The Ladybird Prince

Planning Ahead

Jake stood up, here was his plan. He needed to get some help, otherwise he would be small forever. He needed to somehow contact a human. That was a scary thought...

Anyways, his plan was to crawl down the tree he was sitting  on, make a journey through the yard to the sidewalk, find his way along to his neighbors house. Maybe she could help him.  But it was a long way until that could happen. For now he needed to head to the sidewalk.

He began his climb down the tree. One foot after another, he slid between the strips of bark protecting the tree. Soon he reached the bottom and hopped down over a root.

As he dusted himself off he looked up and saw something that made him take a step back in fear. It was a ladybug.  It was the size of a car, it turned to him and began to walk his way. He tried to back up but ran straight into the tree.

The insect walked up to him, he was now face to face with this massive bug. He felt his palms get sweaty, he fell to the ground and covered his face. "Nice... bug..." he whimpered as it moved ever closer.

But it didnt seem to care about him, at all. It moved straight past him and began to climb up the tree. Jake watched as its massive round body began to move vertically. It climbed up the trunk with legs like ice picks and began searching for its next meal, something much smaller than Jake; and he was thankful for that.

Jake gathered his thoughts and stood up. He looked down and dusted himself off. Hey, no harm no foul right? This was no big deal. But he did end up in the fetal position because he was afraid of a ladybug. He began to feel down on himself.

There was no way hed be able to get back to normal size, he was going to end up as food for the bugs... or probably just one. 

But despite this he began to travel. Brushing the large blades of grass to the side as he meandered between them.  As he wandered he came a patch of weeds in the lawn. It seemed as if someone had trampled over them, they had fallen over and caused a scar in the ground.

Jake walked over to them and looked at the thorns...

They were somewhat small, compared to him. He reached for one and ripped off the tip of it. He examined it. It was like a little knife. He figured he might be able to defend himself with it. This made him feel much more secure, he had a weapon! He put the thorn in his pocket and continued onward.

It felt to Jake as if he'd been walking for days on end, however he could tell the sun was just beginning to go down. He continued onward, when suddenly the ground began to rumble gently...

Jake felt frightened, he began to run. The rumbling continued, it got louder and louder. Soon the ground was shaking. It felt like an earthquake. Jake began to stumble, but just as he did he parted the next few blades of grass a plateau of concrete greeted him and gave him a sigh of relief.

It was also then that he saw what was causing the ground to shake. There was a gust of wind and the sound of rocks exploding as someone on a bike rode down the street.

Jake was taken back... what seemed like a normal mode of transportation to Jake was a giant death machine. He was taken back and fell to the ground as the machine blew past him.

He lay down on the hard concrete and felt exhausted. He decided he could stop his journey for the night... he lay back on the warm stone and drifted off to sleep...