The Cockroaches of Stay More (8 page)

These were the thoughts that filled her young head as she walked slowly homeward. As she neared the Dingletoon log, she heard certain rhythmic sounds which she recognized as her mother’s crooning to Tish’s infant siblings:

“Joshua bless yore pitchy eyeses! And yore waxy cheekses! And yore cherry mouthses! And yore scraggly legses! And ever bitty bits of you’unses’ blessit bodies!”

There were so many of them, in the several broods of Jack and Josie Dingletoon, including a freshly hatched litter of fifteen scarcely out of their milk-white babyhood and with their easteregg open like a huge zippered purse in the center of the loafing room. In addition to these babies, who were scampering madly all over the place in search of any scrap that was chewable, there was another brood of a baker’s dozen in their third instar, and still a third brood in their fifth instar, making for quite a large family. Of course the older children of this family could just as well set up their own homes and lives, but the Dingletoons had always been family-oriented and possessed of a strong flocking instinct, like many poor Carlott families—the Flockroaches of Stay More. Tish was the only one of her generation of siblings to remain in the household, and thus a share of the supervision of the younger ones fell upon her.

Mother of them all and veteran of many nights of hauling eastereggs around at the end of her abdomen, Josie Dingletoon still retained much of the freshness and even the plump prettiness of her youth, and it was clear that whatever attractiveness Tish possessed had been inherited from her mother.

“I’ll dance with ’em a while for ye, Momma,” Tish offered, and sought to relieve her mother of the responsibility for keeping the children entertained.

But Josie, always blithe, seemed even more cheerful tonight. “We’ll everbody dance!” she exclaimed. “I’m glad ye’ve come, Letitia hon, but not to spell me with these younguns. We’ve all got reason to party and dance! Jist wait’ll I tell ye!”

“Maw…” said young Jubal, touching his sniffwhip timidly to her, but he was ignored.

“Does it have anything to do with Daddy makin such a joke of hisself tonight?” Tish asked. “Did you hear about it? I was so mortified I wanted to sink into the ground and disappear or be gobbled right up by a frog!”

“Now daughter, that was jist him a-celebratin the news. It has been diskivvered that we air quality folks, and yore father has good reason to be proud! We’ve all got reason to be proud as Punch! We belong to a great fambly that goes back past the time of Joshua Crust Hisself, the time of the fabled pagan Ingledews of yore!”

“Maw…” the boy Jubal attempted to gain her attention again but was again rebuffed.

“What on earth are ye talkin about, Mother?” Tish asked.

“Lissen a me, Tishy hon!” exclaimed Josie, nearly beside herself with excitement. “These news will make yore bosom swell! I swear if we aint all Ingledews! Yore dad wasn’t jist cuttin a dido when he said that! That were no flimflam windy lie-tale he picked up! He’s the rightful descendant of all the big Squire Ingledews!”

“
Maw
!” persisted the kid Jubal and claimed her notice. “Air we all of us squires now?”

Josie looked down and sniffed down at her son. “No, you fool,” she said to him. “Jist me and yore Paw.”

“I’m right glad to hear it, Mother, if it’s true,” Tish said, “but will it do us any good?”

“Why, naturally, chile,” Josie declared. “We kin all go live in Partheeny!” She paused to let these words caress the lengths of every listening pair of tailprongs. The older siblings whispered dramatically among themselves,
Partheeny
! and the middle siblings began explaining to the infant siblings what and where Partheeny was.

Tish could not believe this fabulous likelihood, and she began casting about with her sniffwhips in search of her father, to have him confirm the possibility. “Whereabouts is Daddy at?” she asked her mother.

Josie took on a flustered look. “Now don’t you go a-bustin out mad at yore pore ole pappy, Tishia gal, but he got so excited with the news that he went to see if they wouldn’t let him into the cookroom at Holy House.”

“
What
?” Tish exclaimed. “Why, he’s off his rocker! How could you let him do such a thing?”

Josie hung her head. “Wal, he’s allus had a hankerin fer some real beer, and who’m I to deny him? But I reckon I’d best go fetch him, afore he gits his fool self shot by the Lord.”

“The Lord aint a-rapturin nobody tonight,” Tish said. “He has passed plumb out in the middle of Carlott. I touched Him myself.”

