The Summer We Saved the Bees Page 6

  “I guess it’s kind of lame, but Hazel and I play it all the time,” she told me. “And we don’t have an Xbox or anything. So, you want to play?”

  “Sure.” It wasn’t like I had anything else to do.

  We set up the board, divvied out money and started to play. After half an hour, I was winning by miles, but Hazel and Tess kept lending each other money to keep the game going. And the game play went really slowly, because Hazel couldn’t stop asking questions about the bees and tomorrow’s show, which both she and Tess seemed to think was going to be the coolest thing ever.

  “I can’t believe we’re going to miss it,” Hazel moaned, for at least the tenth time.

  “It’s really mean of Mom not to let us go,” Tess said. “It’d be way more educational than school.” She stretched her legs out and poked the dog with her feet. He lifted his head and looked at her reproachfully, and she petted him with her toes. “Sorry, Timmy.”

  I rolled double fives and landed on one of my own properties. “Do you call Eva and Mary both Mom?” I asked. “Or…”

  Tess pushed her glasses back up her nose. “I call Eva Mom, and Mary just Mary,” she said.

  “Me too, now. But I used to call them Mama Eva and Mama Mary,” Hazel said. “When I was little.”

  “I guess Mom and Mom would be confusing,” I said.

  “Yeah.” Tess nodded. “And Mom really wanted to be called Mom, and Mary didn’t care what we called her.”

  Hazel giggled. “As long as it was polite, she said.”

  “I just call Curtis Curtis,” I offered. “But the twins and Violet call him Dad. And Violet calls my mom Jade.”

  “But they’re all your sisters?”

  “Sort of. Violet’s my stepsister, and the twins are my half sisters.”

  “That’s confusing.” Hazel made a face, like she thought my family was weird, but she didn’t say anything else. She rolled the dice. “Four. That’s GO! We play that you get double if you land directly on GO.”

  Tess, who was banker, handed her the money. “So are you going to do a bee dance?”

  My face got hot. “Not in a million years.” I looked across at my mom, in the kitchen. She was sitting on a stool in her rolled-up jeans, her bare ankles crossed and her long red hair pulled back in a ponytail. She loved to dance. If she wanted dancing in her show, she could do it herself. I looked back at Tess and spoke in a low voice. “I don’t even want to wear the costume.”

  She sighed. “I wish I could wear it. It’d be so much more fun than going to school.”

  I pictured Duncan sitting at his computer, and Katie moving around the room, checking in with everyone, and fat old Ginger dozing by the window.

  “I wish I could too,” Hazel said, tidying her stack of bills. “You’re so lucky, Wolf.”

  I rubbed Timmy’s ear. It was exactly what Mom always said: We were so lucky. We lived in a beautiful and peaceful country, we had enough to eat and a roof over our heads, we had education, and we had each other—and all that luck, Mom always pointed out, came with an obligation. With great privilege comes great responsibility. That was a quote she had written on the kitchen wall at our old place.

  Sometimes I wished I was a little less lucky.

  Eight

  MOM AND CURTIS slept in the van, Saffron and Whisper got the pull-out couch, and Violet and I had blow-up camping mattresses on the living room floor. Timmy the dog flopped across my feet, which felt nice even though it made it impossible to roll over and get comfortable. The twins fell asleep right away, curled up together like kittens.

  I could see the glow of Violet’s phone in the darkness. “Are you texting Ty?” I whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  “Where is he?”

  “At a friend’s place.” She rolled toward me. “He’s going to come to the show tomorrow.”

  “I figured.” I hesitated for a moment. “Um, Violet?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I don’t want to wear that costume.”

  “So don’t.” Her phone was lighting up her face. She frowned, her dark eyebrows almost joining. “Just tell her you’re not going to do it.”

  I tried to imagine it. “She worked really hard on those costumes.”

  Violet snorted. “Did she ever ask you if you wanted to wear one though?”

  “No. But I could have said, earlier…”

  “So why didn’t you?” Her phone shut down and the darkness swallowed her up.

  “I don’t know.” There was a long silence. “I guess because I think she’s right? That we should be doing something about the bees and everything?” I hated how uncertain I sounded.

  “Don’t you think if she was right, other people would be doing stuff too? Jade’s not an expert on this. She’s not, like, a scientist or anything.”

  I moved my legs slightly, and Timmy grunted and shifted his weight. “She says people don’t want to admit what’s happening because it’s too inconvenient. They don’t want to give up anything. If all the pesticides and stuff get banned, they’ll have to pay more for food—”

  Violet interrupted me. “Yeah, but come on. End of world versus paying for expensive apples? You really think we’re the only people who’d choose to pay a little extra?”

  “No. I don’t know.”

  “Wolf, I know she’s your mom and all, but…”

  “Don’t,” I said. “Don’t. Anyway, Curtis is just as much a part of this as she is.”

  She sighed. “Okay. Fine. But Curtis isn’t making me wear a bee costume.”

  “I’ll tell her,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

  The twins woke early, as usual, and were watching cartoons by the time Tess and Hazel came downstairs, all dressed for school in matching denim skirts and striped tights.

