Meena Mangalathil:

Antsy couldn’t believe her ears, she was hearing the ants talking. Antsy searched with her sense of smell and found a small hole, in which the ants have made a colony. Her eyes filled with tears of happiness. She was indeed not alone. She with her fingers knocked on the floor and spoke with the workers. To her surprise, they replied. She couldn’t contain her happiness.             She crouched(half sitting) near the floor, to see clearly her family. She bade(said) them goodbye and joined Spidey who was watching this excited communication with a smile. He opened the door and saw John and Lisa in the far corner of the living room. They joined them. “John, do you think we could get something to eat? We have been eating like spiders and ants. but now I feel it's not sufficient .” Well that’s easy to rectify(set right), Lisa rang the bell and they moved to the dining room.               To their surprise, the food was served from one end of the table to the other which was a metre and

          Antsy raised her eyes to Spidey and let out a long breath. She had a small smile playing on her lips. Spidey, seeing her expression, couldn’t predict what her response would be. But she was really beautiful, if her energy and attitude as an ant is still there then she would be a winner. She can do any jobs in a jiffy(moments). “Spidey, don’t blame yourself, for all that has happened, we both know, it was not our doing. It just came our way and we followed it. But I want to thank you for not leaving me. I was and am really scared, Spidey. Now I do not have a family and you are indeed my partner. We are grown up adults now in this human world and we just cannot walk around like children and I would like to have you as my guardian. But I have one request, Spidey quirked an eyebrow “I would like to keep my name, pleaaase.”           Spidey smiled as he was also planning to do the same, “That’s good, just imagine the confusion that occurs when we switch(exchange) names. I am real

        “What is it?” asked Spidey. The potion is in a chest and it is magically locked. You will have to solve three riddles in order to open it. The question is unknown to us too. The question arrives, when the iron rod in the steeple gets magically activated. We’ll go look in the chest room, where the potion is kept. “One moment John, what will happen of you and about us? How long have we to be in such a state?”           I am sorry to say Spidey, we are changed forever and in our state only fate decides. We cannot return to our previous person. Since you have got my shape and Antsy, Lisa’s, it would be better that we exchange our names too and don’t worry about public appearances,  we were always afraid of the curse, our family decided to have no public contact at all. Now it’s happened, the rod is now turned back to concrete steeple relieving us from the curse. But about us we are not sure because we all know that we are not human or insect/arachnid (eight legged living beings).

                 One of the biggest creatures with ferocious eyes all over the head and it was the same height as Spidey and it was walking on eight legs. Eight Legs! My God its a Spider!  Spidey, in his entire lifespan hadn’t seen such a big spider. It walked gracefully. Beside the spider, walked a big ant. It was a bit smaller than the spider. But the weird(strange) part is, they were dressed like human beings. He couldn’t understand why they were there in this big castle with extensive grounds. Though he had been a spider, Spidey got this creepy feeling when he saw these creatures together. They were coming to him. He slowly nudged Antsy. She looked up and her eyes widened when she saw the two big creatures. A lightning of fear passed through her spine.She just held on to Spidey, lest(in case) they do any harm.            But to their surprise, the creatures came near them and spoke, “Hello Spidey, Hello Antsy, How do you do? They both gaped(standing open mouthed) at them trying

          Spidey couldn’t believe himself that he was flying, and without any strain(hard work) from his part, luckily Antsy was holding him tightly. Hoping to see what was happening, he looked up to see himself being taken by a Bumble Bee. It had got entangled in his web accidentally and it ripped off his web and now he really prayed that nothing happens to Antsy, they both have been jumping from one misfortune to another. He looked down and saw that Antsywas holding him tightly for her dear life.  Suddenly they were nearing a forest area and the Bumble Bee started slowing down. Hoping that he would entangle in a tree, he made sure that he held Antsy tightly and from nowhere a steeple rose from the forest and immediately the bumble bee swerved (turned sharply) but the flying web got caught in that Steeple. The web, Antsy and Spidey safely stuck, the bumble bee flew away.           Antsy couldn’t believe that she really flew in air. She felt that today was her day for flying. But wher

          Thus the two friends, started their journey to the unknown. They had walked a long distance and Spidey was feeling a bit  shaky due to hunger. Suddenly, Spidey saw a bee hive on a tree branch.  “Antsy, why not we rest here for a while? I’ll just weave a web and try to catch a bee, so that we can have some food. Or else I’ll just fall dead.” Oh! I’m sorry Spidey, I didn’t think that you hadn’t eaten anything. OK. Go ahead. I’ll just look around, if there is anything I could find for you and me. "But don’t go too far hmm", so saying Spidey moved up the tree and quickly started weaving his web.            He wove it very fast between two branches and waited for his prey.  He looked down, to see what Antsy was doing. He saw that she was slowly climbing up the tree with a small half dead bee in her mouth. With a smile he saw her progress, the bee was more heavier than her but still she was dragging it up. He slowly came down his dragline and stopped near Antsy. “Hey Ant

          Don’t worry about that, there are other soldier ants to look after our colony and the queen . Spidey’s eye widened, Are you saying that you are living with the queen? “Of Course! where else?” Are you a princess? No silly I’m a worker . I have lots of duties to do in the colony, like taking care of the eggs that the queen lays and the feed and bathe the babies that come out of the egg then I’ll have to gather food for the colony and to help in building the anthills. Really? Do you actually know to build an anthill? “Well, a bit because there are lots of workers and slaves who joins together to do it. We just follow the elders, but I think your web is cool. You do it alone, right? Yes, I do it alone. “I have seen that insects get stuck in your web, but how come, you don’t get stuck there in your own web?” “Well our body produces an oil with which we are able to move easily.” Really? “Yes”.           Hey, Antsy, don’t you think you should check where you’re going? “Well, I usua