“It’s true,” Erick said to anyone who asked. “His son is an enormous locust. He’s the size of a dog.”

Edvard made the townspeople an offer. “My heart is like an old, shriveled apple,” he said. “I can’t help my son, but if anyone can love him enough to turn him back into a boy, I’ll give you my farm.”

This excited the townspeople tremendously. For such a rich prize, they said, they could make themselves love nearly anything. Of course, first they had to find the locust boy, so they set out in search parties and began to comb the roads and fields.

Ollie, who had super-sensitive locust ears, heard everything. He’d heard his father talking about him, he heard the footsteps of the people searching for him, and he wanted no part of it. He hid in the field of a neighboring farm with his new locust friends, and anytime someone came near, the locusts would swarm up and surround the person, creating a wall that gave Ollie time to escape. But a few days later, the locusts ran out of food and took to the sky to migrate elsewhere. Ollie tried to join them, but he was too big and too heavy to fly. Being unsentimental creatures, not a single locust stayed behind to keep Ollie company, and he was left alone again.

Without his friends to help protect him, it wasn’t long before a group of boys was able to sneak up on Ollie while he was sleeping and capture him in a net. They were the same boys who had tormented Ollie at school. The oldest one slung Ollie over his shoulder as they skipped back to town, singing and celebrating. “We’re going to turn him back into a boy, and then we’ll get Edvard’s whole farm!” They cheered. “We’ll be rich!”

They kept Ollie in a cage in their house and waited. When, after a week, he stubbornly remained a locust, they switched tactics.

“Tell it you love it,” the boys’ mother suggested.

“I love you!” the youngest boy shouted through the bars of Ollie’s cage, but he could hardly get the words out before he started laughing.

“At least keep a straight face when you say it,” the older boy said, and then he gave it a try. “I love you, locust.”

But Ollie wasn’t paying attention. He had curled up in a corner and gone to sleep.

“Hey, I’m talking to you!” the boy shouted, and kicked the cage. “I LOVE YOU!”

But he did not, nor could he force himself to, and when Ollie began making locust shrieks all night, the family gave up and sold Ollie to their neighbor. He was an old hunter with no family and little experience in matters of the heart, and after a few feeble attempts to show the boy love, he abandoned the effort and sent Ollie outside to live with the hunting dogs. Ollie much preferred the dogs’ company to the man’s. He ate with them and slept alongside them in their doghouse, and though they were afraid of him at first, Ollie was so gentle and kind that they soon grew accustomed to him, and he became one of the pack. In fact, he felt so accepted by them that one day the hunter found he was missing a giant locust but had gained an extra-large dog.