The Grasshopper Trap Read Online Free PDF Page B

For me, the Troll had murdered any hope of sleep. Under my breath I put a curse on her: May a garter snake turn up in your underwear drawer! (And a garter snake would, which shows you can’t discount the power of curses.)
    A friendly wind swept back the clouds and a few stars appeared. Starlight was better than nothing. I noticed several little black shapes flitting about among the stars.

    â€œAnd after the ghost got done with the two boys …” Ronnie was saying. “Hey, what are those black shapes flitting about among the stars?”
    â€œJust some bats,” I said.
    â€œBats!” cried Ronnie. “I can’t stand bats! Quick, let’s go inside!”
    â€œToo late,” I said. “The Troll has locked all the doors.”
    â€œAaaaiiiiigh!” Ronnie said. “What’ll we do?”
    â€œI don’t mind bats, myself,” I said. “But if they scare you, maybe you can hide under the covers. Sometimes bats like to crawl under the covers, but if I see any try it, I’ll drive them off.” I studied the quivering lump under the blanket. “I’m going to be awake anyway.”

Trailer Trials
    S hortly after man invented the wheel, he invented the trailer. Ever since then, he has been trying to figure out how to hook up the lights.
    I know a man who claims the lights on his boat trailer once worked twice consecutively. Anyone with one or more trailers will instantly recognize this as an outrageous claim, but the man is a member of the clergy, and for that reason alone I believe him. On the other hand, he’s also a fisherman, so he may be exaggerating a bit. Possibly his trailer lights worked only once consecutively.
    Over the course of his life, any sportsman worthy of the name will own a dozen or so trailers of various kinds—utility trailers, tent trailers, boat trailers, house trailers, horse trailers, trail-bike trailers, and snowmobile trailers, to name but a few. That is the reason researchers estimate that one-eighth of a sportsman’s life is spent trying to hook up trailer lights.
    The trailer comes equipped with a rectangular light,
whereas the plug on your car is round, or perhaps vice versa. In any case, you can be sure the two plugs won’t match. Therefore you must replace the original trailer plug with one that matches the car’s, a task that seems simple enough. You reason that since only four wires lead from the trailer plug and four wires lead from the car plug, there exist only a limited number of wrong combinations. True. The limited number is 4,389.
    Once you have wired the new plug to your trailer and plugged it into the car plug, the standard procedure for checking the trailer lights consists of having your wife, Alice, if that is her name, stand behind the trailer and call out reports on what is happening to its lights. The dialogue goes something like this:
    â€œI’ve got the left turn signal on, Alice. Is the trailer’s left-turn signal blinking?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat’s blinking?”
    â€œNothing’s blinking. But the other light got real bright. Then it went out.”
    You switch a few wires around.
    â€œI’ve got the brake lights on, Alice. Did the trailer brake light go on?”
    â€œNo. But the left-turn signal is blinking. Is that good?”
    The check-out procedure continues throughout the day until it is too dark to work, Alice goes in the house and phones a divorce lawyer, or you are dragged off to an asylum. The divorce rate among trailer owners, by the way, is nine times that of the rest of the population.
    Trailer lights have little insidious tricks they like to pull on you. For example, the left-turn signal will start blinking of its own accord. The drivers of the cars following you
think you are about to turn left, of course, and thus are hesitant to pass. Noticing the line of cars stretching out behind, you drive slower to make it easier for them to pass.