The Hole in the Butterfly Net

For the first six weeks of term, Elan was the person who asked for help. She asked the older students where the compost bins were kept. She asked the technician how to read the humidity dials. She asked a second-year girl, twice, how the misting system worked, and twice she nodded as if she understood.

The college greenhouse was the best place on the campus, and also the most confusing. It was a long glass building with three climates under one roof. The first room was dry and sandy, and the second was cool and green. The third was a tropical house, so warm and wet that your glasses fogged the moment you stepped inside.

On a Thursday afternoon, with the lecture hall empty and the corridors almost silent, Elan went to the tropical house to check the water trays. She was alone, which was unusual. She was also in a good mood. On Monday the technician had taught her a skill she could use: how to mend a torn net with a needle and strong green thread.

She had practised on a spare piece of shade cloth for an hour. The knot was a small one, a tight loop that looked like nothing and held like iron. She had been waiting for a chance to show someone, and so far nobody had asked.

At the far end of the tropical house, between the banana plants and the glass wall, she found a boy she had never seen before.

He was tall and thin, with a wet fringe stuck to his forehead. He was holding a long-handled net above his head like a man trying to touch the ceiling. In front of him a blue butterfly the size of a playing card drifted in lazy circles. Every time he swung, it slid sideways, and every time he missed, he said a short word in a language that Elan did not know.

"Excuse me," she said. "Can I help?"

"Please do not come closer," the boy said, without turning. "It is a very expensive butterfly. I mean, it is not expensive for me. It is expensive for the college. I am an exchange student, and I borrowed the net from the office. They told me this one is the last of its kind in the building."

"Then I think you should lower the net," Elan said, "and look at it."

He lowered the net. The butterfly floated down gently and settled on a leaf, its wings opening and closing like a slow book. In the middle of the net, where the mesh should have been, there was a hole about the size of a coin.

"Oh," the boy said.

"It went straight through it," Elan said. "Twice. I watched from the door."

He looked at the hole. Then he looked at her, and she saw that he was trying very hard not to laugh.

"My name is Hendrik," he said. "I was told it would be an easy job."

"I am Elan," she said. "And I know exactly how to fix that."

It was a strange sentence for her to say. She had never said anything like it in this building. She felt her voice rise a little at the end, as if she were asking a question, and she tried to straighten it.

"Hold the net still," she said, and she took the needle and thread from the pocket of her apron.

Hendrik held the net as if it were a sleeping animal. Elan worked at the edge of the hole, drawing the loose mesh together with quick small stitches. She showed him how each knot closed on itself and locked. He leaned in to watch. His shoulder was a few centimetres from hers, and she noticed that he smelled faintly of rubber boots and oranges.

"You are very fast," he said.

"I am very new," she said. "I learned this on Monday. Before that, I could not have mended a sock."

"Then you are the best teacher I have ever had," Hendrik said. "And you have taught me for two minutes."

She bent her head so that he could not see her face, and she pulled the last knot tight. When she bit the thread, it made a tiny, satisfying click.

"There," she said. "It will hold."

But the butterfly had moved while they worked. It was resting on a high stem now, well out of reach. It fanned its blue wings in the glow of the lamps with the calm of a creature that had nowhere to be.

"Now what?" Hendrik asked. "I can jump, but I will probably fall into the banana plant."

"We do not chase it," Elan said. "Chasing makes it nervous. The technician told me that butterflies come for sweet things." She looked around the room, then pointed to his jacket. "You have an orange in your pocket. I can smell it."

Hendrik pulled out the fruit as if he were surprised to find it there. "It was my lunch," he said. "I forgot to eat it."

"Good. Cut it in half."

They laid the two halves on a clean saucer from the staff cupboard and set it on the bench beside the water trays. Then they stood back, side by side, and waited. The room was quiet except for the dripping of the leaves. Elan kept the net low and steady in her hand. To her surprise, Hendrik stayed completely still, his arms folded and his eyes on the saucer.

It took four minutes. The blue butterfly lifted from its stem, circled once, twice, and dropped lightly onto the orange. Its long tongue uncurled like a tiny watch spring. Elan raised the net slowly, with the patience of someone who had learned from a boy's mistake. She brought it down over the saucer in a single soft movement.

The butterfly rose inside the mesh and bumped against it, and the mended hole stayed closed.

"We did it," Hendrik said. He covered his mouth with his hand, and she saw that his eyes were bright. "We did it. You did it."

"We," Elan said firmly. "You held the net."

They carried the net carefully to the display cage at the end of the room. Hendrik opened the little door, and the butterfly slipped inside. It circled the plants, found a branch and settled. They both leaned on the glass, shoulder to shoulder, and watched it for a long time.

"Nobody has ever thanked me for anything here," Elan said at last. She was surprised to hear herself say it. "I am the one who always asks."

"Then I will thank you properly," Hendrik said. "I will tell the office that the net was broken before I borrowed it, and that the student who fixed it is a genius."

"I am not a genius. I only know one knot."

"It is a very good knot." He glanced at the thread in her hand, then back at her. He smiled the slow, lopsided smile of someone who had just remembered something funny. "You know, it is a good thing the net had a hole."