Beverly Cleary_Ellen & Otis 02

by Otis Spofford

  “I have to,” said Hack.

  “Why?” persisted Otis.

  Hack scowled. “For biology class. We were supposed to hand in a collection of thirty insects last week, and I was too busy with football practice to catch them. Now the teacher says if I don’t hand them in by tomorrow, she’ll tell the principal and then I can’t play on the team.”

  “Gee, and the big game with Benjamin Harrison High is next week,” said Otis. He and Stewy were shocked. To think that a teacher could not only give orders to Hack Battleson but could make him miss football practice!

  Otis recovered first. “I’ll catch them for you, Hack,” he said eagerly. It wasn’t every boy who had the chance to do something for the captain of the team and the best football player in the whole city.

  “Would you?” Hack’s manner toward the younger boys suddenly changed. “Say, that would be swell! Then I could go back to football practice.”

  “I’ll catch them too,” said Stewy.

  “You keep out of this. It was my idea,” said Otis, who did not want any help from Stewy. He wanted to tell people that he alone caught thirty insects for Hack Battleson. Why, it was practically the same thing as saving the big game for the Zachary P. Taylor High School.

  “I thought of it at the same time,” objected Stewy. “You just said it first.”

  “That’s what counts,” said Otis. “Why don’t you go exercise your dog or something?”

  “He doesn’t need exercise,” answered Stewy.

  “Then is it okay if I catch them for you?” Otis asked Hack. He was anxious to have it clearly understood that he was the one to collect the insects.

  “I don’t care who catches them,” answered Hack, who was in a hurry to get to the football field. “Just so somebody has thirty insects here by six-thirty. It can’t be any later, because I’ll probably be up all night trying to identify them, as it is. And they all have to be insects. You can tell an insect because it has six legs. Centipedes and things like that don’t count.”

  Otis was disappointed that Stewy was to have an equal chance, but he didn’t feel that he could say anything to Hack about it.

  “And they have to be in good condition,” continued Hack, as he held up his fruit jar. “See that piece of cotton in the jar? It’s soaked in cleaning fluid—the kind that takes spots off clothes. When I catch an insect I put it in the jar and put the lid on a minute. The fumes kill the insect without hurting it.”

  “Sure. I get it,” said Otis. “How about letting me take your jar?”

  “Hey, that’s no fair,” objected Stewy. “That way you’d have a head start.”

  “Sure I’d have a head start,” said Otis.

  “For Pete’s sake, if you kids are going to stand there fighting all day, I’ll get another jar for you,” said Hack, who was really pleased to have two boys so anxious to work for him.

  Otis and Stewy glared at each other until Hack returned with the second jar. “Okay, kids. See you at six-thirty.” Hack waved as he hurried off to the Zachary P. Taylor football field.

  “You just wait. I’ll beat you to the thirty bugs,” said Stewy.

  Otis did not waste time answering. At least, he had a head start. At home he had two insects: a dead dragonfly he had picked up once because he thought it was pretty, and a yellow butterfly that had died when he tried to keep it in a jar. Now he pawed through some dead leaves under a shrub until he saw an earwig. He scooped it into the jar and screwed on the lid. Stewy watched him and then did the same thing. The boys glowered at each other.

  Otis decided he’d better get away from Stewy, or Stewy would copy all his ideas. Otis knew he had to work fast if he was going to catch all those insects by six-thirty. “So long,” he said, and ran down the street.

  Otis stopped to hunt among some flowers in a neighbor’s yard. When he found a tiny green aphis clinging to the underside of a rose leaf, he carefully scooped it off and added it to the earwig in his jar. A ladybug flitted past, but before Otis could grab it, it lit on a rosebush growing on a trellis against the house. When Otis tried to catch the ladybug, it flew to a leaf just out of his reach. Otis started to climb the trellis.

  The lady who lived in the house burst out onto the front porch. “Otis Spofford! You come down out of my climbing President Hoover this instant!” she ordered.

  Otis was so startled that he grabbed at a thorny branch instead of the trellis. “Your what?” he asked, trying to untangle his T-shirt from the thorns.

  “My climbing President Hoover. My prize rosebush.” The lady was very cross. “I won’t have it broken. Come down at once.”