  “Morning, girls,” Eva said cheerfully. She was in the kitchen, pulling box after box of cereal out of the cupboards and plonking them on the table in front of me: Rice Krispies, Vector, Cheerios, Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes, Alpen…“I was just getting breakfast ready for Jade’s kids. You two want oatmeal? It’s already made. Or do you want the junky stuff?”

  “Junky stuff, duh,” Tess said. She sat down and pulled the box of Cheerios toward her. “Hey, Wolf. Where’s everyone else?”

  “Violet’s in the shower. My parents haven’t got up yet.” I eyed the Fruit Loops. Mom would flip, but maybe she wouldn’t find out. “The twins don’t eat breakfast.”

  “Really?” Hazel looked at them curiously. “I love breakfast.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” I poured myself a huge bowl of Fruit Loops. “Especially at your house.”

  Eva laughed. “It’s a bit absurd. I swear, we seem to collect cereal.”

  “Where’s Mary?” I asked.

  “Already left for work.”

  “What does she do?”

  “She works at a health clinic downtown,” Eva said. “She’s the clinical manager.”

  “Do you work too?” I reached for the milk, hoping I didn’t sound too nosy.

  “She’s a psychologist,” Tess said.

  “Well, not so much, these days,” Eva said, laughing. “Mostly what I do is make jewelry and sell it online.”

  Tess leaned toward me, lifting her necklace for me to look at. “She made this, see?”

  Twists and coils of shiny silver wire were studded with blue and green glass. “It’s beautiful,” I said, meaning it.

  “I’ve made one for Jade,” Eva said. “A pendant.” She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out a
small square box. “Want to see it?”

  I nodded, and she set the box down in front of me. I lifted the lid off. “Oh…wow.” A silver tree, roots and branches spreading and joining to form a circle, and pieces of colored glass like fall leaves, in shades of orange and red. “She’ll love it.”

  “I hope so.” Eva put the lid back on the box and returned it to her pocket. “Your mom is one of my oldest friends, Wolf.”

  “I know.”

  “How are you feeling about this trip?” she asked. “It sounds very exciting, but I guess it means leaving your school and your friends and all that?”

  “Yeah.” I ate a mouthful of cereal and wondered what Eva would say if I told her I didn’t want to wear the bee costume.

  “Your mother is one of the most passionate people I’ve ever known,” Eva said. “She really stands up for her beliefs.” She sighed. “Seeing her again makes me realize how little I do these days.”

  “You seem pretty busy to me,” I said.

  She laughed. “Crazy busy, with work and the house and the girls. But I meant that I don’t do much these days to make the world better. Not like I used to.”

  I looked at her daughters, eating their cereal, and past them, at the cozy living room, the stacks of books, the half-finished Monopoly game still spread out on the floor, Timmy sleeping on the couch. Their world looked pretty good to me, and a big part of me wished I could just stay here. But if Mom was right, all this coziness would be no protection from what the future held.

  They’d starve and die along with everyone else.

  Mom and Curtis finally got up, long after Tess and Hazel had left for school and I had finished my third bowl of Fruit Loops. I waited until they’d had a coffee and Mom had been given her necklace before I raised the subject of today’s show.

  “So what time do we have to be downtown?” I asked. “At the art gallery?”

  Mom shrugged. “It’s not scheduled or anything. It doesn’t really matter.”

  “Did you put it on the website?”

  “Just said around lunchtime. I figured there’d be more people around then.”

  I nodded. “That makes sense.” I could hear Violet’s voice in my ear saying, Just tell her. “Um, I know I’m keeping an eye on the twins and that we’re handing out flyers and stuff…”

  “That’s the plan,” Mom said.

  “Yeah. I just wondered…maybe I could do that without wearing a costume.” I couldn’t look at her as I said it.

  “Oh, Wolf…” She sounded disappointed.

  “I just feel kind of funny about it.”

  “You’ll be fine once we get started.”

  “Yeah, I guess, maybe. But—”

  “Look, just try it, okay? For today’s show.” Mom tilted her head to one side, her fingers touching the silver tree that hung around her neck. “You’ll look adorable, and the three of you will really help draw a crowd.”

  The twins would look adorable, I thought. I would look ridiculous.

  “Be brave,” Mom said. “We have to be warriors, Wolf. Imagine you are a warrior going into battle—”

  “In a bee costume?”

  “—and you have to face down your own fears. You have to be strong. You’re fighting for a cause, Wolf. You’re fighting for the future.”

  I swallowed. “Okay.”

  She hugged me and ruffled my hair. “That’s my boy.”

  I was almost as tall as her now. Over her shoulder, I could see Violet looking at me. She shook her head but didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to: I could tell she thought I was pathetic.

  Violet would make a good warrior, I thought. So would Saffron.

  Whisper and me though? I didn’t think we were cut out to be warriors.

