Chester Cricket's New Home

by George Selden

  “A little grand for a tuffet, you think?” Walt shook his head—and the shake went down all the way to his tail. “I never heard the like of it. Our very own cathedral cricket.”

  “Ridiculous!” exploded Chester. “Imagine!—me telling the time. I mean, I wouldn’t have cared so much, being turned into a cuckoo clock—but a tolling bell is something else. ’Course, never did I dream it would go on all night long. I thought to myself, I’ll ding a few ding dongs and put them to sleep and that’ll be that. Not a bit of it! Miss Jenny’s got insomnia! She sleeps all day and just naps at night. And whenever I was nodding off—the Pheasants were both off in Chillington, where they sleep in the summer, and out like logs as soon as night fell—and just when I was dropping down to a marvelous dark, soft rest myself—which I need so much!—I’d hear this squeaky voice in my dream, ‘Chester dear—it’s time to chime!’ And all night long! I said, ‘Miss Jenny, everybody’s asleep. And I don’t even know what time it is.’ She said, ‘Well, you’re a cricket, aren’t you, dear? And crickets work by sun and moon and stars, don’t they? And summer and fall and things like that. I thought all insects had time in their wings.’”

  Walter shook his head, impressed and surprised. “She’s got a lot of poetry—for a fuddled field mouse.”

  “So, just to make the poor soul happy, I’d hop up on the tuffet and ding some more. Believe me, I learned to hate that tune!”

  “It must be boring,” Walter agreed, “to be a clock. Ding dong, ding dong—and round and round—till the end of time.”

  “Toward dawn Miss Jenny nodded off herself. And she talks in her sleep, too. I heard her mumbling—why, I think she was saying ‘I smell smoke.’” The cricket’s eyes glanced quickly at Simon.

  “Ah me, ah me,” sighed the turtle sadly. “It well may be she was saying that. So long ago—yet never past.”

  Chester hurried on, “When the sun came up, I dinged my last ding dong, and came back here. So come on, Walter—let’s hear it.”

  “Hear what?”

  “Ohhhh—!” Chester was feeling desperate. His voice had a reckless note in it—a crazy and gay tone of hopelessness. “I’ll start it myself: ‘A cricket he lived with an elegant pheasant—’”

  “I can’t,” said Walter, and shook his head. “I’m not that mean. It’s sad—sad! sad!—the way you get shunted around the Meadow.”

  Chester Cricket, however, would not be stopped. A fit was upon him; he was hectic and glum, all at once. “Now, what rhymes with ‘pheasant’? ‘Peasant’ does! ‘However, she thought he was rather a peasant…’ I’m sure that Madame Magnificent thinks I am. Or else you could say, ‘But life there rapidly grew unpleasant—as he ding-donged merrily!’”

  “You are flipping, Chester—”

  “I’m not even hopping—”

  “You’re flipping out! Now simmer down. This isn’t the end.”

  “Oh yes, it is! And I’ve made up my mind! I’m going over to Mountain Road and let myself be squashed by the very first car that comes along! If I knew how to—and was big enough—I’d eat worms and end it all!”

  “I hear some worms are quite tasty,” said Walter. “A buzzard once told me—”

  “I don’t care what a buzzard told you!” shrieked Chester. “I have no home! I’m homeless! There’s no place in the whole wide world I can call my home! I am going to let myself be run over!”

  “Why not take a little nap first?” Walt suggested.

  “Before ending it all?” The cricket’s antennae, which had been stiff and wiggling with rage, began noticeably to droop.

  “Sure! Don’t you want to look your best? Just lie down there on the—on the”—Walter dunked his head, then lifted it up, like someone’s finger testing the weather—“on the Southerly Breeze, and rest awhile.”

  “Well, I—I—”

  “Rest!” Walter ordered. Using his chin, he gently forced the cricket down flat. “You rest, Cranky Cricket. Poor cheerless Chester—just rest.”

  “Oh, all right.” Chester heaved a sigh. “Why not? Since all is lost, anyway.”

  Before the eyes of Walter and Simon, in barely the time that it took for a floating cloud’s shadow to pass, he was fast asleep.

  “My land!” said the turtle. “I never heard Chester take on like that.”

  “We got finished just in time,” said Walter. He circled Chester, on his boat. “Now, the best way to get him up there is—don’t watch this, Simon, you might get the wrong idea.” He opened his jaws as wide as he could and took Chester in his mouth. The sight was quite dreadful. A stranger passing by just then would have thought a heartless, hungry snake was about to devour a cricket alive.

  TEN

  Home!

  Home …

  You always will know it. It may be a mansion on a grand avenue. Or a little bit of shivering nest, where a hummingbird can relax at last. A two-family house—or a two-owl barn. An apartment above a busy street. Or a niche for an insect—just a cell in the bark, and so tiny the tree doesn’t know it has guests—but, oh, how it overlooks life, teeming there in the grass! Whatever the nook, niche, or hole may be, the creature that lives there—owl, mouse, or man—will instantly know it: like your fur or your feathers or your own close skin, a home feels only like itself.

  Chester Cricket was dreaming that he was at home. There was wood all around him—a round woody shelter was cupping him like a human hand. He was lying on something delightfully soft, and above him hung his bell. It looked so nice and familiar and real that he had to reach up to tap it.

  It rang!

  Good grass, Chester said to himself. And aloud, “Where am I?”

  “You’re home!”

  The cricket leaped up—scared out of his wits—and, as long as he was in the air, wheeled around and came down facing opposite. Two grins were beaming in on him. Bright sky was outside. “Walter—Simon—what happened?”

  “Har har!” Walter laughed—real laughter, too; no sarcasm now, so very pleased with himself he was, and with Chester and the world. “We fooled you—”

  “You should’ve seen us working!” said Simon. “All yesterday and—”

  “But we did it! Oh, yes! We—”

  “Boats, indeed! I never made boats in all my life.”

