Hello! Many of us have been appreciating nature more in lockdown. Sadly, the environment is something that too many people still take for granted. That’s why Springwatch is such a fantastic TV programme, allowing us to see wildlife in action. I hope you like this short story. It’s a children’s story, but there should be something in it to take you back to your own childhood.

Scarlet Tiger Moth – from https://butterfly-conservation.org/moths/scarlet-tiger Picture by Patrick Clement

Night Wings

Elsie was sent to bed straight after Springwatch. Mum and Dad wouldn’t let her hang a bedsheet on the wall outside with a torch shining on it. She wanted it to attract some of the beautiful moths she had seen on TV that night, and she stomped reluctantly up the stairs.

‘I don’t like moths anyway. They ate holes in my best jumper,’ Mum grumbled, following Elsie to her room.

‘I’m not sure they’re the same kind of moths,’ Elsie said, remembering the dusty, grey creatures that had flown out of Mum’s wardrobe. The moths on TV had been huge, with exotic-looking colours and markings.

Mum unfolded a fresh pair of pyjamas from the chest of drawers and drew the curtains.

‘Can we make a moth trap tomorrow?’ Elsie took her favourite book from her shelf, The Potting Shed Fairies. She had already read it four times, but she loved the mischievous creatures who were always getting into trouble.

‘I’ll think about it,’ Mum said. ‘But don’t bring any creepy crawlies into the house. Sleep tight. Make sure the bugs don’t bite.’ She kissed Elsie on the top of her head and shut the door.

As soon as Elsie heard Mum’s footsteps go downstairs, she pulled back the curtains and opened the window wide, so she could hear the tawny owl who perched on the tree in the garden and see the moon and stars. Then she snuggled under her duvet, reading about the fairies’ adventures until the book dropped out of her hands. She sleepily turned off the bedside lamp.

She opened her eyes. Something around her rustled and tickled her back. Elsie sat up. The rustling became a flutter and she felt a rush of air around her. Wings had sprouted through the back of her pyjamas and now they spread out wide, the length of the bed, deep red and darkest velvet black, shining in the light of the full moon streaming through the window.

Elsie gasped. She felt her wings with her fingertips. The wings were feathery but furry, made of overlapping, iridescent scales. These were moth wings…

She wondered if she could flap them, and she could. She stretched ad flexed her wings, scarcely believing they were there. She stood in the middle of the room, flapping her wings as fast as she could, varying her technique until finally, her feet left the ground. She could hover if she fluttered her winds, gently but rapidly, and she tried to swoop up to the ceiling, but there wasn’t enough room and she bumped her head.

She drifted back down to the floor, the moon shining right into her eyes. I will fly to the moon, she thought, the words forming in her mind from nowhere. But she felt a longing in her ribcage to fly up towards the glowing, enticing ball of light.

Elsie flitted onto the windowsill and kept hovering while she squeezed through the narrow gap. Then she was free, above the back garden, where the flowers seemed to glow in the moonlight. She swooped and glided and beat her wings steadily to gain height, until the street was far below, and the yellow bus that crawled along the road looked like a caterpillar on a branch.

Moths and bats flitted around her and she laughed in delight, playing chase, skimming low over trees and startling the roosting birds. But the moon seemed so close. She was sure she could reach it.

Elsie circled higher, passing a scream of swifts now silent, sleeping on the wing. The ground looked further and further away, until all she could see was pin pricks of light, just like the view from an aeroplane.

The air suddenly grew thin and difficult to breathe. She gasped for air and the wind whipped up around her, making her tumble out of control. She flapped frantically, but the air was too fierce for her and she fell in a plummeting spiral. All she could do was hold her wings out wide to slow her descent.

Then cool, fresh air flooded her lungs as she steadied and drifted down. The lights below grew bigger and clearer. She rode the air currents until she could see the shape of the town below, the river sparkling like a silver ribbon.

Elsie swooped like a swallow above the still, dark water until she recognised the shape of her street. There was her house, with her bedroom window wide open. She was tired and wondered what Mum would say in the morning when she saw her wings.

But she couldn’t resist one last low swoop, heading for the darkness of her room. She dived, folding her wings for a brief moment. But she collided with the tawny owl as he launched from his tree and they tumbled to the ground together. She smelled mind as she crawled to the ground. Soft leaves broke her call. The last thing she saw in the moonlight was the owl, hooting angrily as it flapped off, on silent wings.

Someone called her name and she could see dappled sunlight shining through leaves gently waving in the breeze. The smell around her reminded her of mint chocolate, toothpaste and chewing gum. She was in her pyjamas, curled up in the middle of the mint patch.

‘Elsie! What are you doing?’ Mum’s shadow loomed over her. ‘You’ve squashed it flat.’

Elsie sat up, feeling the sides of her body and up her back. Something seemed to be missing.

‘It’s that Springwatch programme again, isn’t it?’ Mum said. ‘What are you doing this time?’

‘Being a moth,’ Elsie said. ‘I think it was real,’ she added, wondering.

‘Anyway, breakfast’s ready.’ Mum sighed. ‘And then we can find an old sheet for your moth trap.’