Talk about brain freeze.
Bees
SPAKE THE QUEEN
Life in the makeshift human hive might’ve been considered a step up from our life as truck-traveling hired pollinators. But make no mistake, we were not oozing gratitude.
First, we were weary, practically starving, having already scoured any remaining pollen remnants from our legs and sucked each other’s proboscises dry of every last drop of nectar. That sugary film on the human’s head didn’t last a minute, not that it hit the spot anyway. We even went so far as to try eating the layer of oil beneath our living quarters, but it tasted horrible.
Worse than being tired and hungry, we knew our big chance had failed. Possibly our only chance.
We looked around and didn’t see many trees or reliable food sources. We were used to being cared for by beekeepers, our lives a semi-predictable routine. And now, here we were, on our own. We had no idea what to do.
We longed for a real home. To build honeycomb in a place of our own. To seal the cracks with bee glue. To guard our nest. To do chores. To raise young. To work hard and see the fruits of our labor.
We longed for the extended waggle dance of a forager telling of wild delights to be found in the distance. We even longed for the sudden intrusion of a bear’s massive claw into our honey-dripping hive. Those were things we’d heard of, tales passed down from colony to colony for generations. That’s what we thought we were escaping to. But those were things only dreamed of for now.
Mostly, we grumbled.
There was grumbling about the noise, the lack of noise, the light, the lack of light, the temperature, the food — the lack thereof — and every other facet of our accommodations.
And there was continuous grumbling about a certain inexperienced scout who clearly should not have been trusted.
Yes, we spent most of our time complaining loudly and pointing our collective antennae at Bee 641, pleading to the queen for some kind of justice.
Bee 641 spent most of her time curled up in a ball, legs wrapped around her thorax.
Until the human moves somewhere with hibiscus flowers and pomegranate trees, we are stuck with her. We shall stop being petty and make the most of it. And that is that, spake the queen.
And that, indeed, was that.
10
THIS IS MY LIFE NOW
A milkshake is a drink for special occasions, like to celebrate winning a game or getting a good grade. You might buy a milkshake for a person who’s feeling down. I associate Milkshake the dog with no special occasions or good times. I associate Milkshake with dribbling urine on the floor of the duplex, even though I take him on a walk to go to the bathroom once a day and Dr. Flossdrop walks him to and from work too. He only does this in my or Adam’s room, of course.
Dr. Flossdrop, however, maintains that Milkshake has excellent bladder control because she can find nothing wrong with him. Shocking, considering that he’s Adam’s replacement, and she found a lot wrong with Adam.
I am in the minority regarding my opinion of Milkshake. People love stopping us on our walks in order to pet him. They might be pretending, but they act like they think he’s really sweet. Maybe some people are genuinely fond of wheezy, sweaty dogs.
One such person is currently petting Milkshake and thus preventing me from getting home and knitting the bees out of my head if not away from it. I’m looking around, trying to find an escape route, when I spot Nikki, Margot, and Lupita. Right there on the sidewalk between Dr. Flossdrop’s office and the duplex. Coming my way.
“We have to go,” I tell Milkshake’s admirer, whose face falls into a disappointed slouch. I don’t care. All I care about is avoiding NML.
I steer Milkshake down the street and toward the oleander hedge, which I proceed to hide behind, crouched down to Milkshake’s height. Even though the leaves are pointy and known to be poisonous when eaten, I stick my face through so I can see NML.
Lupita wears purple, like always. Margot has a bunch of skinny headbands on, some braided, some flat. NML are laughing together, and right at this very moment Nikki is throwing her head back like she’s having the greatest time of her life.
I wonder what they’re talking about right now. I mean, don’t they remember that this is where I live? Where we used to have sleepovers after roller-skating? Do they ever even think of me? Maybe only when they want to betray me.
