Jerry's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Jerry had drawn the same house for two years, and he had no dirt to build it in. The plan hung over his workbench in the old barn loft where he lived. It showed a home dug into a hillside, roofed with grass, warm in winter and cool in summer. Everyone in his corner of the Puddle Empire said it couldn't be done here. Jerry meant to prove them wrong. He just needed the right slope, and every plot he'd found was flat, wet, or already owned. He folded the plan and climbed down the loft ladder. His scruffy tabby cat watched from the top rung, tail curled, eyes sharp. "Last one on the list," Jerry told the cat. "Then I'm out of ground." He grabbed his boots and walked out to the one parcel he hadn't checked. The land sat at the far edge of a neighbor's forgotten property. Jerry pushed through tall grass and stopped. In front of him rose a hillside crowded with old fruit trees. Their trunks leaned at odd angles. Apples rotted in the grass. The slope faced south and drained clean. It was exactly what he'd drawn. He knelt and dug his fingers into the bank. The soil was firm and dry underneath. His hands shook a little. Then he heard buzzing. A tiny creature dropped from a low branch and hovered near his face. It had the green body of an alligator and the striped wings of a bee. It snapped its small jaws at him. Jerry froze. More of them lifted from the trees, a whole nest of them, circling the slope they clearly owned. He backed off slow. The cat, who had followed him, hissed and swiped. One of the winged things darted and nipped its ear. The cat bolted into the grass. Jerry cursed and retreated to the tree line to think. He watched the nest for an hour. The creatures never strayed far from one dead tree at the hill's crown. That single tree held the whole colony. Jerry studied the old orchard again. A flowering tree grew at the base of the slope, heavy with soft pink blossoms. The winged creatures ignored it completely. Something about it kept them off. He walked back to the loft and returned with a saw, thick gloves, and cuttings from that flowering tree. He waited until dusk, when the buzzing slowed. Then he worked. He wrapped the dead crown tree in the pink branches and cut it down at the root. The colony rose in a furious cloud, hunted for their tree, and found only strange blossoms. By full dark they had scattered over the far ridge. Jerry stood alone on the empty slope. The cat crept back, ear notched, and sat beside his boot. He drove a stake into the good south-facing dirt. He finally had his hillside. But the land wasn't his. It belonged to a neighbor he had never met, and tomorrow he would have to knock on that door.