The Seventeen Year Cicadas

"Come quickly!" I heard Edna shout.

"You would really want to see this!".

I only really heard her in the back of my head. I was too absorbed in the book I was reading to really care about what she was shouting about.

Edna was my best friend and she had a fascination with  all animals, and insects too. I thought that was rather strange and that she was maybe even a bit crazy. She would talk on and on to animals.  She seemed to have this strange idea in her head that everyone else also loved and talked to animals. 

The only reason we were friends was because we both liked to read books, and I guess another reason may have been because we were so different. 

And the fact that she kept so many animals was to me, unbelievable. Except, she did love them all. She had, to be exact: four cats, three dogs, one horse, about ten turtles, countless fish (well, she once told me she only had thirty, but I don't believe her), a couple of ferrets, six hampsters, and two-soon-to-be-probably-six Guinea Pigs. 

"You really should come!" 

I heard her shout again. I came out of my reverie, sighed, and lay down my book I had been reading. 

In Edna's house, wherever you go, you are met by an animal of some sort. I came out of the library, and started down the hall towards where I had heard Edna's voice coming from. 

She was probably in the backyard with a wounded hippo she found on the road, I thought. She would want me to help her care for it and then probably name it after me. Then, she would somehow (although I never would know how) convince her parents to let her keep it.

I stepped out the back door, letting it slam shut with a creannk-cronk-cronk. I sighed, the backyard was pretty big, and Edna could be anywhere. "Ednaaa!" I shouted. 

I heard her say "Come quick! I am behind the giant oak." 

Once I reached her, I knelt down beside her "Well, what is so urgent?" She laughed; the high, musical laugh that was one of the things I loved abut her. "Nothing's urgent,  just exciting." 

"Well," I said impatiently "what is so exciting then?" 

She replied rather hesitantly "You might not think it is so exciting... I guess." 

I, getting more impatient to get back to my story replied "Well I guess I won't know whether or not I am excited unless you tell me what it is." 

As a reply, she held up a little, ugly bug, "It's a seventeen year cicada! They only come out every seventeen years. Which means..." she added in a more thoughtful voice, "...they came out the year I was born!" 

A seventeen year cicada? Exciting??? Well, I would at least have to reply.

"I guess they are pretty special if they only come out every seventeen years. Thanks for showing me such a..." I forced it out of myself "umm...beautiful bug. Now, if you will excuse me, I would like to go and keep reading my story."

"Of course!" she replied "Go ahead! I'll be in there and join you once I put back this cicada. Oh, and also, I named it after you." 

Then, as I was walking away, I heard her again "Maybe we can both read together on the back porch. We can hear your cicada singing from there, of course."

"Sure!" I said back, over my shoulder. 

You see, I thought animals had their place in the wild and outside, but I had never wanted a pet. I had always wondered why anyone wanted a pet. Then I met Edna, she loved each and every one of her pets (even her so-called thirty fish). I still can not understand her or the fact that people want pets, but at least I can appreciate it...if the aforementioned pets are not sitting all over and around me.

I went inside thinking "An ugly bug called a seventeen year cicada is named after me, what's next? A wounded hippo?"