“It was,” he replied, still smiling. “The sort of person to keep away from. You’re probably very young still?”
“Well,” observed Maya, “I shouldn’t say I was—exactly. I’ve been through a great deal. But that was the first specimen of the kind I had ever come across. Can you imagine doing such a thing?”
The butterfly had to laugh again.
“You see,” he explained, “stink-bugs like to keep to themselves. They are not very popular, so they use the odoriferous drop to make people take notice of them. We’d probably soon forget the fact of their existence if it were not for the drop: it serves as a reminder. And they want to be remembered, no matter how.”
“How lovely, how exquisitely lovely your wings are,” said Maya. “So delicate and white. May I introduce myself? Maya, of the nation of bees.”
The butterfly laid his wings together to look like only one wing standing straight up in the air. He gave a slight bow.
“Fred,” he said laconically.
Maya couldn’t gaze her fill.
“Fly a little,” she asked.