Insect Collecting

A marsh hawk soared high over the hamlet. He stood watching until it drifted out of sight, knowing it was headed back for Mer Bleue, the bird sanctuary a few miles away; recalled how Mr. Ferne had taken a handful of boys from the science club there once, on a field trip. Red-winged blackbirds, juncos and warblers - ducks, and in the distance, in the far reaches of the marsh as far as they could see over the cattails, a Great Blue Heron, daintily picking its way, high-stepping the grasses. Fish too; they'd seen silver backs arc the water, so quickly it had seemed a figment of their imaginations.

And it had been Mr. Ferne who'd sent away to Edmund Scientific for optical lenses so Billy could complete his microscope in time for the school science fair, last year. He'd been almost embarrassed about the whole thing, but the gilt cup with its inscription sat on the shelf in his room above the books on tree identification, animal tracks, butterflies and insects. He missed Mr. Ferne, wondered what was so great about raising sheep on a farm near Kingston, Ontario.

He shuffled up the roadway, kicking stones at the curb, and made his way up Mrs. Franck's driveway, then knocked at the front door. No answer, so he sat on the stoop and eased a click beetle off the ground from under a global cedar; placed the beetle on its back in the palm of his hand and waited to hear it 'click', righting itself. But it played dead. He nudged it gingerly with his index finger and it flipped.

"There you are, Billy!"
"Hello, Mrs. Francks." 

She'd always been a big woman with a big ready smile. Now the smile was still there, but it sat in a gaunt face drooping grey skin. Her upper arms hung crepey and her neck looked like knotted rope. The hair he remembered as blue-grey was now sparse and greyish; the scalp shining baldly through.

"Well, Billy," she laughed playfully, so obviously trying to put him at his ease. "Where have your interests been taking you, lately?"

She settled on the chaise lounge parked on the porch and his mother sat beside her. He felt awkward, wanted to leave, wondered why his mother just sat there, why she'd asked him to come by on his way home from school.

"Oh, I don't know ..." he hesitated. "Insects, I guess ... and butterflies. I'm starting a collection."

"Really! Did you know, Billy, my father was an entomologist?"
"No, I didn't ... Mrs. Francks."
"Well, he was. And he always said that kind of interest has to start early in life. In fact, when he was younger than you are now he was already collecting insects. My grandmother, my father's mother, used to tell us what my father would do when he came across an interesting specimen on his way home from school. Know what he'd do?"
"No."
"Well", she chuckled, "he'd put that beetle right in his mouth and keep it there until he got home. To be safe, you know, so he wouldn't lose it. He had a long way home from school. They lived in a rural area and sometimes he'd climb trees on his way home - fool around, you know how boys do."
"Oh, yeah." In his mouth ... ?
"He once," Mrs. Francks went on, her tired eyes mischievous, "swallowed a big beetle when he fell while walking along the top of a brick wall."

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The boxer next door, an old brindle champ, came clowning around, greedy for attention, swinging his rump with abandon. Billy rested on his haunches to rub the old boy between the ears. The dog wiggled ecstatically, bowled the boy over.

The brilliant green of a tiger beetle whirred past and he put up his hand, stopped the insect in flight, knocking it insensible. He picked it up, admired the iridescent body, the dog snuffling under his elbow, curious. Legs began pumping, the wings hesitantly sneaking out of the shell. Billy blew gently, then harder, and the beetle lifted itself off his palm and took off into a breeze.

He sat on the garden swing, the old dog whining for attention. But Billy sat there, swinging, remembering it was Friday. The air smelled sweet; it was the lilac bush over at the back of the garden. Better than the stench of the pulp mill across the river. He watched the house sparrows scrubbing around in the garden, looking for nesting materials to take back up to the birdhouse in the old elm. The birdhouse he'd made in Industrial Arts two years ago, and gifted to his mother for her birthday.

Minuscule black balls fell on him from above. He looked up through the bright new leaves of the maple shading the swing. Caterpillar droppings, already. Must be tent caterpillars; they don't lose any time getting established. He shifted to the other side of the swing, then his mother called through the side door for him to get the telephone.

