SOPHIE AND NICHOLAS FUDGE

Nicholas’ eyes are still bright from the enthusiasm of the lesson he had just finished giving me when I snapped the picture of him and his sister Sophie. Yesterday I found a green beetle which I knew immediately that I must bring to Nicholas because he is passionate about bugs, especially beetles, most especially green beetles; and he knows a lot about them. He told me about beetles, with excitement that I’ve always liked when I see it in a teacher; and he knew exactly what I should know about this particular beetle. He told me earnestly why it is called a green fig beetle. “When the beetle is looking for food, as all beetles must do, it is hoping to find rotting fruit. If it can’t find rotting fruit; and it finds fruit that is not rotting, it will eat that...reluctantly, because what it wants more than anything is rotting fruit.” Nicholas checked my eyes constantly as he was telling me to see if I was really getting it. He told me a couple of times just to make sure.
If Nicholas decides someday to be a teacher who gets paid in something besides beetles for teaching, he will make a very good one.