Better Off Undead

by James Preller

  I couldn’t locate the hive until she pointed out where it stood, tucked in the far corner of the garden. The hive looked like a rectangular wooden box, nothing fancy, about four feet high.

  “Come,” she said. “We’re lucky it’s a warm day, so the bees are still active. I’m not going to show you the inside of the frame today. It’s best if we do that in the spring.”

  I didn’t complain. I wasn’t super eager to get up close and personal with thousands of bees.

  “How do they survive during the winter?” Gia asked.

  “Well, it’s really interesting,” Ms. Fjord said. “They don’t hibernate; instead, the colony will huddle together in a ball to keep warm. Have you seen the movie The March of the Penguins? It’s like that. Here in the northeast, where winters are really cold, the colony will form a huddle that’s the size of a basketball.”

  “And the queen bee is in the center of it,” Zander added.

  Ms. Fjord pointed out the holes at the bottom of the box. “When the bees are getting ready to overwinter, I add these metal guards to keep out mice and other animals that might want to burrow inside. And here”—she pointed to two sides of the box—“I’ve added black tar paper on the southern and eastern exposures to help absorb heat from the sun. On the other two sides, I’ve attached insulation.”

  “How many bees are in a hive?” Gia asked.

  “About fifty thousand is a healthy number,” Ms. Fjord replied.

  If I could whistle halfway decently, I would have done it.

  Ms. Fjord explained that during pollination season she liked to sit in a lawn chair about ten feet away from the hive, just watching them come and go. “I don’t like to disturb them, and I can learn a lot about the health of the hive just by observing the activity. Some days I’ll sit out with a cup of Lemon Zinger and a book. Or I’ll close my eyes and contemplate the stillness—this awesome, mysterious world.”

  She looked directly at me when she said those last four words: this awesome, mysterious world.

  “That sounds so nice,” Gia said.

  “It is, I love it!” Ms. Fjord gushed, turning to Gia. “Come place your ear against the side. Can you hear anything?”

  Gia’s eyes brightened, and she let out a startled gasp. “Yes, a hum!”

  Ms. Fjord laughed. “We’ll turn you into a beekeeper yet!”

  She continued: “During the winter, there’s not much work for a beekeeper. The bees need enough honey to survive, and some keepers like to give them sugar water. I’ll come by to listen once a month, to make sure the hive is in good health. Maybe I just miss them!” she said with a laugh. “The real work begins in the spring. You can help me then, if you’d like.”

  “Sure, that’d be great.” Gia seemed relaxed and happy to soak up the natural world. It struck me that she seemed more vibrant in the garden, like a plant after a soft rain, as if she derived energy from the nearness of the hive.

  We learned some interesting facts, too. Mostly from Zander, who specialized in rattling off that kind of data.

  “I didn’t know you were such a bee expert,” I said to Zander, hoping he might take the hint.

  “Oh yes,” Ms. Fjord interjected. “Zander might even start his own hive, isn’t that right?”

  Zander looked down in embarrassment. “Maybe. I hope so.”

  Ms. Fjord told us that Zander was writing an essay to submit to a Young Beekeeper contest. “The winner gets a starter kit as a prize.”

  “Seriously? That’s awesome, Zander,” Gia said.

  “You think so?” he asked.

  “Oh yes,” Gia affirmed.

  I asked Ms. Fjord how she got into beekeeping. She said, “Well, let me see. I started reading about how honeybees were mysteriously disappearing. I don’t know why, but it really hit me. I just figured that maybe I could do something to help. I mean, bees are super important to the food chain. I’m just one person, but I wanted to do something. What I didn’t expect was how much I would end up loving my bees. I went from one hive, to two hives, then four, eight—now I’m up to sixteen hives. My husband and I sell honey at the farmers’ market. I make beeswax candles and sell them, too.”

