'Atta! Atta! Wake up!' I opened my eyes and wished I didn't have to. My mother was standing above me. It was a new day on Ant Island, another problematic day of learning to be queen.

'Don't look so worried after today we won't need to worry about the grasshoppers for another year.'

The grasshoppers! How had I mannaged to forget? I groaned. What if they didn't accept the offering? Or what if I goofed up really badly infront of the entire colony? Or what if . . . ?

'Atta?'

'Yes?'

'It's no good sitting there worrying about it. Now get up and I expect you to be up by the offering stone shortly.'

'Yes mother.' I sighed. sometimes it was hard not to wish I was a worker ant, at least they didn't have the stress of making the decisions.

I flew over a few of the worker ants as I approached the offering stone. How embarrassing it would have been if I'd crashed right into them. I landed next to my mother and tried to look less apprehensive than I felt. She was holding Aphie her pet aphid.

'Right, Atta, tell those two ants over there to come and shade us.' I gulped. 'Go on,' she said half smiling.

'um . . . right . . . I'll just go and . . . um,' I took off and flew, rather slowly, towards them. I landed. I opened my mouth but no sound came out. The two ants stared at me. It was embarrassing. 'Um . . . c-could you come . . . um . . . over and s-shade u-us?' I asked timidly. They followed me over. Why did I always act so stupid? How was I supposed to be the queen if I struggled with the simplest things? One of the worker ants sniggered. I knew who she was, she was called Martha and she was never particularly pleasant but it did not help my mood much.

Then I noticed the wind was calm, I felt extremely nervous. 'Oh, the wind's died down they'll be here soon,' I said anxiously starting to pace up and down.

'Just be confident, dear, you'll be fine.' That was all well and good to say but how was I supposed to feel confident? I looked over at the line of workers and saw that

'There's a gap!' I shrieked, 'There's a gap in the line! What are we gonna do!' I raced over to Thorny who was nearby and was counting the amount of grain.

'It's okay, your highness. Gaps happen, we just lost a few inches that's all.' I felt slightly calmer.

'Oh, right.' I hovered above him nervously, trying to see the amount of grain.

'Your highness, I can't count when you hover like that.' I jumped down.

'Oh, sorry, go ahead.' My mother sent the two ants that had been shading us away and I remembered the embarrassment of the affair. Then she came over to me.

'Okay, Atta, now what do we do?' she asked me. I snapped out of the day dream I was having.

'Uh . . . oh! I know it! I know it!' I thought hard but to no avail 'What is it?'

'We relax!' She replied. I chuckled slightly.

'Right.'

'Oh, it will be fine dear,' she ensured me as we walked a little. 'It's the same year after year: they come, they eat, they leave. That's our lot in life, it's not a lot but it's our life.' Then she laughed. I tried to. 'Isn't that right Aphie?' she said, putting Aphie on the ground. 'Oh, you're such a cute little Aphid.'

Aphie yapped. We watch him for a moment as he ran around us. My mother looked at me, 'Try to calm yourself, dear. No need to get so hot and bothered about every tiny thing.'

'But . . . '

'Nothing is going to go wrong.' I nodded, trying to smile.

'I sure hope so.' Suddenly there was a crash. Aphie yapped loudly. I looked over and to my surprise there was a stalk of grass lying on the ground very close to us. I went over to it. It appeared to have fallen out of thin air. Dr Flora was running towards us closely followed by Mr Soil.

'Anyone hurt?' she called.

'No.' I called back. Before I could react, another stalk came flying through the air landing on top of me. I could hardly breathe under the heavy weight of it. Dr Flora, Thorny, Cornelius and Mr Soil came over to help me. What was going down?

'You could have killed someone over here!' shouted Dr Flora, agitated. Then I heard foot steps and then shouts and they were getting closer. Oh, no! I knew that voice, not Flik! Not at a time like this!

'I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please forgive me! I'm sorry!' he called. The others then managed to get the stalk off me to my immense relief. I coughed and spluttered. Flik screamed 'Princess Atta!' I put my crown back on and looked up.

