(The following story and photos are by Jadzia)
What’s white, black and orange all over? A monarch! This is about Muncher … and another creature.
Chapter 1: In The Beginning
In the begining God created the heavens and the earth. Millions of years later, I go to Mrs. Spurlock’s class. The first project we worked on was Monarchs. In a mesh was a milkweed plant with monarch caterpillars in it. We watched and studied them. Later, we tagged and let loose Buddy. One week later we voted on names for two butterflies. The winning names were “Jerica” and “Josephina.” We tagged them and let them loose.
Chapter 2: Milkweed
We went to the farmers market and at a booth named “Missouri Natives” I saw a plant. A green-stemed, pink-flowered plant. A swamp milkweed. I begged my mom to buy us one. We did. But my mom thought the winter killed the plant, so next year we bought another one. Turns out our other milkweed didn’t die, so this summer after our vacation we had flowers.
Chapter 3: Arrival Of The Monarch
One day we found a monarch. I didn’t remember the difference beetween a male monarch and a female monarch, so I called the monarch “Melanie.” Later I found out that it was mostly boys coming, I switched to “Mister M.” I took many, many photos of the monarch. Once when I was going to school with Ludi and Josie we saw a monarch.
Chapter 4: A Monarch Horror Story
One day when I was taking out the recycling can, I saw a wing. A ripped apart, broken wing. A ripped apart, broken monarch wing. Ludi, who was taking out the trash, saw it too. There were three pieces of wing. One had a head on it. I burst into the house and told Mama. We came out and buried it in front of our other milkweed. My mom told me a Bible verse too. I was still devastated, but I felt a teeny-weeny bit better.
Chapter 5: Meet Muncher!
One regular, ordinary, all-average day, I checked for monarch eggs. Instead, I found a monarch caterpillar. I took a picture and showed my dad, mom, sister, sister, and brother. I told my friend, Jossie, about it. I could only think about Muncher.
Chapter 6: Missing: Muncher
When we were walking back from school I mentioned muncher. My dad said that muncher wasn’t on the plant. When I got back, I found it was true. Later my mom and I searched the ground. My mom found him on a leaf of another plant. We brought him in and we set him in a baby doll cradle with white paper and newspaper, plus milkweed.
Chapter 7: Not a dead hummingbird!
One day I saw something. A curved shape. I looked to see what it was, thinking it might be a dead hummingbird. When I checked, I saw another caterpillar! I took him into the house and shouted, “Meet Cruncher!” Cruncher and Muncher live together and will for as long as I can think of.
Until the future, The End.