The Halloween Butterfly

A Halloween field trip.

The Halloween Butterfly

 

The Halloween pumpkin turned into a huge adventure the year I turned 16.  It started the week before Halloween, when my class took a field trip to the local pumpkin patch.  Yes, we were way too old for a trip like that, but my English teacher thought it would be a good way to start a new creative writing unit.  He got a bus and a driver, and got us all out of school for the entire day.  It was a Monday, so it was almost like getting a long weekend.  I had to show up for school, but I never set foot in the building that day, because the bus for the field trip was already waiting by the cafeteria doors, where my bus let out.

Thirty high school juniors on a bus with just one teacher to chaperone could have been a dangerous idea, but we were the highest English class in our grade, all AP and college prep students, and not into the kinds of behavior that usually caused trouble.  We weren’t exactly nerds, but our kind of mischief was usually sort of subtle.  Besides, we all adored Mr. Harris.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen,” Mr. Harris shouted.  We all got quiet right away, as the bus jerked to a stop, and Mr. Harris grabbed the pole at the top of the bus’s steps to keep his balance.  “You’re going to be on the honor system today.  We’ll all go out to the pumpkin patch together, but then you’re on your own.”  There was a murmur of surprised excitement up and down the length of the bus.  “You’re here to write.  Go anywhere in the pumpkin patch, but stay out of the orchard and the corn field, and don’t leave the property.  I don’t need to remind you about your behavior.”

With that, he led the way off the bus.  I grabbed my backpack, with a binder full of blank paper and a handful of ballpoint pens, plus my wallet and the lanyard with my house key, and edged my way into the stream of kids leaving the bus.  I always sat near the front, so I didn’t have far to go.

“Hey, Deb!” Missy greeted me with a smile as I slipped in front of her.

“Hey, Miss!” I replied.  “’Scuse me!”

We both laughed, and then we were down the steps, and off the bus.

When everyone was gathered around Mr. Harris, a guy in a yellow and green plaid shirt, well-worn bib overalls, and heavy, tan work boots walked out of the farm store, and joined our group.  He was carrying a net sack full of something.

“Mornin’, kids!” he called out, as he stepped up beside Mr. Harris.  “I’m Jake, an’ I’m th’ manager o’ Harmond Orchard.  Most o’ you’ve prob’ly ween here before, but welcome anyway!  ’Fore we let’cha loose, I got somethin’ for ya.” 

He opened the sack, and started handing out nylon mesh bags, like the ones apples came in.  He gave me two, and they looked pretty long; they’d hold a lot.  Before I could tell him he’d made a mistake, and give him back the second one, he said, “I gave y’each two bags.”

I pulled my hand back, grateful I hadn’t embarrassed myself, as I often did.  I said we weren’t nerds, but I was something of a geek.

“You take those bags, and you fill ’em up,” Jake continued.  “If it’s growin’ in the punkin patch, an’ you can get it inside the bag, an’ pull the drawstring shut, you can have it.”

There were several exclamations of surprise and excitement in the group.  We were mostly 16, but we were as excited as six-year-olds on this warm, dry, sunny, October morning.

“Okay, gang,” Mr. Harris said, “go do some amazing writing!”

With that, we swarmed out into the pumpkin patch.  The whole thing had been specially reserved for our class that day, so we had it all to ourselves.  Starting just behind the apple barn, at the back of the farm store, it extended up a gradual incline for a hundred yards or so, and then dropped out of sight beyond the rise.  To our left, the apple orchard stretched back and away behind the apple barn, the trees visibly heavy with shining red orbs, even at a distance.  Beyond the pumpkin patch was the corn field, where the colorful Indian corn grew, with its bright red, dark burgundy, back, and even blue kernels, sometimes mixed in with the golden yellow kernels in a speckled pattern, but more often in full ears of solid colors.  The corn stalks were green in the morning sun, the silk hanging from the full ears shining golden.

We scattered as soon as we reached the edge of the field.  We had been warned ahead of time that today was a solo project for each of us.  We were each to pick a subject in the field, and then write about it.  We each had to turn in a story, a descriptive essay, and a poem before we got off the bus at the end of the day, all on whatever one thing we had chosen.  We’d been told that we couldn’t work together, no matter what.  I was a little bit irritated about that, because Missy, Sam, Jimmy, Shawn, and I usually worked together on every project we could, and I was afraid the creative juices wouldn’t flow, if I had to work alone.

“Good luck!” Sam whispered, squeezing my shoulder as he passed me. 

