The next day, Ann had started working at the antique shop. It was a small shop in a building that had once been a general store in the eighteen hundreds and many of the items that where for sale could have originally come from the general store. The old woman, Elnora who ran the shop even had a display case that had several items in it that had the stores name on them.
Ann had always loved antiques and enjoyed being able to look at the stuff and had started taking her laptop with her to work and would put together family trees for the people who's names she found written in the covers of books or on some of the old photographs.
But after a few weeks she was starting to get bored with it. She had done extensive family trees for every name she had found on stuff, nothing new had been brought in and only about a dozen people came in each week. When Ann had asked Elnora why she kept the place open when so few people came Elnora had told her that she and her husband had worked together in the shop since a few years after they had been married and she just couldn't bear the thought of leaving. Not having customers wasn't a problem because she didn't need the money from the shop, her parents had been rich and she had been an only child so she got everything when they died and she was sure the money she still had would last her the rest of her life.
Ann still spent most of her evenings helping in the nursery and visiting with Hope and Zoc. It was one of the things she looked forward to being able to do once she got home from work.
But it was the weekends that she looked forward to the most, every weekend Zoc would take her out flying and they would spend the afternoon talking and watching the otters and other wildlife.
Unfortunately, this Saturday, it was over a hundred degrees out and to hot for the wasps to travel far especially if they had someone on their back. So Ann was reading in the basement, which even with air conditioning seemed to hot.
Lucas came down and asked, "Ann could you do me a favor?"
"That depends, what do you want me to do?"
"Well, mom and dad are taking Tiffany to look at cars and they said I have to go with them because Mommo's taking a nap and they don't want me too bother you. I really don't want too go it's to hot and would be so boring. So, could you tell them you where going swimming and you'll take me with you? Please? Anyways, doesn't going swimming sound really nice with this heat?"
"Yeah, and everyone else probably thinks the same thing and the pool will be so crowded you wont be able to swim and I hate crowded pools."
"Well we wouldn't be going to the swimming pool. I know a place that we can swim and it shouldn't be crowded at all. You just have to tell my parents you're taking me swimming but not where."
"Oh, alright."
After Lucas's parents and Tiffany had left Ann asked, "Ok, so where are we going swimming?"
"Go ahead and get your swim suit on, there won't be anywhere to change when we get there, then I'll show you."
"Why can't you just tell me now?"
"Because, I like making you wonder where were going. Just like you used too do to me when you used to baby sit me and tell me to get ready to go somewhere but wouldn't tell me where we where going and then you would take me fun places like the zoo or the swimming pool or the fair and about every other trip we would end up at the museum and you would try to bore me to death with all that history."
"It wasn't every other trip, but it did work nicely to keep you from refusing to go when you didn't know where we would end up." Ann said smiling at him.
"Well now it's payback time so get ready to go."
Ann sighed and said. "Oh fine."
Ann changed, grabbed her beach towel and went to her living room where Lucas was waiting for her.
"So when are you going to tell me where were going?"
"You'll see when we get there. Come over here."
Ann walked over by the end of the couch where Lucas was standing and a second latter they had both been shrunk.
Ann walked over to Zoc and said. "So do you know where he's taking me?"
Zoc smiled and said. "Yes, but I was told not to tell you, he said something about revenge and driving you crazy."
"Not crazy, crazier, she's already crazy." Lucas reminded him, and then ran ahead of them into the tunnel.
They headed through a tunnel along side the stream that flowed into the nest. After walking quite a while they came to the end of the tunnel where there was a straw sticking out of the ceiling that the water was coming through.
"How do you keep the dirt around the straw from eroding and flooding the nest and where dose the water come from?" Ann asked.
"It's all held in place by magic. My father was the one who came up with the idea. Although my mother helped encourage him to find a way to get water into the nest, she was a forager and kept complaining about how much time was spent gathering water when the colony needed food. One of her friends was a scout and had gone into a humans home and came back and told her how humans had water that came into their homes so they didn't have to carry it from anywhere. As for where the water comes from, you'll see in a few minutes."
They headed up a smaller tunnel that led up into the yard. After walking for a few minutes they came out by the small pond at the side of the house.
"What are we doing here? Didn't you tell me this is where you two got eaten by a frog?" Ann asked.
"Do you remember the one time you where watching me and I was out here catching the frogs. When you asked what I was doing I told you I hated frogs and I was catching them all and taking them to the pond in the park." Lucas asked.
