by Esther David
A flushed Dr Flo bowed as the butterflies and caterpillars resumed eating.
‘That was supercool, Dr Flo!’ Hudhud beamed, nibbling on a leaf. He had to keep pace with Kilkila.
‘Did she really try to eat you, Dr Flo?’ asked Kilkila.
The spider nodded. ‘You have no idea how difficult it is to please girls, shape-shifter.’
‘I’ll worry about that once I’m a butterfly,’ said Kilkila before gobbling up a leaf. ‘Right now I’d rather eat.’
‘Who wants to please girls, anyway?’ Hudhud nuzzled the tip of another.
‘Ah … boyhood.’ Dr Flo sighed. ‘Happily unaware of what lies ahead in life … Girls lie ahead, my ignorant friend.’
Kilkila shrugged.
‘Once you have shifted your shape to a butterfly, you’ll have to woo a girl. See that stud there?’ Dr Flo pointed to a butterfly flitting near a tree canopy. ‘Since painted lady butterflies travel and travel, you don’t have a territory. Like that guy, you’ll have to lie in wait at a high point for a lady to pass by so you can impress her.’
‘Sounds like boring work.’ Hudhud was still disinterested in Dr Flo’s wise words.
‘You’ll have to do that boring work, believe me. You’ll be a butterfly for two weeks to a month at max till all your teeth fall out.’
‘Teeth?’ Kilkila stopped eating.
‘Just kidding. I mean you’ll only live that long. And yet, painted lady butterflies are the most widely found butterflies in the world. How is that?’
‘I have a feeling you will tell us even if we don’t care to know.’ Hudhud attacked another leaf.
‘That is because in the summers you fly from the deserts and plains of Morocco to the meadows and gardens of Britain, crossing Spain on the way, braving the hazards of the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea and then returning to Africa again. Millions and millions of you fly together, fly so high above—making friends with the wind at a speed of almost fifty kilometres per hour—that we, on the ground, can’t even see you passing by! An epic intercontinental journey by insects with brains the size of a thorn head! And I might not even cross this plain in my lifetime …’ The last bit Dr Flo muttered under his breath.
‘Sorry?’ asked Kilkila.
‘As I was saying, you live as butterflies for only two to four weeks, so how do you undertake the long return journey?’ Dr Flo now hung upside down by a shiny silk thread.
‘We don’t want to know,’ Kilkila teased.
‘You do that by laying more and more eggs. And how do you lay eggs?’
‘Blimey! I can’t lay eggs!’ Hudhud looked terrified. Kilkila stopped munching too.
‘Ha ha ha!’ Dr Flo’s silk string shook as he laughed aloud. ‘No, I guess you can’t. Actually, you take six generations to make the round trip. For that you have to woo the ladies, who will lay eggs.’
‘Dr Surgeon here is too stuck on wooing girls.’ Kilkila climbed on to another branch as he had polished off all the leaves on this one.
‘And you are too stuck on eating, dearies.’ Dr Flo looked offended. He swung to the neighbouring bush and disappeared in the dark-green nettle leaves.
‘Oh, oh, oh, oh …’ Kilkila’s face looked as if he were emptying his bowels. Hudhud instantly noticed the cracks on his skin. In just a few moments, Kilkila had shed his old skin and emerged with a brandnew one.
‘Whoa … It’ll be time for me to build my pupa soon!’
‘No, no, wait!’ Hudhud looked at him with pleading eyes. ‘We must become pupae together, Kila. Can’t you wait for me for a day?’
Kilkila cracked a smile. ‘Sure. So hurry up and eat!’
Hudhud smiled gratefully. ‘First let’s register ourselves with Dr Flo. Shall we?’
‘Umm … the sun has already dipped behind the Old Fart. His timings are over for the day.’
‘Oh, he can make an exception for us!’ Hudhud wriggled forward. ‘After all, we are the ones who’ve helped make his practice such a raving success with caterpillars.’
‘True that.’
The two friends jogtrotted from one shrub to the next till they reached the bridal broom tree. It was just three shrubs away but their speed was far slower than their adults’—the dancing, flitting butterflies. It was already dusk by the time they arrived on the grounds, halting on a side to let a sounder of wild boars pass. These biggies had no interest in tiny caterpillars. The ones to watch out for were ants and wasps and birds and bats. Hudhud and Kilkila crossed the path and began climbing the tree, looking for the correct address.