“You, too,” I replied, feeling encouraged.

I saw the others heading out in different directions.  Mr. Harris had made a point of telling our little group to scatter for the day.  He knew us really well.

I stopped at the very first cluster of gourds that I came to.  The whole field was planted with gourds on this side of the hill.  I collected half a dozen, but my first bag was still practically empty.  I noticed almost everyone else doing the same thing, as I dropped a particularly pretty gourd into my bag.  It was a long, crook-necked gourd, striped with wide bands of golden orange and narrow lines of lemon yellow, except for the lime-green cap that covered the wide stem end for about a third of the bulbous bottom half, and with the stem end curled almost into a circle.

I walked on, gathering gourds from each crow that I crossed in the corduroy field, with its hard-packed, narrow paths between ridges burgeoning with the gourd plants.  Thick, prickery vines coiled up out of the ground amid broad, dark-green leaves, and the many varied gourds.  I mostly took the crook-necked ones, the pear-shaped ones, and the ones that looked like baby pumpkins �" the last were planted every fourth row �" and I only took a few of the lumpy, bumpy, warty-looking ones, which had pale, sickly, green and white shells.

I was only going to fill one bag with gourds, I told myself.  The second bag was stuffed into the right front pocket of my jeans, where I could feel the bulge of it against my leg, so I wouldn’t lose it.  I was saving that one to take home a full-sized pumpkin.  I hoped I could squeeze one into it!

Once I reached the top of the hill, and started down the gentle slope of the back side, there were no more gourds.  The pumpkin patch was full of pumpkins.  I could see that the largest ones must already have been harvested, to be sold out front, in the farm store, but there were still plenty of good-sized pumpkins amid the dark foliage.  As I walked, climbing over the ridges, I scanned around for just the right pumpkin to take home.  The rest of the class had fanned out over the whole field.  Although I could see a few still walking around, I noticed that many had dropped to the ground, and were looking carefully at the things around them.  No one spoke, or called out, that I could hear.

I had been moving across the field in a diagonal line, drifting to the left as I went along, and I was getting close to the edge of the corn field.  I couldn’t go much farther in that direction, so I turned to move back toward the middle of the pumpkin patch.  It was when I turned around that I saw it.

An enormous butterfly, with impossibly blue gossamer wings, perched atop a pumpkin not three feet in front of my feet.  Its wings were outstretched in the warm, soft, autumn sunshine.  I caught my breath as I noticed how delicately its long, black antennas curled upward from the front of its fuzzy, black head.  The sun glinted off its faceted eyes, making them look like flecks of raw obsidian.  I was sure that it sensed my presence, but it didn’t fly away.  I sank to the ground, mesmerized, and set down my backpack and my sack of gourds as gently as I could.  The butterfly twitched a feeler in my direction, but it didn’t move.

I could see each of the tiny, feather-like scales that made up the velvety wings that vibrated lightly in the morning air, keeping the gorgeous insect balanced.  It was too late in the season for butterflies, and most had died or migrated long ago.  Not taking my eyes from the precious beauty in front of me, I eased open the backpack.  I moved my hands as slowly and gently as I could.  I was afraid of startling the delicate creature into flight.  Carefully, I pulled out my notebook and a blue ball-point pen.  Gently, I opened the front cover of the three-ring binder.  I held my breath as I clicked out the point of the pen.

Through it all, the butterfly didn’t move, except to twitch its one feeler at me every so often and to keep its exquisite, cerulean wings vibrating.  My eyes roved over those wings, taking in details that I had missed before.  Around the outer edge of each wing was a narrow border of black, with white spots evenly spaced, close together, all around each wing.  The sun wasn’t at its full height yet, and the angle of the light cast shadows that let me see that each white spot was a single, distinct, feather scale.

I took up my pen, and began writing.  Words and phrases burbled up and poured out, inspired by the incredible insect.  A poem, fully three pages long, filled with over-emotional teenage praise and anguish at the beauty I was witnessing, poured out onto the pages of my notebook, seemingly between one breath and the next.  It was very rough, and the rhyming was imperfect, but it dripped with exuberant pathos.  I hardly remembered writing the words.  They seemed to come from the slowly flicking antenna, into my mind, and out through my pen, without conscious thought.

I put my name on each page of the poem, and then glanced at the bright yellow Pac-Man watch on my wrist.  I was amazed to see that its digital display read 10:08; it had told me it was only 8:14 when the bus had lurched to a stop in the orchard’s parking area.  The time had passed without my being aware of its passage.

