i saw a bee!

Let's get that story challenge going, shall we? Note: the photo is real, but the story is totally fictional.

I heard three-year old Carrie squeal from the garden. I hurriedly ran towards the sound, scared that she might have tripped and scratched her smooth little knees.

"Carrie?" I called out to her from the door. She squealed again and I panicked.

I only stopped in my tracks, relieved, when I heard her giggles. "Carrie?" I called again.

"Mama! A bee!" She exclaimed excitedly. She was standing in front of my spinach plants.

I smiled and walked towards her. "Be careful, it might sting you. Is it yellow and black?" We had gone through her book on insects a dozen times and I figured out that she knew how to distinguish insects from one another.

"It's a special bee! It's blue and green and red!" She pointed to the insect resting on the top leaf.

I looked closely to see an insect with bulging red eyes and a shiny blue-green color. That was definitely not a bee.

"Carrie, that's not a bee," I told her.

"It's my special bee." She insisted. "It goes buzz, buzz, buzz, like the bee in my book."

"That's a fly," I said.

"But it doesn't fly fast, like the flies that you shoo away," she said, reminding her of the pesky flies that I swat annoyingly. She had a point because this fly was just sitting there.

When she saw my unconvinced look, she was ready with an explanation. "It's a bee with a blue dress and red shades. It's going to a costume party! It's buzzing to tell me that it's a bee."

Before I could argue with her further, the insect extended its transparent wings and took off. Carrie did the same. She extended her arms and ran around the garden, buzzing. "Party time!"

I smiled and watched my little Carrie buzz. She can figure out the difference some other time. To her, the fly was a bee. For me, she's my little bee with a mind buzzing with imagination.