by Ali Sparkes
“Oh no,” groaned Danny. “This is not good. This is so not good! Do they—do they eat ants?”
“Yep,” gulped Josh. “They’re the most incredible hunters. They’ve got poison fangs. They go for anything that moves—even each other.”
The red train below them was still backing up. Leg after leg rippled backward. Then a reddish-brown face suddenly lurched up at them, its fangs quivering. Danny and Josh didn’t wait to say hello.
Instinctively they swung around and shot something out of their abdomens into the centipede’s face. The creature flinched backward with an angry grunt. Then they took off along the wall as fast at their six legs would carry them.
“GO! GO! GO! GO!” squeaked Danny. Josh’s berry-shaped backside scooted along in front of him. It took him several seconds to realize that he and Josh were both running sideways, along the wall.
He also realized that the centipede wasn’t chasing them. “Hey! Hey, Josh!” he shouted—although he knew it wasn’t really a shout at all, just a waft of some kind of whiffy chemical. “We got away! We did it!”
Josh turned around on the wall and stared back along the gorge. It was true. The centipede was gone. “Ha!” said Josh. “He didn’t much like a bit of acid in the face!”
“What—you mean we just kind of peed acid?” Danny waggled his feelers excitedly. They reached a corner where some sunlight shafted in and a clump of large furry green leaves with some heavy bell-shaped purple flowers grew. “How cool is that? Killer pee!”
“Formic acid,” said Josh. “Look—see what happens when I do this.” He aimed his backside at one of the flowers and squirted out some more. The petals shook as the jet of liquid hit them. Then they began to change color—from purple to pink to a paler pink. “See,” said Josh. “It makes them change color. Acid. Ant defense!”
Danny clapped his feelers together. “Ants are brilliant!” he giggled. Then he remembered he was a girl. He stopped giggling.
“This is serious, though,” said Josh. “Of all the things we’ve been so far, this is the tiniest. We’re going to get eaten or squashed at any moment. We have to get back to being human again.”
“Well,” said Danny. “We know S.W.I.T.C.H. spray is temporary. We just need a safe place to hide until we change back again. Or should we try to get to Petty?”
“She’ll never see us!” said Josh. “She could hardly see us when we were grasshoppers.” He looked around. “I think we’re down in the sidewalk by the greenhouse. There’s tons of ants around there. They are always building those little crumbly nests.”
“We should find them!” said Danny. “There’s safety in numbers!” He ran up the wall and straight over the top. Josh raced after him. He wondered how long they’d take to find a real ant!
As he popped his head up over the crumbly gray edge of the sidewalk, he stopped wondering. It was like stepping onto the highway at rush hour. There, in a huge, endless, nonstop line, rushing across the sidewalk, were hundreds of ants.
And he had no idea which one was Danny.
“DANNY! DANNY!” bawled Josh. His feelers and his scent-squirting gear were going nuts. “WHERE ARE YOU?”
A dark brown head turned to look at him, its feelers waving with interest. And then another one. And another one. At least forty ants in the long line were now peering back at him. “On,” said the nearest one.
“You what?” said Josh.
“On,” the ant repeated. She rather impatiently waved her feelers back in the direction that the ant line was traveling. “Must feed young.”
“Look—yes—of course,” said Josh scuttling up next to the ant. “But I’m trying to find my brother!”
The ant gave him a blank look. “I mean—sister,” gulped Josh. The ant ignored him and just walked on.
“Another ant—like me,” said Josh, desperately, walking alongside her. “We’re not from here…”
The ant turned to stare at him. “Not from us?” she said. “Not?”
Josh suddenly remembered something from one of his insect books. Something important. Ants did not like ants from different colonies. Not at all. It was murder if someone came to visit. Really. Murder. If this colony found out that he and Danny were strangers, they’d pull them to pieces.
