by Carol Weston
On the way home, Dad told me the names of the four Irish writers who won the Nobel Prize: Yeats, Shaw, Beckett, and Heaney. He said I should read their books someday. I said, “Are they short?”
Dad laughed. The book he is now rereading is a thousand pages long! It’s called Ulysses and is about one day in the life of one person in Ireland.
Dad started talking about “sloppy copy” (messy first drafts) and said, “Writers have to write and rewrite till they get it right.” He also said writers have to let their words “sit and marinate” so they can return to them with “fresh eyes.”
When Dad is in the middle of writing a play, he sometimes invites actors to come over to read the lines out loud in our dining room. This helps him figure out what works and what doesn’t. Sometimes the actors come back a month later to read the same old play with brand-new changes.
Well, I can’t let my words sit and marinate! I barely have enough time to “cook” them up in the first place!
Speaking of cooking, for dinner, we ordered in Chinese. (Actually, we ordered in English, but we got Chinese food.) Dessert was pineapple rings and fortune cookies, and I am taping my fortune here:
"Hard work without talent is a shame,
but talent without hard work is a tragedy."
Was that message meant for me?? I haven’t been working very hard lately.
This weekend, while stupid Bea has her stupid boy-girl party and Pip quietly turns thirteen, I plan to write and write.
Here’s my title:
STING OF THE QUEEN BEE
Get it? “Queen Bee” as in buzz buzz and “Queen Bee” as in popular girl. That’s a homonym. “Bee” can also mean contest as in “spelling bee.” And of course “bee” sounds like “Bea,” as in mean-awful-new-seventh-grade-girl.
Titles are my specialty.
AVA THE AMBITIOUS
10/10
BEDTIME
DEAR DIARY,
I spent all afternoon writing, and it felt as if I were in another world. I totally lost track of time! Suddenly Mom said, “Get dressed,” because we were going to the Kahiki for Pip’s birthday.
The Kahiki is Pip’s and my favorite restaurant. It is Polynesian and has big bubbling aquariums, flaming spicy meatballs, and steaming drinks that come with little umbrellas and overflow like gentle volcanoes.
Well, tonight Pip didn’t eat much, and I could tell she was trying not to think about the giant seventh-grade boy-girl party that was going on right then.
Dad looked at all the food on our plates, and next thing you know, he started talking about rotten potatoes.
He said that in the middle of the 1800s, almost all the potatoes in Ireland went rotten, and there were “political problems,” and a million people starved to death, and another million left the country.
Obviously, this was a terrible tragedy and not “the luck of the Irish.” But if Dad’s great-great-grandfather had not gotten on a boat to Boston, he would not have met my great-great-grandmother, and there’d be no Dad, no Pip, and no me.
I would not have been born!!
Mom would have been born, but she would have been just a random lady named Anna, not my M-O-M—which is very strange to think about!!
Anyway, we were about to order cake for dessert, but Pip said, “I hate when waiters sing to me.” Personally, I love when waiters sing to me.
We drove home, and Mom, Dad, and I sang to Pip in our kitchen. She blew out the candles, and we ate some of the gigantic strawberry birthday cake. (Mom had canceled the balloons.)
It was pretty pitiful. Mom tried to liven things up by telling us about a boxer dog who ate his owner’s underwear. “His boxers?” I asked, and Mom said, “No, it was a pair of pink panties!” I thought that was funny, but Pip looked like she couldn’t care less about what kind of undies the dumb dog ate.
Dad tried to liven things up by saying that thirteen is a special number because if you rearrange the letters in “ELEVEN PLUS TWO,” you get “TWELVE PLUS ONE.” I thought that was funny, but Pip looked like she wasn’t in the mood.
At least she got a lot of presents—way more than I ever get!
Mom and Dad gave her a watercolor set and a cell phone, and I gave her Great Expectations because the main character’s name is Pip. (It was Mr. Ramirez’s suggestion.) Unfortunately, Pip already has that book, so now it’s like I haven’t given her anything!
