A small lime-green pupa hangs from a thin branch, bathing in a coat of tangerine. A linen-white worm inches down onto the branch, crawling through a blanket of violet and lavender.

The inchworm slinks past the wiggling pupa. It stops at the edge of the branch.

…

It picks up a small, brown leaf and quietly eats its breakfast.

…

…

…

chkk!

…

…

A large shadow looms over the inchworm.

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flit-flit!

The inchworm falls

flit-flit!

as the caterpillar flies away.

…

…

The inchworm lands on a denim-blue root.

Two and a half pairs of dandelions scoop him up.

“Hey, little guy,” a young student says, “how’d you get down here?”

The inchworm looks up at them: cherry-red hair hangs in front of a face with a few metal marbles marking the middle of her mouth while a navy neckband sits above a picture of a baby butterfly.

The student stands up. The inchworm watches the sunrise fall, as he’s set back on his oak floor. The student hands him a small frond spewed from around the cinnamon stump, before sitting back between the roots.

The student picks up a small, flax-yellow journal. They flip past a few pages overgrown with blueberry roots. They grab a thin pen. They start sketching the scene:

a few brown birds bolt through the harvest-gold horizon, huddling into whole sets of shortwings as one lands on the loft of a lamp post, startling a small shelf of sap-green students.