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another ant by banging into him, but they didn’t even stop to talk. They rushed away in opposite directions.
    Bean followed her ant to a patch of dry dirt. There he plunged down a hole.
    “Come back,” whispered Bean. She liked her ant. Maybe he would come out if she poked his house. She found a thin stick and touched the top of the hole. Four ants streamed out and raced in four different directions. Bean didn’t think any of them was her ant.
    Bean watched the ant hole for a long time. Ants came and went. They all seemed to know where they were going. They all seemed to have important jobs. None of them seemed to notice that they were puny little nothings compared to Bean.
    Bean dragged the hose toward the ant hole. She didn’t turn the hose on. That would be mean. But she let a little bit of water dribble into the hole, and watched as the dirt erupted with ants. Thousands of ants flung themselves this way and that, racing to safety.
    “Help, help,” whispered Bean. “Flood!”
    The ants ran in orderly lines away from the water. Some were holding little grains above their heads. They were the hero ants. But even the non-hero ants were busy. They were all far too busy to notice Bean watching them through the magnifying glass. To them, she was like a planet. She wasn’t part of their world. She was too big and too far away for them to see.
    Bean looked up into the sky. What if someone was watching her through a giant magnifying glass and thinking the same thing she was? What if she was as small as an ant compared to that someone? And what if that someone was an ant compared to the next world after that?
    Wow.
    Bean waved at the sky. Hi, out there, she thought.