Zinnia and the Bees

by Danielle Davis

  In the morning, they were still there — despite me having left my bedroom window open as an invitation for exit. I didn’t have to look to know. I could not only hear them, but feel them, sense them, like fingernails grown out too long. Impossible to ignore, but something you can live with. Sort of. If you absolutely have to.

  Now, in the meadow, I climb up a small hill by the fence at the perimeter. I take this hidden moment to retrieve one of the extra knitting needles I always keep in my back pocket, remove my hood, and scratch my scalp for ten seconds of relief. But when I replace the hood, my head is immediately a hot, itchy hive once again.

  Way out in the middle of the meadow I spot a tall, lanky boy with binoculars held up to his face. He’s acting very strange. He keeps pointing those binoculars in what seems like my direction. Then straight up in the air, then straight back to me again. The boy’s neck cranes up, then over, then down toward me every time.

  Binocular guy appears to be coming closer. I try to act natural and ignore him, but there’s nowhere for me to go what with the fence behind me. I’d like for the grass to magically grow even taller and encompass me completely. I mean, he looks twelve years old, but maybe he’s an undercover operative here to investigate my bee situation. Anything could happen at this point.

  Agent Binoculars get closer and closer. The rest of him looks normal, if a little plaid — plaid red-and-blue shirt, faintly plaid tan-and-red shorts — but his face looks like a giant mutated fly on account of the binoculars.

  But then he takes them from his eyes and places them around his neck. He’s now only two feet away, and without binoculars, I can see his eyes. They’re kind of greenish-silver and remind me immediately of the ocean.

  This tall, plaid-wearing boy is looking at me like he’s on a field trip to a natural history museum, and I’m a stuffed woolly mammoth. Something you can ogle and maybe even touch and it won’t care because it’s stuffed.

  I adjust and secure my hood. I don’t appreciate being stared at, and I definitely don’t appreciate how he’s reaching out his hand to possibly pet me.

  I jump and yell, “Who are you?”

  “I’m Birch,” the boy says.

  For a moment, I freeze in place. But then I realize I need to get away from this guy. I shimmy a little to the side, inching elsewhere.

  Birch takes a small step in the same direction I moved.

  I step.

  He steps.

  I step.

  He steps.

  Then we both step in sync until we’re circling each other, boxers in a ring.

  Finally, I have to put a stop to this. “Stop!” I shout. “What are you doing?”

  Birch suddenly seems to realize that the answer to my question is that he’s been staring at me, but he doesn’t say that of course. “Bird-watching,” he replies.

  “Bird-watching?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t see too many birds.”

  “Well, that’s the problem, actually. Once in a while one flies overhead — I’ve seen a hawk, two crows, and a few mourning doves — but I have to spot it midflight, and all that spotting is making me dizzy. There are no trees in this park for larger birds to rest or nest in. Actually, there are hardly any trees in this whole neighborhood.”

  Of course I take this as an insult and a challenge. “There are too trees here.”

  “Really? Great! Where are they?” Birch’s eyes get really big. They have faint circles around them from the binoculars.

  While I want to defend my neighborhood, the truth is I can’t think of anyplace — within walking distance anyway — that has a whole bunch of trees. Maybe that’s why Dr. Flossdrop wants to plant them here at the meadow.

  “There’s a skinny tree out front where I live,” I finally say.

  “Cool,” says Birch. “Me too.”

  “And there are some along the sidewalk down there.” I point across Sunrise Boulevard, in the direction of Dr. Flossdrop’s office and the duplex.

  “What kind of trees?”

  “The tree kind,” I say.

  Birch nods like that was an actual answer.

  “Where are you from?” I ask.

  “You’ve never heard of it.”

  “Try me,” I insist.

  “It’s a little town up north.”

  “Well, Birch, is it called Oak?”

  “Ha. Close! Redwood City.”

  “You’re joking,” I say.

  “Nope. So who are you?”

  I begin counting the plaid squares on his shirt.