I turned to a fresh sheet of paper.  Having got the flood of high emotions out of my system, II felt ready to tackle the descriptive essay.  I wrote steadily, glancing frequently at the subject of my text.  I was careful to use the best descriptive words I knew, without my Roget’s to resort to for help.  I filled page after page.  I loved describing things.  I found it necessary to depart on tangents to describe the sunshine, the still air, and the blur of foliage, all of which influenced the way I described the butterfly that seemed to have selected itself as my writing subject. 

I had filled the fifth page with descriptive prose, in my small, angular handwriting, so unusual for a girl of my age, as every adult told me, when I realized that something was wrong.  Something was deeply, desperately wrong.  The furry, black feeler no longer twitched at me.  The spread wings no longer quivered with the creature’s vital energy, but had become rigidly still.  I stifled a gasp of dismay, pressing my left hand over my mouth, as my pen fell from the suddenly slack fingers of my right hand.

Tentatively, fearfully, I leaned forward, extending my right arm, until the fingers of my upturned hand slid under the frightfully still wings, and I lifted the large, delicate husk that had, moments ago, released the life essence of the butterfly into the spiritual ether, from atop the pumpkin where it had perched.

I choked back a sob as I brought the beautiful, dead thing close to my face.  A large, hot tear welled in the bottom of my eye, and then leaked from the corner onto my cheek.

For several long minutes, or so it seemed, I sat in the dirt, holding the dead butterfly on the palm of my hand.  Finally, I drew a long breath.  Placing the butterfly back on top of the pumpkin, I resolutely picked up my pen, and continued writing.  To the physical description of the living insect I added a description of how death had changed it before my eyes.  It was still beautiful, but its colors seemed duller in death.  Its soft fur seemed stiffer.  I worked to capture every change.

Throughout my writing, I hadn’t given a thought to the brilliantly orange pumpkin under the butterfly.  Even when I’d replaced the dead body where the living one had perched, I had hardly noticed it.  I had described everything except the pumpkin.  Now, with my essay finished, and my name at the top of each page, I gently lifted the butterfly off the pumpkin again.  I placed the butterfly carefully between the last two pages of the notebook to keep the outspread wings from being crushed, and gently arranged the six dry, delicate legs to minimize the damage they might suffer.  They were already stiff with death, and I winced as I settled the bulk of the pages atop my treasure.

I knew, without examining it at all, that the pumpkin that had been the butterfly’s final resting place in life had to be the one that I took home from the pumpkin patch.  The sun was high in the sky, and I knew we would be called to lunch very soon.  I had to hurry, because I wasn’t entirely certain I could find the same spot, if I had to return to look for it in the afternoon.  I pulled the second mesh bag out of the pocket of my jeans as I surveyed the pumpkin.  It wasn’t the biggest one I had seen while crossing the rows of the pumpkin patch, but it wasn’t a small one, either.  It was beautifully symmetrical, fat and round, but it was shorter and squatter than most Halloween pumpkins.  That didn’t matter, because I already knew I wasn’t going to cut into the pumpkin.

Setting the net sack on the ground, I reached for the stem of the pumpkin.  It was still tough and strong, and O couldn’t break the stem away from the vine.  Pressed for time, I yanked the vine out of the ground, tearing the roots free of the crumbly, loamy soil.  I stretched the bag around the pumpkin, starting on one side, and wiggled it in like a lumpy pillow into a pillowcase.  Looking at the vine and leaves, I shrugged.  Jake had said we could take anything that was growing in the pumpkin patch, as long as it fit into the bags.  I stuffed the vines and leaves in after the pumpkin.

It was then that something shiny caught my eye.  In the hole where the pumpkin’s roots had been, there was a sparkly object that was catching the noonday sun.  I didn’t get a good look before I heard Mr. Harris’ voice over the speakers that were mounted on tall light poles, spaced throughout the pumpkin patch.  “All students, come back to the apple barn for lunch!”

I reached into the hole, grabbed a metallic object a little wider than my palm, and twice that long, and dropped it into my backpack without even looking at it.  I brushed my grubby hand on the seat of my jeans, and then I closed my binder and slid it into my backpack, on top of the object.  I dropped my pen in, too, zipped the top of the backpack, and slung the strap over my left shoulder.  I gathered up the two mesh sacks, and started back to the apple barn.

I wasn’t the only one scooping up gourds to top off bulging sacks on the way back.  I wanted to cover the vine and leaves, to avoid unwanted questions.  By the time I got to the cool interior of the large structure that served as a sorting and packing facility for the orchard, my bags were so full that I was lugging them in my arms like grocery bags, afraid they’d rip open and spill if I carried them by their tops.

