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| Photo Jennifer E. Miller 2018 |
The Unusual Suspect
By,
Jennifer E. Miller
Childhood summer days were spent at
Grandma’s house. Her garden bloomed with zucchini, lettuce, peas, green beans,
and of course tomatoes. A few plants grew in pots up by the house, which is
where I found a tomato hornworm; a large green caterpillar. It was the largest caterpillar
I’d ever seen, and it was awesome. It was bright green and when it crawled its
sides moving fluidly like an accordion. A spike protruded from its hind end,
which didn’t frighten me at all. I plucked the caterpillar from the plant and barreled
through the sliding door into the kitchen to show grandma.
“Grandma! Look at this huge
caterpillar. It’s part unicorn, too,” I exclaimed, pointing out the spike.
Grandma shrieked. “Where did you
find that?!”
“On a tomato plant.”
She allowed me to place it in an old
mason jar for observation. I was intrigued when it tried climbing the side,
allowing me to see its little feet suctioning on the jar. After about 4.27
minutes, I got bored of watching it and left to go do something else.
Later, when I returned to the jar,
the caterpillar was gone.
“Grandma, what happened to my new
friend?”
“I don’t know,” she answered,
refusing to look at me.
As with most kids, I forgot all
about it and continued with my day.
* * *
A few days later, I rubbed my morning eyes as I scuffled into
the kitchen.
“Grandma, I’m ready for breakfast,” I said, groggily.
No answer. That’s weird. She was usually waiting for me.
“Grandma?” I called again.
Nothing.
No matter. I prepared myself cereal and juice. While crunching
the bran flakes, I heard what sounded like a cheer. I abruptly stopped chewing
and listened closer.
“Ohhhhh!” I heard, followed by a cackle.
Setting my cereal spoon down with a clank, I walked to the
next room and snuck up next to the window, so not to be spotted. Peering out, I
saw Grandma with the neighbor, hunched over at the edge of the garden. Grandma
poured something from a container. When the contents reached the ground, she cackled
again while the neighbor oohed and aahed and took a step backward, as though
getting out of the way of something.
Swiftly, I ran back to my room, threw on some clothes, and
returned to the window. By this time, Grandma had retrieved the garden shovel.
Curiosity grabbed hold of me and I turned from the window and out the back
door.
I approached without a sound, hiding behind shrubs and trees.
They hadn’t seen me.
From my James Bond vantage point, I saw something wiggle on
the ground, uncomfortably. The container was now in the hands of the neighbor
who sprinkled more of its contents, which I could now see was salt. She poured
it over a slimy creature that writhed around in the dirt.
“It doesn’t like that, does it,” the neighbor stated.
“Nope,” answered Grandma.
Grandma tapped the shovel over the ground and the metal tinged
over a rock. Next, she raised the shovel over her head and slammed it down like
an ax. Bits of fleshy material flew in various directions and dirt clumps splashed
outwards.
“You only got part of it. Hit it again,” said the neighbor, a
little too enthusiastically.
Grandma swung the shovel a second time, and in one big swoop
sliced the creature clean in half. I knew that because the neighbor cheered, “By
golly! That was like chopping off a fish head.”
I felt the color drain from my face.
Grandma rinse off the shovel at the spigot while the neighbor
sprinkled another dose of salt “for good measure.” Then, the two women walked
back to the house with Grandma mumbling something about me probably being awake
and wanting breakfast. I pressed back into the shrub so they didn’t see me.
Once they were inside, I stepped out, toward the murder scene.
My heart went thump-thump as the ground bobbed up and down with my stride.
A small crater lay exposed in the dirt, and what was in the center
surprised me. I was expecting some poor critter I saw regularly: a bird, rabbit,
or other garden menace. What I saw, of course, was a behemoth slug—rather what
was left of it. That explained the salt, too. The crystals stuck to the slug’s
slimy skin like nubby porcupine quills, slowly suffocating the creature until
the shovel severed it from its misery.
I hadn’t seen my grandmother kill anything before, but now had
a slightly better understanding of why the garden was a success. Thinking back
to my tomato hornworm’s disappearance, I questioned if it perhaps met the same
fate as this slug.
Without much time to mull over what I had just witnessed, I
snuck back in the house where Grandma greeted me with, “I was just about to
scoop you out of bed. Sleeping too long. You want one slice of toast or two?”
Scoop…shovel…dirt…slug…in
two pieces…toast…
“Well?” she pressed.
“I’m not hungry.”
Copyright 2018 Jennifer E. Miller
