by Paul Tobin
“Nate is so handsome,” Betsy said. She softly revved her engine, which I guess is the automobile equivalent of a sigh.
“Handsome,” I said. “Sure.” Nate has a big floppy collection of dark brown hair. His nose basically dominates his face. He made his glasses himself. I’m not a big fan of checkered shirts, but Nate definitely is. His pants always look dirty because of the equations he’s forever writing on them. His eyes are the brown of dark coffee. He’s not overly muscular, or overly tall, or overly anything at all, except overly . . . Nate. That’s something about him that I’ve noticed. Most people I know are only about forty percent themselves: the rest is a collection of the latest hot actor or the most popular singer, guided by peer pressure into trying to look the way they’re “supposed” to look . . . but Nate is always Nate.
Entirely Nate.
I suppose I could call him handsome.
I also suppose I could mention that there were now so many bumblebees on the car that it was actually rocking back and forth, bringing forth questions I’ve never before asked myself, like . . . How many bumblebees does it take to tip over a car? I thought about texting Nate (these are the sorts of things he knows) but decided against it, since he’d said his house was being attacked, meaning that our texts would look like this . . .
“Hey. I’m being attacked by bumblebees.” That one would be from me.
“Sounds unpleasant,” Nate would text back. “I’m currently being attacked by a society of genius-level assassins who are trying to take over the world.”
“Ooo,” I would write back in sympathy.
“Also, they want to cut open my brain,” Nate would add.
“Ahh, piffle,” I would say, because that’s what you say to friends when their archenemies want to dissect them.
“Maybe we should each concentrate on stopping the bees and the assassins rather than texting each other?” I would then write.
Nate would text back, “Okay, Delphine. Incidentally, you’re inconceivably pretty and your singing voice is awesome, because you’re supposed to be overly enthusiastic when you’re singing rock songs.”
“I know, right?”
That’s the only way I could possibly envision our conversation going, so maybe it was best to just pass for now, especially since bees were trying to get in through Betsy’s windows (no luck there, because they were up all the way) and to come in through some of the vents, which was unfortunately a bit more problematic. Melville was desperately flying around, chasing the invading bees back. Every time another bee tried to come in through the vents she would sting at them, or at least scold them in bee language, but she was being overwhelmed. Betsy could’ve easily reversed the vents and whooshed the other bees away, but she was lost in dreamland.
“Nate is so handsome,” she repeated. “I love his hair.”
“Sure,” I said. “Did the two of you really go to space?” I tapped on the image of Nate riding the unicorn. Becoming friends with Nate has restructured my view of the impossible.
“No. I made that image. Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yeah. It’s great. Hey, change of topic. Did you notice we’re being attacked by bees?”
“I thought about making Nate’s nose smaller in the image, but then I realized it’s part of his charm.”
“Yeah. Killer bees. Millions of them. Getting in through the vents.”
“Why does Nate like being with you?” Betsy asked. Her voice had gone a bit stern.
“Oh, probably because of the way I defend myself against killer bee attacks. Nate enjoys that.”
“He does?”
“Sure!” I said. “What boy doesn’t?”
The vents suddenly whooshed into life, blowing air outward, vacuuming away the bees that were starting to crawl inside. I had to leap forward and cup my hands around Melville, because she was almost caught in the violent air currents. She buzzed gratefully in my hands. Betsy started honking in an overly excited manner, and at that point my hair began to float around me, almost like I was in water, with strands and locks of my hair fluttering up, sticking out.
“What’s happening?” I said.
Betsy said, “I’m emitting a mild electric charge, covering my exterior. The bees will find it annoying.”
“Oh! Don’t hurt them!” I said. After all, they weren’t really evil bees or anything like that. It was just that Maculte and the Red Death Tea Society were using them, having once more corrupted one of Nate’s experiments, forcing the bees to act against their will by use of chemicals.