I found a place on a wooden bench at one of the two long, wooden tables that had been set up for our lunch.  I picked a place on the end, so I could pile my backpack and sacks on the concrete floor beside me.  I set them all down gently, rested my right hand on the table, and stepped over the bench with my left leg.  I lifted my right leg in next, careful of the pile at the end of the bench, and sat down, suddenly weary.

“Here,” Shawn said, setting a can of Coke in front of me, and then piling his backpack and mesh sacks next to mine.  He sat down across from me, setting a second can in front of him.  Both cans were covered with beads of water, and a half-melted chop of ice rested on top of the one in front of me.  “Look like you need it,” he added.”

“Thanks,” I said, appreciatively.  “Yeah, guess I do.”

“D’ja find anything t’ write about?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I replied.  “You?”

“Yeah.”

“How’d’ja do?” Jimmy asked, “dropping his stuff on the floor behind me, and climbing onto the bench beside me.

“Got the poem and the essay done,” I said.

“Started the story,” Shawn said.  “I brought th’ punkin back wi’ me, so I’ll do the essay here, after lunch.”

“Yeah, I did th’ story first, too,” said Jimmy.  “Man, I hate writin’ poetry.  That’s Dab’s thing.”

“Missy’s good at it, too,” Sam joined the conversation, as he and Missy walked over to us.  She elbowed him in the ribs, hard, but she grinned as she climbed onto the bench between Sam and Shawn, across from Jimmy.

“I only wrote a few poems,” Missy said.

“You write ’em all the time!” Jimmy protested.

“Nah, I mean out there,” Missy said, waving a hand in front of Shawn’s face, toward the pumpkin patch.  “Before I wrote th’ story.”

“Y’ wrote a few poems?” Jimmy gasped.  “Cripes!”  I dunno how I’m gonna write one!”

“Without borrowing any from Miss Fisher, I hope,” said Mr. Harris, sitting down beside him.

“No, ’course not!”  Jimmy sounded hurt.  “Her stuff’s too girly!”

We all laughed, including Mr. Harris. 

“Good!” he approved.  “You five are my A squad.  I expect you to be the examples.”

We all groaned.  This had been a running there since school started in September, and we weren’t sure whether it was a joke or the truth.  Possibly, both. 

“What about you, Sam?” I asked, to defuse the sudden tension.

“I did th’ essay first,” he replied.  “I started th’ story.  You?”

I flushed.  “Th’ poem and the essay.”

“Excellent!” Mr. Harris approved.  “The gang’s off to a great start, and you didn’t work together at all!  I knew you could do it!”  Mr. Harris had a low, soft voice, and his enunciation was always precise.  Even so, I had the impression, from the way he approached teaching with so many unconventional methods, like this field trip, that he’d been a pretty cool hippie in the 60s.

Once everyone was seated, two women in jeans, with t-shirts that read “Harmond Orchard” above the farm’s logo, bright red screen printing on lime green, like many of their apples, brought around the pre-packed box lunches.  The sticker sealing the top of my white cardboard box was back, with “Gianelli’s” in a curling script in gold foil.  I was pleased to see the sticker, since Gianelli’s was one of my favorite local restaurants, but was a little too expensive for my mom’s single paycheck, even with the child support check.  I opened my box, and found two turkey-and-cheese sandwiches, each with lettuce, tomato, and mayo, and wrapped in clear plastic.  There was a small bag or potato chips, a small plastic bag of raw carrot and celery sticks, a round, plastic container of creamy white dressing for dipping, and a whole, huge, dill pickle, cut into four spears, and wrapped in clear plastic.  Behind the women, two guys each carried a plastic tub full of soda cans packed in ice chips.  They gave each of us a can of Coke or Sprite, whichever we wanted, even if we already had sodas.  I didn’t mind having two Cokes, since we never had soda at home.

We laughed and talked all through lunch, and I felt better.  I didn’t tell the others about the butterfly in my notebook.  Mr. Harris laughed and joked along with us.  He often chose to hang out with the five of us, when the class broke into small groups, or when he found us in the cafeteria, and he was like one of the gang, when he wasn’t being the teacher. 

When Mr. Harris asked me what I’d chosen for my subject, I just said, “A cool bug,” and that was that.  My friends knew a short answer meant I didn’t want to talk about it.

