This first appeared in Twisted Tongue

Heiko  was killing ants in the cool shade under the chestnut tree.  He didn’t kill them outright, but first inflicted various wounds upon them, then set them to run races against one another.  He was interested to see what sort of injuries an ant could sustain and still come in first.  Right now the ant without any back legs was easily passing up the one without a head.  They were large black ants, crisp and shiny, and when you broke them open a thick yellow substance oozed out of them.  Mari came out of the house and called to him.  ‘Heiko, leave those poor ants alone!  You want to go to the beach?’  He got up quickly, brushing the sand from the palms of his hands guiltily.  He liked smashing up ants, but he knew he wasn’t supposed to.

          On the beach the heat was visible as a pale blue haze shimmering over the water.  It hurt his eyes to look at it.  Mari dumped their beach gear in the sand and then rubbed sun creme into his back and shoulders while he squirmed uncomfortably, blinking into the haze.  He didn’t like the the sticky feeling of the creme.  He walked down to the water’s edge and stepped in only up to his ankles.  The water was very cold.  Mari ran right into the water, jumped in head first and came up streaming.  ‘Come on, stupid,’ she said.  Heiko shook his head and looked away.  ‘I’m looking for needlenoses,’ he said.  He stood peering down into the water, watching for the little snake-like creatures that lived in the shallows.  ‘You only want them to torture them,’ said Mari.  ‘Why don’t you leave those little things alone?  They never did anything to you.’  ‘I don’t want to torture them.  I want to make an aquarium,’ he said.  Mari came up and dragged him into the water, holding him close to her chest.  ‘Sailing, sailing, over the bounding main...’ she sang, and plunged up and down in the water with Heiko in her arms.  He screamed with pleasure and held tight, his arms around her neck. 

Afterwards they sat on the beach and drank red Kool-Aid from the thermos.  Mari stretched out on her towel and started reading in a book.  Heiko knelt in the hot sand and started on the aquarium.  First he made the elaborate outer walls, which he decorated with bits of broken shell and colourful rocks, then the inner moat where the animals would go.  He decided to add a tower for effect. When it was  all ready he took the bucket down to the water and stood very quietly, waiting for the needlenoses.  Soon he had three.  Their tiny bodies were slippery and cool, and they squirmed desperately as he lifted them out of the water.  But once they were in the moat they settled down.  ‘Now you’ve got to guard the castle,’ he said to the needlenoses.  He’d decided it wasn’t an aquarium after all.  ‘What do needlenoses eat?’ he said to Mari, but she pretended not to hear him.  He got up and stood at the edge of her towel.  ‘Mari, what do needlenoses eat?  What do they eat?’ he repeated.  She looked up from her book.  ‘How should I know?’ she said.  ‘Didn’t I tell you to leave those creatures alone?  You’ll be sorry some day you picked on things littler than yourself.  How would you like it if somebody did it to  you?’  ‘I’m not hurting them,’ he said.  ‘They’re my dragons.’  He gathered some red seaweed and put it in the moat for them to eat.

That night Heiko had a dream about the needlenoses.  In his dream a group of six needlenoses came to visit him.  They weren’t like the ordinary needlenoses, which are dark greenish-brown, these were each of a different colour, and they sparkled like beautiful jewels.  The brightly coloured creatures reared up as if they were standing and spoke to Heiko in thin, high-pitched voices.  ‘You’ve got to come with us,’ they said.  ‘Come and guard our castle.’  They began to twine themselves around his arms and legs, one of them twisted itself about his throat.  They weren’t tiny any more, but bigger and bigger, as big as anacondas.  Heiko struggled desperately to free himself. He tried to scream, but was unable to  make  a sound, so strong was the pressure round his throat.  Terrified, he rolled out of bed and woke up with a bump.  He fumbled for the lamp and switched on the light.  The room was full of shiny black ants, they covered the floor like a dark, shifting carpet, they clung to the walls and the furniture, and swarmed silently over the tousled bedclothes.