Beyond the Firefly Field (10 page)

It was impossible to pay attention in school that day. He and his friends didn't even participate in the TGIF goofy fun. Frequently, they were found staring into space with blank looks on their faces. They were disoriented when someone talked to them, always resenting from being jarred from their memories. They seemed to want to be somewhere else. As the day wore on, the fairy-struck kids tried to participate in whatever was happening, but they always lost interest. Nothing normal held any excitement for them.

Before the school day ended, a harsh dose of reality slammed them. Phil and Clayton were walking down the hall to class when they saw Brian and Mike getting books from their lockers.

Mike turned to Brian and asked, “Are you going to visit the fairies tonight?” Then louder, so the girls standing nearby could overhear, he added with a sneer, “Is the Tooth Fairy there, too?”

“What fairies? There aren't any fairies,” Brian retorted as he resorted to a “deny everything” mode. Mike pushed Brian out of his way and walked off to his next class.

“He knows,” Brian warned. They all stood in disbelief for a moment, their hearts pounding at the thought of danger to the fairies.

“We have to tell the others and meet at the tree house right after supper,” Phil urged as the two went in opposite directions to their classes.

After seemingly endless hours in the last class period of the day, the bell to dismiss school finally rang. The hallways filled with students excited about the coming weekend. Caught in the rush of everyone talking at once about their Saturday plans, with the faster kids jostling for good bus seats, Clayton and his friends quickly left the building and boarded their bus. As usual, they sat in the back. They didn't want Mike and his friends sitting behind them, and fortunately the back seats were easy to claim.

As the bus filled and talking reached a fever pitch, he softly instructed the others huddled around him to meet at the tree house at seven o'clock, even if it was raining. It had already started to sprinkle as the bus pulled away with its load. In a return to some kind of normalcy, Clayton and the others joined in the usual weekend pandemonium.

As Clayton and Penny were heading down the aisle of the bus, Mike leaned over the seat and said, “My cousin works at the TV station in the city. Maybe I can get a camera crew to come out to interview your fairies.”

“What are you talking about? There's no such thing as fairies,” Clayton said.

Clayton and Penny got off the bus, swallowed the lumps in their throats, and headed home with a sense of dread at what trouble might lie ahead.

By six thirty that evening, they were all at the tree house, too excited to wait until the seven o'clock appointed time. A steady rain made soothing noises on the roof, and a mountain of dripping umbrellas mounded in one corner. Oil lamps and candles lining the shelves gave the small room a cozy feel, dispelling the gathering gloom under the thick clouds. As Brian, the last to arrive, pushed his way onto the bench, he tried to dry his sopping clothing. His rain poncho wasn't that waterproof.

They sat in silence for a moment, enjoying the comfort of the room. Staring at the candles and listening to the rain hit the roof almost soothed the group into a state of mindlessness. They were, however, very glad they weren't standing in the rain in the darkening woods, as cooler nights chased away memories of the summer's stifling heat.

“We're definitely going to need a fireplace in this room, Karl,” Ron finally said as he shivered. “When it gets much colder, we'll simply have to stop coming here.”

“Yeah,” Brian agreed. “Draw up some plans for a wood burner,” he ordered as he jostled for more room on the bench.

“And draw up plans for folding fairy furniture while you're at it. This place could really use some,” Ron added.

“Hey!” Penny complained, falling off the other end of the bench when Brian claimed more room. She climbed up to sit on the table. “What are we going to do? We need to whack Mike and his gang.”

“It's not a gang, and where did you get that ‘whack' word?” Clayton demanded.

“From some new girls in school,” Penny said defensively.

“What
are
we going to do?” Ron echoed Penny's question. “Mike said his cousin works at a TV station in the city, and he can get a camera crew to come out here,” Brian said.

“No sane person is going to be talked into driving out here, then walking four miles through the woods to see some fairies,” Paul said, unconcerned. “When Phil told me about the fairies, the last thing on my mind was to believe him, and he's my brother. I don't think Mike will have any better luck than Phil did.”

“We don't even know if Mike actually saw fairies or just heard us talking about them,” Ron said.

