Silence. Everybody was holding their breath. Then Flik poked me in the back,

'Your highness, there's something I need to tell you.'

'Not now, Flik.' I answered, irritated. I was stressed enough as it was without him interfering giving me pointless information, probably something about one of his inventions . . .

'But you highness,' he answered, sounding somewhat desperate, 'It's about the offering!'

'Shh!' I snapped trying to focus my full attention on what was happening above us. Then we heard voices above,

'Hey, what's going on?' Then another,

'Yeah, where's the food?' Everybody gasped, horrified. I turned to Flik, both feeling furious and fearful.

'What did you do?' What had he done? Where was the food? What exactly had happened? Every single ant in the colony turned to look at him.

'It was an accident?' he said sheepishly. A crashing sound was heard from above us. We looked up. Large gaps were appearing in the ceiling. No! The grasshoppers! They were breaking in! What were we gonna do now? Grasshoppers came at us from every direction. Everyone was panicking and scrambling away as fast as they could. I had absolutely no idea what to do.

'Atta! Atta!' screamed a voice. I looked towards the sound to see a young, terrified girl running towards me.

'It's okay, Petal, it's okay.' I assured her, trying to sound soothing. She clung to my legs and whimpered. Suddenly everything stopped. No one moved a muscle. No one spoke. It was him. Hopper. The most terrifying figure you could ever set your eyes on in your entire life. Petal clung tighter to my legs. He slowly walked around the chamber, ants parting to let him through without being harmed. Everyone was tense. He stopped.

'So? Where is it?' He asked in a low, dangerous voice. 'Where's my food!' he bellowed. Everybody cowered before his anger.

'Uh . . . Isn't it up there?' I asked, petrified, trying to think what to do.

'What!' he started to walk towards me. My body felt rigid and I was beginning to panic.

'T-the food was on a l-leaf sitting on top . . .' I stammered, wishing I hadn't said anything.

'Excuse me!' he roared at me. I hesitated.

'You're sure it's not up there?' Any confidence I had ebbed away. He came right up to me.

'Are you saying I'm stupid?'

'No.' I replied quietly, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

'Do I look stupid, to you? Let's just think about the logic shall we? Let's just think about it for a second. If it was up there, would I be coming down here, to your level, looking for it!' He put his face right up against mine. I didn't know what to say. I felt embarrassed.

'Why am I even talking to you? You're not the Queen.' He started smelling me with his antennae! It felt absolutely gross! It was so creepy that I can't even describe how horrible it felt!

I shuddered. 'You don't smell like the Queen.'

'She, she's learning to take over from me, Hopper.' My mother told him. To my immense relief he stopped smelling me. Petal whimpered. I felt very bad. She had come to me for protection and safety, and, because of me she was in the worst possible position and I couldn't to a thing for her.

'Oh, I see!' said Hopper sarcastically, 'Under new management,' He rounded on me, 'so it's your fault.'

'No!' I answered hurriedly, panicking more than ever. 'It wasn't me! It was . . .' I tried to pick Flik out but he dodged out of view, I can't say it surprised me, what a coward!

'Uh, uh, ah! First rule of leadership: everything is your fault!' I stuttered, doing an extremely bad job of saying much at all to defend myself. He sat me down on the rock I had been standing on, Petal hurriedly moved away. I leaned back, trying to get as far away from Hopper as possible. I was felt incredibly anxious, the things that he could do were countless, each worse than the last. 'It's a bug-eat-bug world out there, Princess. Now, let me tell you how things are supposed to talk: the sun grows the food, the ants pick the food, the grasshoppers eat the food . . .'

'And the birds eat the grasshoppers!' I turned. To my astonishment another grasshopper was speaking wildly with enthusiasm. What a fool! 'Hey!' he continued 'Like the one that nearly ate you! You 'member! You 'member!' I stared, my expression completely blank. Hopper had almost been eaten by a bird? At least there was something insect about him. . .

'This blue jay, has Hopper half-way down his throat, okay? And Hopper, Hopper's kicking and screaming. And I'm scared, I'm not going anywhere near . . .' Hopper was heading for him, now he was for it. I couldn't help feeling slightly sorry for the grasshopper. 'Oh, come on! It's a great story . . .' Hopper flung him against the wall.

'I swear, if I hadn't promised mother on her death bin, that I wouldn't kill you, I'd kill you!' He would kill his own brother? What would he do to the rest of us if we said a word against him?

'And believe me no one appreciates that more than I do.' The other grasshopper replied.

'Shut up! I don't want to hear another word out of you while we're on this island, do you understand me?' He asked fiercely. The grasshopper whimpered. Hopper slammed him against the wall again. 'I said do you understand me!'

'Well, how can I answer, you said I couldn't say another word. Da! Remember Ma!' Hopper was incredibly angry. He punched a nearby grasshopper to the ground. Petal whimpered again.

'Don't worry, Petal, I won't let him touch you . . .' I whispered to her.

'Oh, really, Princess.' I turned, horrified. Hopper had heard me!

'W-well, s-she h-hasn't done anything wrong.' I answered nervously, trying not to make him madder than he already was. He glared at me. Then changed his expression,

'Hey! I'm a compassionate insect! There's still a few months 'til the rains come, so you can all just try again.'

'But, Hopper, since it's almost the rainy season, we need this time to gather food for ourselves.' Explained my mother.

