Jam's new bug-hopper

What a delivery! A right corker. Jam usually enjoyed relaying the events of a day to his grandma but today he was hopping mad to tell her.

‘Well, what happened?’ His Grandma nudged.

‘You know that I’ve had the same bug-hopper near seven years now?’ Jam hoisted himself up on the wide kitchen counter. He leaned over to a biscuit barrel that was wedged in a cupboard without a door, and yanked it out.

‘Yeahhh?’ She drew out the word while she held her hand out for Jam to drop a pellet cookie in it.

‘Mm . . . well, schflur..mmm..nuwrrf…’

‘Can you finish eating before you speak’? His grandma had already gobbled up her cookie.

‘Mmh, sorry’ Jam caught some flyaway crumbs and then began.

‘Well, I got a new one now.’

‘New what one now?’ His grandma asked.

‘Bug-hopper!’

‘Have you?’

‘Yes!’

‘Where from?’

‘I’m about to tell you!’

‘Sorry, sorry.’ His grandma folded her arms to indicate she was seriously listening.

‘SO!’ He exclaimed. Jam was building the tension a little too much for the story to be any good, his grandma thought.

‘I got a delivery from up Knawlands. Straight forward kind of job; grab the crates from one spot and take them to another.’ As he spoke, Jam poked holes in to the air to demonstrate the separate locations. He then pinched another cookie from the jar and took a quick nibble before continuing.

‘I go up there . . .’

‘Up to Knawlands?’

‘Yeah. I go up there to see what it is I’m to be delivering and I find the crates I’m looking for but there’s a kid sat on top of them.’

‘A kid? Like, a child?

‘Yeah! It was one of them small newt types.’

‘Well, what did you do?’

‘I just sort of asked if they were there about the delivery.’

‘What did they say?’

‘Didn’t say nothing. They just sat there, sort of staring, like a weirdo.’

His grandma laughed.

‘So the place I was doing the pickup from was kind of like a farm.’

‘Kind of?’

‘Yeah, saw rows of crops but they were all totally wrecked. I figured it must be abandoned. But there were a load of farmers or whatever walking about with buckets.’

‘Buckets? So where they putting the crops out? Were they burning?’ His grandma’s chin wobbled, a sign of intrigue.

‘Burning? No. They were just a mess. Looked like someone had totalled their bug-hopper but like, all over.’

‘Ooh, was it one of them crop circles?’ His grandma cooed.

‘Crop circles? What? No. They were just trashed.’

‘Right, well what’s this got to do with your delivery?’ She unfolded her arms and began to finger the jars of food on the kitchen table in front of her. Jam polished off a third cookie.

‘Well ‘cause I went to ask one of these farmers what was going on with the kid and could I just take the crates?’

‘What did they say to that?’ His grandma blew on her cup of eel tea and sipped gently.

‘Says the kid is nothing to do with them, take the boxes.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. So I just start loading up the crates and the kid moves around me. After I’ve got everything packed up and my bug-hopper has been fed,’

His grandma closed her eyes, pursed her lips and nodded. She approved the care her grandson showed his ride.

‘Then the kid jumped on the back just as I was about to take off!’

‘It never!’

‘It did! Luckily we weren’t away yet so I told them to shoo, said I did deliveries and not rides.’

The space on the yellow table between grandma and grandson became less when the former dropped the full weight of her arms on to it. Jam knew his story was a corker. Only when her arms were at rest and not picking at the food around her or circling the warts on her face with large fingers, did Jam know she was interested.

‘The kid says nothing, just sits there. So I go back to the person I spoke to earlier,’

‘With the bucket?’

‘With the bucket. They just repeat that it’s got nothing to do with them. But this is Knawlands, you know? There’s nothing but paddies and trees out there.’

‘Oh yes, heard of lots of people getting themselves lost and missing up there.’

‘Exactly! If the kid ain’t from that farm place, where’s it come from?’

His grandma’s large hand raised to her chin with a ponderous face, as if she could really get to the bottom of the mystery if only she squinted hard enough.

‘I’m thinking they’re a runaway.’ Jam said, with his eyebrows raised.

Jam’s grandma seconded this conclusion with a fist to the table, which rocked the small green kitchen and all of its jars.

‘I figure just this once I can give them a lift, they might have been seriously scared from being out there, you know? I thought I should get them back in to town at least, so someone can figure out what to do with them.’

His grandma nodded. She knew he had it in him; the good stuff. Pointing it out would make it less special and she didn’t want to take the humble out of him. Jam continued.

‘From Knawlands to the drop off point in Bulgers town was about fifty two leagues.’

Grandma returned to picking at the jars of food around her. The devil’s in the details, stray too far from the point and she was lost. Listening, of course, but only through the crunch and grinding of her teeth. She scooped up some egg shells and began to smash them against her gums.

‘Anyway, it was pretty far and the kid stared quietly the whole time. It was pretty weird.’

‘Mmm?’ Egg shell crumbs fell from his grandma’s mouth.

‘When I got to the place, it was empty. Just a tall, leafy building that looked run down.’

‘What did you do with the delivery then?’

‘I checked my notes, checked the delivery ticket and all the information it gave was the locations. I figure I’ll just leave the crates by what looked like it might have been a loading dock.’

