In Search of Goliathus Hercules (4 page)

“I watch patiently and then I learn,” said Mrs. Black with a dry chuckle.

“Just as all good scientists do. Patience is a virtue. Curiosity is another admirable quality in an inquiring mind,” remarked Great Aunt Georgie in an anxious twitter. “Agatha, I must excuse myself and visit the powder room,” she said, putting down her teacup.

Mrs. Black watched Great Aunt Georgie leave the room and turned her gaze back upon Henri. “What do you think, On-
ree
? Is curiosity a desirable characteristic?”

Suddenly the room seemed very hot. A bead of sweat trickled down his neck. He was sure this was a trick question. Reluctantly, he said, “I suppose that it is.”

“Just don’t forget, curiosity killed the cat!” She gave a raspy cackle. “You know your great aunt has been such a help to me with my collection. I trust she will continue to assist me. Thanks to her, I have expanded my collection of seeds to include scientifically related areas. Perhaps you will help me too?”

Help Mrs. Black with her collection? What a very odd request. “I wish I could help you,” Henri said politely. “But I don’t know anything about seeds.”

“Well, perhaps you know about related fields?” Mrs. Black suggested slyly. “Such as insects?”

Henri felt tense as he thought of his conversation with Dom the fly. Avoiding the question, Henri said, “I didn’t know that seeds and insects were related.”

“Surely at school you studied that insects pollinate flowers, which in turn produce seeds?” asked Mrs. Black in an almost accusatory tone.

“Yes I did. I…I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

Rising, Mrs. Black said, “Come with me, On-
ree
. I have something I want to show you.”

She led him to an adjoining room. It must have once been a conservatory for indoor plants, but the glass panes had all been painted black. There was no natural light. Henri could hear something that sounded a bit like the fluttering of birds’ wings. Mrs. Black lit a candle.

Henri saw a shelf holding two glass tanks, like the kind people kept tropical fish in; but these contained no water. Mrs. Black ushered him closer as she held up the candle to the first tank. Staring out with unblinking eyes was a very large red, black, and white striped snake. Henri felt his heart speed up, and he took several quick breaths. The snake in turn seemed to stick out its forked tongue in time to the rise and fall of Henri’s chest.

“It’s a king snake,” announced Mrs. Black.

Moving to the other case, she held up the light and said, “And this is a monitor lizard.” Henri faced a gigantic lizard that was clearly too big for its tank. He had no desire to move nearer.

“And up here”—Mrs. Black raised her arm to a wire cage mounted on the wall—“are my beauties!” She said this with genuine enthusiasm. The fluttering sound stopped as the light hit the cage, and Henri could see at least six bats dangling from the top by their feet. “It’s feeding time. I thought you would like to help me,” Mrs. Black said. She grinned—or perhaps it was a sneer, Henri couldn’t tell.

“Um…thank you for the opportunity. What do they eat?” he inquired.

“Their diet varies. Rodents, frogs, insects. Today they will be dining on crickets.” Mrs. Black picked up a small wire box and pulled out a wriggling, very unwilling cricket. She moved to the lizard’s tank. She was about to drop the cricket in when Henri heard a noise. It sounded like high-pitched wailing.

“Do you hear something?” asked Henri.

“No,” said Mrs. Black as she dropped the cricket in. A second later, the sound was gone. Henri looked at the lizard in time to see it suck the cricket’s last leg into its mouth, like a person slurping a length of spaghetti (not Henri, of course, since that was considered poor dinner table etiquette).

“Ready to give it a try?”

Henri moved forward and Mrs. Black dropped a struggling cricket into his hand. He quickly cupped his other hand over it so it could not escape.

The creature thrashed about in desperation, seeming well aware of its fate. Again Henri heard the high-pitched wail. “I hear it again! Someone’s crying,” said Henri. “Maybe it’s Great Aunt Georgie. Perhaps she’s fallen!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, On
-ree
. I hear nothing. Now, go ahead and drop that cricket in.” Henri turned toward the tank, but the wailing was becoming even louder. The fluttering of the cricket in his hands sent tremors up his arms, and he realized that he could feel the insect’s fear. “Do it!” commanded Mrs. Black.

Henri looked at Mrs. Black, blinked, and then felt himself falling. Suddenly everything went black.

H
enri opened his eyes. He was lying in his bed at Woodland Farm. Something wet and cold was on his forehead. He reached up and touched it. “Ouch!” It must have been a compress and underneath it was a very large bump. His head hurt! Just then Henri felt a tickle on his hand.

“Good. You’re awake at last.” Henri looked down to see a fly sitting on his hand.

“Dom?”

“The one and only! At your service.”

Though it hurt, Henri couldn’t help but smile because, after all, how could a fly be the one and only? And how could Dom possibly be of any help? Actually, he might be able to answer some questions. “What happened? Why am I here?”

“As I understand it, you fainted and cracked your head hard on the floor during your visit to Mrs. Black’s house this morning.”

“Oh yes. I remember. I was in the reptile room.”

“Yes, apparently Mrs. Black thinks you fainted because you were afraid of a lizard.”

“I was not afraid!” said Henri, sitting bolt upright in his rage. He instantly regretted it. His head ached and he felt woozy. Slowly he lay back down.

