Coco was a little caterpillar with black, white and orange polka dots. She lived in a cheerful little garden. Coco loved eating leaves. But what she loved even more was,  hanging. She hung from leaves. She hung from branches. She hung from twigs. Once, she even hung from a tiny stem that was hardly bigger than her nose.

“Why do you hang all the time?” asked Mili the ladybug. “Why don’t you crawl like the other caterpillars?”

“Because it is fun!” said Coco. And with that, she jumped onto a flower.

One morning, Coco found a big, sturdy branch.

“This is the best branch ever!” she announced.

She curled herself around it and hung upside down. Just then, the wind began to blow.

Whoooosh! 

Coco swung to the left. Then to the right. Then round and round.

“Wheeeee!” she cried.

The flowers bobbed. The leaves danced. The bees went, “Buzz, buzz!” Suddenly, Coco slipped! Down she went. She bounced off a leaf, bumped into a flower, and landed right on the edge of a flowerpot. Coco looked down. There, just below her, was a prickly cactus.

“Uh-oh!”

She wiggled her way along the edge of the pot. Wiggle, wiggle. She bounced safely onto the pot of the cactus.

Mili burst out laughing. “You are a swinging caterpillar!”

Coco giggled. “That was fun!”

Then she looked at the cactus.

“Well… not all of it!”

Mili shook her head, still laughing.

“You need a little more practice.”

Coco nodded. “You are right.”

The next day, Coco found a small twig. She held it tightly.

“Wheeee!”

She swung gently from side to side. Mili clapped her tiny hands.

“You are getting better!”

Coco laughed. A few days later, Coco found a nice, sturdy branch beside a bunch of tall green leaves.

“This one looks just right,” she said.

She curled herself around it and hung upside down. The breeze came again.

Whoooosh!

Coco swung to the left. Then to the right. But this time, she did not fall.

“I did it!” she shouted.

Mili clapped. The butterflies fluttered past. The bees buzzed. Even the sleepy garden snail lifted his head to see what was happening.

Coco grinned. “I am a caterpillar,” she said, “ I am getting very good at hanging in there!”

From that day on, whenever the garden breeze began to blow, everyone knew where to look. Up in the branches, there was Coco, swinging happily upside down, while the leaves danced below her.

Photographs and story by Prerna jain.