“Yes—yes—of course, from us!” Josh gabbled. “We’re all family here!” He heard himself give a nervous titter. He was quite certain that no normal ant ever tittered. He must get a grip. He stepped away and let the suspicious ant walk on. Fortunately he must smell OK, because she didn’t raise the alarm. She just muttered: “On. Must feed young.”
“DANNEEEE!” wailed Josh. He stared around him at the huge alien world their backyard had become. Its rock garden was now looming up like Mount Everest, small shrubs now towered over him like giant redwood trees, and the sidewalk was as wide as a football field. “Where are you?”
“JOSH! JOSH!” hissed an excited voice above him. Josh stared up and saw Danny hanging down from the thick green trunk of a bush. “JOSH, GET UP HERE! IT’S AMAZING!”
“What is?” spluttered Josh. Danny just hung down on his back four legs and grabbed Josh with his jaws and forelegs and swung him up onto the slanting green stalk alongside him. “Will you stop that?” complained Josh. “I’m not a football!”
“No, but you’re ever so easy to carry!” said Danny. “I’m superstrong. I am!”
“Yep,” said Josh. “Ants are. They can carry up to fifty times their own weight.” He grabbed hold of Danny now, with his own jaws and forelegs. He waved his brother easily up in the air to make his point. Two or three other ants traveled past them along the green stalk. None of them paid any attention to Josh and Danny’s circus act.
“All right, all right!” muttered Danny. “Put me down. And now come and see this!” He jumped back onto the green stalk. It was spongy and slightly sticky under their feet, and ran up it.
Josh could smell something wonderful. It reminded him of the smell at a fair—cotton candy! Hot, sweet, cotton candy. He hurried after Danny.
Danny had slowed down. He seemed to be cuddling something small, green, and slightly see-through. “It’s so sweet!” crooned Danny, just like a girl with a kitten.
Josh sighed. They were girls, he kept remembering.
“Looook! So sweeeet!” went on Danny. He turned the little green creature so it could look up at Josh with its round black eyes. It waved its small feelers in a friendly way. Danny stroked its back with his own antennae. Then there was a small pop, and a shiny blob of sticky stuff suddenly oozed out of the little creature’s back end. Danny made a slurping noise, and the blob disappeared.
“Try it!” he gurgled. “It’s just like golden syrup! Really sweet!”
Josh gave a hoot of laughter. “Danny! You’re eating aphid poo!”
“I know! I know!” gasped Danny. “How disgusting is that? But they were all at it.” He nodded to the other ants around them. They were also stroking and cuddling the little green aphids and eating the substance that squished out of them.
“And it smelled so good. I just had to try it. And you know, they are cute!” His little aphid gazed up at him and made a gentle burbling noise.
“I think they call it honeydew,” said Josh, picking up an aphid of his own now. This one also burbled gently and gazed up at him. “They drink the sugary stuff out of the plant and poo it out again. It’s just like a big drop of candy. Ants love it.”
He gave the aphid a friendly pat and a rub. Pop! Out came a shiny ball of syrupy goo. It did smell fantastic. Josh slurped it up and put the aphid down again. He felt sugar energy rush through him. “Look, this is all very nice,” he said, with a hiccup. “But we’ve still got to find somewhere safe to hide until the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray wears off. Come on—let’s get into the sandbox and hide there. There won’t be many bugs in it because Mom changed the sand just this morning. It should be quite safe. We can hide under a few chunks of sand, out of the view of predators, until we go back to being human.”
“No. Not big talkers,” said Josh. “Some experts say they’re just like one big living thing with millions of parts, working together. So they all think and say the same thing.”
“What—like that?” asked Danny, as they rejoined the long ant highway and heard the endless chant. “On. Must feed young. On. Must feed young. On …”
“Yeah,” said Josh. “Like that. It’s like they’ve got no will of their own.” He found himself falling into step with the long line of marching insects. Danny stepped in behind him.
“On. Must feed young,” said Danny, in the same robotic sort of voice as the others.
“We’ll travel with them for a while,” said Josh. “It’s safer—but we can go off when we get to the end of the sidewalk and head for the sandbox.”
