Nanny X Returns by Madelyn Rosenberg

database—before it got destroyed—hadn’t said “Armed and Dangerous.” It hadn’t mentioned Ursula at all. But there could have been an update.
    â€œApproach with caution,” Nanny X said, reading my mind. “Watch Eliza, Jake Z.”
    â€œWhat are you doing?” I whispered.
    â€œI will engage.” Nanny X adjusted the brim on her fishing hat. Then she reached into the diaper bag and pulled out a small, flowery umbrella. She popped it open and marched up the museum stairs. She actually marched, like a band was playing “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Because of the rain, the tourists were getting inside as fast as possible. No one was paying attention to us. I guess that’s the best way to be inconspicuous: Conduct your most important operations when it’s raining.
    I know I’m in trouble when my mom calls me by my whole name, Jacob Zachary Pringle. So I wasn’t surprised when Nanny X used Ursula’s whole name, now that we knew it.
    â€œUrsula Marie Noodleman?” she said.
    The lady looked at us, and I could tell she hadn’t expected anyone to come up with that. She seemed to notice the rain for the first time, too. She took a fishing hat out of her pocket and put it on.
    â€œI believe,” Nanny X continued, “that you and I share an affinity for fish.”
    â€œI love fish,” Ursula said. “And other creatures. Bugs, for instance.”
    If Ursula liked bugs, she was in the right place. The top floor of the Museum of Natural History had an insect zoo. But Ursula didn’t seem interested in the exhibit, which was partly sponsored by an exterminating company. It turned out she had brought bugs of her own—beetles. Not that we needed more of them. According to my
Freaky Facts
book, there are more beetles than any other type of bug in the world.
    Ursula’s beetles were about the size of a half dollar and almost as flat. Some of the shells were green, likeemeralds—and like the tiny screw Eliza had found at the art museum. Some were black.
    You might think: What could a bug do? The answer is: a lot. For one thing, it could sneak through a museum door a lot more easily than a squirrel. Plus, beetles can chew.
    Even if they didn’t have brains as big as a squirrel—or a fish—they had Ursula at the controls. They could chomp on a painting, or the Easter Island statue, or the fur on the Neanderthals in the Prehistoric Man exhibit. They could destroy things.
    Nanny X walked up a few more steps so she and Ursula were even. “You’ve brought some visitors to the museum, I see,” she said, nodding at the bugs, which were getting rained on with the rest of us. I thought that was a weird word choice—“visitors”—as if the bugs were going upstairs to hang out with the hissing cockroaches .
    â€œJust one is exploring the museum at the moment,” said Ursula. “Sometimes one is all it takes.”
    If that was true, I thought, somebody had to find it.
    My brain ping-ponged back and forth.
Ping
: A bug was already inside.
Pong
: Ursula was outside.
Ping
: The bug was small.
Pong
: It could still go
chomp
. What if the bug was chomping mummies in the Ancient Egypt exhibit
right now
?
    I grabbed Eliza and we ran inside to search for that bug. This was where our dad worked. I’ll bet even Nanny X didn’t know the museum as well as we did. I’ll bet Ursula didn’t, either. I tried to guess where the bug would go. What was the most valuable thing in the museum? What was a national treasure?
    So far she’d taken the Warrior of Montauban’s thumb, a painting of George Washington and a pitcher by PaulRevere. But she’d said she was going taller, which meant bigger.
    The museum had lots of big things, starting with the African elephant near the front. We didn’t see the beetle there. We peeked into the marine hall. Nope. Then I thought about the biggest