Me and the boys found her on the valley floor, dappled in the leaf-light, droplets of dew beginning to dribble down her cheek. It was a cool June morning, not too cold to be out and about, but still too early for the flies, so me and the boys had the place to ourselves.
Less than a mile away her parents hadn’t slept, and they were beginning their second leaden hearted day questioning themselves – had her seventeen years of life really come to nothing ?
To a beetle though, nothing is nothing. We got to work.