  Nine

  I STOOD IN front of the bathroom mirror, studying my reflection. Black leggings, way too tight. They looked like something Violet would wear. A short-sleeved black- and-yellow-striped top, which was supposed to be loose but which was, in fact, also too tight. I turned sideways, sucking my stomach in. Ugh. I had wire-and-mesh wings jutting from my shoulder blades. The costume looked stupid. No—I looked stupid. Bumblebee meets giant marshmallow.

  I picked up the antennae headband from the counter. Mom had said she would put the antennae on a hood, instead of a headband like the twins had, but I guessed she’d forgotten. I held it in my hand. A black velvet-covered plastic headband. A girl’s headband. With antennae.

  I couldn’t do it.

  My heart was racing, and I felt like I might lose it or explode or something. Without letting myself think about what I was doing, I opened the cupboard under the sink and shoved the headband behind the extra shampoo bottles and toilet-paper rolls.

  I never wanted to see it again.

  In the living room, the twins were posing while Eva snapped pictures. “You guys look adorable,” she told them. Their costumes were basically the same as mine, except that they had gauzy yellow tutus flaring out from their skinny hips.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, I’m ready to go.”

  Eva turned to look at me. “Wolf! Um, did you want to…” She gestured at the twins, standing side by side with their arms in the air like they were flying. “Shall I take one of all three of you?”

  “No, that’s okay,” I said, at exactly the same time as my mother said, “Yes, Eva, take one of them all for the website!”

  Eva lifted her camera, but I held up a hand in front of my face. “I don’t really want to be on the website.”

  “Oh come on,” Mom said.

  “No. Not in this…” I gestured down at myself. “Not in this costume.”

  “Why not?”

  “I look stupid,” I said. I was glad Tess and Hazel were at school.

  “You look fine,” Mom said. “Just get one shot of the three of them, Eva.”

  “Jade…” Eva put the camera down on the coffee table.

  “Or no, wait. I’ll put my costume on and we’ll do one of the four of us.” She headed for the back door. “It’s in the van. I’ll be right back.”

  “What about Curtis?” Eva asked. “No costume for him?”

  Mom paused in the doorway, looked back over her shoulder and made a face. “He’s more of a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”

  “Me too,” I said, but Mom was already gone.

  Eva looked at me. “You okay, kiddo?”

  “Yeah.” I couldn’t look at her. “Fine.”

  “When I was your age, there was no way I could have done what you’re doing,” she said. “Seriously. I was way too self-conscious. So kudos to you, Wolf.”

  “Not like I have much choice,” I muttered.

  “Sure you do. Jade’s not going to make you do anything you don’t want to do.” She tilted her head. “Right?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah. I guess.”

  Eva looked like she was about to say something else, but Saffron tugged on her arm and she turned away. I sat down on the couch, holding a cushion against my stomach. The shirt was so snug that you could see the indentation where my belly button was.

  A minute later Mom came flying back in. She was wearing black-and-yellow-striped tights, a short black skirt and a black top with long dangly sleeves. Wire-stiff wings fanned out behind her, and two long black antennae stuck up from the top of her head.

  “Yowza,” Violet said. “That’s quite the outfit, Jade.”

  Mom spun around, showing off. “What do you think, Eva?”

  “Gorgeous. And you’ll cer
tainly attract attention,” Eva said.

  “That’s the idea,” Mom said. She held her arms out. “Come on, kids. Photo time.”

  The twins were at her side in a heartbeat. I stood up, crossed the room and positioned myself behind them, so that I’d only be visible from the chest up. Mom smiled at me. I gave her a halfhearted smile back.

  At least she hadn’t noticed that I wasn’t wearing the antennae headband.

  Ten

  SHORTLY AFTER NOON, Curtis dropped us all off in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery. I was carrying a canvas bag full of flyers to hand out. We’d printed them out three to a page and cut them apart. You could tell which ones the twins had cut because they were a little wonky. There was a picture of a bee in flight at the top, and our website link at the bottom. In between was a long list of facts about what was happening to the bees.

  “Over here, I think,” Mom said. She had a bag of props with her juggling stuff in it and a couple of big poster boards. “Let’s set up right here.” She gestured at the large paved area where we were standing, at the base of a flight of wide stone steps.

  I looked up at the two huge stone lions that seemed to guard the gallery and at the big pillars by the gallery doors. “Are we allowed to?”

  “Wolf, really?” She laughed. “Such a rule follower.”

  She made it sound like a bad thing. “I just wondered,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’ll be fine,” she said. “There are lots of protests here—the steps are famous for it.”

  “Okay.” I handed a bunch of flyers to Saffron and a bunch to Whisper. Saffron promptly dropped hers, and the wind caught them and started blowing them down the sidewalk. I muttered a rude word under my breath and took off after the flying papers. By the time I’d managed to chase them down, Mom and Violet had the poster-board display all set up, and a couple of curious pedestrians had stopped to see what we were up to.

  “Here,” I told Saffron, returning her flyers to her. “Hold on tight, okay?”

  She nodded, pink cheeked from the chilly breeze. Beside her, twisting the flyers in her hand, Whisper looked wide-eyed and frightened.