What it came down to though, what Roger really liked most of all, was simply, ‘bugs!’
On this particular Saturday morning, near the beginning of the school summer holidays, Roger had planned for a very special field expedition. He had escaped from the unwanted administrations of his over-zealous and too doting mother and was at long last on his way. His school satchel stuffed full of his ‘things of scientific interest.’
And for this trip, he also had his trusty homemade ‘bug-catcher.’ This last item being but a simple net on a pole he’d made from some of his mum’s net-curtains and a bamboo cane he’d ‘borrowed’ from one of his dad’s garden sheds.
His dad really didn’t bother with the Manor’s gardens or the sheds any more these days, that was all left to the gardener, Bob, so Roger had found a shed that was a useful place to use as his own personal laboratory and private retreat.
However, the possession he most prized of all was his Flea Circus that he kept hidden in an old tobacco tin. This was a very big secret indeed. Nobody knew about his Flea Circus, absolutely nobody.
One day I will be famous from publishing my paper on Fleas, Roger thought, proudly, as he made his way steadily onwards, walking through the Good Wood.
Roger knew very well his parents and his teachers would just disapprove and so interfere, and all of his so-called classmates at school would just tease and make fun of him. In fact, he would end up being bullied even more than he already was.
’The Holometabolous Life Cycle of the Common Flea’, now how’s that for a snappy title? he thought, lost in blissful reverie, as he contemplated his many future scientific discoveries.
Or, what about, ‘Mystery of how Fleas actually jump at last resolved by a brilliant, young Entomologist! Research from Professor Roger Briggs of the University of Umbridge, at last sheds light on how Fleas can jump and reach speeds of up to two meters per second!’
Roger warmed with imagined pride and honour as he entered the Good Wood. He was on automatic now, scanning the vegetation all around him, earnestly looking for his desired scientific quarry. His eyes bent down to the leafy vegetation that bordered the Good Wood, scanning the hundreds of stalks for the one particular insect he most craved to discover and so completely oblivious of the wider world around him.
And I’ll keep my Flea Circus a total secret so that no one bothers me about it. Then I’ll be able to do all my researches and experiments and make my discoveries, and then they’ll see! he thought to himself in his innocent daydream, as he continued searching.
When I get the Noble Prize and all the recognition for my exciting and unprecedented research into Ethno-entomology, * that will show them all, I’ll be a real somebody then! Even more important than my Father!
(*Ethno-entomology, of course, as you and just about everyone else knows, simply being the study of the relationship between insects and people.)
Mr. Briggs, Roger’s Father, was in fact, a very important man; well, at least he thought so. After all, he was a local Councillor, and also, Wellingford Wood-Mill’s Senior Accountant.
He was also widely tipped to be the up-and-coming future Prime-Councillor for the whole of the United States of Britannia.
The timber company of Wellingford Wood-Mill was also where many of Roger’s school colleagues’ parents worked, but mostly in their lowlier employ, as laborers and lumbermen, as his Father called them.
Just imagine that! Roger smiled at his own inner vision. Me, Professor Roger Briggs. First Prize Winner and Noble Laureate and esteemed member of R.I.S.K; The Royal Institute of Scientific Knowledge. All from advancing the Knowledge of Mankind – By Bugs!
CHAPTER TWO:
THE BUG HUNT
Roger at last came to the area of the Good Wood that he knew would be the most likely to provide specimens of his much sought-after quarry. For it was here, on this sunny summer’s morning, that he had set forth with the specific purpose of finding a very tiny creature called a Froghopper. This being a very particular insect he needed for his steadily growing private museum collection.
It’s time to do some serious comparative morphology, he thought to himself excitedly, as he took a firm grip on his trusty bug-catcher and magnifying glass.
This was the one activity that took him far away from the unhappy environs of his home, and especially from his over-strict and status-conscious parents.
As parents, Mr and Mrs Briggs, at best, just went through the motions of being parents. They didn’t mean anything personal by this really. Their attitude to their one and only child was mostly one of mild interest and enforced toleration. To them, he was just like a pet and so just had to be put up with as something to be managed and kept clean and under control. Thus, Roger had learned not to get in their way and to not say very much at all.
Now though, all his concentration was centred on finding himself the elusive Froghopper.
“Let’s see if I can get a hold of some Spittlebug Nymphs too, that would really make my day,” he quietly mused to himself, “if I could get some of the adults along with some baby nymph specimens as well, that would be just wonderful!”
He had unconsciously begun to talk to himself, muttering his thoughts as he went along, bent over, head buried in bushes, studying them intently, all alone and in deep concentration.
Roger had studied up on the Froghopper and knew it was the greatest champion jumper of all the animal kingdom. The Common Froghopper could jump over seventy centimetres into the air; this being a much greater height even than a Flea could perform, although the tinier Froghopper was a relatively heavier creature.
Roger had been studying and training Fleas for some months but had recently branched out to the more impressive Froghopper. For its jump was so powerful that during the initial stages of its flight, a G force of over four hundred times Erf gravities was generated.
This was indeed an incredible phenomenon, considering that even the astronauts currently training to fly rockets to the edges of outer space experienced only G-forces five times Erf gravities! But he seriously doubted that a Froghopper could ever be trained, anyway.
“It’s such a tiny, short-lived blighter though,” Roger mumbled as he slowly moved about, head and shoulders buried deep in the bushes. And as the elusive Froghopper was only about ten millimetres long, Roger really did need his powerful magnifying glass to spot it.
“But I know how to find you, don’t I, you heroic little Hoppers?” he wryly muttered, relishing the hunt.
And Roger did indeed know some very useful woodland lore to help him in his quest to find this particularly tiny bug. Namely, Cuckoo Spit!
Cuckoo Spit was the frothy white stuff that looked just like the gobs of spit that you’d see on some plants during the summer months. This white foam was secreted by the little larva, the tiny Nymph babies, that when hatched, would become fully grown Froghoppers.
Wherever there was Cuckoo Spit, there was bound to be a Froghopper. And Roger had now found one such clump of leaves, covered in foamy globs of the stuff and so knew that he was very close to bagging his much sought-after prey.