⏱ ~4 min reading
Grandma was watering the tomatoes. The yard smelled of wet earth, that special smell that only appears when water meets hot earth. Sofiyka sat on the porch step and watched Grandma draw water from a big blue bucket.
The afternoon crept by. Somewhere in a broad apple tree, bees were buzzing. Tymko the cat lay under the bench—only the tip of his tail twitched when a fly flew over him.
“Sofiya, aren’t you hiding?” asked the grandmother.
— I think so.
— About what?
— About why a cat has whiskers.
Grandma laughed. She put down the watering can and wiped her hands on her apron.
"Let's go, I'll show you the rosehip. The berries are already red.".
Sofiyka jumped down the steps. And then—as often happens when you're going to one place and notice something completely different—she saw it.
In the blue bucket, at the very surface of the water, a beetle was squirming.
Black and green, shiny, small—like a button on Dad's jacket. It flapped its legs, flapped its wings, but the water held it. The beetle was drowning.
"Grandma! Grandma, you bug!"
Grandma came over. She looked.
"Ah, this one. It flew in and couldn't hold back.".
— He will drown!
"Maybe he'll drown. Or maybe he'll get out.".
Sofiyka couldn't watch him thrash about. She had already pulled her hand away, and then she remembered: her grandmother had said that you shouldn't pick up bugs with your bare fingers because you could suffocate them.
She looked around. There was a grape leaf lying by the wall, wide, with green veins. Sofiyka picked it up and carefully lowered it into the bucket next to the beetle.
“Get in,” she whispered. “It’s a boat.”.
The beetle waved again. And again. Then — as if it understood — it began to rake its paws toward the leaf. It swam. It grabbed the edge. It climbed onto the leaf all by itself — wet, heavy, not quite its own.
Sofiyka slowly pulled the leaf out of the bucket. She placed it on the bench in the sun.
— Dry yourself.
The beetle was sitting. It didn't move. Sofiyka looked at it and was afraid - what if it did get a bite, what if it didn't survive?
"Grandma, he won't move.".
"He's waiting for warmth, little one. Like you do when you come out of the river. You sit on the sand until you dry out.".
Sofiyka sat down next to me. She wasn't breathing.
The apple tree shook its branch. A ray of sunlight fell on a leaf—golden, warm. The beetle moved in. It spread its wings—thin, transparent as glass. It started. And suddenly—frrr!—it flew up. It disappeared behind the fence.
Sophie gasped.
— Flew!
“He flew,” the grandmother confirmed, as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.
"Will he remember now that we saved him?"
The grandmother sat down on a bench and put her granddaughter's arms around her shoulders.
"I don't know, swallow. Beetles are small - their memory is probably small too. Maybe he'll forget by evening.".
"Then why was there any need to save?"
Grandma fell silent, looking at the sunspot where a beetle had been sitting a moment ago.
"And I'll tell you. Not so he'll remember. But so you'll remember. That's how, when someone's in trouble, you don't pass it by." She held out a piece of paper.
Sofiyka pondered this. It seemed like an important word.
— What if it were a big beetle?
"What if it were a sparrow? What if it were a kitten? What if it were a human?"
— The same?
"It's the same, my swallow. We are all alive. We all fly our own ways. Go a little out of your way and help someone who can't do without help.".
Sofiyka nodded. She took a grape leaf—wet, with a transparent spot where a beetle was sitting. She put it on the porch window to dry.
— Grandma.
— What, swallow?
"Shall we go to the rosehip now?"
They left. Sofiyka held onto her grandmother's hand. On the way, she looked back at the blue bucket again - just to make sure that no one was there.
There was none. Only the reflection of an apple tree and a patch of blue sky.
💡 Every living creature has the right to its own path - even the smallest.