Below the Backyard
CHAPTER TWO: THE JOURNEY
"We have everything, don't we?" Webster asked. Samantha sighed heavily.
"Of course we have everything. If we add one more thing to this, then I'll die from compression. Yes, Webster, we have every last thing possible."
"Calm down, Samantha," Alfred whispered calmly. "If we don't leave soon, then we won't have enough time to get to a yard before sundown. It's noon now by the feel of it and the path that Samantha told me about should take us all afternoon to go through, with Webster's help. Are you all ready?"
"Of course," Samantha whispered. Caleb hopped up to them from behind her.
"I'm going over the ground to set up camp at the exit. Aimee spotted a path that I can take. She's hiding now though because of the human boy. He's home from the hospital and he and his father both are hunting her," Caleb said quickly. Alfred nodded.
"Aimee! Wherever you are, good luck!" Alfred screamed.
"Thanks, Al!" Aimee called back.
Then the four embarked on their journey. Caleb went towards the fence surrounding the Robinson's backyard and the rest went right behind Samantha. At first, Alfred was happy to be going on a journey. He was happy with his courage, his braveness, and his ability to organize what he hoped would be a successful exploration group. Then the danger began.
Samantha's little path was what they hoped would be a garden hose, just big enough for the three of them and just small enough for people to avoid, but her path was not what they thought it would be. The previous night it had rained heavily, and Samantha's path was a storm drain, meaning that it would be filled with a treacherous current of water that was seven millimeters deep, enough to drown even the longest bugs, such as Samantha.
"Um, Samantha, how are we going to cross this?" Alfred asked. The sound made his antennas shiver, and Webster was silent with fear.
"I don't know. I thought it was just a path, but that was last summer, when we were having what the humans called a drought. I thought it was raining every day, not us being hosed every day," Samantha whispered. Alfred sighed.
"Well, I don't know how we're going to do this. Should we try to get through the front yard and onto the sidewalk?" Alfred asked. Samantha shook her head.
"There's a birdfeeder in the front. We'll get eaten with the rest of the bird food if we go that way," Samantha replied.
"Webster, do you know any way for us to cross?...Webster?" Alfred asked, turning around. Webster was frozen with fear. "Webster, it's okay. You could help us get across, but only if you believe in yourself. Do you think you could help us?"
"There…there…there's a wire going across…that way," he whispered shakily, pointing his head to the right. "Sa…Sa…Samantha can't cross. She's too wide and…everything is…too heavy."
"Okay, let's see what we could do," Alfred whispered. "I know, you make a basket with your silk, and Sam and I can pull it across. Can you do that Webster?" Alfred asked. Webster nodded quietly, shaking if you stared long enough. Alfred looked back to Sam.
"I can handle that," she whispered. The group then began walking towards the wire.
Caleb had been walking for what felt like hours in the hot sun. He had managed to climb over the fence only to find a pool and concrete patio covered with humans much like the Robinsons. He felt like no matter how much Alfred, Webster, and Samantha tried, they'd never succeed.
Caleb walked across the top of the fence and passed a dividing gate between the back and front yards of the next house over. He saw a front yard filled with a flower bed against the front of the house, and a children's play area, but nothing the group would enjoy.
Caleb sighed heavily and began walking along the dividing gate. He decided that walking over this gate, walking over the porch carefully, and then hopefully onto another dividing gate would be his best route, but he also began to think about what would happen without this journey. The group could all die, from Stella to Ricky to Aimee to…himself. The Robinsons' backyard was their home, and leaving it would mean leaving their home for decades now. Caleb's own parents visited the Robinsons' front yard just two summers ago, and they fell in love with the attention of detail that Mrs. Robinson had on her flowers. Alfred's colony, Caleb knew, moved from the next yard over because they had an above ground pool that would flood their mound every autumn. They escaped for freedom, as did Stella, whose family is a beekeeper's beehive three houses down. Ricky left a disappearing marsh three hundred centimeters from the neighbor's yard. Webster left a breeding area for silk worms across the street, and Phillip left the animal shelter a block away on Sandy, the family's rescued dog. Everyone in the group came to the yard from somewhere else that they could never return to, and Caleb used this to make a giant six-foot jump onto the porch of the neighboring yard. As soon as he did, he was met with their group of insects and bugs, a group that was not so friendly.
