We all turned towards him. No! It wasn't possible! It couldn't be true! Not after all this time! He would never have lied to me would he?

'Tell me this isn't true!' I said going up to him with a pleading look. I could tell by the way he looked at me that it was. Oh! I just couldn't believe it. I felt completely crushed.

'This couldn't have happened at a more opportune time!' cried Mr. Soil 'the last leaf is about to fall!'

'We haven't collected any food for the grasshoppers!' said Dr Flora, panicked.

'If Hopper finds out what we almost did . . .' began Thorny but my mother interrupted,

'Hopper is not going to find out! We're going to hide all this and pretend it never happened,' she turned to the circus bugs, 'you bugs were never here, so I suggest you all leave . . .' I wasn't sure that trying to collect food and appease the grasshoppers was going to work this time. There was so little food, it would probably be impossible to get a small amount of food for them! And I doubted pretending nothing had happened would be successful either.

'But the Bird!' interrupted Flik 'The Bird will work!' I had my doubts. Okay, we had all worked hard to make it but if it was Flik's idea . . .

'I never thought I'd see the day when an ant would put himself before the rest of his colony.' Said my Mother sounding thoroughly ashamed of him.

'What?' he asked. What? What! Wasn't it obvious enough what! He had more than screwed up this time! He had done much, much worse! Didn't he realize what he had done! I could feel fury filling my entire body. Of all the things that could have happened!

'The point is, Flik,' answered my Mother, harshly, 'you lied to us.'

'No!' shouted Flik, 'No . . . I . . . I . . .'

'You lied, Flik!' I cried out, finding it impossible to keep the emotion out of my voice. 'You lied to her! You lied to the colony! You lied to me!' I was on the verge of tears, 'And like an idiot I believed you!' I felt so betrayed, I felt so stupid, the pain was too much to bare. I never wanted to see him again.

'I . . . I was just afraid, if you thought I'd brought circus bugs . . . I just wanted to make a difference.' I didn't care! I just didn't care for his excuses. I just didn't care about anything anymore.

'I want you to leave Flik, and this time don't come back.' He looked at the ground. Part of me could barely believe I had said such a thing to him. Flik and the circus bugs turned and walked away into the distance. I just stared.

'Alright, workers, quickly find all the food remaining on the island and take it to the offering stone and males go too!' My Mother commanded once Flik and the circus bugs had disappeared from view. I continued to stare at where Flik had been. Why? Why did this have to happen? Everything had been perfect and now everything was ruined.

'Atta, dear . . . you did it for the best,' said my mother quietly to me.

'It's okay . . .' added Ivy. I turned on her,

'No it's not! Nothing's okay!' I shouted, distraught. Had I really done the right thing?

'Maybe you need some time to yourself, dear,' said my mother consciously. I could vaguely hear the two of them walking away. In a way, I wished Flik hadn't been found out, at least I wouldn't feel so wretched now.

I walked around the colony watching the males and workers. I kept thing I could see Flik among the crowd smiling and waving at me, but he wasn't, he was gone, I was never going to see him again. Although at the time I had never wanted to see him again, now I wasn't so sure whether I wanted to or not. I remembered all the good times we had shared with one another: Our antennae getting tangled, talking in the infirmary, when he had kissed me. I stopped myself. Those things would never have happened if he hadn't lied in the first place. But was that a good thing or a bad thing? I walked among the stalks. Suddenly I fell. I had tripped over something. I looked behind me. It was one of Flik's telescopes. I got up. I looked at it,

'Why Princess aren't you looking lovely this morning, not of course you would need a telescope to see that . . .' My heart filled with grief and rage. I kicked it as hard I could. Then I suddenly felt guilty. I sat down on the ground, burying my face in my hands.

'A-Atta?' I turned sharply. Petal was standing behind a stalk nearby. I felt awkward, I didn't want her to see me in this state! She slowly walked up to me. 'You okay?' she asked quietly. I didn't answer. She sat down beside me.

'No.' I admitted sadly, feeling embarrassed and slightly ashamed; I didn't want to drag her into this!

'You . . . you really liked Flik, didn't you?' she asked slowly. I nodded gravely. She presented such words of wisdom from saying the simpilest things.

