The Backyard Explorers (Part
2)
By
Sarah Blauen
Illustrated by Wolfgang Blauen
“Oh, you caught a Lady Bug,” laughed Mom. “Now you will all have good luck. Let’s take it inside and show Dad.” And that is just what they did, being very careful not to jiggle the jar too much as they walked.
“The Lady Bug looks small in that large pickle jar,” Dad said as he held the jar up to see the bug.
“I’ll go get my Detective magnifying glass, and then we can see the bug better,” said Dragon as he ran upstairs.
Dragon was right. The Lady Bug did look much larger when they used the magnifying glass. Now they could see that it had tiny black spots on its back. The three backyard explorers spent the next half hour taking turn looking at their bug.
“We still have a lot of the backyard to explore,” said Dragon. “Let’s go see what else we can find.”
So, the three of them went back outside. This time, they started on the left side of the yard. Here, they found more Daffodils and Tulips pushing up through the ground. A few of the tulips had opened up and were displaying their bright colors – red, and yellow, and orange. The three explorers were having a good time jumping here and there as they found new things to look at. Suddenly, Little Dragon stopped and stood very still.
“Be quiet and come here,” Little Dragon whispered. “Something is fluttering around the flowers.”
Dragon and Lion quit jumping and tip-toed over to Little Dragon. They all held their breath as they saw a small white butterfly move from flower to flower.
“Try to catch it,” Lion said softly to Dragon, “you have the biggest hands.”
Dragon watched the butterfly land on an orange tulip. He moved his hands slowly, but the butterfly flew to another flower just as he was about to catch it. Once again, Dragon crept up on the butterfly…but it flew away again. The butterfly was flying toward the other side of the yard.
“Hurry!” yelled Little Dragon, “run after it!”
The butterfly flew up and down. It flew in wobbly circles. It zigged and zagged. Dragon, Little Dragon, and Lion followed all these crazy moves, but they couldn’t catch the butterfly.
“I’m tired and dizzy,” Dragon said as he fell on the ground.
“We are too,” said Lion and Little Dragon as they fell on the ground also.
“Whew! Let’s go inside and see what our Lady Bug is doing,” panted Dragon.
So the three tired explorers crawled back to the house. They watched the Lady Bug crawl over the leaf and under the grass. She crawled up the side of the jar to the lid. The Lady Bug crawled all around the tiny holes in the lid, stopping at each one for a short while. Then she did something different…the Lady Bug was flying around in the jar.
“Dad, why is the Lady Bug flying around so much?” asked Dragon.
“Maybe she is trying to get out so she can go back to her family,” answered Dad.
“We should take her back to the rose bush,” said Dragon sadly. “I don’t want the Lady Bug to miss her family.”
Little Dragon and Lion agreed. The three backyard explorers took their Lady Bug back to the rose bush where they found her. They opened the jar and the Lady Bug flew out.
“Bye Lady Bug!” they called, “fly away home!”
(read on ...)
Copyright (c) 2008 by In Scope-Solutions,
Inc. |