A
P.S. Psssst: Pip doesn’t need presents anyway. She needs friends—and maybe for her crush, whoever he is, to like her back. Is that asking for a miracle?
10/11
BEDTIME
DEAR DIARY,
Maybelle came over, and we took turns walking around backward and blindfolded while the other person gave directions on where to go. Then we polished off Pip’s strawberry cake—bit by bit and bite by bite.
After Maybelle left, I spent all day writing. Dad said to think BIG, but a bee is small. I wrote the story by hand, then typed it on our computer. I had to check the word count over and over and kept adding and subtracting words as if I were working on a math problem, not a library story. Finally I put a moral at the end, the way Aesop does after his fables. If you include everything from the title to the moral, the story comes to exactly four hundred words.
I’m handing it in tomorrow, on the due date. Dad congratulated me for meeting the “deadline.” I said I didn’t like that word. Deadline makes writing sound dangerous. Which it isn’t, ’tis it (T-I-S-I-T)?
I printed out an extra copy and am stapling it here:
Sting of the Queen Bee
by Ava Wren, Age 10
Once upon a time, there was a new girl in school. Her name was Bea. She was mean and she was a thief. She didn’t steal erasers or candy or key chains. She didn’t steal money or clothes or jewelry. She stole other people’s friends.
She did it without even thinking, because she wanted to have as many girls as possible in her group. If someone didn’t have many friends of her own, it made Bea extra happy to steal them for her clique, which she called her hive. She didn’t care about the girls themselves—she just cared about how many she could get.
In the middle of middle school, Bea had more friends than anyone in seventh grade. But deep down, she felt lonely. She knew she was not a nice person. She knew she was evil, selfish, and rude. And she knew nobody liked her for her. They liked her because her family had a pool and her freezer was full of Popsicles.
One afternoon, Bea and her so-called friends were at her pool when a queen bee—a real queen bee with a teeny tiny crown—was buzzing around looking for flowers. Buzz! Buzz! It landed right on Bea’s big nose. The bee stared at Bea; Bea stared at the bee. Then it flew off toward the other girls and listened to their conversations. It was surprised! The girls were whispering and saying that Bea was a friend stealer and a queen bee!
“A queen bee?” the queen bee said to herself. “I’m the only queen bee around here!”
It buzzed straight back to Bea’s big nose and stung her twice with its stinger. It wanted to teach Bea a lesson. And it did! Ouch! Ouch!
Bea’s nose got red, sore, swollen, and bigger than ever. She put a giant Band-Aid on it and spent two days at home watching TV and feeling very sorry for herself.
Meanwhile, the other girls went back to school, and since Bea wasn’t there, they hung out with all the old friends they had dumped—all those loyal girls who’d been kind since kindergarten. Everyone forgave everyone, and everyone got all their friends back.
As for Queen Bea, she learned her lesson: you can’t be a friend thief and get away with it.
Moral: There’s no shortcut to true friendship.
AVA THE AUTHOR
10/13
IN THE LIBRARY
DEAR DIARY,
I wonder who else in school knows about the contest. No one is bu
zzing about it. (Get it? Buzzing??)
I keep picturing myself getting good news and telling Mom and Dad, “Now I won!!” (N-O-W-I-W-O-N).
A #1 AVA
10/16
AFTER SCHOOL
DEAR DIARY,
Another 100 on another spelling test.
AVA WHO GETS AS ON FRIDAYS
10/17
BEDTIME
DEAR DIARY,
In language arts, Mrs. Lemons said that good writers notice things, and today, while Pip and I carved a jack o’ lantern, I noticed that Pip has fewer freckles in the fall than in the summer and that they are lighter now too.
“Wanna play the Homonym Game?” I said. It’s when we make sentences with words that sound the same but mean different things, like NUN and NONE, and CHEWS and CHOOSE, and HAIR and HARE. And BEE and BEA and BE.
