Uncle Mike missed the last wooden step coming down from the patio. His ankle twisted. Pain shot shot through his left foot. He quickly shifted his weight back to his right foot, which kept him from falling flat on his face. But the can of beer he held slipped from his hand and dropped to the ground. Before he could stoop down to retrieve it up, half of the beer poured out onto the patio stones.

“Shit!” he said. But just as he said it, he noticed two of his nephews lying in the grass near the side of the house.

“You did not hear that,” he told them with the dumb, boyish smile he always used to get himself out of trouble.

But the boys did not appear to even have noticed. One of them held a stick with a small round net on the end for catching butterflies. The other one held a flashlight, which was turned off. They both stared at the back wall of the house.

Slowly Uncle Mike limped over towards them. “What are you boys doing?” he asked.

The younger nephew, his older brother’s boy, looked up with an annoyed frown on his face and shushed him. The older nephew, his younger sister’s boy, whispered, “we’re waiting…..” without taking his eyes off the wall.

“Oh, sorry,” Uncle Mike said also lowering his voice to a whisper, “Waiting for what?”

“A sticklehopper,” the younger boy answered.

“A what?” Uncle Mike started to ask, then a smile spread across his face. From his boyhood memories he remembered the stories his father used to tell, stories about ghosts and foxes that changed into beautiful ladies….. stories about snipes and sticklehoppers.

“So you’ve been talking to Grandpa?” he whispered, taking a slurp of the beer remaining in his can.

The boys nodded.

“God,” he thought, “Did that man never stop? He used to scare us out of our wits with those ridiculous stories. Now he’s doing it to a second generation.”

Then he got an idea.

“Hey,” he whispered to the boys, “Did Grandpa tell you that they bite?”

Both boys looked up at him. Uncle Mike wanted to laugh when he saw their mouths drop open, but he kept a straight face.

“They do?” the older boy asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Uncle Mike said, “I got bit once. I didn’t see the damn thing, but he took a nice piece of flesh out of my finger. I must have bled for an hour.”

The boys looked at each other.

“If I were you,” Uncle Mike said before turning around and walking off, “I wouldn’t use a net to catch it. I’d get a gun to shoot it.”


After he left, the younger boy whose name was Ken, pushed himself up into a sitting position. “What do you think?” he asked.

The older boy sat up too. “I don’t know. Didn’t Grandpa say we could catch it?”

“Yeah,” Ken said, “He said we should shine the light in its eyes, and…..”

“And what?”

“I forgot,” Ken said.

“Hey, I got an idea,” the older boy said, “Wait here!” He got up and ran off around the corner to the driveway side of the house. Ken held the flash light pointed at the dryer vent, his thumb on the switch, waiting to turn the light on at the slightest sound. He heard the voices of his aunts, uncles, and cousins coming from the front of the house.  They were all out there. Then he heard a car door slam. The next moment his cousin came running back around the corner.

“Look,” he said, holding something up.

Ken struggled to see it in the gathering darkness. “What is it?”

“A slingshot.”

“You gonna kill it?” Ken asked.

“If it tries to bite me…..”

The two boys settled back down. Ken held the flashlight. His older cousin held both the net and the slingshot. He started to feel around on the ground for a stone or something to use for the slinghot. He only searched for a short time when a woman with a little girl in tow came around the corner of the house.

“Reed?!” the woman shouted into the backyard.

The boys looked at each other. Grandpa had told them they had to be quiet.  

The woman shouted again. “Reed?!”

“I’m over here!” the older boy shouted back between clenched teeth. He did not want to make noise, but he knew his mother would go on shouting until he answered.

“Where?” his mother asked turning in the boys direction.

“Over here in the grass!”

Pulling the little girl along, the woman came across the patio and down the steps to where the boys were lying in the grass. Even though it had grown too dark to see it, the older boy hid his slingshot under his leg.

