0 March Secret Agent #40

TITLE: The Firefly Field
GENRE: Younger MG: Fiction Adventure

Creeped out by rustling in the bushes, Herby whizzes over a branch and glances over his left wing.

Wham!

Herby plunges to the ground. Dizzy, he looks up at Alex hovering above him. Herby’s light goes into full flicker spasm.

“Watch where you’re flyin,” Alex shouts. “Freaky fly can’t control his miserable yellow light. Francine has got to be as blind as a moth to like you!” He yanks Herby’s antennae and darts off.

Herby twitches his feelers and flips over. Crawling home, he questions out loud, “What’s with that new fly, Alex? Doesn’t he know Francine and I’ve been friends since glow worm stage? Why isn’t my light green like everyone else’s? And will I ever control this embarrassing nervous-light disorder? ”

With thoughts churning, Herby arrives at his cozy home that lies deep within the folds of the grass. He scuttles over to his mother, Claire, “Why’s my light yellow?”

“I knew that question was coming,” his mom says while rocking her glowworm twins. “You inherited it.”

“From who?”

“Your great-great grandfather,” says his mom.

“What do you know about him?”

“Not much, he had a yellow light, and died in a spider’s web.”

“I learned today in school, fireflies never escape spider webs. And now you tell me my great-great-grandfather, who I look like, died in one. Next, you’ll say it was a deadly Stryper.”

“I’m afraid so, Herby, but his light barely glimmered when it happened – he was old.”

“You mean a firefly doesn’t matter when its light starts fading?”