“What if he saw us getting small and walking on the branch?” Penny asked, becoming more worried as she spoke.

“He'd have fairy shock,” Clayton offered automatically.

“That's it!” Karl shouted as his face lit up. “We know Mike didn't see any fairies or he'd have fairy shock. We all did.” He looked around at everyone for agreement.

“I thought you said there wasn't any fairy shock,” Ron accused.

“That only applies to time warps,” Karl quickly defended.

“Some of us still have fairy shock,” Brian reminded Karl.

“Hey, I know! All we need to do is booby trap Mike when he follows us out there. We can give him booby trap shock,” Karl said.

“We can whack him with a booby trap,” Penny chimed in.

“Stop saying whack. Nobody's getting whacked.”

“Booby traps?” Brian asked.

Clayton smirked. “Booby-trapping was once a favorite pastime around here, and a particularly rousing game was going on a couple of years ago, with revenge booby traps a daily occurrence,” he explained. “Then our parents finally stopped it after revenge traps were destroying clothing and household stuff. We blamed our older brothers for teaching us how to make the traps. They quickly blamed the parents, who they had seen doing these things to each other, so a community-wide ban was put into effect as a result.”

“Are we going to booby trap the fish farm guy, too?” Brian asked, moving on to the next problem. “My dad says the man wants to buy all the land around the lake so he can make the lake deeper and bigger. Then he's going to build a canning factory, but we don't know where.”

As Brian finished, this more serious problem brought an ominous silence as everyone thought frantically for an answer. With thoughts of the fairy tree being bulldozed and replaced with a factory, their minds went blank with panicked fear.

“It's not very likely everyone will sell to him,” Clayton said, wishfully nipping the problem in the bud.

“I heard he doesn't want whole properties, just the six hundred feet or so closest to the lake,” Karl worried.

“No matter what the developer does, old Farmer Hawkins's road is at the edge of the firefly field right now,” Phil said, announcing their next problem. “I looked over there while we were running through the field, and I'm pretty sure I saw a clearing that wasn't there before.”

“Maybe he's going to plant the field,” Penny said.

“He's got lots of fields near his orchards to plant, and they're closer to his house,” Karl countered.

“He must be making a road to the lake,” Clayton offered.

“Why would he do that?” Ron asked.

“Maybe he's going to hunt for ducks. He could trailer a duck boat to the lake and launch it,” Phil replied.

“He better not shoot any fairies,” Penny growled, anger welling up inside at the thought. “Hey! Maybe we could whack him too!”

“Wouldn't he already have a road if he was a duck hunter?” Brian asked. “Maybe we
should
whack him.”

Pictures of fairies being shot out of the air filled Clayton's thoughts. “He might have another road, and the recent rain put it under water,” he said, rolling his eyes. “We never explored that part of the lake because the swamp was there. Whenever we wandered around the lake, we took the other way. If we came all the way around to the swamp, we can cut through the woods to the main road to get back home. There could be ten roads to the lake on the other side of the firefly field, for all we know.”

“Maybe this, maybe that, maybe the other,” Karl said, frustrated.

“Maybe he knows about the fairies, and he's going to bring them food for the winter,” Penny said.

“Whatever is happening, we must warn the fairies,” Clayton firmly announced. “And not just SeeLee either. She seems too young to understand danger. The last time we warned her, she acted like we were talking about the weather, and she went on without a care in the world.”

“You're right,” Karl agreed. “We'll have to warn her mother and father. They must have dealt with this kind of problem before, since they've stayed hidden for so long,” he added.

After Karl spoke, Clayton felt somewhat relieved that the fairies might know what to do.

“We need to get Dillon and Wayne to help us with Mike,” Brian said.

“Good idea,” Clayton agreed. “If our booby traps make Mike mad instead of scaring him away, we'll need those guys to help fight him and his buddies.”

Everybody fell silent after that prospect. Leaning back in the comfortable dimly lit room, they all felt some relief at having an action plan, even though they knew much was out of their control. Now, they could enjoy a sense of comfort at being protected from the rain while the light from the candles shielded them from darkness. After a while, the pattering of the rain on the roof washed all thoughts from their minds, leaving them drowsy.