“I will try not to hurt them,” Betsy said. “At least not physically. But emotional harm runs even deeper. Betrayal from a friend is the harshest cut of them all.”
“And . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. But I kind of did know, because now the windshield, where Betsy was showing the view of Nate and me hugging, had become animated, like a GIF, so that Nate was repeatedly reaching out to grab me and pull me close.
Betsy made a growl. She revved her engine again, now much lower in tone.
I said, “You’re mad about that hug? We needed to do that because you were shrinking!”
“Was I? And just why do you think I was shrinking? Do you think it’s because I’m no longer wanted? That I wasn’t so much shrinking as . . . shrinking away?”
“Well, no. I thought you were shrinking because that was the only way we could fit up the stairs.”
“Have you ever heard Nate laugh?” Betsy asked in a wistful tone. “It’s so masculine.” Her voice had gone dreamy again. I didn’t think it was the best time to point out that Nate’s laugh wasn’t exactly masculine. I honestly do like his laugh, but it’s more like a duck being squished than anything else.
“Boys!” Betsy suddenly yelled. “They’re all so mean!” She emitted a powerful blast of her horn, with a long, mournful tone.
“Look, Betsy,” I said. “I’ll make you a deal. Let’s fight off the bee invasion together, thereby saving the city of Polt, and I promise that whichever one of us does a better job, Nate will give them a kiss.”
“Hmm,” Betsy said, considering my proposal. “Interesting. You know, I am much better equipped for bee fighting than you are.”
“It’s true. Look, I’m still melon-headed.” I touched my forehead, where there was still a huge bump from the morning’s bee attack. Melville buzzed in embarrassment, and Betsy’s rearview mirror swiveled as if to get a better look at me.
“Would . . . would Nathan agree to such a contest?” Betsy asked. There was a touch of eagerness in her voice.
“Let’s find out,” I said. I grabbed up my phone and texted, Betsy and I are having a contest. We’re bee fighters. Whoever does the best, you have to kiss.
I showed the text to Betsy, holding it up to the rear-view mirror.
Then I sent it to Nate.
Five seconds later, he texted, Sure.
I said, “Wow. I thought he’d at least ask for an explanation. But that’s settled. Betsy . . . let’s fight bees.”
“Of course,” she said. “And I hope you’ll play fair.”
“Definitely,” I said. “And, you too!”
“No,” Betsy said. “I think not.”
All the doors locked.
And Betsy laughed.
So, here’s how you fight bees when you’re trapped inside a talking car that’s trying to defeat you in a bumblebee butt-kicking contest.
You don’t.
What you do is you get tossed all around when she ramps off the side of a building and soars into the air, slamming herself through a bee swarm while emitting a blaze of electrical discharges that stuns the bees and sends them plummeting to the ground.
What you do after that is struggle into your seat belt, because you realize it’s going to be a bumpy ride.
And then you yell “Piffle!” when your seat belt suddenly disengages, because the car thinks it’s funny you’re being bumped around, because she believes you’re stealing her boyfriend, even though
he’s not her boyfriend, and you’re not stealing him in the first place.
Then, quite soon after that, you find yourself airborne and flung into the backseat, where you bounce around like an easily bruised Ping-Pong ball. As you struggle to get back into the front seat, you’ll notice the car is now spraying a chemical that attracts bees (basically a billowing cloud of sugar) and also spraying, seconds later, a second chemical, after all the bees have gathered together.
“What are you spraying?” I asked Betsy.
“A chemical that makes creatures into your friend. Perhaps I should use it on you.” Her voice was not friendly. I was hoping the wind would change, and maybe she would get caught in the cloud.
Looking behind us, I could see that the bumblebees were having some sort of a group discussion. They’d quit following us and were instead just flying around in circles. Were they friendly circles? I couldn’t tell.
“There!” Betsy said. “I’ve just defeated one hundred seventy-two thousand and fourteen bees! I now lead you by, let me check my calculations and see what you’ve been doing . . . ahh, that’s right . . . nothing. So I lead by one hundred seventy-two thousand and fourteen bees.”
