Firefly followed his wing and nodded obediently. She was impatient to get going, but she stayed quiet.
“Pay attention now,” Elder said. “You might need this information someday.”
“I already know all about the constellations, Elder!”
“You don’t know everything, Firefly. For instance, what would you do if you were far away from Firefly Hollow, and your wings were very tired, and you didn’t think you could keep going?”
“That would never happen to me.”
“But what if it did?”
“You’d come rescue me!”
“What if I was sound asleep and I didn’t know you’d sneaked out?”
“Well, then, I’d . . . I’d just keep going.”
“I’m glad to hear that. But there’s another maneuver that might be useful in that circumstance. Let me show it to you.”
Elder flew up to the top branch of the white pine.
“Watch,” he said. “See what I do with my wings.”
He let them float up above his head and then . . . he stopped fluttering them. His head drooping, Elder floated down, down, down. It was a mesmerizing sight.
“Your wings are like a parachute, Elder!” she shouted.
Just when he had built up enough speed that Firefly was beginning to worry, Elder lowered his wings and pulled up right in front of her.
“Exactly,” he said, hovering. “That’s why I call it parachute formation. It will keep you aloft for a few minutes while you rest your wings.”
“Can I learn it?”
“You can. Just make sure that you practice it far away from the other elders.”
She blinked their secret code: fast fast fast, looooong loooooong, which in this case meant Of course. Then she gathered her wings behind her and straightened up.
“May I go now?” she said.
He nodded, then floated backward and disappeared into the dark tree. With a mighty stroke of her wings, Firefly arrowed herself toward the river. Once out of the clearing, she found the animal path and stayed a few feet above it, pushing herself forward until she was fully out of the forest. Her wings were tired after a long night’s flying, but she was determined.
Cricket music rose all around her. The closer she got to the river, the closer she listened. This was the farthest from the hollow tree that she’d ever been. She listened hard.
Over there!
The song was coming from the riverbank, just in front of a clump of tiger lilies.
Firefly took a deep breath, and with one final push of her tired wings, she swooped down and landed on the nodding stem of the tallest lily.
CHAPTER FIVE
PSST!
Cricket hopped slowly down the path to the riverbank as his classmates sang from the marsh and the woods and the cattails. The girls had set a lazy summer beat, just right for the boys to sing songs of sunlight and flowers and the smell of green grass. The same music that generation upon generation of crickets had sung.
Leap.
Leap.
Leap.
Now he was at the riverbank, where the rush of moving water covered up sound. Here Cricket could sing all he wanted, and no one would scold him. He perched in his usual spot by the tiger lilies, on the upthrust root of the white birch. Vole’s boat was moored just beyond, but that was all right. Vole was no threat. He was a solitary creature who kept to himself and spent most of his time on his deck, practicing sailor knots. He didn’t bother tiny creatures like crickets.
Before he began his song, Cricket looked back at Firefly Hollow. Most of his classmates didn’t pay any attention to the fireflies, but sometimes Cricket liked to crouch at the edge of their clearing and watch a certain one practice her aerial maneuvers. He counted them off.
1. midair flip
2. loop-de-loop
3. figure eight
None of the other fireflies flew like this one did. He knew that the firefly elders forbade the young ones to fly farther than the clearing, just as Teacher forbade the young crickets to go anywhere near the giants’ house, but this firefly, like Cricket, continually disobeyed.
What did it feel like, to fly through the air like that?
Cricket was a creature of the ground. He knew how it felt to spring high in the air—he excelled at High Jumping—but to fly? To soar through the air, to drift on the wind? It was almost beyond his imagination. The clearing was dark now, and so was the fireflies’ hollow tree. They were asleep. Soon it would be time for Cricket to sleep too. The hours before dawn—neither fully dark nor fully light—were when the cricket and firefly nations rested.
He brought his wings together and sang softly.
“Take me out to the ball game
Take me out with the crowd.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack
I don’t care if I never get back.”
He tightened his grip on the root of the birch and looked out at the water, which was slow and quiet tonight.
If he practiced his baseball moves, would anyone see him?
He glanced around.
Cricket pictured Yogi Berra, the world’s greatest catcher. He pictured Peter and his friend, how they used to play catch by the river. He pictured the baseball section at the Museum of Giant Artifacts. He leaped from the root of the white birch to the soft dirt of the riverbank, crouched down, and got a good grip with all six legs. Now he held his wings straight out, cupped them together, and imagined a baseball hurtling toward him.
Keep your eye on the ball.
Let it drop into your mitt.
Smack!
That smack! was the imaginary sound of the baseball thudding into Cricket’s glove. Obviously he didn’t have a glove—he was a cricket, not a giant—but if he did, that was the sound that the baseball would make. Oh, he could just hear it. He could just feel it. That white leather ball stitched with red. He half rose on four of his legs, reared his throwing wing back as far as it would go, and pretended to fling the ball back to the pitcher.
“Psst.”
Yikes!
