Chester Cricket's New Home (5 page)

“Bye, Chester,” the turtle called.

But Walter would have nothing at all to do with a farewell as simple as saying “Goodbye.” He surfed to where the cricket was standing uncertainly and gave him a wink of his snake eyes. “Your antennae are drooping, Chester friend. Be not so sad! All may yet be well. Take care of him, Friendly Feathers! He! he! ho! ho!”

“—and har! har!” Chester Cricket finished it for him, none too happily, as he hopped away with John.

*   *   *

And next morning—“Ho!
ho!
What
is
this I see?” Walter sang his old refrain again, for there on the bank, in exactly the same place he'd been yesterday, sat Chester Cricket. “It can't be that well-known homeowner—stump-jumper—”

“Oh, stop it!” said Chester. “I don't feel like joking.”

“What happened?” said Walter. He lowered his head so it rested on the pool's smooth surface as if it were only a blue silk cushion, just put there for Walt to lean on and listen.

“Do you know what a housewarming is?” asked the cricket sadly.

“Can't say that I do. We had a little fire once, two tuffets down from the one where I often take the sun. Some idiot with a cigarette! But a bullfrog splashed water up from the brook. What
is
a housewarming?”

“A housewarming,” began Chester, “I now know for sure, is a special party for someone who moves. His friends all get together and fix up his new home as nice as they can, and then they throw this enormous party, to mess it all up again.”

“I see.”

“And, Walter—” Chester sighed and shook his head, but decided he'd better get everything straight. “Now, I like birds, Walter. I really do. Relationships between birds and insects aren't always too great, but honestly, I do like birds.”

“I take it that most of these housewarming partygoers were birds,” said Walter.

“You wouldn't believe it! When me and Friendly Feathers—I mean, John Robin and I—”

Chester's story—he really was getting the feel of it now, and it felt kind of laughable—was interrupted right at the beginning by an old and creaky laugh, like a door on a squeaky hinge. Simon Turtle, who'd crawled up onto his log where it dipped in the water, had settled in to enjoy himself. “Go on,” he encouraged. “Don't mind me. I just didn't want to miss the fun.”

“Fun,” Chester echoed. “Well—come to think—from all the jabber and bills clattering I guess everybody enjoyed themselves. Except me. But I was only the guest of honor. Anyway”—he took a storytelling breath—“John and I hopped down to the willow tree, and John flew me up to Lou's Lofty Lookout. That's what I decided to call it. Of course I could have jumped up myself, from branch to branch—I'd have had to learn, if that was going to be my home—but I thought this first day I might as well go up on the robin elevator. And I was tired. So much has happened these past two days—I just wanted to rest, and get my bearings.”

“So how's the location?” asked Walt. “As spectacular as Friendly Feathers said?”

“It really is, but, you know, crickets are really earth types—stumps, logs—”

“Fireplaces—”

“Yes. But not so much for heights. And Lou's nest is
high!
At least on the tenth branch up. And it does overlook the whole Meadow, since it's built way out at the end. In fact”—Chester twitched an antenna—“a little too near the end. It made me feel woozy.”

“You have acrophobia, Chester ol' pal?”

“I didn't think so till yesterday, Walt. In New York, Lulu Pigeon took me up to the top of the Empire State Building. Of course I fell
off!
—that's enough to give anyone fear of heights. But it wasn't so much it was high, Lou's nest, it's that it
swayed.
Back and forth, back and forth—
ooo-ah! ooo-ah!
—I got downright queasy. And there wasn't that much of a wind yesterday. Also”—Chester wrinkled his face in a grimace—“I may have gotten a little seasick because it still did smell of squirrel.”

“I see.” Walter did an S-curve in the pool. “Are there any other charms of this place you've neglected to tell us?”

“Not really. John and Dorothy had mended most of the holes. There
was
one rather big one left. But if I'd fallen out any time, I'd have had something soft to land on. The nest is so far out on the branch that it overhangs the brook. Kind of shivery, in fact, to look through that hole and see the current swirling beneath.”

“Umhmm,” said Walter. “So the truth is, if you had fallen asleep one night—rocked seasick in the cradle of air—you might very well have dropped through a hole and fallen ten branches or more into the water.”

“Yes, more or less,” agreed Chester.

“Please proceed,” Walt invited, in a silky, sly voice.

“Anyway, I didn't have very much chance to be sick. Because right away my life got almost scared out of me. I was only just starting to look over the nest—”

“Picking your way among the potholes,” Walter put in.

“—when from everywhere there came this tremendous shout: SURPRISE! It's a good thing a squirrel's nest is all safe and snug. I'd have been blown clear out otherwise.”

“A surprise party!” Walt frolicked around in the water. “But I thought it was a housewarming party.”

“It was a combination surprise, housewarming, welcome-in and bring-a-little-something-you-don't-really-want-as-a-gift party. And, Walter, you cannot
imagine
how many birds crashed that party! That whole willow tree was just crawling with birds. They'd been hiding—behind leaves, under branches—just everywhere! Even some in a neighboring maple. And birds are very good, I've found, at not being seen when they don't want to be. But how they kept quiet I never will know. They made up for it later, that's for sure!”

“Take it from the big ‘SURPRISE!'” said Walter Water Snake.

“‘Surprise!' they all shouted, and started piling into that nest and out along that branch. Within two minutes there were jillions of birds lined up. I thought, she's going to snap for sure. But she didn't. She held. I guess willow trees are used to birds' shenanigans. So anyway, Walt, there I was—”

“Birds to the right of you! Birds to the left of you! Birds above, and birds below!”

