How to Outsmart a Billion Robot Bees

by Paul Tobin

  “Oh, hi, Steve!” I said as we sped past, but I don’t think he noticed me, because he’d spilled his cup of soda all over his lap, and there was ice and gasping involved.

  Soon we were out into the street, and the bees fell out of sight, lost in the cloud of smoke that Betsy was leaving behind.

  We’d made it.

  “There,” Nate said. “That wasn’t so bad.” There was a popping sound as Betsy returned to her usual shape and her normal roomy interior, meaning I didn’t have to sit so close to Nate anymore. I slid back over to my side, feeling the aches and pains of the hundreds of bruises on my arms, legs, chest, butt, forehead, and in a general accumulation of areas that can be summed up as . . . everywhere.

  “That was actually very painful,” I told Nate. I tapped on the calculations he’d drawn on the windshield and asked, “What’s this? Part of our escape plan?”

  “A new popcorn recipe,” he answered.

  “You . . . you spent all that time working on a new popcorn recipe?” I was sputtering.

  “No. Just this section.” He circled a few of the equations. “Theater popcorn is always too salty and buttery for me, so I’ve devised a popcorn that salts and butters itself based on the voice commands of the user.”

  “You’ve developed voice-activated popcorn?” I said, making it clear that I didn’t think it would be very useful.

  “Sure!” Nate said. “It should be very useful. There have to be other people out there like me.”

  I said, “No, Nate, I don’t think so.” Melville landed on my shoulder and made a sound that I’m just going to go ahead and translate as a knowledgeable chuckle.

  We were driving at good speed down Wood Street at that point, the street with all the artist colonies, where they display handmade crafts on the sidewalks. Well, on blankets, actually. But the blankets are on sidewalks. We were roaring along fast enough that several of the blankets were flapping in the wake of our breeze.

  Tapping on the windshield, I asked, “So, what are the rest of these calculations?”

  “Ooo!” Nate said. “I’m glad you asked. Right now, it looks like Project B, the one Maculte and Luria were talking about, was actually Project Bee.”

  “Cleverly named,” I said. “I bet Maculte names his pet dog ‘Dog.’”

  “He doesn’t have a pet dog. Dogs don’t like him. Cats, either. Or, you know, most any animal. But the point is, Project Bee is in full operation, and we have to stop it. Look at this.” He tapped the roof of the car, and Betsy turned it transparent, so that we could see up to the skies, where there were huge swarms of bees soaring through the air.

  Hundreds of swarms.

  Each with millions of bees.

  Project Bee.

  Nate said, “They’re trying to keep me away from my house, causing so much chaos that I won’t be able to protect the Infinite Engine, but I’ve got a plan. It’s a bit risky, but we have a seventy-two percent chance of stopping the Red Death Tea Society if . . .” He paused, frowned, smudged out a number on the windshield, and then wrote in another number. “Okay, make that a sixty-two percent chance of stopping them, but it’s going to be dangerous, and hazardous, and treacherous, and perilous, and—”

  “Those are all synonyms for the same thing, Nate. I get it. It’s going to be absolutely death defying. So . . . what’s the plan?”

  He paused.

  I don’t like it when he pauses.

  He took a deep breath.

  I didn’t like that, either.

  He said, “It all comes down to this.” He tapped a finger on the windshield again, there on all the numbers he’d written, amid the various squiggles and so on. I noticed that several of the equations had arrows coming off them, and all of the arrows eventually pointed to one thing.

  A drawing.

  A drawing of . . . a girl?

  “Hey!” I said. “That looks like me!”

  And then I said, “Oh. Great.”

  My phone rang.

  An unknown number.

  “Hello?” I said, answering the phone.

  “Delphine, please. Oh, that was rude. Hello. This is Reggie Barnstorm, twenty-seventh president of the League of Ostracized Fellows. Could I please speak to Delphine Gabriella Cooper? She’s the girl with the bee stings.”

  “That’s me,” I said. I looked over to Nate, with him behind Betsy’s wheel, still scribbling equations onto her dash and her windshield, with Betsy still occasionally giggling, because she’s ticklish.

