Vegetables are healthy, as every adult will tell you. But what if you bring home a little animal from the store along with your vegetables? That’s what happened to Caroline recently. Her mother went to the store to shop. Of course, she mainly bought lots of vegetables so that Caroline would be healthy and strong.
When her mom came home, she put the bags on the table and started unpacking. She took out milk, carrots, and then lots of different kinds of lettuce. But something was moving on one of the lettuce heads. Something tiny.
Caroline carefully took the lettuce leaf in her palm and asked her mom, “Mom, what did you buy with that lettuce?” “What is it?” asked her mother and began to examine the leaf Caroline was holding in her hand. When she looked closely, she saw a small snail. It was hidden in its shell and didn’t move.
“Oh, what little creature do we have here?” smiled her mother. “Mom, Mom, let’s keep it,” Caroline began to beg. “But sweetheart, we don’t even know how to take care of it,” Mom objected. She didn’t really like the idea of having such a pet at home.
“Mom, I’ll find everything on the internet. I’ll read up on how to take care of it. As soon as it grows up, we’ll let it go. Mom, please,” Caroline continued to beg. After a while, her mother agreed, so Caroline set about studying. She read about what was best for a snail, what its home should look like, and what it needed to eat. When she had read everything, she made a little house for it in a box she had for playing. She put leaves and everything else it needed in there.
She watched and observed it every day. After a while, the snail became curious, crawled out of its shell, and looked around. Caroline couldn’t take her eyes off it. She would watch it look around, move, and reach for the leaves that she prepared for it.
A few months later, Caroline came to her mother and said sadly, “Mom, the time has come. The snail has grown up, and we have to let him go so he can be happy.” “Okay, sweetheart, I’m so glad you’ve made your decision and that you understand what’s best for him,” her mother praised her daughter.
And so one day they took the box, went to the forest by the stream, and came across a pile of juicy leaves. They tilted the box so that the snail could come out on its own. The little animal slowly crawled out of its shell and began to wriggle out of the box. Caroline shed a tear as she saw her snail moving away.
And then something unexpected happened. After a moment, the snail stopped. It turned around and looked at Caroline. It was as if it was wondering why she was so sad. It looked at the new life in the wild that lay before it. And then it looked back at the little girl who had taken such good care of it. And at that moment, it started running. Well, the snail thought he was running, but he was just crawling slowly. But where to? Back to Caroline. He crawled onto her hand and settled down comfortably. He wanted to show her that he didn’t want to leave her. Her mother and Caroline stared at him, not understanding. But the little girl wiped away her tears of joy.
“Mom, Mom, he wants to stay with us. That means he had a good time with us and that he likes it here,” Caroline exclaimed enthusiastically. “Probably yes, sweetie, you’re probably right. This is a reward for caring about what’s best for him and making sure he had it. We’ll keep him,” smiled her mother. The two of them happily carried the box with the snail home. And Caroline was very glad that she had taken the time to read up on everything so that the snail would have the best possible life with them. It had paid off.