Beyond the Firefly Field

by Munzing, R. E.

  “Mike can’t possibly still be out here. I don’t see any flashlights in the woods,” Paul said. “Do we still really have to be so quiet?”

  “Maybe he didn’t bring a flashlight,” Clayton remarked as he turned his off. “Everyone but Karl, turn your lights off and save the batteries until we move again.”

  “No one would be dumb enough not to bring a flashlight,” Penny said as she turned hers on and off reassuringly.

  After a minute’s rest, they proceeded along the trail, soon becoming less and less cautious, swinging their lights around and talking in loud whispers.

  They quickly covered half the distance to the tree house and were talking loudly as they walked. Their conversations consisted of: “Did you see that?” “Wasn’t it cool?” and “I can’t believe it!” They talked compulsively, as if a continued review would keep the memory from fading away.

  “I couldn’t believe it when SeeLee warned us about helper fairies,” Penny said as they climbed out of the gully, using the roots of a large tree for stairs. “I was getting ready to slap her again. I thought all the fairies would be just like her,” she added, reaching the top of the gully. “Then I started to worry.”

  “Did you see the one that was helping the beetle carry the blueberry?” Phil asked, climbing up behind Penny.

  “Yeah, he kept tripping over the beetle’s legs, then tripping the beetle, and finally tearing the berry as he tried to lift it before the beetle could get up,” Paul laughed.

  Phil reached over and slapped his brother’s arm. “Told you there were fairies!”

  “Well, you could have told me better,” Paul rebutted, but he didn’t hit his brother back.

  Voices and flashlights were growing more distant as Mike and his friend Steve hid in a nearby bush. When the noise from the group of kids faded down the trail, they stepped from behind the bushes. They had been hiding in wait for Clayton and his friends to return, having followed them since they left the tree house. They chose a spot secreted fifty feet from the trail.

  “Fairies?” Mike asked in the almost total darkness.

  “That’s what they said,” Steve replied.

  “We’ll have to check this out,” Mike said, his heart pounding at the thrill of stealing a secret.

  “Not tonight,” Steve insisted, then added, “next time we’re bringing flashlights that work.” The two started slowly back home on the trail, barely lit by the almost dead batteries in the one old flashlight they shared.

  “We’ll finally find out what those snobby kids are up to,” Mike sneered with delight.

  Back home, Clayton and Penny tried to act as normal as possible. The children’s efforts were wasted, however, as their parents and Dillon were busy discussing something in the living room.

  Penny hurried to her room unseen, while Clayton stayed in the kitchen to grab a snack. He overheard the discussion about the new subdivision contractor proposing a lake access road. Neither his father nor brother sounded too happy about this idea. They were even more distressed when Clayton’s mother told them about a letter from a developer she’d received that day, stating that he’d planned to buy all the land around the lake. He proposed to construct a fish farm with an adjacent canning factory. His father, assuring his mom that neither he nor his neighbors would ever sell their land, told her to throw the letter away.

  Though the conversation continued, Clayton didn’t hear it, as he was lost in thought. He knew the old saw mill was for sale, and the new campground owners might sell. The new landowners next to the campground might sell, too. His pulse quickened as he thought of Farmer Hawkins. The old man might be tempted to cash in if the offer was big enough and settle someplace warm for a nice retirement. The old man’s land was closest to the fairy tree. It might even be on his property.

  Clayton visualized bulldozers clearing the meadow and the surrounding woods, and putting a big ugly factory on the very spot where the fairy tree now stood. He would have to warn the fairies again, though they had paid no attention to his last warnings.

  He was glad Penny didn’t hear their parents’ conversation before going to sleep. Falling asleep would be almost impossible. Half his mind was still grappling with becoming so small, and all that thinking quickly tired him out.

  Once in bed, he awoke several times from a fitful sleep and envied the pleasant dreams Penny and the others must be having. His dreams were filled with horror. He was tiny again and pacing on one of the branches, trying to get SeeLee to listen to his warnings. Ignoring his words, she kept introducing him to more fairies while happily explaining what they were busy doing.

  Then, a terribly large bulldozer lumbered into his dream, which was fast becoming a horrific nightmare. The mechanical beast pressed steadily closer to the fairy tree. It smashed large branches like toothpicks, sending splinters flying everywhere. Finally reaching the trunk, the bulldozer pushed the tree over, spilling him to the ground. He woke up several times covered in sweat, his heart pounding out of his chest. He had this nightmare over and over until dawn finally broke.

  Running late for school, he didn’t have a chance to talk with his sister at home or at the bus stop. He couldn’t warn the others about the possible problems his parents discussed, because they all agreed never to talk about the fairies on the bus.

  Wendy was the only person he wanted to tell about fairies. He was getting desperate to tell her of their adventures since she would surely be impressed, but whenever he got close enough to speak with her, his words turned to gibberish. He felt exasperated over what she did to him! He did, however, master saying, “Hey,” from time to time. Wendy always seemed so busy and paid him little attention. Unfortunately, she was getting plenty of attention from the other boys.

  The kids from the country felt cloddish around the new city kids, who followed the latest trends and seemed to know all the entertainment gossip. He felt the only way he could compete for Wendy’s attention was to share the fairies with her. And what an unbelievable thing to share!

  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 th
e 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

  It 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.