Ned Kelly and the City of Bees

by Thomas Keneally

  “But I love you,” Doctor Morgan said in a strangled voice.

  “This is better that the radio!” Romeo whispered at my side.

  “Please Ben!” said Miss Such.

  They stayed silent for a while. One of Basil’s drones began to buzz, but they didn’t notice that.

  “Do you still want me to take you to the dance tonight?” Doctor Morgan asked the schoolteacher.

  “Of course. If that’s what you want.” Miss Such stood up, went to Doctor Morgan and kissed him on the forehead. Romeo sighed loudly. Then the doctor and the teacher left the room together and a few seconds later we heard the front door close.

  “I think she’s very sensible,” said Apis. “Freedom over slavery, any day.”

  I was already looking at Miss Such’s typewriter. There was a fresh page in it with only a line or two already typed. I climbed on Romeo’s back, Miss Nancy Clancy climbed on Apis’s and we flew down to Miss Such’s desk, Basil’s drones following us.

  “This is the machine,” I told Nancy and Apis, Romeo and Basil when we all stood before it. “Miss Nancy, this bar here has to be pressed whenever we need to make a space between words. When I tell you, please sit on it and pretend you’re on a seesaw. Apis and Romeo, that lever there has to be pushed every time we want a new line. I’ll tell you when that is. I’ll call out, Apis and Romeo, push! Basil, you and your men will put your weight on these keys, one at a time, the ones that I tell you to, when I tell you.”

  I was enjoying being able to give orders, especially orders to Miss Nancy Clancy who usually gave orders to me. I enjoyed the way Basil turned so seriously to his drones and passed my commands on to them.

  First I had Apis and Romeo push the lever twice. That gave us a good space in which to start the letter. I climbed up the keys and pointed to the one marked M. “Jump on this one, Basil!” I called, and Basil and all his friends piled on to the M key.

  “When do I do something?” Miss Nancy Clancy called.

  “When we get to the ends of words!” I told her. “Give us a chance.”

  She tossed her head, folded her arms and sat across the space bar. Basil’s drones weighed the key down and suddenly there was a clear M on the paper. “Hooray!” called Apis and Romeo at the same time. It was the first time they’d ever agreed about anything. I jumped up one layer of keys to the J, hopped from H to G to F and then up to R. “This one!” I told Basil. Basil and his drones ran up, tumbled on top of each other and pressed the R. “Now!” I called to Nancy Clancy.

  And so it went. After an hour’s work we had a letter that read:

  mr and mrs kelly

  the hillside

  northtown

  australia.

  dear mother and farther,

  im quiet well and staying with friends my sides better now so dont worry and will see you soon

  yore loving sun

  ned.

  I looked at the others when the letter was finished. Nancy Clancy was riding the space bar as if it were a rocking horse. Romeo and Apis looked at me quietly, and the drones were tired but happy, along the bottom row of keys. I felt shy because of all the work they’d done for me. “Thank you, thank you all,” I said.

  “Now,” said Apis, “we only have to take it to your parents’ house.”

  “Oh no,” I said. “Miss Such will take it. When she gets home and sees it there. We couldn’t have a better postman.”

  “Postwoman,” said Nancy Clancy, jolting on the space bar.

  I found myself crying again. “What’s the matter now?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “It’s just good to have such good friends.”

  “Well, silly,” she said. “Who doesn’t know that?”

  There was the sound of thunder in the mountains and the bees all turned their heads to it.

  “I think we should go home,” said Apis.

  Basil seemed less happy now, as if the thunder had reminded him of unpleasant things. “Don’t forget,” he told us. “You promised to talk to the Queen.”

  10

  Ned Kelly Squashed

  And so, the next morning, when Queen Selma went past after breakfast, we were waiting for her. Again Apis moved in amongst the fanners and fussers and dragged some of them away by their hind legs. Again Apis spoke to the Queen. But this time Selma did not have as far to travel to speak to us. We were crouched on the wall of wax just above her head.

