A Little Bug's Life

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'Flik, Fossil, I need to talk to you.' It was Hazel. Flik bounded over enthusiastically towards him, grinning. Fossil was not quite as inspired by Hazel's arrival. It crossed his mind that if Hazel needed to talk to him, it was probably about Heather. They left the three other children they had been with (Pondweed, Clarice and Cotton) playing tag.

They entered Hazel's chamber. Fossil noted the 'down with the grasshoppers!' sign Hazel had put up. Hazel turned to them.

'It's Heather,' he stated, 'she wants to go home. She's asked me to take her and she wants you to come with her, Fossil.' The children just stared for a moment.

'Well, I-I-I don't see why I couldn't come and drop her off . . .' Fossil replied in a subdued tone.

'Can I come?' Flik asked eagerly.

' 'Course, Little Rebel!' Hazel replied. Fossil rolled his eyes. 'I can easily manage to carry all three of you!'

Heather squealed with delight and hugged Fossil. If she likes me so much, Fossil thought, why does she want to leave? A moment later the queen stormed in.

'Do you ever tidy up, Hazel? Do you even know what it means!'

'My things are perfectly tidy.'

'If your stuff is tidy, then why am I continually tripping over it!'

'If you looked where you were putting your feet . . !'

'You need to clean up all the mess you made!'

'If it's inconveniencing you, why don't you clean it up!'

'How dare you speak to me like that!'

'Oh, I'm sorry, Your Majesty!' he snarled.

'You should give me some respect!'

'Respect needs to be earned! And if you want any from me, I advise you stop having a go at me!'

'Just because you were popular when we were younger, doesn't mean . . .' Flik couldn't help feeling a little betrayed. Hazel had never told him he had been popular.

'We're going out!' Hazel stated.

'No you aren't!'

'Oh, yes we are! Me, Flik, Heather and Fossil are going out and . . .'

'You're staying right here! In fact, I'm forbidding you from leaving the island!'

'We're leaving whether you say so or not!'

'I'll have you arrested! Even if . . .'

'You're such a – such a – such a grasshopper!' There was silence for a moment. Hazel grabbed the three children and took to the air. 'You can arrest me when we get back if you want! Bye!' And with that he flew at incredible speed out of the anthill and towards the other side of the riverbed before the queen had a chance to stop him.

Hazel was obviously still furious.

'Sometimes I wonder why we're even married.' He said to Flik who was walking beside him. The other two were a short distance behind. 'Watch out for any odd scent,' he told them, 'who knows what's out here.'

'Hazel, why didn't you tell me you were popular?' Hazel felt very guilty.

'I wasn't that popular and, well, I didn't want to bring your spirits down. It was thanks to my band, really . . .'

'Your band?'

'Yeah, did I never mention my band? We called ourselves the Dire Drones; although Thistle was in the band but as it mainly consisted of boys and the name sounded good . . .'

'What's a drone?' Flik asked.

'Well, a drone is the proper name for a male ant. I don't use it much myself and neither does anyone else back home. We might use it if we were talking about an ant from another colony.'

'What happened to your band?' Flik inquired. Hazel gave a sigh.

'It didn't last long. Cornelius was the only one I had once had as a friend. Most of the others wanted to be involved in a band and only joined because no one else was going to start one. Anyway, having the common interest of music kept us together for some time. It took us ages to get anywhere though as we argued. And Thistle, well, it's hard to get her to stop once she's started and then of course there were her fits . . .'

'Why did you want to start a band anyway? I mean it's a rad idea but . . .' Hazel sighed.

'To tell you the truth, I wanted something to keep my mind off Tuli and a way to let my emotions out.'

'Sounds more like Thistle was the one letting her emotions out!' Hazel laughed. 'What were the arguments mainly about anyway?'

'Everything. But I think a large amount of the time it was about my leadership.'

'What happened? Did it just break down or . . ?'

'I was the one that stopped it. Stupid boy. He didn't think. Wasn't sensible. It seemed perfectly normal, bit of arguing, nothing more. Not until one of the group decided that I shouldn't be leader anymore. Started having a go at me, calling me names. That was until Thistle stepped in, obviously close to one of her fits. She called him a, well, let's just say it wasn't particularly polite. He pushed her over, big mistake. She's bad enough when no one's done anything to provoke her. She saw it as an attack and fought back. Complete moron. It was obvious that would happen. And it's not an excuse that he was easily the youngest, an infant could have seen that coming. Can't see how Thorny got into the council, unless it was on bossiness . . .'

'Thorny! You mean . . .'

'Shh!' Hazel suddenly whispered urgently. 'You two! Come here!' They hurried over.

'What is it?' Flik asked quietly.

'Something's not right.' he muttered.

'This home,' Heather stated, 'Home . . .'

'I have a hunch; I just hope this scent belongs to another type of bug. Come on.' They climbed a tall rock. They looked over. They were greeted by a sight. There was an ant colony alright, but there was also a large amount of . . .

'Grasshoppers!' Flik murmured, 'But how? Why?' Hazel shook his head.

'I don't know but it's over run with them. Can't think how this happened.'

