Flash design of a blue-haired caterpillar in a red scarf above a peach banner reading 'ello!, drawn with bold outlines.

Caterpillar in a red scarf with banner

Neo-trad · Colour · Flash

A cartoon caterpillar with a cream face, large brown eyes and blue tufts of hair peeks over a peach banner that reads 'ello!. Its body is shaded in pale blue with darker blue speckles, and it wears a red-orange scarf. Bold black outlines and a plain grey background make the design easy to read.

Neo-trad Banner Scarf Lettering Cartoon character

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The caterpillar had been greeting the village since spring, from the top of the lychgate, and nobody had worked out how to stop him. Mrs Oddie, who ran the post office out of her front room, timed her walks to avoid the gate. "'Ello!" he would call, every single time, his blue tufts bouncing like a wig at a wedding, and Mrs Oddie would hurry past with her eyes fixed on her shoes.

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Then came the wet October when the lane flooded and two ewes wandered into the churchyard. Mrs Oddie, stuck at the gate with a barrow of parcels and a cold coming on, had no escape from the greeting. She snapped that she had no time for chirpy vermin. The caterpillar only tilted his head and said it again, softer, as if the word were the one thing he owned that wouldn't get wet.

She stopped. Something in the way he said it reminded her of Arthur, who had said 'ello to every stranger on the number nine bus for forty years and been thanked by none of them. She hadn't said it back to anyone since the funeral. "'Ello," she muttered, and the caterpillar's whole body rippled with delight, his red scarf rippling with it.

The next morning she was at the gate two minutes early with a flask of tea. The caterpillar was already wrapped twice round the iron post in Arthur's old scarf, far too long and smelling of mothballs. "Morning, Mrs Oddie," he said. She poured him a cup, held the saucer under his chin, and, for the first time in months, found she had no idea which of them had been waiting for the other.