Page 11 of Make Me Bee-lieve

“Funny.” He tilts his chin up at the hive again. “That a bee box?”

The hair on my arms stands on end, and I put myself between Kyle and the beehive.

He chuckles. “Easy, man. I’m not going to hurt it. I just wanted to know who you were talking to, but it looks like a giant box. I was worried I was hanging out with someone with a few screws loose.”

“No one said you have to stay up here,” I mutter, turning back to the beehive and placing the book back down on the stack. “I’m not even sure why you are here, actually. You don’t live here.”

“Nah, you’re right. I don’t,” he says, and takes another step forward. “Just waiting on my friend again, and you have a nice view up here. Better than his rank apartment. Reeks of weed.”

I snort. “Ratting your friend out for having weed in his apartment, really?”

Even though Sugardove City has made marijuana legal, it still isn’t permitted in the apartments. No smoking of any kind is. When I turn around, Kyle tilts his head at me. “You a cop?”

“Do I look like a cop?” I answer. A beat passes between us, and his brows knit together. “No. I’m not a fucking cop. I’m a scrum master.”

I shouldn’t have even bothered telling him that, because now he’s looking at me like I’m a math problem and he forgot his calculator. “The hell is that?”

“It’s— Never mind. Sorry. Enjoy your view, or whatever,” I say, then sit back down in the chair. I’m not leaving the hive unattended. Not with Kyle looming nearby. He said he has no interest in harming the hive, but I really have no idea what he’s capable of.

“You’re unfriendly,” he says, and for half a second, I hear a twinge of pain in his voice. It’s enough to make me regret being so cold toward him, and I open my mouth to apologize, but he shakes his head. “No, it’s cool. I won’t bother you anymore. Just … it gets pretty boring up here.”

I scrub a hand through my hair and sigh. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be such a dick. I’m just … not great with people, I guess. Life of an engineer, maybe.” Turning back toward the hive, I gesture to it. “Do you want me to show you what I’m doing?”

Kyle pauses, working his jaw. I’m pretty sure he’s going to say no and walk away, but then he grins as he steps closer. “Sure. So, you really do have bees up here?”

I toss one of the books from the stack at him to catch. “Yeah. Just joined the beekeepers’ guild at my brother’s behest. He wants me to look after his bees while he’s away next week and the guild was kind enough to let me host it here so I don’t have to drive all the way across town.”

“Cool,” Kyle says before crouching down in front of the hive. I kneel beside him, and memories of when I was twelve years old come flooding back to me. Showing off my ant farm to a local boy in town, the only one who liked to hang out with me. He moved away when we were going into high school, and I never saw him again. My heart aches at the memory, like it’s taunting me. Sometimes, when it’s the middle of the night and I can’t sleep, I’ll think about that kid with the missing front tooth and shaggy mop of brown hair and wonder what became of him.

“Just so you know, I don’t normally do this on a Friday night,” I say.

Kyle gives me a sidelong glance. “What? You mean you’re usually at a strip club or something instead?” He nudges me in the side. “I’m teasing. I think this is pretty awesome, actually.”

“Really?”

He nods. “Really.”

We spend the rest of the night up on that rooftop, laughing and talking about our lives. The full moon peeks out from behind the clouds, and eventually, Kyle’s friend comes up looking for him, leaving me alone with the bees once more. I sit in the chair just like the night before and pull out a banged-up copy of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream that I grabbed from the library.

I know it’s stupid, reading to the bees like this. And I know this isn’t what they mean by “telling the bees,” but I figure if I’m going to be up here keeping an eye on things, I might as well read to them—like how my mom insists on talking to her tomato plants. She says it helps them grow better. So … maybe reading the bees classic literature will help them produce more honey? Can’t hurt.

I kick my feet up, flip the page, then adjust my glasses. “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draw on apace,” I begin in a deep, dramatic voice. “Four happy days bring in another moon…”

CALVIN

I’m awake before the sun rises over the lagoon in the distance, and with a mug of steaming coffee in hand, I head straight up to the rooftop to bring my Shrinkatron out of the storage closet. My landlord was kind enough to let me use the old shed for storage, so long as I remembered to water her tomato plants every week. More than a fair trade, I’d say.

Scotch Bonnet weaves between my legs as I make adjustments on the scope itself, then wipe down the glass with a cloth for the third time. Bonnet meows up at me, no doubt annoyed that I’m ignoring her while I work.

“Go play,” I say, nudging her away with my foot. Bonnet trills as she hops off to chase a leaf blowing across the concrete.

Red and yellow wires stick out of the Shrinkatron wildly, and I grab some of the wire I recently bought to tie them into place. I chug my coffee, set it down on the ledge, and move in front of the ray again to adjust the nozzle. Again. “Something’s not right,” I mutter to myself, and remove my glasses to wipe them off with the cloth.

I started this project last autumn when I overheard my landlady complaining about her bad back. She couldn’t lift most objects in her apartment anymore. They were too big and cumbersome. And … well, that got me thinking. Maybe there was a consumer need for the Shrinkatron? When I’m at work I always feel like I’m spinning my wheels. I wake up, feed Bonnet, head into the office, and work on other people’s projects. Which is fine when you’re only concerned about money…

… But I’m not. I want to put something good into the world. Something that matters. When I die, I want to leave the planet a better place. Sounds idealistic, I know, but it’s a dream of mine. To matter. Even if only temporarily, I guess.

The wind changes direction, blowing the leaves back toward me and my shrink ray. Bonnet jumps up onto the table where the beehive sits, and I sigh. “Bonnet, stop. You’re going to knock something over or get hurt,” I scold her, but she isn’t listening. No cat in the world has ever listened when their human told them to stop.

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