Pip said, “Not really,” but since she didn’t say “no,” I started. I said, “The FAIRY took a FERRY.”
“She had to BURY a BERRY,” Pip replied halfheartedly.
“BUT a bee bit her BUTT!”
“They DISCUSSED it with DISGUST,” Pip said, then added, “I don’t want to play anymore.”
“Oh c’mon,” I pleaded. “The tennis star hoped to CRUSH her CRUSH!”
Pip squinted at me and said, “I’m not telling you who my crush is, and I’m not playing anymore.”
Well, of course that meant I wasn’t either.
On the one hand, I feel sorry for Pip. On the other, her bad moods are annoying!
AVA THE ANNOYED
10/18
SUNDAY MORNING
DEAR DIARY,
I asked Pip to tell me her Homonym Joke.
“Why?”
“Because I want to write it in my diary.”
She sighed as if telling me her joke was a big fat favor. Finally she said: “Why is six afraid of seven?”
“Why?”
“Because seven ATE nine.”
I jumped around repeating, “Because 7-8-9!” a couple of times, but Pip rolled her eyes. That got me mad, and I ended up shouting, “Why can’t you ever just be happy?!”
Of course, that got her mad, and she stomped off and shut her door—which made me wish I’d shut my mouth.
AVA THE ANNOYING?
10/19
AFTER SCHOOL
DEAR DIARY,
Lunch was fish sticks. I saw Pip eating alone in the corner, but I sat with my friends.
We talked about the contest. Maybelle didn’t enter because she’s better with numbers than words. (She just joined Mathletes.) One of the Emilys wrote about zombies, and Mr. Ramirez had to break it to her that zombies are not living creatures. (Duh.) Matthew wrote about a fire-breathing dragon, but dragons are not living creatures either, and besides, he came up with only eighty-three words.
Riley wrote a love story about her pony. All she ever talks about is her pony. Some girls are boy-crazy, but Riley is pony-crazy.
The only other submission I know about in the fourth and fifth grade category is from a dweeby boy named Alex. He wrote about an earthworm named Ernie.
I feel sorry for the judge who has to slog through a story of a BORING worm that goes BORING in the dirt. (Homonym alert!)
At least my story has a beginning, middle, and end, as well as a plot twist. (Buzz! Buzz! Ouch! Ouch!)
I told Dad that I wrote about a mean queen bee, and he said that sounded clever. But he smiled in a way that made me wonder if it also sounded dumb.
Should I have given my four hundred words to Dad to fix? Too late now! I also thought of having Mom take a look, but she was always online or busy with Pip. Besides, Mr. Ramirez said we were supposed to write our stories “without any outside help,” and that “getting assistance would be inappropriate.”
Well, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping to win. If I win, it might be like a small step to becoming a real writer.
AVA THE APPROPRIATE
LATER
DEAR DIARY,
Question: Do I even want to be a real writer?
AVA THE AMBIVALENT (WHICH I'M PRETTY SURE MEANS UNSURE )
10/21
AFTER DINNER
DEAR DIARY,
After school, I went to the vet’s, and I got to pet some pets. A yellow lab named Butterscotch started wagging his tail the second he saw me. His owner goes away a lot, and Butterscotch always carries a stuffed-animal fox in his mouth. I also pet Panther, a black kitten with a pink nose. He started purring before I even touched him.
Poor pets! They deserve wayyy more attention than they get!!
I liked hanging out with the animals, but I really wanted to hang out with Mom. I even said so, but she said, “Ava, shhh. I have piles of files to get through before we have to pick up Pip.”
“Fine,” I said. But it wasn’t fine. Sometimes it seems as if Mom cares more about Pip than about me. Pip, her precious firstborn.
Here are three pieces of evidence:
1.Mom always buys Pip her favorite snacks (like pretzels and mangoes), but doesn’t buy me mine (like grapes and cheddar cheese).
