The Story of a Kidnapping Butterfly Detective: Butterfly Phobia

Anabel Genao
Period 2


The man ran away and I continued to let out shrieks and cries. My sister lifted up the shopping cart and I was sitting upright once again. My mother ran back to us to see if we were alright, we were lucky to still be alive.

It all started earlier on in the day when my mother decided to take my sisters and me shopping. My eight-year old sister excitedly ran around the room. “I have to look cute everywhere I go,” she said. She slipped her legs through her blue overalls and tucked her pink shirt in the pants pulling the straps over her shoulders. My mother pulled me up under the arms onto the bed. She dressed me from head to toe in pink. It was all different shades of pink, hot neon pink for my pants, and light pink with a dark pink heart in the middle of the shirt, and light pink open-toe sandals that matched the color of my shirt. Even the ribbon in my hair was pink.

Our mother rushed us into the car and a moment later we were walking on the stone pavement towards a store. My mother held my left hand tightly and out of the corner of my eye I noticed something flying towards me. A dark brown butterfly with a white pupilled, black eyespot set in a small orange patch near the highest point of the wing and a completely brown body. When I noticed it my first instinct was to get it away from me. It flew near me and I manically swatted at it with my tiny right hand. It moved swiftly and followed me on my quest to the door. Almost at the door now, I let out a loud shriek swatting one last time and the butterfly was finally gone. I looked up at my mother happily and we made our way into the store. She hadn’t even noticed the butterfly.

We walked into the department store that to my tiny eyes was the biggest store I had ever seen. There were clothing racks everywhere you looked with all types of clothes. A bustle of people rapidly walked around not even noticing us. My mother quickly pulled me to where the shopping carts were. She picked a medium-sized red one where she slipped me in the cart seat. We quickly moved into the ocean of people all moving about in their own worlds. My mother moved over to the kids section towards a rack of winter coats that were fifty percent off. I finally noticed my older sister who made her way toward the cart with a big smile on her face. My mother had let go of the handle and she quickly took control of the cart as if it were a car. She circled around the rack quickly until my mother grabbed it and scolded her for making me dizzy and laugh loudly.

My sister huffed and puffed for a couple of minutes but all the while swiftly watching my mother. I knew that she was planning our escape and I didn’t care in the slightest. I sat fidgeting around in the cart seat and banging on the metal sides. My sister noticed my mother had moved to another clothing rack and seized the opportunity. She quickly turned the cart around the corner and I felt as though we were miles away. We walked for what seemed an eternity and I felt like we were on another planet. In reality, we had just moved towards the men’s wear department when my sister stopped suddenly, extremely interested in a pair of men’s jeans she noticed. I was rocking back in forth in my seat when I noticed something brown out of the corner of my eye. At first instinct I thought it was the butterfly. I felt a pit of nerves in my stomach. “How had the butterfly managed to follow me into the store?” I asked myself nervously. At two years old insects were the scariest thing out there for me, or so I thought. The thought of the butterfly finding me terrified me.

I finally turned my head and noticed it was no butterfly moving towards us. This was bigger, much, much bigger. It was a Caucasian man that appeared to be in his mid-forties. The first thing my eyes shifted to was his disgustingly yellow teeth that were slightly showing with the smirk he had growing on his face. I then looked down at his feet and noticed he was wearing extremely torn up sandals that didn’t even look like they belonged to him. The tips of his big toes hung off wear the sandals ended in the front and he had extremely long toenails, which even from a distance had a distinct color of orange-yellow. My eyes moved up and I saw no pants. If he was wearing pants they were not visible to the naked eyes. His legs were covered by a very long, light brown, jacket he had on. It had a belt that tied in the front to keep it closed. He had a matching light brown hat on that dipped over the front of his head covering the top of his face. He looked like one of those old detectives in one of those black and white movies, everything above his feet did. When I looked at his eyes, I froze. He had the darkest, smallest, and beadiest eyes you could ever imagine. Like the frightening eyes of a dreadful butterfly or another insect. And right under his right eye, near his nose was a black dot the size of a pupil. It was then I knew I really had to be worried. He had to be some sort of insect underneath all that skin. The way he smirked at me and my sister, I knew he had to be swatted away.

My sister hadn’t noticed him yet, but I started fidgeting around in my seat. I waved my arms around as if I were swatting at invisible bugs. I looked towards the creature and he was pretty close now. My sister finally noticed him when she heard something near us. Being close to us he had started breathing heavily. He stared at my sister looking at him and rubbed his sweaty hands together. He smiled at us and moved closer. I could practically feel my sister’s heart beating, I knew she was nervous. He opened his arms wide and it looked like big brown wings flying toward us. It was then my sister knew she had to get away.

She quickly turned her body and the cart at the same time. The rapid switch of angles proved too much for the old rusty wheels on the shopping cart, and my sister lost control. The cart and I went crashing down to the floor and it fell on its side. I amazingly remained in the seat untouched. But it was then, as if on cue I knew to start letting out shrieks and crying. Other people finally started to look over and notice us. Women were making their way over to come help me. The man turned erratic and jumpy and was gone in a flash. My sister turned the cart upright and I continued to cry from all the scariness that had happened in one trip. I was extremely relieved inside though. I had managed to get rid of two icky butterflies in one day.