Giant Indignant Insects (POW:ANT) Tall Tales: Tell It On Thursday

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"It would be very interesting to preserve photographically not the stages, but the metamorphoses of a picture. Possibly one might then discover the path followed by the brain in materializing a dream."

Pablo Picasso

Giant Indignant Insects (496 words)

To say Anthony was antisocial was a stretch, but as brilliant as this six-year-old was, he was ignorant of classroom antics. It didn't help that his teacher pedantically called him a smartypants because then some of the bigger boys picked it up and started calling him a smarty pantywaist. He wanted to sit in the back writing romantic pantoums, sketching fantastic beasts and phantasms like manticores and coelocanths or studying quantum mechanics, but she wanted him up front so he could be observant of the classroom ant farm.Anthony hesitantly named the queen ant, Cleopantra and gave all the servant ants names like Antony, Pantagruel and Phantastes. He anthropomorphized them all constructing witty banter and stories for them after he was finished listing antonyms for the words on his spelling list.

That night Anthony went to sleep in his cantilevered bed and dreamt about gargantuan ants with enormous antennae taking over the world. Queen Cleopantra's army was lead by a militant commandant named Chanticleer. The wantonly insouciant queen sat on her throne eating croissants and red currant jam, with a mantilla covering her cold shoulders. In the meantime the mutant infantry descended on Canterbury. Inside the protestant cathedral, the celebrant led the mendicants in chanting canticles for compline, unaware of the unpleasantness about to take place.

Anthony could see the sergeants rallying their troops and realized he had a significant problem on his hands. Then the lieutenants with the cavalry showed up riding elephants and antelope with gigantic antlers. Only gallantry on his part would save the day. He wracked his savant mind for a solution while frantically heading to the garage. His father surely must have something in there to help. Anthony pushed antiques out of the way to the storage. He opened cupboards. Sealant? No. Coolant? Nah. Refridgerant? Nope! Deoderant? Uh uh. Lubricant? Antifreeze? He finally found a container of insect repellant. He leant a ladder against the church and hauled the antibug spray with him where he covered the roof using a propellant gun.

"Anthony. Anthony!" His mother woke him and gave him an antihistamine and decongestant. He had hives on his face and was ranting wildly as a fever took hold. His mother berated herself for letting him be served something at the restaurant he must be allergic to. Could it have been the piquant antipasto? The extravagant eggplant parmigian? The sautéed chanterelles? The cilantro in the lasagna? The elegant canteloup sorbet? Maybe it was the centerpiece filled with fragrant chrysanthemums, flamboyant agapanthus and flippant amaranth stalks.

"Croissants with red currant jam." Anthony whispered. "We had them for afternoon tea. I told teacher I couldn't eat them, but those repugnant boys called me a pantywaist so I reluctantly ate them anyway."

"Don't worry. We'll make it abundantly clear to your teacher that she must guarantee you won't be served currants again. You must take advantage of your knowledge and not let them antagonize you. Anticipate their antics and defuse them with humor."

© Sue Barton 2008

This was written for the Play on Words Challenge. The word to be included this week (Week 16 - 2008) is "ANT" See playonwords.gather.com/ for further information. Join the group to join in the fun.

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