The Whole Mosquito

by Louise Walton

The key to my happiness is held hostage in my Gran’s denim back pocket.

I should be settling down to sleep with Wordle and my Conquerors audiobook—instead, I’m lying here clenching sweaty fists, mosquitoes whining in my ear either in solidarity or just mocking me, because Gran’s locked my new iPad Pro into her kitchen cupboard.

It’s the iPad Mum bribed me with so I’d spend a few weeks outdoors on my grandparents’ vineyard, while her and Dad “worked things out.” Which they’re not good at, and now I can’t send them a pros-n-cons spreadsheet to assist. Having no device is like having a limb cut off.

I did sneak into Gran’s kitchen to try and wedge the cupboard door open with a butter knife, but I just bent the butter knife. I didn’t want Gran to have the satisfaction of seeing my failure, so I took it to bed.

Really fuels your revenge plans when you lie in the pitch-black, gripping a knife.

Maybe grandsons shouldn’t have murderous thoughts towards their Grans, but most Grans are fluffy and frail. Mine wears a flanno and a steel grey plait, and is stronger than Genghis Khan. She also smells like those bacon and cheese rolls you get at Woolies. I doubt Genghis Khan smelled like that, but it’s hard to unthink now—maybe his enemies gurgled their last breath thinking, who made cheese bread?

I’m the gurgling enemy. Trapped here in the three final weeks of my summer holidays. Gran says she “fixed” my cousins in a week with no technology, so now she’s fixing me, but it’s my parents who are broken. Wrong empire, Genghis Gran.

I will get that key.

***

Next morning, I head to breakfast in my boxers. Gran’s wearing beige cargo shorts. There’s a chance yesterday’s jeans still hold the key. I need to snoop.

“You’ve definitely grown since last time, Isaac,” says Gran, appraising my ribs like she’s deciding if I’m worth feeding or just adding to the scrambled eggs. “Still got a way to go though.”

A long way. I’m skinny for fourteen, and my Dad’s Korean short genes don’t help. It’s worse at school because I skipped two grades—they call me Mozzie. I edit my voice pitch lower for my YouTube tutorials. I considered drawing on moustache hairs too, but my new iPad has 4K ProRes and someone might notice they’re fake. Not that I can make any videos right now.

“Breakfast will be ready soon,” Gran says. “We’ll feed you up, don’t worry.”

Grandpa’s in the kitchen too, drinking coffee. 

This is my chance. “I need the bathroom.”

Up the hallway, I shut the bathroom door loudly but stay outside it, then creep into their bedroom. I can’t see the worn jeans. There’s one dresser and a small hanging wardrobe, like modern-day Spartans. Gran’s entire beauty regime consists of a brush, elastics and one perfume bottle. I spray it. Smells like cheese bread. She wears this by choice?

No key. I’ll check the outside laundry room later. I go back and flush the toilet.

Back at the table, Gran hands me a plate. That’s when I notice the key on her necklace, jangling against an amber stone.

“After the key, champ?”

“No.” I look away, studying my eggs. “Just interested in the amber. Sometimes they have organisms inside.”

“This one does.”

I flick my eyes back. 

Gran’s holding it out. “It’s a mosquito. With five legs.” She glances at Grandpa, half-smiling.

It doesn’t surprise me that she gets joy from a dismembered creature frozen in its suffering. I bet she would’ve paid extra for a human heart.

“Get dressed and you can help Grandpa in the shed today,” she says. “Learn some real skills.”

“Real skills? I’m developing encryption algorithms on my iPad. Dad wants me to.” He’s proud of my work ethic—says I inherited his Korean genes. He also thinks Mum spoils me but I’ll leave that out. I can see Gran agreeing.

“He’s done a top job instilling diligence. Now it’s time for balance.”

“I am balanced! I’m reading about the Borjigin dynasty too, and you’re gonna ruin my Mongolian Duolingo streak. I’m on 450 days.”

Grandpa puts down his coffee. “Got a couple Indonesian workers ‘ere for the verdelho harvestin’. Y’c’learn that.”

Or Grandpa can teach me Mumbling Aussie Farmer. His thick moustache makes it worse. “That’s not the same! It’s cruel. I wanted to Google a fact last night and I couldn’t even do that.” I won’t tell them it was ‘how to murder someone with a butter knife.’

“Do you good not to know something for once,” says Gran. “Stew on it.”

“Oh, I will,” I say ominously. It would feel more ominous if I was wearing more than boxers.