The sound was so startlingly close that Cricket nearly lost his balance and toppled backward onto his carapace. He hunched down and drew his wings together. All six legs were tensed, ready to leap if necessary.
The sound came again.
“Psst.”
Cricket uncovered his head just enough to peer about. Psst was not a sound that crickets made. It was not a sound that Vole, just feet away on his boat, would make either.
Was it a giant?
He could hear Teacher’s voice inside his head: Giants are the greatest threat of all.
Cricket drew in a deep breath. He told himself to be brave.
“Friend or foe?” he called to the darkness.
At first there was nothing. Cricket lowered his wings and looked in all directions. He sniffed the night air: pine woods and cold river water and cattails. Nothing strange. Nothing out of the ordinary. Maybe he had imagined the sound. From the boat, he heard Vole clear his throat.
“Friend or foe?” he called again into the night, just to make sure.
Then, from the darkness, a tiny glow appeared. It hovered in the air just above his head.
“Friend,” said a small voice.
CHAPTER SIX
HOW BRAVE ARE YOU?
Firefly hovered over the little ground bug, blinking on and off.
Should she land next to him, on the riverbank, or should she stay in the air? This was the first time she had ever talked to anyone outside the firefly nation. She hadn’t meant to scare him with that Psst, but his reaction was pretty funny.
“Friend?” he said now. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” said Firefly.
She floated down until she was suspended just in front of him. He peered up suspiciously. His wings—such as they were, those ground-bug wings that didn’t really do anything—were half-raised, and his many legs were tensed.
“Who are you?” he said.
“I’m Fir
efly.”
She hung in the air while he stared at her. His dark cricket eyes narrowed and turned even darker. A few feet down the shore, a creature coughed. That must be the old river vole on his boat, thought Firefly. She peered in the direction of the cough, but all she saw was a faint glow behind the tiger lilies. A lamp, maybe.
All the fireflies knew the story of Vole. How the river vole nation had been swept away in the Giant Flood, leaving only Vole, so little at the time, behind. How he had spent his life trying to teach himself the ways of his ancestors. But he must not have succeeded, because no one had ever seen Vole leave the safety of the riverbank.
Sad, thought Firefly. She tried to imagine being the only firefly in the world. She tried to imagine teaching herself to fly, without Elder hovering nearby, ready to catch her if she fell. It was a terrible thought.
The look in the ground bug’s eyes was wary.
“What are you doing here?” he said.
“I came to find you.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“How do you know who I am?”
“You’re the ball game cricket,” she said. “Aren’t you?”
Now the little ground bug’s eyes widened. His wings and many legs seemed frozen in place. Were all ground bugs so tense? From the marsh and the woods and the fields, the other crickets sang their familiar summer music. Firefly twirled slowly, listening hard.
“All the rest of the ground bugs—” she began, but he interrupted her.
“Don’t call us ground bugs. My name is Cricket.”
“Cricket, then,” said Firefly. “All the rest of the crickets sing about the river and the meadow and the trees.”
He kept his eyes on her, that suspicious look back on his face.
“Cricket music is pretty,” she added.
Ah. That relaxed him a little. One wing lowered itself.
“But you don’t sing regular cricket music,” she said. “You sing that giant song.”
At that, he shot at least four inches into the air and landed with a thud, almost toppling onto his carapace.
“Do not!”
“Do so!”
“Do not!”
“Oh, stop it!” said Firefly. “Don’t lie. We both know that the ball game song is a giant’s song.”
He started to deny it yet again, but she flapped both wings to stop him.
“If you’re worried that I’m going to tell on you, I won’t,” she said. “Fireflies are supposed to avoid the giants at all costs too.”
She did a midair flip to emphasize her point.
“So what do you want?” he said.
“To tell you something.”
“What?”
“That I like your song. It’s not the kind of song that anyone else would sing.”
He stared up at her with those dark eyes. Then, suddenly, he brightened.
“Hey!” he said. “I know you. You’re the firefly who does the aerial maneuvers, aren’t you?”
Yes! That was her! The ground bug knew who she was! All this time she had been listening for his song in the night, and he had been watching her? The thought made Firefly so happy that she spun in the air.
“Let me ask you something,” he said. “How brave are you?”
“Very.”
“Brave enough to come with me and see a giant up close?”
Firefly was so startled that she forgot to keep her wings moving and almost landed on the ground. A giant? Up close? But in the few seconds that it took her to hoist herself into the air again, she made up her mind.
“Show me the way,” she said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE MINIATURE GIANT
Firefly floated along above the ground bug—oops, Cricket—and made up a new game called Zoom Out of Cricket’s Way Each Time He Leaps. This game was harder than it looked. Crickets, or this one anyway, could leap much higher than she had thought.
Yikes! That was a close one.
“Are you trying to head-butt me?” she said.
“Maybe.”
“Because it would be very easy for me to dive-bomb you. Did you ever think of that?”
No. Cricket hadn’t thought of that. He imagined Firefly dropping from the sky onto his carapace like a tiny glowing bomb. It was a little too easy to imagine. Above him, Firefly smirked.