  “I see you have got used to climbing,” she said to us.

  I hung by one hand to show just how good I had got at it. Miss Nancy Clancy did the same. But before we could speak to Queen Selma, Romeo pushed past us, bowed his head and began to talk.

  “Madam, you see before you a humble drone,” he squawked. “Yet my only wish in life is to be your attendant, your servant, your knight, your champion …”

  “Is he joking?” Selma asked Apis.

  “No,” said Apis. “No, he means it.”

  “You want to be my knight?” asked Selma, giggling a little. But when she saw Romeo’s hurt face, she stopped.

  “I can tell good jokes too,” said Romeo in a tiny voice.

  “Oh?” said Selma. “Oh, I like good jokes. Give me a for-in-stance joke.”

  “All right.” Romeo thought hard. “Why did the man stand behind the mule?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “He thought he’d get a kick out of it.”

  Queen Selma tossed her head with laughter and Romeo rushed to tell her another joke.

  “What happened to the man who swallowed his spoon?”

  “Do tell, Sir Romeo.”

  “He couldn’t stir.”

  Selma laughed again in her scratchy way.

  At my side Apis whispered, “Her voice is going. Notice that? Poor Selma.”

  But Romeo, listening to the Queen’s chuckles, was twitching with joy.

  “All right,” said Selma in the end. “You have a job, Mr Romeo, or should I say Sir Romeo. You can be my joker. My joking knight. Do you think you can manage it?”

  “Oh,” squeaked Romeo. “Oh …”

  “A half dozen jokes a day. At the very least. What do you say?”

  “Oh … Oh …”

  “He hasn’t said anything yet,” Nancy Clancy muttered a little cruelly.

  “Oh you won’t regret it, Your Majesty. You’ll laugh all your days.”

  “He’ll go and listen to Tony Brain’s Funny Hour,” whispered Apis. I had listened to the Funny Hour when I was a little younger. Amongst children in my class it was said to be babyish. But a lot of us listened to it secretly.

  “They have dozens of jokes on that,” Apis went on. “Then back he’ll come and tell them all to Selma.”

  Meanwhile, Romeo was trying to bow and falling over instead.

  “Join me then,” Selma told him. She shoo-ed the fanners and escorts away and let Romeo stand beside her. Together, she and the plump drone were about to walk away across the honeycomb. It was then that I remembered my promise to Basil.

  “Queen Selma,” I said. She didn’t hear me at first and I began to blush. “Your Majesty.” It came out squeaky, as if I were Romeo.

  Selma nudged Romeo to be quiet and looked at me with her head to one side.

  “I promised my friend Basil …”

  “Basil? Basil is your friend?”

  “Well, he very kindly helped me,” I muttered. “He helped me send a message to my mother and father. And he wanted to know if—as a pay-back—I’d ask you something. And it’s this. He wants me to ask you not to kick the drones out of the hive when the autumn rains come.” I got the message out, trying not to blush more and not to let her confuse me.

  She was very still. Her eyes were like black diamonds, and I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. After a long time she spoke. “Who told you I bothered to throw drones out of the hive?” Her voice was icy. “Autumn rains or not?”

  “Well, I don’t mean …” I said in a hurry. “Well, Bas—I don’t know.”


  “You are a visitor here, young Kelly. Why do you think you can ask me stupid questions about drones? About what I intend to do in the autumn? Drones! There’ll always be drones and you’re not to discuss them, do you understand?”

  “But Basil was so—”

  “Do you understand, Master Kelly?”

  In those days everyone called boys Master This or That when they were trying to shut them up or frighten them. I looked up at the immense eyes of Queen Selma. I felt both properly shut up and fully frightened. If the whole school staff, Headmaster and all the teachers, had called me out of class and accused me of bank robbery, I couldn’t have felt worse.

  “Yes,” I muttered and lowered my eyes. I’ve failed Basil, I thought.

  Selma must then have turned to Apis, for I heard her say, “If you can’t teach your visitors manners, then there will simply have to be no more visitors.”