I lean farther into the oleander hedge in order to keep spying, so much so that I’m teetering on my tiptoes. That’s when Milkshake, with more gusto than I’ve yet to see him display, decides to take off. He tugs on the leash, which slips from my hand and makes me tumble.
I fly out from behind the hedge, onto the sidewalk.
Right in front of NML.
They stop abruptly and look down at me, all three of them, wondering at this spectacle before them. At least they stop laughing.
Milkshake sniffs their shoes.
Before they have a chance to say anything, I scramble to my feet in the most ungraceful way possible, awkwardly adjusting my hood placement. I really don’t need them to see the creatures I’m hanging out with these days. But I feel compelled to say something. Something to hurt them like they hurt me with their betrayal.
“Thanks a lot for turning me in on the last day of school.” Then I grab Milkshake’s leash and rush back from whence I came.
“Zinnia?” I hear Nikki and Lupita say simultaneously.
But I’m not about to turn back. I get to the door of the duplex as quickly as I can while still avoiding being stuck by one of Dr. Flossdrop’s cactuses. I’m frozen there as NML continue walking by the hedge, murmuring something to themselves that I can’t hear.
When they’re gone, I swivel my head to find Birch standing at Lou’s door. He looks like he’s preparing to do a pull-up. He’s probably been preparing to do a pull-up this whole time. But now, acting like he didn’t just witness that whole humiliating scene, he stares at the bar above him, taking deep breaths, and shaking his arms that dangle out of his plaid sleeves.
We make eye contact, and Birch strains to pulls his body up off the ground. He only manages to get his eyebrows level with the bar before having to let go. Apparently, he’s a lot taller than he is strong.
I open the door to the duplex — whoosh — and let Milkshake inside. I try to slide in after him to avoid more humiliation, but Birch interrupts.
“Hey, Zinnia! Who were those girls?”
“Nobody.”
“They didn’t seem like nobody.”
“We used to be friends.”
“Used to? What happened?” asks Birch, who apparently never tires of inquiry.
“They betrayed me.”
As I say it out loud, I realize I don’t know why they betrayed me. I mean, sure, we’d been drifting apart all school year until we might as well have been living on different continents. It was like the opposite of magnets — we were pulled away from each other by some invisible force.
But I don’t know why they told the vice principal about Ronny. Yeah, they started snubbing me and leaving me out. They looked at me funny when I knitted my never-ending scarf, and they spent all their time texting each other. They didn’t want to hear about Adam or yarn bombing. Eventually they no longer invited me to roller-skate — or whatever it was they were doing now. But they’d never done anything overtly mean to me before that. That’s the kind of thing I’d remember.
“Whoa. Betrayed you? That’s sounds bad,” says Birch. “But hey, do you want to try Lou’s — ”
Birch is asking me something. But I’m not listening. I’m already through the door.
11
GOODY
Wood needles. Wool yarn. The hypnotizing push and pull, tuck and wrap. All the stuff that feels massive gets smaller. Less overwhelming. It fades into faraway stars. Dots that don’t concern me.
Just the movement of my fingers, the click of needles, the tug of string.
It’s not far from the best ever.
Until the front door opens — whoosh.
I put down my never-ending scarf. Everything comes at me again. Massive and close and gaining ground.
Dr. Flossdrop. The calunk of her clogs.
NML.
The bees.
I’ve tried leaving the windows open all week. I’ve tried shaking my head furiously. I’ve tried taking hour-long showers, despite what Dr. Flossdrop thinks of wasting that much water. I’ve tried asking them politely. I’ve tried yelling, too.
But the bees aren’t listening. And they’re not leaving.
Unlike Adam, who left and might never be coming back. I haven’t heard from him, and I haven’t seen him, even though I’m always looking.
Everything feels impossible again. Big and fast and suffocating.
“Zinnia!”
I return my hood to its upright position as quickly as I can, just in time for Dr. Flossdrop to pop her head around the corner of my bedroom door. The soggy bagpipe that is Milkshake plods along beside her.