  The ladybug flitted away, so Otis jumped to the ground. Thorns ripped his T-shirt, but he couldn’t let the ladybug out of sight.

  “And don’t you come into my garden again,” said the owner of the rosebush.

  “I won’t,” promised Otis, keeping his eye on the ladybug and thinking that if he were a grownup with a prize rosebush, he would want a boy to catch bugs in it. He jumped up and cupped his hands together. There, I got you, he thought. That was one insect closer to winning the game.

  In the next yard Otis pried a rock out of a rock garden, but all he found under it was a worm and a crawly thing with too many legs to be an insect. A fly buzzed by and Otis wasted several precious minutes chasing it before it flew out of reach. He saw a bee hovering over a flower. Quickly he clapped it, flower and all, into his jar.

  Otis was about to investigate another rock when the owner of the garden appeared. She smiled at Otis. “Hello, boy. Come here and let me show you all my pretty flowers,” she said.

  It was perfectly plain to Otis that she didn’t really want him in her garden at all. He didn’t see why grownups had to be so fussy about a few old flowers. “No, thank you,” he said. He didn’t have time to make friends with anyone. Not today, anyway.

  The lady started across the yard toward Otis. She looked so determined to be friendly that Otis decided he’d better leave in a hurry, or he would be looking at pretty flowers whether he wanted to or not. “Well…uh…good-bye,” he said, and ran down the street, feeling that he had had a narrow escape.

  As Otis was passing Stewy’s house, a tiny moving speck on the sidewalk caught his eye. It was an ant that Otis lost no time in scraping up with a twig and poking into his jar.

  “That’s my bug,” yelled Stewy, from half a block away. “You give it back to me.”

  “It is not,” Otis yelled back.

  “It is, too. I saw you pick it up in front of my house.” Stewy looked hot and cross.

  “It was on the sidewalk, and sidewalks don’t belong to you. They belong to the city.” Otis wasn’t going to waste time arguing. When he reached his apartment house, he found Bucky sitting on the front steps waiting for him.

  “Say, Otis,” said Bucky, “let’s play like we’re—”

  “I know what,” interrupted Otis. “Let’s play like we’re scientists hunting bugs in the jungle. Let’s see how many bugs we can capture.”

  Bucky was delighted to receive this much attention from Otis. “Dead or alive?” he asked.

  “Alive,” said Otis. “We’ll shut them up in this jar. You go that way and I’ll go this way.” He found a spider in the shrubs and was about to put it into his jar when he remembered. A spider had eight legs. It was not an insect.

  “I’ve got one,” shrieked Bucky. “It’s like a ladybug only yellow with black dots.” He held up his two hands cupped together.

  “Swell,” said Otis. “Here, put it in the jar.”

  “I can’t,” said Bucky. “It’s a fierce jungle bug. It’s putting up a terrible fight. It’s trying to eat me up alive. Help, help!” Bucky fell to the tiny patch of grass in front of the apartment house, where he rolled and kicked.

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Otis was disgusted. He might have known this was the way a kindergartner would behave. “I’ll save you,” he called, and fell to the grass beside Bucky to pry open his hands and take out the bug. />
  “You saved my life,” panted Bucky. “This is a keen game.”

  Otis was not so sure, but at least he had another insect for Hack Battleson. Otis then caught a fly, a mosquito, and a white moth. Bucky captured a beetle, a stink bug, and a grasshopper that put up a battle and spit brown juice all over Bucky’s hands.

  “There’s Stewy across the street,” exclaimed Bucky. “Look, he’s got a jar too.”

  “Come on, let’s go around in back,” suggested Otis quickly.

  “Hey, Stewy,” yelled Bucky. “Are you playing like you’re hunting fierce bugs in the jungle too?”

  “Shhh,” hissed Otis, too late.

  Stewy came across the street. He held his jar behind his back, so Otis could not see how many bugs he had. He glared at Otis, who also held his jar out of sight. Then he said to Bucky, “How would you like to hunt bugs in the jungle with me for a change?”

  “Hey, cut it out,” said Otis. “Bucky and I are having a keen time all by ourselves, aren’t we, Bucky?”

  Bucky beamed. “We sure are.”

