The Very Hungry Caterpillar
On a warm sunny day, on a cool brisk Monday morning, there was a little egg, sitting on a leaf.
It sat and sat until one day…
Tugging with all its might (which was really not that much at all but was enough for him, and had everyone in the world been watching, they would have cheered loudly for the tiny egg), the egg cracked itself open.
Inside was The Very Hungry Caterpillar
He was tiny. He was new. And he was…
Hangry.
—
Looking around at his world from his little perch on the leaf, he saw it was big and green and filled with things he couldn’t quite recognize the names of. The sun warmed his back. The air smelled like breakfast.
Time to find something to eat.
—
He found one apple on **Monday**. It was perfectly round and red and just hanging off the tree within reach of his leaf. He ate right through the middle of it and worked his way out the other side, filled but not full.
Not quite.
Two pears on **Tuesday. ** Soft, sweet, lemon-y pears. He ate through both of them, one after the other, slowly and with the concentration of a hungry caterpillar on a mission.
Still hungry.
Three plums on **Wednesday. ** Purple and juicy and oh so refreshing. He ate through all three in quick succession and licked his lips and waited for the fullness to come.
Still hungry caterpillar
Four strawberries on **Thursday** lined up in a row as if by magic just for him. He ate through them all and awaited the moment of –…
Hangry.
On **Friday** he found five oranges. Round oranges that provided plenty of room to cram in as much orange as he could handle. So handle it he did. He ate through them all and rested in the sun.
Still hungry.
—
Something was different on **Saturday. **
Maybe it was Saturday. Maybe it was because he was just so dang hungry caterpillar. But when he ate through that last orange on Saturday, he found so much more than fruity snacks. Saturday was a buffet.
Chocolate cake. Ice cream. Pickle. Swiss cheese. Salami. Cupcake. Slice of watermelon. Lollipop. Cherry pie. Sausage. Blueberry muffin. And one little orange lolly.
He ate through everything.
And that evening, for the first time since he had opened his egg on Monday morning, he had a stomach ache.
He rested on his leaf in the warm evening sun feeling very full and a little sorry and entirely unsurprised, like you do when you have eaten exactly as much as you knew you shouldn’t.
—
On **Sunday** he came across one fresh green leaf. Simple and clean and quiet after all the decadence of Saturday.
He ate it slowly. Only one.
He felt better.
—
He was no longer a tiny hungry caterpillar.
All those weeks of eating. All those days crawling through the world and seeing what it could give him and trying it all without fear — it had changed him. He had grown so big. Hungry caterpillar and round and ready to start something new, even if he wasn’t yet sure what that something was.
He found a little branch against the wall of the garden, sheltered from the wind and away from the noise of the outside world and spun around himself a little house — a cocoon.
He tucked himself inside snug and safe and completely dark.
He stayed like that for two weeks.
No one saw him. No one knew he was there. From the outside it looked like nothing at all was happening.
Inside, safe in the warm dark cocoon, magical things were happening.
—
One morning the cocoon split open — like the egg had on that Monday morning, like all good things must — and out crawled something that was no longer a hungry caterpillar.
Slowly he unfolded his wings. They were incredible. Colors and patterns and wider than his body, they caught the morning sunlight in such a way that he wondered if they were too beautiful to be real.
He was abutterfly“> butterfly.
He lifted from the branch with gentle flaps at first, then faster and sure as he climbed into the warm blue morning sky above his garden.
The apple tree. The pear tree. All of the plums and strawberries and oranges. That leaf that had once been his home on a Monday morning.
He flew above it all, the wind rushing under his wings and the sun warm on his back.
And he soared.
—
*The End. *
*Even the smallest, hungriest, most uncertain of starts*
*can become something wonderful. *
*Sleep tight little one. * 🌙
If you want to read more like this, click here: Goodnight Moon