After lunch, Shawn settled down to write, right where he was.  I took my backpack and sacks out behind the apple barn, where there was a cool band of shade on the dusty bank of dry, autumn bank, away from the parking area.  Sam, Missy, and Jimmy stayed around the barn, too, along with about half the class; the rest of the kids trekked back into the pumpkin patch.  Mr. Harris resumed his teacher role, walking around to make sure no one was working together, or borrowing work.

As soon as I was alone, I pulled the binder out of my backpack.  After making sure the delicate, dead, blue butterfly hadn’t been damaged, I set the binder on the grass beside me.  Reaching into the bottom on the backpack, I curled my fingers around the cool, hard, metallic object, and pulled it out of the bag.

I gasped when I opened my hand, and took a good look at what I held.  I brushed away some bits of half-dried dirt, to get a better look.  I saw a golden butterfly, with its symmetrically graceful wings outspread.  It was actually larger than I had thought when I first grabbed it; the middle, where I had grasped it, was as wide as the palm of my hand, but the wings swept both upward and downward from the middle, like the fantasy wings I had once seen a ballerina wear over her face.  A pair of fine, gold, wire antennas curled up from the rounded top of the middle of the butterfly, where I saw the slender shape of its body.  The whole thing was larger than my whole hand, with my fingers spread.  Suddenly, I realized there was a bar-shaped pin, with a rotating clasp, in the center of the gleaming gold.  It was a pin, the kind Nana called a brooch!  And I was looking at the back of it. 

Eagerly, but carefully, I turned the butterfly over.  In the cool shade, its wings looked as though they were made of drops of clear, blue water.  The dozens of faceted gems gleamed with a deep, cool luster.  I knew I had to see it in the sunlight.  Getting up, the incredible brooch balanced on my hand, as the living butterfly had perched on the pumpkin just a few hours ago, I stepped out into the rich, autumn sunshine.

It was dazzling!  The gems refracted and reflected the sunlight into a hundred shades of azure, turquoise, ultramarine, and cerulean.  The light danced among the facets, glittering and sparkling.  It almost hurt my eyes, but I couldn’t bear not to stare at it.

I was started by a man’s voice, and the sound of two sets of footsteps coming toward me along the side of the barn.  I dropped back into my seat on the dusty grass, slid the jeweled butterfly into my backpack, and caught up my binder.  Careful to keep the real butterfly between its pages, I opened the notebook to a blank sheet, just as a pair of immigrant apple pickers passed by, speaking to each other in Spanish.  I relaxed.  Immigrants from Mexico came into our area every year, when it was time for the apple harvest.  They liked the cool New England summer and fall, and there were plenty of jobs for them.  They’d return to Mexico for the winter, avoiding our cold, snowy winter.  It was part of the cycle of life in our community.

Alone again, I set to work on my story.  I told the true story of the butterfly’s death in the pumpkin patch, but I told it from the butterfly’s perspective.  I was so engrossed in telling my story that I forgot, for the time being, about the other butterfly. 

I was surprised when I heard Mr. Harris on the loudspeakers again, calling us back to the bus.  I had just finished my story.  Hastily, I wrote my name at the top of each page.  I popped open the rings of the binder, took out everything I had written that day, and then snapped the rings closed.  Leaving the pages loose in the front of the binder, I packed up my work, gathered my sacks of pumpkin and gourds, and walked around the building to the bus.

As I was about to get on the bus, I felt a twinge in the bottom of my stomach.

“Where’s Jake,” I asked Mr. Harris.

“Jake?” he asked.

“Th’ manager.  I gotta talk t’ him a minute.  It’s important.”

Mr. Harris frowned, studying my face.  Then he said, “Okay, Deb.  He’s in the office, behind the counter in the store.  Don’t take long.”

“I won’t,” I promised, gratefully.

I went into the store.  The clerk at the counter said I could go ahead into the office, and pointed to a nearby door, which was ajar.  I tapped on the door, then pushed it open, and went in.

Jake was sitting at a desk against the far wall.  He turned when I opened the door, and he smiled cheerfully at me.  “D’ja have a good day?” he asked.  Then, apparently seeing the conflict on my face, he asked, “What can I help with?”

I swallowed.  I scuffed the toe of my right sneaker against the hardwood floor.  Then I looked him straight in the face, and blurted out in a rush, “Did anyone lose a really big piece of jewelry out in th’ punkin patch this year?”

“Not that I know of,” his frown deepened.  Why?”

“’Cause I found somethin’,” I admitted, hating every word.  I wanted that pin!

“Wha’d’ja find?” he asked.

