Introduction

     It was summer - and hot.  Chummer the common garden ant was returning to his colony from a long trek through the grass forest with a group of friend scouter ants.  Their journey had been quite fruitful - Chummer had on his back a piece of a rather large fruit fly they had found dead in a clearing.  Even though it had died only a few minutes before they had found it, the colony had to take what it could to survive. 

     Chummer's friend, Trudd, was right behind him, hauling an entire leg of the beast by himself.  How he managed to do it was anybody's guess, as he had a reputation for being the most clumsy ant in the colony and couldn't survive two minutes holding something thrice his weight without tripping or other. 

  "O Chummer!" Trudd said from behind, panting heavily, "would you mind helping me with this huge leg?"

  "Well of course!" Chummer sighed, shifting the large piece to one arm and joining Trudd.  As they both trumped up the huge, sloping side of the anthill together, they passed more ants on other business.

  "Hullo, Mabonn!" Trudd called out to another ant.  The ant said nothing but smiled and nodded in his direction, too busy to speak.  At last, they reached the top, and another ant on their expedition said, "Woo!  At long last! I thought we would never get here!"

  "Thank goodness we did." said another as they passed the large ants guarding the anthill and slipped into the large hole that led to the colony interior.

  Chummer and Trudd dumped the pieces they were carrying into the food chute that led to the food rooms, where the food would be broken down.  The other ants on their trek also dumped theirs into the food chute before they all retired to the sleeping rooms, too tired to do anything else but sleep for the rest of the day.

  As Chummer