Grandma nodded thoughtfully. She was fishing about in her mind to find a recollection of a building that fit the description.

‘Nah, you’ll have to give me more to go on,’ she said ‘did it have a sign on the building?’

‘A sign?’

‘Yes, a sign, the thing that tells you what you’re looking at, what the building might have been?’

Jam could tell his grandma was trying to solve the puzzle before he was through telling it. It annoyed him.

‘What’s it matter what the building used to be if it ain’t that no more?’ His eyebrows interlocked.

‘Well maybe I know what sort the kids is, if it’s going in to an old building that I know about.’

‘We didn’t even go in the building!’ Jam, in a huff, reached for the jar of flies on the kitchen table but his grandma pulled it away and kept her large, wet hand on its lid.

‘No, but you went to the place for a reason. Tell me, were there signs?’ She pulled the fly jar closer to her side of the table, like a reverse bet placed for information.

‘I don’t know! It was just some old building! It might have been something like a brewery.’ Jam conceded.

‘Ah! The old Mason brewery?’ Her hands remained on the jar. Jam licked his lips at the bugs crawling inside.

‘Yeah, sure.’ He reached for the jar again but she pulled it further back, so that it was sitting under her wobbling chin. She squinted her orange eyes, to ascertain to validity of his assertion. Finally, she released her wet digits and slid the jar over to Jam.

‘Well, go on.’ She was in a generous mood. She’d let him finish before solving his riddle.

‘Mmh,’ Jam pulled his tongue out of the jar and hurriedly replaced the lid. The flies had been in the fridge so were too lethargic to fly, but some of the bigger ones had heartier constitutions and would make a break for it if they saw their chance.

‘I dropped the crates off and expected the kid to get off with them.’

‘They didn’t!?’

‘No, they stayed on my hopper. I asked was there a place they needed to be?’

‘No answer?’

‘No answer.’

Jam’s grandma scratched a wart.

‘It’s not outside, is it? The kid?’

‘Course not!’

‘Mm.’ She opened a jar of the good beetles and contemplated over a crunch.

‘I had more delivery tickets on me so I decided to get on with it. I thought the kid could just get off when it wanted to. It wasn’t a bother to have around, really. And I started to talk to it. Well, at it.’

‘What did you talk about?’

‘Just general things, you know? The weather, what was happening over in the big pond, how many deliveries I had left . . . that kind of stuff. I got to my last job and the kid was still there, staring at me.’

‘Creepy.’

‘Yeah. Well, I couldn’t bring it home,’

‘Definitely not! I don’t want no kid running about.’ She put her arms around the jars on the table, as if she anticipated a noisy child to run through and knock them all over.

‘Did you get it to clear off?’ She asked.

‘I did as I had thought earlier, take it up the municipal pond in town, see if I could find somewhere to leave it where it could get help.’

‘Ha! The child was the delivery!’ His grandma had cracked it, all in capital time too. Although she had broken the promise to herself that she would let him finish before she solved his riddle. Jam frowned.

‘No,’ He said, flatly. His grandma looked abashed. It was okay to jump the gun if you were right, she thought. But if not, you leave yourself a fool. She would hold her tongue in penance.

‘I found one of those places where young frogs go to sing and thought it’d do well there, even if it was a newt. Well, newt-looking.’

‘It wouldn’t get off the hopper when I asked it though,’ Jam said ‘so I picked it up and put it by the door of the place. But when I left it there on the steps, it looked sort of . . . sad. So I thought I’d go back and give it a cookie.’

‘One of mine?’ His Grandma asked, thwarting her penance.

‘Yeah, one of the pellets.’ Jam gestured to the jar, back in its cubby.

‘What did it make of it?’

‘It made a whole lot of it. Ate the thing in one.’

‘Oh!’ Grandma clapped her hands together and smiled broadly. ‘Did it go off after that?’

‘No, it’s outside.’

‘Say again.’

‘It’s outside.’

‘But you said . . .’

‘Yes, there’s not a child outside but . . .’ He trailed off and his eyes danced.

‘You have a new hopper,’ she said to herself with uncertainty. The riddle was open for answers. Her large arms fell to the table again. What was it?

‘It . . . turned in to a hopper?’ His grandma wrinkled her stub nose, this riddle was silly.

‘You got it!’ Jam clapped his hands together and made excited noises.

‘No!’ His grandma exclaimed.

‘Yes!’ Volleyed her grandson.

‘But . . .’ It really was a stupid riddle.

‘I know! After I gave it the cookie, it jumped up! So high that I was worried for its landing. And I’ll admit, I did do a bit of panicking. I couldn’t see the thing! I managed to collect myself though and trained my eyes on the spot where I thought it had jumped up, and then saw something coming back down. And to my surprise I saw it was a brand new bug-hopper!’

‘You’re pulling my leg.’ His grandma furrowed her brow.

‘Honest! It was a shiny, new hopper with strafe wings and all! Just come outside and I’ll show you.’

Jam’s grandma sat quietly for a moment. She looked down at her bent legs and sighed.

‘Just a quick look?’ She requested.

‘Of course.’ Jam helped his grandma out of her chair and took her to go and see his new hopper.