On Caterpillars

I.

I am the fourth child born to my mother, she being six of seven herself. When she felt my life coming, she asked for a cup of tea. Her teeth, when bared, have since had an edge of stain, and I have grown to bear these same markings.

Though I’ve become a version of my mother, I can’t quite remember how—having forgotten much about my young years, much has been told to me, and my own storytelling has grown into tall tales. What I think I know is: while we’re never quite sure who we are, we don’t always recognize that the caterpillar inside us is actually slimy and striped, not fuzzy and freckled.

I was given my first pair of glasses when I was three and a half. By then my pale blue caterpillar eyes had turned brown, and my yellow curls had gone dark. The glasses had thick, blue-grey rims with gleaming Donald Duck clips on the sides—and they were large. I felt I was an owl. The glasses stood out on my small face, and I was glad people looked at them instead of my tea-stained teeth. I hid behind the frames and distracted the other kids with the shiny ducks, believing that the thick glass gave me the clarity and distance to view situations without bias. As I grew into my next pair of glasses, I learned just how much a wise-looking, owl-looking caterpillar could get away with.

I don’t remember when I found myself behaving as crafty chameleon, but I do remember the first time I got away with something.

I was standing at the top of the grey-carpeted stairs in the house I still live in. I was, by then, the fourth of five—but my brother didn’t have tea teeth. The teacup poodle—my mother, a vastly smarter animal—looked down at me, down my forehead and peering around my owl frames, and asked if I had cleaned my bedroom. I pushed my glasses up my nose, lenses to lashes, and hoped the thick glass would seem trustworthy instead of defensive, and chirped, “Yes, mom”.

I soon discovered—after a quick inward celebration, while she checked the facts—that it was wise choices and honest answers that made you an owl, and not the accessories you wore on your nose.

II.

I still have stained teeth today, but by the fourteenth anniversary of my orange pekoe birth I learned that being cunning, not wise, was easier and more useful. That birthday, my doctor realized I had outgrown my glasses and said if I wished to keep wearing them, I could, but it was not necessary. I was discovered again.

Every time a chameleon gets caught, it adapts. I learned to change my colors and create better shapes. I set my pretend-owl-eyes aside and practiced skin painting until I grew into a red fox. I learned that bright, obvious fur takes the focus away from lying eyes.

III.

I was molting into my red adult fur when I first lied to the rooster. He was powerful and respected at school, but I knew I could fool him—sometimes a young fox, while learning to be cunning, wishes someone would look into her eyes and catch her telling tall tales again (this curse started very early). I was not a fan of the rooster; he knew too much and was too well loved. My red coat often caught the green tinge of the classroom’s fluorescent lights, and when noticed, I learned that aged teeth, when bared from under black snarling lips, were a barrier that kept everyone from getting close enough to see the forgotten caterpillar.

Most of the young animals went to the rooster for his stories, the ones of when his feathers fell out and how his croak turned to a crow. My classmate finches, born grey and brown, decided they did not want to blend into their nests, and let their real feathers out—even if some grew in white from plucking too much. My wily color grew deeper.

I was a very young fox, unsure of who I was going to be—would anyone like who this caterpillar butterflied into? So I decided to try out a new animal. It was fall, and as the trees dropped their leaves, I too drooped my ears and dulled my red fur to rust. I practiced half-shades of other animals and twisted my usual sneering lips into frowns, smiles and smirks. I wasn’t sure if any new animal fit, so I tried out the closest match at school.

The snow came, and while I hoped to be both believed and ignored, the animal fit too well, was so bright against the snow that when the rooster asked for my story, he gobbled it all up only to regurgitate it to my chamomile mother. The bright colours I had been before, both green and red, drained out, leaving my fur grey and muddy as the melting snow.

MELINDA ROY is a writer and angler living and working on the traditional territory of the Lheidli T’enneh (Prince George, B.C).