The surprise attack worked, and the beetle squadron had the wasps flying out of control, twisting and spinning chaotically in the air. While the wasps reorganised, the beetles created a line of defense near the surface of the garden, flapping their wings rapidly, suspended in the air. Every time a wasp attempted another assault on the ants, a beetle would fly at it and strike it with its armored back, sending the wasp whirling into space.
Finally, the wasps accepted defeat and flew away. The christmas beetles fluttered above the garden, their wings making a clicking noise before Christopher made a loud buzzing sound and lowered himself back to the ground, his soldiers descending with him. As soon as the beetles landed, every beetle in the squadron, except Christopher, used their long, segmented back legs and dug furiously into the dirt, hiding back underneath the garden soil.
“Wow, that was, um…humph…prod?..prodigiles?..um, cool!” Wolf exclaimed.
Aquaman gave a thumb’s up, and the soldiers stood at attention, a look of determination on their faces.
“The word’s prodigious, Wolf, and that’s a good word,” Polly said.
“Great job, mate,” Aaron said, taking off his red cap and tipping it towards Christopher.
Christopher saluted Aaron then burrowed underground, leaving only a small pile of damp, greenish-black leaves above the spot where he hid.
“Glad they were here,” Aaron told Wolf, “but we should be getting back now. We still have a lot of work to do today.”
Chapter Twenty-One
One weekend, Wolf decided to build another carrier for Aaron. He decided to make a box that would attach to the handlebars of his red, two-wheeler bike so he could take Aaron on bike rides.
On a Friday afternoon, his father had come home early from work, sober, and joined the family for dinner. During dinner, Wolf’s mother barely spoke a word. Wolf noticed that her brown eyes were sunken, her irises as dark as black holes, and that she was wearing polyester pants and a long sleeve shirt buttoned to the collar which Wolf found odd since it was still forty degrees outside.
Throughout dinner, his father tried to get his mother to talk by casting compliments like bait. “You are such a wonderful cook, Darl. This is delicious,” he said, chewing on roasted chicken. “And, your garden; you really have a green thumb.”
However, no matter what he said, she kept her lips clamped together. She was so silent, her skinny chest almost still, that Wolf wondered if she was breathing, realising that she wouldn’t be able to blink if she weren’t.
After dinner, Wolf waited for Orville to finish in the shower and when he was done, Wolf took his bath, put on his pyjamas, and went into the loungeroom where he joined Orville and his dad to watch The Paul Hogan Show.
When the show ended, Wolf said, “Good night.”
“Good night,” his mother said, standing at the kitchen sink, her gloved hands deep in hot, soapy water.
“Night,” his father replied from his recliner.
Orville didn’t say anything, only glancing at Wolf before gazing back at the telly.
Wolf awoke on Saturday morning feeling rested. He got up, put on his clothes, and went to the kitchen.
“Morning, Mum.”
His mum was wearing a short sleeve shirt, long pants, and on her right, upper arm, Wolf could see a faint, purple bruise.
“You’re having Weet-Bix for brekkie this morning,” his mum stated, placing the cereal bowl in front of him.
“Okay,” Wolf replied, scrunching his nose.
“Yum. Your favorite,” Polly said, standing next to him laughing, her ghostly skin the color of diluted tea.
“You know I don’t like Weet-Bix,” Wolf mumbled.
“What did you say?” his mum asked, now sitting next to him at the breakfast bar, a cup of tea in front of her.
“Um, nothing. I wasn’t talking to you, actually,” he answered, glancing at his mum.
When he looked back down at his cereal bowl, Polly’s face was looking up at him. Her face was the size of the bowl, floating in the milk, and she replaced her real nose with the Weet-Bix biscuit and made her eyes double their normal size, her eyeballs occupying the top-half of the cereal bowl.
“Ahh!” Wolf exclaimed, the air rushing from of his lungs as the spoon dropped from his fingers and into the bowl, splashing milk on the countertop.
“What is wrong with you today?” his mum said, setting down her teacup and staring at him.
“Nothing. I just thought I saw something.”
Polly disappeared from the milk and reappeared in the kitchen sink, laughing.
