Strange Noise in Corsica - from My Little Corsica Stories

I'm sure there was a proper name for the room. But for us it was a bedroom, siesta room, Crapette playing room, obligatory letters to home before swimming room and once even a dining room. To me, it was a room so far away from home and everything I had known, I could have been dreaming it.

The view from our window overlooked the deep blue sky and water of the Mediterranean. I could trace the winding road that was cut precariously out of the edge of the mountains that plunged down into the rocky sea. It took over an hour just to drive to the mountain that jutted out most, just past my fingertips.

I slept in this room with two teenage girls: an Irish girl named Ailiesh who seemed more foreign than me and my beautiful cousin who had very little use for me. Our cots, with new mattresses carried all the way from Paris on the top of my Uncle's Citroen, were arranged like a "U" a cot on each of three walls.

I had never shared a room before. The Irish girl snored and I had to giggle quietly into my pillow. At 10, I had no idea girls could snore!

One night there was a big thunderstorm. I was used to thunderstorms, but always while tucked safely away in the woods or my home in suburbia. But this was different. Each lightning strike lit up the whole valley, making me feel as though our little town perched on the side of the mountain would tumble down and land upside down in the frothy sea.

This storm set my nerves on edge and I felt more 10 years old than usual, wanting my Aunt near by me.

When we lost power, everyone acted very grownup, like nothing was wrong. We lit candles and found flashlights and got ready for bed.

"Oh MaryBeth, it's just a thunderstorm," my cousin said condescendingly, "Surely you have them in the States, non?!" How nice it must have been to be 13 and so grown up!

Eventually, we all settled in our cots and things quieted down. But I couldn't relax. I was mad and feeling quite little and put upon. As I lay there in the dark, occasionally letting small tears escape, I heard a strange sound, Scritch, Scritch, Scritch.

"Juliette! What's that noise?" I tried to keep the shaking out of my voice.

"There is nothing, now go to sleep," I could tell I'd just woken her up.

Scritch, scritch, scritch

"No really, Juliette! I hear something. Over near you," a hint of panic in my whine.

Scritch, scritch, scritch

"Juliette!"

"Ok, attends, " and I heard as she rooted around in the dark for the flashlight.

When it came on, she shined it first in my eyes and then on the wall over my bed.

"There is nothing there, Go to sleep." She was really irritated now.

"No, over there in your corner!" panic now fully realized in my voice.

Juliette worked the light slowly over Aileish's bed and then into the corner. As the light splayed out from the center of the bright circle, I saw some things on the wall. They were about the size of my pointer finger and were slowly moving up toward the ceiling.

As the brightest part of the flash light circle finally came to focus in on the objects, the sheer terror of moving things that big had taken hold of me. My cousin began to laugh just as I screamed bloody murder and leapt off my bed and ran out of the room, barely touching the smooth tiles under my feel.

"Oh my God, what is it?" my Aunt's shocked but shielding arms caught me as she started out of her bedroom.

I was so terrified that I couldn't even speak. I had never had a problem with grasshoppers before. But these were huge, scary ones climbing up the wall near my cousin's head. It was horrible!

Soon, my uncle came shuffling out of his room with the look of an annoyed man. I was not related to him and these hysterics in the middle of the night were insupportable. He was an important surgeon on vacation and I had shattered his well earned sleep.

I was still terrified as my Aunt dragged me back into the room.

"They're just locusts, MaryBeth!" Juliette said still laughing.

"Oh they won't hurt you. You're not scared of grasshoppers MaryBeth." This was a statement, not a question. And I wasn't afraid of Grasshoppers. But grasshoppers were not THAT big and never crawled up bedroom walls. These were monsters! But I tried not to cry.

Julliette gathered them up with her hands, which I couldn't even watch, and took them to the window and let them fly away.

"Don't be such a baby!" she said.

I finally calmed down after being assured that no more were hiding under the bed only to crawl up the wall when the flash light went off. But I lay in my cot with big buggy eyes staring deep into the crevices of the darkness until I was awakened by the bright Mediterranean sunlight flooding into our room. I heard the comforting sound of the diesel engines chugging into the harbor below. I was hungry!