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At the schoolyard Kevin adjusted the wings of his airplane and got everything set up. But something was wrong and even though they got the engine going, it would buzz for a minute, then choke off. Kevin did some mechanical things to the controls and they kept trying, but no dice.

Tim Hadley came by, bouncing a basketball and they abandoned the plane, took shots at the hoop. Tim showing off his dribbling technique. They worked up a good sweat, then sat on the hill.

"Yeah, you should see her. Sick, she really looks sick."
"I heard", Tim commented, disinterested.
"She coming back?" Kevin asked, munching a blade of grass, not seeming to care about the answer; doing the social thing, though.
"My mother says not likely. Listen ... how would you guys like to drop over there some day ... you know, just kind of let her know we haven't forgotten her?"
"I dunno", Tim said, kicking off his shoes, digging sock heels in the grass, staining the white. "Geez, she used to kick me out of that library all the time! Anyway, our class sent another card just recently, eh? We all signed it. That's enough, isn't it?"

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Billy worked on his equipment. A long-handled wire net for fishing around in pools of water. Two butterfly nets he sewed out of an old black umbrella. One with a bamboo garden pole for a handle, the other the frame of an old badminton racquet. He developed a smooth reflex swoop, learned he had to be gentle as well as quick, not to damage a specimen.

Already, just around home he'd netted a Swallowtail and a few nice skippers. A Monarch had led him crazily around but it was just too quick and cunning - looped up over the cedar hedge just when he thought he'd had it.

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They took the Mountain Road to Gatineau Park; the hills in the distance with their granite outcroppings reddish in the sun. At Luskville they climbed the trail to the falls. Just a trickle now. Down the granite slope, the frogs flopping around in the small pools.

They clambered up the hillside, passing huge boulders over-hanging the trail; stunted pin oak and evergreens tenaciously hanging on where they'd no business to even try. The granite glinted with quartz, and was carpeted with grey lichen.

Alerted by a tremble in the grass, Billy handed the nets to his father, then dove to pick the small snake up, one hand behind the head the other holding the tail. The snake writhed, then was still, flicking its orange tongue as Billy handled it, feeling the steely muscles straining, the skin dry and smooth. His mother edged away in distaste, and he bent to replace it in the undergrowth.

High in an ash tree, busily thumping, ignoring them, a red-capped hairy woodpecker. At the crossing of the stream bed his parents rested, playing hands in the cool water. Billy lay on his stomach over a stagnant pool and poked around with the wire net, trying for the newts. They dashed shadow-like, hysterically, around the bottom, stirring up silt, trying to avoid the net, while water striders skittered crazily on the surface of the water.

At the top of the hill, more oaks and the raucous accusation of a Bluejay. Below, the farms looked tiny, tidy; fields a neat colourful patchwork. Cars like bugs crawled the highway. The Ottawa River snaked in the distance, glistening in the sun. On the rocks, light brown oval droppings; near the blueberry bushes, black strings of offal. He'd check when he got home, in his book. Scatology. Not the kind he laughed about with Kevin and Tim - the kind they scribbled in the school's washrooms, but the science.

Pulling some bark away from a decayed stump he watched an ant-like insect scurry around the track in a panic, a white oval egg in its mandibles, other eggs nestled in the wood.

"Termites", his father said. "You've exposed a nursery."
"Not very appetizing", his mother said, backing away.
"I've got to put the bark back just exactly the way I found it", Billy told his father, who was moving off beside his mother. "Mr. Ferne taught us if we disturb something, we've got to put it back exactly as it was, so's not to upset the ecology."
"Right", his father laughed back at him. "We'll leave the housekeeping to you, Billy."

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Shaking the White Admiral out of the box, into the killing jar. The jar was a large one, with a big wad of absorbent cotton on the bottom, wet with acetone; a platform of net halfway down the jar. The butterfly landed on the platform, began shuddering as it struggled with the deadly fumes. He watched for a moment, then stuck the jar hastily into his closet.

Last week, when he'd begun to pin up a hawk moth the antennae began to shift, then the legs. The moth moving without purpose, going nowhere, the pins securing it to the drying board....