The sun began its gradual rise over the far pine woods. The air was still and calm and cool this early. The crickets were asleep, and so were the fireflies. Cricket was tired, but he liked knowing that he and this strange little firefly were the only two of their nations awake.
“Do you do this a lot?” said Firefly.
“Do I do what a lot?”
“Get up close to the giants.”
“Well,” said Cricket, “I’ve spied on the miniature giant lots of times. But I’ve never gotten really close before.”
He tried to keep his voice nonchalant, as if being close to a giant was no big deal. But it was impossible. The elders had infected him with their fear after all. Just the sound of the word “giant” coming out of his own mouth caused Cricket to leap so high in the air that this time he really did head-butt Firefly.
“Ouch!”
Cricket rubbed his head with a wing and stopped short. Straight ahead lay the terrifying bulk of the giants’ house. He couldn’t seem to lift any one of his six legs.
Firefly hung in the air, blinking. “Um,” she said. “Why exactly are we doing this?”
She pumped her wings just enough to stay aloft. She wasn’t too eager to keep going either.
“I mean, the elders are always telling us that giants are the enemies of the firefly nation,” she said.
“Same here,” he said. “ ‘Giants are to be feared. Giants are to be—’ ”
“ ‘—avoided at all costs,’ ” she finished.
Cricket nodded. Any normal bug, ground or air, would flee now while it still had a chance. He waited miserably on the ground, his wings closed tight to his sides. But Firefly didn’t flee. She stayed, lifting her wings lightly.
“Why are we going there, then?” she said.
He looked up. She had said “we.” That meant she wasn’t backing out—she was going to come with him to the giants’ house. He leaped straight up in the air out of happiness. Oh no. Another head-butt. This time the firefly was ready for him. She swooped down and dive-bombed him right on the carapace.
“Ouch,” she said, rubbing the top of her head. “You ground bugs are harder than you look.”
“So are you air bugs,” he said. Firefly was tiny, but she packed a wallop.
They appraised each other admiringly. The sun was up now, and soft dawn light filled the air.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“Well, I’m still waiting for your answer.”
“You really want to know?”
She nodded. The early morning sun glinted off her feathery wings.
“Because of the miniature giant,” he said.
“The one they call Peter?”
Cricket nodded. “He plays baseball,” he said, trying to explain. “I used to spy on him and his friend playing catch.”
“I did too,” admitted Firefly. “From the clearing.”
She fluttered in the air next to a silver cobweb strung between limbs of a baby birch.
“For real?” he said. “Why?”
“Because,” she said, “it looked like they were having so much fun.”
She cleared her throat and began to sing.
“Take me out to the ball game
Take me out with the crowd.”
Cricket joined in.
“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack
We don’t care if we never get back!”
“That’s why I came to find you,” she said. “You’re the only other bug I know who’s interested in anything to do with the giants.”
“Giants invented baseball,” said Cricket. “And I love baseball.”
“Giants invented spaceships,” said Firefly. “And I love outer space.”
Cricket craned his neck and looked up at the sky, now a pale early morning blue. The moon was barely visible now, a ghost of its nighttime self.
“Why?”
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “The moon, and the stars, and the Milky Way.”
She spun in the air, wrapping the silvery wisps of cobweb around her like a blanket.
“Can you keep a secret?” she said. “Sometimes I dream about flying up there.”
“But it’s so far away!”
“I know it is. Do you think I’m crazy?”
Yes, Cricket was about to say. But then he thought about it. Firefly dreamed of flying to outer space, and he dreamed of being the first cricket Yogi Berra.
“No,” he said at last. “I don’t think you’re crazy. I want to learn how to play catch. Do you think I’m crazy?”
She shook her head. Then the sun poked a finger of light onto the animal path, and Cricket sprang into action. They needed to keep moving. He leaped a little faster, and Firefly flew a little higher. Now they were at the shore, by the long, flat rock that Peter and his friend used to play on. The giants’ house loomed before them at the bend of the river, so tall that it nearly blotted out the rising sun.
Cricket tried not to shudder. Above him, Firefly slowed to a hover.
“I’m kind of afraid to see a giant up close,” she said. “If you want to know the truth.”
“Me too,” said Cricket.
Giants are to be feared.
Giants are to be avoided at all costs.
Giants are the enemies of the firefly and cricket nations.
Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all. But then, before Cricket could turn around, the enormous front door of the enormous house burst open, and Peter the miniature giant came walking straight toward them.
CHAPTER EIGHT
COULD HE ACTUALLY SEE THEM?
Firefly and Cricket stayed where they were, hidden behind the long, flat rock. Cricket’s wings half covered his head, and Firefly huddled just behind him.
Neither had ever been so close to a giant. They took turns peeking at him and then reported back in whispers, transfixed and terrified. The elders of both their nations always said that giants couldn’t hear or see ground and air bugs, but neither wanted to take a chance.
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