"Yes and I told you they would get rid of the bugs that kept eating your mothers plants. You looked at me like I was the worst person on earth and got upset and told me they would eat the good bugs to. At least now I understand why you where so upset.
Are you sure no new ones have shown up since you took them out?"
"I check at least once a week to make sure there aren't any." Lucas answered.
Ann and Lucas set their towels down and Ann took off her t-shirt and skirt that she had put on over her swimsuit. Then noticed Lucas who had started to head for the water but had stopped a few feet away from her and was smiling and looked like he was trying not to laugh.
"What's so funny?" Ann asked.
"Be careful and don't move to fast so he doesn't realize he's been caught, but Zoc is totally checking you out."
"Lucas that's ridiculous-" She stopped as she turned her head far enough to see that Zoc was staring at her from where he was standing next to a large rock where he had set his staff. "I'm sure that's not why he's staring." She said.
"Sure, believe what you want I think he likes you." Lucas said.
"We're two completely different species, there's no way, that's impossible." Ann said. Although she felt more like she was trying to convince her self instead of Lucas.
"Well you know what he would say about it being impossible." Lucas said grinning.
When she couldn't come up with a good response she turned around so she was facing Zoc and asked. "What are you staring at?" Ann had to fight back a smile when she noticed Zoc's face turning red.
"I didn't mean to stare. I'm just not used to you having legs."
Ann laughed and said. "You know people always seem to be surprised that I have legs. Anytime I would wear pants to go hiking my brother or sister would always say look she has legs or if I had my swimsuit on it would be she has half legs because of the skirt on it."
Ann had started towards the water and Lucas ran to catch up with her and whispered. "You actually believed him?"
"Of course, considering he's never seen me wear anything but skirts, none of which where shorter than just above my ankles, it's much easier to believe him than your crazy idea."
"Well I still think he likes you. Why else would he spend so much time with you?"
"Because were friends, just because he likes to spend time with me doesn't mean he likes me, not the way you think he dose." Ann said, although part of her wanted to believe he was right.
As soon as they got to the water Ann swam out towards the middle until she came to a rock that stuck up out of the water at an angle. She pulled her self up onto it just far enough that she could lay on it with her head and arms out of the water while she caught her breath before swimming back.
She watched as Zoc and Lucas went to meet another group of ants that had come to the pond, it looked like it might be Kreela and several younger ants that looked like they where talking to Lucas and then they all ran to the water. A few seconds later they snuck up behind Zoc, each carrying drops of water and then started throwing them at him, he ran to the edge of the water and started picking up handfuls of water and throwing them at the kids as they tried to get close enough to him to hit him with their own drops of water.
Ann sighed and laid her head on her arms and thought I really am going crazy; I'm falling in love with an ant. For the last couple of weeks she had been trying to convince herself that she wasn't falling in love with him. It was just too crazy, they where to different, but why else would she have been so disappointed when she had found out that she wouldn't get to spend the afternoon with him or when he had been able to give her a perfectly reasonable explanation about why he had been staring at her. Part of her had desperately hoped that he would have hesitated or done something to indicate that Lucas might have been right, but Zoc had told her himself that for half his life he had hated humans. How could he possibly ever fall in love with one. Ann started to doze off as she watched Zoc playing with the kids.
Ann woke up screaming as something ripped into her foot, she kicked her leg and it let go. As she struggled to get far enough up onto the rock that she would be out of the water she noticed that her back and arms hurt too. She was almost out of the water when something grabbed her again this time around her ankle, she screamed again and then took a breath as she realized it was pulling her under water and there was nothing she could do to stop it. As soon as she was under water she twisted around so she could see what had her, she was terrified when she realized it was a dragonfly larva. She had read that they sometimes caught and ate stuff as big as tadpoles and small fish and this one was definitely big enough that it could easily eat her. She struggled and tried too get to a position that she could hit its head but it still wouldn't let her go and she knew she couldn't hold her breath much longer. Just when she was sure she wasn't going to get out of this alive she saw Zoc swim up next to it and slice a deep cut into its side with one of his mandibles, it let go and Zoc grabbed Ann and headed back to shore.
As soon as the water was shallow enough he picked her up and carried her over to where she had set her stuff and set her down. Ann gasped and her stomach turned when she saw her foot, a deep cut ran around it just behind her toes from the first time she was bitten but it was the one around her ankle that scared her, it was deep and looked like it had cut clear to the bone. Zoc tore Ann's towel into several wide strips and started to wrap her foot and ankle.
Lucas came over with Zoc's staff and handed it to him. "Is she going to be ok?" He asked, frightened.
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