“Humph,” his mother grunted before sipping her ginger tea.
Wolf ate his cereal in silence, and when he finished, he said, “I’m going to go outside.”
His mother didn’t answer and just looked down into her teacup, the tip of her index finger touching the porcelain saucer.
Wolf went outside, pulled a weed, shoved it into his pocket, and continued walking on the concrete path towards the shed. “Hi, Dad,” he said to his father when he arrived.
“Hey,” his father answered, placing a hammer down on the bench.
“Dad, I want to-to bu-build a box for the fr-fr-front of my bike and pu-put in a gla-glass window,” Wolf said. Then, he took a deep breath and began speaking more slowly, trying to avoid stuttering. “Can I use some of your old wood, and wi-will you cut me a piece of glass?”
“No worries, kid. But, let’s use plastic instead of glass in case you crash.”
Polly whispered in Wolf’s ear. “That’s a good idea. You crash a lot,” she said, giggling.
“Very funny, stupid ghost,” Wolf replied out loud.
“Huh?” his dad asked.
“Um, nothing.”
“You want to build it now?” Wolf’s dad asked.
“Could we?”
His dad stopped what he was doing. “Right, let’s get some plywood. How big does it need to be?”
“Big e-enough for Aaron.”
“Aaron?” his dad asked.
“He’s my fr-friend. He’s an a-ant. I want to take him wi-with me when I ride my-my bike.”
His father’s lips twisted. “Fair enough. A box for an ant it shall be. Let’s make it about the size of a Kraft blue box of cheese.”
“Cool,” Wolf responded.
Wolf watched as his dad used measuring tape and a pencil and made outlines on the sheet wood. He drew two rectangles for the floor and the longest wall, and in another section of the sheet wood, he measured and penciled two more outlines for the two, shorter walls. Then, with a rotary saw, he cut the wood. “Alright, we have our floor and three of the walls,” he told Wolf, stacking them on his bench.
Next, he took the longest length wall cut from the wood and used it as a stencil to draw on the plastic Perspex. When he completed the pencil outline, he cut the plastic with the rotary saw and completed the fourth, see-through wall.
“Here you go,” his dad said, handing Wolf all the cut pieces of wood and plastic, plus a jar of rubber cement. “First, put glue on the edges of the surface of the floor, then, for the three walls, put glue here,” he said, pointing with the tip of his finger, showing Wolf where to apply the glue. “After a few minutes, stick all the pieces together and I’ll come and use clamps so we can get them to really stick. After those edges are dry, we’ll glue on the window.”
After a few minutes, Wolf had the wood floor and walls glued together.
“Hey, looks good,” his father said, inspecting the partially-completed box. His dad pressed the wood pieces together and secured the box with clamps on all sides. “That’ll take a little time to dry, Wolf. Go and play. I’ll call you when it’s ready.”
“Okay, dad, I’ll be in th-the ya-yard,” he said, leaving the shed.
Wolf was outside throwing the ball for Carla when his dad told him to come back inside the shed.
“Now, with the plastic window, do the same thing and put glue on three edges, and then we’ll stick it to the floor a
nd the walls and let it dry,” he finished, handing Wolf the piece of Perspex.
Wolf carefully brushed the adhesive on the edges of the plastic, positioning it so it butted up against the other pieces of wood.
“Alright, good,” his dad said. “Let me put the clamps back on. Come back in about thirty minutes, and we’ll attach the box to your bike.”
“Thanks,” Wolf replied, and he went to the aviary to see Cecelia and the other birds, even though he knew he’d have to talk to them from outside the birdhouse because his parents were around.
A half-hour later, Wolf went back into the garage. “Is it done?”
His father lifted up the box in both of his hands, turning and inspecting each angle. “Looks good. Let’s attach it to your handlebars. First, I’ll drill three holes in the wood so we can connect it,” he said, drilling two holes near the top edge of the wall and one more in the lower center, each hole a corner point of a triangle. Then, his dad grabbed three cable ties and they walked outside to his red bike leaning against the shed. “Hold the box here,” his dad said.
