This is Ria. Welcome to Little Stories for Tiny People. The other day, I was touring a lollipop factory,

when I ran into an old friend of mine I used to work with at a weave your own

shoelaces shop, it's not there anymore. I guess no one wants to put in the time and effort to weave

their own shoelaces these days. Anyway, my friend was filling me in on all the interesting

things he'd done since the shop closed down when I noticed a beetle on his

jacket. It was a large beetle. And just as I was about to interrupt my friend's story to tell him about it,

the beetle flew off his lapel and landed on my shoelace, which, truth be told, I did not weave myself.

Anyway, as I stared down at the large beetle who promptly took flight,

buzzing up and away into the lollipop factory, a very specific thought popped into my head.

What has Mr. Beetle been up to?

I apologized to my friend, promised to send him a fruit basket, and literally ran home to write this story. Let's hear it. It's called Mr. Beetle

branches out. Take it away, Declan. Remember, there are no pictures. You'll have to imagine the pictures

in your mind. You can imagine them however you want. Okay, here we go.

It was a mild Wednesday evening on the 25th branch, and old Mr. Beetle, legendary bootmaker, turned a late-in-life storyteller,

made his way, merrily, oh so merrily, to the spot on the other end of the branch,

where he hosted his weekly Wednesday night story time for young bugs. Mr. Beetle was in such good spirits.

He even hummed as he skittered along. You see, a storm had rumbled through the forest just that morning,

a ferocious, thunderous storm that had shaken the trees and stripped off the weakest

leaves from the branches. But it had passed. The forest always twinkled after a storm, and not only

that, Mr. Beetle had gotten past another storm, a veritable storm of problems,

affecting his story time over the last few weeks.

For one thing, the young bugs in his audience had been bringing more and more disruptive items to story time.

...