  “What are you doing?” I hear Birch asking me.

  “Nothing. Zinnia. My name is Zinnia.” Here we are, a flower and a tree.

  Birch grins. “Well, Zinnia, are you from Rosemont? Bellflower??”

  “No. I’m from here.”

  “Cool.”

  Birch doesn’t protest anything I say. It’s as if, in addition to his eyes, his mind is also like the ocean. It’s wide and open, and you can throw whatever you want into it, and it will swallow it up without resistance. Which I find pretty weird.

  “OK, bye!” I start to walk away, across the meadow and toward the street, but Birch follows. And keeps talking.

  “There are actually a lot of trees in Redwood City,” he says. “And there’s water too. Birds love water, especially egrets and cormorants. That’s why I bird-watch. There are tons of birds there. And we have the best weather in the world, actually. There was a scientific test, and we tied as the best-weather winner with two other places in the whole world. That was a long time ago, but I think it’s still accurate.”

  I walk a little faster, approaching the crosswalk. Birch with his long, tall legs keeps up.

  “Who made you?” I ask him.

  “My parents, I guess. Actually, they’re naturalists.”

  “Wait a minute. They go around naked?”

  Birch stops following me. He stands back there, laughing the binoculars around his neck into a shake. “No. They’re into nature. Science, trees, rocks. Stuff like that.” He’s still talking pretty loudly even though he’s caught up to me again.

  “Lemme guess. Birds?”

  “Yes, my parents like birds too,” he says.

  Finally, the pedestrian light turns green and I take off, making sure my pace doesn’t mess with the placement of my hood. Birch crosses the street too.

  “Um, can I ask you a question?” he asks.

  I don’t answer. I get to the other side of Sunrise Boulevard, one hand on the knitting needle in my back pocket like it’s a sword I could use to defend myself with if necessary.

  Birch asks anyway. “How did you get those bees to stay on your head?”

  I stop and gape at him. Maybe he has X-ray vision and can see through my hood. I mean, the lines in his green-silver irises are kind of lit up, which may be a sign.

  I try unsuccessfully to play it off. “What bees?”

  “Ummm… how do I put this?” Birch scrunches his face, looks off in the distance, and then back at me, pointing his finger vigorously toward my hooded head. “Maybe you don’t know this, but there are, well, honeybees, I think. On top of your head. Or in your hair, I guess?”

  I’m stunned. I can’t even move. Only the bees under my hood stir, their constant scurrying aggravating whiz. “Birch, that’s absurd.”

  I take off again, this time practically running.

  “You can’t even see my head!” I yell behind me, clutching my hood to keep it from inching down.

  I can hear Birch’s footsteps behind me.

  “I can’t see them right now, of course,” he says. “But I did, back in the meadow. I think they’re about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

  I make a wish for Birch to stop talking and wander off somewhere to contemplate his naturalist discovery.


  But of course he doesn’t.

  “And, actually, I’ve seen a lot of cool things. The giant sequoias, for example. A webcam of a baby eaglets’ nest. And one time, at the beach, a seal who’d washed up on shore was getting rescued. That was really cool. But not as cool as this.”

  Birch has seen my bees, but there’s no way I can trust a stranger enough to admit he’s right. How can I trust anyone ever again after NML betrayed me? After Adam cleared out without a word? No thanks.

  “Are you following me home?” I ask the bird-watching, me-watching spy over my shoulder.

  “No. I’ve decided to call it a morning myself. My uncle’s probably ready for lunch. When I arrived last night he promised we could have junk food because my parents never let me have any. My uncle says they eat like squirrels. He wants me to try eating like a human during my visit. Or maybe like a bear. He kind of reminds me of a bear, actually.”

  Birch continues to trail me.

  Right beside the duplex’s oleander hedge, I crouch down like I’m going to retie my shoelaces. I hope he’ll proceed without me.

  Nope. Birch stops too.