'Listen, if you don't keep your end of the bargain, then I can't guarantee your safety, and, there are insects out there who will take advantage of you. Someone could get hurt . . .' he snapped his fingers. Everyone turned in alarm. We could hear wild screaming. The creature came into view. It was a grasshopper but much more frightening than any ordinary grasshopper. Two other grasshoppers were holding it back. It looked incredibly vicious. 'This is Thumper and he'll be dealing with any ant who thinks they know better than to stay in line . . .' said Hopper glaring round at us all.

'Would it eat me?' Petal asked me quietly, shivering.

'No,' I replied 'grasshoppers are vegetarians.' But even though I knew that I couldn't help wondering about this one.

'He'd happily rip you to pieces, though!' said Hopper, smiling evilly down at her from his great height. Petal gulped. 'And while he's at it, he could have a good go at you too, Princess . . .'

'Leave them alone!' came a voice; unnaturally high and nervous, but nevertheless knew what they wanted to say. We all looked round. Who had said it? No one seemed to know.

'Who said that! Ha!' yelled Hopper. No answer, no one came forward, no one admitted it was them. I couldn't say I blamed them; they'd probably have been ripped to pieces by Thumper.

'It seems to me that you ants are forgetting your place. So let's double the order of food.' Everyone gasped in horror. We would never be able to get that much food! 'We'll be back at the end of the season, when the last leaf falls.' We all stared at him horror struck. 'You ants have a nice summer.' Then to his gang, 'Let's ride!' They rose, shouting, through the holes that they had made in the anthill. They were gone. For now.

For a few seconds we just stood silently, relieved that the grasshoppers were gone. Then we all turned towards Flik. This whole thing was totally his fault; everything would have been fine if it wasn't for him and his screw ups!

'Every worker and male go outside and start collecting more food except for the following . . .' my mother said sighing. She gave a list of names who would be repairing the anthill and then, Mr. Soil, Dr Flora, Thorny, Cornelius and Flik, who were to go to the Council Chamber. Flik gave a nervous laugh. I scowled at him.

'Atta, a quick word.' Said my Mother. I nodded, wondering what was coming. 'Atta it's very nice to stand up for that little girl but . . .'

'I wasn't exactly standing up for her, it was an accident Hopper heard what I said to her!'

'Be that as it may, our best policy right now is appeasement . . .'

'What?' I asked, confused.

'Appeasement, it means giving small things up in order to obtain peace.' She explained. That was our best policy? Surely if you give a little the grasshoppers would take advantage and demand more and more? And how could you call the amount of food with give up little?

'So it basically means giving up more and more and hoping for the best?' She gave me a look and sighed.

'If you must think of it that way.'

'So let me get this straight: you ran as fast as you could to the offering stone with that thing you were wearing,' Flik nodded, 'you took it off and left it on the offering stone, but it was still working and fell off,'

'Yes,' he answered, subdued.

'a release mechanism hit one of the stacks that was holding up the offering stone and dislodged it, sending all the food into the water!' He looked at the floor. 'Flik, what do you have to say for yourself?'

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry for the way I am. I didn't mean for things to go so wrong. I especially didn't wanna make you look bad, Princess.'

'Well, Flik. Ya did!' I snapped at him. I had been utterly humiliated in front of the entire colony! As if they didn't think that I was completely hopeless already . . .

'I was just trying to help.' He droned on. Oh, yeah! Really helpful!

'Well then help us,' replied Mr. Soil, 'don't help us!'

'Flik, you are sentenced to one month digging in the tunnel.'

'Excuse me, your highness,' interrupted Thorny 'need I remind you of Flik's tunnel-within-a-tunnel project. Took the whole engineering department three days to dig him out, send him to help in the ant service . . .'

'Heavens! No!' cried Dr Flora. They all started arguing amongst themselves. How were we supposed to figure this one out? Whatever Flik did he messed up in someway . . .

'It's perfect!' shouted Flik. We all looked round at him in amazement.

'Perfect? What's so perfect?' my mother asked, slightly alarmed.

'Your majesty, don't you see? We should send someone to get help!' We all gasped in utter bewilderment.

'Leave the island?' I said finding it hard to believe what he had just suggested. It was absolutely rediciculous!

'Oh, why didn't I think of that?' questioned my mother sarcastically, 'Oh, because it's suicide!'

'She's right!' replied Thorny 'We never leave the island, there's snakes and birds and bigger bugs out there!'

'Exactly! Bigger bugs! We could go get bigger bugs to come here and fight and forever rid us of Hopper and his gang!' announced Flik enthusiastically.

'Ludicrous!' exclaimed Mr. Soil.

'Who would do a crazy thing like that?' asked Dr Flora.

'I'd volunteer! I'd be very happy to volunteer!' answered Flik. It seemed that, once again, he could not hear our tones of objection to his ideas. My mother laughed.

'You've got a lot of spunk, kid, but no ones going to help a bunch of ants . . .'

'At least we could try. Oh! O could travel to the City! I could search there!' Flik exclaimed. He was just as crazy as his ideas!

'If you went you'd be on that silly search for weeks!' I replied.

'Royal Huddle!' signaled Thorny. Why would we need a huddle? 'Great idea, Princess, it's perfect!'

'Exactly!' agreed Cornelius.

'Wait a minute, what did we just decide here?' I asked feeling very confused.

'To let Flik leave.' Explained Mr. Soil.

'While we keep harvesting to meet Hopper's demands.' Continued Cornelius. Dr Flora spoke:

'You see with Flik gone . . .' I realized what it would mean. It was absolutely brilliant and solved a large quantity of our problems.

'He can't mess anything up!'