BY ZOE RAINE
Strawberry Pop-Tart crumbs filled the sidewalk crack, making the perfect snack for the colony of ants. They didn’t even mind the crust with no frosting. The smallest load was a sprinkle, saved for the ant that could hardly carry its weight. The ants go marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah, the little girl sang to herself. It wasn’t raining, but she couldn’t help but notice they walked to the tune like they knew it — only they didn’t stop to bathe in the sun.
Tangelo had asked for an ant farm last year on her birthday; instead, she got a pair of tap
shoes (which she never took off). Everyone plugged their ears as she passed, and classmates and teachers were always asking, “are you ever gonna take those things off?” Tangelo thought about gluing them to her feet so that when people tried to take them from her because they’d get ruined walking around on pavement like that, they wouldn’t budge. She loved the tap shoes dearly, but she still wished she had an ant farm so she could study the ants from her room instead of always having to visit them here, at the park a few blocks from her house. Of course, there were ants everywhere, but she liked to see the same colony and learn their names. She lay on her belly and watched them like a TV show; they were even better than The Smurfs. She narrated the ants and laughed about the jokes they’d make to each other (her favorite was Doris who always seemed confused about where she was going), and she drew pictures of them in her notebook cooking and boxing and eating cereal at the dinner table. Sometimes, she snuck them drops of juice from her Capri Sun.
Tangelo stood up, wiped the dirt from her overalls and notebook, and looked around for her brothers to show them the ants. She saw moms pushing their kids on swings, yelling “underdog,” — pushing them up and up until their entire backdrop was open sky. She saw dads catching their children at the bottom of slides with wide grins and open arms. Finally, she spotted her brothers wrestling in the sand.
“You guys! Wanna see my drawings?”
She held up her notebook for them to look at, but older brother was too busy holding younger brother in a headlock, and younger brother was too busy trying to get out of the headlock. On the way home, she walked behind her brothers for the two blocks, dragging her tap shoes the whole way.
When they got home, her mom was sleeping on the couch with a handful of sugar cereal. She tended to eat in her sleep. Tangelo ate a frosted flake from her mom’s hand and tapped her shoulder. “You kids have fun?” she mumbled, still half sleeping.
“Mom, I made some more drawings of the ants!”
“That’s great, will you show me later?” her mother turned to her side to sleep. “And please Ellie, take those shoes off or I’m gonna toss ‘em out.”
Tangelo stomped her shoe on the carpet (not making the impact she had hoped) and went straight to her room to plug in the hot glue gun. While she waited for it to heat up, she hung up her new ant pictures and thought about what it would be like to be part of a colony. She peeled off her frilly socks, and when the glue touched her toes, it felt like ice skating barefoot but only burned for a moment. She zig-zagged along her toes and worked in a swirl for her heels (outside in). Before the glue dried, she slipped into the worn black leather, pushing the hot liquid from the holes lining the sides. The glue froze halfway down the shoes, never making it to the sole. She laid on her bed to admire her work and tapped her feet along the wall, dancing below all her drawings until she heard her mom shout:
“Ellie, time for your bath!”
By the time she got to the bathroom, her mom was already back on the couch. Tangelo closed the door and slipped her pants over the black bows of her shoes and stepped into the tub — even through the water, she could hear the metal on ceramic. She tapped her toe, then heel, to the beat of the ants, hurrah, hurrah.
You’re going to ruin those, said her mom, her teacher, her classmates. Ruin, ruin, ruin. But then how would anyone hear her footsteps? How would anyone know she was there?
Zoe Raine is an assistant fiction editor for Sundog Lit and reader for Fractured Lit. Her work is featured (or forthcoming) in The Hunger, Lost Balloon, Invisible City, and others. You can find her on Twitter @ZoRaineMaki1 or visit her website at https://www.zoeraine.net/