Tickling beetle

⏱ ~5 min reading

There lived a little bug in an old garden. They called it Bug because when it flew off a leaf, its wings tinkled softly, like a string on a child's violin. Bug was no bigger than a pea, had a black back with two greenish spots, and six thin legs—so light that when it ran across the grass, not even dew fell.

And Bzyk had a secret that he himself didn't know about at first. His feet were ticklish. As soon as Bzyk ran his hand over someone's hand, the person would start laughing. Not from fear, not from surprise, but from a pure, warm tickle.

But Bzyk himself did not appreciate his gift for a long time.

"I'm not scary," he sighed sadly, sitting under a clover leaf. "I'm not big, I'm not strong. I can't sting like a wasp. I can't stink like that striped beetle that protects itself from birds. I'm just... small.".

His neighbor, the sun, just lowered her wings:

"Dude, you're special! Your legs are ticklish.".

"So what?" Bzyk grumbled. "Is this a profession?"

The sun flew away, and Bzik stared at his shadow in the dewdrop for a long time. In the droplet, he saw himself as tiny—and that made him even sadder.

One warm morning, Bzik climbed onto a tall blade of grass to look down on the garden. The blade of grass swayed in the wind, but Bzik held on tightly. From there, he saw a little boy. The boy was sitting on a wooden bench under an apple tree, his arms around his knees. His shoulders were shaking. He was crying.

“What about him?” muttered Bzyk.

He got off the blade of grass, ran across the warm ground, climbed over a pebble and ended up next to the boy's leg. Through the sandals, you could hear the boy's sobbing very well. The bug climbed higher - up the leg, up the knee, up the sleeve of his T-shirt. The boy didn't notice anything - tears dripped onto his hands like spring rain.

The bug reached right up to his nose.

And then something magical happened. The boy suddenly froze. Then he twitched. Then—unexpectedly for himself—he snorted.

"Hee-hee-hee!" he blurted out. "Who's there? Oh-oh, it tickles!"

He rubbed his nose with his palm, but Bzyk had already crawled onto his cheek. His legs ran especially gently over his tear-soaked cheek, as if caressing it.

"Ha-ha-ha!" the boy chuckled aloud. "Oh, what is this!"

He wasn't crying anymore. He couldn't cry—it tickled too much. Bzik was surprised at himself and ran over again—over his eyebrow, over his chin, over his warm hand. The boy rolled around in the grass and laughed so loudly that two sparrows fell from the branch of the apple tree.

"Oh, bug, bug," the boy laughed, carefully lifting Bug on his finger. "You're just adorable. I was about to cry, and now I can't stop. Where did you come from?"

The gnome couldn't speak humanly. But he placed one foot on the boy's toe—carefully, carefully—as if to say, "Don't be sad anymore.".

The boy looked at the bug for a long time. Then he placed it on a marigold flower and said:

— Thank you. I had a fight with a friend, I thought it was the end of the world. And you came and the world became whole again. You are a good bug.

Bzik froze on the petal. Something was quietly pounding in his small chest, like the first big warm knock.

«"I'm not just an insect," he thought. "I'm a bringer of joy. My legs are no small thing. My legs know how to wipe away tears.".

That same day, Bzik flew around the entire garden. He looked for the sad ones. And he found them. A little girl who had lost her teddy bear was sitting on the porch — Bzik sat on her palm and almost ran away, and the girl suddenly snorted: «Oh, what a miracle this is?» Grandma, who sighed by the window and looked into the distance, couldn’t resist either — Bzik sat on her hand, which was lying on the windowsill, and Grandma’s wrinkles smoothed out from a quiet, warm laugh. And the neighbor’s dog, who was bored with his chain, got his share of tickling on his whiskers, sneezed from surprise and wagged his tail merrily, as if singing.

With each such encounter, Bzyk felt his little chest grow lighter. As if where sadness had once lived, a small window had now opened and a ray of sunlight was filtering through.

In the evening, when the sun was already setting behind the cherry trees, Bzyk sat on the same blade of grass that he had started the morning with. Only now, in his dewdrop, not a sad bug was reflected - but a small, warm, very necessary someone.

"Everyone has their own gift," Bzik said quietly to the sunbeam that was flying by. "Sometimes it doesn't look like a gift at all. But if you find those who need it, you will become precious.".

The sun just nodded its wing and flew to its children.

And from that day on, Bzyk wore his little ticklish profession like a medal. And when someone cried in the garden, he already knew the way. Quietly, lightly, on six ticklish legs.