“Reed, you’re not drinking beer are you?” the woman asked when she got within a few feet of the boys.

“No, Mom,” the older boy said, “Jeez, could you keep it down?”

“Why?”

“We’re waiting for a sticklehopper,” the older boy said, “Grandpa said it will come out of the dryer vent when it gets dark enough and quiet enough.”

The woman looked at the back wall of the house. Suddenly she remembered her father’s stories. She remembered the evenings she and her brothers spent hiding in the shadows, swatting off mosquitoes and waiting for something to appear.    

“What did Grandpa tell you to do?” she asked, lowering her voice to a whisper.

“He said to shine the light in its face, and then…..” Ken paused.

“And then what?”

Suddenly the lid on the dryer vent rattled. Ken switched on the flashlight. A circle of light appeared on the back of the house, the dryer vent in the center of the circle. Everyone stopped talking and watched wide-eyed. Reed readied the net to bring it swooping down. But nothing came out. Reed’s mom was about to say that Grandma must have just turned on the dryer, when she got an idea. 

 “Did Grandpa tell you to sing to it?” she asked.

 Ken switched off the flashlight.

“No,” Reed said.

“I used to sing to them when I was a little girl.”

“Sing to them what?” Ken asked.

“Oh, anything,” the woman answered, “Mary had a Little Lamb or Happy Birthday.”

“Hap-py Birf-day,” the little girl began to sing.

The woman began to laugh. “Not you, silly,“ she said.

The little girl giggled and pointed at the vent, which rattled once more and stopped.

“Anyways,” she said to the boys in a soft voice before turning to leave, “I just wanted to tell you two that they are about to start shooting off fireworks.”


After she left, both boys looked at each other. They could barely see each other’s faces in the darkness, even though they were only a few feet apart.

“What do you want to do?” Ken asked.

“Fireworks,” Reed said.

“Me too,” Ken said, “But what about the stickelhopper?”

Reed thought for a moment, then he said, “Shine the light over by the flowers.”

Ken switched on the flashlight and swung the light so it shone on Grandma’s flower bed. Reed got up and walked over. A cricket stopped chirping. Reed bent down, took hold of one of the bricks that Grandma used for a border around her flowers, and wriggling it back and forth, pulled it loose. Several water bugs scurried away in the damp mud under the brick. 

“Shine the light on the vent,” Reed told Ken.

He did. Reed took the brick over and leaned it up against the vent. “There!” he said.

Ken got up and walked over to take a look. He pushed the brick so it was firmly set in the grass. 

 “He won’t get out of there,” he said.

The boys left the flashlight, the butterfly net, and the slingshot on the ground. They told themselves they would come back when the fireworks finished. Soon after they ran off, the cricket started chirping again. Shouts could be heard coming from the front of the house, then a series of pops followed by a big bang shook the evening stillness. There was a scratching on the vent. It moved a little, but the weight of the brick kept it shut.

Around the corner of the house came an old woman. She walked slowly with shoulders slightly stooped, but her steps were sure. She knew every inch of the yard. She knew where the patio ended. She knew where the steps started. She even knew which stones were uneven. But she nearly tripped on the flashlight where her grandson left it. 

She bent down and picked it up. It took her nearly a minute to figure out it was a flashlight. She found the switch. A circle of light appeared on the ground. She saw the net and the slingshot in the grass. She bent down to gather them up when she noticed the brick leaning against the lid of her dryer vent. She shook her head.

               
“That won’t do,” she said.

She walked across the grass and pushed the brick away from the vent with her foot. It fell harmlessly into the grass. She turned around, deciding to continue her inspection of the yard with the flashlight in hand. She had not gone three steps when she heard the dryer vent rattling. She turned around and shined the light from the flashlight on the vent. There was nothing there. She ran the light down along the back of the house. Nothing. She turned off the flashlight.

