by Liana M. Mahoney –
“Did you hear that?” Kenna whispered, sitting up in her sleeping bag.
“Hear what?” Madison answered.
Kenna unzipped the tent. Through the glare of the lampposts, she saw a winged creature flapping frantically in the grass. “Quick, hand me the firefly jar!” She started toward the deck.
“Kenna,” Madison cried. “Be careful!”
Kenna crept forward, then kneeled and scooped the flapping creature into the jar.
“Ew…I can’t look!” Madison squealed. She turned away as Kenna returned to the tent.
“I think you’ll be surprised,” Kenna said, smiling. She shone the flashlight on the jar. Inside was a yellow moth. Blotchy pink freckles dotted its tattered wings. The moth’s legs were covered in pink fuzz.
“It’s a pretty moth,” Madison said.
“Its wings are hurt,” Kenna said. She looked around the tent and emptied the large paper bag that had been full of snacks for their sleepover. Kenna tipped the jar on its side, then removed the cover. She placed the jar inside the bag and folded down the top.
“There. Now it can climb out and stretch its wings. We can let it go in the morning,” Kenna said.
The next morning, Kenna and Madison carefully unfolded the bag. Inside, the moth lay still at the bottom.
“Kenna, I think it’s…dead,” Madison said softly.
In the daylight, the girls got a better look. The moth had a thick, soft belly. At the top of its head were two antennae that looked like thin curvy feathers.
Madison peered inside the bag. Clusters of yellow beads stuck to the paper.
“Eggs!” Madison said.
Kenna took a closer look. Eggs dotted the bag from top to bottom. “Lots of eggs! Let’s find out what kind of moth she is.”
The girls went inside to get some field guides from Kenna’s mother. They discovered their moth was a type of giant silk moth called an imperial. They learned that the females die shortly after laying eggs.
“It says here the caterpillars hatch in about ten days,” Kenna said. “They eat pine needles, and they need to eat almost all of the time.” She gave Madison a knowing look.
“We’ve got an old pine tree in the yard. It won’t hurt to cut some branches,” Kenna’s mother said. “But it will be lots of work. You’ll be busy most of the summer.”
“It will be the ‘Summer of the Imperials’,” Kenna said. Madison gave her a high-five.
Kenna and Madison counted twenty-two eggs. Kenna put eleven in an empty fish aquarium, and Madison put eleven in a clear plastic jug. The girls cut squares of cheesecloth to cover their containers. Then, Madison took her jug home.
Over the next week Kenna checked the eggs, watching for signs the baby moths might hatch.
One day, Madison called Kenna on the phone.
“The eggs look darker, and they have a dot in the middle,” Madison said. Kenna looked in the aquarium. A tiny caterpillar with a round head was munching on a clear eggshell. Its back was covered with fuzzy spikes.
By the end of the day, all of the eggs had hatched. Madison came over with her caterpillars. The girls placed fresh pine branches in the containers. One by one, the tiny caterpillars moved from the eggshells to the pine needles.
Taking care of the caterpillars was more work than Kenna had expected. Fresh pine branches had to be added every day. Kenna loved watching the caterpillars munch on pine needles. They chewed sideways, instead of up and down, like people do. One caterpillar clung to a branch and bent backwards to nibble. Kenna wondered if it was hard eating upside-down.
Weeks passed. The caterpillars grew as big as Kenna’s thumb! Now that the caterpillars were eating so much, their droppings, called frass, had to be emptied out every morning.
The caterpillars had hairy white horns down their brown backs and striped faces like tigers. Kenna’s favorite caterpillar was as green as the pine needles.
A few days later, Kenna watched the green caterpillar crawling out of its own skin. When it was done, its face was white and its new skin was brown, like the others. She called Madison to tell her about what she saw.
“They outgrow their skin,” explained Kenna, reading from a field guide.
“I outgrew a skirt once. Mom bought me a new one,” Madison said.
“It’s sort of like that,” Kenna said. “The old skin splits apart, and there’s new skin waiting underneath. A caterpillar sheds its skin several times before it makes a pupa.”
“A pupa?” Madison asked.
“A little brown case. Inside it, the caterpillar’s body changes,” Kenna explained. “The field guide says they make their pupae underground. They probably won’t be caterpillars for long. We need to think about what to do with them during the winter.”
“Why?” Madison asked.
“They rest underground when it’s cold, and when the weather warms in June, they know it’s time to hatch,” Kenna said.
“Into moths, like the one we found?” Madison asked. “Oh, I’d love to see that, Kenna!”
“Me, too,” Kenna agreed. “But we can’t keep them inside our houses because it’s too warm. And they can’t make their pupae underground if we keep them in containers.”
Kenna knew what they had to do. On Thursday morning Madison came to Kenna’s house, and she met her at the pine tree.
“I guess the Summer of the Imperials is over,” Kenna said.
Together they placed the giant caterpillars one by one on the branches of the tree, counting them as they said good-bye.
“All done,” said Madison, as she placed the last giant caterpillar on the tree.
“But that’s only twenty-one,” said Kenna. The girls checked the jug again. On the bottom lay a caterpillar. It looked a sickly color.
“I’m sorry, Maddie,” Kenna said softly. Tears welled in Madison’s eyes.
Kenna put the jug in the garage next to the garbage can. Madison waved a sad good-bye to her friend.
On Saturday Kenna took out the garbage. The jug was still sitting on the floor of the garage. Kenna picked it up, ready to stuff it in the bag with the rest of the garbage. But something in the jug caught her eye. She ran inside to call Madison.
“Madison,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “do you remember when we found the moth? You thought it was something scary. Remember?”
“I remember,” Madison said. “You said, ‘I think you’ll be surprised.’ Then you showed me that beautiful moth!”
“Madison, you’ve got to come over!” Kenna tried hard not to laugh out loud as she fixed her eyes on the hard brown pupa that lay empty on the bottom of Madison’s caterpillar jug.
“I think you’ll be surprised,” she said.
the end.
Question Time
1. What did Kenna catch in the firefly jar?
2. What happened to the imperial moth they caught?
3. Where did Kenna keep her moth eggs?
4. Why did they have to let the caterpillars go?
5. What did Kenna discover at the end?