'Aha, and . . .' I paused, 'I'm not sure I did the right thing . . .' I sighed heavily. She put her hand on my shoulder.

'You – you did what you thought was the right thing to do.' Yes, she was right but had my decision been rash? Had I used the power I had in the wrong way? 'Well, at least he won't be here when the grasshoppers arrive!' Petal added. The grasshoppers! I shouldn't be sitting around feeling sorry for myself! I should contributing to the colony!

'Petal,' I said quickly, 'I must go back and help, the grasshoppers will arrive soon and . . .' I suddenly thought of something, 'Petal, find the other Blueberry Scouts and any others, if you can, hide somewhere. Who knows what could happen when the grasshoppers arrive!'

'What about you?' she asked.

'I'm needed.' She gave an understanding nod. We both stood up.

'Well, goodbye,' she said softly.

'Goodbye, Petal.'

'Atta, wait! We will see each other again, won't we?' I couldn't really understand why she was asking it.

'Sure, why wouldn't we?' I answered trying to sound cheerful. She smiled then ran off into the distance. It was then it occurred to me why Petal had asked. I gave a small shudder. She thought that the grasshoppers might . . . I didn't want to think about it. I got up and flew towards the colony. I looked for my mother and spotted her. I ran over. 'Mother,' she turned 'What can I do to help?'

The worker ants were running to the offering stone with food and quickly putting it on the pile. I watched them very anxiously through the fog. My heart was pounding incredibly fast. The grasshoppers would arrive any moment and there was no where near the normal amount of food let alone a double quantity. I was supposed to be responsible for the whole thing. What was going to happen to us? What would the grasshoppers do? Petal was right; at least Flik didn't have to worry about them. That lying airhead! He lied all that time and I believed him! I had thought that they were a bunch of clowns and I had been right! He had deceived me! I tried to stop myself thinking about it. The offering was what was important now. I wondered what would have happened if Flik, oh, it made me feel bent just to think his name, hadn't been found out. Would the bird have worked or would it have failed like the rest of his inventions? Well, most of them any way thinking of the megaphone and telescope. Me and Flik might even have . . . I was momentarily distracted from my thoughts by Ivy who had been carrying food until she had crashed right into the offering stone.

'Sorry!' she breathed, picking up the grain she had been carrying and trotted up and added it to the pile with the rest. I kept thinking I could hear wings and looked around, paranoid.

Martha was running towards the offering stone carrying a grain. She was not in a good mood. Once she had dumped the food on the offering stone (I say dumped because she literally did in an 'I don't care less' kinda way), she made it her priority to glare at me before marching off in a huff. She seemed to think the entire situation was utterly my fault. It wasn't my fault that Flik had lied to the whole colony!

Flik will be alright won't he? I asked myself. Of course he will be! And why would I care an inch what happens to him anyway. But there is that bird . . .

My attention snapped back to normal, there were no more workers coming. No! It couldn't be true!

'That's it?' I asked Thorny in desperation. 'But there's gotta be more food on the island!' There was so incredibly little. It was barely a quarter of the normal amount, that couldn't be it, surely?

'If we give up any more we'll starve.' Answered Thorny in a worried tone. I stared.

'Hopper won't accept this!' I cried in despair. I gasped. This time I really could hear wings. They were coming. I felt absolutely terrified. I flew down to my mother. 'Mother! It's not enough! What do we do?' I whispered urgently to her.

'I-I don't know.' She answered hopelessly, her voice hoarse. I whimpered. We clung tightly to each other, and, terrified, watched as the grasshoppers slowly emerged through the fog. We were all doomed. I was very difficult to prevent myself from shivering. Many others were gasping and shuddering, young ones were crying. More grasshoppers were advancing from every direction. We all moved away, petrified.

'You little termites!' shouted Hopper in a ton of fury that made us all turn, our eyes ablaze with fear, 'I give you a second chance, and this is all I get!' He flung the leaf of food at us. We dived out of the way just in time, all of us screaming. I had to say something, anything.

'But, Hopper, we ran out of time!' I cried out desperately knowing it was no use.

'Have you been playing all summer?' he yelled in a furious passion, 'You think this is a game!'

'No! No!' We begged 'Please!'

'Well guess what! You've just lost!' We were completely at Hopper's mercy of which he had none.