The Adventures of Butterbean and the King, The Tale of the Crown Jewels
Have you ever wondered why the Queen ants rule all ant mounds? What happened to the last King of the ants? These are some of the unanswered questions that puzzled two young ants, Butterbean and the King.
Follow them from their ant mound deep in South Texas as they continue on their journey to find the answers to these questions that have plagued the insect world for centuries, where an unexpected discovery changes their lives forever.
King Tissell was named as such because his parents thought King was a strong name and would build character in their young son. Rufus Jingles is a rather large ant given the nickname Butterbean due to his overwhelming passion for food.
An unknown journey becomes an adventure when the travelers believe there is something new and interesting up ahead. On their quest to the unknown they encounter numerous strange insects and unusual creatures along the way that become both friend and foe.
Excerpt
The Adventures of Butterbean and the King, The Tale of the Crown Jewels
The Trinity of Evil consists of three very despicable characters. The first of which Butterbean and the King had a brief encounter with on the way to the Crown mound would be Socrates the sorcerer. He is a very old southwestern zebra scorpion. He is white with black zebra stripes that cover his entire body and run to the tip of his deadly tail. Although he has the ability to change the colors on his armored shell and segmented tail, he is always striped.
He has in his possession the eye-piercing blue sapphire jewel from King Zeke’s crown. This is his prized possession and he guards it with all his medieval magical powers. He stashes all his guarded worldly pieces deep in his den. He also has something that belonged to Butterbean, the gold BB he took as payment for allowing them to pass. He wasn’t extremely pleased when he realized he had been scammed; the BB wasn’t real gold. He instantly used his magical powers and turned that BB into a solid gold gazing ball he can use to view the past, present, and the future. The first thing he viewed in his new golden ball was the return of Butterbean and the King, and this time they were looking for him or something he has. He lives in a gloomy dungeon of a den located not far from where he
encountered the two ants at their fi rst meeting. His den is hard to find since it is located deep in a patch of hawkweed thistles near the creek. These thistles have branches that resemble talons on a hawk and hundreds of small thistle thorns that break off into the skin and body when disturbed. The second Trinity of Evil associate and menace to society is Spinner the black widow spider. She is a nasty, mean, and hateful ten-legged black spider with a bulging red hourglass-shaped design on her bottom side. L. Michael Hellums
Inserted into that hourglass shape is the precious red ruby jewel from the king’s crown. It is proudly displayed and deeply embedded into her body in the top tier of the hourglass. Of course, this allows her to be in possession of the stone at all times.
Spinner is ancient in age and many years ago had made several deadly attempts on King Zeke’s life. It’s still unsure if she had anything to do with his brutal death since there were no witnesses found alive to tell. Her fangs are extremely venomous and she can launch a cluster of her sticky webbing at great distances. This enables her to detain her prey until she can pull them in closer and inject her venomous bite into their crunchy bodies. Once bitten by the fatal bite, she encases them in her webbing and drinks up the victim’s last juices of life as their bodies turn to empty
cases of mush.
Her spider’s lair is located just beyond the mysterious Black Mustard Forest . Spinner has a pair of multiview eyes that enables her to see in all directions, but her sense of smell is not very good. This enables her to live so close to the foul-smelling Mustard Forest. The mustard plants are tall slender plants that have bright yellow fl owers and very pungent seeds. Once you’ve entered into the forest, these seeds produce a harsh aroma that overpowers your sense of taste and smell with a horrible burning sensation.