‘Second crevice … oh!’ Hudhud shuddered, having spotted a whole colony of ants farther up the tree. There were a couple of stray ants around, but most of them were a few branches above. The passing insects looked at Hudhud and Kilkila with dark, hungry eyes, all the while moving their cutting ‘n’ slashing mouthparts. They could attack them in numbers right then and kill the caterpillars. Hudhud wished he had his silk tent to hide in, but it was back in his shrub. So they moved quietly and whispered to each other to avoid the attention of the ants or any other thugs planning to have caterpillar on their menu tonight. But when they heard the leathery flapping of bats from the canopy, rising from their sleep in the gathering dark, Hudhud truly regretted coming out to seek Dr Flo for a shortcut out of their pupal stage. They could have just done it themselves, like millions of other butterflies did!
‘Perhaps we can request Dr Flo to let us stay in his hospital till dawn. Then we can go back home again.’ Kilkila whispered, as if reading Hudhud’s thoughts.
Hudhud nodded. His throat was parched, maybe due to not munching on any juicy leaves all this while. But he suspected the fear turning all his knees to jelly had a part to play as well.
They reached the third crevice on the trunk after crossing two dry branches. Kilkila nudged Hudhud as soon as he spotted it in the fading light. They quietly crawled ahead, noiselessly placing each of their many feet like a butterfly ballerina. But Kilkila scratched his feet against broken bark and yelped. Hudhud shot him a stern look.
‘Who disturbs my sleep?’ A voice drifted from the end of the branch.
Hudhud and Kilkila looked around but all they saw were a few dead leaves on the tip of the branch. Suddenly, a dry leaf came walking towards them! Kilkila stifled another cry. It was a painted lady butterfly camouflaged as a dry leaf while resting.
‘Caterpillars are not supposed to be out and about at this hour,’ the butterfly scolded them in a gruff voice.
‘And who are you, my maman?’ snapped Kilkila.
‘She wouldn’t know, Kila.’ Hudhud looked at the butterfly with pent-up anger. ‘They just abandon their eggs and fly away to freedom. What happens to their kids is not their headache. Even spiders are more civilized than they are. At least some of them take care of their little ones.’
The lady butterfly guffawed. ‘Civilized, really? Many of those spider mamans are eaten up by their own hungry kids!’
Hudhud looked aghast. ‘Lies, all lies!’
A gent butterfly took a step towards them, his wings opening and closing lightly. ‘We always keep moving and travel across continents so that we can search for good places to lay eggs … so that our caterpillars can have good plants to eat. Else we would just feast on thistles in the meadows of Britain and not fly back to the sunnier climes of Africa come winter.’
‘While so many kinds of butterflies are becoming extinct, we continue to thrive, young man.’ The lady watched him sternly, her wings erect like a pine tree. ‘Who is telling you these spider stories?’
Hudhud only looked at her defiantly but Kilkila chimed in, ‘Dr Flo … I mean surgeon Pink Floyd. He lives on this tree, um … ma’am.’
The lady butterfly’s severe expression turned to that of incredulity as she exchanged wide-eyed looks with the gent.
‘Pink Floyd … What are you doing speaking to that hunting spider?’ The gent’s voice had an edge to it.
‘He doesn’t hunt, sir,’ Hudhud said
with certainty. ‘He lives on a liquid diet.’
‘All spiders have liquid diets, you fool!’ The lady’s gaze was steely. She stopped speaking as a beetle passed by. Once he was out of earshot, she took a step towards them and whispered, ‘They turn you into pulp with their venom and then slurp ‘n’ sip you.’
‘Haven’t you heard the African legend of Anansi, child?’ The gent’s wings fluttered in the cool night breeze. ‘Flo’s a trickster. Do not trust his word.’
There was a long silence, interrupted by the calls of the crickets ringing across the plains. Hudhud and Kilkila stood staring at the elders.
Eventually the lady spoke, fanning her wings slowly. ‘Now, get going to your bush. You’ve disturbed us enough already. As if the new ant colony shifting to our tree today was not the last straw!’ With a final look of disapproval, she flitted to the end of the branch, where a few other butterflies were resting.