Almost in tears, I set the two mesh sacks on the floor.  I set my backpack on an empty chair next to his desk.  I unzipped the bag, reached in, and closed my fingers around the jeweled butterfly.  I pulled it out, and held it out to him on the palm of my hand, gem side up,

His eyes widened, and his jaw dropped.  He turned pale.

“Where’d you find that?” he asked slowly, sitting up straighter.

“Under a punkin vine,” I told him, truthfully.

“Really?”  He whistled, long and low. 

I nodded.

He reached out to take the butterfly.  I felt hot tears running down cheeks that blazed.

Suddenly, “Ouch!” I yelped.  I involuntarily drew back my hand, and the butterfly fell.  Jake snatched it out of the air, and then held it, very gingerly.

Blood welled out of the center of my palm, where the pin had made a deep puncture.  Without thinking, I curled my fingers over the wound, and cradled my hand against my chest.

Jake slid the golden butterfly into the top drawer of his desk.  “Judy!” he shouted.

The counter clerk stuck her head in the open door.  “Yeah, Boss?”

“Go get her teacher,” he said.

The clerk looked at me in surprise, and then left.

“Debbie?” Mr. Harris asked as he hurried into the office a couple of minutes later.  “What happened?”

“Dunno,” I muttered through tears I couldn’t keep from falling.

He stared at me, and his voice was sharp when he turned to Jake.  “Why is Miss Foster crying?” he demanded.

“Dunno,” Jake echoed me, sounding oddly guilty.

“What is going on here?” Mr. Harris asked, sounding angry.  “My student said she had to talk to you, and now she’s clearly distraught.  If you laid a hand …”

“No!” Jake cut him off.  “No, she hurt her hand, is all.”

Mr. Harris turned concerned eyes to me, and I reluctantly held out my bloody palm for him to see.  It was still bleeding.

The next little while was a blur.  I was pressed down into Jake’s chair, and a bucket of hot soapy water was brought.  As soon as Mr. Harris decided the filth was off my hand, and away from the wound, he pressed on it himself until the bleeding stopped.  Judy brought a first aid kit, and Mr. Harris wiped an iodine swab over the wound, making me gasp, and then wrapped my hand in gauze.  Nothing was said about the jeweled butterfly.

On the bus, the whole class was curious and impatient.  Mr. Harris had me sit behind the driver, and sat down beside me.  Neither of us answered the many questions my classmates called from all over the bus.  When Jimmy, sitting in the other front seat with Shawn, leaned over to ask, in an undertone, why my hand was wrapped in gauze, Mr. Harris shook his head, and waved Jimmy off.

Back at school, Mr. Harris told me to sit still.  He stepped off the bus to collect everyone’s writing as they got off.  Everyone was heavily laden with sacks of pumpkins and gourds.  Finally, Mr. Harris said I could get off the bus.  I had watched my regular bus pull out of the parking lot, along with all the others.  Dejectedly, I followed my teacher into the school office.  He called my mother, and then took me to his car.  He was going to drive me home personally.  Mom would meet us there, and Nana was already at home.

We didn’t talk in the car, but I knew he kept glancing worriedly at me.  I felt like a criminal, even though I had returned the pin I’d found, and he didn’t even know about it.  My hand smarted where it had been punctured, and ached all around the wound.  I cradled it carefully all the way.

Mom’s car wasn’t in the driveway when we got to my house.  Mr. Harris insisted on carrying my stuff for me, and I didn’t feel like arguing.

Nana met us at the kitchen door.  “Thank you for bringing my granddaughter home,” she said.  “Her mother will be here soon.”

“I was happy too, Mrs. …”

“Barron,” Nana supplied.

“Mrs. Brown,” Mr. Harris finished.  “Debbie’s hand is hurt.  She should sit down.”

Nana’s eyes shot to my hand, and she turned pale.  “Yes, of course.  Please, come in.”

We waited in the living room.  Nana sent my little sister next door, to play.  Mom got home a few minutes later.

“Deb, what on earth happened to you?” she demanded, dropping her purse on the end table.

“She hurt her hand on the field trip, Sarah,” Mr. Harris said.

“Bill,” Mom said, immediately becoming professional.  They’d taught together, when I was little.  “Thanks for driving her home.”

“My pleasure,” he replied.

There was an uncomfortable silence, and then Nana said, “Honey, take your things upstairs and get cleaned up.  Then you can lie down until supper.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” I said.  “Thanks, Mr. H.,” I added.

“Of course, Debbie,” he replied.  “See you in class tomorrow.”