Wolf held the box in the center of the handlebars, the wall with the drilled holes closest to the bars, and his dad threaded cable ties through the holes and pulled on them until they fastened, securing the box.
“Thanks, Dad,” Wolf said, smiling, as his dad patted his curly hair then returned to the shed.
Polly was now next to Wolf, suspended in midair, and so close to him that one of her burlap shoes brushed his ear. “Not bad,” she said, her arms crossed over her chest.
“It’s really good, Polly. I’m going to go show Aaron.” Wolf rolled his bike over to his bedroom window, leaned it against the wall, and kneeled on the ground, putting his mouth near the boards that blocked the void underneath the family’s raised house. “Aaron? You there?”
Aaron appeared from behind the boards. “Hey, mate. How ya going?”
“Look, I built you a carrier for my bike so we can go exploring in the bush.”
“Cool,” Aaron smiled. “You’re becoming quite the builder.”
“Yeah, I guess I am. Like my dad. Be here tomorrow at nine. Right here,” Wolf said, gesturing towards the ground near his feet, “and we’ll go for a ride.”
Wolf stood up and brushed the dirt from his knees. He rolled his red bike near the kitchen door and leaned it against the wall before going into the house to play in his room.
The next morning, Wolf went outside and pulled a weed. Afterward, he grabbed his bike and went over to Aaron’s house where the ant was already waiting on the pathway, dressed in a royal blue racing suit that zipped up the front with holes for all six of his legs to stick out, and on his head was his red cricket cap.
“Hi Aaron. Climb on.” Wolf put his index finger down to the ground and let Aaron crawl onto it, then he lifted the ant off the ground, setting him down inside the plywood box where his tiny, black body became nearly invisible on the surface of the wood.
Their destination was the local dam. Wolf rode his bike down gravel trails, over patches of dried grass, and launched his bike over mounds of dirt, and for the entire ride, Aaron looked out the front window, the claws of his top legs pressed against the plastic.
When they finally arrived at the dam, Wolf put his hand into the box. Aaron crawled onto Wolf’s wrist and held on to an arm hair as they walked to the shoreline, the watercolor transitioning from muddy blue to midnight at the deepest center. Wolf reached into his pocket and pulled out a long strand of string and a small piece of raw mutton. He tied the meat to one end of the twine and held the opposite end of the string in his fingers as he cast the mutton into the lake, listening as the meat slapped the surface before sinking.
“What are you doing?” Aaron inquired, peering upside down from below Wolf’s wrist.
“Fishing for yabbies. When the string moves, that’s when we know we’ve caught one.”
Suddenly, the string pulled, and Wolf felt something weighing the line. Slowly, he pulled the string towards him and as the end got closer, just below the water’s surface, he could see the shape of a yabby clamping the chunk of mutton with both of its claws. Wolf continued to pull the line cautiously, alternating his hands as he dragged the yabby to the shore, and when the string was close enough to the water’s edge, Wolf cupped his hand, reached down, and scooped the crustacean onto the embankment. Next, he gripped the yabby’s armored shell near its head, pinching it tightly between his thumb and index finger, and walked towards his bike.
Then, the yabby dropped the meat from one of its claws and clamped down on Wolf’s thumb. Wolf shrieked and ran around in circles, shaking his hand and trying to unlock the crustacean’s death grip. Aaron laughed so hard that he lost hold of Wolf’s arm hair and fell to the ground, landing on the embankment and splashing wet mud all over his royal blue jumpsuit. As the ant wiped the mud from his bulbous eyes, he saw the yabby fly past his face before hearing a cracking sound as the yabby’s hard-shell hit a nearby rock. As Wolf’s thumb swelled, throbbing with pain, he noticed the yabby laying on a rock, the long antennules at the top of its head whipping the air, an indication it was still alive.
Suddenly, something blocked the sun’s rays from above, casting a shadow over the embankment. Wolf, Aaron, and the yabby looked up at the sky and saw a wedge-tailed eagle circling, hyper-focused on the crustacean laying on the boulder.
“That bird wants to eat the yabby,” Wolf said aloud.
“No way. He can’t have it,” Aaron said, bending his antennae to shield his eyes from the sun.
