Pippin sprints down the winding grass path, sneakers splashing through a shallow clover puddle. A tiny yellow wing flickers over the hill. He skids to a stop.
He points up at the fluttering wing. "I've GOT to be there BEFORE you!" he yells, stomping his sneakers on the wet grass.
The path narrows into a tangle of clover. Pippin scrambles forward, knee scraping the dirt with a soft skritch-skritch. He keeps running.
A fat bumblebee zooms right into his face. Pippin swats the air, tips backward, and plops into soft moss. "Not YOU too!" he huffs.
He kicks off the moss with both sneakers, sprays green dirt, and sprints. The clover tangle blurs behind him. Ahead, the path zig-zags up the hill.
Pippin pumps his arms, little puffs of breath floating out of his mouth. Below him, a pink and a white butterfly drift lazily. "Almost… almost…" he mutters, fingers reaching forward.
Pippin slams both palms flat against the rough bark and squeezes his eyes shut. One cool, papery wing brushes across his knuckles. He holds very still.
His eyes fly open. A hundred wings fill the sky above him — pink, yellow, blue, spotted, plain — tumbling and swirling everywhere. The whole hill shimmers.
Pippin lets his hands slide down the tree, fingers catching in a thin strand of spider silk. Butterflies land on his shoulders, his hair, the top button of his jacket. He doesn't run.
He just stands very still. A white butterfly circles his head once, then settles, gently, on the tip of his nose. The meadow hums.
