I Know Why the Caged Cricket Sings
a
Bug's Life fanfic
by
C. "Sparky" Read
Chapter Two
The next night's performance resulted in almost forty audience members - some being repeat business. P.T. was so excited he kept leaping right into the top of the tent and clinging there, whooping for joy. Rosie had to carry him down more than once.
"A month!" crowed the flea after the show was over. "Maybe two!"
Blip poked Molt in an arm as the crew cleaned up the audience's discarded rubbish. "Hey," the firefly grumped. "Where'd you vanish to last night?"
Molt was certain Blip would see him turn red as he lied. "I...went out to get somethin' ta eat."
The firefly didn't notice a thing. "Hmph," he said, going back to picking up trash. "Explains why you were out so long."
The insult sailed right over Molt's head. He sidled up to the wolf spider. "Hey, Ymri?" he said slowly. "Do...do you believe in ghosts?"
Ymri, who was sweeping litter into a bag, paused thoughtfully. "Yes, I suppose I do," he said at last. "But why do you ask this?"
Molt, who was of the opinion that Ymri knew everything and if Ymri said there were ghosts, then that must be final, didn't like that answer. "Well what about...what about cats?"
Ymri was confused. "Cats?"
"Yeah, like...ghost cats."
The spider tried not to smile, to spare Molt's feelings. He could tell that Molt was serious. "I do not believe there is such a thing as a ghost cat," he said firmly.
Molt was tremendously relieved. "Okay," he said. "Well uh...see you guys in the mornin'." He put his broom down and hurried for the tentflap.
"Hey!" cried Flash. "Where do ya think you're goin'?"
"Probably to eat again," suggested Blip.
"Uh...right," lied Molt. He made good his escape.
Flash shook his head. "Pathetic," he said. "The guy just lives for food. It's not healthy."
Blip frowned. Molt wasn't acting like himself at all...and he didn't like it. The others didn't seem concerned; they continued scrubbing spilled cola off of the seats as if nothing was going on. But Blip knew better. At least, he hoped he did. Not that it helped any. With a sigh, he went to empty his trashbag.
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Molt found the house again with no trouble, as it was the only one in the neighborhood with no car in the driveway. He lit on the windowsill and listened to the woman sing.
"It's the daring prince again!" beamed the spider, lowering himself on his line.
Molt didn't deny it. "I'm goin' in there," he said decidedly.
The spider was so startled he accidentally broke his own thread by grabbing at it too hard. He fell with a small thump on the sill. "That's insanity!" he cried, picking himself up. "That ghostcat will send you to the Netherworld in a blink!"
Molt shook his head. "No way," he said firmly. "There's no such thing as a ghostcat. I know for a fact."
But the spider was still all excited. "Doesn't matter if you believe in it or not," he squeaked. "It'll still be there, and you'll still be doomed."
Despite what Ymri said, Molt didn't want to hear about it. "I'm gonna find a way in." He walked to the edge of the windowsill and flew to the ground.
The spider stared down after the grasshopper. "Well don't come crying to me after you get eaten!" he shouted, waving a tiny fist in the air.
Down below, Molt tried hard not to imagine being eaten by a big spectral cat. He walked along the edge of the house, looking for any sort of openings. There were none. Finally, he reached the closed back door. There was positively no space underneath it. However, there was a smaller square cut into the door, with a piece of vinyl tacked over it, which swung slightly in the breeze. Grinning at his luck, Molt jumped to the bottom edge of the square door and squeezed under the vinyl. And like that, he was inside.
But once in, Molt's bravado all but vanished. He was inside a human house! It was a sure way to get killed. The grasshopper pressed himself against the bottom of the door and waited for the end to come.
After waiting for nearly twenty minutes for a giant foot to come crashing down or a cloud of poison gas to smother him, Molt came to the conclusion that his father was a bigger taleteller than he had previously suspected. If there were humans here, they weren't showing themselves. So, taking a deep breath, Molt ventured forward into the darkness.
At this end of the house he could no longer hear the singing, so he wandered blindly through the rooms, sinking to his knees in the expensive shag carpeting and listening for the voice to guide him.
After what seemed like hours, he finally heard it. It was coming from behind a closed door.
Molt looked at the door in dismay. Closed! He felt extraordinarily depressed. He'd come all this way, only to be stopped by a closed door. There was a slight gap under it, but he knew he'd never fit though it.