The gent turned to them for one last word of caution. ‘This Pink Floyd here, he keeps collecting various insect pupae to gift to his lady love. Make sure your pupae are well hidden from his sight.’
Once both the butterflies were gone, Hudhud and Kilkila stood frozen to the spot. Hudhud felt a chill run down his back. He turned to look at his friend, who was staring into the dark. ‘Kila … what have we done?’
Kilkila looked ahead blankly. ‘Two caterpillars, Hudhud … Mahua and All Legs visited Dr Flo’s hospital today and didn’t return. They were about to form their chrysalises.’
Hudhud felt as if he had swallowed a thorn.
‘Dr Flo would have … would have sipped ‘n’ slurped them by now!’ Kilkila whispered.
‘Or … or maybe not, Kila.’
‘Maybe …’
‘We must check it out.’
Kilkila slowly faced his friend. ‘And what do you mean by that?’
‘We need to go to Dr Flo’s crevice and find out what’s happened to Mahua and All Legs. We were the ones who swore by Dr Flo. Else who would have gone to a spider’s den?’
‘And now you want to go to the spider’s den yourself? What’s your plan, if I may ask?’ Kilkila started nervously nibbling on a leaf.
‘Sometimes the best plan is no plan, Kila. We must at least go and check if they are alive or not, don’t you think?’
Kilkila managed a hesitant nod between mouthfuls.
It was a glorious full moon night. The plains, as well as the hillocks far away, were bathed in a silver sheen. Hudhud and Kilkila continued towards Dr Flo’s hospital, but now much more quietly. It was just a branch away and, as they approached, Hudhud halted and murmured, ‘Let’s just tell him we’ve come to register as we actually planned to. While we’re talking to him we can try to sneak a peek and check if there are any pupae around.’ He took a step forward and halted again. ‘And who knows, Dr Flo might not be the evil trickster those butterflies were making him out to be, eh?’
Kilkila’s grunt was non-committal.
Finally, Hudhud went up to the third crack and knocked on the trunk. There was no reply.
‘Dr Flo?’ he called softly. When he still got no reply, he called again, ‘It’s us, Dr Flo, your friends from the nettle bushes. We’ve come to register.’
Still nothing.
‘Pink Floyd?’ Hudhud stepped inside the crevice now, followed by an edgy Kilkila close behind.
The inside of the cave-like crevice was empty. Some moonbeams streamed in, faintly lighting up the scene. There was a wooden plank placed on one side, which looked like an operating table. And on the other were two silver bundles neatly packed and stacked. They looked painfully similar to butterfly pupae. Kilkila and Hudhud exchanged knowing glances and wriggled to the far end of the crevice.
‘I think it’s them!’ Hudhud gently touched the bundles. The spider had wrapped them up in his spinning silk. Whatever hope Hudhud had about the goodness of the spider had vanished.
‘It is.’ Kilkila shivered. ‘I say let’s leave as soon as possible. Mahua and All Legs are … er … gone. Don’t you think we must go and inform the others not to come to Dr Flo?’
Hudhud bobbed his head sadly and touched the pupae wrapped in spider silk one last time. ‘Hey … wait!’ he almost shouted to Kilkila, who was moving towards the exit. ‘Look at this!’
Both pupae had started to shake violently, as pupae did when disturbed.
‘They are alive!’ Kilkila gasped. ‘What do we do now?’
‘We’ll … we’ll have to rescue them and take them back to the nettle bushes—quickly! I can cut the web and release the pupae … but … but pupae can’t fly.’
‘That’s right. And neither can we. Not like we can lift them up and take them away either.’ Kilkila looked guiltily at his multiple legs. ‘It took us so long to get here, who knows by when we’ll make it home!’
‘We need wings …’ Hudhud and Kilkila’s faces lit up at the same time. ‘The painted lady butterflies!’
‘Provided they agree to risk their pretty wings. The lady looked particularly mean to me,’ Kilkila pondered aloud.
‘That she was … but the gent was kind. We’ll have to try. Why don’t you go and ask them while I cut the spider silk from the chrysalises?’
Kilkila trotted towards the mouth of the crevice and, turning back, asked, ‘Are you sure you want to remain alone in this horror of a hospital? Dr Flo might return any time.’
‘I guess I’ll take that chance.’