  Otis stepped around Stewy to try to catch a glimpse of his jar. If only he knew how many insects Stewy had! Stewy saw what Otis was trying to do and moved a couple of feet so Otis couldn’t see behind him.

  “I know what,” said Bucky. “Let’s all play like we’re hunting in the jungle together.”

  “Let’s not,” said Otis and Stewy together. This time Stewy tried to see behind Otis’s back, while Otis glared and moved away.

  “Guess I’ll be going now,” said Stewy. “I’m about through anyway. So long. See you at six-thirty.” Stewy started home. Then he called back, “Unless I decide to take my thirty bugs over sooner.”

  “I like Stewy. Don’t you?” asked Bucky.

  Otis did not answer. He was too busy worrying. Was Stewy telling the truth or was he bluffing? He wished he knew. Otis tried to think where Stewy might have found a lot of insects all at once. That gave him an idea. “Come on, Bucky,” he said.

  On either side of the front door of the apartment house was a porch light that burned all night. Otis knew that insects were attracted to them. He boosted Bucky up to one of the lights and told him how to unscrew it. He was rewarded by a shower of dust and dead moths.

  Mrs. Brewster flung open the front door. She had a dish towel wrapped around her hair and a broom in her hand. “Now what are you boys up to?” she demanded, as she began to sweep the moths off the porch. “Just look at the litter on this porch.”

  Bucky looked frightened, but Otis could not let that collection of moths be smashed to bits by the broom. “I’ll sweep the porch,” he offered. “We were just cleaning the bugs out of the light for you. I’d like to sweep the porch.”

  “All right,” said Mrs. Brewster crossly. “But see that you get it clean. Goodness knows I have enough other work to do.”

  That was close, thought Otis, as he got on his hands and knees to examine his harvest. There was not only an assortment of moths; there were three kinds of gnats as well. Of course, the bugs had been cooked by the heat of the light, but Otis was sure Hack wouldn’t mind, because their legs and wings were all in place. He hadn’t said the bugs had to be raw.

  The second light produced two more moths and several insects Otis already had. If I were collecting just for fun, I could save them for traders, Otis thought, and picked a dead wasp out of a cobweb.

  “Dead bugs aren’t any fun,” complained Bucky. “They don’t put up a fight.”

  “Why don’t you play like you’re a janitor?” suggested Otis, who knew Bucky would do anything to please him. “You could have lots of fun sweeping the porch for Mrs. Brewster.”

  “Okay,” agreed Bucky.

  Otis continued to hunt alone. Fortunately this was the day his mother gave a private ballet lesson after her tap-dancing class, so he knew she would be late getting home. He hoped Stewy’s mother would insist on his taking time to eat dinner before six-thirty.

  At six o’clock Otis went into his apartment, where he emptied a box of crackers onto the drain board. Then he lined the box with cotton and arranged his insects in rows. I’ll bet old Stewy won’t think of this, he thought. He’ll probably bring his all bunched up in the jar. Counting the dragonfly and butterfly, Otis had twenty-eight insects.

  At seven minutes after six, Otis found a different kind of ant crawling on the garbage can behind the apartment house. That made twenty-nine. By a quarter after six, Otis was frantically beating the shrubs. He saw flies, earwigs, ladybugs—insects he already had. At twenty-five minutes past six, he knew he could hunt no longer. He had to take a chance on finding his last insect on the way to Hack’s house.

  Stewy was sitting on Hack’s front steps with a candy box on his knees. Spud lay at his feet. “Hi,” he said. “Hack’s late getting home, or I’d have given him my thirty bugs a long time ago.”

  Otis pretended to admire his collection so much that he did not hear. However, he was careful to close the lid of his box before he sat down beside Stewy.

  “Just remember, I was here first,” said Stewy.

  Otis did not say anything. Holding his box so Stewy couldn’t see into it, he took out the dragonfly and held it up to admire. “Hack will be glad to get this. You don’t often see such a beauty,” he remarked, because he was sure Stewy did not have a dragonfly. By the worried look on Stewy’s face, he knew he was right.

  “He’d probably rather have my queen bee,” said Stewy.

  Now it was Otis’s turn to look worried. Did Stewy really have a queen bee? How did he know it was a queen? Otis decided it was probably a plain old bumblebee that he just called a queen.