“Zinnia. I wanted to ask you something.” Dr. Flossdrop appears to still think nothing is amiss with her daughter, so I doubt the question will be about my insect infestation.
“Is it about Adam?” I ask.
Her bun appears to tighten at the mention of his name, which she ignores. “It’s about what you’re doing this summer. What are your plans?”
I resume my knitting. “I don’t know. Walking Milkshake. Nothing.”
Milkshake chooses that moment to flop down on Dr. Flossdrop’s black clogs. He proceeds to slobber on their soles.
“You can’t do nothing. It’s not an accurate answer. You’re doing something now.”
“OK. I’m doing this.”
“Yarn bombing?” Dr. Flossdrop gestures to my alarm clock, which I’ve yarn bombed so that three sides of it now feature black-and-yellow knit stripes to match what’s always on my head and regularly on my mind. Then she looks at the legs of my bed, two of which are wrapped in orange yarn. The two she can’t see are wrapped in neon pink.
“Am I not allowed to yarn bomb?”
“If you’re not defacing public property, I guess it’s fine.”
Fingers. Needles. Yarn.
She tries again. “So you’ll be knitting then?”
Now we both look at my never-ending scarf, draped over my dresser and down one bedpost and across the floor. I’m working with electric blue right now. I’m going to use this same color to yarn bomb my headboard later. I’m basically planning on making my bedroom a comfortable knit chamber since I might spend the rest of my life in here without human company.
I don’t answer.
“I just wondered if you had a plan.”
I kind of have a plan. But it involves looking for Adam, and one thing I know for sure is I won’t be telling Dr. Flossdrop that. She’s acting like Adam never existed at all. I stay silent.
“Well, then, I have a way you can make yourself useful this summer,” my mother says, walking all the way into the room. She carries a canvas bag, which reminds me of Santa’s sack, and proceeds to empty it onto my bed. Without asking. Then she gestures to the mountain of stuff — toothbrushes, little cartons of floss, and plastic bags with pictures of a smiling anthropomorphic tooth on them. It’s like a sick toy shop for dentists has erupted on my comforter.
Dr. Flossdrop explains that I will put stickers that say PHILOMENA FLOSSDROP, D.D.S. with the office’s contact information on everything. Then I will put one of each item into the plastic bags with a smiling tooth. They’ll be goody bags for patients. The kind of thing most parents give out at birthday parties when you’re little, except those are filled with candy.
I never had goody bags at my birthday parties. Well, technically I had them once, but they were filled with persimmons, which were in season. After that I asked Dr. Flossdrop to stop with the goody bags.
For some reason, I can’t help but think of NML and their parents. Of the kind of input they have into their daughters’ summers. Like maybe they take them on vacation. Or send them to camp. Or eat dinner with them.
I remember the stuff Margot carried in her backpack for her dance classes when we were still friends and NMLZ — slippers and a tutu for ballet, sneakers for hip-hop. Nikki’s family road trips to a big reunion every August. Lupita goes camping on the beach with hers the last week of every summer.
Thinking about NML makes my face flush as I remember my embarrassing run-in on the sidewalk. Maybe they’ll all move away together this summer so I never have to see them again.
“Oh, and these, too,” Dr. Flossdrop says. She takes out a stack of what look like business cards from her purse. One side says HEALTH CARE IS FOR PEOPLE, NOT PROFIT, just like her poster. The other says ZT4BG in big letters.
“What’s ZT4BG?” I ask.
“Zero tolerance for bleeding gums! Have I taught you nothing?”
I’m still considering how to answer this question when Dr. Flossdrop exits my room, leaving behind the mountain of goody-bag ingredients, Adam’s miniature wheezing replacement following along behind her.