***

Grandpa shows me how to check the sulphur levels in the tempranillo oak barrels.

He pours me some from the thief nozzle. “Nine months. ’S gettin’ close.”

Mum wouldn’t let me drink this, but I’m not telling Grandpa. I skull it.

He chuckles at my sour grimace. “Needs ‘nother month or two. Not like the verdelhos out there, they'll be quick.”

The Indonesian harvesters are out in the vine rows, secateuring each ripe bunch. They’ll go into steel vats. Grandpa seems impressed how quickly I pick everything up, but it’s not rocket science. In fact, it’s some of the simplest, slowest science I’ve ever seen. Hand picking, hand sorting, aging for months or even years, dragging on. Like the two Indonesian workers. 

I don’t think Grandpa even realises how slow they are. One is videoing herself, tossing her hair like an influencer. He says they’re paid by the hour, but I think he’s losing money by the hour. It’s poor business management.

I go back inside. Gran’s preparing cheese platters for the afternoon wine tasting.

“I’m gonna lose my Wordle streak too,” I complain. “Just an hour, please?”

“No.”

“For education?” She doesn’t care that I’m a big deal. I found a new prime number last year.

“Isaac, there’s more to life than education.”

“Yeah, like happiness.”

“My motto is ‘whole, not happy.’” Ironically, she slices a whole Brie in half as she says it. “Happiness, sadness, frustration—everything.”

“Yeah, but you don’t have to frustrate people on purpose! Life is bad enough already.”

She cocks her head. “It is. All I’m saying is, you’ve got computer skills coming out your ears. You need practical experience too, and communication skills.”

“Communication skills. From Grandpa?” I’m sarcastic.

She narrows her eyes. “Too far. Now stop asking, or I’ll throw away the bloody key.” She slides me some cheese and crackers.

“Fifteen minutes! Please.”

She shakes her head. “I’m doing you a favour. You’re addicted.”

“At least I’m not addicted to cheesy yeast perfume,” I murmur on my way out.

I’m on strike in my room the rest of the day, ignoring Gran’s requests to “play outside” and her threats of “making me.”

At night, she isn’t wearing the key. She says she’s thrown it into the verdelhos, and I’ve got three weeks to find it.

I clutch the bent knife under my pillow.

***

I’ve been up and down the vineyard rows, searching each day in sickly-sweet steamy heat. I don’t know if Gran really hid it, but her scorching brown eyes don’t look like they’re lying, and I prefer the sun’s glare to Gran’s anyway.

The two inefficient workers are Ayu and Puspita. They speak some rough English.

“Tell me if you see a key,” I say to them, miming turning a key in a lock.

They’re sorting through the grapes with Grandpa in the shed, picking out bad ones. He finishes three buckets while they do two.

Ayu wears necklaces that swing as she moves. Grandpa points to an amber stone. “That from Indonesia?”

“Queensland. Mango picking.”

“Anythin’ inside?”

They nod, grinning and side-glancing.

“So it’s special?” I ask, stepping closer.

“No!” Puspita giggles, then describes how a skinny-legged man gifted it to Ayu when he tried to ask her out. 

Ayu dangles it closer. “Inside has only one… nyamuk leg…”

“Mosquito leg,” Puspita explains. They titter again.

I empathise with the poor skinny-legged guy. 

It’s quite a coincidence though. “One mosquito leg?”

Grandpa’s stopped sorting. “Blow me down.” His voice wavers. “Glad it’s out there.”

I love mathematically satisfying conclusions, but let’s be real. “It’s probably not the same mosquito.”

Grandpa swipes his watery blue eyes, then mumbles something about the loo, excusing himself. 

Ayu stops and frowns. “He sad?”

“Happy, I think.” She should keep working regardless.

“What is ‘loo’?”

My tone is polite. “Toilet.” 

She grins. “Ah. No ‘loo’ on Duolingo.”

“Duolingo? I do that… My streak was 450.”

They clap. “Very good! What language?”

“Mongolian.”

“You Mongolian?”

“No. My Dad’s Korean. But I’m from Sydney.”

“Ahh! We East Java.”

“Sisters?” They look similar, though Puspita’s face is wider.

“No!” They laugh. “Friends. Got work visa, same time.”

“Why fruit picking?” 

Ayu shrugs. “No experience require. Always work available. Already mango, already blueberry.”

“And get accommodation,” says Puspita. “Australia… very expensive. We save money.”

“What for?”

“Send to family.” She explains Indonesian wages. I’m not sure how they even afforded a plane ticket.

