Embark on the exciting and fascinating adventure of Butterbean and the King — and make your summer a very memorable one.
Follow Butterbean and King from their ant mound far away, from town to the end of their trip a few miles from there. The young King was named as such because his parents thought it to be a strong name that would hopefully build his character. Butterbean, on the other hand, is a little different from the others — he has a rather large size because of his appetite.
Although they lived on opposite sides of the mound, they go to the same school and they became close friends. The two friends, however, felt like outcasts when all the other young ants laughed and made fun of them. Butterbean was left out because he was slow and seemed to have his mind on one thing — food. King was left out because of his name and his unusual hat — a crown hat made from a bottle cap.
Summer arrived and they decided to spend it exploring outside the mound — and they did. In their journey, they meet fascinating insects and other creatures that they befriend, making their adventure a more interesting one.
Meet their new friends and join them in a discovery they would never have believed possible as you continue traveling with them in The Adventures of Butterbean and the King.
Excerpt
The Adventures of Butterbean and the King
It was the last day of school at Ant Arthur Academy before the summer break. Butterbean and the King didn’t want to spend all summer in ant training. Summer breaks were spent sharpening such ant skills as lifting and antennae training or food gathering—although Butterbean didn’t mind the gathering part much because he seemed to eat more than he gathered. In the end, though, the two thought that ant life was too short, and this was not how they wanted to spend their summer. So they decided that the next morning they would take off.
As you may know, ants can lift an item that’s twenty times its own weight, and they find their way back and forth from the mound by using their antennae to sniff the ground and also the air. You might say they touch and smell with them.
Ants use a system of roads or trails they have made to travel back and forth from the mound when it’s time for food gathering, which seems to be most of the time due to the fact that there are thousands of ants to feed in the colony. Ants lay down a specific scent when and where food is found so other ants in the same colony can find it.
The summer gathering was the busiest time for the colony. They must be prepared for the fall and winter season when food was hard to find. That’s why everyone in the colony chipped in with the workload—well, except Queen Vida and her babies—and this summer gathering, they would be missing two young ants. Our two guys decided they would spend this summer exploring outside the mound. As they would soon discover, this should not have been the thing to do.
Butterbean and the King hardly slept a wink the night before they left. Both were so excited about their journey. The two met early the next morning at the main mound entrance, which was slightly on the east side of the mound. The ant elders had chosen the east side because that was the side the sun rose on and would give them a few more minutes of daylight. Our guys knew this, so they planned to meet while the others were still eating breakfast.
Ants are extremely smart insects, so they never start the day without the most important meal of the day. Today was a breakfast feast for everyone since it was the beginning of the gathering.
Butterbean was by no means going to miss breakfast, especially since he and the King were also going to have a long day ahead. He had stuffed his backpack full of goodies the night before since he wasn’t sleeping much anyway.
Butterbean was rarely seen without his lime green backpack. His favorite answer most of the time when asked what was in the backpack was, “You never know when you might get hungry.” Then he would give a little chuckle and shrug his shoulders and continue about his business without another thought. He also had it packed with some rather strange items for an ant to be carrying around. He had a piece of string, a blue rock and a shiny gold BB (shot pellet 0.175) among other unknown items.
The BB he had was found once on a school field trip to the top of the mound. That trip was the closest either of the two ants had actually been to leaving the mound. The whole class got to stand on the top of the mound and look out at the world around them. Most of that day was spent outside in the fresh air looking at things that, before then, they had only seen in books.
That trip was what brought Butterbean and the King together as a team, a best buds team, you might say. That day, they both realized they had two things in common that nobody else in the colony could relate to. They both wanted to see what was out there beyond Queen Vida’s boundaries, and neither thought that anyone in the mound would even notice they were missing. Both ants felt that they just didn’t seem to fit in with the rest of the ants in the colony.
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