The Little Caterpillar
who didn't want to spin his cocoon
Text-only Manuscript
Once upon a tree, on the edge of a forest near a town like yours, there was a little caterpillar hatching from an egg.
He looked around, though he didn't know what looking was, he didn't know anything he had just been born.
His egg case was lying beside him like a tiny space capsule broken open, he knew he didn't want to be in there any more, all tightly curled up in a ball.
He had the thoughts of where, and of why, and of who, he was just getting around to the thought of what, when he heard a voice.
"LEAVES,” said the voice, "ARE WHAT YOU NEED." The little caterpillar saw a big old caterpillar, lolling on a leaf.
"LEAVES?" said the little caterpillar in the tiniest, cutest, sweetest little voice, as only a very hungry baby caterpillar saying 'leaves' for the very first time can.
"YES,” said the big old lolling caterpillar, "EATING LEAVES WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY." And the little caterpillar new, just by the way the big old lolling caterpillar had said the word 'happy', that 'happy' was definitely what he wanted to be.
The little caterpillar felt a wriggle starting in his bottom, and before he knew exactly what wriggling was he was wriggling down the branch and out onto a big juicy fat green leaf.
His whole body shuddered with excitement and the first time that sweet green juice trickled down his throat he thought that that was the reason for the whole world.
"I like happy" said the little caterpillar.
The little caterpillar loved eating so much that he didn't stop eating for two weeks! As soon as he finished one leaf he crawled to another and ate that too.
All around him his brothers and sisters munched away, and the little caterpillar was so engrossed in eating leaves that he didn't even stop to say 'Hi' to one of them.
Now surprises happen to every one of us sooner or later and a surprise was about to happen to the little caterpillar.
Crafty old Butcherbird had been watching the little caterpillars for a long time.
Every morning his wife would say, "go and check if the caterpillars are ready yet dear" and away he would fly over the little caterpillars tree, and come back to his wife and say, "they are juicier and fatter than yesterday, but lets wait a little longer, till they are even fatter."
Then one morning it was crafty old Butcherbirds birthday and they decided that they would have little caterpillars for desert.
They invited their friends the magpies for dinner, and off they flew, just as the sun was rising, and our little caterpillar was crawling across the trunk of the tree to get to another branch of juicy green leaves.
Now, as luck would have it the hungry birds didn't notice him on the trunk of the tree.
He would have been safe altogether if he hadn't tried to hide inside a spider's hole.
The spider thought he was going to eat her babies and bit him on the nose! The little caterpillar fell down out of the tree, onto his back on the ground.
He didn't break any bones because he didn't have any, and he soon wriggled over onto his stomach and looked around.
There were no juicy green leaves as far as he could see.
The little caterpillar didn't know what to do. He only knew how to eat leaves and he couldn't do that.
"I still know how to wriggle,” thought the little caterpillar, and that is just what he did, straight out of the forest over the moist brown earth and out into a large green field.
"Hello" said dapper grasshopper, in his smart green coat, "Oh! Hello!" Said the little caterpillar. "These are the wrong leaves for you", said dapper grasshopper, munching away on a blade of grass.
"Where am I?" asked the little caterpillar. "Lost,” said dapper grasshopper.
Well, the little caterpillar sat still and thought, "Lost is a very interesting place".
Nearby a cicada hummed and then spreading her stained glass wings she flew up out of the grass, into the blue sky and away where the little caterpillar had not seen.
"Oh! Oh! Oh! "Said the little caterpillar, "that is what I want to do, when I can do that I will be able to see all of "lost."
"You can't fly because you don't have wings,” said dapper grasshopper.
"I wriggled to find leaves, said the little caterpillar to himself and I shall wriggle to find wings". And off he wriggled. He stopped and asked everyone he met, busy worker ants that wriggled there antennae's, a green frog by the pond, and even a worm, coming up for air.
"Caterpillars don't have wings", they all said impatiently.
The little caterpillar became very hungry, and very tired.
A butterfly landed nearby and the little caterpillar thought she had the most beautiful wings of all. He wanted to ask her where she got her wings, but he was so tired that he could not speak.
The butterfly made some soothing noises and picking him up with her legs she flew off to the tree where the little caterpillar was born, and set him down gently, on a large juicy green leaf.
The little caterpillar started eating as fast as he could, and once more thought how good it was to be happy, eating juicy green leaves, but every now and then the little caterpillar would sigh and remember his 'adventures' and the beautiful wings of the butterfly.
The more he thought about it the less eating juicy green leaves made him happy. He longed to find wings and fly over 'lost'.