"That was a long walk," Webster sighed, wiggling onto the platform in front of the long wall. Samantha nodded in agreement.
"How are we going to conquer this? Are you sure that Webster can do this?" Samantha asked. Webster gave her a hurt look.
"I can do anything, Samantha, a lot more than the people back home think you can do," Webster said sternly.
"Why does everyone think I'm unreliable?" Samantha asked angrily. "What did I ever do wrong to change my reputation that drastically? I'm just like every centipede, and I'm just like every girl…"
"Full of talk and no action. Blah, blah, blah, we get it," a rat said gruffly. A squeaky giggle came from behind him.
"You sure told her, boss, yeah, you told her," a smaller rat laughed.
"Shut it. What are you three bugs doin' in the sewer?" the first rat asked.
"Our garden may be facing extermination, so we're using this to get across a large area in a short amount of time, but the current water level is hindering us. You see, we can't swim," Albert explained. The first rat looked to the second rat and into a small area behind him.
"We may be able to help you bugs, though we normally wouldn't. It's just that…one of you bugs helped us, a Richard. He lost his sight for us, to help us escape extermination, well, something sort of like it. We lived in an abandoned dumpster in a marsh, and they were going to use chemicals to clean it with us in it, so Richard flew into the haze to guide us out. He said he had somewhere else for us to move, but we're for dumpsters, not some well-tended garden in the middle of suburbia. So, we'll help you, for him," the first rat said with a smirk.
"Thank you," Alfred grinned, thinking back to Ricky. He was a hero, more than any of the bugs in the garden, but he never told anyone. Alfred felt proud of his friend as he looked up to the first rat again. "So, how can you help us?"
"Well, there's a path upstream, we can take you across that and to a city park. The park only faces sprays once a year, and the only one was just done last week. All of the chemicals will have washed away by now," the first rat smirked.
"We can't subject any of them to poisons," Samantha whispered sternly. Alfred nodded in agreement.
"We were hoping to find a place like we have now, where no one ever sprays anything that could kill us," Alfred smiled, trying to be friendly to rats they may as well be his only hope. The rats merely laughed.
"You aren't going to find that, ant boy. The only way across is right here then. We can walk across the wire with you three on our backs," the first rat smiled. Alfred looked to Samantha and Webster, who, by the looks on their faces, liked the idea. The three then looked back to the rats, ready to make the strange journey. The first rat nodded and looked to the second rat. "Take them across, Tony."
Alfred and Samantha curled on top of the second rat's head while Webster rode on the first rat. The group then crossed the precarious wire, and made it across safely. The rats let them off and walked back across the wire.
"If you need anything from any rat, tell them Ricky sent you. He saved a lot of our tails," the first rat called over the current. The second rat laughed loudly and obnoxiously.
"Tails! Rats have tails!" he howled with laughter, following the first rat reluctantly.
"Let's say we find our way back to the gardens before we encounter any more problems. It'll be night soon, and we need to settle in before the owls or bats spot us," Alfred whispered. The group nodded and followed him onto the street. Once there, they were faced with a large backyard with a serious issue: they had pet bats and owls. The group settled back into the sewer to see what they could do from there.
"Well, will you look a-here, boys. We got ourselves a grasshopper to munch on," a large parrot smiled.
"I'm…I'm…I'm not a grasshopper. I'ma…I'ma…I'ma cricket," Caleb said sternly.
"Then chirp for us, stutter monkey!" a second, small parrot crooned.
"Chirp! Chirp!" the group chanted. Caleb knew it would never worked, but he tried anyway.
As he began, he heard a sound. He was chirping! He was really chirping! The group then flew away, leaving Caleb stunned by his own accomplishments, but wait. Who was that behind him? A gorgeous cricket stepped out from behind a gutter.
"Sorry to confuse you, but I couldn't watch you get eaten. I'm Angela the cricket," she smiled. "And who are you?"
"Caleb, from the next garden over," Caleb whispered. He was love struck by this mysterious cricket.
"It's a beautiful garden. I've always wanted to live there, but I live across the street," she smiled again.
"Well, it's not perfect anymore. One of our bees stung their daughter again and we'll all be exterminated unless we find another home."
"Oh! That is so sad! I was planning on moving in next summer, after I come back. You know, the gang might accept all of you. I'll go talk to our leader and come back here. You can wait behind the gutter. There's plenty to drink and you can crawl inside once night falls."
