2 minute read
Fiction: Vacant lot provides an adventure
from January 2022
by Johnston Now
BY ALISON HENDRIX
Jacob walked through his brand-new neighborhood. It was filling up quickly with houses of workers who’d been hired at Novo Nordisk, the big medicine factory on Highway 70. Jacob’s daddy was one of those workers.
He stopped near an open lot. Why was there no house here?
Jacob was curious and he gathered some other kids in the neighborhood. They guessed things like ghosts or buried treasure were the reasons the land was empty.
The other kids grew tired of standing around, and they left, but not Jacob.
It grew late in the evening and he sat on the ground to have an apple. He’d just taken a bite when he saw a flash of something out of the corner of his eye. He turned in time to see a small creature with a red hat and blue vest dart behind a tuft of grass!
Jacob sprang over to the spot and said, “Hello there, what are you? Don’t be scared. My name’s Jacob, what’s yours?” The little creature was angry at being caught, and said,
“Bahh, my name’s Grags. The other pints will be furious that I got caught! Oh, horseradish and black tea!”
Jacob laughed. “I won’t tell if you won’t; what are you?”
The little thing said, “I am a pint, and we have a bargain with the owner of this land. We are allowed to stay here as long as we want to mine the jewels that are underground for our food! But you big people keep pushing in. Most of you can’t see us at all, not sure how you did!”
Then Grags sucked in his little belly and slipped into a tiny hole in the ground and disappeared!
Jacob shook his head in disbelief. He tried to run and tell the other kids about Grags and the pints, but they did not believe him. Every day, he went to the vacant lot and left things like bubble gum and small toys for the pints. He even built them tiny shelters, but he never saw one again. Even still, when he was all grown up, if he ever passed a vacant lot, he would smile and think of the tiny creatures who mined gems to eat, and wondered what other kinds of things might be in the world, but invisible to most people.