  By the time I looked up again, Selma and Romeo and all the courtier bees had left.

  “Well, you nearly got me into deep trouble,” said Nancy Clancy. “It’s all right for you—if you’re turned out you can just go back home. But if I’m sent away, where do I go?”

  “Why didn’t you help me ask her?” I wanted to know.

  “I knew it wouldn’t be any use,” she said. “I knew she’d say what she said. I knew it.”

  “Besides, besides,” Apis murmured, “it isn’t exactly like Basil said. And you got your message away. That was the important part.”

  Miss Nancy Clancy began singing in an annoying way: “If you’re just a human bean, you can’t ask questions of a Queen.”

  I didn’t even bother to groan.

  11

  Wasp War

  Little later, Apis flew out of the hive. I was beginning to feel better about my talk with Selma. So Miss Clancy and I sat inside the doorway of the cave at the place where Basil and the drones usually met. We watched the workers fly in and out and the guards, in a straight line, doing their duty at the door. We could see, out of the doorway, the blue sky, and the green leaves of the mountain ash in which we all lived.

  Miss Nancy Clancy suddenly spoke. “What do you think of that stupid Miss Such?”

  “What’s stupid about Miss Such?”

  “Not wanting to marry that nice Doctor Morgan.”

  “I think,” I began, “I think that’s very sensible of Miss Such. If you listen to most people you begin to think all anyone ever wanted was to get married. And if a girl can marry a doctor—most people think that’s like winning the lottery.”

  “Marrying Doctor Morgan is like winning something,” said Miss Nancy Clancy in a daze. I could see that Doctor Morgan had got into Miss Nancy Clancy’s heart and brain, and I was jealous, I don’t know why.

  “I think marriage is boring,” I said. “Look at Mrs Abey. You can have terrible children. Maybe if Miss Such married Doctor Morgan they’d have a child as terrible as Maurie Abey. And that’d be boring. Trying to get Maurie to behave like a human. No, you wouldn’t want to marry Doctor Morgan.”

  “Perhaps,” said Miss Clancy squinting at me, “I know more about what I want than you do.”

  It was hard to think of what to say next, and while I was thinking I saw Nancy Clancy look up to the doorway. In an instant, her face turned to a sick white and a look of terror widened her eyes. I dragged my own head round towards the entrance to the hive and saw a face I will remember until I die. It was a skull-shaped face of black and yellow, the eyes were black and cold and cruel, and above the eyes were black stiff feelers. Between this face and us lay a twitching and dying young guard bee.

  “Wasps!” Nancy Clancy managed to hiss. “It’s wasps!”

  The wasp that had just stung the young guard now turned to fight off two other guards. I could see that there were at least five wasps fighting guard bees in the doorway where, when we began talking about Miss Such and Doctor Morgan, all had been peaceful. Bodies of the dead lay all over the entrance—the poisonous stings of the large raiders had killed them. But more bees were rushing from the inside of the hive to take the place of those the wasps had finished. I saw a young worker fling herself on the creature whose face had first frightened me, but the wasp easily threw her off, jumped on her and pushed into her body a great black sting.

  “Stay still,” Nancy Clancy managed to tell me. “Don’t move. They’ve come after honey.”

  The terrible black and yellow monster took one more step towards us and I wanted to run. It wasn’t much comfort to me to see that, closer to the door itself, dozens of guards were stinging one of the other wasps through its armor. It wasn’t much comfort to hear it roar as the bee poison began to work on it.

  It was then that Apis flew in with her load of pollen and nectar, straight in over the terrible battlefield, and jumped abroad the wasp closest to Nancy Clancy and myself. Apis lay there on the thing’s back, going limp, and her weight and the weight of her load made it hard for the enemy to throw her off. She looked like a cowboy riding a bronco. I could see her own sting bared, but she could not put it into the wasp unless she stood up on its back, and if she stood up on its back, it would have bounced her off and finished her quickly.

  At last two more workers joined Apis. One was hurled off and the wasp trod on it and stung it to death. Apis could do nothing but cling to the creature’s back.

