Chapter 6
The bus groaned to a halt at its customary stop at the complex. As Sarah and Billy walked toward her building, Sarah’s mom called her on her cell phone to check how her day at school had gone. Billy no longer had a cell phone. It was one of the extra budget items that no longer existed after the divorce. Billy used any phone handy if he had to call his mom at work. In this case, it was Sarah’s.
“Great,” said Sarah. “With the parents taken care of, we can execute our secret mission.”
“I have to get the cage back into the apartment before the teacher’s come home. Mr. Phelps lives in my building. They always stay to do their planners and correct papers, so that will give us a bit of time.”
“Mrs. Wilder lives in the building next to me. I bet your painting with the ant on it actually hit home shall we say. That’s some pretty smart thinking on that one, Billy. I think you’re in for a huge “A” for artwork on that assignment.”
The mouse seemed grateful to get out of the cramped shirt pocket. Billy set him on Sarah’s kitchen table and gave him the rest of the cereal and the piece of cheese. He put a paper towel down on the floor in case the mouse had to pee.
Sarah returned with a small cage complete with a water bottle and exercise wheel. “Wow. You weren’t kidding. You are a super-brain with a super-brain mouse. My hamster sure wasn’t potty trained. Hey, look. He’s got long feet like a little kangaroo.”
“I see what you mean,” said a rather puzzled Billy. I’ve only had him a week, and he catches on to everything. I’m trying to figure that one out. Maybe you’re right. We need to make him part of the science fair project. I’m sure I can think up something interesting.”
“What’s his name?”
“I haven’t given him a real name yet.” Billy looked at her sheepishly. “I fell asleep in front of the fireplace watching TV, and when I woke up, he was sitting on my leg. It looked really funny. He was sitting there swinging his tail and watching the news. I called to him, “Hey, Mouse! Come over here.” Billy shrugged. “I mean, what else was I supposed to call him? He came right over to me and sat down in front of me on the couch. It just seems to me that he likes the name Mouse.”
Sarah sat down at the table and called to the mouse. To her surprise, he came right to her. “Not creative, but he does like the name. It works, so don’t change it. Mouse it is. But if you can teach him to talk, all’s fair if he calls you Boy,” she said with a smile.
Sarah tickled the mouse behind the ears. “He has intense and intelligent eyes. My hamster had the attention span of a flea.” She got up and went to the fridge to get a bottle of juice they could share. “Oh no, not again. Billy, come over here and look at this.”
Billy went over to the kitchen counter where she stood. Seven small ants were picking up toast crumbs and carrying them while one carpenter-type ant paced and hovered over them. While they watched, they noticed that as sturdy and strong looking as the larger ant was, it did not bother helping with the crumbs the others were struggling to carry. Billy could see the big ant’s antenna rapidly whipping around. “Watch the big one closely. It seems like he’s giving the other ants orders or something. They communicate with their antennas.
“Want to see something really crazy?” Billy brought the mouse over to the counter. “Go get them, Mouse.” The words were barely spoken when the mouse stomped on all the crumb carriers.
“I don’t believe it! Look at his feet fly! Maybe you ought to rename him Kung Fu, Charlie.” Sarah’s laughter immediately began to fade.
Oddly enough, the mouse began gnashing his teeth as he slowly edged around the larger ant, and the ant was slowly backing away. “What the heck?” Billy muttered under his breath.
The mouse forced the ant to back up against the counter wall, turned, and smacked the ant hard with its tail. The mouse let out a squeal, but the ant was neither crushed nor fazed by the blow.
“Billy, whatever you do, don’t let that ant escape. I’ve got to catch it.” Sarah ran from the room and came back with a small glass jar and a pair of tweezers. The mouse had hit the ant again with his tail, but once again, that failed to have any effect on the ant.
Sarah seized the ant with the tweezers and put it in the jar, quickly screwing the lid on tight. “Boy, those tweezers got hot awfully fast. Come on, Billy, let’s see if I’m right.” She motioned for Billy to follow her into the bathroom. “Flip off the lights.” Once Billy flipped the light switch, both of them watched in total darkness.
Sarah shook the jar hard and then held it up. In the eerie darkness of the bathroom, the ant glowed a bright red. “Success,” said Sarah. We’ve got ourselves one red hot ant.”
They took the jar back to the kitchen. The mouse was sitting on the counter among the scattered bodies of the other dead ants. It was quietly licking its tail.
Sarah went over to the mouse. “Poor thing, I bet I know what’s wrong with you.” Sure enough, there were two burn marks on the mouse’s tail. Sarah pulled some burn cream out of her backpack and smoothed it on the mouse’s injured tail.
“I know it doesn’t seem to make any sense Billy, but neither does this.” Sarah rolled up her shirt sleeve. She had at least a dozen angry burn marks, each large as the ant they had captured in the jar.
“Those look awful,” Billy said. “They’re even partly blistered.”
“This was what I wanted to talk to you about,” Sarah continued. “What kind of ant burns instead of biting?
“I’m no expert, but it doesn’t sound probable,” said Billy, still looking at the burn marks on her arm.
“I woke up two nights ago, and red glow-in-the-dark ants were on my arm. I thought I was dreaming at first until I felt the pain. The minute I moved, the ants seared my arm like a steak on a grill. It was so painful my mom took me to see the doctor. I explained it to the Doctor, but he acted like I was pretty darn crazy. I think he thought I burned myself with something on purpose. He said it would be helpful if I could catch one since he’d never seen insect bites like that. Now that I have one of the ants, he can put it on his own arm and see I was being truthful. Besides, both of us saw how Mouse got the burns on his tail. I really feel sorry for Mouse. Mine still really hurt, and his must too.”
“It seems to be a defensive action on the ant’s part,” mused Billy. “They go into some sort of attack mode when threatened.”
“We can look at it under my projection microscope,” said Billy. “Darn it. My microscope is at school in the science lab. Mr. Phelps brought it in for me today.”
“The school’s still open,” Sarah reminded him.
“Right,” said Billy. “I’m going to head back to school and use it. It’ll enlarge the ant, and then I can get a decent look at it. Can I use your phone to call my mom again?”
“Sure, call her. But I want to see what it looks like too. After all, I am one of its victims. Maybe, if he’s still at school, we can ask Mr. Phelps what kind of ant he thinks this is. It’ll help the exterminators figure out what they’re up against.”
“If they ever get here,” said Billy. “I hope no one is just sitting waiting for them to arrive. We’ve had a lot of the small ants for weeks now, which is what everybody has been complaining about and getting no management response. The red hot ants are a more dangerous problem. Maybe we can figure out an amazing science project out of all this.”
Maggie was delighted to hear enthusiasm back in her son’s voice. The fact that he had made a new friend from their apartment complex delighted her. She agreed to pick them up and gave them a full two and a half hours to get back to school and do their work in the science lab. She let Billy know her cell phone wasn’t working, so any phone calls had to be made to the office and before she left for home.
Mouse had been sitting on the table intently watching the ant continuously ram itself against the side of the glass jar. Sarah took the jar and dropped it in her backpack, and Billy tucked Mouse back into his shirt pocket.
They slipped on their backpacks and headed over to bury the cage deep in Billy’s closet for the time being.