The Nonesuch and Others Read Online Free Page A

that’s what caused it, made the earth damp and brought about a disturbance.
    Anyway, a small patch of ground nearby was moving. And lying there on my side in the netting — surfacing from what was probably a deep sleep — I saw a run of cropped grass blades parting as the soil beneath them bulged upward, forming a hummock three or four inches long and two across.
    Then the earth broke open, and this thing nosed its way out. Emerging slowly at first — shaking the soil off its furry little body — it came out, and I knew at once what it was. It was a mole! Or at least the first part of it was, the first couple of inches.
    But a mole with antennae?
    And I think I can be forgiven for believing that I was still asleep and dreaming…because then the rest of it pushed its way out.
    Okay, those first couple of inches: I saw these legs — mole legs, covered with bristling fur — then the dark hairy snout, and a furry mole body. So far so good. But not really. Because sticking out from the snout were these antennae, and halfway down the mole body was an oddly jointed pair of insect legs! And if I hadn’t been awake before, well I certainly was by then.
    The rest of the body emerged — the thorax, as I now know it to have been. No fur, just three inches of unpleasantness, of long, folded-back spiky-tipped wings, and another pair of those thorny insect legs. Until finally it was out in the open.
    I looked at it wide-eyed, and this thing looked back at me, through eyes like tiny red faceted beads. Then it shook itself one last time, opened its wings and flew. I heard the whirring — ducked as it seemed to come right at me — almost fell out of my hammock as it buzzed close overhead…
    Later I spoke to Costas, the owner of the hotel. He laughed when I told him how I’d nearly fallen … and he told me what I’d seen: a mole cricket. There weren’t too many of them, but neither were they very rare. My opinion: those nightmarish little bastards should be rare! And extinct would be even better…!
    …Back home, I checked it out in a book at the library. A mole cricket, sure enough — genus Gryllotalpa —an “injurious insect.” Well, the damn thing very nearly injured me, for sure!
     

     
    So there you go, Diary: a flash-back of sorts, reminding me of those Thin People in Barrows Hill who might or might not have been a result of my drinking. Except now I’m pretty sure they weren’t. I mean, there are so many things in the earth—and on this Earth—that we don’t know about. Okay, so people know about mole crickets. Some people do, even if I didn’t. But what if there are other things, species that are unknown, that no one has ever seen? Or if they have seen them, did they know what they were seeing? And I’m not just talking about the Thin People…
    So what am I talking about, eh, Diary? Well, it’s this new thing. Except (God help me) I’d been drinking again, and can’t really be sure. But I’m pretty sure…
     

     
    A fair was in town. Now usually, these days, a fair is no big deal. In England they’ve sort of dried up, lost a lot of their appeal; not to kids—no, of course not—but among parents. I mean, who can afford them any more? The rides and sideshows are too expensive, and you need a cast-iron stomach to handle the greasy rubbish they sell from the fast-food stalls. What’s more, it’s a very rare fair that doesn’t attract rain. It can be bright and summery in the morning—“autumnal” in the case in question—but from the moment those big artics and painted wagons start rolling in, look out! Here come the thunderheads.
    This fair, however, was unusual. It came annually, in late August or early September, and was as big as any three standard fairs rolled up in one…because it was three fairs joined up and working as one, creating what the proprietors knew would be a big local attraction on one of their last gigs of the season. Big, garish and very noisy, yes. Flashing lights,