“You did
which
?” Josie asked, aghast.

“Not with my touchers, just my sniffwhips, I touched Him while He lay, jist to see if He felt real,” Tish declared, with no little pride.

The entire room fell silent. None of the middle siblings, let alone the younger ones, had ever had a glimpse of Him, although every morning they said their prayers to Him at bedtime. To think that their very own big sister, Sis Tish, had actually not only seen Him but also actually and truly really touched Him! They all gathered around her and tried to touch her, as if some of the magic would rub off on them. They all began babbling in excitement at once.

“Hush, you’uns!” Josie demanded, then turned on Tish. “Daughter, I don’t know what to think of ye! Aint I never taught ye no sense? Don’t ye know that you must never,
never
touch the Lord?”

“But He’s out cold, west-drunk jist like Daddy gits sometimes,” Tish tried to explain.

Josie slapped her. With both sniffwhips the mother lashed the sides of Tish’s face, bringing tears to her eyes. “Hesh yore wicked mouth!” she exclaimed. “That’s blasphemy! The Lord is probably jist a-sleepin, this time of night, and you might’ve disturbed His rest.”

“But He’s drunk as a biled owl!” Tish wailed, telling the truth, although truthfully none of the owls she had seen, of which there were several in the woods of Stay More, were either boiled or drunk.

Josie gasped, hmmphed, and made the sign of the pin with her sniffwhips. “I had best go take a look fer myself,” she said to herself, then told her oldest daughter, “I’d best go look fer yore father.” She began a thorough cleaning of herself in preparation for departure.

“Momma, you aint lightin out for the cookroom too, are ye?” Tish asked.

“If I have to,” Josie said, nearly beside herself with nervous excitement: even if she didn’t get to touch the Lord herself, she might find her husband in the cookroom, where she had never been before, and might get to sample the fabulous edibles there. And maybe she might even be allowed to enter one of those cans of beer. “Now lissen a me, Tish,” she gave instructions, “if I aint back afore daypeep, make shore none of the least-uns watches the mornin star, and git ’em to say their prayers, and keep Jubal outa the sisters’ hidey-hole, and don’t let none of ’em git in the storehole where Paw keeps the morel mushrooms, and be sure nary one of ’em watches the sun rise. Kin you remember all that?” Tish nodded her head, although the list of the injunctions was long, and still another one remained, a formality: “And watch out for the badgers, bats, and beastly bugs!”

“Be keerful, Momma,” Tish said, as Josie left the log, and Tish found herself in charge of the whole family. A dozen or so tickled up to her and begged her for a story, but she put them off, saying she’d give them a story at bedtime. She supervised them as best she could, as they left the log to forage for bits of algae and fungi, edible but not palatable fodder. Her tailprongs picked up the sounds of their stomachs grumbling like a pack of hungry ants. Almost absently, Tish reached up and took one of her sniffwhips into her mouth and began simultaneously to wash, taste, smell, and “count the beads” on it. This process provided her with information about her environment: the temperature (73° and falling), tomorrow’s forecast (partly cloudy, scattered thundershowers), the present locations of each of her brothers and sisters, what they were eating, which ones had intestinal problems or mental problems, which ones had constipation or diarrhea, and how many worms, crickets, and katydids were in the vicinity. Thus she kept track of the passing of the night.

She could no longer find her mother within range of her sniff-whips, so assumed she had reached Holy House and perhaps actually entered the cookroom. Would she ever see her parents again? She tuned in the area of Carlott where He had been lying, and discovered that still He lay. The night passed on.

Continually vigilant toward her siblings, she kept count and discovered one missing. She called Jubal to her, and said, “Jubal, I caint find Joe Don.”

Jubal replied, “Something et him.”

These were sad words. It was sorrowful news when, if a child westered, the reason was announced as “Something he et.” It was more sorrowful if the last two words were transposed. Tish tuned her sniffwhips and picked up the scent of a green frog,
Hyla cinerea
, but it was climbing back up whatever tree it had come down out of to make a meal of Joe Don. Tish called the rest of the siblings in out of the yard, and told the ones who did not already know that their brother Joe Don had gone west, into the crop of a green frog. Everyone grieved together for a few minutes, and several of the older children declared, “Hit’s the Lord’s will,” but Tish knew that the Lord’s will, at this moment under the influence of alcohol, wasn’t.