“Take it easy!

“I was not afraid,” Henri firmly reiterated.

“Of course not. Good for you. Now me? I would be afraid because lizards have long tongues and excellent tongue-eye coordination. They’d pick me off in half a second and swallow me whole, not even bothering to see if I tasted good. Any insect in their right mind stays away from the Black house.”

“The last thing I remember, someone was screaming, and then everything went dark,” said Henri.

“Are you sure it wasn’t you screaming?” asked Dom.

“Yes, I’m sure!” responded Henri, annoyed.

“Touchy, touchy. Well, since you don’t seem to be in a very good mood, I won’t linger here.”

“Ugh!” mumbled Henri. It was true that he wasn’t in a good humor. He rolled over on his side and closed his eyes.

When Henri awoke next, Great Aunt Georgie was sitting at the foot of his bed.

“Oh, Henri! I’ve been so worried! You told me you weren’t well yesterday. I should have listened to you. You slept all through the afternoon and night. I feared you would never wake up again.”

Henri sat up and felt his forehead. He could feel a trace of a bump, but his head was clear. “Aunt Georgie, I feel fine. I’m going to get up.”

After much protest, Great Aunt Georgie allowed Henri to get up, but she insisted on helping him down the stairs to the dining room. She served him a cup of tea and bowl of porridge—“something soft,” as she said. Henri felt amused. He’d hit his forehead, not lost his teeth!

After breakfast Henri declared that he was going outside. Alone. “Fresh air will be good for me.”

Only after he promised to be back in one hour did Great Aunt Georgie at last agree. “Invalids should spend a little time outdoors but mustn’t do anything to exert themselves.”

“I am not an invalid!” exclaimed Henri in a voice loud enough that even Great Aunt Georgie could hear.

“Well, perhaps not, but you don’t want to become one!”

Henri stomped out of the house. The garden backed onto a field that perhaps had been cultivated with crops at one time, but at present was a tangle of weeds, tall grass, and wildflowers. The boundary of garden and field was marked by a white picket fence. Henri passed through the gate in the middle. He liked the abrupt change from the ordered garden to the chaos of the field. Henri started to run, heading for the creek that meandered lazily at the foot of the field.

He took off his socks and shoes at the creek and sat on the bank and dipped his feet into the cool water. He thought about the last two days and how odd they had been. On two occasions now he had spoken with a fly! Or had he? Maybe the bump to his head had made him confused. Perhaps he was imagining the whole thing.

Henri sat, deep in thought. Around him on the bank, in the grass, and up in the trees, insects were chirping. It was a symphony of sound! The high-pitched squeal of cicadas was interrupted by the lower bass chirps of crickets.

Henri listened and slowly realized it was not just sound, but voices. Cicadas were entreating one another with calls of “I’m over here, I’m over here.” And “Come closer, come closer, come closer.” It seemed they never said anything just once. Over and over again he heard the beseeching calls. Meanwhile the crickets seemed to hum single words. “Careful, careful!” and “warning, warning!” Perhaps the crickets were warning their friends about him?

He was uncomfortable and a bit afraid. Henri realized he was not alone. There were hundreds, maybe thousands of other creatures here, and he could hear them. He could
understand
them! And then, just as suddenly as he had felt fearful, Henri felt excited. It was as if a haze had been lifted from his eyes and he could see properly. The whole riverbank was alive!

Now he understood that the sound he had heard the day before at Mrs. Black’s house was the sound of a cricket, crying and begging for its life. Instantly Henri tensed. He realized that if he shifted his body, he might well hurt someone or something. He felt like an elephant or “a bull in a china shop” as Great Aunt Georgie probably would have said.

Slowly and carefully, Henri stood up. Then, with a great leap over an anthill, he raced back to the house, socks and shoes in hand, to tell Great Aunt Georgie of his discovery!

Henri ran into the house, full of excitement and out of breath. He dropped his socks and muddy shoes by the back door. As he walked along the hallway, the polka dotted walls of buttons gleamed in the sun. He had come to think of the buttons as being a bit like books in a library. Henri could point to one, and Great Aunt Georgie would tell a story. He passed the black pearl button that had adorned a Japanese emperor’s robe and then the turquoise button that came from deepest, darkest Peru. It was supposed to be lucky because it was believed that turquoise had healing powers that strengthened the wearer against sickness and disease.

“Henri, is that you?”

Henri stopped. He heard the ominous rustling of a stiff silk dress. He turned toward the parlor to see Great Aunt Georgie and…Mrs. Black. Henri shuddered, but he pulled himself together and said, “Good day, Great Aunt Georgie and Mrs. Black.”

All thoughts of telling Great Aunt Georgie of his discovery left his mind. Instinctively Henri knew he did not want to share this information with Mrs. Black. There she sat in the armchair near the fireplace in her starched black dress. Her hair was drawn tightly back and wrapped in a bun that most unusually was held together with a very long, ornate hatpin. Despite the warm weather, she wore black gloves, and her bony hands made Henri think of claws. The rustling of the black silk dress seemed to create a charged, brittle energy in the room, and without knowing why, Henri felt nervous. He always felt nervous under her disapproving stare—guilty without having done anything.