Beyond the Firefly Field (23 page)

“Let's knock them down with sticks,” Paul suggested, and every face lit up except Penny's. As they ran around looking for sticks long enough to do the job, Penny protested vigorously.

After a few minutes of swinging and poking like they were going after a piñata, the boys banged most of the dolls down. Sprinkles quickly turned into light rain as the complaining boys climbed the wet branches to retrieve the remaining movie stars. It wasn't until all the dolls were in plastic bags that Penny stopped complaining about the abuse, even though only one doll head had come off in the process.

“Stop whining about it,” Clayton ordered as he popped the head back on.

“This rain won't make Mike's cousin any happier. She'll be slipping, sliding, and falling down in the mud all the way home,” Ron said in a gleeful voice.

“She's already far from happy,” Brian laughed. “She'll never listen to another word about fairies from Mike, and she'll certainly never come back here.”

“At least we'll have something good to tell the fairies when we see them,” Karl beamed.

Gazing at the dark, gloomy sky, the group realized they were in for a soaking that would last a few days, and they knew they wouldn't be visiting the fairies for some time. Though at first they were happy to take a break from seeing the fairies, an anxiety to see them was building again.

Saving Them

T
he next day brought rain, as they knew it would, and the sound of the mid-afternoon downpour rapping on the tree house roof had its usual effect.

“Hey!” Clayton shouted in a reprimanding voice trying to wake everyone up. “We have to come up with a plan for stopping Farmer Hawkins!” Neither Brian nor Ron felt like walking to the tree house from their subdivision through the heavy rain, but everyone else was there. They stirred slowly from comfortable positions to sit upright at the table.

“Hey, what happened to you guys going to talk to him?” Paul asked.

“Yeah!” Phil echoed.

“I'm not sure I really want to go,” Clayton admitted.

“You big baby!” Penny scolded him. “I'll go talk to him myself,” she finished fiercely. She was not scared of some big, old man, even if he was the scary old farmer.

“Oh, I guess I could go with her,” Karl announced bravely.

“Okay, okay, the three of us will go talk to him,” Clayton said quickly, sensing the others would make him back up, if not eat, his earlier words. He did, however, get his friends to help come up with plans for approaching the old farmer and stopping the developer's bulldozer.

On nice days, they planned to hunt down the old farmer, wherever on his vast property he might be. Rainy days were to be spent at the library doing online research. There were many online materials to scroll through to find the right endangered species, including books, magazines, and newspapers. If the research had been a homework assignment, the kids would have considered it cruel and unusual punishment from an unfair teacher. But to save the fairies, they were eager and happy to do whatever it took. After their recent success with Mike, they were filled with excessive enthusiasm and energy to complete their project.

“We're not going to have much time to find Farmer Hawkins or hunt down any endangered species with all the homework we have to do,” Phil reminded them. A gloomy silence fell, and when the rain let up, they went home where chores and homework awaited them.

All the next week, they carried out their plan. They went to the library when it rained, but became discouraged when they could find little about native species. They even researched old local newspapers to see if others had tried to save anything over the years.

The boys mentioned the project to their biology teacher and asked about the dragonflies, but their teacher wasn't familiar with that particular species and asked the boys to supply a sample. The boys couldn't remember seeing any dragonflies the last few times they crossed streams on the way to the field, so they decided to search the streams further away.

They ventured to streams miles from the tree house in search of the elusive dragonflies, but found nothing. They started talking about other ways to stop the developer. They were also getting increasingly frustrated because they hadn't visited the fairies in over a week, and they were making no progress in solving their problems.

There were a few bright spots in the school week, though. The boys got tremendous satisfaction from teasing Mike and his friends. Taking the chance of a pummeling, Clayton bravely wired one of Penny's fairy-costumed dolls to Mike's locker. The doll carried a note that read, “Alert the media! Call your cousin immediately.” Everybody at school was talking about the fairy doll before Mike found it and whipped it down. All the kids soon heard how Clayton and his friends were filming a fairytale movie, but Mike thought they were real fairies. Mike wasn't taking all the pointing and laughing very well and wore an angry look on his face for days.

