When school had ended for the day, and Dinky could go out to play, she breathed in deep and set her mind on all the critters she might find.
It was so fun to make up little rhymes in her head. Maybe she’d get a cutie mark in poetry, but on her walks home, she always enjoyed searching out snakes and bugs and all the other things that most of her friends shrieked and ran away from.
“Gonna look for some worms?” Lily Longsocks remarked as they emerged into the sunlight, but unlike a couple of years ago, her classmates didn’t ask such things with rolling eyes and breath-filled sighs. They didn’t want to help, either, but at least they didn’t make fun of her.
“Whatever I see!” Dinky declared, which was precisely the way to deal with Mother Nature. She usually gave you what you wanted when you didn’t sound too much like you wanted it.
So as she turned onto the stone-bordered path that looped the lovely long languoring way around town, she hop-pranced to a nice reliable flat rock just a hoof’s length into the forest’s shadows. She pried up the edge of it, and out came a scuttling stampede of centipedes! Hundreds of legs’ worth (which probably only meant five or six of them), and she kept a little distance, since their stings could be dangerous, but what a nice color they had, and a fun start to her walk home.
She gently set the rock down, just in case any stragglers hadn’t left their hiding place, and she didn’t want to squish them.
Another quick jog further out, where shrubs and bushes liked to sprout, and trying to remain unseen, a mantis in a lustrous green!
“Hello,” Dinky said, with a neat nod, but it continued leaning this way and that in the swirl-breeze, intent on being mistaken for a leaf as much as possible. According to Princess Twilight, when she came to give a talk to the class (one that probably only Snails also enjoyed… and maybe Scootaloo and Apple Bloom), a mantis had its ear in the middle of its chest!
Well, she’d already disturbed the centipedes enough, so she’d leave the mantis to its guard post. With any luck, it’d keep the mosquitoes at bay, the itching and scratching and buzz far away.
Out of the corner of her eye, a flash of movement—she walked in the direction she’d seen it, but it took peering around and an annoying amount of squinting to finally see it: a frog!
Nice and emerald, with sapphire stripes on its sides and ruby eyes. She’d better not let Miss Rarity see it, or it’d get gobbled up into a fashion job. And knowing that nasty cat of hers, quite possibly gobbled up for real.
Wait! Did it just wink at her? She looked again and risked approaching closer so she didn’t have to squint anymore, and yes! One eye popped down, flush with the top of its head, then back up again. What was it trying to tell her?
Then it hopped off the fog-gray tree bark, took three long leaps up the path, glanced back, and winked again.
“Yes sir, Mister Frog!” Dinky said with a salute. It clearly had something intriguing to show her.
She tried so hard to keep a slow pace so that it wouldn’t feel like a chase. Left and right it hopped on its way, then stop and plop, a little delay.
And each time, a fascinating thing to see! A scarlet snake carefully coiled, huffing a hiss, a dragonfly darting and waggling its wings, a small spider spinning silken strands seamlessly. Yet she could never linger longer, the frog a-blink with a wink and urging her onward. Where to? Some stupendous super-bug? She’d have to tell Mommy about it, except Mommy always shifted uncomfortably when Dinky described the details of her buggy buddies.
But then the frog leapt into the river!
Swimmy, shimmy, ripples striding out from its feet, and Dinky rushed along the bank to keep up. It strayed further and further from land, and if it got all the way across, she’d lose track of it. But as she rounded a bend in the path, a bridge sprung into view. There, on one of the broad stones lining the top of its wall sat the frog, winking at her again.
Dinky rushed to the other side but stopped as the frog hustled through the rustled grass of a cottage. She’d wandered into someone’s yard! She hadn’t even recognized the way to Miss Fluttershy’s house.
More than that, Miss Fluttershy stood right in the middle of a vegetable garden, and the frog bounded up to sit on her nose, lurched and leaped and perched and peeped.
For a moment, Dinky froze. She didn’t want to intrude. The bees making honey, the air soft and sunny—except for that bunny. He was glaring at her.
“Yes, Kermit?” Fluttershy said to its high-pitched croak, then looked up. “Oh, hello, Dinky!”
“Hi, Miss Fluttershy! Your frog kept winking at me, so I thought it had something to show me.”
Kermit peeped again, and Miss Fluttershy giggled. “He only has one eye, so he can’t help but wink,” she said. Then an identical frog hopped over and blinked both eyes at once. “That’s his best friend, Michigan. And Kermit tells me you like bugs.”
Dinky nodded vigorously. “Oh yes! The other foals at school think it’s weird, but there are so many cool ones!”
Miss Fluttershy bent low, and Kermit chirped in her ear. “Hm? Oh, you think so? Then yes, let’s ask her.” She turned to Dinky. “I have some very lovely rotten logs out back, and I bet we could find lots of interesting bugs. The rhinoceros beetles laid eggs there a few years ago. The young ones might be digging their way out now.”
“I’d love to! Thanks, Kermit!” Dinky said, and he winked back. This time, Michigan winked, too.