“I know. That yabby’s our lunch.”
Aaron turned and faced Wolf, the claws on his middle arms pinching his waist. “What did you say? Our lunch? You never mentioned we were going to eat him.”
“Yes, I did. Well, maybe I didn’t. Whatever. Mum will cook it up. It’s really good.”
Aaron frowned and said, “Wolf, why would you eat him? Don’t you have plenty of other things to eat at home?”
Wolf thought for a minute before replying. “Sure, but…”
Before he could finish, Aaron looked him straight in the eyes and said, “Wolf, he probably has a family, and this is his home. Show him kindness, mate.”
Wolf slumped his shoulders and responded with a frustrated tone. “Alright, Aaron, don’t freak out. I’ll let him go.”
The predatory eagle continued to soar above, its wings bent up at the tips as it glided and looped in the breeze, and then the yabby stood upright, snapped its tail on the rock, and arched its back. The yabby stared at Wolf with jet black, marble eyes as it lifted its hulky claws above its head and clicked them like castanets, scooting backwards, before plopping into the water, disappearing into the muck.
The wedge-tail eagle turned abruptly and shot downward, landing next to Wolf. The bird looked intensely towards the water, a flap of fatty skin above each earthy-brown eye giving him the appearance of being angry, and Wolf noticed that the giant eagle’s head almost reached his shoulders.
“Why did you not stop that creature from getting away?” the bird asked snobbishly. “He was mine.”
“He wasn’t yours, or mine. He probably has a family that loves him. And, there’s plenty of other things for you to eat,” Wolf challenged.
The eagle opened its beak wide and released a long, high-pitched sound that sounded like the tortured scream of a woman, then closed his beak again, standing silently.
“What’s your name?” Wolf asked the eagle.
“Walter.”
“Walter, the wedge tail eagle. Good to meet ya, mate.”
Wolf reached out his hand to complete a proper introduction, but the eagle turned away. The bird leaned his head forward and stretched his enormous wings, hoisting his wingtips high above his head before jogging clumsily. As he lifted his chest and ran faster, flapping his wings and pushing his body off the ground with his thick, feather-covered legs, he finally lifted off and flew upwards, growing smaller before disappearing behind white, puffy clouds.
“He was a strange bloke. And rude, I might add,” said Aaron.
“Yep. Anyway, if we aren’t going to catch yabbies, want to do some exploring?”
“Sure!” Aaron answered, delighted.
Wolf noticed something moving near the edge of the dam so he put his finger near Aaron, allowing the ant to crawl back on, and they carefully approached the shoreline to see what it was. At first, Wolf thought it was a small bear or a stout pig, but as they got closer, he could see it wasn’t a bear or a pig at all. It had coarse, bristle-like fur and slightly angled, dark eyes, and a bulbous black nose with two tiny ears that poked up from the top of its head, and on its feet, it was wearing four, yellow rubber boots that reached the underside of its belly.
The animal didn’t seem to notice Wolf and Aaron as they quietly tiptoed, trying to get a closer look, until a branch snapped under Wolf’s foot and the animal froze in place, its cheeks swollen with grasses. A few seconds later, the furry mammal sauntered away and Wolf and Aaron watched as its fat, round backside swayed towards the reeds.
“Let’s follow it,” Wolf whispered.
The rotund animal glanced back and grunted, clearly unhappy at being tracked. Finally, the animal turned towards Wolf and Aaron and opened its mouth, hissing and revealing two rows of tiny teeth. Wolf and Aaron weren’t intimidated and continued to trail behind it, being sure to keep a safe distance in order not to be bitten.
The creature suddenly turned towards a cliffside and climbed into a narrow, tubular hole in the cliff wall, wriggling its plump body, trying to get through to the other side. However, the hole was too narrow and the animal got stuck, only its round, hairy backside and two, yellow gumboots visible on the cliffside.
“G’day,” Wolf said loudly.
There was no reply.
“Need a hand, mate?”
“Leave me alone,” the animal said, his voice muffled.
“Don’t be a grump. We want to be friends. What are you exactly?”
She Named Me Wolf Page 11