Forgetting that he was in disgrace, he was at Ms. Samson’s desk in a moment, whispering eagerly in her ear. And the more she listened, the more she smiled. When he finished, she nodded her head, turned and pulled a book off the rack by her desk.
She took the book and walked to the front of the class.
“I think that someone in this class would very much like to hear this story,” she said, smiling.
“But we’ve all heard it a million times!” said Ralph, who always complained about rereading books, but then loved them as much as anyone else.
“Well, Ralph, maybe not a million times,” Ms. Samson replied. “But there is someone in this class who I’m almost certain has NEVER read The Very Hungry Caterpillar.”
Martha’s hand shot up. “It’s Ken,” she said when Ms. Samson gave her a chance. “You mean Ken.”
“No, Ken was here when I read it a few weeks ago. No,” she said, “put your hands down. We have one caterpillar left in this class. And she is a…”
“Very hungry caterpillar,” Chance filled in, joy flooding his heart. “Can I bring her to the story corner?”
“Yes, please do. And let’s the rest of us get ready to tell our very last, very hungry caterpillar her very first story.”
Ms. Samson let Chance hold the little creature in his palm so she could see the pictures. “Listen carefully, Matilda,” he whispered to her. He held her a little closer to the book when the very hungry caterpillar turned himself into a cocoon, well, a chrysalis really, but they called it a cocoon in the book. Chance knew, as did the rest of the class, that if it were really a cocoon, that would make her a moth instead of a butterfly.
Matilda lifted the front of her body right up, high in the air, and Ms. Samson looked over at her and smiled.
After the story was done, Chance took Matilda for a tour of the butterfly bush. “Look,” he whispered to her. “One of those should be you. Soon you’ll be a chrysalis too.”
He looked down at her, nestled in his hand. That was when he noticed the chrysalis lying on the table under the bush. He scanned the bush, but couldn’t find the lid that it had fallen from. It looked different from the other chrysalides, even the newest ones. He couldn’t see the butterfly inside, just hard whitish skin.
“Chance, it’s time to get back to work,” Ms. Samson said. “We’re going to start making butterfly story-boards.” And she held a big sheet of paper up to the class. It was divided into sixteen roomy squares. “With just pictures, just words, or both, I want you to plan a story with a butterfly or a caterpillar in it,” she said.
Chance looked down at the still, hard chrysalis for one more moment. Then he turned away, put Matilda back in her container on the ledge, and settled down to work. The story was halfway unfolded in his mind before he had unearthed his pencil crayons from his desk.