  Closer to the door another raider fell under its weight of bees and was stung again and again. Now a crowd of workers turned to Apis’s brute. One or two of them were trampled and run through, but most of them pushed their stings in through the wasp’s yellow and black armor. After a second the creature’s front legs gave way. I began to feel sorry for it then. I knew it wanted now only to fly out of the hive and never to see any honey again, if only they would let it go. But the bees gave it no mercy. Their stings punched into its sides. The poor skull-faced wasp rolled on its side, roaring and choking as the bee poison began to reach its heart.

  Suddenly every thing was still again. I looked around me and saw the floor of the cave-hive covered with dead bees and with the five giant bodies of the wasps. Young workers tugged these to the door of the hive and pushed them down over the edge. Next the workers who had died trying to keep the wasps out of the hive were carried away. No one made a speech, the way humans always seem to do after a battle. I think it was better not to make a speech.

  Half of Apis’s pollen had been knocked out of her baskets by the fight, but she limped away now, too tired to speak to us, to give in what was left.

  “Does this happen every summer?” I asked Miss Clancy.

  “Oh yes,” she said, nodding her head. I could tell she was not lying, for she was still too frightened to lie. “Sometimes it’s worse than this, sometimes dozens of them make a raid. It’s terrible.” She began crying. “Why do they do it? Why do the wasps come?”

  “Don’t cry like that,” I said.

  “All those brave bees,” she went on, still shedding tears but looking at the workers dragging the bodies of dead bees to the door. “Whoever remembers them?”

  “I’ll always remember them,” I said. And I suppose I always have.

  That night, as I lay on the bed trying to get the picture of the wasp’s face out of my mind, I could hear Miss Nancy Clancy whimpering in her sleep like a puppy. “It’s all right,” I would whisper at her, and even in her sleep she seemed to hear me.

  I thought, in the morning I’ll go back home. But I knew that I was lying to myself. I liked Apis too much to leave yet, and I suppose I even liked Miss Nancy Clancy. And in the morning the day was bright, and we flew out with Apis and played on the boughs of a box brush and heard serials at Mrs Maguire’s, because Mrs Maguire didn’t have a waspy son like Maurie Abey. And we saw Selma go by our door with Romeo still asking her riddles.

  “What is black and white and red all over?”

  “Tell me, Sir Romeo.”

  “A blushing zebra.”

  “Hah! Tell me another.”

  “What time is it
if an elephant sits on your beehive?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  “Time to get a new hive.”

  And hearing him tell his awful jokes in his squeaky voice, we felt normal again.

  12

  A New Queen

  It began to rain. Bees don’t like the rain, it makes them unhappy. No one can go out gathering food, for the valley’s fat raindrops would knock a bee off its course and blind it and daze it. So Apis had nothing to do and couldn’t even get up to Mrs Maguire’s to hear the radio serials.

  “You are, poor bee,” Miss Clancy told her, “a study in brown, when the radio’s off and the rain comes down.”

  The wind beat against our mountain ash, we could hear the branches waving and thrashing. The escorts gathered around Selma to keep her warm, more and more of the bees went into huddles, close to each other, trying to keep cozy. The only work that went on was the feeding of the young bees and of the babies in their cells, and the guarding of the door. Sometimes the wind would creep round the doorway and blow a guard bee over and over. It was a dull time and even Miss Clancy and I felt blue.

  It rained for three days, and just as it stopped, Selma roused herself and went for a tour of the hive with all her courtiers. Near our apartment, she met Apis.

  I was surprised by what Apis said to her.

  “Do you think,” Apis asked her, “that it might be time for you to move out and find a new hive?”

  Selma raised her head in her queenly way. “Whatever for? Because of all that rain?”

  “Not, not because of the rain.” Apis shuffled on her feet and looked uneasy. “But there may be other reasons why you and some of us should move out.”

  Selma replied grandly, “There is no reason I know of on earth why I should leave my hive. Do you know of one?”