Maggie woke before dawn the next morning. She sat in her kitchen, drinking tea and thumbing through a magazine she was too distracted to read. When the sun was up, she picked up her butterfly net and an empty mayonnaise jar, its lid punched with several holes, and went out to her garden.
Another neat square of creeping thyme had been shorn, and the three swaths formed the beginning of a checkerboard pattern.
Dammit! Where are you? She walked slowly along the garden, scanning the foliage, pausing to part branches and peer deeper. After she walked the entire length of the garden, she began the search again. And again, and again. I’ll find you if it takes all day.
As the sun rose higher, the air grew hot. Sweat trickled down her forehead and stung her eyes, her back was aching from bending over to peer deeper into the greenery, but she continued to search. After repeatedly scanning the garden for over an hour, it was evident that the search was a waste of time, and she felt a bit foolish. She sighed, wiped her brow, and was ready to give up when she caught it in the corner of her eye. Perched among the milkweed, the creature stared at her. There you are. She paused, peering at it. My God, it’s gotten bigger!
She scooped the creature into the net, and transferred it quickly into the mayonnaise jar. She held up her prize, admiring it, and smiled. “Gotcha!” She said. The creature didn’t struggle, but continued staring at her.
In the cool of her kitchen she placed the mayonnaise jar on the table, poured herself a glass of lemonade from the fridge, and plopped into a chair and regarded the creature. It stared back at her.
So, now what? Who do I contact about this thing? Some local government department? The nearest university is Northwestern—call their biology department? I’ll get some robo-answering system—most likely never get through to a live person, and if I do it’ll be to some clerk who’ll probably dismiss me as a doddering old crank.
She pulled out her phone and dialed her daughter.
“Hi Sharon, it’s me.”
“Hi, Ma.”
“Sorry to bother you at work. Listen, I captured this … um, I don’t know what it is—it’s not an insect—the strange animal that I told you about in my garden—looks like the damn thing’s been feasting on my thyme—now I’m not sure what to do with it. Any thoughts?”
“Jeez, Ma, if it were me I’d just squish the thing.”
“Sharon, you know we’re not supposed to ‘just squish’ things. If there is one of them, there are probably others, and if it’s an invasive species, I want to know. Everybody should know—maybe it’s one that hasn’t been identified yet, or maybe it is known, and the authorities would want to track it. But who would I contact?”
“You’re the gardening expert, Ma, I thought you would know. Is there a county bug department?”
“You’re a big help.”
“Didn’t the app on your phone identify it?”
“No.”
“Well, go online and do some research. I’ve told you a million times, the laptop we bought you is for more than just watching YouTube videos and emailing.” Again, Maggie imagined her daughter’s eyes rolling. “Google ‘invasive species in Illinois’ or ‘garden pests’. Also try ‘where to report invasive species’.”
She picked up the jar with her quarry and went to the spare bedroom that was her office and library. After a few minutes of online searching she learned that the University of Illinois had a department called The Illinois Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey Program. Of course, I should have guessed, U of I. They recommended that captured specimens be killed to assure they can’t escape, in a leak proof jar with alcohol or white vinegar. “Do not squish it,” they emphasized. Returning to the kitchen, she found an empty pickle jar and poured a few inches of vinegar into it.
“This is the end for you my friend,” she said as she entered her office. She stopped in her tracks, staring at the jar on her desk that had held the creature. It was open and empty, the lid lying next to it.
How is this possible? Maybe I didn’t tighten the lid enough, she thought, though she distinctly remembered doing so.
She searched the room, under the desk, behind the bookshelves, between the potted plants. In the closet, between the clothes and shoes, on the shelves. The creature wasn’t there. It must’ve slipped out of the room. Crap! It could be anywhere in the house.
She moved through each room of the house, searching under furniture and lampshades, between the cushions of the sofa and chairs, under the piano and in the piano. She searched her bedroom, then moved to the kitchen, checking all of the cabinets and drawers, and looking under the sink, under the stove and fridge. She checked every inch of the bathrooms. Nothing.
Returning to the kitchen, she put a kettle on to boil for tea, and slumped into a chair and sighed. Now what? The basement, the attic crawlspace—oh God, they’re so crammed with junk I’ll never find it.
It was late afternoon, and she was tired and hungry since she had skipped lunch. She brewed a cup of tea and made a tuna salad sandwich, then retired to the living room to eat and watch television. She was too preoccupied with her uninvited houseguest to focus on the TV news, so she switched it off. She picked up her phone and called her daughter.
“Sharon, I’m afraid I’ve done something dumb. I captured that thing in the garden, put it in a jar and brought it into the house, now it has escaped and I don’t know where it is.”
“It’s no big deal, Ma, it’s just a bug.”
“It’s not just a bug, it’s something else, and it’s creepy, it scares me. And it’s gotten even bigger—it’s growing fast. It’s smart, too. It was able to unscrew the lid of the jar and escape.”
“Calm down. I’ll stop by your place tomorrow after work, then we’ll deal with it. We can call an exterminator.”
“Oh God, I don’t want to have the house fogged with poison! And I don’t even know what to tell them to exterminate.”
“We’ll deal with it tomorrow. Goodbye.”
Sharon shook her head and said to her husband, “My mother is worrying me. She’s obsessed about that critter she found in her garden and she’s not making sense. I’m afraid she’s losing it.”
“Well, she’s getting on in years, and living alone isn’t good for her. She’s frail, and frankly, she’s a little addled—she should be in a nursing home. We’ve been saying that for a year, maybe now is the time to move her out and sell the house.”
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