Pippa’s Patient Spots — Under the wide milkweed leaf, Pippa pressed her smooth red back against the cool green vein and waited. Read the full story →
Under the wide milkweed leaf, Pippa pressed her smooth red back against the cool green vein and waited. The moon-moths had asked for a lantern sign to find the clover path, but Pippa had no stripes, no glow, no map. Wind whispered shhh-shhh through the stems. “Maybe the answer is hiding,” she said, and kept very still while dew tickled her tiny feet.
At last, the daisy below opened with a soft papery pop. In its yellow middle, where nobody ever thought to look, were round black seeds, shiny as midnight buttons. Pippa touched one, then another; they leaped onto her shell—plip, plip, plip! The moths followed the dots home, and ever since, ladybugs carry spots on their backs for patient travelers. Next time you see Pippa by the daisy, can you find the secret buttons that started it all?
