麻豆社

By Fyzah K

"Slithers?" Tarant eyed round the dense wilderness of the jungle until he saw a nest of snakes curled nearby a tree.

"Check. And last of all rodents...check!"

Tarant stroked his hairy chin with one of his eight (even hairier) legs. All the crawlies used to think he did this because he was nervous. They soon realised he only ever did this before making important announcements.

"Welcome my friends." Tarant's voice boomed loudly. "Once again, it's that time of year when two-legged creatures will be invading our jungle. They will come here, set camp at this very spot, trample on this very soil, snatch our families and confine us in dark spaces that are tight and inescapable. They will capture many of you and eat the most vulnerable amongst us."

At this, the jungle exploded in an outburst of noise: hissing, snarling, squeaking. A team of maggots began to writhe and squirm furiously (understandably so as they were usually the first culprits).

"Now one of the two-legged creatures is called Ant. In solidarity with our ant colony we refuse to accept this. It is an insult to steal our most hard-working comrades' name!"

Queen Ant fluttered her wings and Tarant knew she was happy at this statement. Despite their occasional differences (usually when one of her soldiers found themselves trapped in his web and ultimately his belly) Tarant respected the Queen and her colony.

"I have invited everyone to brief you on how we need to proceed. Slithers, I want to see those fangs and if they dig in to the creatures, even better."

"Yessss Sssir. We will impresss you thisss year."

"Next we have Crocs and Gators. You must get those snappers ready to snap. Stop making it easy for those creatures to capture you. Bare those teeth, shed those tears and snap away chunks of their flesh!"

"Rodents. Running up and down their chambers won't do the job. Squeak, scurry, scamper! Bite, gnaw, tear! These creatures must fear us and never return. You hear me?"

The rodent pack squealed and jumped with excitement at this command.

"We will keep our land!" Tarant bellowed. All the jungle cheered in jubilation. The crocs were shedding real tears of joy; the snakes slithered in anticipated excitement; the maggots ravenously devoured the rest of the meat. The ants however had gone back to work.

"Let's scare them off this year. Let's celebrate by getting them out of here!"