A caterpillar believed that it was very beautiful. Every morning, it looked at its reflection in drops of dew. It carefully studied its flat face and slowly arched its fuzzy back so it could admire the bright yellow stripe along its sides. The caterpillar felt proud and thought that anyone who did not see it was missing something special.
One day, a young girl happened to be picking flowers nearby. Wanting to be admired, the caterpillar crawled onto the most beautiful flower it could find and waited. When the girl noticed it, she screamed in fear and called it ugly and scary. The caterpillar felt deeply hurt and angry. It loudly promised that from that moment on, it would never allow anyone to see it again, no matter where it was or what happened.
Determined to keep its promise, the caterpillar climbed a tall tree. It moved slowly from the trunk to large branches, then to smaller branches, onto a thin twig, and finally onto a single leaf. There, it pulled a fine thread from its body and patiently spun a cocoon to hide itself completely. The work took a long time. When it finally finished, the caterpillar felt tired, weak, and dizzy, and soon fell asleep inside the dark and warm cocoon.
After many days, the caterpillar woke up because its back felt extremely itchy. As it rubbed against the cocoon, a small hole opened, and it pushed its head outside. It almost fell to the ground. At that moment, it saw the same girl standing in the grass below and became frightened that she might see it again. The caterpillar thought that being ugly was not its fault, but breaking a promise would destroy its honor. Feeling sad and hopeless, it gently let itself fall onto the grass.
The girl looked down at it and suddenly exclaimed that it was beautiful. The caterpillar felt confused and wondered how people could be trusted when they once said it was ugly and now said it was beautiful. It looked again at its reflection in a drop of dew and was completely shocked. Its face had changed, and it now had long, delicate antennae. On its back were large, colorful wings. At that moment, it realized that it had transformed into a butterfly.
Free from its old body and its old promise, the butterfly flew happily across the meadow. As a butterfly, it no longer needed to hide, and it finally understood that real change does not come from running away, but from becoming something new.