“Hey guys, what is that thing?” asked Tommy.
“What thing?”
“That brown thing on that tree branch,” he answered.
“I don’t know.”
The boys were hiking in the woods. It was a beautiful summer day, the sun was shining, the birds were singing and a gentle breeze circulated through the trees. They had stopped to rest their legs and get a drink from their water bottles. That’s when Tommy saw it.
“What do you think it is?” asked Josh.
“A bird nest maybe? It sure is a funny-looking one,” answered Jason.
“It looks old. I bet birds don’t use it,” said Tommy.
“If that’s the case then I want it,” said Billy.
“Why do you want that old thing?” asked Josh.
“I think it’s kinda neat. It would look good in the clubhouse,” he answered.
“How are you gonna get it?”
The boys stared at it. It was out on the edge of a skinny branch, way too dangerous to try to climb after.
“Let’s find a tree branch we can knock it down with,” suggested Billy.
Jason found a dead limb nearby. They broke branches off of it until they had a long slender pole. Jason handed it to Billy. “Here! You want it, you knock it down!”
Billy took a big swing and knocked it loose from the tree. It hit the ground and the boys heard an angry buzzing sound coming from it. They looked at each other and shouted.
“Run for your lives!”
Out of a hole came a cloud of winged death. It focused on the boys and came after them with a vengeance.
“The river! Head for the river!” shouted Jason.
“Oowweee!” screamed Tommy as he was stung.
“Help!” screamed Jason as he frantically tried to brush his assailants away from his face.
“It hurts!” screamed Josh as he swatted at something that had crawled inside his shirt.
“I’m on fire!” screamed Billy while swatting his tormentors away from his face.
The boys were repeatedly popped as they ran. Each hit was like being hit with a hammer. Finally reaching the river, they dived in and submerged themselves. Every time they surfaced for air a hovering swarm of pain was waiting for them. Billy surfaced, gasped for air, and inhaled an attacker. Before he could spit it out it stung him on the tongue. He began bawling like a baby.
After it seemed like an eternity they surfaced to find their nemesis gone.
“What are those things? Wasps?” moaned Josh.
“I don’t know. All I know is I’m on fire,” cried Jason.
“Let’s get out of here before they come back,” pleaded Tommy.
“Look at Billy!”
Billy was miserable. His face was bright red and had swollen to almost double its size.
“Billy, are you ok?”
Tears streamed down his face as he shook his head no. Wading to shore, he collapsed and began trembling.
“Tommy, go for help, Billy’s in trouble.”
Tommy took off running, which was no small feat considering he was covered with huge, red, throbbing welts. The other boys drug Billy back into the water until only his face was above the water. They needed to try to keep him cool.
“What were those things?” moaned Josh.
“I don’t know. I’ve never had anything hurt as bad as when they stung me. It felt like liquid fire,” answered Jason.
In a few minutes help arrived. Tommy had run to a nearby farm and had found the farmer working on his tractor. Explaining what had happened, the farmer loaded him in his truck and had hurried here.
“What happened, this is bad?” he asked while checking Billy out.
“We saw this strange bird nest and knocked it out of the tree. Whatever it was inside it came after us. It wasn’t a bird. It was some kind of bug. It stings like fire,” answered Jason.
“We’ve got to get him to a hospital. That wasn’t a bird’s nest. You knocked down a hornet’s nest. When riled up there’s nothing on God’s green Earth meaner than them. You made them mad and they got even. We gotta go. Your friend is in bad shape,” the farmer said.
At the emergency room, they rushed Billy into an examining room. Seeing his throat was beginning to swell shut, they gave him a shot to counteract the venom in his system. In the meantime, the other boys were in another room getting their welts taken care of.
“Ouch! Boy, does that hurt,” moaned Tommy.
“It stings!” cried Jason.
“Please stop,” cried Jason.
Their parents were called and they came after them.
“Of all the dumb things,” scolded Tommy’s dad.
“I’ll doctor you when we get home. A little rubbing alcohol should help those welts,” said Josh’s mom.
“What were you thinking? Knocking something you didn’t know what it was out of a tree! You had no business doing it,” scolded Jason’s dad.
The boys felt too bad to argue. As they were leaving the hospital they saw Billy’s parents arrive and run through the hospital door.
A week later they met at the clubhouse. Josh, Jason, and Tommy felt pretty good. Their welts had shrunk to the size of mosquito bites. What looked funny was the remnants of calamine lotion on each welt. Billy was in far worse condition. His welts were still about the same size and he could barely talk. His hornet-stung tongue was still swollen and painful.
“Never again am I going to ask what something is!” announced Tommy.
“Me either, I still tear up when I think about it!”
Billy nodded his head and began to tremble.
All of a sudden somebody knocked on the clubhouse door. Tommy got up and went to the door. The farmer was standing there holding a large trash bag.
“I brought you something,” he said while handing the bag to Tommy,”I waited a couple of days before I got it from the woods. I had some insecticide that I sprayed it with. It’ll look nice in here.”
Tommy looked in the bag, gasped, dropped it, and ran out the door. When the bag hit the floor something rolled out of its open mouth. The boys saw that it was the hornet’s nest.
“Run for your lives!” Josh screamed.
The boys made a fast exit from the clubhouse.
The farmer watched them run away and chuckled. His laughter changed into a scream as one lonely, lethargic hornet crawled out of the nest, saw him, and popped him so hard it brought him to his knees. Screaming, he got up and raced to his truck with the raging hornet in hot pursuit.
The boys knew it would be a long time before they went to the woods again. A very long time!
June 24, 2023