'Flik, what are you doing?' I asked weakly standing up. What was that thing he was carrying on his back?

'What? Oh, this,' gesturing to the thing he was carrying, 'this is my new idea for harvesting grain, no more cutting down individual cornels, you can just cut down the entire stalk.' I sighed.

'Flik, we don't have time for that . . .'

'Exactly!' he answered, his voice filled with enthusiasm, 'We never have enough time to collect food for ourselves 'cause we spend all summer harvesting for the offering but my invention will speed up production'.

'Another invention?' Oh, no! Not another one! He was continuely making inventions and they were continuely going wrong and causing havoc everywhere and he caused enough problems without his inventions.

'Yeah! And I've got something for you too,'

'Flik!' I groaned. He didn't pay the slightest bit of attention.

'Since you're going to be queen soon you'll need this to oversee production.' He collected 'Just an ordinary blade of grass and a bit of dew, right?'

'Flik, please,' I begged. He was completely oblivious to my obviously bored tone.

'Wrong! It is in fact, a telescope.' he said putted the dew into the grass. My mother laughed. I was quickly losing patience but I didn't want to be mean to him but it was getting very difficult not to blow a fuse.

'That's very clever, Flik, but . . . ' He put the telescope up to his eye.

'Why, Princess, aren't you looking lovely this morning? Not of course you would need a telescope to see that . . . ' It was then that Thorny stepped in.

'Alright, listen.' he told Flik sternly, grabbing the telescope and tossing it aside, 'the princess doesn't have time for this. You want to help help us build this thing? Then get rid of that machine, get back in line and pick grain like everybody else.'

'Like everybody else.' repeated Cornelius. I sighed and said

'Please, Flik, just go.'

'I'm sorry,' Flik answered sounding dejected 'I was just trying, trying to help.' He slunk off through the stalks of grass.

'Harvester!' said Cornelius, 'Why we harvested grain the same way since I was a pupa!' I gave a heavy, irritated sigh.

'Where were we?' I asked, still feeling slightly agitated with Flik. Flik was so annoying it was incredible and nearly everything he did goofed up something or another. He was prone to clumsiness, always had been. In fact when I was younger, I thought he had something against me for a while.

'The food pile, your highness.' answered Mr Soil.

'Oh, yes, yes.' I said attempting to sound confident.

'I'd say we almost have enough grain, now, your highnesses.' Thorny informed us.

'Just as well,' replied my mother 'I hate to think what might happen if we didn't give enough.' The others shivered. They then returned to what they had been doing before hand. Once they had gone I turned to my mother. I hesitated then I asked,

'What would happen if we didn't give the grasshoppers enough food?' I asked in barely more than a whisper. She went quite pale. She stuttered and then,

'I – I don't know,' she answered croakily, 'but it wouldn't be at all pleasant.' I decided not to press the subject. It was obviously not something that she was very keen on discussing. I then felt even more nervous than I had before. She put her hand on my arm and we walked back up to the offering stone. Suddenly, a loud, low sound filled the air. They were here. Ants were running in all directions, panicking. How was I supposed to organize this rabble? I tried, attempting to be heard over the racket,

'Uh, single file!' I tried again, 'Food to the offering stone,' I trailed off. It was completely hopeless, no one was paying the slightest bit of attention. I had absolutely no control over anything. My mother took control:

'Alright, everyone. Single file. Food to the offering stone and into the anthill, now, let's go!' Everybody put the remaining grain on the stone and headed for the anthill. I flew up to the entrance to observe the others.

'Come on, keep movin', keep movin', Good.' I looked around. No one in sight. 'Okay that's everyone.' Or at least I thought it was. I flew into the anthill and went to stand next to my mother. I was getting more nervous every moment but in my mind was the knowledge that I couldn't think of a single thing that could happen that could possible change the fact that plenty of food was waiting for the grasshoppers above our heads and nothing could change that, could it? 'They come, they eat, they leave. They come, they eat, they leave.'