Chirp

by Kate Messner

“No, but we have an idea for the concession stand.” Clover looked at Mia and grinned.

  “I read that the Seattle Mariners are selling toasted grasshoppers at their games,” Mia said. “And they keep selling out! So maybe the Lake Monsters could try that, too. With crickets.”

  “That’s a great idea. I’ll ask—but if we do that, we’re going to need more crickets, so let’s get to work.”

  Mia and Clover chose a bin and reached in for the water dishes.

  “Why is that one white?” Clover pointed into the cricket cubbies, where a pale-white cricket was tucked away, clinging to the cardboard.

  “Probably just molted,” Daniel said, “so it’ll be hiding out for a bit. When crickets shed their old exoskeletons, their bodies are soft for a little while, so they’re extra vulnerable. The other crickets know that and take the opportunity to come after them.”

  “Sounds like middle school,” said Clover.

  Or gymnastics, Mia thought. She couldn’t look away from that poor cowering cricket. “How long does it last?”

  “Just a few hours,” Daniel said. “That cricket will be good as new before we leave tonight.” His phone rang then, and he looked kind of alarmed. “I … uh … need to take this,” he said, and hurried out the back door.

  “Everything okay?” Mia asked when he got back.

  “Yeah.” Daniel glanced at the door to the lobby, then looked back at Mia and Clover. “It was nothing, really. Did you finish with the water?”

  Mia nodded, and Daniel asked them to handle the feed, too, while he made another phone call.

  “That’s a little shady,” Clover said as Mia poured feed into a dish.

  “What?”

  “Daniel being all secret about his phone call. Who do you think he’s talking to?”

  “I don’t know. James?” Mia lowered the dish into one of the cricket bins.

  “I just think he’s acting weird,” Clover said. When Daniel came back, he set his phone on a counter and started cleaning up one of the bins.

  “We’re out of feed over here!” Clover called as she poured the last of her bag into a dish.

  “I’ll run out back to get more,” Daniel said. As soon as he walked out, his phone dinged with a text. Clover ran over and picked it up.

  “Clover!” Mia’s heart raced. “He’s coming right back!”

  “Look at this!” Clover motioned her over. Mia ran up the row of cricket bins and looked down at the phone. The text was from a contact Daniel had named “Ron at AgriCorps,” and it said: Great. We’ll see you at 4:30 today for the interview!

  “He’s interviewing for another job!” Clover said. “What if he’s—”

  “Shh!” Mia heard the door opening and pulled Clover away from the phone.

  “Here you go!” Daniel dropped the feed on the floor and looked at his watch. “But don’t you need to get going for camp? I have to leave by four, but I can finish with the food.”

  “Okay.” Mia’s mind was racing. “Do you have … uh … a game or something?” She wondered if he’d tell the truth.

  “Uh … no,” Daniel said. “Just an appointment thing.”

  “Oh.” Mia stared at him until Clover nudged her. “Well yeah, we should go. We’re already kind of late.”

  “Why would he be applying for a job?” Clover said as they hurried down the hall to Warrior Camp. “And trying to keep it a secret?”

  “I don’t know,” Mia said. “He’s supposed to be Gram’s friend. How can he just abandon her with so much going wrong?”

  “Maybe he’s the reason things keep going wrong,” Clover said. “What if he’s working with that Potsworth guy? We need to keep an eye on him.”

  When they got to Warrior Camp, Maria was already demonstrating an obstacle called the quad steps, a row of staggered ramps where you had to jump from one to the next.

  “There are a few strategies for this obstacle,” Maria said. “There’s the cat.” She demonstrated, jumping onto the first step, grabbing the top edge, and crouching low before jumping to the next. “You can do twinkle toes and take three quick steps each time.” Maria twinkle-toed her way back. “Or there’s the stride, which looks like this.” This time, she just ran from step to step with big, long bounds. “Line up and you can try whatever feels best to you.”

  Mia thought that was sort of like saying, “You can get stung by a bee, punched in the nose, or poked with a sharp stick—whatever feels best,” but she sighed and got in line. As soon as she did, her heart thumped faster. What if she lost her balance and fell off one of those ramps? What if she landed on the same arm she broke before?

