Lannie Butterworth's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

Monday morning, Lannie found them before the first bell. Five strangers, all clustered near the chalk start line where sneakers would land in under an hour. A long-legged fly on the lane paint. A woolly caterpillar inching across lane three. A bumblebee low in the clover. A ladybug on a hurdle leg. And, half-tucked under a rubber starting block, a masked hunter bug with its front legs folded like a knife. Lannie crouched. "Names?" she whispered. Each one answered George. She wrote it down five times. The ledger sat open on her knee, its red cover smudged with grass. She filled a fresh page: George the Long-Legged Fly, George the Woolly Caterpillar, George the Bumblebee, George Ladybug, George the Masked Hunter Bug. She drew arrows showing where she found each one. The shelter under the hedge was out. Coach Martinez would be on the field in twenty minutes, and the garden sign was being watched. The greenhouse wasn't ready. Lannie had nowhere to put five bugs, and the painted lanes were about to fill with running shoes and the long metal benches the coach dragged out for timing heats. She looked at the bench stand parked at the curve of the track. Five seats bolted to a steel frame, waiting to be wheeled into place beside lane one. Whichever George she missed would be under it by third period. Lannie stood up. She had a shed key, a roll of window screen in the supply closet, and a free prep block. She ran. By 8:40, she had it built. An old wooden cabinet from the custodian's overflow, dragged behind the science room and stood upright against the brick. She drilled air holes. She lined the inside with five small mesh compartments, each one labeled with a strip of masking tape and a name. Water dish. Leaf. Twist of damp paper towel. A separate cage for the masked hunter, because it ate the others. The science teacher passed her in the hall, glanced at the cabinet, and said nothing. She came back two minutes later with a jar of aphids and set it on top. Lannie carried the bug rescue carrier out at 8:52. She got the fly first, then the ladybug, then the bumblebee in a folded index card, then the caterpillar in her palm. The masked hunter she coaxed onto a stick. By 9:04, all five Georges were locked in their compartments behind the science room, fed, watered, and breathing. Lannie closed the ledger. The cabinet wasn't a home. It was a holding cell, and it would hold for maybe a week. She had until field day to finish the greenhouse, and now she had five more lives counting on it.