Dreams and Dragonflies...(A story about change and keeping safe……or whatever it is for you)
She loved to go pond dipping and look at things that moved and wriggled in the pond. She usually went with her grandad but that wasn’t allowed at the moment because of something mum said was called ‘social distancing’. To help stop the spread of the virus she couldn’t see her grandad and she was very unhappy, but she would hate it if her grandad became very poorly or even died. She lay on her bed and looked at the blue glass dragonfly that hung in the window. It was beautiful especially when the sun shone and caught the glitter on its wings as it was doing now…. she wondered what it would be like to be a dragonfly and she drifted off into a world of dreams and dragonflies...
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The pond was quite dark and the water murky. The dragonfly egg began to move and gradually a wriggly, brown larvae, sometimes called a nymph, emerged and she began to eat. She was really well camouflaged and thought she was quite safe. She couldn’t see very well but could feel things through the hairs on her six legs and she had two antennae on her head that helped her to find things to eat and to know if there was danger nearby. Her hairs would twitch, and she would keep very still or hide till the danger passed. As the days went by, she felt that her outer layer was getting tighter. She wondered what was happening when she wriggled and so emerged from it with a new outside layer… wow! she thought that’s cool, and she carried on eating. She ate almost anything, very small snails and fish, grubs, worms, leeches and even other larvae. She kept very still when she found something to eat then her jaw which was extendable would shoot out and she snapped up her victim.
It happened again several times the cool thing of wriggling and emerging from her outer layer and having a new one. Each time it happened she was bigger and stronger and ate more until it happened again. She wondered how long this could go on for and if that was all she was ever going to do stuck at the bottom of a murky pond.
As the sun began to shine more and the days got longer the water in the pond began to feel a little warmer. She found herself looking up and felt an urge to go upwards … it started in her middle ….as if someone was pulling or calling her up…she was being told to move. She felt excited all over from the tips of her hairy legs to the top of her antennae. It was scary too. She’d seen others like her go upwards and never come back. She wondered where they had gone. First, she found herself moving into shallower water at the edge of the pond. It really didn’t feel a safe place to be. What if something saw her and came and ate her… she couldn’t hide here …. she looked around and saw some reeds … the call or urge to move seemed stronger… to climb one of the reeds. So, she did, and she rested there. Then wow, it happened again her outer layer split and a new outer layer was revealed. She felt different. She had the strangest sensation on her back and began to flex and wriggle and found there was more to her than there had been. She stretched and to her amazement as she stretched, she found the most beautiful pair of wings were part of her. She spread them out. As she looked around, she saw others. They were all so beautiful… their wings so big and delicate. They would have to be careful not to bump into each other. Her body and legs became stronger as they dried in the sun. She moved and then flew very cautiously… she didn’t feel very strong so flew just a little looking for food and then back to rest. As the days passed by, she realised that she was able to fly for longer and as her wings felt stronger their colours became brighter … others were the same … they flew around nearby then further away from the pond looking for food as time went by. They had to be very careful not to get too close or they would have damaged their wings …..when they were further away they could see others wings more clearly – they were beautiful ….they had to keep a safe distance… she was sure it wouldn’t always be that way but for the moment ….until the time was right she had to keep her distance…
Just then she heard a voice calling her ….and it was her mum calling her for tea……had she been asleep mum asked…. ‘Mmm… No, just dreaming’ she replied, ‘come on then after we’ve eaten, we’ll skype call grandad and see how he is’.