Akbar was an elephant. Or, at least, he wished he was. Akbar was a small, insignificant person, and he often got lost in the woods. Sometimes he would try to speak up and be noticed, but that only made things worse.
One day, Akbar devised a plan: if he could only do something so spectacular that he would be made famous for, then somebody would have to notice him. But what could Akbar do?
And so Akbar thought long and hard about his predicament. He thought about it so much that he neglected to notice a crack in his tea cup. That is, of course, until he poured his tea into it, and drips of hot Earl Grey drip dropped onto the floor. And what makes this matter meaningful is the line of sight that it afforded Akbar, for there on the floor of his tiny, rent controlled apartment was a caterpillar. A thick, fuzzy, greenish caterpillar.
Akbar did not despise creepy crawlies like most of the people he knew. Instead, Akbar found them to be a quick source of comfort to him, being much smaller than he was, and, therefore, less intimidating than his fellow man.
Still, people always seemed to notice the littler things of this world more than they did Akbar. No sooner had he spotted it when both his aunt and his sister and his very own dog jumped and yelped and eewed and oohed about it.
“Look,” shouted his sister, “a caterpillar on the floor!”
And, as Akbar looked at the caterpillar, a spectacular thought occurred to him: what if he could be more like a caterpillar than himself? Who could ignore a caterpillar?
Akbar reached down and let out his finger for the caterpillar to crawl upon. He then studied the thing with amazement, noticing how it moved itself along the length of Akbar’s arm with wriggling, and how quiet it was as it went. For such a small thing, it demanded a lot of attention. Akbar noticed that it did not even have a smell to announce itself with; all it did was move about on its merry way, ignorant of the attention that it owned. Jealousy overcame Akbar; why should such an unwilling creature possess such power? It hardly seemed fair. Try as he might, Akbar could not achieve so much as a glance in his direction, yet here was this little, low maintenance caterpillar stealing the show.
“Kill it,” his aunt shouted. “It’s disgustingly awful!”
“I would like to keep it,” said Akbar.
“Kill it already,” his sister demanded, to which his very own dog replied, “Bark! Bark, bark!”
Days later, Akbar could not get the little caterpillar out of his head. It was helpless in the fight to save its life, and, though it asked for nothing, it received the agony of his sister’s heel and the bite of his very own dog. All of this, thought Akbar, because it was so small and insignificant like Akbar himself. Akbar grieved for the caterpillar. He felt that even he had done some wrong to the small creature in the guise of his jealousy. If only he was not so small and insignificant, perhaps he could have prevented the caterpillar’s untimely death. Akbar vowed to never let such a thing happen again. One small victory, but a victory nonetheless.
On his way home from school that very same day, Akbar saw another caterpillar on the leaf of a maple tree. This one was somewhat larger than the last, and much greener. Akbar reached out to grab the leaf and the caterpillar seemed to look up at him. This touched Akbar.
Akbar took the caterpillar home. He let it wander around his room. He named it Pedro, and swore to protect it. So, when Akbar’s sister came past his door, Akbar announced his intentions.
“I have a caterpillar in here. You can’t touch it.”
His sister gave him a curious look and then immediately walked away. She did not seem all that interested in what Akbar had to say.
After dinner, Akbar produced the thing from his pocket, and let it crawl about on the palm of his hand.
“What’s that?” asked his father.
“It’s a caterpillar,” said Akbar. “He’s mine.”
“Suit yourself,” his father replied.
Before he went to bed, Akbar put his new friend into an old mayonnaise jar. He went out into the yard and collected a few small leaves and put them into the jar for the caterpillar to eat. Then he sprinkled some water in the jar, in case caterpillars get thirsty. Akbar was content with what he had done. He slept peacefully, knowing that, somehow, what he had done was heroic.
As soon as he woke up, Akbar went to check on his caterpillar. It had eaten most of the vegetation, and it seemed quite content it its little jar of a home. Akbar debated whether he should bring it with him to school. As the sun shone gloriously on his pale face as he made his way down the street with Pedro in his pocket, Akbar knew he had made the right choice. Half the day had come and gone without anyone suspecting a thing, not even noticing when Akbar would sneak a look into his pocket to check Pedro’s progress.
“How do you like school?” he asked his fuzzy, new friend.
Pedro looked up at Akbar as if to say that he did not mind either way.
“I know what you mean. It is kind of… ordinary,” Akbar said with a grin. He felt less alone now, with Pedro in his pocket. And he liked feeling bigger than he actually was.
When it came time to eat his lunch, Akbar gave no thought whatsoever to sharing his leafy greens with his trusty companion. He took the mayonnaise jar out of his pocket, sat it on the table before him, and unscrewed the top. “Just let me know if you get thirtsty,” he said, and then dropped two healthy sized pieces of vegetation into the jar.
This little bit of odd activity caught the attention of one clever luncher. Akbar heard a short voice from behind him. “What is that?” it wanted to know.
Akbar sat quietly. No one had ever spoken to him in the lunch room before. It couldn’t possibly be… but what if it was? If felt like it. By all calculations, it almost had to be. He hardly knew what to do. So Akbar did nothing.
“Can you hear me?” asked the voice, now coming around to sit beside him at the table. It was a girl, and she was rather curious indeed. She peeked her nose into the mayonnaise jar and gave it a sniff. “It’s a bug!” she exclaimed.
