The Search for Shiny Things: Part 21

"Don't move!" said the moth's voice.

"I am decidedly stationary," said the teddy and looked around.

"You can't see me now, but if you carefully take a step to the right..."

The teddy lifted one paw. Then the pearly eyes glittered. "You mean your right," the teddy bear said, remembering the moth's terrible sense of direction. And carefully it lifted the other paw and stepped away from the moth. "I'm sorry for dropping that green puddle on you."

"How did you know I am green?" asked the moth, perplexed.

"I can see you right there," said the teddy bear.

Tentatively the moth took a few steps over into a blue puddle. "What color am I now?" asked the moth.

"Blue," said the teddy. "Why are you asking such things, I am a teddy bear, not blind."

"But how can you see me? No one can see me when I take the color of the walls nearby."

"It seems I can," said the teddy bear. "And you should take a few steps to the left into that pink, I think I quite like it, despite being a teddy bear. No, the other left."

Tiredness forgotten, they played a game for a while, skipping around the house trying one color, then the other. Then the moth took up some blue paint and made a checkered pattern on a yellow puddle, and pop, the moth was checkered blue and yellow. It snapped its wings in delight.

"I can be any color and pattern I want, you can always see me and will never step on me," said the moth. "This is wonderful!"

The teddy looked over their colorful house and nodded to itself, satisfied. "I helped," the teddy declared.

The moth appeared to ignore that statement, and instead continued to make patterns and color combinations. Feeling that perhaps all work that a teddy could do was done, the teddy bear retired to bed, and fell immediately into such a deep, dreamless sleep as only teddies could.