One of the main characters in The River Goddess & Other Stories is Number Two, a large red ant who acts as the voice of reason (sometimes ad nauseum!) in most of Alyssa’s adventures.  Kind of like C3PO in Starfriends.  I have a special spot in my heart for ants– there are a couple of reasons for that.  One is based on a Hopi tale about how the ants saved humans in the Third World.

Great Spirit was very displeased with the People.  They had not been behaving properly.  In fact, they’d been very bad, some of them– stealing each others’ possessions, sleeping with each others’ wives, even killing each other!  Great Spirit decided a cleansing was needed and that a huge flood would do the trick nicely.  However, He also knew that there were a few good people and those folks should be saved, so He sent a message…