  “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “It doesn’t look like nothing.” He stands there and waits for me to finish pretend retying my laces.

  I stand back up and gesture to the duplex. “Well, this is my place. Bye, Birch!”

  “Actually, this is my place too.”

  The two of us simultaneously step past the hedge, but at that, I stop short.

  “What? Wait a minute. What’s your uncle’s name?”

  “Lou. I’m staying with him this summer because my parents think he’s lonely. I’m here to keep him company.”

  I stare at him. “I can’t believe this. You’re my neighbor.”

  9

  BRAIN FREEZE

  “Hey, Birch! Zinny! Looks like you kids met!” There’s Lou, doing pull-ups in his door frame, able to shout even though he’s probably on pull-up number three hundred or something.

  “Zinny, wanna join Birch and me for lunch?”

  As much as I usually pretend polite indifference to Lou, because he winks and uses words like snazzy and is old but fit in his athletic pants, I secretly like him. I even secretly like that he asks me to call him Coach, which I have never once done. I don’t go around calling people Coach.

  But while I like Lou, I’m not so sure about the invitation. Especially since Birch might let the bees out of the hood.

  “There will be ice cream,” Lou adds.

  Since my side of the duplex offers leftover tofu- cucumber salad and cereal and that’s about it, I can’t bring myself to turn down his offer.

  “If you put it that way, OK,” I say.

  The three of us enter Lou’s duplex single file, passing the CHALLENGE poster in Lou’s hallway that has a picture of a woman climbing up the side of a steep rock face. Lou loves motivational posters. There’s a quote underneath the rock climber that really sticks out to me today:

  “NOTHING EXTERNAL TO YOU HAS ANY POWER OVER YOU.”

  — Ralph Waldo Emerson

  I’d like to talk to this Ralph about what’s arrived on my head to see if he might change his mind about that.

  Lunch is very small sandwiches and very large bowls of ice cream. I opt for chocolate chip on its own, while Lou and Birch dunk Ding Dongs into their portions to make them even more junk-foody.

  Once the bowl is before me, I can’t help but think back to yesterday and wonder whether there’s a connection between what’s in the bowl and what’s on my head. After all, the bees arrived after I went to Scoops. Maybe ice cream makes insects act wacky. For all I know, dragonflies will soon appear in Lou’s kitchen and attach themselves to my fingers like opulent rings. I guess it’s a risk I’m willing to take, though — having bees on my head is bad enough without having ice cream off-limits.

  I take one bite and then another.

  Lou’s television’s blaring on the kitchen counter, so we’re all pretty quiet as we eat. Some show with a lot of arguing is on. I can’t even tell what they’re arguing about, it’s so loud. Lou never looks at the screen, but he refuses to turn it off or down.

  He does, however, tell me that my sweatshirt hood may be affecting my alignment and points out that I’m hunched over my ice cream bowl. He suggests I should take my hood off — and offers me free ergonomic coaching. I decline both.

  Birch has somehow, amazingly, never tasted ice cream before. This guy is pretty weird. Dr. Flossdrop would probably love this fact about Birch except that on his first taste, he describes it, through shivering cheeks, as “delectable.” Then he digs in again and again and proceeds to get his first brain freeze. I know because he slaps palm to forehead in the universal language of brain freezes.

  “Put your tongue on the roof of your mouth,” I tell him through my own mouthful of creamy vanilla and crunchy chocolate chips.

  Birch obeys, and Lou and I wait a few seconds for him to remove his palm from his face.

  “Ouch. I owe you,” Birch says.

  “No you don’t. I have a lot of experience with ice cream,” I say.

  “What does your mom have to say about that?” Lou asks.

  I ignore his question, instead focusing on counting the number of chocolate chips left in my bowl. Eleven.

  “Earth to Zinny,” says Lou.

  “Oh. Um. Let’s make ice cream our little secret, OK?” I say.

  “Safe with me,” says Lou, confirming that despite the gray tufts of hair spilling from his V-neck shirt, he is still the best grownup I know — right after Mildred, that is.