“How did you count them?” I asked.
“Cross-indexing scent signatures with wing vibration frequency. How else?”
“I don’t know. Maybe ask their names? And this contest isn’t fair! You locked the doors!” I have to admit that when I’d thought up the contest, I’d actually wanted Betsy to win because she was clearly jealous (although, of nothing) and I really didn’t want any kisses from Nate, anyway, but now my competitive instinct was fully roaring, because Betsy was cheating.
“My apologies, Delphine,” Betsy said. “I will open the doors.”
All the doors flung open. We were at least thirty feet in the air just then (after ramping off a series of construction supplies for the new Polt Auditorium) and just about to soar through a new swarm of bees. I honestly have no idea how smart bees can be, but I was willing to bet that every last bee in the swarm would notice the helpless target that was bouncing around inside the wide-open car.
“Close the doors!” I yelled. Betsy immediately closed the doors.
“Make up your mind,” she said. The doors locked shut.
Betsy again sprayed the sugar cloud, attracting the bees even closer.
But this time she emitted the electrical surge, stunning the swarm. I could hear them grunting and groaning (buzzing, I mean, but I knew what they meant), and Melville, perched on my shoulder, made a soft buzz of sympathy.
“Why didn’t you use the ‘friend’ chemical again?” I asked Betsy.
“Because I have no more supply. And you are now two hundred eighty-three thousand six hundred and twenty-seven bees behind in our contest. Do you wish to declare your surrender?”
“I wish to declare that I have not yet begun to fight,” I said, sitting helplessly in a locked car from which I could not escape, with only one bee inside.
Just Melville.
She was buzzing at me.
She’d landed on Nate’s messenger bag. The one that contained his gym clothes and also an assortment of tablets and pills he’d invented. Pills that had all sorts of amazing abilities.
Hmmm.
I reached out and picked up the bag, with Melville nodding in approval. Rummaging inside, I found “Outer Space Breathing Pills,” and those “Lightning Breath Pills” that I’m afraid of, and I found some allergy pills. None of these seemed like they’d help very much, so I kept searching, grabbing bottle after bottle.
“Ooo!” I said. “‘Shower Pill!’” I was sweating. Heavily. It was gross. I swallowed the pill and instantly felt much fresher, though there weren’t any bursts of water from nowhere or anything like that. Too bad. I went back to sorting through the pills. I found some “Make Any Animal a Zebra Pills,” and some “Chameleon Pills,” and a bottle labeled, in Nate’s very precise handwriting, as “Big Muscle Beefcake Time.” I very carefully returned those pills to the bag. They sounded a bit too peculiar, and possibly dangerous.
“Ahh!” I said, finding another bottle. “‘Intangibility Pills’! Just the thing for a trapped sixth grader!” I hurriedly swallowed a pill, which was large and green and apparently made of chalk and sandpaper. Nothing happened.
Well, it made my throat hurt, and there was a strange noise in my stomach, like I’d swallowed a clock. Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
“Bzzz?” Melville questioned. She was hovering in front of my face. She wouldn’t land on me anymore because I kept getting tossed around whenever Betsy took a quick corner or launched herself into the air, making it far too dangerous for Melville to come near me. She didn’t want to get squished. I suppose nobody really does.
“Not sure,” I answered in response to her questioning buzz. “Nothing seems to have happened.”
My phone beeped.
It was a text.
From Nate.
It read, Wait for it.
“Huh?” I said, looking at my phone. “What does he mean? Is he . . . ?” But at that point my stomach made a new noise.
Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
GLURGLE.
And then I fell through the bottom of the car.
Falling was weird. I wasn’t doing it very fast, because I was mostly intangible to gravity as well. I felt like a leaf, falling gently, and it might’ve even been fun except the bees saw me instantly and collectively decided, “That looks like a magnificent target!” So they came buzzing toward me in a swirling mass, trying to land on me or sting me or annoy me as best they could, but . . . nope.