After school on the rainless days, the group's efforts proved to be equally fruitless. Penny and Clayton met Karl at the tree house, then wandered around the old man's land searching for him. Normally, the time spent looking for Farmer Hawkins would have been spent doing chores or homework, and in their free time, they would visit the fairy tree. But since chores and homework had to be done daily, trips to the fairy tree were sacrificed to search for the old man.

Saturday turned out to be sunny, warm, and windy.
Very
windy. Trees were costumed in their fall colors, and the wind swirled them around in fairy-like patterns. They watched the windsock on the tree house point straight as an arrow, and worried when they saw outer branches bending to the breaking point. The wind was growing stronger as the day went on.

The kids hurried along the trail to the firefly field to start their search for the farmer. From there, they would head back down the farmer's roads and fields to his barns, with the wind at their backs. It was less windy along the trail to the firefly field in the woods, but frightening, whooshing sounds of the swaying branches were often accompanied by loud cracks of falling limbs.

“I wonder if the fairies have trouble staying in the air when it's so windy,” Karl said as they glanced at the overhead branches buffeted by the gale. Cyclones of leaves swirled madly at their feet, and they knew before long their trail would be completely covered.

“Hopefully we get to find out tonight. I want to see Kast again and go back to the lake,” Penny said, her voice expressing the anxiety they all felt.

“We'll all go with Kast to the lake. I'm not letting you out of my sight again, little sister.”

“Oh, you worry too much.”

“That's what SanDroMonEnLor said.”

They traveled the trail to the firefly field quickly. Meadows they crossed looked like oceans with wind-tossed grasses waving across the troubled pastures. They ran through the wind-exposed fields as fast as they could to return to the calmer trail in the woods. A few times they were startled by falling limbs, and their quick reflexes kept them jumping. As they marched along with the wind, they doubted the old man would even venture out on a day this wild.

Stepping into the firefly field, the kids were dismayed to find even more had been mowed down. The deep cuts were now only thirty yards from the fairy tree. As the tall grass rolled in windy waves, the missing grass seemed even “more missed.”

Immense sadness enveloped the small group as they thought about the changes that were about to destroy life as the fairies knew it. Mother Nature and human nature seemed to conspire against any more fairy visits, and this made the kids more resolute to stop the old farmer, if nothing else. As one, they walked along the field's edge to the farmer's new road.

Not a word was spoken until they were well on their way down the road. Clayton broke the silence. “It seems strange to run and hide from Farmer Hawkins our whole lives, and now we're trying to find him.”

“Well, it's not likely to happen today, not with this wind,” Karl said.

“We shouldn't even be out today,” Penny said.

As they walked, they kept their eyes on the treetops bending in the wind. The wind-rushed leaves created a dull roar, surrounding them like a symphony of kettle drums. In the distance, the sounds of branches snapping and smashing to the ground were frequent—and occasionally, too close.

After walking a few hundred yards, the left side of the protective woods gave way to a cornfield. The battered group stopped and looked at the wind-whipped cornstalks.

“Let's cut through the woods to our trail now,” Penny pleaded above the howl of corn leaves slicing through the air.

“The road curves to the right, toward our trail. Why don't we take it until it stops curving and runs straight?” Clayton suggested, pointing to where the road seemed to disappear. “Besides, it's downhill all the way, and we can run. Come on, Penny,” he encouraged as he started running without waiting for arguments. The others joined him, happy it was downhill. They had about a quarter mile to run, but the wind coming at a cross current made it difficult to make good speed.

After a hundred yards, Clayton stopped to check on Penny. Karl caught up to him, and the two huddled together with their backs to the wind trying to create shelter. Penny struggled to run against the wind until she collapsed into her brother's arms. She snuggled between the two boys, using their bodies as a windbreak, and tried to catch her breath.

“Let's enter the woods here!” she shouted into the huddle they created. It was so windy, she thought she'd blow away.

“We can't. It's all thorn bush and thickets here,” Clayton countered. “We'll just run slowly, and you can run beside us.”