  “What, does your mom only eat squirrel food too?” asks Birch.

  “Kind of. But it’s more about sweets. She’s a dentist.”

  “No way.”

  “Yes way.”

  “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “I thought the bees were the coolest thing you’ve ever —” I quickly zip my mouth closed. Maybe I’m the one I should worry about spilling the beans. Or bees, as the case may be.

  “What bees?” asks Lou as he gets up from the table to stretch.

  “Coolest thing I ever heard. Not saw,” Birch corrects, ignoring Lou’s question.

  “Well, dentists aren’t really that cool,” I say. “Trust me.”

  “I disagree. Dentists are scientists — your mom probably knows all kinds of stuff.”

  “Hey, folks!” Lou asks again, shouting to be heard over the screaming television, me and Birch talking, and the water he’s started running in the sink. “What bees?”

  We still ignore him.

  “Dentists don’t know any stuff better than how to cure brain freeze,” I tell Birch.

  “OK. Maybe not better than that, but —”

  Lou turns to us from the sink. “Are bees some kind of code for drugs? Come on, you can tell me.”

  I frantically look at Birch, telepathically telling him not to mention the bees. My bees. Please, please, please.

  Thankfully, Birch catches on.

  “No, Uncle Lou! I saw a nature documentary, and it showed how bees actually dance! It’s called a waggle dance, and one of them does it to lead the others to something important. Their little bee butts wiggle around. It’s really cool.”

  I’m relieved to learn Birch can think on his feet. Now I just want to get out of here to avoid any more close calls.

  “Oh. That is pretty cool. Way better than drugs, kids. Believe me.”

  Lou starts doing his own bee waggle dance while he washes dishes, swishing his athletic-pant behind in the most ridiculous way.

  I’m about to slink from the kitchen, but Lou starts talking again.

  “You know who can really dance? Adam.”

  At that, I no longer want to
slink away. I want to hear what waggle-dancing Lou is saying about my brother.

  “He borrowed boxing gloves from me a couple of weeks ago, and that kid can move!”

  “Boxing gloves?” I repeat, perplexed. Adam who never exercises and has never been in a fight? Now I’m the one who feels like I have brain freeze.

  “Yeah. I guess it’s not technically borrowing since he mentioned he was going to paint them some outrageous color, but that’s Adam, right? Gotta love that kid.”

  “Who’s Adam?” asks Birch.

  “Nobody,” I say.

  Adam isn’t nobody, of course, but he’s beginning to feel more and more like a stranger.

  Lou starts singing his own original waggle song while he continues doing dishes and dancing. I finally leave the room. Birch follows — of course.

  “Thanks for making up that stuff about waggle dancing,” I say as I head for the front door.

  “Actually, I didn’t make it up,” says Birch.

  “Oh. Well, thanks for making up that that’s what we were talking about. Bees on TV. Not that there are any other bees on the premises,” I add.

  “No problem. Now we’re even for the brain-freeze remedy.”

  “Sure,” I say, practically flying out the door. “Please tell Lou thanks for lunch!”

  “OK,” says Birch, but he seems like he wants to say something more. He’s fiddling with the cuff of his plaid shirt when I look back at him from my side of the duplex.

  “Hey, Zinnia, do you want to try Lou’s…”

  I don’t wait to hear the rest of what he’s going to ask. Instead, I grab the sticky note Dr. Flossdrop has left for me, reminding me to go to her office and walk Milkshake and that there’s tofu-cucumber salad in the fridge, and close the door.

  Whoosh.

  I already know what Birch wants to ask. He’s probably dying to talk about the bees. And while he may have kept my bees a secret from Lou, I’d rather not continue Birch’s scientific inquiry. No one is to be trusted at this point. I mean, look at Adam and those boxing gloves. I’m starting to think I don’t know my brother at all. I’m starting to think that nothing is reliable. Everything feels new and unpredictable and out of whack.