkes

As he hung by his feet from the bars, Josh reflected that this was not a good day.
    His school shoes were laced firmly to the bridge of the climbing structure. His laces would probably snap if he relaxed his feet out of their rigid hook-shape and slid off the metal rung—but this could only lead to another problem. There was a three-foot drop below him. And it was a soft landing. A soft,
muddy
landing.
    A week of rain had turned the whole playground into a swamp. The caretaker had even put cones and orange tape up around the climbing structure to stop anyone from getting onto it. When Josh finally staggered into class looking like a mud monster, the teachers would be in no doubt that he’d broken the rules and gone onto the climbingstructure. He’d be in a lot of trouble, even though it wasn’t his fault.
    He had tried to swing himself up and get an arm through the bars so he could untie his shoes with his spare hand—but he couldn’t manage it. He just wasn’t good at being upside down—and the longer he hung here, the more his head threatened to explode. He felt as if his eyeballs were getting bigger with every passing minute.
    No. On average, this was not a good day. Josh really needed help. He really needed Danny, his twin brother. But as everyone had now gone back inside, it didn’t look as though anyone would be coming by soon.
    His feet were beginning to shake horribly now. Josh called “Help!” a few times. But nobody came. It really looked as if he was going to end the afternoon looking like a hippo.
    He wrapped his arms around his head. He bunched up his eyes. He was going to have to drop and snap the laces. His feet just couldn’t stay like this …
    â€œJosh? What on earth are you doing, you peculiar child?”
    â€œGah!” grunted Josh. His eyes pinged open again, and he saw the bristly upside-down chin of Petty Potts just inches from his face.
    â€œGetmyleeegs!” he gurgled. “Quiiick! I’m going to—gah!”
    SLIP.
    SNAP.
    DOOF.

    Josh found himself on the ground, gasping and gurgling as his blood-filled brain spun and his vision wavered. On the bright side, he seemed to have avoided the worst of the mud. He realized Petty Potts had grabbed him just as his laces broke. This turned his fall from a straight drop to a sudden slither. His pants were a bit muddy, but there were only a couple of splotches on his school shirt.
    Petty crouched down and peered at him through her thick lenses. She scratched her wiry thatch of gray hair. “Are you training for the Olympics?” she enquired.
    â€œNo!” huffed Josh, carefully getting up onto his elbows. His head swooshed about as the blood in it started to get back to other locations in his body. “Not unless there’s a medal for getting stupidly in the way of even stupider school bullies. I’d probably get gold for that!”
    â€œOh dear,” Petty said, helping him to his feet. “Who was it?”
    Josh shook his head and screwed up his eyes again.
    â€œWell, you don’t have to worry about snitching to me, do you?” Petty said. “I’m not your teacher. I’m just your kindly next-door neighbor.”
    â€œKindly?” spluttered Josh. He could think of a lot of words to describe Petty Potts—grumpy, eccentric, genius, amazing, idiotic, and dangerous were the first ones that came to mind. But she
had
just saved him from a bath of sticky brown goo and a severe yelling-at back in class.
    He sighed. “Billy Sutter and Jason Bilk,” he muttered.
    â€œAaaah,” Petty said, as if she had a clue whom he was talking about.
    â€œThey were just about to commit mass anticide,” Josh explained. “They were heading for my ant farm that I set up for the class—with a bottle of boiling hot water! They were going to boil 254 defenseless ants alive! I had to throw my lunch at them to stop them.”
    â€œAaaah,”