In the context of “I am going through my folder marked ‘stories’ and finding short stories I have written that are not dreadful, but by no means are they great, and publishing them because why not”- I give you this one from 2005. I do not remember writing this at all.

Andy the Ant

Andy the Ant was very much liked by his friends who lived in The Cupboard, but they all agreed that he was a little odd.

“I’m not odd!” he argued with Zen the Butterfly, while sticking his shoes to his feet with a bit of adhesive tape..  “This is perfectly normal. I just broke my shoelaces, and my shoes keep falling off.”

“Stop telling me I do odd things,” he said to Colin the Weevil while he snipped the top metal bit off an old light globe and filled it with water.  “I just thought this would be a good way to have a bath.”

“But you’ve propped it up with sandbags made of buttons,” Colin pointed out.  “Most insects would have used…oh…rice or something!”

“I happened to have a pile of buttons on hand I wasn’t using!” exclaimed Andy the Ant.

“If you don’t think that having a pile of buttons just lying around isn’t odd, then I don’t know how to change your mind!” said Colin, walking off, grinning.

“I wish they’d understand that everything I do has a reason,” Andy grumbled to himself.  “Oh well, time to work on my project.”

You see, Andy had a secret.  He was building something really special in the Unused Plastics Cupboard, next to The Cupboard that he lived in.

He rubbed his hands with glee.  “Just wait until Simone the Queen Bee comes to visit, and I’ll show her my project. She’ll love it. And then everyone will realise that I am not odd because she will tell them so!”

Andy picked up his little sack of sugar cubes, and his little bottle of sugar syrup, and went next door to the Unused Plastics Cupboard.  There he glued the sugar cubes together and carved them into shape (he ate the carved bits of sugar).

Simone the Queen Bee was coming for her visit. Simone lived in The Garden but often visited  The Cupboard .  Andy had prepared a morning tea for her and invited Ainsley the Grasshopper and Colin the Weevil as well.  He told them he had a surprise to show them, but not what it was.

They sat and chatted, and drank their tea and ate their sugary biscuits in Andy’s Sugar Tin house. He had no chairs but he sat on the floor, Simone sat on and empty pickle jar, Ainsley on a few of the button sandbags, and Colin sat on an old bread roll, which he kept  pulling bits off and stuffing  into his mouth when he thought no one was looking.

“Do you want to see the surprise now?” cried Andy, excited.

“Yes we do!” cried the insects.  The all followed Andy into the Unused Plastics Cupboard.

There stood something large, almost as large as the cupboard, covered with a tea towel.Andy grabbed the tea towel. “I wanted to make something nice for everyone to share,” he said. “Here it is!”

He pulled away the tea towel and the insects gasped, then started laughing.

“Andy, I love it!!” giggled Simone.

There, in front of them, stood a giant statue of Andy the Ant, made entirely of sugar, holding a giant striped lollipop in each hand.

“Dig in!” cried Andy, and ran over and began to nibble at the sugary statue.  The other insects were quick to follow (Colin went and told the other insects in The Cupboard, and they soon came and joined in)

“Do you think I’m odd now?” Andy asked Colin.

“Andy, you’ve just proved it.  Only you would make a giant sugar statue of yourself and get all your friends to eat it,” Colin pointed out.  “But that’s why we like you!”

“OH!” said Andy.  “Maybe it’s not so bad to be odd after all!”  And he pulled a bit of giant sugar antennae off his giant sugar head, and nibbled away happily.