“It’s Pedro,” Akbar muttered slowly.
“Hi Pedro!” said the girl into the jar.
Akbar had it in his mind to speak something else to the girl, as she was clearly interested in getting to know Pedro, but the words wouldn’t come together in his mind. At least, not in any way that he felt he could express them to her. As he sat there looking at her looking into the jar, Akbar noticed her cheeks. She might have been a plain girl, but all Akbar noticed were her soft, rosy cheeks that made him think of a reflection of falling snow that he once saw in a red glass ball hanging on his grandmother’s Christmas tree. It gave him a curious sensation that made him feel hot and cold at the same time. He hardly knew what he was saying when the words came pouring forth like a bad plate of clams.
“Would you like to pet him?”
The girl stood upright and smiled. She was at least a foot shorter than Akbar, with shiny brown hair and bright blue eyes. “May I?” she asked politely.
Akbar held out the jar for her hand to reach in and gently stroke Pedro. At this, Pedro became excited and held his head up high. He seemed to like the touch of the girl. Pedro wiggled and made his way around her finger. He began to crawl up the length of her index. “He tickles,” the girl said with glee. “Can I hold him?”
“Sure. But be careful. He’s got a mind of his own.”
“I can see that!” the girl exclaimed as she held Pedro up in amazement, wondering at his squirm. “He’s incredible. And so big! I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Akbar sat and watched the girl play with Pedro. It filled him with a warmth he never felt before. He wanted to stay there forever, watching the girl watching Pedro, but the bell rang and the moment was over. “Oh, I’ll be late for Algebra.”
The girl placed her finger on the edge of the mayonnaise jar and let Pedro decline.
“Will you bring him back tomorrow?” she asked.
“Okay,” Akbar replied, not wanting to sound too eager.
“Good. I’ll look for you tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even bring some bush leaves in for Pedro to munch on.”
Akbar felt tall the rest of the afternoon. When his sister passed him in the hallway and burped in his face, he did not mind. “She’s so immature,” Akbar said to Pedro. “She knows nothing about life. But we do!”
The next day at lunch, Akbar sat at the same table and began feeding Pedro his leaves. He hadn’t looked around for the girl. He didn’t want to seem obvious. He had faith that she would return, and that she would have not forgotten the bush leaves for Pedro.
“Hi Pedro!” he heard from the rear of the room. He looked over and saw the girl, and she was not alone. She had a boy with her. A tall boy. They made their way over to Akbar, and he could see that she had not forgotten the bush leaves.
“Do you think he’ll like these?” she asked elatedly.
Akbar held the jar out for her and she dropped in her leaves. He dared not look up. He did not want to see her cheeks.
“I never did ask you what your name is,” she said.
“Akbar.”
“Oh! You’re Akbar,” she said with a slight giggle. “I’ve heard about you.” Akbar did not know what that meant. “Anyhow, I’m Boo.”
Boo held out her hand. Akbar shook it limply. He smiled at her, but he did not look at her cheeks.
“This is Bob,” she said, pointing to the tall boy. “I told him about Pedro yesterday after school and he just loves bugs.”
Bob peered inside the jar. He did not seem all that interested in what he saw. Pedro was buried under three layers of leafage. “Neat,” was all Bob said.
“Well, it was good seeing you again, Akbar. Bye, Pedro!”
Boo and Bob walked away and Akbar reached in to rescue Pedro from his heavy load. When he uncovered his furry friend, he looked at him as if to say, “How could you let this happen to me?” Pedro looked up at Akbar and gave him a sympathetic wiggle.
That evening, Akbar decided that it was wrong for him to keep Pedro confined in a mayonnaise jar. He knew that loving someone meant setting them free, and Akbar knew that he loved Pedro. He took him to the maple tree where he found him and let him crawl out onto a big leaf.
“Good bye, my friend. I shall miss you.”
Akbar cried a little as he fell asleep that night. He had never let go of anything before. He had never had anything to let go of, except maybe his grandmother, but that was a long, long time ago.
A few days passed and Akbar had resumed his ordinary life, when he heard his sister screaming in the front yard. “It’s so huge!” she was saying. “And beautiful!”
Akbar followed his mother and his aunt outside. His mother spotted it first. “Oh my goodness, it is lovely, isn’t it?”
“It is indeed,” responded his aunt. “And so majestic!”
“I’ve never seen anything like it before,” said his mother. “It must be rare.”
“Must be,” his aunt agreed.
“I want to keep it,” said his sister. “It would look so pretty in my room.”
Akbar looked at the majestic thing. It was a butterfly the size of a maple leaf, and it was full of tremendous colors and life. The butterfly looked up at Akbar and gave him a sympathetic smile just as his sister bent down to grab it.
Akbar threw his hand out to block his sister’s greedy claws. “Leave it alone,” he said with a brevity he had never known.
“Huh?” said his sister in befuddlement. Even his mother and his aunt seemed to gasp with bewilderment.
“Leave it alone and let it be free. It’s not a pet,” said Akbar quite firmly.
His sister said nothing but backed away from the butterfly and looked down upon it with admiration. They all stepped back and watched as the butterfly fluttered its striking wings in the air and began to take flight. It flew first up to Akbar’s left ear, flittering about for a moment as if to whisper something. Akbar smiled and the butterfly flew off into the big, big world.
