GFWC Youth Writing Contest Winner
Short Stories Fiction, 8th Grade
Culver City Women’s Club
Marina District
The Journal of An Ant Called Fredrick
By Magnolia Kohne
March 4
My life stinks. It just plain stinks. I’m stuck here helping ugly, whiny pupae out of their cocoons and on top of it,
I’m stuck here with Bob, most idiotic ant that was ever hatched. Yesterday he pointed out the fact that I spend
most of my time staring at the dirt ceiling.
“You must really like dirt,” he said.
“No, I like to imagine fighting enemies and saving the camp single handedly, like Antius the Great.”
“You?” He began to laugh, snort and cough uncontrollably. It was really hard not to smack him. He never helps
with the pupae either. I tell him that he needs to pull the pupae harder, but all he says is: “What doesn’t kill them
will only make ‘em smaller… er… stronger.” Or injure them, I thought. Stupid Bob. Stupid pupae. Stupid life.
March 5
I don’t know why I’m writing in this journal. So I can remember my miseries in my old age? Anyway, there were
a lot of hatchings today and I kept stepping on Bob’s legs.
“Dude!” he finally freaked out. “What’s wrong with you?! Are you mental or something?!” He doesn’t get that
running around trying to help five pupae at a time and trying to control six legs in the process with an idiot who
will not move out of the way no matter what can be rather problematic and frustrating.
“I am not mental!” I told him. “If anybody here was mental it would be you!” That’s when all the hatched
pupae began to scream and cry. Of course, Bob just stood there like a dope and I couldn’t yell at him to help get
the pupae to shut up ‘cause that would have just made them cry harder. I hope Bob gets eaten by a tarantula.
March 6
Today is one of the most wonderful and devastating days of my life. Good news: Bob got transferred! Bad news:
He got promoted. He is now an aphid herder. That is such a better job. Every job is better than helping pupae out
of their cocoons. Well, except for watching over the eggs, maybe. Or licking the larvae. But nothing else. Nothing
other than those two are worse than helping pupae out of their cocoons. How on earth did a jerk like Bob get
promoted and not me? I’ve been doing this job for twice as long as Bob. And I can do it three times as well as he
can! I am obviously ready for greater things! Why can’t the queen see that I could be put to better use as a scout
or better yet, a guard! But no, I will always be condemned to this chamber full of squealing pupae. Why did my life
end up like this?!
March 7
The Queen sent a replacement for Bob. Her name is Jenny. She hardly says anything. I touched antennas with
her only twice today. Once to introduce myself and once to tell her I was going to use the bathroom. She didn’t
even tell me her name. I found out from the girl she used to work with in the egg monitoring area. My whole work
day was really awkward with Jenny. I’m not used to so little contact. Bob would touch antenna with me almost
every other second, usually to make some exceedingly rude or dopey comment, but at least he said something. I
wonder if the rest of my life will be like this; being scared to talk or even come within two leg lengths of my work
partner for fear she’ll give me that hunted look that makes me feel like I’m a mass murderer. I can’t believe I’m
saying this, but I almost miss Bob.
March 8
Today I walked into the pupae room and lo and behold, there was no Jenny. I’m used to having my partner be
late, but I waited for about an hour and she still hadn’t come, so I decided to find out what had happened. I went
to the yappy girl that used to be her work partner. (I bet she’s what made Jenny so quiet; she talks so much, it’s
scary; hardly lets you get two words in.) She seems to know all the gossip. Darla told me that she had gotten sick,
then started talking about how Lance had supposedly gone to visit her and he had supposedly proposed to Jenny’s
twin sister, who’d refused and Lance had supposedly gone into depression and supposedly almost died. That’s
when she finally paused for a breath and I was able to blurt out that I needed to get back to work. At work, there
was a break in the pupae hatchings, so I was pretending to fight off enemy ants like Antius the Great. I was
jumping at an enemy to bite his head off when Jenny walked in! Her eyes widened with pure terror as I flew at her
and chomped down hard. I ended up nipping the edge of her leg. She left a trail of blood as she bolted from the
room. I stood staring at the doorway in pure horror and shock for five seconds before I took off after her. Later,
when the twin sister had convinced Jenny that I wasn’t going to kil her, I explained that I had been practicing for
when the anthill might be attacked, but she merely nodded and continued to stare at me like I was a maniac. It
ended up that Darla was wrong and that Jenny wasn’t really sick, she just was really late, but she didn’t come to
work for the rest of the day after that catastrophe. I’m dreading work tomorrow.
March 9
Work was horrible. Jenny stayed at the opposite side of the room the whole day and tried not to look at me.
Whenever I made a movement that was remotely sudden or fast she would scramble into the wall and give me a
crazed expression like a cornered ladybug. Then suddenly, when I was in the middle of helping a particularly
difficult pupa, guess who decided to drop by? Bob, the snob. He walked in and immediately walked over to me
and began to talk to me about biting my work partner’s leg off and how she must be really annoying if I actually
took a chunk out of her body. He must have talked to Darla. I said I hadn’t bitten her leg off and that it was an
accident and why on earth had he come here. He told me he was on his way to the storage chambers for a
“snack.” For Bob the word “snack” is the equivalent of “three course meal.” Then he walked over to Jenny and
examined her leg and began to talk to her. It was obvious from her face that no matter how scary it was working
with an ant that loved to talk about Antius the Great, it was ten times more scary to be approached by a random
ant and have him stare at your injured leg for a minute and a half and then begin talking to you nonstop. I walked
over and found out that Bob was telling Jenny ridiculously exaggerated stories about the freakish things I’d done.
