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One caterpillar’s journey toward metamorphosis

This is the second part of a two-part article I wrote about caterpillars. If you haven’t read my other article, I think you would find it quite marvelous, and this article will probably make more sense. It ran in last Saturday's Mining Journal.

Just a recap of my last article -- basically, I raised a bunch of caterpillars, one of whom was named Stanley. This column is a story starring Stanley the caterpillar. Enjoy!

I woke up this morning, and when I checked on the caterpillars, I couldn't find Stanley. The night before, Aug. 3, he was missing as well, but I just brushed it off and convinced myself he was just hiding.

But when I came downstairs and saw he was still "hiding," I freaked out. I couldn't find him anywhere. After awhile, I went to find more milkweed leaves to restock his food supply. When I took the leaf out of Stanley's and Harrison's jar, I saw Stanley clinging to the side of the glass jar.

He didn't look frightened, but he did look kind of brown. My heart started to pound in my chest; my mind went blank.

"Is Stanley dead?" I thought.

Then my mind went down a darker path. "Did I kill him?" I didn't know what to do. I took my magnifying glass and stared at Stanley. Then I noticed something unusual and quite peculiar. Stanley was in a cloud-like thing; it looked like a spider had come along and spider-webbed Stanley in a little net!

The only thing contradicting my hypothesis was that there were no spiders in, around or near the jar. There were no spiders in sight. On a closer inspection, the net-like thingamajig looked almost … natural.

Stanley looked fine, except a little discolored. I took a deep breath in ... and breathed out. I heard my mom coming downstairs, so I rushed over. "Mom! Mom! My caterpillar is brown, and he might be dying!" It took her a second to get to the jars, but when she did, I handed her my magnifying glass and pointed to Stanley.

At first, she couldn’t find Stanley, so I focused the magnifying glass for her. She stared intently while I explained, "I found him like this when I was replenishing the milkweed! I don't know what to do. Do you know what’s happening?" My anxiety started to grow with every second that passed. My anxiety grew and grew for what her answer would be. I felt like a darkness was closing in. I could only see Stanley's little face, which I pictured reflected mine: a mixture of scared, terrified, frightened and the overwhelming feeling of not knowing what would happen next.

My mom didn't know what Stanley was doing, so that meant we were both clueless. I needed to know, now. I was about to go to the library when I remembered a humongous problem -- the library was closed.

I felt a wave of hopelessness. "What should I do now?" Then I remembered another tool -- I could use my mom's phone. I weighed my options. I could run to the library later when it opened, which would take longer, but I would get more reliable sources and probably more of them, or I could use my mom's phone and get less reliable sources, but I could get them quicker.

I decided to use mom's phone for now just to get the gist of what was happening and plan my next move, then later I would go to the library and research. My mom painstakingly, slowly entered her passcode and was about to hand the phone over when she decided that now was the perfect time to respond to all her texts.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH! I could feel myself aging slowly, growing taller and taller. By the time my mom handed me this phone, I probably grew 4 feet and 7 inches!

I typed, my fingers moving as fast as my tendons could manage. I scrolled through countless websites matching photos and descriptions, thinking of the worst until I found the answer. My heart pounded harder than ever before; tears welled in my eyes, my mind thinking of all the happiest memories I had with Stanley, but I came up short; I only had Stanley for a day.

Happiness bubbled up inside me like a can of soda that fell off Mount Everest and exploded -- Stanley was molting. He was completely fine. My relief swelled inside me!

Looking at Stanley, who was still just clinging there with his skin lying next to him. He looked so innocent and cute. I bent down and peered through the glass. "My little dude is growing up."

Thank you for reading this entire article. Bye!

Edith Kitchel is a 12-year-old person who lives on planet Earth. Edith loves reading and may try fencing in the near future. Edith also enjoys trying to touch their nose with their tongue, making art and reading.