  It was a great day, simply hanging out and talking in the garden with Ms. Fjord. This sounds dumb, but out there it felt like we were all equals. Ms. Fjord was a cheerful, natural person, and she didn’t talk down to us. I liked seeing her out of the classroom, where she could be more herself. I glanced around: Zander couldn’t stop smiling, and Gia looked downright inspired, like she might spontaneously burst with happiness. For the first time in a long time, I let my own problems drift away, as if I were releasing my grip from a string to watch a helium balloon rise slowly into the atmosphere. Smaller, smaller, smaller … until the great blue sky swallowed it whole. Maybe things would turn out okay for me after all. Out here in the garden, for a few minutes at least, hope felt possible.

  DARYL BITES BACK

  “Hey, Chubby Bubbles!”

  Zander and I were climbing the main stairs to school at that bleary hour before any self-respecting student is fully awake. The familiar voice came from behind us. “Ignore him, keep walking,” I advised Zander.

  “Chubby! You’re not just fat, you’re deaf, too? Hold up a minute! I’ve got to tell you something,” Daryl called. “You too, gimp.”

  Zander stopped and turned. “What’s your problem, Northrup?”

  Daryl smirked, taking pleasure in Zander’s irritation. Daryl leaned back, putting a hand over his heart. “I don’t have a problem. I feel freaking awesome. But I’m worried about your dopey beehive. I’ve seen you back there, right?”

  I stood shoulder to shoulder with my friend. “What have you done, Daryl?”

  Daryl smiled, feigning innocence. “Who, me?”

  Talal joined us, glancing from face to face. “Is everybody okay?”

  “Geez, nice hat,” Daryl remarked. “You buy it at a garage sale for midget hipsters?”

  “Good one,” Talal remarked. “I’ll have to write that down.”

  “Just answer my question, Daryl,” I demanded. “What have you done?”

  “I haven’t done nothing. I’m just telling you what I saw,” Daryl said. He glared at me, and I could see that the old fearlessness had returned. He placed a large hand on Zander’s shoulder, leaned in, and whispered, ever so softly, “I was just wondering why it was all smashed up. You know? Who even brings bees onto school grounds anyway?”

  Zander pushed Daryl’s hand away.

  Daryl returned it to Zander’s shoulder. “Try that again, you gutless tub of jelly.”

  Zander didn’t move.

  “Didn’t think so,” Daryl scoffed.

  “Come on, forget him.” I pulled Zander away. “Let’s check the hive.”

  The three of us—Zander, Talal, and I—circled around the back of the school. “We’ll be a few minutes late, but so what,” I said.

  As we drew closer to the garden, Zander let out a muffled, “Oh no.”

  The entire hive had been knocked over. Some boxes and frames had fallen out, possibly broken. When I moved to rush forward, Zander grabbed my arm. “Don’t get too close,” he warned. “The bees are going to be all stirred up. They’ll be aggressive.”

  We stood there helplessly, three boys in a field, unsure of what to do. “Guys,” Talal said. He stepped toward the school, gesturing. “We can’t deal with this now.”

  I nodded to Zander. “He’s right.”

  “It had to be Daryl, right?” Zander said, uttering an inspired string of curses. “How could anybody do that?”

  “Oh, it was him, all right,” Talal said. “Didn’t you see that red welt on his wrist? I’d bet ten balloons it’s a bee sting.”

  * * *

  Most of the school day was scheduled for standardized tests. Fortunately, we had a few minutes to break the news to Ms. Fjord in her classroom. She moved to the corner window and craned her neck. From that vantage point, we could barely make out the garden in
the distance. “How bad?” she asked.

  “We don’t know,” Zander answered. “I didn’t want to get too near.”

  “Right, right,” she said, “that’s good, Zander. They’ll be angry for a couple of days. I’ll have to notify the principal, warn students to steer clear. Let’s see, um…”

  She seemed uncertain, almost dazed. She walked unsteadily to her chair and sat down.

  “Water?” I asked, lifting one of her empty coffee mugs.

  She sat blinking, thoughts still elsewhere. “Oh yes, please. Thank you, Adrian.”

  After a few minutes, Ms. Fjord collected herself. She made a plan with Zander. “We’ll have to leave them alone for a few days,” she said. “Then on, um”—she checked the desk calendar; it was Thursday, two days before Halloween—“on Sunday morning, I’ll have to put on some protective gear to assess the damage.”

  “I want to help,” Zander offered.

  “Me too,” I said.

