The Grasshopper Trap Read Online Free PDF Page A

alone!”
    â€œDon’t refer to your sister as the Troll,” my mother said. “Now, Trudy, get out of there and leave the boys alone.”
    The Troll backed slowly out of the room, grinning evilly. “Hope you have a good time sleeping out-in-the-dark. The weather report in the paper says there’s going to be heavy darkness all night tonight cackle cackle ! ”
    Just my luck—heavy darkness. And here was Ronnie, pressing ahead with his plan for sleeping out. This was getting out of hand. We were actually getting some old blankets and quilts down out of the attic to make a bed in the yard. What madness! I considered asking Ronnie to take an oath of secrecy and then confessing to him my disgusting fear of darkness. He would probably understand.
    â€œI’ll tell you something weird,” Ronnie said. “I tried to get Fred Phelps to sleep out with me one night, and he said he couldn’t, he was afraid of the dark. A big guy like Fred, you wouldn’t expect him to be yellow-bellied chicken, would ya? He even made me take a secret oath not to tell anybody.”
    â€œFred’s dumb, too,” I said. So much for that idea …
    Darkness was already coming down off the mountain, crawling out of the woods, and oozing up from the creek bottom. Down in the swamp, a chorus of frogs welcomed the coming of night. Stupid frogs.

    Several times in my young life, through some monumental miscalculation, I had been surprised by darkness while playing with friends at a neighboring farm. Galloping along at the head of a column of French Legionnaires, I would yell over my shoulder, “Watch out for an ambush, men. It’s getting dark and …”
    Whoa, hoss.
    I take a look around. Hannnnnhhh! My deadly enemy, darkness, has slipped in between me and my house! “Uh-oh,” I tell the other Legionnaires. “I’m late for supper.” And then I fire myself into the darkness. I can feel its long, bony fingers clutching at me, its grisly jaws nipping at my heels, and I streak, streak I say, through the silent, creepy blackness until, at last, I burst into the benevolent, life-saving light of my kitchen. Startled by the bang and whoosh of my sudden arrival, the womenfolk emit small shrieks and bound about in a mist of hairpins. Ah! Once again I have defeated the enemy! I slide into my chair and ask, “What’s for supper?”
    The Troll detected my fear of darkness early on, and used it for her own amusement. Once, walking home with her through the woods in winter, I noticed that the shadows of the trees had lengthened and were now blending together into great patches of—darkness. The last of the daylight slid up the barren birches as if being sucked through giant straws into the gaping maw of night.
    â€œIt’s getting dark!” I warned.
    â€œSo what?” the Troll said, crunching on ahead through the snow.
    â€œWe’d better run,” I said. “We don’t want to get caught out here after dark.”
    The Troll stopped, turned around, and studied me thoughtfully.

    â€œWe can’t run,” she said. “If we run, the wolves will attack.”
    I looked around, as one is wont to do after such an announcement. “What wolves?”
    â€œThe wolves that have been following us,” she said. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen them!”
    Well, now that she mentioned it, I did indeed see the wolves, slipping along through the shadows to the left and right of us.
    The Troll calmly studied my reaction. “Why are you twisting yourself all up like that, you silly?”
    Apparently she had never before seen anybody wind up the mainspring. Not run! I would have laughed if I’d had the time and the inclination, but I had neither. Sprannnnnnngg ! And I was gone.
    At the time, I knew nothing about the infectious nature of panic. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been so surprised when, upon reaching my top cruising