The Nest by Kenneth Oppel Read Free Book Online

Her clothes smelled mustier than usual. “Well, yes, in a killing jar. That’s how we get all our specimens, Steven. We just put them in a jar with a little ethyl acetate—it’s like nail polish remover, and it konks them out.”
    â€œKills them.”
    She nodded, looking at me uncertainly. “Does that upset you? I thought you—”
    â€œHated wasps. Yeah, I do.” It wasn’t the fact that she’d killed it. It was the fact that I already knew, because my dream wasp, the queen, had told me.

    â€œAre you okay?” she asked.
    â€œUh-huh. So . . . what kind of wasp was it?”
    Her face got all eager again. “I still don’t know. My prof wasn’t there, but I showed it around to some of the other people in the lab, and no one could identify it. I said maybe it’s just some kind of albino, but no one had ever really heard of an albino wasp, so . . .”
    I felt the familiar prickle of electricity start along my upper back, threatening to radiate out my arms. “Really?”
    She nodded. “And the more I looked at it—I think there’s something strange about its structure.”
    â€œIts body?”
    â€œYeah.” She frowned. “The proportions of the head, thorax, and abdomen, and some of the connective structures, they’re not like other wasps’. . . .”
    For a moment I stopped hearing her, becausemy heart was beating in my ears, and I felt the day’s heat hard on my face.
    â€œ. . . it might not even be a wasp,” Vanessa was saying.
    â€œWhat is it, then?” I asked, and I guess I must’ve sounded a bit panicky, because she looked at me strangely again.
    â€œWell, we’ll see what my prof says.”
    â€œThe doctor said it was a wasp!” I said. “He said I got a wasp sting.”
    â€œWell, lots of things sting. I mean, I’m just an undergrad, Steven. I don’t know much about insects at all. It might be a new species, or just a variation that’s not been noted before around here. We’ll see.”

T HE BIG LADDER WAS IN THE GARAGE . D AD used it to clean out the gutters in the fall. It was pretty light, and I didn’t have much trouble carrying it around the side of the house. I unfolded it and notched the safety hinges. I’d climbed up only once before, and that was with Dad standing at the bottom, holding on.
    I bumped it along the wall so it was right underneath the nest. It didn’t reach all the way. There was still a big gap. That was why I had the broom.I figured that from the top of the ladder I’d be able to reach up and knock the nest off. It would fall and smash on the ground. All the wasps would swarm out. But I’d get down the ladder as soon as possible and pelt inside. I had my EpiPen in my pocket, just in case.
    I was home alone. Vanessa had taken Nicole and the baby down the street for ice cream and then to the park. I’d said I was staying at home to read. I’d been home a lot this summer. We hadn’t planned a vacation, because of the baby, and my day camp didn’t start till August. Brendan and Sanjay were both away someplace or other.
    I started up the ladder. After a few rungs I felt the legs shift a little, but it still seemed pretty stable. It was funny. I was afraid of a lot of things, but heights wasn’t one of them. Even though I had scary dreams where I was stranded on top ofskinny poles, or razor-thin ledges, I liked climbing trees and going up glass elevators, and standing on the see-through floor of the CN Tower.
    I wore a long-sleeved shirt, with a hoodie over it, the hood pulled tight, leaving only a small circle for my eyes and nose. As I went higher, the ladder clicked and creaked. With my left hand I held tight to the side; with my right I gripped the broom. I was aware of the wasps flying past overhead, to and from the nest.
    With every rung I got angrier. My parents couldn’t even deal with