  “Oh, splendid,” Reggie said. “Of course, 99.45 percent chance of you answering your own phone, but one never knows. One never knows.”

  “One never knows why you’re calling me, either.”

  “Ha! I see. You’ve turned my own words against me.” There was a pause. A long one.

  “You still there?” I asked.

  “What? Oh! Yes! I was writing down your joke, in case I could use it in a speech. I’ll give you credit, of course, if there’s any applause. There’s usually not.”

  “Still don’t know why you’re calling me,” I noted.

  “Just so. Just so. The reason is, this thing with taking you up for a ride in the helicopter. We’ve had a meeting and, after looking up some things on the Internet and holding an informal poll, we’ve learned that kidnapping is considered socially awkward.”

  “Awkward is one word for it, yeah.”

  “We apologize.”

  “That’s great. I guess.” Melville came and landed on my phone, trying to eavesdrop. Her wings were tickling my ear.

  Reggie said, “Well, to be honest, it was a fifteen to twelve vote for an apology. By no means unanimous. But not bad. We served hamburgers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they’re tasty and—”

  “No, why did you think I needed to know that? And also, never mind. Are you going to try to kidnap me again?”

  “Probably not. Fifteen to twelve vote and all that. Instead, we have an offer. If you could stop Maculte and the Red Death Tea Society, we won’t bother you anymore. Also, and this is embarrassing, but we could use some help in other areas.”

  “Such as?”

  “Fashion tips. We have our upcoming League ball, and we’d collectively like to learn how to dress nicer, and, since we assume you’re the one who advises Nate, and since he’s the best dresser we know, could you help us, too?”

  I looked over to Nate. He actually was dressed nice, thanks to our trip to the antiques market, but I was thinking of how he usually dressed, with his green-and-orange-checkered shirt and the pants where he’s scribbled hundreds of math equations along with what seems to be a cartoon of an elephant farting. Even the nice shoes we’d grabbed from the antiques market were already scuffed, and his glasses currently had two notes taped to the left temple.

  “You think Nate dresses well?” I asked Reggie. My voice was a whisper. Of disbelief.

  “Don’t you?” Reggie asked. His voice was a squeak. Also of disbelief. Melville had buzzed away from my phone and was hovering in midair, looking to Nate and then back to the phone. I shrugged.

  “Maybe we can work together,” I said into the phone.

  “Fantastic!” Reggie said. “I suppose the first thing I’d like to know is, what’s the best type of tie to go with shorts and sandals?”

  “I meant that Nate and I will stop Maculte, since we’d planned on stopping him anyway.”

  “Oh.” I could tell Reggie was disappointed.

  “And don’t wear a tie with shorts,” I added, trying to be helpful. “Ties are formal, and shorts are decidedly not.”

  “Oh, my shorts are unquestionably formal,” he said. “They’re made of velvet.”

  I stared at my phone for a bit . . . thinking of velvet shorts . . . and then, with Melville buzzing in horror, and with me fighting for breath and not knowing what else to do, I simply hung up.

  “Who was that?” Nate asked.

  “Reggie Barnstorm. Leader of the League of Ostracized Fellows.�
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  “Hmm,” Nate said. “Nearly three minutes after I predicted.” He reached up to one of the notes taped to his glasses, tugged it away, and crumpled it up.

  We drove on.

  Betsy and I dropped off Nate at his house. Bosper came running across the yard as we pulled up to the curb, bouncing and bounding in the manner of all terriers, except also excitedly talking, which is something I’m still getting used to.

  “Who’s a good boy?” Bosper said. “The dog has done some chewing!” I noticed there were several shoes in the yard. Men’s shoes. They looked a lot like the ones I’d seen on the men from the Red Death Tea Society. Then I noticed a broken teacup and a dented teapot on the sidewalk.

  “Did someone attack the house?” I asked Bosper.

  “Who’s a good boy?” he said. It was a bit more plaintive this time. He looked over at one of the shoes.

  “So, someone did attack the house?” I asked, again.