That’s when I told him to go get his snack and take a different route back to wherever he came from. Jenny
relaxed a lot when Bob left. I think that was actually the most relaxed I’ve seen her. I definitely don’t miss Bob
anymore.
March 10
The food scouts think that they’ve seen enemy ants! It’s probably just a rumor. According to Darla, the supposed
“enemy ants” ate off an ant called Frederick’s leg when he got lost walking back from a picnic blanket. I hope it’s
not a rumor. I want to run to the entrance and bravely help defend the hole with my ninja skills I have been hiding
under my caring and quiet exterior. Well, I guess Bob, Jenny and her sister know about my ninja skills, probably
Darla too. And Darla most likely spread it around half the colony by now. So the Queen probably knows and
thinks I should be promoted! Oh, I hope she does! If I get promoted, I’ll be the best guard of all of them. I’ll fight
alongside my brother ants and defend them valiantly, but Bob will b cowering in a corner where he will be
attacked by the enemies. He’ll cry out desperately for help, but I’ll ignore him and leave him to be eaten alive and
then I’ll kill his murderers and write a nasty obituary. I’ll tell about the time he took extra rations at lunch, how he
called in sick when he was actually busy eating the food he secretly hoarded under the leaf he sleeps on and that
he criticized the Queen constantly for the stupid names she thinks of for the pupae. He doesn’t seem to realize
that when you have several hundred children, thinking up good names for all of them can be rather difficult.
Ridiculous.
March 11
I talked to the scouts themselves this time. Frederick still has his whole leg and says he didn’t get lost on the way
back from the picnic. Darla is really imaginative. The scouts are sure that they saw a group of enemy ants this
time. Almost all of them told me they were positive they saw a group of enemy ants. One claimed that they got
attacked by a giant ant that spat acid at him and he had to fight it off, but I didn’t see any evidence that he had
been in a fight. The ant hole is on high alert. The guards have been doubled and lots of new ants have been
promoted to guard duty. Not me, though. Darla probably said that I tried to murder Jenny and so the Queen will
end up putting me on house arrest.
March 12
Today at work, I was jabbering to Jenny about awesome warriors— the Driver ants, ants that scare even
elephants. When I got to that part about elephants, Jenny started to cry. Usually it’s the pupae you have to worry
about crying, but after getting Jenny as a work partner, I’m almost more careful around her. I started saying how
sorry I was and how it was probably a one in a million chance we would be attacked by Driver ants and how we
were all together as powerful as Antius and that if they did attack, we’d be safe. At the mention of Antius, Jenny
looked up wiht a light in her eyes and asked if I’d ever heard the story of his brother Antio and Greenete. From
then on she jabbered about the romantic story of Antio falling in love with Greenete and how they both died in
the end, Greenete being stepped on by a high heeled shoe and Antio committing suicide by drinking insect killer.
So now I know the one thing that will make her come out of her shell—romance stories. Oh, fun.
March 13
I am now lying on a leaf, more dead than alive, barely able to write. The enemy ants attacked us today. They
were Amazons. They came at daybreak. No one knew they were coming until it was almost too late. The scouts
hadn’t gone out yet and the guards were in the middle of changing from night watch to today watch so the
Amazons took most of them out at once. They made their way through the ant hole, killing anybody that got in
their way. Finally, they got to their target—the pupae room. Amazons are slave drivers. They capture the enemy’s
baby ants and take them away, raising them as slaves. Jenny and I were the only ones in the room at the time and
they almost killed her. Jenny had her back to the door and they pounced through faster than lightning, but a split
second before they were able to bite her in half, I slid into her, sending her flying into the dirt wall. I was flat on
the ground, but I could feel the wind from how fast the Amazon’s jaws snapped shut over my head. I bit the
Amazon on the nose and told the hysterical Jenny to run for help. As she scrambled out of the room, I became the
only protector of the pupae. I don’t know how I did it, but I was able to fight those giant ants and protect the
pupae I had been charged with. It was a bloody battle, but during it, I realized how much I liked my job. I had been
given the responsibility of making sure these pupae, the future generation, were safe and that was a pretty
important job. Sure, guarding the entrance to the ant hole may seem really important and full of honor, but who
cares what other people think of you and what your job is? I knew I was doing something worthwhile, so what
else mattered? Eventually reinforcements came flooding in and I no longer had to fight my battle alone. At one
point, Bob was about to get his head bitten off, but I cut in and saved him. He looked at me and said, “Your
method of the hook bite stinks,” but I didn’t care. After the battle was over, I was carried into the room for the
wounded. Now, I’m lying on this leaf which is scratching me under one of my legs, but I’m too tired to move. I
hope Jenny doesn’t go crazy after this.
The End