A blue butterfly swoops down and lands on the flat leaf right beside him. Pip freezes. His antennae lift, catching the shimmer of those wings.
Far below, tiny mouse families drag acorns under piles of orange leaves. They scurry toward their burrows. Pip peers over the edge of the stem.
The butterfly lifts off. Pip wiggles his whole green body and snatches a falling leaf to fling himself higher. Splat! It misses, tumbling away.
A gust of cold wind ruffles his small fuzz. He peeks out from under a tangle of stems, blinking. His little legs dangle over the edge.
The blue butterfly spirals up, up, up against the pale sky. Pip tilts his whole body back, watching. He thinks: Just one more inch.
Pip climbs the tallest stem he can find. Tiny legs grip the wet bark, inch by inch. Golden leaves skitter past him like a little river.
A small claw slides with a soft squeak on the bark. The butterfly pauses on a high branch, wings spread wide. Then it lets go.
The blue butterfly drops down and taps his head with one soft wing. A single warm scale sticks to his back. He blinks, still.
Pip watches the butterfly spiral up until it is just a blue flicker against the pale sky. Beneath his skin, something tiny and silver shifts for the very first time.
Pip curls into a small silken cocoon on the low branch, pressing his smile against the thin walls. The last golden leaves drift down, one by one. Far below, a crocus pushes up through the frost.
