The Voice in the Thistle

Jake crouched beside the wildflower patch, adjusting his magnifying glass to study a monarch butterfly perched on a purple thistle. Its orange wings trembled, but something was wrong.

"Why aren't you flying?" he whispered.

The butterfly turned its tiny head toward him. "I forgot how," it said in a voice like rustling leaves.

Jake nearly dropped his magnifying glass. Butterflies couldn't talk! But there it was, speaking to him as clearly as his own thoughts.

"You what?" Jake asked, his voice squeaking.

"I forgot how to fly properly. We all did. Yesterday we were soaring high, today we can barely lift off the flowers."

Jake looked around the meadow and noticed dozens of butterflies stumbling awkwardly from bloom to bloom, their flight patterns jerky and uncertain.

The Worried Shoemaker

Jake stood up from the thistle patch, his mind racing. If all the butterflies had forgotten how to fly, something serious was happening in the meadow.

"We need help," he told the monarch butterfly. "But who would know about flying problems?"

The butterfly's wings twitched. "There's an old shoemaker who lives by the market road. She watches us every day from her window while she works. Maybe she's seen what happened."

Jake grabbed his backpack and magnifying glass. "Can you show me where she lives?"

"I'll try to fly there, but it won't be pretty," the butterfly said, launching itself awkwardly into the air.

Jake followed as the butterfly wobbled and dipped through the meadow, barely staying airborne. They passed dozens of other butterflies stumbling from flower to flower, their once-graceful movements now clumsy and uncertain.