But then he remembered that the carpet was soft and would allow a bit more room when pressed down. Deciding he may as well try it, he attempted to squeeze under the door. It was a tight fit. Between the bottom of the door and the coarse carpet he wound up rubbing off all of his loose chitin, but by twisting and pushing he finally managed to make it under. He lay on the other side panting for a few minutes.
The woman was definitely in this room. He could hear her humming from the top of a high shelf on one wall. On the wall opposite the door was a window, and Molt knew the old spider was still out there on the sill, waiting for him come back in defeat. Molt was tempted to fly straight to the window and give the old coot a scare but then he remembered why he came in the first place. He looked around.
The room was very tidy, like the other rooms Molt had glimpsed on his way down the hall. There was a fireplace on one side, with a mantle, which was bedecked with a clock and various small trinkets. A television (Molt knew what those were; he and Hopper had seen one once, years before) sat on a small table across from a sofa. There was an impressive stereo system across from the fireplace. And above that was a small shelf. It was the shelf that caught Molt's full attention, and he flew to perch on it.
On the shelf was a smallish screenwalled terrarium, with a hinged, latched top. Inside, a miniature pump-powered fountain flowed next to a Bansai tree. A bark path linked them. The rest of the bottom of the terrarium was carpeted with some kind of moss, dotted with tiny white flowers. And sitting in front of the tree, twining those flowers into her long antennae, was a shiny, stout black cricket with reddish wings. Her eyes were closed, and she was humming a little tune. Molt thought she looked lovely.
At the sound of Molt's wings, however, the cricket looked up in confusion. "Oh!" she cried in alarm, and in a flurry of wings and flowers scrambled into the Bansai tree. She crouched there, peering out with her big brown eyes and not saying a word.
Molt was startled by her sudden flight and stood rooted to the spot. For a few moments they just blinked at one another. Finally, the grasshopper stepped forward.
The cricket gasped and retreated farther into the tree. "Get away!" she warned, her voice tremulous. "I - I mean it, now," she went on, backing up some more. "Who do you think you - Whoops!" she cried, backing up too far and running out of tree. She landed with a splash in the fountain.
Molt rushed up to the screen front of the terrarium, concerned. "You okay?"
The cricket floundered there a moment, stunned, then crawled out of the fountain. She looked at Molt. "Why are you here?" she asked, ignoring both the grasshopper's question and the water dripping from her wings and long antennae. "No one ever comes here but the humans."
Molt paused at the mention of the humans. "Well," he began, trying to explain. "I wanted ta see ya."
The cricket crept forward to put a hand on the Bansai's trunk. "Why?"
"Well, because..." Molt shook his head. "I - I guess it was a dumb reason," he said, and he believed it. "I just...wanted ta know who was singin'."
The cricket, dry now, looked completely baffled. "You...you did?" She frowned. "Well...it was me," she said unnecessarily. "Was I not supposed to?"
Molt shook his head again, more emphatically. "Oh - Oh no! No!" he said hastily. "You're just about the best singer I ever heard."
At that the cricket stepped slowly up to the screen. "I am? Really?" She looked pleased. "Are you sure?"
Molt swallowed when the cricket came near. The moonlight made the white flowers in her antennae look silver. "Um...yeah," he managed.
She smiled broadly, and clasped her two pairs of hands together in delight. Then she stepped back and scrutinized Molt carefully through the screen. Before Molt could ask her what was the matter, she announced firmly, "You're a grasshopper."
This glaringly obvious observation was stated so authoritatively Molt had to keep from laughing. "Of course I am," he grinned. "What did ya think I was, a boll weevil?"
The cricket giggled. "No!" she said. "I just haven't seen one since the pet shop."
That stumped Molt. "Pet shop?"
"You know...the pet shop."
But Molt didn't know. "Did you useta work at one?" He assumed she meant a bug pet shop, which sold aphids and mites and other sorts of insect pets.
The cricket frowned. "No, silly," she corrected him. "Where I was sold. Weren't you sold?"
Molt looked utterly confused. "People don't sell grasshoppers as pets!" he argued.
"Sometimes they do," replied the cricket, "but mostly they're for - " She stopped short. She could see that Molt didn't understand. "If you're not from a pet shop," she changed the subject, "where are you from?"