  “I don’t think I’m ready for this one,” she told Maria when it was her turn.

  “Oh no, you’ll be fine,” Maria said. “This doesn’t require arm strength. It’s about balance.”

  That was the problem, but Mia couldn’t say so without explaining things she didn’t want to explain, so she took a deep breath and forced herself to jump toward the first ramp. She slid down as soon as she landed.

  “Wipe the bottom of your sneakers and try again,” Maria said.

  Mia didn’t want to try again. But everyone was staring, waiting for her to do something. She felt like a molting cricket.

  “Try it,” Maria said. “It’ll help you get a grip.”

  Right, Mia thought. Get a grip. She wiped off her shoes and jumped onto the step again. It actually helped. This time, Mia made it through the first three steps. But when she leaped for the fourth step, she missed. The edge of the wood scraped a bunch of skin off her leg.

  “Ow!” She limped off to the side, rubbing her shin.

  “Ah … battle scars,” Joe said. “All warriors have battle scars. Want to give it one more try?”

  “Not right now.” Or ever. Mia traced the pink scar on her arm. She had enough battle scars, thanks. But she knew Joe and Maria would want her to do something, so she went back to her strengthen-the-arms hang. Her shin still hurt, but this time, she stayed on the bar for eleven seconds before she dropped.

  “Good job! You’re already getting stronger!” Joe shouted from the rings. He was helping Amir, who’d made it through the first five rings but got stuck because the last one was farther away.

  “I can’t get that one,” Amir said, dangling, as Mia jumped back up to her bar.

  “Sure you can!” Joe said. “Big swing!”

  Amir swung and touched it but couldn’t get a grip.

  Joe clapped anyway. “You touched it! And you’re still holding on!”

  Mia was still holding on, too. And that was something. She’d been watching Amir instead of counting seconds, but she guessed it was at least fifteen before she had to drop.

  Amir was swinging all over the place now, and Mia thought he’d have to start over. But instead, he reached back to the ring behind him, held it until he was stable, and then finished.

  “Great!” Joe turned to the kids who were waiting. “Did you see how when Amir’s swing got all wild, he went back to the ring before? You can steady yourself that way. By reaching back.” He looked over at Mia then. “You ready to give these rings a try?”

  “Not yet. But maybe next time,” she said, and jumped up for one more arm hang.

  “You did great on the spider wall today,” Mia told Clover as they left. Mia had agreed to ride over to the food-processing plant to see if they could get inside without it being weird.

  “Thanks,” Clover said as they walked down the hall. “I finally figured out—” She stopped, and as soon as she did, Mia heard a dog barking. “Is that Syd?” Clover asked. They raced to the cricket farm door.

  “Locked.” Clover looked up at the high window above the door. “And it’s dark in there.”

  Mia nodded. “Everybody’s gone, remember? That’s why we had to bring all our stuff to Warrior Camp.” Daniel had left for his “just an appointment,” and Gram had told them she was leaving Syd in the office while she ran out to meet with a maybe-investor.

  “T
hen why is the dog so upset?” Clover whispered just as the barking stopped. There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the door. And then voices.

  Had Daniel or Gram come back? Mia pressed her ear to the door.

  “Hurry up!” a gruff voice said. It didn’t sound like Daniel. “Not there. Out of sight.”

  “Where’s that flashlight?”

  “How’s this?”

  And then something that sounded like “mess in the morning.”

  “Someone’s in there!” Mia hissed.

  It got quiet for a few seconds. Then one of the voices came through the door loud and clear. “All right! Let’s get out of here.” Whoever it was had to be just on the other side!

  Mia grabbed Clover’s hand and ran down the hallway. Whoever was in there didn’t sound like friends. What if it was Chet Potsworth, sabotaging the farm again with some other awful man? What if they caught Mia and Clover spying on them?

  Mia burst out the door to the parking lot, pulling Clover behind her, and ran to their bikes. Clover had locked hers, so she had to fiddle with the combination.

  “Hurry!” Mia looked back at the warehouse. No one had come out yet, but they had to be on their way.

  “Got it!” Clover yanked the lock off her bike. Her face was all red and sweaty. “Let’s go!” And she took off.