  “But I don’t understand,” began Chester. “How—”

  “Everyone’s talking at once,” said Walter. “Why don’t all turtles and crickets relax? Just sit back and collect their breaths. I’ll explain! Well, now”—he cleared his throat—“it’s been grand fun for everyone—except you—to watch the crinkly cricket here go moping around our beloved Old Meadow in search of a place to lay down his head. Alas, with little success, I fear. He’s been kept awake, made to wash his feet, and been ding-donged half to death. But enough of sorrow! Away all woe! Begone, all ruthless misery! The hour of joy at last is here! It’s time to chime!—as someone once said. Cheerful Chester now has his home at last! He is in residence! Har! har!”

  With a whoop and a holler, Walt’s head disappeared. Chester hopped to the opening and looked out. He realized he was up toward the end of Simon’s log, the highest part, at the end of the crack where he’d slept the first night. Below him—the pool; above him—the sky; around him—the rich living afternoon. “I don’t remember a hole here,” he said.

  “There wasn’t one,” said Simon, who was lying just outside. “I gnawed it out myself!”

  “You gnawed it?”

  “You never saw such chewing!” called Walter. “Turtle-urtle and I decided that if he could gnaw you out of one house, why then he could gnaw you into another. So now you have a home designed by me and built by the Simon Turtle Construction Company.” Like a quick black rope, he whipped himself up beside Chester. “He got splinters, too, but with these fabulous fangs of mine—which work like surgical instruments—I painlessly extracted them.”

  “And if you’ll notice”—Simon pointed out a special detail—“I made the hole a little bit higher than this cr
ack. That way the rainwater’ll all run off.” He was very proud of his architecture. “I’d really like to have chewed two rooms, but I couldn’t get my head in that far. We can hire some termites, if you wish to expand.”

  “And I,” said Walter, “while you were asleep, I slithered over to Littleville and talked the two titanic chipmunks out of a choice fern mattress for you. And Uncle was glad to spare a thorn, to pin up your bell.”

  Chester Cricket was—“Overwhelmed,” he murmured. “I’m just dumbfounded.”

  “You think you’ll be happy here? Do you? Huh?” Walter thrashed with a kind of glad impatience. “With Simon and me? Underneath the Turtles and Serpents Monument?”

  “What monument?” laughed Chester.

  “We haven’t put it up yet,” said Walt. “It’s going to be Simon, reared up on his sturdy hind legs, with me balancing on the tip of his nose.” He leaned toward Chester and slyly confided, “We’re both reptiles, you know. Although I’m more ‘rep’ and Simon’s more ‘tile,’ as you see from his beautiful slate back.”

  “We’d love to have you here, Chester,” said Simon.

  Walter Water Snake lifted threateningly. “And I’ll bite anybody you want me to.”

  “Oh, Walter,” said Chester, “you’ve never bitten a soul, and you know it!”

  “It’s true.” Shamefaced, Walter hung his head. “Not a single bite.” Then lifted it quickly. “But I’ve hissed at millions! I am a—well, you know—a snake, remember. And I do not like to be plagued or pestered! My reputation will keep strangers away. So all our guests will be welcome—or else! But that’s not the point, ol’ pal, ol’ buddy, ol’ Chester friend!” Walter wriggled all over the end of the log. There are times when hands are especially helpful: to wring, when you’re worried. “The point is—can you be happy here? You’re a persnickety kind of a crickety, and—and—”

  Chester did not speak a word. He hopped to the very top of the log. Before him, like ruffled blue glass, was the pool. And behind, on the opposite side, he could see where the brook made a sudden turn. The current there quickened—the surface sparkled like shattered silver. Simon’s Pool always caught the sun.

  “You know,” mused the cricket, “this spot reminds me of my old stump. The brook turned there, too. I used to like to watch the water. As a matter of fact—and I’ve never told this to anyone—I had a secret name for my house.”

  “What—?”

  “What—?”

  “Brookview. In my heart, I just thought of my home as a place where I could see the brook.”

  “Well, you can here, too!” burst out Walter. “And it even can have the same name—”

  “No. No.” Chester shook his head. “Each home should have its own name. A good home deserves to keep its name, squashed or whole.” He shielded his eyes from the light with one foot. “If I lived here—if I lived here—I would call this home Turnbrook. It’s like, but it’s unlike, my stump, both at once.”

  “I love it! I love it!” said Walter. “Turnbrook. Turnbrook! How distinguished! How right! How like the choice of a critical cricket! Both modest and appropriate. Do stay, Choosy Chester! Just think of the fun we can have! We’ll go boating, exploring—we’ll make music together!”

  Then all at once, for no reason at all—except the best, pure happiness—Chester Cricket began to laugh. “I’ll stay.” His heart shifted into a new position. “I’m going to love it here!”

  “Hoo-ray!” Like a singing black arrow, Walter flew through the air. “Ohhhh—”

  He rose from the surface and finished his song:

  A cricket lives beside a brook—

  In Turnbrook House lives he!

  He has a new home now—and look!

  He has a new friend—ME!

  It was late in an August afternoon, but the world felt deep and tall and wide. It felt—as it always should—like new.

  BY GEORGE SELDEN

  The Cricket in Times Square

  The Genie of Sutton Place

  Harry Cat’s Pet Puppy

  Tucker’s Countryside

  Chester Cricket’s Pigeon Ride

  Text copyright © 1983 by George Selden Thompson

  Illustrations copyright © 1983 by Garth Williams

  All rights reserved

  Published simultaneously in Canada by McGraw-Hill Ryerson Ltd., Toronto

  eISBN 9781466863606

  First eBook edition: January 2014