2 STREAM BUGS

CHAPTER 2 STREAM BUGS Sassafras ran by my heels and meowed up at me. I could tell that he was especially excited to head to the stream today after all my talk of bug-hunting. "If you promise not to eat them, I'll show you

some of my favorite stream bugs," I told him. Sassafras tilted his head to the side, like he was considering my offer. I really hoped he could resist gobbling up the poor stream bugs. Whenever he spies a bug, his tail gets all twitchy. He's always trying to eat them, and I'm always trying to save them! "You'll be able to see their neat little gills flutter like hummingbird wings. It's pretty cool, Sassafras. The mayfly babies have seven rows of gills down the sides of their bodies. They beat up and down to move the water around and grab teeny tiny bubbles of air out of the water." I took a deep breath. "I do like having lungs, but sometimes I wish I had gills so I could live underwater. Don't you?" Sassafras' eyes got big. He was probably thinking of all the bugs he'd get to eat if he could breathe underwater. When we got to the stream, I set all of my supplies on the sandy shore. Today was nice and warm. A perfect day to hunt for stream bugs. The water sparkled as the sun reflected off the ripples in the stream. Wait a minute. Was part of the stream

sparkling in rainbow colors? I took a few steps closer and squinted in the sunlight. But I couldn't see the rainbow anymore. "Huh. I'm so desperate to find magic today, I guess I'm seeing things!" I said to Sassafras. He peered up at me and blinked. I looked one more time, but the stream seemed normal again. I shrugged and took off my shoes, rolled up my pants, and grabbed my underwater viewer. "It's bug time!" I exclaimed as I marched into the stream. Sassafras must have been distracted by the thought of bugs because he followed me. But when the tip of his front paw touched the stream water, he jumped sideways and shook his paw like crazy! He squeezed his eyes closed tight and jumped around a bunch more with his ears flat against his head. I couldn't help but laugh as he flipped and flopped about. Sassafras seriously hates getting wet. Apparently even more than he loves eating bugs. Sassafras climbed a nearby tree and scowled down at me.

I grabbed the little tub I'd brought and filled it with some stream water. "I'll put the mayfly babies in here, Sassafras. That way I can bring them on shore to show you. But remember. No eating!" I pressed the plastic-wrapped side of my underwater viewer into the water and peered through the tube. I could see the bottom of the stream really clearly. Ooh, a rock as big as Sassafras' head! There ought to be at least five or six stream bugs clinging to the bottom of that one. I flipped it over and saw... nothing? Huh. That was weird. The rock was perfect for stream bugs! I shrugged and used my underwater viewer to find another big rock. No bugs.

"What is going on?" I muttered. I investigated rock after rock after rock, but I couldn't find a single mayfly baby. I did, however, find a lot of algae. It was cold and slimy, and I had to keep flicking my hands to get it off. I also found some wormlike things oozing along the bottoms of the rocks. I poked at them a little, but they weren't as interesting to watch as my fluttering, gilled mayfly babies.

"Sassafras? Do you think the mayfly babies somehow turned into adult mayflies all at once?" I called up to him. "Mayflies start as eggs, and then the eggs hatch underwater and the little mayfly babies crawl out. They live in the stream for a long time until they get bigger and shed their skin." I shivered. The shedding skin thing always kind of freaked me out. "When they get rid of their skin at the top of the water, they crawl out, and boom — they have wings. Maybe they did that all at once or something?" I looked around and didn't see any flying bugs. But then again, mayfly adults only live for a day or so, which is so unfair. If I lived all my life underwater and woke up with wings one day, I'd want more than one day to fly around. "OK, fine. Maybe all the mayfly babies have flown away. I'll just find you a caddisfly baby, Sassafras. They are also super cool. You can't really see their gills, but they build homes on their backs out of mud and rocks or leaves or twigs, and then they can hide inside like a hermit crab hides inside its shell."