The summit was now within reach. Just at the moment when you might have expected him to increase his pace, he paused for a moment and looked behind. In fact, he did a full 360 degree turn. Perhaps it was disbelief that the goal was finally in sight. Perhaps he felt a need to reflect on what he had achieved, before he made the final push. There again, perhaps it was because a giant finger was looming up in front of him!

"Look at this ant, Mum! He's climbed all the way to the top of my Lego castle!"

The shrill voice belonged to Jeremy Bell, a small boy with a strange racket-shaped scar on his forehead, just visible beneath a shock of dark hair. The woman he referred to as his mother was actually his foster mother, his real mother having died in a tragic golfing accident when she had been struck by lightning. Jeremy had also been struck by the bolt, but had miraculously survived the accident, save for the scar on his forehead.

"Stop playing with those disgusting things and get ready for school!" shouted Mrs Crowther.

"They're not disgusting things. They're my friends," said the boy. "You don't understand. In fact, you should be careful what you say in front of them. Ants are really an alien species from another planet. They're just studying us for a while before they take over the earth."

"Well, they won't learn anything from you if you don't go to school. Now, get ready! By the way, Virginia's mother is going to take you to the tennis club after school."

Jeremy carefully deposited the ants inside a plastic capsule and trudged upstairs. "Why have I got to go to tennis?" he complained. "I wanted to go birdwatching."

"It's time you learned how to play," said Mrs Crowther, browsing through a grubby notebook with the words "Berd Wotching" scrawled on the front cover.

"Is this yours?" she asked. "What on earth is a 'Grat Spotidd Wedperk'?"

"Great Spotted Woodpecker," Jeremy corrected her.

"You're not a Bird Watcher - you're a Word Botcher!" exclaimed his foster father from the living room.

"Yeh, thanks," muttered the boy, adding under his breath "You'll be the first against the wall when the ants take over!"

That evening, Jeremy returned from the tennis club earlier than expected.

"Why are you back already?" asked his foster mother, as the boy rushed upstairs.

"I've still got time to do some birdwatching! The coach said I did really well," he shouted from his room, "but I don't think Virginia's mother will take me again!"

"Why ever not?"

"She had trouble with her sandwiches!"

"What?"

"She was reading a book and eating her tea while we played . . . and there were ants inside the sandwiches."

"Ants?" queried Mrs Crowther, as the boy flew out of the front door, binoculars swinging around his neck.

An empty plastic capsule fell out of his pocket. Mrs Crowther eyed it suspiciously as it rolled across the floor. "Jeremy! Come back here!"