HISSING HARRY
Harry stood on his back two pairs of legs and watched his human, Tony, and another human boy he didn’t know. Tony was pointing toward Harry’s home.
That’s Harry,” he said.
The other boy stared at Harry in a way that made Harry very uncomfortable. “Is that a cockroach?”
“A Madagascar Hissing Cockroach,” Tony said.
“Gross!” the other boy said. “We had a cockroach in our kitchen once. My dad stomped on it and my mom scrubbed everything about five times!”
“Harry’s not that kind of cockroach. Hissers don’t live in houses and eat people’s food. They live in woods and eat leaves and fruits that fall on the ground.”
“Next time I hike in the woods I’m going to wear cockroach-stomping boots.”
Tony laughed, but it didn’t sound like he really thought that was funny. ‘Cockroaches like Harry don’t live around here, they live on an island called Madagascar. It’s near Africa.”
The other boy shook his head. “I guess that’s cool, but it’s still a cockroach.”
Tony walked toward Harry’s home. “Harry’s really friendly. Hey, Harry, do you want to meet Luis?” He turned toward Luis. “He’ll sit on your hand if you want.”
Luis took a step backwards. “No way! A snake or something would be okay, but I’m not touching a dirty bug!”
Harry could hear Tony and Luis go on talking, but he didn’t want to listen any more. He hid in the cardboard tube in the corner of his home until Tony took his baseball glove from a closet and they both left.
Harry’s antennae quivered as he peeked out of his nice, safe tube. People stomped on cockroaches? Tony wouldn’t do that, would he? Of course not! Tony took care of him and his glass home. Would Luis come back and stomp on him? Luis was a little bigger than Tony; could Tony stop him? Harry imagined Luis wearing cockroach-stomping boots and his antennae quivered so hard they made his head shake.
Maybe he should hide. But where?
Then he remembered. Way back when he was just born at the cockroach farm, before he even had a brown shell, one of the older hissers had called him away from his fifty-one brothers and sisters.
“Little boy,” the older cockroach said, “you need to know something important. You are the only nymph born this year with a magic power.”
“What’s a magic power?” baby Harry asked.
“Something very special and very rare. Your magic power is to move from one place to another just by wishing it.”
“Like over there?” One of Harry’s tiny white antenna pointed toward a bright green lettuce leaf.
“As far as you can imagine, but only use it for something very important.”
Harry had said thank you and run off to eat lettuce. He didn’t really understand when he was young and had never had to go anywhere but the nice safe homes humans had put him in.
Now was different.
If his kind of cockroach was from Madagascar, that must be a wonderful, safe place.
Harry put the tips of his antennae together and hissed very softly. He tried to make it sound as much like “Madagascar” as he could. It wasn’t very close, but it helped him concentrate.
Slowly, a strange light filled his cardboard tube.
POP!
He wasn’t in his glass house anymore. It was dark and he was standing on a wet log.
Someone who sounded very angry was hissing at him.
“Who are you?” the angry cockroach asked, “And what are you doing on my log?”
“Uh, excuse me.” Harry said. “I just got here and I don’t know…”
“Off of my log! Go or you’ll be sorry!” He charged at Harry.
Harry ran. The angry hisser was much bigger than he was and he had never had to fight for territory in his life.
The big cockroach finally turned back to his log, leaving Harry even more lost and confused. He was breathing so hard he hissed a little, even though he was trying to be quiet.
“Hello,” a soft voice said. “Good thing you left old Two-years territory. He’s mean.”
“I didn’t know I was trespassing. I don’t even know where I am. Is this your territory? Am I in Madagascar?”
“I don’t care much about territories. What’s a Madagascar?
Harry took a closer look at the other cockroach. A girl! Harry hadn’t seen a girl since he left his sisters. “Uh, Madagascar is a place. It has forests.”
“I don’t know anything about Madagascar, but this IS a forest. My name is Shiny. What’s yours?”
“Harry.”
“I’ve never heard a name like that before.”
“I’m from far away. I wished myself here with magic.”
Shiny walked around him. “I’ve heard legends about magic, but I never believed them.”
“It’s true. I came here to be safe.”
“Safe?” she laughed. “Where you came from must be very dangerous!”
“It wasn’t before, but Tony – Tony’s my human – has a friend who said he wanted to stomp on cockroaches and…” It was impossible to explain.
Shiny rubbed an antenna with a front leg. “We don’t see many humans. They come through the forest when the sun is up, when we’re hiding or asleep.”
“I see Tony a lot. He takes care of me, he brings me food every day and cleans my aquarium.”
“Aquarium?”
“It’s a space where I live. It has walls as hard as…” He looked around. “As hard as trees, but you can see through them.”
“More magic?”
“Human stuff. Sort of magic, I guess.”
She rubbed her antenna again. “So you live in a magic space and you have a human to do whatever you need, and you wished yourself here?”
“It was Tony’s friend. He was…”
“Tenrec! Run! Hide!”
An animal almost as big as Tony’s baseball glove ran out of the thick forest undergrowth. Shiny did her best to hide behind a plant. Harry turned and hissed, trying to be as scary as he could.
The Tenrec stopped and wrinkled its pointy nose. “I wouldn’t mind eating one more cockroach to finish my night’s hunting, but you smell wrong. You should smell like rotting logs and earth and all the other things on the forest floor, but you don’t.” He sniffed again. “You even smell just a little bit like a human. No, you don’t smell safe to eat at all.” The Tenrec walked away, mumbling about not being hungry enough to eat something so strange.
“You saved us!” Shiny said.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes you did. I think it was your magic.”
Harry felt a little dishonest, because he hadn’t used any magic at all, but at least Shiny believed he could. “Do those animals really eat cockroaches like us?”
Shiny shuddered. “Birds do too. I don’t know which is scarier.”
Harry thought of the pointy teeth he had seen under that pointy nose and he shuddered too. “Come back with me,” he said. “Come and live in my aquarium and let Tony take care of you too. I have a tube to hide in and lots of food and a space – he walked around a rectangle – this big, and there are no Tenrecs or birds.” Home sounded so good he could hardly wait to go back.
She touched her antennae to his. “That’s sweet, Harry, but this is where I have always lived. I have friends here. I don’t think I would like living in your little magic space with wooden walls I could see through.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She hissed a sigh. “Have a good journey home.”
“I didn’t say I was leaving right away.”
“You’re GLOWING, Harry.”
“I…”
POP!
The sun was setting outside Tony’s bedroom window. The inside of Harry’s cardboard tube was nice and dark. Tony would come in soon from whatever game he played with his baseball glove. He would probably bring lettuce, or a slice of orange, or maybe even a piece of dog food.
It made Harry hungry just thinking about it. It was nice to think about eating dinner and not about being someone else’s dinner.
Luis and his imaginary stomping boots? Tony would absolutely not let that happen. But what if..?
Harry gave a happy hiss. There was always magic.
