George Ladybug had carried the seed for nine minutes when she admitted she could not carry it any farther. It sat on the dirt in front of her, twice the size of her head, its shell streaked with pale pink and soft green, the colors of a flower already deciding what it would become. Someone had promised her this seed would grow into the tallest flower the world had ever seen. George believed them. That was why she had scouted the whole backyard first, mapped the dry patches, marked the grass clumps, measured the puddle at six beetle-lengths deep, and circled the anthill near the fence in her mind like a wound she would not touch. The problem was simple and bad. She could push the seed, but pushing took both front legs and turned her slow. If she left it in the open to scout for help, the ants would find it. She could already see them: a line of dark bodies moving along the base of the fence, in and out of the domed mound of packed dirt, their entry holes ringed with fresh grains they had hauled up from below. Three workers had broken off the main line and were tasting the air in her direction. She had maybe a minute. Maybe less. George looked left. A garden stone sat half-sunk in the dirt, gray and mossed at the base, its flat top worn by rain into a shallow bowl. The bowl was just wider than the seed. She put her shoulder to the seed and shoved. It rolled once, stopped, rolled again. Her back legs slipped in the loose soil. She braced, pushed, and the seed tipped up the slope of the stone and dropped into the indent with a small dry sound. It fit. It would not roll out. From the path the ants were taking, they would pass below the stone and never see what sat on top of it. George climbed down and stood in the dirt, breathing hard. The seed was safe for now, but safe was not the same as moving. She had crossed maybe a tenth of the yard. The puddle still waited. The anthill still waited. And she had just proved she could not carry her own cargo alone. She looked back toward the hedge, where she had seen other beetles working that morning, and started walking. She would find help, or she would come back to a stone with nothing on it.