  Ms. Fjord’s smile flickered. “It will be all right,” she said with new resolve. “Bees have been around for millions of years. Hives have survived bear attacks in the past, and our hive will survive this, too. It’s all just so disheartening. I can’t believe someone would do that.”

  “Do you think they’ll swarm?” Zander wondered.

  “No, bees aren’t likely to swarm in October,” Ms. Fjord replied. “That’s more of a late-spring to midsummer event. If the hive gets too crowded, part of the colony will swarm to establish a new hive. I just hope the queen is all right.”

  “What if she’s not?” Zander asked. “What if she got crushed?”

  “If that’s the case, we’ll have to find a new queen, and quickly. This time of year, I can always order one by mail from a large apiary.” She looked up, saw the concern on Zander’s face. “We’re lucky it’s been unseasonably warm—I guess climate change has its benefits. If it were freezing, we might have lost the entire hive.”

  An announcement came over the loudspeaker, informing us that it was time to proceed to our testing locations. We knew the routine by heart. Like robots, all the students filed out, sharpened pencils in our fists. We were programmed to color in answer bubbles.

  ZANDER’S REVENGE

  School had kept us busy all week with one of its notorious “test clusters.” Every day we were forced to take a brutal battery of standardized tests. By Thursday, today, we were tired and stressed. Weirdly, our teachers kept reassuring us that these tests didn’t matter and would not even be graded, because they were just practice tests for the upcoming real tests—on which our lives depended, or so we were led to believe. It was confusing.

  Earlier that week, Ms. Fjord had muttered that the tests represented “a triumph of mindless bureaucracy over common sense.” I wasn’t sure what she meant, but I could tell she felt these tests were a waste of time, money, and minds.

  Long columns of desks, twelve across, thirty-five deep, had been set up in the huge gymnasium to squeeze in more than four hundred test-takers at one time. We sat obediently, like factory workers in some bizarre futuristic world, and filled in answer bubbles with No. 2 pencils. The only sounds came from the heels of proctors walking up and down the rows, along with assorted sighs and pitiful groans from the students, and the scratch-scratch-scratching of graphite pencils on paper. We sat there slumped over, spittle trickling from our mouths, eyes glazed, minds numbed. When the bell rang, we were given thirty minutes to eat before we had to return for the next round of testing. (They had to let us eat, according to the rules of the Geneva convention.)

  Our lunch table had grown to include me, Zander, Talal, and Gia. I filled in Gia about our recent run-in with Daryl. “He’s getting aggressive,” I said. “I’m worried about what he’s going to do next.”

  “I have an idea,” Zander offered.

  All eyes turned to him.

  “It seems to me that Daryl isn’t afraid of Adrian anymore,” he reasoned. “After the showdown outside the pizza place, Daryl was pretty shaken up. He didn’t know what to think.”

  I smiled. “Well, I did threaten him.”

  “For real?” Talal asked, obviously impressed. “You threatened Daryl?”

  Gia laughed. “He said, ‘Get out of here now or I’ll blankety-blank eat your braaaiiins!’”

  I shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know, it just popped out of my mouth.”

  “You should have been there, Tal,” Gia said. “Adrian was fantastic!”

  “Yes, he was,” Zander agreed. “Daryl couldn’t back off fast enough.”

  We all roared, drawing looks from the other tables.

  “Seriously, though,” Zander said, “a lot of people were scared of Adrian back then. Now weeks have passed, and Adrian hasn’t done anything the least bit scary. The fear has washed away.”

  “Yesterday, Lydia Gregovich told me that Adrian is cute,” Gia added.

  “Oooooh, Zombie Boy and Lydia, getting tight,” Talal joked.

  “That’s my point,” Zander spoke up. “Adrian is starting to fit in again, and Daryl is back to being Daryl, the worst human being on the planet. Adrian humiliated Daryl in front of his friends. Now Daryl wants revenge.”

  Gia nodded. “Agreed. So what’s your plan?”

  Zander glanced right and left. He leaned forward. “We’ll do it after the dance Friday night…”

  At the end, we shook hands on it.

  Gia said, “Let’s nail this creep once and for all.”

