Worm and Butterfly: A Spring Forest Story

by Sarah Tobias

Worm was sound asleep deep in the soil when he was awakened by a poke.

“Who’s there?” he asked, but no one answered so he curled back up when . . .

Poke . . .

Poke.

“Hey!” he yelled in his tiny little voice. “Stop poking me, I’m trying to sleep though winter.

Worm moved a little deeper in the soil, curled up, and was almost asleep when . . .

POKE!

Worm couldn’t see a thing, but he had tiny bristles all along his body that worked almost as well as eyes so he began to investigate. He headed up and discovered that the thing that was poking him was long and slender, soft and fresh. Up, up, up he went, the soil and the slender thing getting cooler as he went until he bumped head first into a big clump of long slender things. He pushed and twisted his way around and out of the soil and onto it.

“Hmm,” he said out loud to no one, “The earth smells green.” And then, “What’s green?”

“It’s a color,” said a bee as it buzzed over the worm. Can’t you see that spring is here?”

“No, I can’t see, I don’t have eyes,” replied the worm.

“Oh, sorry,” the bee buzzed. “I didn’t know.”

“Would you be my eyes?” asked the worm.

“No time. The Queen does not like us dilly dallying around. Gotta go.” Off the bee buzzed, the vibration of the wings tickling every hair on worm’s body.

Worm was starting to get warm and feeling a bit dry, so he crawled under some leaves and started to eat.

Something landed on the leaf over his back.

“Ooh!” he quivered and wiggled out from under the leaf.

A butterfly flapped her wings and turned to look down at worm.

“So sorry. I didn’t see you there. I was too busy tasting the flowers.

“Flowers?” asked worm.

“Oh yes, they are quite beautiful and filled with a delicious juice. Look up. They are blue and green and pink and yellow and . . . Butterfly ran out of breath.

“I can’t see,” said worm.

“I didn’t realize.”

“Do you have time to tell me more?”

“I’d love to as long as you don’t mind if I drink along the way.”

“Not at all. I hope you don’t mind if I eat?”

Butterfly didn’t mind and she flew up to a bunch of flowers.

“This flower is blue and a little bit pink. You know when the sun shines and you feel kind of hot? Well, that’s yellow – bright yellow – squint your eyes yellow. Oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“That’s OK, I know you didn’t mean anything mean, but I understand what you said, Hot means dry and I head for cover – so that’s yellow. But what ‘s blue?”

“Well, when a cloud floats in front of the sun, you can see the sky is a beautiful blue. It’s bright and cooling. Like a breeze.”

“Oh, I know blue – it’s when my bristles are tickled by the wind.”

“Yes, these flowers are the color of the breeze tickling your bristles.”

“Then what is pink?” worm asked.

“Pink is soft and gentle.”

“Like when I meander through the grass.”

“Sure,” replied butterfly, who wasn’t sure at all.

“Tell me more.”

“Well, there are a bunch of flowers and they droop like dresses hanging and dangling in the wind.”

“Like dresses?”

“I don’t know either,” said butterfly. “That’s just what came to me.

“Oh,” replied worm. Kind of like how I know green – I just know.”

“Yes!” exclaimed butterfly.

Butterfly was busily drinking nectar and worm got hot and bored. He wriggled down into the leaves and was thinking about going deeper into the soil when he bumped into a new plant.

“Hey,” he called. “What’s this? It feels different that the other flower you were talking about.”

Butterfly flew down into the tangle of plants.

“Pee eww! I don’t know, but it smells yucky.”

Just then a fly flew down. “I don’t think it smells so bad.” And the fly disappeared into the flower.

“Yum—mmmmmmmmmm hum—mmmmmm” went the fly and then there was no sound at all.

“The flower ate the fly!” cried worm. With courage he didn’t know he had, he wriggled over to the flower, lifted up on his back end and leaned into the flower.

“Fly, fly are you OK?”

“Grunt, hum-mm, buzz, what? Oh, sorry, I fell asleep. That’s tasty pollen and it’s nice and warm in here. I bet there’s more pollen in other flowers.” And off flew fly.

An army of ants marched up.

“Are they ready yet?” asked the head ant.

“Are what ready yet?” responded worm.

“The seeds. They make good eating.”

“Oh, I don’t know, fly just said the pollen tasted good.”

“Not ready then.” The ants marched off.

“Yummy!” came the distant sound of butterfly.

“What?” called worm. “What is it?”

“It’s shiny bright yellow.”

“Be careful – Hot! Hot! Hot!” exclaimed worm.

“It’s that kind of color, but not hot. It’s like butter, shiny and smooth, almost slippery.”

Before butterfly could taste more nectar, a big bumble bee buzzed in and bumped butterfly out of the way.

“Oh, look!” cried butterfly flitting over to a tall stand of lavender flowers. Out came her proboscis and she began to drink. “Hum-mmmm.”

“What is it asked worm?”

Iths pupple.” Mumbled butterfly not even stopping to roll up her tongue.

“Pupple?”

Butterfly stopped drinking for a moment. “Purple, light lovely purple. It’s the best! The tastiest color. So many flowers. I have to go worm. I’m really hungry.” Without another word, butterfly flew to the next flower and drank and drank and drank.

“Purple – tastiest color ever.” Worm thought for a moment and said to on one in particular, “Like the soil. Purple is the soil.” With that worm wiggled down into the cool dark earth and he ate and ate and ate.