Free The Grasshopper Trap by Patrick F. McManus

house.
    Metamorphosis is one of those phenomena Bun just can’t comprehend. For one of her many birthdays, I bought her one of those food processors, an expensive job. You could leave it home alone and it would have a six-course meal on the table when you got back. I wrapped it up in a nice package a few weeks before Bun’s birthday and hid it in the back of a closet. That was my mistake. The closet was too warm, and metamorphosis occurred. By the time Bun opened her presents, the food processor had turned into a shotgun-shell reloader! It was one of those miracles of nature you
hear so much about, the kind that leaves you sort of awestruck and even a little reverent.
    Metamorphosis occurs so often on her birthdays and at Christmas that Bun may be getting some slight grasp of this mystery of nature. Last December, for example, she hinted to me that she would like a really nice string of pearls for Christmas.
    â€œNo problem,” I said.
    â€œBut they’re too expensive,” she said.
    â€œNo problem. I doubt they would cost a bit more than the neat little automatic I was looking at the other day.”
    â€œWell, you certainly don’t need another pistol.”
    â€œOf course not.”
    The pearl necklace I bought set me back a sizable bundle, but I must admit it was lovely. Oddly enough, the box it came in was about the same size one might expect for a neat little automatic. Carelessly forgetting the possible consequences, I hid the package in the back of the same closet.
    Christmas morning we let the children open their presents first, and then Bun and I opened ours. She unwrapped the pearl necklace last.
    As usual, she seemed stunned. “You shouldn’t have!” she yelped.
    â€œDon’t blame me,” I said. “Blame old Mother Nature. She’s the one responsible for metamorphosis.”
    â€œI mean they’re much too expensive!” And she pulled out this beautiful string of pearls. She was right. They were much too expensive. If you can’t trust Mother Nature, whom can you trust?, that’s what I want to know.
    â€œDad’s acting peculiar,” one of the kids said.
    â€œGood,” Bun said. “It’s nice to have him back to normal.”

The Swamp
    W e had just been sprung from eighth grade for the summer. To celebrate, Birdy Thompson and I talked the old woodsman Rancid Crabtree into taking us fishing on Pack River. Rancid considered most of my friends “a bunch of smarty-pantses” but he liked Birdy, probably because of Birdy’s having been born with a serious psychological defect-chronic gullibility. Birdy believed everything Rancid told him.
    As we rattled along in Rancid’s truck, the woodsman poured forth a stream of “facts” so strange they threatened to erode the very foundations of science. Through the mercy of time, I have forgotten most of the oddities of nature Rancid claimed to have observed firsthand “with maw own eyes,” but I do recall the cross between a skunk and a porcupine.
    â€œNow thar was a smug critter. Why, he could spit in a coyote’s eye, and the coyote’d say, ’Scuse me, suh, fer gettin’ maw eye in yer way.’”

    Birdy was awash in awe. “Gee, Mr. Crabtree, I wish they taught interesting stuff like that in school.”
    â€œThey should,” Rancid responded. “But all them teachers knows is book-larnin’. They don’t git out in the woods whar all the interestin’ stuff is.” Then he glared at me. “What you lookin’ like thet fer?”
    â€œNo reason,” I said. “I was just rolling my eyes, and they got stuck back in my head for a second.”
    Presently we came to the river. I had fished every inch of Pack River except for a section that meandered into a wild and swampy region. The river emerged from the swamp a dozen or so miles away, where it crossed under the road. I had never met anyone who had