The Story Of A Butterfly

Hello,

My name is Jacqueline and I like writing stories.

I have a story here that I'd like to read to you,

So make yourself comfortable,

Settle back,

Because the story is about to begin.

The Butterfly The beautiful butterfly flew around the garden looking for the perfect place to lay her egg.

Her colours were magnificent and appeared even more brilliant as the sun shone on her delicate wings.

The garden was filled with stunning flowers of all colours and shapes,

But the butterfly could only choose the leaf of one plant in which to lay her egg.

The butterfly was about to settle on the leaf of a pink rose bush when a big hairy dog came bounding over and startled her.

The butterfly's egg was far too precious to be eaten by a dog and so,

Without hesitating,

The butterfly soared back up into the air and flew out of the garden.

The butterfly continued flying until she spotted the ideal garden.

It was filled with lots of leafy bushes,

None of which appeared to have too many flowers.

She flew down into the garden and hovered for a while as she listened for dogs or any other animal which she felt could harm her egg,

But all was quiet.

Satisfied her egg would not be disturbed in this garden,

The butterfly flitted from leaf to leaf until she eventually settled upon a small pale green leaf hidden in the middle of a bush.

The butterfly sat for a while and then flew away,

Leaving behind her a tiny round pale green egg the size of a pinhead nestled comfortably upon the leaf.

The egg blended in with the colour of the leaf and so was well camouflaged from any predators.

Seven days later the tiny egg broke open and a caterpillar,

As tiny as the egg itself,

Called out.

It was a sunny warm day,

But this was of no interest to the caterpillar because she was hungry,

Really hungry,

And that was all she could think about.

After eating her way out of the egg,

The caterpillar started chomping on the leaf as soon as her tiny legs had touched it.

She was like a tiny eating machine,

Chomp chomp chomp,

Gobble gobble,

One leaf after another.

Then she would rest for a while before she began eating again.

Every day the caterpillar would spend her time just eating and sleeping,

And she grew bigger and bigger.

She grew so big that her skin became too tight and split open,

Revealing a new,

Larger skin underneath.

The caterpillar's old skin shed from her head first and then she began shrugging it off her body.

To help it fall away she expanded her body with air and then with a final big shrug it fell off.

Her new skin was soft and moist,

But before too long it began to harden and then the caterpillar continued eating.

The caterpillar ate more and more leaves and continued to grow and grow.

A few days later her skin became tight again and the shedding process began once more.

This cycle happened a few more times until eventually the caterpillar was fully grown and over 100 times bigger than when she emerged from the tiny pale green egg.

One day the caterpillar felt tired.

She had eaten many more leaves than normal and her body had become big and swollen.

She needed to rest.

Eating all those leaves had been too much.

It was time to change.

The caterpillar found a shady plant stem in the bush and gripped onto it with her legs.

Being secure she once again started to shed her skin.

As she wiggled her old skin fell off but this time there was no new skin underneath.

Instead there was a bright green chrysalis.

The chrysalis was kind of like a vessel which would harden and form a protective case around the caterpillar to protect her from predators.

Inside the chrysalis a magical thing was happening.

Metamorphosis was taking place as the caterpillar transformed into a beautiful butterfly.

About ten days later the walls of the chrysalis started to get thinner.

It was nearly time for the butterfly to emerge.

One bright sunny afternoon the chrysalis split open and the butterfly carefully stretched her legs as she tentatively climbed out.

At first it appeared that this butterfly didn't have big beautiful wings or a slender elegant body but instead had small wings and a chubby body but that was about to change.

The butterfly pumped blood from her body into hollow tubes in her wings as if by magic the wings opened out into their proper shape as the fluid flowed into them.

But the butterfly couldn't fly yet because her wings were wet,

Soft and bendy.

She had to wait patiently for them to dry.

Standing on the edge of a pale green leaf the butterfly looked around.

What a beautiful world this is,

She thought to herself.

I can't wait to explore it.

Eventually the butterfly's wings were dry and she was ready to take her first flight.

Looking upwards she leapt off the leaf and her gorgeous wings began to flap and carried her up into the sky so she could search for a perfect flower to feed upon.

I hope you enjoyed listening to my story.

Before you go I'd like to ask you a question.

If you could create a new butterfly what colours would its wings be?