  Mia jumped on her bike, stood, and pedaled as hard as she could. She didn’t know who she’d heard on the other side of that door, but she felt sure of one thing. They were doing something bad. They must have thought they were alone.

  What would they do if they found out they weren’t?

  CHAPTER 9

  Uninvited Guests

  Mia’s legs burned. Her heart thudded in her ears as they tore out of the industrial park, down the street, and back onto the bike path. They pedaled all the way home and skidded into Mia’s driveway as her mom was getting out of the car with groceries.

  “Mom!” Mia called, then bent over because she was wheezing too much to talk.

  Her mom looked up and frowned. “You look exhausted! Did you forget to hydrate at Warrior Camp?”

  Clover caught her breath first. “We rode back really fast because we heard somebody at the cricket farm.”

  “Somebody broke in, Mom!” Mia blurted out, still panting. “We have to call the police!” As soon as Mia said that, she wondered why she hadn’t done it already. She had a phone. That’s what she should have done as soon as they got outside. But when you were freaking out about bad guys on the other side of a door, you didn’t think about those things.

  “Hold on.” Mom put the groceries down on a porch step. “What’s going on?”

  “We heard them!” Mia said. “Daniel and Gram were gone, but we heard voices when we were walking past the door after Warrior Camp. Somebody else was in there! And they said—” What was it they’d said? “Something about a mess.”

  “What’s a mess? The farm?” Mom looked confused.

  “I guess?” Mia was suddenly second-guessing herself.

  “Are you sure it wasn’t Daniel? Maybe he forgot something.”

  “I mean … maybe?” It hadn’t sounded like Daniel, but there had been a big door between them. “But there were two voices. Plus Syd was barking, and she only ever barks at strangers.”

  Mom thought about that. “Well, maybe he had a friend with him, right? I’m sure it’s fine, but I’ll call Gram and let her know what happened.” She turned to Clover. “Do you want to stay for dinner?”

  Clover shook her head. “Thanks, but I have to get home.” She looked at Mia. “Let me know if you hear anything, okay?”

  Mia nodded and went inside. She tried to put the groceries away quietly so she could eavesdrop while Mom called Gram from the living room.

  “They said they heard voices …

  “She’s not sure.

  “So you didn’t see anything?

  “And it’s all good?

  “Great. We’ll see you tomorrow night for the fireworks.

  “Right. Okay … Bye.”

  Mom came back into the kitchen and picked up a package of chicken thighs. “Gram’s already back at the farm. She says Syd is quiet and happy, and nothing is out of place. She thinks you might have heard the building owner. He’d mentioned he was going to stop by to look at something with the electricity.”

  “Okay,” Mia said. But no matter what Gram said, it didn’t feel like everything was okay. She went up to her room, took a shower, put a bandage on her scraped-up shin, and changed into sweatpants and a comfy T-shirt. Then she flopped down on her bed with Neptune.

  Mia’s quad-steps battle scar still stung, her arms were sore from warrior hanging, and her brain was spinning. Had she and Clover heard a burglar at the farm? Or had she worked herself up over nothing? What if it was Daniel, and he was involved in the sabotage somehow?

  Mia stroked Neptune’s velvety fins and wished she could go back to being eight. Back to the girl in the picture, who’d jumped so fearlessly off those red rocks. She never used to be afraid of things. She used to be so sure of herself, and now she didn’t feel sure of anything.

  Mia rolled off the bed, pulled one of the boxes from her closet, and rummaged through until she found the photo. She didn’t know why, but she needed to hold it.

  It was funny. She looked so tiny in that lake rocks picture, but she hadn’t felt that way. Even though she was older and taller now, she felt smaller somehow. As if her body was growing like it was supposed to, but inside, the rest of her was shrinking.

  “Mia!” Mom’s voice came up from the kitchen. “Would you set the table, please?”

  “Coming!”

  Mia looked down at the picture in her hands. Maybe it would be like the rings at Warrior Camp. Maybe reaching back to that old version of herself, and holding on for a minute or two, could steady the Mia she was now. She put the picture up next to her mirror and shoved the box back into her closet.