2.Mom gives Pip an allowance, but I have to take the garbage out for nothing.
3.Mom praises Pip’s sketches more than my writing—not that I ever show her my writing, but still.
I didn’t even tell Mom that I got another 100 in spelling (or that I got a 79 on a math quiz).
Since I didn’t want to accuse Mom of playing favorites, I said, “Sometimes it seems like you care more about animals than about me.”
She looked surprised. “What makes you say that?”
“Do you even know what I’ve been working on?”
“Dad said you entered a writing contest.”
“That’s right,” I said, hoping she’d ask about my story. I was thinking of showing her a copy and telling her that I want to get first prize.
But all she said was: “See? I pay attention.” Then she went back to her computer.
Question: does Mom like Pip more than me??
Well, at least writing all this down is making me feel a little better. Even though I still miss my magic pen.
AVA THE UNAPPRECIATED
10/23
BEFORE DINNER
DEAR DIARY,
The phone rang. Our caller ID said, “Misty Oaks Library,” so I picked up and said, “Hello.”
“Hello. This is Mrs. White at the library. May I please speak to Ava Wren?”
Since she was being formal, I said, “This is she.” Pip made a face because “This is she” sounds so dorky.
“I’m calling about the contest. Congratulations! Your story received an honorable mention.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to get mentioned—honorably or dishonorably. I wanted to win. I wanted to be the ONE who WON!
Mrs. White said my entire family was invited to a 6 p.m. reception on October 28 with “punch and nibbles.” She said a famous author, Jerry Valentino, was the judge and would be there.
I was tempted to say, “I’ve never heard of him, so how famous can he be?” But I thanked her, stuck a note on Dad’s computer that said “10/28 6 p.m. Library,” and shoved my turquoise pen to the bottom of my backpack.
Obviously, it’s not a lucky pen, let alone a magic one.
AVA, ABOVE AVERAGE BUT NOT AWARD-WINNING
10/23
AFTER DINNER
DEAR DIARY,
I told Dad about the phone call, and he congratulated me. He also said that before Mrs. White got married, her name was Miss Bright, so now her full name is Wendy Bright White. :)
At dinner, I mentioned my honorable mention but didn’t make a big deal of it because:
1.I didn’t come in first.
2.Why bother?
3.When Pip is bummed out,
it doesn’t feel right to act as happy as a lark.
Mom congratulated me, then said, “I wonder how many submissions they got.” Well, that made me wonder if the only reason I even got an honorable mention is that not very many people entered. And that made me upset inside.
Pretty soon we all went back to talking about regular stuff (except Pip who went back to not talking).
I wish Pip felt sunnier. Living with her these days is like living with a rain cloud.
That’s a simile.
A simile, according to Mrs. Lemons, is when you describe something using “like” or “as.”
If I say, “Pip is quiet as a mouse,” that’s also a simile, because I’m comparing Pip to a mouse.
I don’t think Pip would appreciate any of my similes.
AVA WREN, NOT AS HAPPY AS A LARK
10/25
5 P.M.
DEAR DIARY,
Maybelle came over with ginger cookies from a batch that she and her mom had baked for a game.
We painted our nails orange and let them dry, and then we wet our fingers and made whistle-y sounds by rubbing them around the tops of our water glasses. We also slid down the stairs on a bath mat. It was fun until I landed on my butt. Owwww! Owwwwch!
I can’t complain though because:
1.It’s embarrassing to talk about your butt.
2.Mom and Dad might say I’m old enough to know better, or
3.Mom and Dad might not say anything at all.
Here’s what worries me: What if I broke my butt? Can butts get broken? Like arms and legs? And hearts?
AVA THE ACHY
10/28
BEDTIME
DEAR DIARY,
Brace yourself because I have a lot to tell you. I’ll start with the good part, then get to the BAD part.