Mind Your Own Beeswax by Hannah Reed Read Free Book Online Page B

coming along, right before she reversed directions and backed out, but this time she seemed to mean it. No way was Patti going to miss an opportunity like this, whatever “this” turned out to be.
    Even though we still had time before dark, I was relieved when we crossed the wooden bridge to the other side of the river and into the clearing where The Lost Mile began, leaving the semi-darkness of the trees’ canopy behind us for a few final rays of sunshine. We were on higher ground with the fog behind us, but I knew we’d have to deal with it again on the way back.
    Not an encouraging prospect. We had to get going.
    “What are you doing?” Holly asked when I stopped to scan the tree line.
    “Looking for my swarm. They have to be close by.”
    Holly groaned.
    Patti added her two cents. “Who cares about a stupid bunch of bees when we should be investigating a possible shooting incident?”
    “Exactly,” Holly agreed, just to agree with anything nonbee related.
    Patti marched past us without a backward glance, proving that curiosity can outweigh caution under the right conditions.
    “Wait for us,” Holly called. “We should stick together.”
    We caught up and followed close behind Patti. She stopped every few minutes to scan the woods through her binoculars. Then she began moving ahead fast, on a mission to infiltrate the lowly Distorter rag sheet, ready to face anything to get her story.
    I grabbed my sister’s arm.
    “What?” Holly said, trying to shake free from my grip.
    “You’re on your own, Patti,” I said, holding my sister back.
    “My allergies are starting to kick up,” Patti called back. “That happens every time I go into the woods. I’ll only go a little farther. If anything happens, I’ll yell for you.” With that, she disappeared down the path like a bolt of lightening.
    Holly wiggled into a contorted position, spun around, and broke my grip. “We have to stay together. What’s wrong with you?”
    “There they are.” I pointed out the clump of bees in a dead white birch about halfway up its bare branches. My original idea had been to locate them, snip off the branch where they clung, and carry them home. I’d have to revise the plan.
    They were too far up off the ground to reach.
    Holly spotted them and gurgled like a drowning woman.

Five

    I tipped my head back and eyed up the situation. The white birch was totally dead with large holes drilled into it that could only have been made by a pileated woodpecker. But the trunk seemed solid enough in spite of all the holes. “We’ll have to come back tomorrow morning,” I said. “With a ladder.”
    “We?” Holly whimpered.
    “You and me.”
    “Quit including me in your bee problems. IOH ( I’m Outta Here ).”
    I grabbed her again and refused to let go, even when she pulled the same move she’d used on me in the past and wrestled me into a headlock.
    “You’re the one who wanted a partnership,” I croaked through the clench, working to break it, “when all I wanted was a loan and monthly installments.”
    “I wanted a partnership in the grocery store, not in the bee stuff.”
    “You don’t get to choose. You’re either in all the way or you aren’t in at all. Let me go!”
    Holly released me so abruptly, I lurched forward.
    “I hate when you do that,” I said. “I’m telling Mom.”
    “Oh right, Squealy. Like she’d care.”
    “What are you? Twelve?”
    “NC ( No Comment ),” my sister said, starting to laugh. Pretty soon we were both grinning, on good terms again.
    “Let’s go back to your house,” Holly said. “I’m getting cold.”
    “We better wait for Patti. She won’t go far.”
    “Of course. You can’t abandon your best friend. But I can.”
    “I have the flashlight and you aren’t getting it.” I waved it in front of her, snatching it back when she made a grab for it.
    “Should we follow her?” Holly said. “Hasn’t she been gone awhile now?”
    I slid down the trunk of the tree my bees