“Now tell us a bedtime story, Sis,” Jubal requested, knowing they needed something to take their minds off the westering of Joe Don, and the siblings chorused, “Yep, a story, yep a story Sis.”

She gathered them to her and began, “One time…” She had learned to begin all her stories this way. Such a beginning carried the suggestion not only that the story being told had occurred once upon a time long, long ago, but also that it had occurred only once, a one-time-only unique event. She searched her store of favorite stories, and decided to tell them one about the Mockroach. “One time there was a little roosterroach. He disobeyed his pappy and momma, who told him to be sure and go to sleep at the first peep of light, and to sleep all day. He wanted to stay awake during the day, so’s he could see what was happenin in the world while roosterroaches sleep.”

And she told how the foolhardy roosterroach sallied forth into the daylight and found himself among the diurnal creatures who prey and eat by light, birds of all kinds who fly by day, and snakes and lizards who roam by day, and four-footed animals like squirrels who prowl by day. All of these monsters would have eaten the roosterroach, but he was protected by the Mockroach, who had a test for him.

The Mockroach protected the roosterroach so that he could stay east in the daylight long enough to decide whether he truly wanted to be a day-bug or go on being a night-bug as Man had intended him to be.

The world of daylight was wonderful. Not only was it full of Man, and His Woman and Children, all running around and working and playing in the sunshine, but it was full of open flowers that close at night, and the music of birds that sing only by day, not as sweet as the nightingale but more of them, and there were colors everywhere, not just the hundred grays and blues of night, but yellows and greens and reds!

The roosterroach thought everything was lovely, but the Mock-roach told him that if he wanted to remain a day-bug he would have to decide to be changed either into a day-bug who eats grass or a day-bug who eats other bugs: a herbivore or a carnivore.

Of course no roosterroach had ever eaten grass or eaten another bug, at least not a live one. The Mockroach made him try a sample of each. The roosterroach chewed and chewed on the blade of grass, but he couldn’t swallow it and spat it out. The Mockroach gave him the head of a fly to eat, and he chewed it and chewed it, and swallowed it, but it made him sick, and he puked it up.

The Mockroach told the roosterroach that if he could learn to eat grass, he could become a grasshopper, and dance and sing in the meadows and pastures all day long, all summer long, a happy pastoral life. He could jump great distances and fly with bright yellow wings, and it would be an easy, idyllic existence.

And if the roosterroach could learn to eat other insects, he could become a praying mantis with long powerful forelegs to seize any small thing that flew his way. He could stay put and not have to run around, and could eat anything that he caught, any insect that flew or crawled, and even lizards, frogs, and small birds! The mantis could eat the grasshopper, but the grasshopper couldn’t eat the mantis.

Tish paused, and looked around her at her forty-two brothers and sisters, who were hanging on her every word with their mouths agape in wonder and their small brains almost visibly churning. “Children,” she asked them, “which would you choose to be?”

“The grasshopper!” said Jubal, but he was drowned out by nearly all the others, who were clamoring, “The mantis! The mantis! The praying mantis!”

Tish would have given her story a different ending, if they had voted for the grasshopper. She would have told how the roosterroach was changed into a grasshopper and enjoyed a truly Arcadian life, which, however, ended when he was eaten by a meadow lark. But because they wanted the mantis, she said, “Okay. The Mockroach changed the roosterroach into a praying mantis and told him to pray to him, then hopped on his back and said, ‘Giddyup! You’ve got to be my horsey!’ and the poor mantis had to carry the Mockroach everywhere he went, forevermore. That’s why Man calls the mantis, ‘devil’s horse.’”

The children were downcast with disappointment at the fate of the mantis but, Tish was certain as she ran them off to their beds, they would think twice before ever wanting to be changed into anything.

She herself, if she could be changed, would have chosen to become a cecropia moth, and remain nocturnal. The cecropia had a wingspan of nearly seven inches and was the most beautiful insect Tish had ever seen. But she would wait until the children were older to tell them the story of the cecropia. The best thing about it was that once it was grown up, the cecropia didn’t have to choose between eating vegetables or being a predator. The adult cecropia ate nothing. Its only purpose was love.