Honolulu Beetles: Short Urban Fantasy

By John Poetzel

Keiko needs to learn the ropes, fast. Her uncle has been running a clandestine business in the middle of Waikiki, but an accident has put him in a coma.

Can she add a little pizzazz to the illegal business and still fly under the radar?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Think Tank 7
• Release date: Mar 16, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476113210

John Poetzel

ABOUT THE AUTHOR John lives on the Big Island of Hawai'i, learning how to reduce his carbon footprint. There are more stories to come, but if you want bite-sized updates with pictures, visit his webpage: www.flipdingo.com

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Honolulu Beetles

By John Poetzel

Smashwords Edition

Copyright by John Poetzel 2012

All Rights Reserved

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Prying eyes…

Eight days after the accident, Keiko opened the door of her uncle’s apartment. She knew a little bit about Tommy’s business, but in the whirlwind of events she had almost forgotten about the clandestine zoo he had been running. The air was thick with the smell of the adult insects and the stench of rotten fruit. She opened the louvered windows and let the wind clear the air.

Where does he keep the food? Keiko said to the empty apartment.

Every cupboard she opened was filled with plastic containers that housed beetles in some stage of development. She knew that the adults were the only ones that would be in distress, especially any new ones that had emerged in the last week. In the last cupboard she found several jars of cut sugar cane, soaking in water. She took out a few pieces and cut them into smaller chunks. Tommy kept the habitats in order according to date, so she pulled out all of the older containers. More than half of the beetles were dead.

This sucks, she said to herself as she looked at one dead beetle after another.

When she found a living insect, she put a stick of the wet sugar cane into the box and the beetle went immediately to it. All of the fruit in the habitats was either dehydrated or rotten. She was going to have to make a run to the store for bananas and other things for the animals to eat.

Keiko took the dead beetles out of the plastic containers and collected them into a metal tin that she had seen Tommy use. He sold them on Ebay after they were mounted in a frame or encased in a