“Oh, hold on,” I said.  I reached into my backpack, and pulled out my writing assignments.  I handed them to him.

“Ah, yes, right,” he said, accepting them.  “Excellent work today.”

“Thanks,” I replied.  Then I went upstairs.

I had a fever the next morning, and my hand throbbed, so Mom called in to work, and took me to the doctor.  He gave me a shot of penicillin, and wrote a prescription.  He told Mom to send me back to school on Thursday, if the fever was gone.  After a stop at the pharmacy, to pick up the medication, Mom dropped me off at home, and went to work for the rest of the day.  I spent the rest of Tuesday, and all of Wednesday, lying on the living room couch, watching game shows and soap operas with Nana.

Wednesday evening, I finally went through my mesh sacks.  Nothing had got broken, or rotten, and that was good.  The butterfly, tucked in the back of my binder, was still safe, too.  It was very delicate, and fragile.  The butterfly’s pumpkin was safe and whole, although the vine and leaves had withered.  I got the Swiss Army knife out of my desk drawer, and cut the dead vine away from the stem.  I threw the dead foliage away.

I sat in the middle of my bedroom floor, cradling the dead butterfly in my hands, and staring at the pumpkin.  The next day was Halloween.  Mom had bought pumpkins, and she and my sister, Julie, had carved them, but my bandaged hand had meant I’d had to stay away from the sticky, slimy business of carving jack-o-lanterns. 

“You’ll be my Halloween punkin,” I said to the round, orange pumpkin in the middle of my floor.  “Can’t carve ya, but I can decorate ’cha.”

I went across the hall, into Nana’s room.  I opened the sewing box, which I was allowed to use, and pulled out two of the long, straight, sharp, old-fashioned hat pins that she kept there.  Back in my room, I lifted the pumpkin onto my dresser.  I shoved stuff into the top drawer, until the pumpkin had the entire expanse of slightly worn wood to itself.  Then, I stuck the two pins into the top of the pumpkin, about an inch apart, so only the large, tear-drop, imitation pearls on their heads were visible.  My palm twinged when I pushed the first one in, and it burned when I pushed in the second pin, but I sucked in my breath, and I ignored the pain.  With the pins in place, I got the butterfly.  I positioned it on top of the pumpkin, with one pearl supporting each lifeless wing,

“I gave th’ pin back,” I told the dead insect, “but I kept you.  You were growin’ in th’ punkin patch, as much as any bug was, an’ you would’ve fit in th’ bag, but I was afraid you’d get crushed.  So keepin’ you was my secret, but it wasn’t wrong.  I just didn’ wanna share you.”

I arranged the prettiest gourds around the pumpkin.  Then, I took a bunch of them downstairs.  Julie had gone to bed, but Mom and Nana were still up.  The television was off.  Mom was on the couch, grading papers.  Nana was reading a paperback romance.

“Can I put these on top o’ the’ T.V.?” IO asked.

They both looked up.  “Mom nodded, and said, “Okay.”

I arranged the gourds on top of the wooden cabinet of our color console television.  It was as big as a small dresser.  The old, brass, ship’s clock stood there, in the middle, and I arranged the gourds so the clocks face could swing open to wind it.

“You’re going to school tomorrow,” Mom said, without looking up again.  It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

“Good night,” she said.

“Night,” I answered.  “G’night, Nana,” I said, giving my grandmother a hug and a kiss.

“Sleep tight,” Nana replied, kissing my cheek.

I went upstairs.  My homework was all done, since Shawn, Jimmy, and Missy had called me with my assignments.  I checked my backpack.  I had already cleaned the dried soil out of it.  I’d done that Monday night. 

I looked at my pumpkin.  The dry eyes of the dead butterfly looked back at me. 

I took off the sweatpants and t-shirt I had worn that day, and dropped them in the laundry pile in the hall.  I pulled on my long, old-fashioned, flannel nightgown.  Carefully, I changed the bandage on my hand.  The swelling and redness were gone, but the scab was ugly.  I still had to take the Keflex for a few more days, to make sure the infection didn’t come back.

“I don’t understand why it stuck me,” I told the butterfly.  “I was givin’ it back.  I wanted t’ keep it, but that was wrong.”  I sighed.  I knew the butterfly wasn’t alive, but it was better than talking to myself.

I crawled into bed, turned on the alarm, and switched off the lamp.  “Happy Halloween,” I said to the darkness.

