Yummy
by Melissa Wisniewski

"Melissa! Come here!" my two brothers, Nick and Scotty, would yell.

"You’ll never guess what we found!" said Scotty.

I scurried over to wherever they found the six-legged insect with the brightest smile put on my face. I looked down at them with my eyes widening and licked my lips as if I hadn’t had anything to eat in weeks. I screamed at the top of my lungs, "YUMMY!" I smashed the ants with my dirty un-washed finger and put it to my tongue to lick like a popsicle on a hot summer day. They tasted bland, almost like tap water. When I swallowed, they glided down the back of my throat as if they were on an inner tube going down the slide of terror into my stomach. I could eat ants all day and still be hungry for real food.

"Melissa, are you eating ants again?" my mom said when she entered the room and found her three kids huddled over the mahogany dresser.

By covering my mouth, I tried to hide what I was doing so I wouldn’t get into trouble. When she walked out of the door, she shook her head, laughed, and then whispered to herself,

"Kids will be kids. They’ll grow out of it soon."

Once she left, my brothers and I realized there weren’t any ants left on the dresser. We got down on our hands and knees to look on the blue-carpeted floor and behind the dresser to see if any more ants felt like being eaten that day. To our surprise, there weren’t any. We got up from the floor with our knees brush-burned red from being down there so long. My brothers and I all looked at each other, dusted off our hands, and said,

"Looks like our mission is done for the day."