“On,” said Danny.
“All right?” said Josh.
“Must feed young,” said Danny.
“OK, very funny!” Josh glanced over his shiny shoulder. He saw that Danny was marching exactly in time with the ants around him. “Over to the sandbox as soon as we can, right?”
“Must feed young,” said Danny.
“Stop messing around! This is serious!” squawked Josh.
“On,” said Danny.
Josh wanted to give his brother a telling off. But the words didn’t come out right. “On,” he said, turning his head back toward the front and marching in step with all the others. “Must feed young.”
“Must feed young,” agreed Danny.
“Must feed young,” said the other 1,124 ants sharing their journey.
“YOU’RE JUST JERKS! BOTH OF YOU!” shouted Tarquin. He shook the spray bottle and stamped his foot. “COME OUT OF HIDING! I’LL TELL YOUR MOM! I WILL.”
Still there was no movement or sound around the yard. Tarquin had already looked behind or under everything he could see. There was no sign of Josh or Danny. He knew they were playing a trick on him. Maybe they’d gone next door into that old lady’s garden. They’d dropped their water pistols on the ground, so at least they weren’t planning another ambush. Maybe they’d got something else to throw or squirt at him and were just waiting for him to climb up and put his head over the wooden fence.
“WELL, I’M NOT PLAYING, ANYMORE!” yelled Tarquin. He turned and stomped back along the sidewalk. The old lady from next door was walking back down it on her side of the wall. As she passed him, she gave a shout, reached over the wall, and scooped the spray bottle out of his hand.
“What are you doing with my bottle?” she demanded.
“Nothing!” snapped Tarquin. “Not anymore! I only got the chance to give them both one squirt before they ran away and hid.”
Petty Potts grabbed him by the ear. “You did what?”
“Owww! I told you! I just squirted at them once. What’s the fuss? It was only a bit of water.”
Petty glared at him angrily and said, “It was my bit of water, and you had no business stealing it!”
“Well, how was I to know?” whined Tarquin. She let him go, looking very worried.
“They disappeared, you say?”
“Yes, they must have run off and hid while I was wiping water out of my eyes.”
“Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Petty. She bit her lip.
“Batty old trout,” muttered Tarquin. He made his escape and ran back around through the front door.
Inside the house, Piddle the dog heard him coming. He scrabbled into the front room and behind the sofa with another whine. Tarquin stamped up the stairs and went to find something to play with in Josh and Danny’s room. There wasn’t much he liked. He wasn’t into all those stupid Legos or those silly battling card games. But he picked up the magnifying glass and decided to take it into the yard. The sun was shining, and he was in the mood for a particularly nasty game.
It was warm in the ants’ nest and filled with “home” and “family” smells. These smells instructed the family to do all kinds of things. Feed the young, mend broken walls, look after the queen, go out and forage for food, and so on. Once they were in the nest, Danny and Josh got a bit confused. The ants weren’t all chanting the same thing anymore. There were lots of different chants and instructions going on.
Josh turned around and stared at Danny. He stood there, waggling his feelers for a few seconds, while ants streamed past him in all directions. He finally said, “Danny! What are we doing here? Why did we follow the others in?”
“I don’t know,” said Danny with a shrug. He stared around at the complicated brown-walled tunnels that led off at every angle. Knotty roots dangled here and there and seemed to hold all the chunks of soil and grit together. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“Well, it’s not a good idea now!” said Josh. He looked around at the endless traffic of super-busy ants. Even though there were huge numbers of them, they never seemed to bump into one another. Not even the ones walking upside down on the ceiling. “We’ve got to get out of here and get to the sandbox!” He began to work his way back up the tunnel. “Come on! We can’t stay here. If all that chanting starts again, we might find ourselves feeding larvae forever!”
“Well, just until the S.W.I.T.C.H. spray wears off and we suddenly burst through the nest, back to our usual size!” said Danny.
