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Illustration by Summer Age: 8 Paris, TN |
After
a few minutes she ducked her head under the water looking for fat, juicy waterbugs. They were her favorite breakfast. Suddenly she spied the fattest waterbug
she had ever seen. She snapped at it,
but missed. This waterbug was
fast, but she kept after it. The
waterbug swam over close to the stem of the water lily with Audra hot on its trail. She snapped at the bug, but instead of
the bug she snapped the stem of the waterlily completely in two. Not realizing what she had just done,
she continued to chase the bug until she finally caught it a few minutes
later. She came to the surface to enjoy
the bug and saw the waterlily drifting out into the deep water.
“Oh
no!!” exclaimed Audra, “what have I done?”
Just
then, Xavier the frog landed on a lily pad not far from where Audra was
swimming.
“Good
morning, Audra,” said Xavier.
Not
wanting anyone to know what she had just done, she gulped down her bug and said
in a small voice, “Good morning, Xavier.”
Xavier
began to look around and asked, “Where is that waterlily we saw yesterday? Wasn’t it right here?”
Before
Audra could say anything, Hayden the turtle walked up to the nearby shore. Xavier called out to Hayden, “Good
morning, Hayden. Hey, do you know
what happened to the waterlily that was here yesterday?”
“I
don’t know,” said Hayden. “I hope
nothing happened to it. Are you
sure it was here?”
At
this point Audra was on the verge of crying. She didn’t want to lie to her friends, but she thought they
would get mad at her if they knew what she had done.
Audra
opened her mouth to say something just as Emerson the dragonfly flew up to the
friends. “Hey guys,” called
Emerson, “I just saw a waterlily floating out into the deep water that looks
just like the one we saw here yesterday.
Wait, where is the waterlily?”
Audra
couldn’t stand it any longer. She
began to wail and cry trying to explain to her friends what happened to the
beautiful waterlily. It took
several minutes for them to finally understand what she was talking about
because she was crying so hard.
“It’s
okay, Audra,” said Xavier. “It was
an accident. You didn’t mean to
snap the waterlily’s stem.”
“
I feel awful that we have lost such a beautiful waterlily,” cried Audra.
“Maybe
there is another one somewhere on the pond, “ said Emerson hopefully.
Emerson
flew off to see if he could find another waterlily. He really wanted to make Audra feel better about what
happened to the other one. After a
few minutes he returned to his friends.
“Hey
guys, follow me,” said Emerson. “I
want to show you something.”
The
three friends followed Emerson as he led them to the other side of the
pond. Sure enough, Emerson had
found another waterlily just as beautiful as the one that floated away.
Audra
dried her tears and smiled at Emerson.
“Oh, it’s just like the other one,” she exclaimed. “Thank you, Emerson. Now I don’t feel so bad about the other
one.”
“You're welcome,” said Emerson.
The
four friends sat for a while admiring and talking about the new waterlily. Then they returned to the other side of
the pond. Audra swore to herself
that she would not hunt for her breakfast anywhere near the new waterlily. She never wanted to accidently do that
again.
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