He made a terrible face at the first taste.
He chewed.
He swallowed.
The class cheered.
Nora walked home from school alone that day, hurrying to greet Cassidy, who came to the door now to meet her. The trees that had been in blossom a few weeks ago were in full leaf. The stiff, warm breeze would have ruffled her hair, but it was kept neat in her Emma-made braid.
Emma’s friendship bracelet clung in tatters to Nora’s wrist, hanging by one last thread. Nora rubbed it gently, remembering the day Emma had fastened it on. Nora had wanted to use it to wish Emma would give up on her as a project. But she had never been Emma’s project at all; she had just been Emma’s friend.
At that moment, the final frayed thread gave way. The bracelet slipped off, instantly carried by a gust of wind, sailing away toward the bare dirt of a vacant lot a block from Nora’s house.
Let it go, Nora told herself.
Instead, she dashed after it.
She had trouble seeing where it had blown, but then she spied it, snagged on a weed. Nora picked it up and tucked it safely into her pocket.
Then her eyes glimpsed a small mound of dirt a few feet away.
Nora recognized the shape of that mound.
It was an anthill.
Slowly, Nora approached. Yes, ants were scurrying about, like the ants from her poor dead colony except these were full of life and activity on this perfect spring afternoon.
Nora carefully excavated the outer layers of dirt, feeling only a bit guilty about making more work for the ants that had toiled so long to create their structure of chambers and tunnels.
She knew what she would find before she found it.
Somehow she knew.
There, in a deep chamber within the mound, was one ant much larger than the others, an ant born to breed generations of worker ants, an ant that could only be their queen.
“Your Majesty,” Nora whispered.
Oh, this was the newest, the most wonderful new thing for an ant-loving girl! She would have her ant farm again, with an ant colony that could live forever.
As Nora gently gathered the queen and a good population of her colony into the collecting jar she kept stuffed in the bottom of her bulging backpack, she had one more thought.
She, Nora, was an ant scientist—a myrmecologist—and always would be.
But she also had a beloved cat.
And she was a poet who might publish a book of poems someday.
She had turned out to be a twisty, turny person after all.
The fingers screwing the lid back onto the ant jar sparkled brightly because of someone Nora had misjudged so badly. After all the times she had thought Emma was unscientific for believing in astrology and wishing bracelets, and for talking to seeds and singing to plants, she, Nora, had turned out to be the really unscientific one, getting such a wrong idea and holding on to it for so long, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
It was silly to give ants names. But spring was a good time for sweet silliness.
She held up the jar, where the largest ant was hidden behind her swarming subjects.
“Today,” Nora said, “I christen thee Queen Emma.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To paraphrase a beloved Beatles song, every author gets by with a little help from her friends. I’m glad to have the chance to thank a few of mine here. This third book in the Nora Notebooks series wouldn’t have existed without the vision of its first wonderful editor, Nancy Hinkel. Now that she is off pursuing exciting adventures that would make Coach Joe proud, my new editor, Julia Maguire, offered brilliant insights to shape the book into its final form. Katie Kath outdoes herself in each new title, with even more adorable illustrations. Thanks also to my constantly supportive and encouraging agent, Steve Fraser; to fabulously careful proofreader Marianne Cohen; to Isabel Warren-Lynch and Trish Parcell for their appealing book design; to Stephen Brown for chiming in with helpful editorial suggestions that strengthened the book considerably; and to Barbara Fisch and Sarah Shealy at Blue Slip Media for being the best publicists in the world for the series. Hooray for friends, old and new, who help authors plant, water, weed, fertilize, and harvest their garden of books in ever new and wondrous ways.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Claudia Mills is the author of over fifty books for young readers, including the Mason Dixon series. She does not personally keep an ant farm, but she does have a cat, Snickers, with whom she curls up on her couch at home in Boulder, Colorado, drinking hot chocolate and writing. Visit her at claudiamillsauthor.com.
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