I woke up with a start.  It was dark in my bedroom, but a blue glow was coming from the top of the dresser.  There was a sound like dozens of wings fluttering in my room.  I reached for the switch, turned on the lamp, and sat up.  I glanced at the clock as the light name on, and saw both hands pointing straight up as one.  Midnight.

I stifled a scream as I took in the scene in my room.  Dozens of beautiful, big butterflies were fluttering on the dresser, on my desk, on the chair by the window, and even on the headboard and footboard of my bed.  Some had large, long wings the curved gracefully at the tips, striped golden and lemon, with lime green bands framing their long, slender bodies.  Others had teardrop-shaped bodies, with gold and green striped radiating out from shorter, wider, black bodies.  Some had broad, round, pumpkin-orange wings, with delicately scalloped edges.  A few, with white or pale green wings looked awkward, with raggedly bumpy edges to their oval wings.  At the center of them all, floating lightly in midair in the middle of my room, was the delicate, azure butterfly with the black edges and white spots around its graceful wings.  I took it all in between one breath and the next, and then I gasped aloud, and quickly covered my mouth with my hands.  At the sound, every perching butterfly took flight, and their flapping wings made a gentle breeze swirl across my face.

Hardly knowing what I did, I scrambled out of the bed.  I stood in the center of the floor, my arms outstretched, and gazed about me in delight.  Butterflies crowded onto my arms and shoulders, folding their wings above their fragile bodies to make more room.  Suddenly, I felt a coolness on the palm of my right hand.  I looked, and saw the blue butterfly, a pale glow all around its lightly quivering wings.

“Let us go free,” a sweetly melodic voice whispered in my mind.

Moving like a person in a trance, I went to the window at the foot of my bed.  I raised the heavy, wooden frame, and felt the counterweight in the wall support it.  Then, I bent down to work the latches on the screen, and slid it up in its metal tracks until I heard the latches click into the open position.  Even before it clicked, the golden, green, and white butterflies started fluttering out into the cold Halloween night.

When only the blue butterfly remained, I whispered, “But you’ll all freeze.”  Tears rolled down my cheeks.  As soon as the window was opened, the blue butterfly had returned to the upturned palm of my right hand; it sat on the bandage there.

“I already died in this life,” the sweet, gentle voice chimed in my mind.  “But you cared.”

“You were beautiful,” I whispered.  “I saw ya die, but you were still beautiful.  I couldn’t just throw you away.”

“You were tested,” the musical voice rang softly.

“Tested?”

“Tempted,” it whispered in my thoughts.  “But you were true.”

“D’y’mean the pin?” I asked, startled.

“You found a treasure you desired to keep,” the music replied, “but you did not keep what was not yours.”

“But…” I began.

The butterfly flew out the window, and out of sight.

In a daze, I lowered the screen, and then closed the window.  I went back to my bed, crawled under the covers, and switched off the light.  I fell asleep.

The alarm woke me.  Automatically, I got up, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and brushed my hair, pulling it back into a ponytail.  I dressed in tan corduroy pants, a light blue turtleneck, and a navy-and-tan Argyle patterned pullover sweater vest.  I put on my socks and sneakers.  I was slinging my backpack over my shoulder when it dawned on me that the gourds had all disappeared from my dresser.  The dead butterfly was gone.  The short, wide, round pumpkin was gone.  Centered on top of my dresser were two long, sharp hat pins, and a delicately made blue Cloisonné butterfly hair clip, patterned with a narrow black band along the edge of each wing, with tiny, white, mother-of-pearl dots all along the center of each black rim.  Its delicate, golden antennas curled from the end of its round, black, enamel head, which was set with a pair of tiny, faceted, jet eyes.  I blinked several times, before I dared to pick it up.  Then, delighted, I picked it up, and examined each tiny detail.

“Deb!  Let’s go!  Bus time!”

Mom’s voice recalled me to reality.  I clipped the butterfly securely in my dark hair, just above my right ear, slung my backpack over my shoulder, and ran down the stairs.

In the kitchen, Mom handed me a Keflex and a glass of water.  I swallowed the pill hurriedly.

“What happened to your hand?” Mom asked, sharply.

“I hurt it on the field trip,” I said, as I had said every time anyone asked.

She grabbed my wrist, and turned it to show me the palm of my right hand.  The bandage was gone.  The skin was completely smooth, cool, and unmarked.  There wasn’t a scab, or a scar.  The wound was completely gone.

“It got better,” I said, pulling my hand gently away.  “Bye, Mom!”

I ran for the bus.

Author's Note

Ignore typos and grammar. Also posted as a book chapter.