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This is one of two Science Fictions stories that had excerpts in our readers for school that I still remember. In this one, a kid wakes up and everything is slightly different. By the end of the excerpt, he figures out that he and his family are in a cage at a zoo whose owners have (assumedly incorrectly) identified humans as going extinct. The boy stages an escape, and figures out that the ant-like aliens running the zoo are blind to movement.

I've always wondered what happened in the rest of the story.

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  • It's probably not The Cage by Bertram Chandler, but I'm just putting this here in case you might have two stories mixed up.
    – Mr Lister
    Jun 29, 2014 at 17:28

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It is almost certainly Awesome Ants short story from book Still More Tales to Give You Goosebumps . It was later made into a tv series episode of the same title, from which I remember it.

It features a child who starts a science project revolving around ants, and the company he purchases from is called Awesome Ants. Not satisfied with regular ant food, he resorts to feeding them other things like hot dogs or worms and this eventually backfires on him. The ants grow to incredible proportions and one of them drags him off. The next thing he knew, he woke up in a world where the roles have switched, where ants are the dominant species and humans are miniature insects.

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  • Unfortunately, the description is not enough for me to determine whether or not it's the same story. Are the ants aliens? Are they in a cage made up to be a lot like their real life, but slightly off? Is the ground rubbery?
    – trlkly
    Jun 30, 2014 at 18:48
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    It's definitely this.
    – Lightness Races in Orbit
    Jul 4, 2014 at 21:14
  • @trlkly I don't think it is mentioned in tv episode that ants are aliens, but answering other questions - yes and yes. Just watch an episode, then you'll know.
    – Kao
    Aug 1, 2014 at 20:26
  • @Kao, that's enough for me, then. I'm not entirely sure they actually were aliens, or if the kid just thought they were. Interesting that a Goosebumps story made it into my school's reader. My main reason for wanting the story was that the excerpt they gave didn't finish the story.
    – trlkly
    Aug 2, 2014 at 5:20
  • Sorry. Finally got my hands on the book. This was not it. This was literally in a zoo, and the ant-like creatures could not sense motion. The part where it left off was when they were trying to escape.
    – trlkly
    Nov 30, 2014 at 7:43

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