Maggie’s New Pal

“I don’t wanna go to kindergarten,” Maggie whined, staring at the floor beneath her before sitting down. “I like preschool. Why does it have to change?”

Nobody responded.

Frustrated with the lack of an audience that she was getting in her empty room, she scanned its cluttered floors for a toy worth complaining to. The compassionate gaze of a stuffed rabbit in the farthest corner from her folded body caught her eye, so she got up, strode towards it, and picked it up with a caring grasp.

And then immediately tossed it aside. Because what lay beneath it was a hundred times more fascinating. It was long, thin, and fuzzy, and it seemed to glide effortlessly, if slowly, across her floor – like nothing she had ever seen before.

She squatted down and let the strange creature creep onto her outstretched finger, which she then held up to her eye for a more thorough investigation.

“Squirmy,” she said quietly, “do you think I should go to kindergarten, or no?”

No!She imagined it saying,Just stay in preschool!

“I agree,” she said, and set Squirmy down on her windowsill, where she planned for him to wake up beside her. “Good night, Squirmy,” she whispered.

The next day, Maggie woke up early and excited for another moment of commiseration before being forced to enter the horrors of kindergarten.

“Squirmy!” she shouted, and sat up with a start. “Where are you?” All that was left on the windowsill was a small, green pod hanging where Squirmy had spent the night.

She sighed dejectedly, poking Squirmy’s pod as one final goodbye, and gasped as it began to open up. She jumped back onto her bed, watching with amazement as a colorful wing emerged from the broken green container.

She knew what was happening; she’d read about it a few days ago. Squirmy was a butterfly!

If I can turn into a butterfly, you can turn into a kindergartener, Maggie imagined the newly vibrant Squirmy as saying. And, keeping her new friend’s encouraging words in mind, she walked into school with her head held high.