Easy Peasy by Lesley Glaister

Author:Lesley Glaister
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497694118
Publisher: Open Road Media

2

If it had not been for my ants, I might have spent less time in the tree-house. Somehow, as a refuge, it was spoilt now that Dog-belly was always in and out of it.

One Sunday afternoon, from my bedroom window, I saw Daddy holding the ladder while Dog-belly climbed up and then, once the thin legs had disappeared inside, he began to climb up himself. A shout of protest stuck in my throat. I could not believe it. He had never been into the tree-house. Even Mummy did no more than occasionally pop her head through the trap-door to talk to us. It was ours. Hazel’s and mine.

I thought it might collapse with the weight of Daddy, that the branches might break and the whole structure come crashing to the ground with a splintering of wood, smashing Daddy and Dog-belly’s bones among the broken branches. My ants would be all right, they would survive the fall and be set free. I wished the tree-house would collapse then that would be an end of it. But Daddy only put his head through the trap-door and did not climb right in. He stood there on the ladder, wobbling a bit, like a headless man.

I heard Mummy’s voice. She had gone outside and was laughing at something. My thumb went in my mouth, my teeth finding the comforting ridge of my knuckle. I watched as first Daddy, then Dog-belly came down the ladder. I was terrified that Daddy might have seen my ants.

‘Daddy would never agree,’ Mummy had warned when I asked if I could bring the formicary home from school. ‘You know how he is about creepy-crawlies. You couldn’t have it in the house.’ I brought the ants home and kept them in the tree-house where he never went. I had been jubilant to have that teeming little world for my own. I admired the industrious creatures, their minute bulbousness and sheen. Although they were all separate they acted like one creature, many bodies with a single intention. Dropping a chicken’s wish-bone in one day had resulted in an extraordinary tumult of activity – but not in chaos. The ants stripped the bones and stowed the meat as if they had been in training for that very event for all of their lives.

Hazel didn’t mind having the ants in the tree-house as long as the tank stayed on my side, on my shelf. ‘As long as you promise never to let them out,’ she said.

‘Course not.’

‘They’re like prisoners,’ she mused, prodding with a lolly-stick and watching the creatures boiling over the surface of their nest.

‘They’re not prisoners,’ I said, ‘not at all. This is their whole world.’

She pulled a face as if I was mad.

At least they were safe in their tank, that’s what I thought, safe from predators or the stamping feet of human beings.

Daddy didn’t mention the ants. From the angle his head would have been at as he stood on the ladder, I realised with a rush of relief, the tank would have been behind him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.