The Worm Whisperer by Betty Hicks

Author:Betty Hicks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press

12 FRASS IS FREAKY

Monday morning, Ellis woke up early.

“Tink,” he called, “how’d you sleep? You still scared?”

Ellis lifted the lid on her box. Tink wasn’t there. He lifted one of the rocks and spotted her.

She flinched and shrank up as if she’d been caught with no clothes on. Then she crawled under a leaf.

“Sorry,” said Ellis. “Look, today’s going to be great. You’ll see. Right now I’m going to clean your caterpillar castle.” It was full of the blobs again.

What if he took some of it to school and passed it around as snack food? Munch on a lunch with extra crunch. That would be funny.

Ellis picked up all of Tink’s blobs and dropped them into a Baggie. Then he placed fresh food in her box.

She raised herself as if she wanted to be picked up.

Ellis wished he could take her to school, but no way. He hadn’t forgotten church and Sunday school. Looking after her had proven downright dangerous.

“You’re safer here,” he said. “And I’ll be back this afternoon. Then you can show me how fast you are.”

Tink swiveled her head in every direction. Ellis got a jittery feeling in his chest—Tink was nervous.

“No cat,” he promised.

Tink bobbed her head.

Ellis stroked her back, hummed two bars of “This Little Light of Mine,” and then he gently closed the lid.

* * *

As soon as Ellis got to school, he bolted for Mr. Turnmire’s giant dictionary. He flipped through the f’s, looking for frass. And there it was:

frass: insect refuse. Excrement left behind by an insect or insect larvae.

The only word he understood was insect. So he looked up refuse, and discovered that it meant “garbage.” Insect garbage? Tink had garbage?

He didn’t understand. So he looked up excrement.

excrement: the body’s solid waste matter, composed of undigested food and bacteria.

It was poop!

This, thought Ellis, is the best show-and-tell ever.

Ellis slid into his seat and slipped the Baggie into his desk drawer. Mr. Turnmire was writing the day’s vocabulary word on the board:

humanitarian

“Who can tell me what that means?” Mr. Turnmire underlined the word.

“Mr. Turnmire!” Ellis waved his hand energetically. “Can we have show-and-tell now?”

“Not yet.”

“My show-and-tell is the best vocabulary word you’ve ever heard!”

“This is the vocabulary word,” said Mr. Turnmire, pointing again. “Can you tell me what it means?”

Ellis studied the word. He sounded it out slowly in his head. Hu - man - i - tar - ian. He tried it another way. Human - i - tarian. “I know!” he said.

Mr. Turnmire motioned for him to answer.

“It’s a person who eats humans,” said Ellis.

Mr. Turnmire stared, then shook his head. “No, Ellis. A cannibal eats humans. A humanitarian helps them.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” said Ellis.

Mr. Turnmire raised an eyebrow.

“If a vegetarian eats vegetables,” said Ellis, squinting to make his face look serious, “then a humanitarian must eat humans.”

The whole class laughed.

Ellis grinned.

Mr. Turnmire sighed and asked everyone to get out their books for free reading time.

Ellis opened up All About Ants. Alice sat across from him. She was reading a book in the same series, All About Butterflies and Moths.

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