“We should have brought food,” Paul finally said, jarring everyone back from their collective trance.

“And sleeping bags, too. I love when the sound of rain puts me to sleep,” Brian said. “I'm definitely not looking forward to my long walk home in the rainy darkness.”

“You guys can come back to my house,” Clayton told Brian and Ron. “You can call your parents to let them know you're staying over, then we'll grab some food and sleeping bags and come back here.” When they agreed, Clayton made the offer to the others.

“I'm not sleeping out here in the cold,” Penny insisted, as if anyone considering that idea was crazy. She wanted her warm bed with her blankets and stuffed animals.

“I'll sleep out here,” Paul said.

“Go ahead. I'll be warm in my bed,” Phil countered.

“That sounds good to me,” Karl agreed.

“Let's
all
meet back here at noon tomorrow. We have some preparations to make,” Clayton announced, concluding the meeting.

They all grabbed their umbrellas and parkas and headed for home, getting wet anyway from the wind-blown rain.

When the four boys returned to the tree house later that night, they snacked on food and talked for a while. They tried to stay awake, but the steady rhythm of the rain and the warmth of their sleeping bags soon lulled them to sleep.

Like those who slept in the comfort of their beds, they dreamt about saving the fairies. A blow-out party would be held in their honor, and the grateful fairies would shower them with gifts and praise. Folk songs would be written about their heroic actions, and newborn fairy children would be named after them. They would be gifted the ability to levitate and be granted real wings.

But most of the fairy-smitten group woke up several times that night with the sensation of falling, disbelieving they could actually levitate. For Clayton, however, dreams of things going wrong and a vague sense of an unknown menace filled his mind with unease.

Setting the Traps

I
t was shortly after noon when Clayton saw Karl walking across the muddy field. The bright sunshine had already dried the oats and left only small, stubborn puddles of water on the path to the tree house. When Karl entered the room, the others were explaining to Brian and Paul why their dreams about the fairies kept dissolving. Karl pulled a scrunched roll of drawings from his belt. He unrolled them as best he could and placed them on the table.

“Are these the booby trap drawings?” Ron asked.

“These are booby traps, folding fairy furniture,
and
a design for a spiral staircase around the tree to get up here. I'm sick of using that stupid rope ladder,” Karl announced.

Everyone took that to mean that they would soon be working on the tree house again. It would be a time and labor-consuming project, but it would offer diversion and relief from the problems they were facing. Instead of the expected groans and arguments, the boys seemed eager to work as they crowded around to see Karl's drawings. He happily explained how the stairway would be made of logs, with anchor posts going past handrails to support a roof over the winding stairs. The more details of its construction he provided, the more excited the kids became about the project.

As that topic ran out of steam, drawings of the folding furniture were unveiled. Those sketches received a similar reception. Karl designed tables and benches that could be pulled down from the walls and folded back up when not in use.

Other drawings featured fold-out shelves, pop-up windowsill tables, and additional folding chairs. Everyone wanted to work on the furniture, so they all picked a favorite piece to build.

Eventually, they uncovered a booby trap design. As the drawing above the trap was removed and the sinister diagram exposed, the group fell silent. It reminded them of the fairies they must save, and how much their lives had changed since first meeting the little creatures.

Every moment awake was consumed by the fairies. They were always thinking about them, trying to get to them, or actually being with them. The fairies even claimed their dreams. As a startling afterthought, Clayton realized how much they really needed everyday normal things back in their lives. He was also beginning to wonder if their lives hadn't been better off before meeting the fairies.

Getting back to the task at hand, they studied the booby trap drawings while Karl explained each one. “Too bad Penny isn't here. I made this drawing just for her.” The drawing showed an old washing machine balanced on a high tree limb. “When the deserving victim steps on the trip wire, the washer crashes down on him and he gets seriously whacked.”

“She'd like that,” Clayton said as Karl crumpled the drawing and tossed it aside.

Under the Penny-inspired design were drawings of log and rock piles that would avalanche down on someone climbing out of a gully. One showed a dead tree falling on the trail, like the one that Farmer Hawkins almost dropped on them.

