Pamela was as ordinary as a girl could get. She had brunette hair and brown eyes. If you saw her on the street, chances were you wouldn't look twice. She had an amazing secret, though. Pamela was a power person. In case you don’t know, a power person is a being that has the appearance of a human with special powers, as the name suggests. Pamela happened to have insect powers. She could transform into an insect and talk to them, too.
If you were to look at Pamela on a certain day, in a certain corner of the playground, and if you were very observant, you would have noticed something strange. Pamela was sitting down and staring intently at her shoe. If you happened to be standing quite close to her you would have heard her talking to something. Of course, you wouldn’t be able to understand her, but if you could this what you would have heard and seen.
“Hello,” she whispered to the tiny ant on her shoe, “Are you ok? When I saw you scurrying the way you were, I thought something was wrong.”
“Nothing is wrong, girl. Unless you consider big people like yourself destroying the colony and then stomping on the escaping ants,” the ant replied in a saucy tone.
Pamela was well used to the rudeness of insects. The only polite insects she had ever seen were ladybugs.
She decided to assist the ants. She considered going over to the kids and making them leave the ants alone. Unfortunately, most of her classmates didn’t respect her enough to stop when she asked them to.
Pamela knew that the best thing to do was change into an insect everyone was scared of. She considered a bee, but she would die if she had to sting anyone. After careful consideration, she chose a wasp. Wasps were big and easily noticeable. They also could sting more than once and not die.
Pamela gently pushed the ant off her shoe and began transforming. As always, it felt as if her skin became tighter. The prickly feeling wasn’t entirely unpleasant.
Once the change was complete, Pamela lifted into the air. She flew quickly over to the part of the playground where an unusual number of children had gathered. The leader of the group was a bully named Robert. He would regularly kill insects for entertainment. Pamela flew over to him and landed on his shoulder.
He noticed her almost immediately.
“There’s a wasp on me!” Robert screamed. He began swatting at Pamela before realizing his best chance at not being stung was to run. So that is what he did. The other children ran after him, laughing hysterically.
Pamela had left Robert’s shoulder as soon as he began fleeing. She transformed back into herself as soon as the other kids were out of eyesight.
The ants started slowly scurrying away. Pamela knew something was wrong immediately.
Is anything else wrong now?” she asked.
“The humans have slaughtered our queen,” the ants sadly retorted.
“Why don’t you get a new queen or something?” Pamela wondered.
One of the ants explained in a rude voice, “No, the queen makes the eggs. Without her there can be no more eggs. Without more eggs we cannot make a new queen.”
Another ant started speaking, “While we are sad about the death of our queen, we have forgotten to do something important. Everyone, we must thank this kind human for saving us.”
Pamela smiled as a chorus of small voices came up to her ears.
“You are welcome,” she told the small creatures, “I am always here when you need me.”
Just then the bell rang, signaling the end of recess. Pamela began sprinting toward the door.
“I will be back,” she called to the ants.
After the girl had gone inside, the ants began burying their dead. They worked hard on all of the graves, but they made a special grave for their queen.
If you ever go to that school and see pebbles arranged in neat lines, please respect the ants and don’t step on the graves.
THE END