  “Who’s a good boy?” Bosper said. He was now whining.

  “Oh!” I said, finally understanding my role in this conversation. “You! You’re a good boy!” Bosper began leaping around again, nodding his head. Barking. The usual terrier occupations.

  “Bosper likes the shoes!” he said. “This dog was barking and biting! And sometimes Bosper was farting, but that is okay!”

  “It is,” I said. “I do it all the time. Did you chase all the men away?”

  “Except shoes,” Bosper said. He made what was, I think, a terrier smile. It involved way too much saliva. He continued bounding around, talking about biting (he really does enjoy biting) and how he should get chocolate (which is not good for dogs, even ones who are very talented at math), and I petted him for a bit (which he did deserve, though I kept my hand away from his saliva-dispenser), and I looked at all of the shoes in the yard and wondered what we should do with them, because they looked like something that would need to be explained.

  “Hide those shoes, if you could,” I told Bosper.

  He was still jumping and leaping and spinning in the grass, but . . . he stopped suddenly.

  Freezing into position.

  “Delphine is the good friend,” he whispered.

  “True.”

  “We have a secret.”

  “True.”

  “Bosper will bury these secrets in the yard.”

  “Okay, you do that,” I said, because I wasn’t sure what else to say.

  He reached out one paw, looking around in a furtive manner (which does not work for terriers, because they always look suspicious anyway), and scratched at the grass and the soil.

  “The hole has begun,” he whispered. But at that point Nate had reached the front door and called for Bosper to get inside.

  “We have to protect this house!” Nate said, opening the door and letting Bosper inside. “We can’t let them get the Infinite Engine!”

  “And . . . Delphine?” Nate said, standing in the door, looking out to me.

  “Yes?”

  “You protect the city. Find a way to stop all the bees, and don’t let things descend into chaos.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Fine. Excellent. You protect a single house. I’ll protect the rest of the entire city. That’s totally fair.” I was withering the very air with my sarcasm.

  “Okay!” Nate said, and closed the door behind him.

  I sighed and walked back to the car.

  Betsy and I were three blocks away when my phone beeped. It was a text. From Nate.

  It read, When you said “that’s totally fair” . . . was that sarcasm?

  I took a picture of me giving a thumbs-up and sent it back to Nate.

  I was almost proud of him.

  When I was eight years old I went to Rock Camp. It’s where I first met Liz Morris and we became friends despite how, one night, sitting around a campfire . . . drinking lemonade and eating chocolate that we’d accidentally put too close to the fire and which was nearly liquid . . . she’d confessed something that I found repulsively shocking, a deep and hideous secret that nearly shredded our growing friendship into pieces.

  She likes pie more than cake.

  But we were able to overcome this incredible flaw in her character, and we’ve been best friends ever since. It’s not Liz that I need to talk about here, though. It’s where we met. At Rock Camp.

  Rock Camp is not a camp where everyone gets together and talks about rocks, though I do find rocks to be fascinating and would definitely go to a camp where we scoured the soil for the prettiest rocks and various other buried treasures. But, this Rock Camp was all about learning to be in a band. Playing drums. Singing. And learning guitar.

  I’d wanted to be a lead singer but the camp counselor had listened to my audition (Rock Camp was in a valley, and the “stage” was on a huge overlook, a natural rock platform that jutted out over the forest below) and had told me in no uncertain terms that I was frightening the bears, the rabbits, the deer, the raccoons, the squirrels, and even the turtles that hang out near the pond. Apparently, my voice is far too “enthusiastic.” Anyway, after this crushing disappointment I tried to learn guitar, and I did get the basics, and I have a guitar in my room, but it only hangs on the wall because every time I play it Steve comes into my room and either tells me that his ears are bleeding or that Snarls, our cat, is hiding beneath his bed, hissing.

  So I don’t play much. But I do play a little. Even if all I can really do is play three chords in a manner that Ms. Brakehelm, head instructor for the Rock Camp for Girls, claims made the turtles leap off their logs and dive into the pond.

  But I can play.