               
She almost started across the yard, when she remembered she left some laundry in the dryer that afternoon before everyone showed up. She stood very quietly, holding the flashlight with both hands, her thumbs on top of the switch. The dryer vent rattled. But she didn’t move. It rattled again, then it banged shut. She switched the light on.

              
The stickelhopper froze. Grandma did not see it at first. Its head looked like a leaf, its body like a slim pinecone. Its arms and legs were long and thin like twigs. But the blue sock on the ground had not been there a moment before. Grandma saw the stickelhopper’s hand holding onto the sock. Then it moved. One of its legs started to edge slowly to the left, away from the light.

               
‘Wait, wait,” Grandma whispered softly, “Don’t run away”.

               
Slowly she reached down for the butterfly net.

               
“I know you just want that sock,” she said in a soothing voice, “You need to keep warm in the winter time, don’t you?”

The stickelhopper’s head seemed to cock to one side, like it was trying to understand what she said. Its leg moved another slow step to the left. Then its body followed. But it eyes did not stop watching Grandma. She followed with the light from the flashlight. Her hand reached the handle of the butterfly net.  

              
“But how many socks do you need?” Grandma asked with a chuckle, “I think you already took several from us.”

               
The stickelhopper now looked like it was going to jump. Its body moved over both its legs, which bent tightly beneath it. If it jumped, Grandma did not think she could catch it. Her hand wrapped around the handle of the butterfly net.

               
“Don’t run away,” she whispered.

               
But the stickelhopper jumped, three bounds along the back wall of the house, almost too fast for Grandma to follow with the flashlight. She started after it, but she knew she could not catch it. When she reached the patio steps, she shined the flashlight at back wall of house. She was expecting to see the stickelhopper disappear around the corner. But instead, she saw Grandpa. He stood at the corner of the house with a plastic garbage can in one hand, holding the lid down with the other.  

               
“Did you catch it?” Grandma asked almost out of breath as she reached Grandpa.

                 
He nodded.

               
Grandma sighed. “That little devil was trying to steal one of the socks I got you for your birthday.”

               
Grandpa took the flashlight from Grandma. He switched it on. Then slowly he moved the lid back a few inches to peer into the garbage can.

               
“Be careful,” Grandma said.

               
Down in the bottom of the garbage can he saw the stickelhopper. It was trapped, and it knew it. Its arms tried to grab on to the plastic sides of
the garbage can, but it couldn’t. 

               
“You’re getting bold, aren’t you?” Grandpa said to the stickelhopper, “old sock with holes in them aren’t good enough for you, are they?”

               
He reached in and snatched his sock from the bottom of the garbage can. The stickelhopper tried to jump out, but Grandpa was too quick. He quickly shut the lid.

               
Shouts came from around the corner of the house. Colored flares launched one after the other up over the road. The last one banged loudly. It was followed by laughter. Grandpa handed his sock to Grandma.

               
“They’ll be finished with the fireworks in a few minutes,” he said.

               
“I better go get the ice cream ready,” Grandma said.

               
But she watched as Grandpa secured the lid of the garbage can. He lifted it into the back of his pickup truck. Then he walked around the side of his truck and got in the cab. Grandma walked over to the cab, leaning in the open window on the passenger side.

               
“You don’t want to show it to everyone?”she asked.

               
“You know they won’t see it,” he said.

               
“Except maybe the little ones……” Grandma said, but she saw he was not getting out of his truck…..”What are you going to do with it?”

               
“Take it down to the woods and let it go,” Grandpa answered.

               
“But won’t it come back?” Grandma asked.

               
“I don’t think so,” Grandpa said, “They built that whole subdivision of new homes over there. It’ll be happy hunting for the little fellow.”

               
Grandma smiled and stepped back away from the truck when Grandpa turned the engine over. She waved as he put it into gear. He rolled down the driveway, turned onto the road, and disappeared into the night, leaving only the sound of gravel crunching under his truck tires behind.

               
“Now it will be someone else’s problem,” she thought. 


The End