He shook a fine Longhorn Beetle out of a matchbox into a jar fitted with dirt and grasses, to give the beetle a miniature environment, until its turn at the jar.

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"I'm glad to see you, Billy", Mrs. Francks was saying, her hollow eyes saying much more, and gladness wasn't part of it.
He mumbled something, didn't know what, felt oddly embarrassed, just couldn't think of anything intelligent; wondered why he'd agreed to call. It was different when his mother talked about how lonely she was, how she wanted company, and he said sure Mom, but being there was a drag and he didn't know how to be any kind of company to a sick old lady.

"Come across any interesting insects lately?, she prodded.
"Found a tomato horn-worm the other day", he finally said, feeling stupid. She didn't really want to hear about it. He wouldn't tell her how it looked, big and green, and how it curled defensively when he touched it, how his mother shrieked at the size of it, wanted him to mash it.
"Ah yes, they'd like to get into someone's vegetable garden, no doubt", Mrs. Francks said. "They're destructive little beasties."
"I told him to get rid of it", his mother said, eyeing him as though she knew he'd only taken it over to the park near their home.

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Wednesday, Tim came over with a Giant Waterbug. Billy ran downstairs for a plastic pail, half filled it with water, shook the bug into it. It began swimming around the rim of the pail. "See that tube?" Billy told his friend. "That's a breathing apparatus for when it swims underwater. Those bugs're really fierce when they're just in the pupa stage. They even eat things as big as frogs. What they do is inject a kind of venom in their victims, that turns the insides to mush, then they suck everything out, leaving an empty shell."
"Wouldn't want it around our place", Tim quipped. "Case it decided to turn me to mush". They watched the bug dive and swim around the pail. Then Billy took it downstairs to the basement; left it there for the time being.

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"I feel I want to say something but I can't, I just can't." His mother, speaking to his father.
"If she's so weak ... why does she take the car out?"
"She won't admit it, she thinks she's in control. But she isn't. She goes around on little errands, she's tired of stagnating. She sits there, imagining the ongoing corruption of her cells ... going crazy thinking of it. Going out, she says, takes her mind off ... "
"I can understand that, but if she has such poor control that she backs into posts ... What happens if she ever hits someone?"
"I know, that's what has me so frightened! But Will, she's feeling so low ... how can I tell her she can't have even that pleasure?"
"What about her daughter?" Why isn't she here, looking after her mother?"
"She won't hear of it! Says she'd be depriving Brenda of a school year, says she can look after herself."
"Christ! if she says that, then why the hell are you so worried? Why the hell do I have to waste my time discussing the woman with you? Let her look after herself!"

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First thing they saw as they neared a line of trees was a young groundhog standing his ground; a wire-haired terrier from one of the nearby houses, a few feet away, barking furiously. They shooed the dog on home and the gopher waddled unhurriedly off into the woods. They followed, ducking into the ravine, turning over stones, frightening a covey of chickadees.

Once out on the flats they saw butterflies everywhere, mostly skippers and sulphurs, but there were a few mourning cloaks, fritillaries. Kevin caught a few experimental grasshoppers, trying out the net, then they ran over the humpy grass after the butterflies, bumping into each other, tripping over twigs and stones. Pandemonium; they yelled and laughed and caught nothing.

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Billy worked the White Admiral into a natural position on the drying board, placing insect pins where necessary so it would dry properly. He painstakingly made out the identifying card. when it was set, and fixed in position he would mount it, add it to the collection.

Downstairs then, to look at the Waterbug. The pail stood empty, innocent looking. In the evening, he heard his mother's nervous scream. He ran downstairs and there she stood, hands over her chest, on tiptoe, stretching away from the bug on the carpet. It looked menacing, so large it seemed like a mouse.

"Billy! What is it?!"
"It's okay Mom, relax. It's only a Waterbug. A giant Waterbug."
"Giant. I'll say! How'd it get in here? Or need I ask?"
"Sorry, Mom. Sorry about that. Did it scare you?"
"You can be sure! What are you planning to do, keep it as a pet?

