The Grasshopper
protagonist · insect
He sang from the top of a dry stalk from June until the grass went grey, and he was genuinely good at it. Nobody asked him to. Nobody asked him to stop either, which he took as encouragement.
What they are like
- Kind
- 7/10
- Brave
- 4/10
- Clever
- 5/10
- Honest
- 9/10
- Curious
- 9/10
- Patient
- 2/10
How we meet them
Above everybody else, singing, on the best day of the year. He is introduced by the sound before he is introduced by the body, which is the correct order for him.
Personality
Warm, unhurried and entirely without a plan. He is generous with the only thing he owns, which is a song, and he is honestly astonished to learn in December that it is not worth anything. Not lazy so much as short-sighted. He has never once looked past the end of a week.
What they want
In summer, somebody to hear him. In winter, one meal.
How they change
Goes from the highest point in the field to standing on the ground outside a door he cannot open, and learns in nine days what the ants had worked out in June.
How they speak
He talks downwards, and he talks in invitations. Every line he has is an offer of something free. When he finally asks for something instead, he has no idea what to put on the other side of the sentence.
How the story treats them
The field liked him well enough all summer and none of it kept him. The ant had watched him from underneath, every day, for four months, and had already decided.
One surprising thing
In the Greek original he is not a grasshopper. He is a cicada, and he stays a cicada in the Latin and the French, where the fable is called La cigale et la fourmi.
If they were real today
He would be the friend who plays at your wedding for nothing and cannot make rent in February.
Things they say
- “Come up. You can see the whole field from here.”
- “I was singing.”
Key moments
The best month of the year
He calls down to the ant from the top of his stalk, tells her she is working very hard, and invites her up to look at the view. He means it kindly. She does not stop walking.
“Come up. You can see the whole field from here.”
Nine days
The green goes out of the grass, the seed heads disappear, and he wakes up cold for the first time in his life. It takes him most of a morning to understand that it is not going to stop.
With what
He offers to pay the ant back and is asked, reasonably, with what. He has nothing. He works this out while standing in the doorway with the warm light on his face.
“I was singing.”
Who they know
The Antneighbour
One of them spent the summer above the other, and neither of them thought about it much until the ground froze.
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