'Do you think they could possibly be the same ones, Hazel?' Flik asked.

'They definitely are.'

'What makes you say that?' Fossil inquired.

'Because,' Hazel replied, 'I can see Hopper right over there.' The children turned their heads. Hazel was correct. Fossil and Heather backed down the rock.

'Keep watch on Tunnel 7,' Hopper was saying to another grasshopper, 'it could give Alfonsa an escape route . . .'

'Alfonsa?' Hazel said to himself, 'Who's Alfonsa?'

'I'm going to find out what's going on,' Hazel told the children, 'but one thing's for certain: we can't be recognized.'

'Why not?' Fossil asked.

'If we were recognized, who knows what would happen to everyone back home,' he explained, 'what about Atta? What about Amadala . . .' Flik could tell Hazel felt guilty about what had happened earlier.

'But Hazel,' Flik said, 'how are we not going to be recognized?'

'What can you smell which you can't smell back home?' Flik smelt the air. There was something different but he didn't know what it was, 'It's honey,' Hazel explained, 'there must be a bee colony living close to the anthill. Look at Heather, look at her color.'

'She's a very similar color to . . .' Hazel nodded and gave a grin. 'But Hazel, how are we going to persuade the bees to let us have some of their honey?'

'You see, Your Majesty, the plan is to free the ant colony from oppression,' Hazel explained to the queen bee, 'but in order to do it, we need to blend in with the rest of the colony and that's why we need honey; the color . . .'

'But of course you may. I only wish we could help them ourselves but we have no idea what we could do and we have a wasp problem at present . . .' Hazel gave an understanding nod.

'Are we really going to fight off the grasshoppers?' Flik whispered excitably.

'Uh . . . I d-don't think that I'm exactly revolution boy material . . .' Fossil said nervously. Heather whimpered.

'I am!' Flik exclaimed, 'when do we start?' Hazel laughed.

'If these two would prefer not to go gallivanting off to fight grasshoppers, they could stay here and help us. We'd keep them safe here.' the queen said.

'That's very kind of you,' Hazel told her, 'thank you.' Flik grinned up at him. Hazel grinned back. There was no question to be asked.

After covering themselves with honey, they left Heather and Fossil with the bee colony and looked for a place to sleep.

'Do you think Heather will manage okay?'

'Oh, don't worry, Flik. They can speak her language as well as ours. Now you stay here and sleep . . .'

'Hazel, where are you going?'

'I'm going into the anthill; don't worry, Flik, I'll be back soon.'

'Try not to worry yourself, Your Highness.'

'What about Alia?'

'Your daughter is perfectly safe, Alfonsa. I've personally seen to it that there are four or five workers or drones stationed outside her chamber.'

'Thank you, Marifield.'

'Pleasure, now get some sleep, Your Highness. Everything will be better tomorrow.'

'I hope so, Marifield. I really hope so.'

Hazel slowly walked down the almost deserted corridors. He was slightly concerned that it seemed to be rare in this colony, as well as back home, for a male to have wings. They immediately marked him out from the others. He stopped suddenly.

'Are you sure this is such a good idea, Hoppy. I mean . . '

'Shut up, Molt!'

'Well, he does have a point, she is the last of the five rulers . . .' another grasshopper said.

'She has a daughter doesn't she!' Hopper bellowed, 'Get over to that chamber and do her in!' Hazel gave a quiet gasp. Alfonsa must be the ants' queen! He knew he couldn't just stand and watch! He had to do something!

He reacted on impulse and rushed for the indicated chamber. He took flight upon entering. The queen was screaming. Hazel dashed through the air. He kicked the grasshopper nearest Alfonsa onto his back. The attack was a shock to the gang who hastily retreated.

'Could someone help me up?' The two ants stared at him. 'I wasn't gonna hurt her; I was too scared.'

'Molt . . .' Hazel muttered to himself. He rolled his eyes and pulled the grasshopper up. Once he was up, Molt backed away towards the chamber entrance and then out of sight. Hazel looked at Alfonsa. She was slightly older than he was but younger than Amadala. She gave a small smile. Hazel felt instantly awkward but couldn't help smiling back.

Flik was awoken by Hazel's grumblings.

'What's the matter?' he asked through a yawn.

'Alfonsa had me up all night guarding her chamber! The whole night!'

'Why did she want you to guard her chamber? And who is she anyway?'

'She's their queen, their remaining queen, with the exception of her daughter. There used to be five ruling queens. The anthill was divided into five sectors.'

'So why'd she want you to guard her chamber?'

'Oh, well, I kinda, well . . .'

'What?'

'Oh, alright. Hopper set his gang on her.'

'What! But why?'

'I think he wanted her daughter to become queen so he could control the colony through her. The workers would have to do everything she said unless another queen came along and they switched their allegiance.'

'What did you do! Did you kick their butts? Oh, man! Did I miss out on all the action?'

'Well, not exactly. They got scared when I kicked one of them down.'

'Was that crazy one there?'

'Actually, no. I'd forgotten about him. It's strange that he wasn't there. I've got a worse problem than him anyway.'

'You have?'

'Yes. Alfonsa's fallen in love with me.'

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