Ant Attack (4 page)

“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.”

“OK, I've had enough aphid poo now, anyway. Bye-bye, Alfie!” Danny put the little green creature back onto the stalk. They scrambled back down, passing several other ants climbing up. “They don't say much, do they?” said Danny.

“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.