One day, he decided to go and find that big old lolling caterpillar that had taught him happy and ask him what to do.
When he arrived the big old caterpillar was spinning his cocoon and humming a low tune, soothing like a lullaby.
"It is time to lay down
in that soft warm bed
and dream the last
caterpillar dream.
It is time to breathe
the last caterpillar breath
and go where the dreamers
cannot go.
Hatch,
eat leaves,
and spin cocoon
this is what the caterpillar know."
"I don't want to spin a cocoon", said the little caterpillar, "I want to have wings and fly over lost." "Then you are a silly little caterpillar" said the big old cocoon-spinning caterpillar, "and you will never be happy."
"Well if I cant have wings I don't want to be happy" yelled the little caterpillar and he stomped off.
Now the little caterpillar was concentrating hard, because he had a lot of legs to stomp and he wanted to do the maximum amount of stomping with each leg.
Anyway, he was concentrating so hard on not being happy and stomping that he didn't look where he was going and fell right off the edge of a leaf onto the ground for the second time in his life.
Whoopee! Yelled the little caterpillar, "I'm out of my tree again" and off he wriggled back into the sunny green field, to find wings and discover 'lost'. He thought himself a very clever caterpillar.
Whilst the little caterpillar was thinking how clever he was a little boy came running through the field.
"HEH!" Yelled the little caterpillar as loud as he could, "where do you get wings?"
I don't know whether the little boy heard or not, but he stopped running and looked at the ground. He saw the little caterpillar in the grass and picked him up.
"Cool" said the little boy. "What are you doing so far away from your tree? The boy had noticed the same sort of caterpillars on the tree near the edge of the clearing. "Don't worry I'll look after you.
The boy carefully carried the little caterpillar back to his room. He tipped his cars out of their box to make a home for the caterpillar, and collected some leaves from the little caterpillars tree and put them in the box for the little caterpillar to eat.
The little caterpillar looked at the leaves with disgust.
"You can't make me be happy" yelled the little caterpillar I don't want to eat leaves! I want wings!
The boy didn’t hear the little caterpillar's tiny voice and he went outside to play with his friends.
The little caterpillar started stomping and yelling as much as he could, but nothing happened. Only the leaves lost their juiciness and turned brown. All the while the little caterpillar sulked and stomped and yelled, the leaves died and he became exhausted.
Now, the little caterpillar wished he hadn't spent his time being unhappy, he could have been eating all those juicy green leaves, now he would never know the pleasure of that soft warm bed, or sing the soothing lullaby of cocoon weaving.
Later that afternoon when the boy came back to check on the little caterpillar, he saw that the leaves had died, and the little caterpillar was lying very still at the bottom of the box.
He took the box with the little caterpillar to show his parents.
"I wanted to watch him turn into a butterfly,” the boy explained to his parents, “I got him the right leaves" but he doesn’t look happy so I am going to put him back in his tree.
“Good idea,” said his Dad, “Wild creatures are happiest in their natural environment, we can still watch him while he is on the tree, every morning and afternoon we will go and visit him, I think he will be ready to spin his cocoon soon, that's why his skin is changing colour and he is not moving very much."
Now this was true, it was time for the little caterpillar to spin his cocoon, his body was preparing itself for this special time.
The little boy carried the little caterpillar back to the tree where he was born and placed him carefully in the middle of the juiciest, fattest, greenest leaf the little caterpillar had ever seen.
That little caterpillar was happier than ever. He was happy he was happy, and happy that he was happy that he was happy, and after he was full to the very top with sweet green juice he curled himself up and started to hum and weave himself the softest and warmest of cocoons, and grew sleepier, and sleepier.
"it is time to lay down
in that soft warm bed
and dream the last
caterpillar dream.
It is time to breathe
the last caterpillar breath,
and go where the dreamers cannot go.
Hatch,
eat leaves,
and spin cocoon
this is what the caterpillar know."
"I don't need wings,” thought the caterpillar" as he wove the last strand into place and sighed his last caterpillar sigh.
The little boy and his parents came every day to visit the little caterpillar and watched him weaving his cocoon.
Then one day while they were quietly checking the little caterpillars cocoon, they saw it start to move and wriggle, then a split appeared down the back of the cocoon and a butterfly with crumpled wings slowly climbed out.
The new butterfly looked around and stretched and fluttered his wings as they dried out.
Whoopee! "I've got wings" said the butterfly, and flew out of the tree for the very first time in his life.
© Paris Naday 2002
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