Flying With Butterflies
R.I McGowan
Flying With Butterflies
By R.I. McGowan
Copyright 2014 R.I. McGowan
Part One: Meeting The Butterflies
I was one of those girls that played outside constantly; I never really liked to be inside. I felt enclosed. I felt as if I was trapped in a box unable to get to my friends; the butterflies. Yes, I’ll admit, butterflies were my best friends, but I learned their secret and my own secret.
It started two weeks into summer vacation. I had just passed the fifth grade, which, of course, made me so happy. I was wearing an off-white color sundress that had sunflowers all around it. It went down to about my knees, and it was my favorite dress ever.
I was waking up when I decided to go outside and do something fun, to look around, go to the creek, something! I was tiptoeing from my bedroom and was almost out the door when I heard my mom speak up.
“Ella, where do you think you are going this early?” She said. I hadn’t really looked at what the time was. The clock in the kitchen read 6:15. That was pretty early.
“To go outside and explore,” I answered.
“Eat breakfast first, at least.” She replied and with a sigh sat down. She must’ve had a rough night. I could hear my parents bickering until around 11:30. My mother had to work, but she didn’t have to get up for another 45 minutes, which I bet is also a problem that makes stress; not enough sleep.
Myself, I don’t need much sleep to be wide-eyed and ready to go outside. 5 hours is enough. I listened to her. I grabbed Fruity Snax cereal from the cupboard and ate it in a bowl with milk. It was delicious! After that I said “See ya,” to Mother and then out the door I went.
I didn’t wear any shoes, I didn’t really have to. I felt the wet dew on the grass with my toes. It was wet. I skipped along the graveled driveway. The rocks impaling my foot didn’t even hurt that much. Well, not anymore. When we first moved here two years ago I’d walk across it slowly shouting ouch, owww, ouch, ugh, ouch.
The tree line was close, and the creek wasn’t far past in, possibly a half-mile. Then there was a pond about a mile after the creek. I fished in the pond once or twice that week already. I’d never get anything good, just a bunch of blue gills, which I decided not to do anything with. I don’t think they’d be that tasty.
The wet mud went in between my toes, most girls would probably go “Ewwww!” but me, I loved it! I just loved natural things so much. As I walked along some more on the way to the creek I heard rustling in the high shrubbery. I immediately lay down to try and get a good look at what was in the bushes. What I saw was about 8 deer legs, which meant there were two deer.
I never hunted deer, although I really wanted to. My father wouldn’t let me for some reason. Well, his reason was that he didn’t want me to get hurt from the bears, although there are rarely even bear encounters in Pennsylvania.
I stood up slowly and shouted. The deer ran away scared-like. Which they probably were, and I don’t blame them. A blonde little girl screaming at them for no reason was quite scary. I bet all humans looked like blood-craving murderers to the deer.
I walked along listening to the songs the birds sang; more like whistled. Then I heard something odd. It was like high pitched growling. I looked up and saw a few squirrels were fighting over a nut. They hadn’t even noticed me. I walked further in front to see them at a better angle, bent down and grabbed a giant rock to pelt at them.
I put my entire body into the throw. WHAM! The squirrel fell down and I heard a little sound then nothing. The other squirrels had ran, but this one had succumbed to death, which made me happy. I knew I was good at aiming, but I didn’t know I was good enough to kill a squirrel with just a rock and aiming well enough.
I ran to its dead body and picked it up. I just carried it since a dress had no pockets. Which is also when I noticed something; I wore my favorite dress the last two days, also. Good thing nobody ever noticed. This made me laugh out loud to myself. I kept walking along and eventually got to the creek. The creek was about 5 feet wide and 6-9 inches deep in certain places. It was my favorite place of all, even though I had only been there twice before, and those were brief visits.
A dragonfly zoomed past the side of my face. It was beautiful, at least I thought that. Its clear wings had a rainbow-like glint as the sun beamed through them. The design of the squares and triangles and rectangles on the dragonfly’s wings acted as a prism for light to be separated in the main ones.
I kept walking along to see the butterflies. This was my favorite part of the creek. As I walked up stream, anticipating the thousands of monarchs, I was let down. Not only let down, but saddened. The monarchs were dead. Thousands of dead monarch butterfly carcasses lay upon the field beside the creek where they resided, tears stung my eyes. Who or what could have killed all of these majestic butterflies. I decided that it was up to me to discover this murderous fiend.