The Spring Flower Show
written and illustrated by Jerry Jindrich
Copyright 2009, Jerry Jindrich. All rightes reserved.
This is a story about a Garden Pixie named April and her pet, Bugpuppy. Bugpuppy is an Investigator Bug.
He likes to investigate everything. Sometimes, he has too much curiosity, as you'll see in this story.
Garden pixies are busy creatures. Some help flowers open. Others paint the centers bright colors to attract bees.
On this day, many of the pixies were painting flowers for the Spring Flower Show. April and Carla were nearly finished with a pair of tulips.
The show judges were coming soon.
While the pixies painted flowers, Bugpuppy investigated grasshoppers. Whenever he barked at one or sniffed one with his nose,
the grasshopper would jump high and sail across the yard. Bugpuppy thought learning about grasshoppers was fun.
Miss Gladiola was discussing the flower show rule book with the other judges when a grasshopper crashed into her, knocking her to the ground.
Then Bugpuppy zoomed past, chasing the grasshopper and causing the other two judges to leap out of the way.
April flew over and helped the judges up. She apologized for Bugpuppy and promised to keep him out of trouble.
She thought the judges would be angry, but they laughed at Bugpuppy's antics.
Miss Gladiola said, "Don't worry. Bugpuppy acts just like every investigator bug I ever saw!"
Bugpuppy wasn't listening. He was busy watching a bee gather pollen from a crabapple blossom.
Bugpuppy was interested in everything that happened in the garden. He watched Sally paint pretty stripes on the hyacinths.
He tried to help Nelly rub a soft purplish color into the petals of a saucer magnolia flower, but he smeared the colors with his tail
and he got paint all over his coat. Nelly shooed him away.
Trish danced from blossom to blossom on the weeping cherry, adding splashes of pink to the little white flowers.
Bugpuppy jumped from blossom to blossom, too, but he kept slipping off. He finally bounced away to find April.
Bugpuppy watched April put final touches of paint on her tulip and then he yawned a big yawn and took a nap.
When Bugpuppy woke up, April was not there, but she had left her brush and paints. Bugpuppy investigated.
He sniffed and tasted the paints and he touched the different colors with his little paws. Then he decided to look into the tulip that April had painted.
Bugpuppy investigated inside the tulip. It was a big flower and he could slide down its petals, which was great fun.
He played and played for a long time and then he took another nap.
The judges flew around the garden, looking at all the beautiful flowers. They agreed that the pixies had done a wonderful job.
Picking one "best" flower was going to be difficult.
They studied the daffodils, admired the irises, and considered the crocuses. They made notes on their notepads and flew around again.
Finally, they huddled together, quietly discussed their favorites, and agreed on one flower.
"We choose April's tulip." said Miss Gladiola. "It is very pretty on the outside, but absolutely thrilling on the inside. We've never seen such a colorful flower. Well done, April!"
"I don't understand," said April. I painted the inside the same as the outside. She flew up to look into the flower.
There were paint smudges and smears and lots of tiny footprints all around. And there was Bugpuppy, just waking up, with paint all over his feet and tail and ears.
April laughed and said, "I'm afraid you'll have to give the prize to Bugpuppy. He must have 'investigated' my paints and
then 'investigated' the inside the flower after I finished painting it red."
The judges laughed, too, and insisted that April share the prize with Bugpuppy. All the other pixies marveled at the colorful design inside the flower.
Some said it gave them ideas to try for the next flower show.
April gave Bugpuppy a big hug and took him home to wash off all the paint.
That is the end of this story, but there is another called, Red Wrinkler and His Rowdy Cousins. You can learn more about garden pixies and how I
photographed them by going to How I Discovered Pixies in Our Garden.
You can also buy a Bugpuppy T-Shirt to celebrate
learning or a Garden Pixie Mug to celebrate Spring and help support Meddybemps.com.
If you would like to see a collection of photos showing the blooming of Spring flowers, join Tippity Witchet in Spring Colors.
Back to Beantime Stories for more tales.
|