  And that’s important.

  Because it saved the city.

  Betsy and I were trying to avoid the bee swarms. It wasn’t easy. Despite how she could drive much faster than the bees could fly, there were always more swarms. So, by outrunning one, it always seemed like we were running into another one. By then I was receiving re­­­ports on my phone. They were sent by Sir William, the robot gull, who was not only protecting my family, patrolling the house, but tracking swarms of bees all over Polt, using a sophisticated radar of Nate’s own devising.

  The bees, it seemed, were everywhere.

  I needed to disable those transmitters.

  “Up ahead!” I told Betsy. There was a huge swarm of bumblebees moving like a fat ribbon through the streets. We were back in the arts district where all the various sidewalk vendors (the potters, the clothes makers, the jewelers, and so on) were scattering as the bees descended, with the unfortunate people yelling out things like . . .

  “Glaggt!” The sound you make when a bee stings your face.

  “Grgargh!” The noise you make when a bee stings your left bicep.

  “Gett-gaww!” And . . . that would be the right bicep.

  And there was also “Flargrah!” . . . which is the scream from someone being stung on their right leg, and “Oh, I hate bees!” . . . which is a yell that could’ve been from almost anyone, owing to how bees aren’t exactly well loved, probably because of that whole “intense pain when they sting you” thing.

  Everyone was running inside the stores and the apartment complexes, and the bees were starting to cover the buildings like a thick writhing blanket, trying to find a way in, and I could tell from the various shrieks coming from within the buildings that our fine city of Polt has not properly bee-proofed our buildings. Still, there were fewer bees inside the buildings than outside, and since Betsy and I were about the last ones stupid enough to be moving along on the street, the bee horde collectively took a deep breath, turned their attention our way, smiled in malevolent fashion, and bellowed, “Let’s get her!”

  “Look out!” I yelled to Betsy, because we were headed straight for the swarm, which was now headed straight for us.

  “I see it, Delphine,” Betsy said. There was a certain tone in her voice. A bit . . . unfriendly.

  My phone beeped.

  A text.

  From Nate.

  It sa
id, Forgot to tell you, Betsy’s engine is different now.

  I texted back, Okay.

  I waited for his next text.

  Nothing.

  I texted, Nate . . . go on. Why did you tell me that?

  Two seconds later, he texted, Oh! Because I’d always wanted to change her engine to a centripetal force generator system, meaning that she’s powered by being in motion, so that the faster she drives the more energy she creates, but the math was difficult (I needed to solve Poincaré’s smooth four-dimensional conjecture), and then the real problem was that Betsy’s emotional modulator grew proportionally harder to control.

  I texted, Okay, first . . . you type fast, and second, how did you solve the problem with Betsy’s emotional modulator?

  Didn’t. That’s why I texted you. Be careful. Betsy could be . . . interesting.

  Wait. What?

  Have to go. House being attacked. Bosper says “hello.” Good luck.

  None of that was anything I wanted to hear about, so I was about to text Nate a photo of me decidedly not giving him a thumbs-up, when I heard Melville frantically buzzing. She was on the dash, looking through the windshield, to where the huge swarm of bees was only a hundred feet from us, and then fifty feet, and twenty, and ten, and then . . .

  . . . and then . . .

  . . . the windshield turned to an image of when Nate and I had been hugging, when we’d been in the theater lobby and Betsy had been shrinking.

  Betsy screeched to a halt and said, “Delphine. We need to talk about Nate.”

  I said, “Betsy, we are currently being attacked by bees. You’re my friend, and I enjoy talking with you, but maybe this isn’t the best time?”

  The car started to shiver. I couldn’t see out of the windows anymore because Betsy had changed all the views on the windows, treating them like they were computer screens, which I guess they are. There were images of me hugging Nate (which, again, we only did because Betsy was shrinking), and there were images of Nate walking along a sidewalk (with Bosper marching along behind him), and there were images of Nate riding a unicorn through space while Betsy watched him from a passing asteroid, which is something I’m positively completely and almost-nearly sure has never happened.