“Danny, we’re down underneath the sidewalk! If we suddenly shoot up to full size, we’ll crack our heads open!” shuddered Josh. “Come on—we can’t stay here a minute longer!”
Danny hurried after his brother. Josh was running over a shiny piece of glass, wrapped in winding grass roots. The glass sparkled in the narrow shaft of light that fed down from the nest entrance. Josh stopped.
Danny cannoned into him. “COME ON, JOSH! YOU SAID WE’VE GOT TO GET OUT FAST!”
“Yes, but …” Josh was peering down at the glass that glimmered up between the roots.
“This … this is …” He thought he could make out a tiny turtle peering up at him. It was stirring up a memory. What about? He shook his head and scurried after Danny. Clearly all the ant chanting was driving him a bit crazy. What would a tiny turtle be doing in an ants’ nest?
They found their way out by following the scent of the air above them. But as soon as they reached the nest exit, Danny started to look dazed.
The “ON. MUST FEED YOUNG” chant was so loud out here. “DANNY! DON’T LISTEN!” yelled Josh. His brother started to turn and rejoin the marching ants. “DANNY! SING! SING WITH ME!”
Danny looked back at his brother, and Josh started singing.
Happy ant day to you!
Happy ant day to you!
Danny joined in.
Happy ant day, dear anty.
Have some more aphid poo!
“YES—AGAIN!” shouted Josh. By the time they’d sung it through three times, they were away from the long line of chanting ants. They went over a bridge of hairy green moss to the next slab of sidewalk and ran toward the sandbox.
For a few seconds, it seemed as if they were clear. Then there was a thundering sensation, and a stampede almost swept them off their feet. This ant line was much less ordered, and the chanting was wild and excited. “Sweet! Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!” Danny and Josh found themselves carried along, toward something that filled the air with an even more sugary smell than the aphids.
“LOOK!” gasped Josh.
A wide lake lay before them. It gleamed red in the sun and sent out the tantalizing smell. “What is it?” murmured Danny.
“Whatever it is, it’s sweet!” said Josh. All around him the ants were saying the same, “Sweet! Sweet! Sweet! Sweet!” And they were all clustering around the edges and gleefully drinking from it. Across the middle of the lake, Josh could make out a very long wooden walkway. Some of the ants were scurrying along it to get to
the rosy syrup beneath it. It was tipping sideways rather dangerously. Josh suddenly declared, “I know what it is! I know!”
“What?” said Danny. “It smells amazing. Shall we have some?”
“No, it’s too dangerous,” said Josh. “Look!” And he waved his feelers toward two or three ants that had become trapped in the gloopy red liquid. They were struggling hopelessly. “They’re never getting out of it. You’ve killed them.”
“Me? What are you saying?”
“It’s your fault. You left half of your Popsicle there on the sidewalk this morning. You ate the top part and then left the strawberry part still on the stick. So it’s melted, and now it’s a sugar lake feeding frenzy. Ants will drown in it! They always do…”
Danny gulped. “But they seemed so sensible before—so organized. Now they’re going bonkers!”
He was right. Hundreds of ants were now charging to the lake. It looked like some kind of wild rock festival going on. They clambered over one another and shoved one another aside to get to the front.
“Sugar. Drives them nuts,” sighed Josh. “Especially in the summer. You want to meet a few thousand ants? Just drop a Popsicle on the ground and wait. Crowds of spaced-out sugar zombies that can’t think straight. It’s nearly as bad as our last birthday party.”
Danny felt bad. “Come on,” he said, fighting his way back through the crowds of sugar-crazed ants. “We’ve got to get to the sandbox.”
“We’re nearly at the edge of the sidewalk,” yelled Josh. “We just have to go past those old bricks that Dad put there.” The angle of red bricks had been cemented to the corner of the slab when Dad decided to make a barbecue. He hadn’t done any more yet, so the bricks weren’t very high. Unless you happened to be an ant. Now they loomed up like great tower blocks.
“Could go over them,” said Danny, as they drew closer. “We can run up walls, no problem.”