The grasshopper shrugged. "Well I'm from...outside," he answered, pointing to the window. Then it was his turn to change the subject. "What's your name?"
The cricket paused to twirl an antenna around one hand. "Trill," she told him.
"That's kinda pretty," Molt replied, and she beamed again. "Um," he said. "My name's Molt."
Trill giggled at him. "Molt? Why?"
It occurred to Molt that Trill didn't seem to have too many social graces. But he decided to overlook it for now. "Well, because I - " But he fell silent upon realizing that he had rubbed off all of his molting chitin while entering the room. "Uh...Nevermind," he said at last. He looked at the terrarium. "So, when do ya come outta there?"
Trill reacted as if the grasshopper had suggested she jump down a lizard's throat. "Come out?" she cried. "Why would I want to come out?"
Molt blinked at her. "Why would ya wanna stay in?"
The cricket was indignant. "This is my home," she answered. "It's always been my home, since I was little. Why would I leave my home?"
Molt had never heard of such a thing. "But in there, you can't fly," he told her. "You can't go places...and you can't see anythin'."
Trill glanced over her shoulder at her long trailing wings. "I - I can fly," she said defensively. "A...bit. And where would I go?"
"Well..." Molt tried to think of some good examples. He remembered what the old spider had said. "You could go ta concerts," he said triumphantly. "An' you could go ta restaurants, an'...an' the circus," he added, figuring he might as well. He frowned at Trill's lost expression. "Haven't ya been outta there, ever?"
Trill shook her head and sat down on the moss. "What's 'the circus'?" she asked curiously.
Molt had to smile. "That's where I work," he said, sitting down as well. "There's clowns and a cannon and candy and magic acts and you have no idea what I'm talkin' about do ya?" Trill shook her head. Molt sighed and slumped in defeat.
Trill put a hand to the screen and scooted closer to the grasshopper. "Molt," she said, and the grasshopper looked up at her. "Tell me? About...about Outside? Please?"
They looked at eachother for a while.
"Okay," said Molt finally. Trill smiled brightly at him.
And he told her. He told her about the wind, and the trees, and the grass. He told her about clouds and the stars and the sun and the moon, which were only barely visible through the window's black screen. He told her about the colors and the food. She had seen some of these things on the television and heard of them on the radio but somehow it just had never mattered much before. But now it meant everything. Trill's eyes grew by the minute. She hung on his every word. But finally, Molt stood up.
"I hafta go," he said.
Trill looked crushed. "You're going?" she said in a small voice, standing slowly. "You - You're leaving?"
She sounded so sad, Molt felt sorry for her. "I hafta," he told her. "I gotta get back ta the circus."
Trill drooped. "Okay."
Molt felt horrible. "I can come back," he said, recalling what P.T. had said about staying for a month or more.
The cricket didn't cheer up. "Come back?" she said.
Molt remembered that Trill didn't know much about coming and going, since she always stayed in one spot. "I will come back," he told her. "Tomorrow night."
Trill thought about it. "Tomorrow?"
Molt nodded firmly. "After dark. I'll come in here just like I did tonight."
"Really?" asked Trill hopefully.
"I promise," said Molt, and he left.
After finding his way back out through the small square door, Molt flew around to the window again. He discovered the spider crouched on the sill, sound asleep. The spider looked up in surprise as Molt landed heavily.
"So you weren't eaten by the ghost, eh?"
"Nah."
"And you weren't squashed by the humans."
Molt grinned. "Nope," he said.
The spider frowned suspiciously at the grin. "Don't tell me you actually went in there," he said.
"Then I won't."
"You're a loony!" cried the spider. Then he glanced around. "...Did ya see her?" he whispered, as if anyone else might overhear.
Molt nodded.
"Is she pretty?"
Molt nodded again.
"Good boy!" crowed the spider, patting Molt on the shin proudly. "Now you've got a story to tell the lads back home, eh?"
"It'd be a better story after I see her again."
The spider boggled. "Are you cracked?" he howled. "You'll be smooshed flatter than a...a...an I-don't-know-what! You were lucky this time."
"I'm gonna see her again," said Molt firmly.
"Bah," the spider dismissed him, scuttling up the windowframe back to his web. "You'll be sorry."
Molt doubted it.
