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Sparky was a scrawny little fire ant. All the other ants in the 

colony were twice his size...and you had to have some girth to 

survive the wild animal of the backyard. 

Everyone feared the backyard dog, Mack, and boy was he 

wild! The ants never knew when Mack would blow through their 

colony. 

The worst Mack attack the colony experienced was ranked as a 

category five pawing...

                     Which left the colony completely demolished. 

It had been two days since the last Mack attack. The colony was 

lucky and only experienced a category one pawing. 

The ants were busy rebuilding, carrying two to three large lumps of 

earth at a time. Sparky tried to help the colony rebuild the left 

side of the structure that Mack had impaled. Since Sparky was so 

scrawny, he could only pick up one particle of the earth at a time. 

As Sparky was carrying a piece of dirt to the damage site, he could 

feel his legs trembling below him. He whispered to himself in a pint-

sized voice, "Come on Sparky, you can make it. It's only one measly 

piece of dirt." 

 Sparky heard the eeriest sound from above him and he immediately 

realized that his legs weren't trembling because he was exhausted.

They were trembling because right in front of him, as if his eyes 

were focused in slow motion, he could see the wild animal running 

straight for the colony at full speed.

Sparky had no time to run for shelter or warn his mother, who was 

tending to the baby larvae. He just closed his eyes and hoped that 

Mack would change his route.

When Sparky opened his eyes, he immediately thought of his 

mother. "Mama, Mama! Where are you?" he yelled in a frantic voice. 

"Is anybody there?"

Mack had leveled the entire colony in a split second.

Sparky kept calling out, "Hello, is anybody there? Is everybody 

okay?" Finally his fellow fire ants began to emerge from the rubble, 

but his mother was nowhere to be found. 

From far off Sparky could hear Tyson, his neighbor, yell in a deep 

distraught voice, "Sparky, Sparky, your mother...she's gone! She 

was caught in Mack's fur when he attacked us!"

Immediately Sparky felt his little heart fill with worry, saddest, 

and defeat. He knew how big the backyard was, and he knew how 

advanced his mother was in age. Sparky knew what he had to do...

He had to find his mother, who was also the queen!

The colony was frantic! They were worried for their queen's life. 

The leaders of the colony quickly called upon two of the most 

courageous and rugged fire ants to go into the unprotected yard to 

retrieve the queen, Bruno and Mace.

Sparky's heart sank when the leaders didn't call upon him to 

retrieve his own mother. Everyone knew he was little , but he knew 

he could muster up the courage to save his mother.

He felt a spark of determination ignite in his little heart! He knew 

he had to stand up and say something. So he mustered all the 

courage he had and in a stout yet wobbly voice he said, "I'm going to 

be the one to go out into the yard to retrieve my mother! No one 

will talk me out of this, so don't even try!"

Sparky was the queen's son, they knew they couldn't over rule his 

wishes. The colony felt hopeless. They didn't believe that such a 

scrawny little ant could survive in the yard with the wild 

animal...much less save the queen.

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