🐜 The Great Ant Parade

Bean the kitten was lying on the warm patio when she noticed a line. A long, wiggly, moving line. It went from the flowerpot, across the stones, all the way to a crumb of cookie.

She looked closer. The line was made of ants! Hundreds of tiny ants, marching one behind another, like a parade. Tap, tap, tap went their tiny feet, so quietly that only a cat could hear.

"Where are you going?" asked Bean. One ant stopped and waved its feelers. "To the cookie crumb! We're taking it home to share with the whole colony."

"But the crumb is bigger than you," said Bean. "Yes," said the ant proudly. "But ants are strong. We can carry things much heavier than ourselves. And we work together."

Bean watched as the ants surrounded the crumb. They lifted it up, all at once, and began to carry it back along the line. It looked like the crumb was walking all by itself.

Some ants went ahead, sniffing the path. "We leave a smell trail," explained the ant, "so everyone can follow the way home." Bean sniffed the stones, but she couldn't smell anything at all.

At the flowerpot, the ants disappeared into a tiny hole, one by one, with the crumb. Bean put her ear to the soil. She could just hear a faint cheer from underground. The ants were having a feast!

That afternoon, Bean dropped a tiny bit of her biscuit near the flowerpot. Within minutes, a new parade appeared. Bean purred and watched them march, the tiniest, busiest, strongest friends in the garden. A breeze blew, and not one ant let go.