Episode-8: Carnivores

“Al, you gotta see this. Frodo’s back from Hawaii, and he’s got live specimens,” Peter said, poking his head into Alice’s office.

“Live specimens? Dude, wait for me.” Alice jumped up from her chair and ran down the hallway with Peter.

“I heard he brought back Eupitheca caterpillars,” Peter said, a wide grin across his face.

“No way? Live Eupitheca? Which one? Staurophragma? Scoriodes? Holy shizz, Peter, this is so cool.”

“Do you even know how cute you are?” Peter said, a grin still plastered on his face and not breaking his stride.

“What?” Alice stopped walking.

“Nothing, just come on will you? Live Eupitheca.”

“We’re talking about this later,” Alice said as she punched her code into the lock leading to a secure, windowless lab, where live specimens were kept under strict lock and key to prevent them from escaping and becoming pests. Peter and Alice pushed their way through a small crowd of older gentlemen and grad students to a middle aged short, stocky man with bushy, sandy blond hair and compact facial features. He held aloft a stick. A brown caterpillar grasped the stick tightly with six legs on the end segment of its body. The rest of its smooth body flailed about, perpendicular to the stick and terminating in six, spiked legs and a ravenous mouth. Like something out of a sci-fi movie, they watched as the short man brought a fly he held in tweezers to the caterpillar. It grabbed the fly with its six, knifelike, legs and devoured it. Alice jumped up and down in excitement.

“Dr. Frond, it’s incredible,” she said, “Is it staurophragma?”

“Yes, we found them on Oahu. You can’t imagine the trouble we had getting them back here. I have several other species as well. I don’t think we’ll have any problem raising them in the lab. They seem to eat anything they can grab. Ravenous little buggers.” He puffed his chest out and winked at Alice.

“I didn’t know you were studying them. Are you thinking about adapting them to pest control here?” Alice asked, ignoring the wink.

“That’s the idea. We want to see how hardy they are, if they can survive here and what we can get them to eat. If they can help out farmers, we might see more of these little fellows around.”

“Amazing,” Alice stuck her finger up to the little caterpillar, it latched on and nibbled. She laughed, “It doesn’t bite very hard.”
“Yes, out of 160,000, less than one percent of all caterpillars are carnivorous,” Dr. Frond said, chest puffing out even more.

“I imagine everyone here knows that, Frodo,” Peter said. Alice looked from him to Dr. Frond as they stared at each other.

“Ok, well, I have to get back to work. Congratulations Dr. Frond,” Alice said, turning to exit the lab. Peter followed her without a word. Once outside he dropped his smile.

“Old fart ruined the experience. Why does he have to be such a jerk? As if you need old men flirting with you,” Peter said as they walked to Alice’s office. Alice gave him a sideways glance.

“I think I can decide what I need, thanks.” Alice ushered him into her office and shut the door behind him. She just stared at him for a minute, hands in his pockets, nice sweater vest, that salt and pepper faux hawk. Now that she had him in her office, she wasn’t sure how to break the silence. Neither of them spoke. They stood facing each other but Alice was unable to look into Peter’s eyes. She could feel the intensity in the room. He cleared his throat.

“So, how’s Sisko?”

“Oh, uh, she’s ok. Still in the hospital. That ER doctor is up there all the time too, it’s really cute. I think he has a thing for her. But my Dad and I found her a therapist and all her stuff is moved into my house so, I’m sure she’ll be fine.” Alice half sat on her desk, relaxing her pose even though she didn’t feel relaxed at all. She’d never felt like this around Peter before and she was upset with her self.

“Cool, good for her.” He lifted his eyes to hers.

“Um, maybe when she’s out you could come over for dinner. She makes great cheesecake.” Alice smiled, trying to break through the awkwardness hanging like toxic fog in the room.

“Sure,” he smiled, “I’d really like that.” He grabbed the handle and slipped out the door. Alice realized she’d been holding her breath and let it out slowly. Peter had been over to her house dozens of times, just not since Joe died. He and Joe had been good friends. Alice slid down to the floor. She couldn’t process all of this new attention. First Peter, and then the doctor, she’d lied about the doctor. He was there for her, not Sisko. With her head in her hands she cried and wished for the millionth time that Joe was still alive.