They’re happy though. I can see it’s not their fault they’re inexperienced, so I help them pick out bad grapes so Grandpa doesn’t fire them for low productivity.

Grandpa comes back looking fresher. He chats with the girls about families while showing them how to feed bunches into the de-stemmer. Puspita and Ayu ask me about my family. I give details, but I don’t tell them that on the car trip here, my predictive algorithm showed a 65% chance I’d be returning to a split home. I freeze that skinny detail in amber—especially the part where I’m scared.

I do tell them Gran is scary, though, and they laugh. So does Grandpa.

I’m wondering if he hires talkative, inexperienced workers so he gets more time away from Gran.

***

“Key-boy!” Puspita greets me one afternoon. “You find?”

“No.”

Ayu films the noisy crusher. Her phone freezes and she restarts it. “Always happens, don’t worry.”

“What are you making?”

“YouTube. We have three hundred followers.”

“Wow.” I have eighteen. And two are my parents. I wonder if they’ve made up. Or if Dad left again. “Like a traveller’s vlog?”

“For visa experience—how to work in Australia.” Ayu grins. “Later, maybe I am YouTube star.”

“And maybe one day I study,” says Puspita, bouncing on her toes, eyes sparkling. “Maybe dentist.”

“That’s cool. I’m going to uni soon. I like maths. And history.”

“Ahh. Smart boy. What job? Teacher?”

“No!” Everyone at my selective school would laugh. “Cybersecurity development, probably.”

“But you need key?”

“No. I can do it without the key too.” I shrug. “The key is… for happiness.”

***

I disturb the soil along the rows and feel behind twisted vine branches, now bare. But no key. The first ferment starts.

Grandpa adds yeast and the shed starts to smell like fruit that’s been left in my lunch box over the weekend.

“Ahhh, that’s the stuff.” Grandpa takes a deep sniff.

“Yuck. Smells like Gran’s perfume.”

“Dun’be rude. I like ‘er perfume.”

“Yeah, I bet.”

I talked to Dad on the phone last night, and Mum this morning. They’re fermenting, but not in a good way. They didn’t tell me much, but it doesn’t take a genius, even if I am one, to spot patterns in what they’re avoiding. I kick a shrivelled grape against the steel tank.

It hisses, and I jump.

Grandpa chuckles.

“In th’old days, tanks used t’explode sometimes. Got auto-valves now t’let off the pressure.”

Thirteen days and no key? I might explode.

After dinner, my grandparents read while I simmer. There’s a photo on the sideboard—my two smiling grandparents and their three giggling girls—Mum and my aunties. Maybe Gran just hates boys.

“I hate it here.”

Gran rolls her eyes, still reading. “Well, you’ll be back home in no time.”

“Yeah, but what home? Two homes? Will Dad be gone again? Will I be moving?”

Grandpa fidgets.

Gran looks at me. “It might be different. Might even be really bad.”

“What would you know about bad.” I eye their happy photo. “They’re not really working stuff out, are they… They’re working out how to live apart.”

She sighs. “Probably. I’m sorry, champ.”

“Champ? More like loser. I hate them both. They were too chicken to tell me so they left it to Genghis Gran.”

She snorts, despite the seriousness. “That’s what you call me? I must be terrible.”

“Yeah, well. You know how to crush your enemies, that’s for sure. There’s no key in that vineyard.”

Her eyebrow quirks up. “I never said vineyard. I said it was in the verdelhos.”

“In the wines? Vats! The cellar?” I’m mad, but intrigued. She played me.

“Not saying anything else.”

I fold my arms and mock huff. “Ugh, you’re worse than Mum and Dad.”

She winks. “Definitely. You’ve got good parents, champ. Together or not.” 

It’s a comfortable sort of quiet now, with my auto-valve released. I don’t let myself think of home. I think about here, and the grape sorting, and helping Ayu edit her videos, and sneaking sour tempranillo to get woozy in the afternoons. 

And now the key’s in sight.

***

One week left until I head back to Sydney. Grandpa lets me start the next ferment batch. There’s more to winemaking than science. I can’t tell the difference between Grandpa’s award-winning wine, and the unfinished wine, but he can.

Ayu and Puspita finish harvesting the last southern rows, and soon all the crushing is over. I keep meaning to hunt for the key, but there’s so much going on. I’m sad when it’s their last day.

“Arep menyang ngendi? Sawile?” I ask. It should translate to, “Where will you go after this,” but I know I’ve messed up somewhere.