When the curve ended and the bottom of the hill came into view, a large, bare patch of ground lay before them. No corn grew on the patch, and the wind blasted dust in all directions. This forced them to turn their backs to the cornfield and close their eyes to avoid the eye-battering assault. They stopped and hunched over, and Clayton wished they'd chosen the woods when Penny suggested that route.

Opening his eyes slightly, Clayton shouted, “Look for the easiest place to go into the woods.” His swaying arm indicated an area twenty yards on either side of them.

“Don't go in there. Are you crazy?” a gruff voice behind them bellowed.

Farmer Hawkins was standing in front of an old, hay-filled pickup truck on the road leading out of the cornfield. “Don't you dumb kids hear those branches falling? Get into my truck and I'll take you home.” A fierce snapping nearby froze them where they stood.

Clayton was stunned for a moment. The only time he had ever encountered Farmer Hawkins was when he was being chased by him. Or yelled at. Or shooed away. And here he was, trying to help them? He looked over at Penny, who was shivering in the damp wind. Karl's eyes were tearing, and his nose was running. Clayton stared at the old farmer for a minute, and he thought he saw a twinkle in his eye. Maybe he had been wrong about the old farmer. Regardless, they couldn't sit here under this bush.

“Let's go,” Clayton said.

“You're sure?” Penny asked in a whisper. While she said she would talk to the old farmer, she suddenly felt unsure.

“Yes,” Clayton said as he stood and headed toward the truck.

After the trio climbed in, the old farmer told them he had to dump the hay bales stacked in his truck's bed before he could take them home. So, in the safety of the truck, or at least they hoped they were safe, the trio headed up the road they had just run down.

No one spoke until they got to the firefly field and Karl asked, “Are you going to cut this whole field down?”

The old farmer continued driving the truck into the field, staying thirty feet from the tree line at the field's edge.

“No, I'm not. Some of my other meadows are flooded, so this year, I'm going to need this one. The cows will eat the rest of this field over the winter. Now, I need you boys to climb in back and push three bales off the truck. Then every time I stop, push three more,” the farmer instructed, sweeping his arm to indicate the edges of the field he intended for drop points.

“Cut the twine off the bales with this knife and put the twine in the tool box when you're finished.” The old farmer seemed good at giving orders, expecting them to be followed with no questions asked.

Without hesitation, the boys moved to exit the truck cab. As the door opened, Penny spilled out with them, but quickly jumped back in and slammed the door shut. Clayton soon wished he could climb back in, too. Even though the truck was ancient and rusty, the tired glass and heavy metal of its cab completely sheltered them from nature's chaos outside. Jumping into the truck bed, they squinted their eyes against the dust and leaves flying through the air.

“At least now we know the fairy tree is on Farmer Hawkins's property,” Clayton whispered above the noise as he lowered the tailgate.

“Hey! There's the pitchfork Brian warned us about,” Karl whispered back, as they looked to make sure the old farmer was still inside the pickup truck. Clayton pulled the menacing tool from the hay bale that held it captive.

“Brian should be here to appreciate this,” Clayton said as he put the pitchfork down and pushed three bales from the truck.

Inside the cab, a conversation was starting. “I'm Penny. I live next door to Karl,” she began, hoping Farmer Hawkins was in a good mood. “Are you going to sell your land to the developer?” she blurted as the boys continued to push bales off the truck.

“Hello, Penny. I know who you are,” the farmer replied in a surprisingly gentle voice. “I would probably sell him some of my land if he offers a lot of money,” he added without hesitation.

Penny gulped. “I hope nobody sells and the developer goes away. One of the new kids who lives in the subdivision said developers can be stopped by finding a protected or new species living on the land they want to buy. We've been looking for one, but can't find any.” Penny rambled on and on, chatting incessantly. It wasn't until the boys were back in the truck that Penny quieted so the old farmer could say something.

“I think I have the answer to your problem. I know where a horribly altered and definitely endangered species exists. My sons used to catch beetles by the old saw mill and use them as fish bait. Over time, their hard, black shells turned silver, like they were chrome-plated. We decided chemical contamination had affected them, and we never ate fish out of that lake again.”