I sat in the backyard opposite my wife. We had very consciously put our phones away and were enjoying the strong June winds, my feet on her chair and her using my shins as a leg rest. Our daughter came out of the back door with a paper cup in one hand and a stick in the other. Wrapped around the stick was a worm.
I don’t 100% know what her plan was. I know it involved babysitting the worm overnight, and I think she planned on putting it in the cup with some grass and some water.
She had found the worm with a friend, and somehow, they agreed my daughter would be the one responsible for it, at least for that first night. As I sat in the backyard talking with my wife, I heard her little feet running down the sidewalk from her friend’s house, and she was yelling something over her shoulder, something about promising to not let it get too much sun, as if her friend (whose parents are both biologists and who definitely knows more than my daughter about how to take care of a worm) was calling down the sidewalk, giving her advice.
My wife and I didn’t want the worm in the house, so we tried to guilt her into not traumatizing another living creature by imprisoning it against its will. We suggested she either return it to her friend’s yard, where it would have a chance of finding its family again, or release it into the boxed garden in our yard, where she could keep it contained and visit it while also giving it plenty of what it loves (while also surreptitiously working for us, since worms are good for gardens).
She agreed to put it in the garden, but then realized she’d have to dig each day just to find it, and wouldn’t all that digging hurt the garden?
I remembered the terrarium kit one of my colleagues generously made for her, which still sat unused on our back porch. I suggested we try that. She’d be able to provide the worm some nice soil, surround it with some plant life, and give it some light and water; plus, she wouldn’t have to dig it up each day.
And just like that, we forgot about not wanting to imprison another creature.
My daughter and I followed my colleague’s nicely printed out instructions on how to build a healthy terrarium. After pouring in the charcoal starter and soil, establishing the hardscape, positioning the moss, sticks, rocks, and (just so) the chestnut shell, my daughter gave the moss some nice cool water. She checked to see if the worm, which she recently imprisoned on a pile of ripped up grass under an upside-down paper-cup, was still alive. Find it so, she carefully picked it up and placed it in the terrarium, giving it both a gentle ride and a smooth landing.
My wife brought dinner from the house, and we ate at the picnic table. Later, my daughter carried the worm and its terrarium up to her bedroom, then ran off and played with her friend some more. I walked down the street and brought her home as the sun set. She took a shower. As she dried off and dressed, I read to her the last pages of The Wild Robot. She made sure she put on the right underwear, and when she couldn’t find it in the drawer, she chose a very specific different pair to wear instead (her reasoning? they were the same color as the right pair).
She stood in front of her bureau and looked into the terrarium. I was reading to her a scene where a mother (the wild robot) has to say goodbye to her son (a goose) and set off alone on a new adventure.
“Hey dad,” she whispered, “I think it’s dead.”