“Hah!” I yelled at them. “Delphine Gabriella Cooper is intangible!”
They were only flying through me, accidentally flying into one another and knocking their little bee heads together, buzzing in irritation and getting fuzzy.
Wait.
Why were they getting fuzzy?
My phone rang.
It was Nate.
I could tell by the ringtone.
Godzilla’s roar.
But I couldn’t answer my phone because my hand kept moving right through it. And everything was getting very, very fuzzy. And . . . dim.
“Hey, Delphine,” Nate said from my phone. “Hope you don’t mind that I overrode your phone’s controls and made it accept my call, and then put me on speaker-phone. My calculations show that by now you probably can’t touch your phone, because you took an intangibility pill.”
“What’s happening?” I yelled. But I couldn’t even hear myself.
“I’ve also determined that there’s a one hundred percent chance you just asked me a question, since you’re always asking questions, which is one reason you’re so interesting. Unfortunately, I can’t hear you.” He paused.
“Why can’t you hear me?” I asked. I’ll point out that I wasn’t blaming him, because I couldn’t even hear myself.
“The reason I can’t hear you . . .” There was a pause. Nothing. Then a sharp sound, and I could hear him breathing. Bosper began barking in the background. I heard a pounding noise, a burst of something electrical, and then Nate was back.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Still being attacked. Now, the reason I can’t hear you is because you’re almost entirely intangible, meaning your vocal cords can’t produce sound waves. That’s also why you’re probably having trouble seeing right now, because your eyes work by channeling light from the pupil to the retina, which is basically a big lump of light-sensitive neurons called photoreceptors. They change light into electrical stimuli that . . . well . . . you probably want me to get to the point.”
“I do want you to get to the point,” I said, fully understanding that he couldn’t hear me, but at the same time knowing he would hear me anyway, somehow.
“Wow, I can almost hear you saying it,” Nate said. “Weird. Anyway, you’re too intangible for the light. It’s passing right through you. Your pupils and retinas can’t capture it. That’s why your vision i
s going dim. Now, I’m guessing you’re floating in midair amid a vast swarm of confused bees?”
“That pretty much sums it up,” I said.
“Anyway, ninety-seven percent chance of that, so I’ll just assume it’s happening. What I need you to do is not worry. Even though you’re going to be largely intangible, the worst of the effects will pass soon enough. I hope you’re floating over something soft.”
I looked down. I was floating over a sidewalk, which would be described rarely as soft.
“How long until the effects pass?” I asked. Nate couldn’t hear me. I just had to hope he’d know what I was saying. With anyone else, it probably wouldn’t work, but with Nate . . . ? Well, one time when I was in his room I noticed a chart on his wall (he has charts on his wall . . . all over his walls . . . sometimes thirty or forty charts deep) that was nothing but the odds on what I might say at any particular time. I’d looked at it, then turned to him and said, “You have a chart that gives odds on what I’m going to say? That’s creepy weird.”
He’d only nodded, then tapped on the bottom of the chart, where “That’s creepy weird” came in at 99.8 percent. So I figured Nate would know what I was going to ask, even though he couldn’t hear me, and that he’d tell me how long the worst of the intangibility effects would—
“Five,” he said.
“What?”
“Four, three, two, and . . . one.”
I fell.
“Ooompff!” I said when I hit the sidewalk, which actually did feel softer than I’d feared. I suppose being partially intangible does have its benefits. I scrambled for my fallen phone, but the call had been lost and my mostly intangible fingers weren’t doing so well with picking up the phone, and the touch screen was absolutely refusing to acknowledge that I was touching it. At least my vision was coming back. Colors were still oddly faded, but I could see I was in a residential area. Rows of houses. Nobody in sight. Betsy was speeding down the street, coming my way, screeching her tires. She came to a squealing stop right next to me, so close that I worried about my toes.