  MAN WITH A THIN WHITE SCAR

  “We’ve still got that other thing to worry about,” Talal said by the recycling bins. “Our friends the Borks. I think today’s the day. Are you still sure you want to meet them?”

  I glanced at Gia. If she knew the future, she wasn’t saying.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m sure,” I said. “But I still don’t see how we’re going to pull this off.”

  Talal grinned, blew on his fingernails. “That’s why I get paid the big bucks.” He told me to meet him outside the cemetery front gate on Grove Street at four o’clock sharp.

  My nervous excitement grew as the day progressed. It wasn’t a happy kind of feeling, like the anticipation of a birthday party or holiday celebration. It was more like the anxious dread I imagine an actor might experience before taking the stage. A sense that something big was about to happen. I was going to meet the Bork brothers. It made me want to hurl.

  That afternoon, Principal Rouster interrupted testing for an important announcement.

  Kkccchh. Kkccchh. Tap-tap. TAP-TAP. “Wait, what?—Is this thing on?” SQUAAAWWWKK—whirr—kkccchh. “Good afternoon, Nixon Middle School!”

  We all groaned.…

  “I’ve got some more really bad news,” Principal Rouster announced. “There’s been flooding in the south wing. Therefore, we’ve once again been forced to halt all water operations.

  “In addition, I wish to address rumors about this Friday’s Halloween dance. The rumors are partially true. There will, in fact, be a Halloween dance this Friday.”

  A chorus of excited cheers, mostly from the girls, erupted throughout the school.

  “However,” Principal Rouster stated, “the rumors are incorrect on several significant points. One, this is NOT—I repeat, NOT—a couples dance. No student is allowed to bring a date to the dance. Two, there will be no slow dancing. Three, there will be no public displays of affection. This includes hand-holding, hugging, high-fiving, fist-bumping, and booty-shaking. If anyone is the least bit friendly to each other, you will be immediately escorted out of the building.

  “What a fun night it’ll be!” Principal Rouster clucked.

  Sigh. We really were just inmates in an asylum. My friends and I had big plans for the night of the dance, but I couldn’t allow myself to think about it. First I had to get through this test, then cut a deal with the Bork brothers.

  * * *

  After school, I pedaled furiously to meet Talal as instructed.

  “Why all the way out here?” I complained
, climbing off my bicycle.

  “Clear site lines.” Talal looked up. The sky was gray and empty except for one bird circling high overhead. Talal smiled. “Plus, we had to get away from people.”

  He sat cross-legged on the grass and leaned against the iron fence that bordered the cemetery. I locked my bike and joined him.

  “I still don’t get it,” I said. “How are we getting there?”

  Talal tapped an index finger against his forehead. “Tell me again why you want to talk to the Bork brothers.”

  I was confused. “You already know, Tal.”

  “Tell me again, Adrian Lazarus,” he repeated.

  It was bizarre to hear him address me by my full name. His eyes fixed me with a strange stare. Talal gave a slight nod, as if trying to send a silent signal.

  I said, “Okay, well, I figured they might be interested in working out a deal…”

  “Louder,” Talal said. “And don’t tell me, tell them.” He pointed to the bird circling in the sky. “Nice and clear, so the little birdie can catch every word.”

  I gazed up at the black speck hovering in the sky, wings perfectly still.

  Another drone?

  Fifteen minutes later, a long black limousine pulled up next to us. The passenger window slid down and the driver leaned toward us. “I understand you gentlemen might need a ride,” he said.

  I recognized the man’s face, even under the chauffeur’s hat, and the thin white scar that ran from the corner of his lip. He produced a card, which he offered with an outstretched hand. Talal stood to brush the grass from his coat. He moved with exaggerated slowness, refusing to be rushed. He finally plucked the card from the man’s hand and, without so much as a glance, tucked it into the deep pocket of his trench coat.

  “My mother told me never to get into cars with strangers,” he demurred.

  The stone-faced driver nodded. “Your mother is wise. But I’m not exactly a stranger. We’ve met before.”

  “You were at the laundromat,” I said.

  The man studied my face for a long moment. “So you’re the one, huh? Amazing.” He tipped his cap. “My employers are ready to meet you.”