He drew on a pair of garden gloves, picked the bug up, dropped it back in the pail. He stood there, looking down at it. Finally, he brought the killing jar downstairs. It was so big, it would take forever.

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There it was, on its back, still feebly struggling. He resisted an impulse to release it into the garden. It would die there anyway, now, so what was the point.
In the evening, nothing. Even when Billy shook the jar, nothing. He took his large tweezers and picked the bug out, placed it on the Styrofoam drying board, nudged it. He drew the box of insect pins toward him and plunged the first one in, the second; arranging the legs the way they should be, in a natural attitude.

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"Just a minute, Billy, don't go just yet", she said, pushing herself off the sofa with an effort. He shivered involuntarily, watching her slow crablike progression across the room, stopping to stand over him, face creased in what she must imagine was a kindly smile, but to him, a grimace, dreadful.

Her teeth looked huge now in her shrunken skin. Her nostrils flared, giving her face the aspect of a corpse. He steeled himself, smiled back, wanted to look to his mother; couldn't, not with her standing there, looking at him so expectantly. What? Was he supposed to do something? Was she waiting for him to do something, say something? He felt nauseated.

"I want to give you a gift", she went on then, turning away from him, sidling toward the four steps leading up from the den to the living room.
Billy looked over at his mother, raised his eyebrows. She shook her head, raised her index finger to her mouth.
"If I can find ..." Mrs. Francks's voice floated eerily through the partition of the rooms; they could hear her rummaging about. "A rudimentary book on insect classification" she was saying, voice muffled now with the effort of whatever it was she was doing. "An old book of my father's. It's here somewhere, I know it is."

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In the morning he casually checked the drying board. the legs, the legs were moving ... weren't they? Wincing, he withdrew the pins, dumped the bug back into the killing jar.

"Well, Billy! You can't just go off to school without a proper breakfast!" Standing at the table, forehead creased, pushing his cereal bowl at him.

"I can't!" Stomach coming up to fill his chest, his throat. He struggled to recall what the Waterbug pupa was like, what a voracious heartless killer it was.

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After school he went up to his room. He sat on the edge of his bed, looked at the killing jar, the bug perfectly still. Again, the drying and pinning.

Before bedtime, a peculiar sound. The legs, faintly scratching. Throw it out! No. One more time.

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The next day, a lovely day, perfect for doing something, something out-of-doors, with his friends. Walking home with Tim, he said he was sorry, he didn't feel like bike riding, maybe Friday. When Kevin called, Billy said maybe Tim would like to help fly the airplane. Really, he said, he was tied up, himself.

This time, of course, it was dead. Dead and stiff, and it was hard to move the legs into a lifelike position. It was still a good specimen but it would dry awkwardly. Of course, no one but another collector would know, might care. Mr. Ferne would notice right off, if he saw it, but Mr. Ferne wasn't there anymore. Billy wondered vaguely, absently, how Mr. Ferne was getting on at the farm.

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Mrs. Francks was not feeling too well this day. Couldn't walk around much, too weak. Her smile was still there, lopsided. And sitting there, he could hear something wrong inside her. Something was rumbling, wetly, and the sound made him look everywhere but at her.

"I'm so glad to see you, Billy", she'd said warmly, holding out her dry hand to him. He took it, paper-thin, between his. Again, he didn't know what to say, just looked at her.

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"She's gone in again", his mother was saying.
"What for this time!" his father snapped, annoyed. "For tranquilizers? She depressed again? God knows, she depresses me!"

"No", his mother said sharply, looking angrily at his father. "She may need a colostomy."

"Jesus! Why bother, she'd never live through it."

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Mrs. Franck's daughter, his mother told him a week later, had finally flown home.

"She told me they have a special understanding, she and her mother. They don't say anything ... actually, Mrs. Francks is beyond that now. She said she sits there, beside her mother's bed.

"They draw strength from each other." Her voice biting. "Silly bitch!"

He had never heard his mother swear before. He was always careful with his language, around her.

He wondered if he should tell her he was giving up insect collecting. Wondered if she'd care, if she'd ask why. It was too late now to start a different project for the science fair.

He hoped she wouldn't expect him to go to the funeral.