Isaiah could live as long as a human. (Ninety
years at the average, he was six now). Isaiah ate like a human. (His favorite
food was pears). Isaiah was the size of a human and could talk like a
human. He wore clothes and lived in a
house like a human. He even went to
school like a human. But the truth was, Isaiah was a beetle. His mother, Kelly, was a beetle. His father,
Dana, was a beetle. His eleven- and –a – half – year – old older sister, Eliza,
was a beetle. He even had a beautiful beetle girlfriend, seven- year- old
Ruthie Georgia. Isaiah lived in a
neighborhood called Beetlecottage Home.
Isaiah was a shiny jet-black rhino beetle who liked to wear a red shirt
with a fire engine on it and denim shorts.
Ruthie Georgia was a pale pink rhino beetle who wore a hot pink shirt
and a lavender tutu.
“What are you doing?” I asked
as I stepped into the garage. I’m a
beetle, so it was more like scuttling. “Taking apart the rusty canoe,” replied
Daddy. “Can I help?” I said in a
helpless voice so that Daddy would loose his head in sympathy and give in. But it didn’t work. “No, there are too many
sharp things in the garage right now,” said Daddy. I stuck out my lower lip
and whined. But Daddy wasn’t listening.
That night I tiptoed into
Eliza’s room. The yellow rhino beetle with a violet dot on her back, my sister
Eliza, stirred in her sleep. I nicely woke her up. It would have been fun to
sit on her head and make her scream, but Mommy or Daddy would have heard. Where
was I? Oh, yes, I nicely woke her up. “Eliza, I’ll shake out my piggy bank for
you if you will steal the old canoe parts in the garage,” I said.
A few minutes later, I was in
my room with an empty piggy bank and some rusty parts. I heard beetsteps
(footsteps in beetle language) coming. I shoved the parts into my suitcase all
ready and packed for our ship to England just in the nick of time.
“Hole in the bow! Hole in the
bow!” we heard the captain shouting from the deck of our ship one week
later. “Mommy, I stole Daddy’s boat
parts and they’re in my suitcase!” I said, worried that I would be scolded. But
Mommy was far too afraid of our sinking ship to scold me.
Hours later, the boat parts from
my suitcase were back together again and us and our suitcases and the captain
had rowed ourselves back to harbor in the rusty canoe .