Ayu’s smile is wide. “Still Hunter Valley.”

“More grape harvest.” Puspita is jumpy and grinning, and has her hands behind her back. Her voice is singsongy. “We have surprise…”

“What?” Oops. I didn’t get them anything.

Ayu films. Puspita opens her hand.

  “You found the key? The key?”

“In the tank, after first ferment emptied.”

“She’s deranged! We could’ve lost it!”

“Ah!” Ayu shakes her phone. “Waduh, mati! Won’t restart.”

“Oh, no! Let me see.” I take it, holding various buttons down. It’s no good. It’s been touchy for ages. I hate seeing her so worried.

“Come with me,” I say suddenly. Gran’s out. I head to the house, and they both hover at the back door as I slip into the kitchen. I unlock the cupboard.

The iPad Pro is sleek and tempting, and my idea I had a minute ago seems slightly less appealing after I turn it back on and see it load like lightning. The battery is so good it’s still on 29%. It could make me happy, in a lot of ways.

But if Ayu and Puspita are happy with almost nothing, I could be too. And I don’t need it. They do.

I go to settings, and reset the ipad.

“Take it,” I say, back outside under the verandah. “It’s got a sim slot. This won’t break for ages.”

“No,” says Ayu, shaking her head, hand on her heart. “Ora isa. It’s yours.”

“I have another one at home.” It’s older, but decent. “I’ve also got a PC, X-box, VR headset, and I’ll get a phone when I’m fifteen.”

I push it towards her and she still hesitates.

“How will I watch your videos if you can’t make them?” I ask. “Plus, this has 4K ProRes.”

Puspita takes it, because Ayu can’t. “You good boy, Key-boy.”

Ayu thanks me, tears in her eyes. She keeps asking what she can do to repay me. I almost wish there was something so she’d feel better. Then her amber necklace flashes in the afternoon sun like gold.

“You know… there is one thing.”

***

The house is quiet after dinner. “Can’t believe I’m already going home.”

“We’ll miss you.” 

“Ha, sure.” I pick up the framed family photo, Mum all chubby, maybe five, no idea her life would get messy because of a stubborn Korean guy. “Bet you’re glad you didn’t have any boys.”

Gran grins at me. “Girls are worse.”

Grandpa looks up. “W’did ‘ave a boy.”

Gran waves him off. “Oh, he’s got enough going on.”

Grandpa shrugs. “‘E can ‘andle it.”

“We had a stillborn,” says Gran quickly. “Way in the past.”

“S’why I got ‘er the five-legged mosquito. Family of five, one missing.”

They smile at each other, eyes sad.

That’s morbid. But exactly right for Gran. Guess they have been through bad stuff. I feel weird giving her the amber gift now, they’re having a moment. Maybe tomorrow.

***

When Mum comes to pick me up, it’s humid and queasy. I’m dreading the car ride, where she’ll tell me the news. But looking at her eye bags, she might be dreading it more.

She ducks into the bathroom after goodbyes. 

I’m buckled in. “Thanks for having me.”

“I’m glad you survived it.” Gran tousles my hair through the window, her sharp scent wafting straight into my face.

I’ve been clutching her necklace for ages in my fist. Timing never seemed right. “Um, I got you this.” I don’t know how to say I appreciate Gran without being awkward. “I didn’t know about the stillborn, sorry.”

She holds it up.

Grandpa is behind her. “Tha’s the one!” he exclaims, cradling it. “S’the missing leg!”

I nod. “Yeah, it’s one mosquito leg.”

“Isaac,” says Gran, clearly touched.

“Whole, not happy, right?”

“When you're lucky, you get both.” Her voice catches, and she leans closer. “The girls told me what you did, just to check it was okay. Whatever happens back home, you’ve got your head on straight. You’ll handle it, champ.” Her eyes are wet and twinkly.

I think mine might be too. “Thanks.”

“Thank you. The gift is perfect.” 

Grandpa has his glasses on, examining it.

I spot Mum coming. “Don’t get too sentimental. I really got it because I thought it suited Genghis Gran.”

She laughs, straightening. “Did you, now?”

“Thought you’d enjoy your mozzie amputee chasing its trapped limb in eternal torment.”

She snorts, wiping her eyes. “You’re a menace.”

Mum gets back into the car, turning it on.

“By the way,” I call to Gran, as the wheels crunch the gravel. “I locked your perfume in the cupboard, and the key’s in the tempranillos.”