The Ladybird

That winter a ladybird used to come and visit us every night. Every time we were going to sit  to have dinner,  it turned up out of the blue. Maybe it came in when dad was shutting the blinds or maybe it lived in the chandelier in our kitchen.

It walked here and there on the set table. Sometimes it followed the grooves of the blue plaid tablecloth.

It climbed the jug of water and the bottle of wine, but the scent of the wine made the ladybird knock out and it always fell down belly-up. It was more clever and nimbler than its cousins, the bugs  that ususally stayed legs-up for hours: the ladybird moved its small legs to turn its body down and when it could not do so, it opened its wings and …zoopp… here it was… standing on its legs again.

It enjoyed  acting like an acrobat, walking on the thin edge of the glass: it never fell into it.

One day, though, it fell into the mashed potatoes. Luckily enough, it was not too hot!

When the ladybird was thirsty it drank some water from a teaspoon, and if it found the honey pot open, it licked some honey from the lid.

Sometimes it disappeared: we looked for the ladybird everywhere, under the dishes, near the bread… but there was nothing to do… it liked playing hyde-and-seek and blend into the small stains of the tomato sauce on the stove.

It also enjoyed tickling  all of us walking from hand to hand, it was so light that we had to pay attention not to crush it since we could not always realise that it was climbing our arms up to the elbow.

One night , in Spring time, the ladybird did not come.

Nor the day after. We looked for it for some time, but no luck.

Till when, one day, just behind the window blinds, we found a whole family of ladybirds! That’s where our small ladybird friend was gone!


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