"Won't the night bother you?" Caleb asked, regretting as soon as the words left his mouth.
"I'm a cricket, honey. I'll be back as soon as you can. Make yourself at home," she smiled, hoping away into the twilight. Caleb huddled behind the gutter and watched as twilight occurred on the long street. Search lights began flickering on, starting in the east and ending in the west, as Caleb had learned from listening to the humans in their tree houses and forts. Caleb would miss those days, unless he and the rest of the group could find another place to live. With this thought, Caleb began to worry about Alfred, Webster, and Samantha, and he also worried about the bugs back home. He hoped with all six of his feet that the garden would remain safe long enough to get everyone from the garden, and hopefully into a safe home.
Alfred and Samantha led the exhausted Webster onto the sidewalk. Night had fallen, but it didn't seem that way due to the bright lights overhead. Also, bugs could be heard all around them. They were below a bug highway filled with every type of swarming bug from gnats to mosquitoes. The group walked slowly below them trying to figure out which yard to venture into.
After a few minutes of silence, Alfred finally gathered his voice and looked to a yard with tea lights surrounding its path.
"I say we follow it into their garden and try to mingle with them," Alfred tried, but Samantha just sighed.
"It's not that easy, believe me," Samantha whispered.
"How would you know?" Webster asked, standing up for the first time since they left the sewer.
"I was one of the first to enter your garden, but it was back before everyone was so nice, even though they aren't as nice as they could be. Anyway, you can't just waltz into every new social regime you find. You have to have a connection, and currently we only have one: Ricky. He can get us into every dumpster in town, but the yards are off limits until we can find a new connection," Samantha explained. A screech sounded above, barely audible to the three.
"Bats!" screamed a gnat, who was then gobbled up by a fruit bat.
"No! Not Dat! No!" cried another gnat, who fell to the ground with grief.
"Was that one of you friends?" Webster asked.
"No! It was my wife! Ten cycles of the sun we've been married, and now she's gone!" he wailed. Due to his lack of sympathy before, Webster made the gnat a tiny hanky and gave it to him. "Thank you, you inconsiderate worm!" he cried, blowing his nose and throwing it to the ground. "Why are you all here…together? It's after dark and none of you are leaders."
More screams from mosquitoes came from above as Samantha replied, cutting off Alfred in the process. "We're exploring, trying to find a new home for the bugs in our garden. We might be exterminated."
"Oh, dear, that is quite a good reason to be wandering the streets alone. And you have no connections? Most travel with someone who could lead them to other allies or former homes."
"Our only connection has no sight, and the rest of us can never return to where we came from, even if we do remember where it was," Alfred replied. The gnat nodded as another one of the mourners hit the sidewalk near them.
"Well, I may be able to help you, God help me. There's a garden over here that might accept you. Come with me. They'll show me pity because of Dat, and maybe, if you all work hard, they'll let each of you stay. I take that the ant here is one of a thousand and one?" the gnat asked.
"Of course," Alfred replied with a smile. "We're the only group of the same species in the entire garden."
"Ah, from the Robinsons'. Such nice people, they were, until they found out their daughter was allergic. She speaks to the main humans near our garden and we take in every word. Has the boy captured the butterfly yet?"
"Not to our knowledge, but we left midmorning," Webster replied. The gnat nodded and led them up the tea-light-lit path.
"Greta!" the gnat called. A garden spider rustled into their sight from the bushes. "We have a problem."
"You too? Everyone come inside. Angela is already here about another friend. I take that you're all from the Robinson house?" Greta asked. The three nodded. "Very well, come inside and tell me your story. When you're finished, we'll send a message to you garden. If it's as bad as Angela tells me, then all of you may stay."
So, Alfred, Samantha, and Webster explained their story to Greta, who agreed that they all could stay, under one condition: they give guided tours of the garden once the pesticides were gone. The group agreed, and the message was sent by a rat who would also do anything for Ricky. After a few long minutes, the verdict returned, and Stella approved, along with everyone else. Caleb was retrieved by a group of rats that agreed to transport the bugs in the night. By the time the moon had risen, all the bugs were lying in hammocks woven by Webster, and everyone was together and happy. Now, they just have to meet the new neighbor and learn is leaving home for bad reasons can become a good reason.