Cinder's Forge Fire

Cinder was not rescued in the traditional sense, but 'adopted' from a supplier as a giant mealworm (larva of the darkling beetle Zophobas morio) for a classroom life cycle unit. He was huge—over two inches long—and lived in a terrarium with bran and vegetables. The children named him and watched, week by week, as he eventually pupated and emerged as a massive, black beetle. His slow, deliberate movements were a lesson in a different pace of life. The terrarium is empty now, missing the rustle of his movement through the bran, the fascinating, alien process of his molts, and the final, miraculous emergence of the beetle.