  She wasn’t ready to unpack the other memories buried under her old homework and gymnastics medals. Not yet.

  On Friday morning, Gram called, so upset that Dad couldn’t understand what she was saying. She was at the cricket farm, so he and Mia drove out to meet her.

  “I don’t understand,” Dad said on the way. “Last night, she told Mom everything was fine.”

  It wasn’t fine anymore. As soon as they turned into the parking lot, they saw Daniel hop out of his car with a cloth insect net and race inside. Mia and Dad followed him. Mr. Jacobson the Moose Man was there, too, trying to get Gram to calm down. She wasn’t calming, though.

  “Don’t tell me it’s fine! How am I supposed to get rid of ten million fruit flies?”

  “Fruit flies?” Dad asked.

  “Ten million?” Mia said.

  “Give or take,” Mr. Jacobson said, nodding toward the cricket room. “It’s a mess in there.”

  Mia turned to Gram. “But I thought everything was fine last night.”

  “They hadn’t hatched yet,” she said.

  “Whoever you heard in there must have hidden the pupae,” Daniel explained, “knowing the flies would emerge overnight. And boy, did they. Take a look.”

  Mia peered through the window in the door. Clouds of fruit flies swarmed above the cricket bins. It reminded Mia of the time she’d left a banana in her locker over April break but times a million. “They’re everywhere!”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said, looking down at the net in his hands. “It’s kind of hopeless.” Mia searched his face for signs that he might be involved in the fruit-fly mess somehow, but he seemed genuinely upset. Some people were good at faking, though. She knew that.

  “It most certainly is not hopeless!” Gram pointed her finger at Daniel’s chest. “You go to the hardware store and buy all the glue traps they have.” She whirled around to Mia. “You can go in there and remove the substrate.” When Mia looked confused, Gram added, “Those dishes of dirt where the crickets lay eggs. I don’t want those nasty flies reproducing.”
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br />   “But what about your cricket eggs?” Mr. Jacobson asked. “Maybe you should wait and—”

  “Nope.” Gram shook her head. “We’ll have to lose this generation. We have to stop those flies from reproducing.” She started for her office. “I’m going to report this to the police.”

  “I think we have some glue traps at home, too.” Dad looked at Mia. “I’ll go pick them up if you’re okay here for a while.”

  Mia nodded and headed into the cricket room. One by one, she picked up the little dishes of dirt where the crickets laid their eggs. She wondered how many fruit-fly eggs were already in there. She’d been so scared when she heard those voices yesterday, but now, she felt a surge of anger. What kind of a person would do something like this? She wished she and Clover had seen whoever it was.

  Mia was changing the crickets’ water when Daniel came back with glue traps. “We need to find out who did this,” she said.

  Daniel sighed as he unloaded the bag. “Honestly, I’m not sure it matters at this point.”

  Mia stared at him. If Daniel didn’t want them to find out, there could be only one reason. But she asked, “Why doesn’t it matter?”

  Daniel stepped up on a chair, hung the sticky trap from a beam, and sighed. “Raising crickets is challenging even when things go well. Fruit flies aside, we can’t seem to get this place to the point where it’s sustainable. Everything takes too long.” He gestured toward the water dishes in the sink. “Cleaning and feeding and watering, and especially the harvest.”

  He seemed honestly frustrated again, which made Mia think he probably wasn’t involved in the fruit-fly situation. Also, she was surprised that the harvest was a problem. That had always seemed pretty simple to her. “Don’t you just shake the crickets off their cardboard cubbies and put them in the freezer?” Gram always talked about how humane it was to harvest crickets. When you put them in the freezer, they went to sleep, which is what crickets do in nature when it gets cold.

  “Nope. If you did that, you’d accidentally harvest some crickets that are already dead, and that’s kind of gross. So we have to take each cardboard condo, shake all the crickets off into a plastic bin, and then put the condo down and wait for them to climb back up. Those crickets are obviously alive, so they can be harvested. But they don’t all climb up right away, so you have to do it over and over.” Daniel looked at his watch. “We only have one bin to harvest, but it’ll take me until noon, at least.” His phone dinged with a text, and he turned away to reply.