This is a continuation of our anecdote “Living on Big Red.”
5. Changes
The next morning Donna could hear a noise coming from cell #1-A, her first. She walked over and peered inside. Sure enough, inside, looking up at her through bleary eyes was a little newborn grub. She thought it was the most adorable thing. It then opened its mouth, spoke one word, and remained open. “Hungry!” it said.
This meant one thing to Donna: Besides laying eggs, there were now two jobs on the table. Not only would the nest need to continue being expanded, but food shopping would have to begin in earnest. One grub eats enough, and soon she’d have more that would be crying for food. For now she did what any new mother would do. She shook Billy awake and told him to go find and aphid or tiny caterpillar for junior. She told Billy with a wink that he was now a dad. Billy snapped to attention, flicked an antenna salute, then he flew off. Donna thought she heard him chuckle.
Billy hadn’t been gone long when she suddenly heard a ruckus nearby. She figured it might be Billy’s friends and she was right. They were under the wrong fender but she could hear them figure it out and were on their way to her’s. She called out to them. With the morning’s realization that grub feeding was suddenly tossed into the equation still fresh in her mind, she was now keen for the extra support. The heck with the noise. Remembering her own childhood, the days of peace and quiet come later in the season.
The boys, like Billy, were helpful and obedient, and were respectful of Her. They got right to work after a quick round of introductions. As soon as they left she forgot all their names. She realized there was going to be so many wasp kids and adults around that the politeness of remembering names and the formal protocol of making introductions was going to fall to the wayside very soon.
6. Moving Along
She was right. In only a few weeks the colony had grown almost exponentially. She now had seventeen kids, her paper kingdom had grown to a 31-cell and growing behemoth, and there was at least a dozen wasps at any given time coming and going throughout the day, bringing their saliva and wood fiber pulp while others used it to make more cells, while yet others brought food for the kids. More still just hung around, paranoid, keeping guard, fanning air of the nest. Besides Billy, she didn’t know the name of anyone. She didn’t even bother giving names to the children. She took it easy as the Queen, waddling around with the growing secretarial spread of a mother, busy all the while laying more eggs.
Summer had begun. The days were now getting shorter. Still, though, there was lots of time and plenty to do. Things went on with little adventure. The colony grew and prospered. That is until one day. The colony’s first brush with disaster.
7. Taking a Ride
Uncle Gus didn’t live on the farm alone. There were two boys that lived with him, Andy and Alfred. His sister Ruth’s children. Ruth had early onset Alzheimer’s disease and to make a long story short, the kids ended up with him. The kids, ten and twelve, respectively, thought he was a good uncle, but that was because he was always so busy tending to the farm that they had the run of all of Gustav’s 81 acres. He figured they couldn’t get in too much trouble out in the middle of farm country.
Andy and Alfred always seemed to find something to do, and if Uncle Gus thought it wasn’t trouble they’d find, he was wrong. One day in particular stands out from the rest. That’s the day the boys discovered Big Red. That’s the day they also decided to try start it. First thing they did, since they had the general idea from watching Gus tend to Mean Green, was check the battery. To do this they laid a piece of rusty wire on the battery terminals. Fortunately it was dead so nothing happened. Alfred, the oldest, told Andy they needed a battery. They both looked at each other and smiled, having the same idea at the same time. They decided to borrow the battery from Mean Green. Uncle Gus wasn’t using it; he went to town for some farm stuff or something.
It took some cranking but the boys started Big Red. The wasps were keenly aware of the boys’ presence, but the boys unintentionally, and luckily, stayed away from their fender. It was also a bit colder than usual that day so the colony was feeling a bit sluggish. But when Big Red fired up, though, it was like a jolt of electricity, and that got them excited. Alfred was in the driver’s seat and was trying to put the tractor in gear when he suddenly saw the wasps flying around the fender next to him. Andy was standing next to him, opposite the wasps’ fender and he saw them, too. Both boys, thoroughly frightened, jumped off of the tractor landing on the ground next to it. The rolled and began to run away.
They were stopped short by a strange noise before they got far. When Alfred jumped from the tractor he did manage to bump the gears. Big Red was now in motion, sputtering, smoking, and making an awful grinding noise. The wasps were freaking out. The boys stood side by side, mouths agape, motionless. The tractor moved all of twenty yards when it coughed one last time and died. It was no worse for the wear, and while a bit frazzled, its inhabitants were okay as well. The boys sneaked back after a little bit, grabbing the battery as quickly as they could, then made tracks to reinstall it in Mean Green before Uncle Gus returned from town.