Wind tousled the leaves outside and each rustle made Hudhud jump. He got to the task of cutting the layer of spider silk from the cocoons with his sharp mouth. Hudhud knew that hunting spiders wrapped their prey, unlike orb spiders, who caught their prey in webs. The silk bandaging would normally be so tightly wound by hunting spiders that it would break the creature inside, first to pieces and then to pulp. But the two pupae were covered quite gently, almost as if they were gift-wrapped. Hudhud wondered why.
The noises of the night kept creeping in, and he wasted a lot of time turning around and checking the entrance. One cut after another and the silk cover was soon coming apart as the brown of the pupal case peeped from all sides. Once he had finished with one cocoon, he dusted off the webs with his legs and moved on to the other one, keeping an eye on the doorway throughout by craning his neck. It started to ache and stiffen now, and Hudhud felt dizzy as he hadn’t eaten for a long, long time.
Hudhud was almost done when he heard a sound that came—sure enough—from the entrance. This time he turned slowly, his heart flapping like a bat’s wing.
‘Kila! You gave me a heart attack!’ He felt giddy with relief.
Kilkila didn’t look as happy. ‘The butterflies refused to come.’
‘Wha … How can they?’ Hudhud stood in front of the two pupae, which lay in the corner.
‘The lady says it’s our headache that we stuck our precious fat necks into the spiders’ business.’ Kilkila sighed tiredly. ‘She added that butterflies are more important than caterpillars as they are hosts and pollinators. And they must escape the predators. So caterpillars should sacrifice their lives for the “greater good” now and then.’
‘These pretty butterflies are pretty mean too. I wonder if Dr Flo was right after all.’
‘What was Dr Flo right about again?’ a familiar voice asked from the entrance.
The two caterpillars turned around to see a spider’s silhouette against the bright night sky, eight sharp legs placed firmly on the door. Suddenly, the cave seemed much darker.
‘Dr F-f-f-f … F-f-f-f …’ Kilkila stammered. There was only one way out—they were trapped in the crevice.
‘Dr Flo!’ Hudhud shifted on his feet, trying to fully conceal the two pupae lying on their backs. ‘How we had to search for your address! Must say, it’s quite a posh locality.’
Dr Flo seemed unimpressed. ‘Didn’t I tell you the hospital was open till the sun went down the Old Fart?’
‘Who are you talking to, darling?’ Another outline formed behind Dr Flo. It was a s
pider at least twice his size. ‘Are these two my gifts? You know I don’t fancy mushy caterpillars. I like—’
‘I know very well what you like, sugarcup,’ Dr Flo cut in. ‘I have two gifts all wrapped up for you. And believe me, there’s more to come in the next few days.’
At this, Kilkila started shaking so badly that Hudhud had to press against him to steady him. His mind raced at breakneck speed.
‘What brings you here, shape-shifters?’ Dr Flo’s tone didn’t sound like his melodic friendly voice they were used to. It sounded jagged around the edges.
Hudhud took a deep breath, gathering all the strength of will to smile and speak a sentence coherently. ‘We wanted to register ourselves for the help you offered in releasing us from our pupae.’
‘I don’t work after my timings.’ The spider’s serrated chelicerae chewed the air as the giant female hung behind him.
‘And,’ Hudhud spoke quickly, ‘we wanted to inform you that the Wild Whistling Wasps are going to perform for the whole tree tonight. An open concert!’
‘Rubbish,’ the lady spider said darkly. But Hudhud could see that Dr Flo’s face had lit up.
He was grinning when he asked, ‘Why would they do such a thing?’
Kilkila shifted uneasily on his feet as Hudhud took a long moment to reply. He coughed as if something were stuck in his throat.
‘Well?’ asked Dr Flo, stepping closer to them, while the lady spider filled the exit, her silhouette inky against the moonlit night.
‘Why …’ Hudhud cleared his throat. ‘Didn’t you see those hundreds of ants in the tree today? They’ve all come to listen to the punk band!’ Hudhud delivered this news with as much excitement as he could muster despite his jittery legs.
‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ Dr Flo complained.
‘Do you expect the ants to talk to you, darling?’ the lady spider chided.
‘I’ve always listened to the band from afar … Always been too scared to go near the hot-headed wasps.’ Dr Flo was dreamy-eyed. ‘Come, honeydew, let’s rock!’
