Biff concluded

Much to my relief, when my daughter opened the butterfly jar this morning, Biff was still alive. I had dreamed that he had died overnight; she dreamed that he lived a long and happy life in our churchyard. Neither of our dreams would come true...

As with yesterday, Biff was quite happy to sit on my daughter's finger and enjoy her warmth. When he did flutter off, he flew into the window sill, so we set that up as our new butterfly nursery: more LEGO flowers with sugar water, but this time I added halves of an orange that was miraculously still in the fridge a week into quarantine. The orange went down a thousand times better than our false flowers. As usual, low effort paid off.

(We also discovered some dead flies and wasps as we cleared out the lantern that had been in the windowsill. This perhaps was not the right tone for a butterfly nursery, but we hoped Biff wasn't sentient enough to notice.)

 

That was how he spent the morning. We didn't worry about a barrier to keep him from flying around the house: I figured that the light contrast would keep him in the windowsill, and he didn't seem particularly fluttery anyway. My daughter was twitchier and wanted to put him back in the jar, but I read that cabbage whites like to fly and are prone to damaging their wings if they're kept in a confined space, so we left him loose.

Every now and then the children came and held him on their fingers; the rest of the time he sat on an orange or the window. For about half an hour, he was rechristened Mary, as we tried to figure out his gender: cabbage white males have one spot on their wing and females have two. From the underside, his wings appeared to have two spots, but when we finally caught them open, there was just one.

The children have finished their self-isolation period, though I'm still in quarantine, so the plan was for them to take him down to the churchyard after lunch. There are a lot of wildflowers there, and he'd have an afternoon of intermittent sunshine to bask, drink and make himself at home. My daughter grew increasingly anxious the closer we got to lunch and finally decided she was just going to take him (my son would rather have had lunch first). Biff was put back into his jar for the five minute walk and they set off.

In the churchyard, they found a sunny patch of primroses for Biff. They returned with an empty jar, a few photographs, and—in my daughter's case—floods of tears.

As we made lunch, I tried to console her. "You should go and check on him this afternoon. See if he's still there. If he isn't still there, that's a good thing. If he is and he doesn't look like he's doing too well, you could always bring him home for another night."

Her head whipped up: "We could bring him home?"

I had said too much, but it was too late to backtrack. "If he's not moving from where you left him, then... yes..."

"I'm going to check on him right now!"

I had been thinking we'd wait two hours instead of 30 minutes, but she was already racing out the door. She did not take the jar with her, so I decided not to worry over much.

I had reckoned without her resolve. Ten minutes later, she came back through the door with Biff on her arm. "I had to bring him home! He hopped on me and wouldn't come off again!"

Her story was that he had been right where she left him, he climbed readily back onto her finger and showed no interest in coming off again. As she walked out of the church-gate, he flew onto her head and then back down to her arm. Now, I would not put it past my daughter to cover him with her hand on the way home, but it was a five minute walk with two gates to open as she went, not to mention our front door.

It looked worryingly like we had a domesticated butterfly on our hands (literally).

Back in the window Biff went, and I told my daughter we could keep him if he was happy staying. However, we would also take him outside and give him every opportunity to fly off if he wanted to.

So it was that the children took Biff outside about an hour later, and finally he discovered a zest for flight. He fluttered over the fence, into the neighbour's garden and out of our lives... presumably for good.

The children spent about fifteen minutes peering forlornly through the gaps in the fence, trying to get a glimpse of him. I said we should leave the oranges on the back wall, so if he was hanging around, he could find a source of food... and I may or may not have watched those oranges hopefully for the rest of the afternoon.

My daughter has coped admirably with Biff's rehabilitation: we still have dozens more chrysalises on the back wall and she's already picked out the one she wants for her next pet butterfly...

Luna's story, coming soon! (Release date TBC.)