  The boys sat in uneasy silence until Hack Battleson turned the corner. “Hi, Hack,” they yelled, and then glared at each other.

  “Hi, kids,” answered Hack. “Sorry I’m late, but I had a few things to talk over with the coach.”

  Otis looked admiringly at Hack. Maybe someday he would have to talk over a few things with the coach. Maybe when he got to high school the coach would remember that he was the boy who saved the big game by catching bugs. And he would have a purple sweater with a red T on one side and three red stripes on the left sleeve to show he had played on the team three years, just like Hack.

  “Here are the bugs,” said Stewy.

  Annoyed with himself for letting Stewy get ahead of him, Otis thrust his box at Hack too. “I’ve got some keen insects,” he said.

  Hack sat down on the steps. He opened Stewy’s box first and counted all the insects in it while Otis waited anxiously. “Thirty,” announced Hack.

  I guess that’s that, thought Otis, suddenly feeling tired and hungry. He had not saved the game for the Zachary P. Taylor High School after all. He had lost it by one bug. Just one little old bug. And Stewy would never let him forget it, either.

  Hack opened Otis’s box. “Look at that dragonfly,” he said. “That’s a beauty.”

  Otis felt a little better. At least Hack Battleson admired his dragonfly. That was something. Otis stepped over Spud and sat down on the steps while Hack counted his insects. “Twenty-nine,” said Hack. “You’re one short.”

  “Ha!” said Stewy. “So you didn’t have thirty at all.”

  You needn’t rub it in, thought Otis, as his eye fell on Stewy’s collection. “Hey, wait a minute!” he shouted. “Neither do you. You’ve got a spider and they don’t count. They’ve got eight legs.”

  “That’s right,” agreed Hack. “If they have eight legs, they aren’t insects. Let’s have another look at that box.”

  Surely Hack would take Otis’s collection now because of the dragonfly. Otis waited anxiously. Spud stood up on three legs to scratch. As Otis watched the dog, he was suddenly stunned by an idea. If only Stewy didn’t think of it at the same time! Otis quickly looked over Stewy’s collection. No, Stewy didn’t have one. That made his idea even better.

  But Stewy had an idea of his own. “I know what,” Otis heard him say to Hack. “I’ll pull of
f a couple of its legs. Then it will be a six-legged bug.”

  Otis parted Spud’s coarse hair and began to search for something.

  “That wouldn’t work,” objected Hack, to Stewy’s suggestion.

  Otis’s thumb and forefinger closed on something that he quickly popped into the jar.

  “I don’t see why,” Stewy was saying. “I bet the teacher would think it was some new kind of bug.”

  “She’s too smart for that,” said Hack. “Somebody tried it already.”

  Then Otis spoke. “Here’s my thirtieth insect,” he said, as he reached into the jar.

  “What is it?” asked Hack.

  “A flea,” answered Otis.

  “A flea!” Hack began to laugh, but he took the tiny insect and added it to Otis’s collection. Then he closed the box. “Thanks a lot,” he said. “I guess I ought to get a pretty good grade on this collection, even if I am late handing it in.”

  Stewy turned to Otis. “Where did you get that flea?” he demanded.

  “Off Spud,” said Otis.

  “That’s what I thought.” Stewy was angry. “That was my flea! You took my flea.”

  “Don’t you wish you’d thought of it?” jeered Otis. “So long, Hack.”

  “Spud’s fleas are my fleas and you didn’t have any right to take it,” said Stewy, as Hack went into the house. “It was just plain cheating, that’s what it was.”

  “Aw, you’re just mad because you weren’t smart enough to think of it first,” taunted Otis.

  “Otis Spofford, I’ll…I’ll…” Stewy sputtered.

  “You’ll have to catch me first,” yelled Otis, and ran down the street. And as he ran he was no longer Otis Spofford running home to dinner. He was Five-yard Spofford, running ninety-nine and a half yards for a touchdown to save the big game for the Zachary P. Taylor High School.

  5

  Otis, the Unfriendly Indian

  One Friday morning Otis left his apartment house a little bit late for school, as usual. The first snow of the year had fallen during the night. The bite of frosty air on his cheeks and the sight of his neighborhood so changed by the blanket of snow made Otis feel that something exciting was going to happen.