12
UPSIDE DOWN
I’m assembling my fourteenth goody bag in seven hours when there’s a knock at the door. Admittedly, I’ve only assembled fourteen bags on my first day of this useful task because I had to sticker everything first — then I took a long break to work on my headboard yarn bomb. Then I yarn bombed one of Dr. Flossdrop’s coffee mugs with part of a scarf I had lying around. Not that she’ll ever notice.
I also took a break to think about where in the world Adam might be. I even searched through Dr. Flossdrop’s encyclopedias in desperation to see if Adam had dog-eared any pages or left a slip of paper between them, like a clue of some kind. He hadn’t.
There’s another knock — small but persistent. It could be a mail carrier or someone from an organization asking for a donation. We’re kind of a hot spot for donation-seekers thanks to Dr. Flossdrop’s endless neighborhood action activities. I don’t want to answer. Even with my hood up, I feel like Zinnia, the lonely bee-laden oddball. All I want to do is hide.
But it doesn’t sound like whoever is out there is going away. I creep to the front door and peek out. The knock’s tall, skinny, plaid owner stands there. Waiting patiently. Clearly not going anywhere.
I open the door — whoosh.
“Hi, Zinnia. How are you?”
Birch holds out a FROM THE OFFICE OF PHILOMENA FLOSSDROP, D.D.S. sticky note that must’ve been waiting for me on the outside of the door. On it, Dr. Flossdrop asks me to take out the trash. I guess that’s my other big, useful plan for the summer.
“I’m fantastic,” I say. I can see Birch looking at my eyes, then above my eyes, at my forehead and the place where my hood juts out over my hair. “What do you need?”
Birch refocuses on my eyes. “Nothing. Actually, I wondered if you’d like to try out Uncle Lou’s inversion table.”
I don’t know what that is, but I know better than to ask.
“No, thanks.”
“Oh. OK. Well, maybe another time?”
“Maybe.”
“It’s pretty cool. You flip upside down, and it feels strange… but in a good way. It also takes pressure off your spine and helps with your alignment in case there’s anything bothering yours. You know, like…” Birch gestures with his plaid shoulder toward my face, and his eyes get even bigger.
“OK, fine. I’ll try it,” I say. I figure I could throw him this little thing he seems so set on. Let’s face it, all I have to do right now is stuff goody bags and take out the trash for Dr. Flossdrop.
I follow Birch down my steps and over to Lou’s. We pass Lou in the front yard, busy working with an ergonomic client. Th
ey walk barefoot in slow motion next to one another, trying to put each toe down separately — pinky toe first — as they do. It’s pretty weird.
Birch and I pass the pull-up bar and rock climber CHALLENGE poster, then head into Lou’s equipment room. I hear the TV booming from the kitchen, even though nobody’s in there.
Birch points to a metal and plastic contraption. “Here it is,” he says.
The inversion table looks vaguely like a torture device. Staring at it, I wonder if it’s still possible that this is just a ploy to make my hood come off so Birch can inspect the bees with his naturalist eyes. Perhaps with his binoculars.
I consider bolting, but don’t.
Birch eases me onto the table, which is kind of like a folding lounge chair that doesn’t fold, and I stand awkwardly upright. He fumbles a little while securing my feet with a strap, and I pull my hood forward, pressing the back of my head against the table so it stays put.
“Ready?” asks Birch.
I give him a half smile.
Birch tips the whole contraption, and I tip backward until I’m suspended upside down. Blood rushes to my head like fire. But at least I can feel sweatshirt fabric lodged behind me, and the front lip of my hood still grazes my eyebrows. Bees, covered and secure.
After a few more moments upside down, I completely stop worrying about hiding the bees from Birch. About the bees themselves. About anything at all. My brain goes cool. I’m weightless, like an astronaut or something. It’s like when I’m in the flow of knitting. It’s almost better than that.
The inversion table-torture device is possibly my new best ever.
I stare forward at another one of Lou’s posters on the wall. This one — upside down at the moment — says LIBERATION, which is an appropriate view to have from this miracle table.
Zinnia and the Bees Page 5