Another showed an unbalanced log rolling down a gully to smash into a trail walker. Some diagrams featured pits or small holes dug into the trail and covered with leaves to conceal them. The last booby trap design, one everybody particularly liked, involved an arrow from a crossbow slamming into a beehive. Coincidently, there was a beehive tucked into the bottom of a rotting branch on a large tree on the trail halfway to the firefly field. All traps had concealed trip wires, so they were invisible as unsuspecting intruders tried to follow the trail.

After thinking it over, Clayton said, “The only ones we can really get away with are the small stone avalanche, the rolling log, and the bee invasion. The others are too obvious, and they would definitely get back at us if we tried them.”

“Don't bees cause a lot of harm to people?” Ron questioned.

“I'm counting on those guys to make a quick getaway, and only getting stung once or twice in the process,” Karl defended.

“We owe them payback anyway, Ron,” Brian said. “We've had sticks and stones thrown at us on our trips to the tree house.”

“We all get stung once or twice every summer. It's no big deal,” Karl said to close the subject. The others agreed, wanting to construct the booby traps immediately.

No one brought stuff for an outing, so they needed to make a quick trip to Clayton's house for supplies. They figured they wouldn't be gone that long, so water bottles and snacks were all that would be needed for their booby trap-setting adventure. The pocket knife and a hatchet that Karl brought from his dad's shed were the only equipment they would need. He also tucked twine into his belt loop to use for the trip wires. Before they left, no one could turn down a quick soup and sandwich lunch offered by the twins' mother.

Once they finally got moving, they quietly walked the first third of the way to the firefly field. They were constantly checking the woods to see if they were being watched. Occasionally, someone would stay behind to hide and see if they were being followed by Mike and his guys.

They eventually came to a gully suitable for staging an avalanche and gathered stones into a pile atop the far side. Although the stones weren't big enough to hurt anyone too much, it would be the first annoying incident along the trail, to be followed by others.

Satisfied with their first creation, they continued along. They took the same precautions while traveling the trail as before, although they never saw anyone. Soon they came to a place where a log could be rigged to roll into another gully. Again, not enough to hurt too much, but just enough to annoy and discourage any interloper.

Pleased with their cunning skills, the kids headed to their next objective. The bee tree was located five feet from the trail. For the booby trap to be effective, Mike and his friends had to stand under the branch with the hive positioned directly above them. The boys concocted a devious plan to make sure it happened, and then set out to build the trap, which turned out to be pretty complicated.

A sapling was cut for the bow and tied into shape with string. Two straight sticks were fastened at the center to create a crossbow. The arrow was made from the straightest stick they could find. The string was pulled to test-fire the arrow, which perched nicely between the two extended sticks, and a target was set twice as far. This was extra insurance.

They found three saplings to attach and hold the bow so it pointed the arrow directly at the hive. The bow was pulled back, and a stick was jammed between the bow and string to keep it taut. The tripwire string was attached to this stick.

The tripwire trigger for the crossbow was a fine example of Karl's ingenuity and was quite intricate. The string hanging from the bow pull-stick was tied to a dangling log, not quite heavy enough to pull the stick out and send the arrow flying. The string continued straight down where a forked stick was jammed into the ground, and then went under the fork and along the ground, then up to a branch in a tree next to the one holding the hive. There it was tied to a waist-high branch.

They figured that Mike wouldn't come alone. Once he and his friends were tricked into going behind the big tree, one of them would have to push the branch out of his way to make room for the others, thus springing the trap. The strings near the ground were heavily concealed with leaves and plants.

When the dastardly masterpiece was finished, Karl placed the arrow onto the bow and laughed with glee. The boys sat down near the bee tree to rest and enjoy their snacks and water.

“I told you to bring more water,” Phil said to Paul.

“You were standing next to it. Why didn't you bring it?”

“I was bringing everything else.”

“You were not.”

“I was too.”

“Were not.”

“Was too.”

“Not.”

“Was.”

“N–”

“This will be so cool,” Karl interrupted. “You can't even tell it's a booby trap. They'll never know what hit them. They don't know who they're dealing with!”