“It was utter pandemonium! And Dorothy Robin kept dashing up, saying, ‘Chester dear, more company! More company, Chester!' She was the hostess, more or less.”

“Dorothy always liked being hostess,” Simon Turtle wheezed.

“A model of self-control, I've no doubt.” Walter flipped his tail over his heart: a picture of innocence.

“Self-control! I thought to myself, if I don't fall out of this nest, she will. Walt”—a different little thought struck Chester—“are you making fun of me?”

“Wouldn't
dream
of it!” said the water snake. “But what about the things they brought? Little gifties, I presume. Come on, Creaky Cricket—tell me! Tell me! Tell me!”

Chester looked at Walter Water Snake quizzically; his eyes were asking him what he meant. He decided that even if Walter was making fun, it wasn't mean fun he was making. And also Chester—who'd been quite a star performer once—was rather enjoying Walter's rapt attention. With his grinning head poked up out of the water, the snake was an avid listener.

“The ‘gifties' mostly were little things I was meant to enjoy in my new home,” Chester went on. “But, actually, in a lot of cases I think it was stuff that the birds didn't want, or else they'd outgrown. I mean literally outgrown. Quite a few were molting, and they'd brought me a few of their own old feathers that should have been thrown away. ‘For nesting,' they said. Well, Walt,
I
don't nest! Insects don't nest—except wasps and bees and others like them. If you call a hive a nest. And if I did, I wouldn't want to make my nest out of smelly old feathers and pieces of Kleenex and burlap scrounged up from heaven knows where.”

“Didn't anyone bring food?” Walter asked.

“Oh, plenty! At least two dozen did! Lovely nuts, and berries, and a few choice seeds, and some even brought
worms!!
”

“A robin's delight,” sighed Walt.

“And within five minutes the ones who'd brought the tastiest things had eaten them up, congratulating each other—and me—on how delicious everything was!”

Without a word, as fast as a breeze that wrinkles the surface, Walter flashed away, to the other end of Simon's Pool, where he did some shaking and spluttering.

“And, Simon,” said Chester, while Walt was gone, “the noise they made! You wouldn't be-
lieve
—”

“Wait! Wait!” Walter was back. “I don't want to miss a single word!”

“I was telling Simon about the racket.”

“That's just birds, Chester,” Simon said. “They love to get together and flock, and talk and flap and have a party.”

“Well, they had a party, all right!” said the cricket. “That Dorothy Robin kept fluttering up, saying, ‘Company's coming!' ‘More company's coming!' ‘Chester, here's some more company!' It got so the sound of that word—‘company!'—would make my blood run cold. And then she'd reel off a string of names—none of which I'd remember. Except for Sam.” Chester tightened his mouth, as if something didn't taste too good.

“Sam?” said Simon and Walter together. “Who's Sam?”

“Sam Grackle. He flew in about five o'clock.”

“Five o'clock?” Walter Water Snake reared up—up—and then back, and hung suspended, incredulous, in the air. “How long did this party go on?”

“
All day!
There were birds dropping in the whole afternoon! Every friendly feather in the township of Hedley—in all of Connecticut!—must have shown up. That's one more thing I found out about birds: the word spreads fast! Especially if there's a party involved.”

Walter bobbed impatiently, prompting Chester. “So big Sam Grackle arrived when the festivities were well under way?”

“How do you know he was big?” said Chester.

“All grackles are big”—Walter whipped himself out impatiently, and then folded himself back into an S—“and a lot of them are stupid, too. Boors! Grackles are boors.”

“That's Sam exactly. Big, stupid, and raucous. Was he noisy! ‘Hi, gang!' he croaked, as he landed right on top of me. I was out on the branch by now—the nest was too crowded—and Big Sam came smashing right down on my back. He apologized, though. ‘Didn't see you, kid. Ya're kinda little. Har! har!' And, Walt—when
you
say ‘har! har!' I know it's a joke. You sort of say it to make fun of yourself. But when Big Sam Grackle said ‘har! har!' he really meant
‘har! har!'
That's just how he laughed. With a beak full of seed. You should have seen how he ate! He tore into those berries and nuts as if there were famine dead ahead. And all the time he was doing his eating he kept on telling boring stories about his relatives!”

All Chester's vexation wanted to burst—but the only word that came out was
“Really!”

“Loud-beak bum,” Walter Water Snake muttered. “I know the type. Poor cricket.
Poor cricket!
What did you do?”

“I crawled out to the end of the branch and stayed there,” said Chester. “And nobody even knew I was gone. Those birds carried on till the sun went down. And then they all fell asleep everywhere. I thought the whole tree would fall down! Even the sturdiest willow tree can only support so many birds.”

“Where did you sleep, Chester?” Simon asked.

“Right out there—the little sleep I could get—in the crook of a twig, hanging on for dear life so I wouldn't fall into the brook. This morning I was up before anyone—I was so glad to see that sun! The birds started waking up, one by one, hiccupping and coughing, and making their tune-up morning chirps. I just left. I hopped down, branch by branch, and—left. Rude, I guess—just jumping out like that. I'll thank John Robin and Dorothy later. But—but—” Chester shook his head slowly. His antennae waved in wide, vague circles. “I knew this morning when I woke up that the willow tree was not for me. It's not just the party. Sooner or later, the guests will leave. Don't guests always leave?”