“Karl the Mighty!” Phil said as he raised his arms and bowed at the waist.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Clayton admonished.

“You guys know I'm the best,” Karl said, beaming with pride.

“He's the best?” Ron asked.

“Yeah,” Clayton reluctantly agreed. “During the booby trap craze, we didn't pick on Karl a lot because he was too good at picking on us.”

Karl laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, we're done here,” Clayton said. “And it only took two and a half hours,” he added, impressed with their teamwork.

“As long as we're this far, we might as well see if Farmer Hawkins's road goes as far as the firefly field,” Ron suggested.

“But we'll have to be real quiet and quick,” Clayton warned. “Some of us have things to do at home before we can come back to visit the fairies tonight.”

They all agreed, especially the twins, who had a big lawn to cut and had been arguing about who had already cut more than the other.

They checked the bee tree one last time. Sunlight hit in patches, breaking through the leafy canopy and shining on bees flying around the nest, now hidden on the other side of the tree. With smiles of anticipation and satisfaction, they turned and headed off down the trail as quickly and quietly as possible.

While walking the trail with Ron and Brian leading, Clayton kept looking into the brightly lit woods. Other times he had walked this part of the trail, the light of day was already dimming. Today it was still bright, and the sun brought warmth that had been missing the last few days. Clayton felt like he was sightseeing as he walked along the trial, not that there was much to see. Gently rolling, wooded hills traveled up and down, working away from the trail on both sides. There were also scattered, brightly lit spots, indicating small clearings. Fall colors were starting to decorate the trees with an autumn palette, although it would seem less beautiful this year, having seen the glorious color of fairies' wings.

Clayton's daydreaming was suddenly interrupted by Brian and Ron. They had been walking so fast that he lost sight of them around a bend in the trail. They were now running back at him, screaming at the top of their lungs. By the time Clayton turned to follow them, Brian and Ron were long past and charging full speed ahead.

Everyone joined them running down the trail, with no one wanting to be last, even though they had no clue what they were running from. Finally, the screaming stopped, but the running didn't. Clayton passed Karl on the trail, then flew by Paul and Phil before seeing Brian and Ron hunched over on the trail ahead. They were almost at the bee tree and were desperately gasping for breath. The boys stood bent, with hands on knees, their heads turning to see what was coming down the trail.

“What are we running from?” Clayton asked between gasps.

“Big…” Ron panted, “black…bear!”

“Standing on trail. Huge. Eating berries. Looked at us, right in the eye,” Brian wheezed in broken sentences while trying to catch his breath.

“Oh geez, you dummy,” Karl complained while sweating and breathing hard.

“You don't have to run from a black bear,” Paul added in his “don't-you-know-anything” tone of voice.

“It probably ran from you,” Phil added in rare agreement.

“They didn't know,” Clayton said in their defense. “Up here, there are lots of bears. They roam all over the woods, and they eat constantly in late summer. They need to fatten up for the winter, so they wander everywhere looking for food. In a few more weeks, they'll be knocking on our back doors begging. Luckily, they're more afraid of us than we are of them.”

“I don't think so,” Brian said. “That bear would have had to faint dead away to be more afraid than I was.”

“You can't run faster than a bear anyway,” Karl chided.

“I thought I heard that somewhere before, so I was only trying to run faster than Ron.”

“Thanks, Brian. Leave me there to get eaten by a bear.”

“Well, you do need to be afraid in the spring, when the cubs are running around. You don't want to get between them and their mothers,” Clayton advised. “Now we have to walk back there all over again.”

“You're not serious,” Brian objected.

“I am. The bear's gone. Let's go.” Having said that, Clayton walked back up the trail, and one by one, the others followed.

When they were no longer winded, they picked up the pace. Quickly and quietly, they covered the distance to the spot where Brian and Ron had seen the bear. Deep tracks in the trail indicated where the bear had stood up on its hind legs.

Clayton squatted down and sunk his hand into one of the tracks, his fingers barely filling the claw marks. “Female,” he announced, standing up again. “A male would have been much bigger. They run away, too, usually. If you talk and make a lot of noise when you're in the woods, they leave before you even know they were there.”