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  • Telling the Bees
  • Laina Mullin Pruett (bio)

One day in eighth grade, I was entrusted with an envelope for our nurse, Ms. Emerson. She was young and blonde and shaped like a Coke bottle, with glasses that she peered over and tight skirts that hugged her thighs. I was ecstatic to be appointed delivery boy, both to see Ms. Emerson and to get out of class for a few minutes. I handed over the envelope and looked at the necklace that rested just above her cleavage while she read the note. The charm was a tiny gold shamrock.

“Owen,” she said.

I looked up.

“Would you come with me, please?”

I followed her to the dimly lit sick room, where vinyl-covered beds separated by peach curtains were lined up against a wall. We were alone.

“Have a seat,” she said, so I did. She smoothed her skirt and left her hands splayed over her hips. “I want you to know that we care about you, Owen. But I need to tell you something that I would want someone to tell me if they noticed it.” She hesitated. “How often do you shower?”

I paused, horrified. “Every day.” Though to be frank, I do remember sleeping in and running a comb through my hair on occasion.

“And deodorant. Has your mom or dad bought you any?”

I shook my head no.

“Your clothing has a bit of an odor.” Ms. Emerson turned and began rummaging through a drawer. There was a slit in the back of her skirt. She pulled out a miniature stick of deodorant, the kind you get in the travel section of the drugstore.

“Sorry,” I said. I took it from her and tucked it into my sweatshirt pocket.

In retrospect, I realize the envelope I carried was a message written by my homeroom teacher, asking Ms. Emerson to address my smell. It was ninety degrees out, and there was no air conditioning at Polk Middle [End Page 138] School. I’m sure I was ripe. I knew my house smelled. I noticed it when I walked inside but had never imagined that it followed me everywhere I went.

That weekend, the last weekend before the last week of middle school, I cleaned my room, tossing garbage bags full of clothing that didn’t fit and toys that I didn’t play with. Dust came off the ceiling fan in mossy sheets. I took a box-cutter to the carpet and carried it out piece by piece, revealing old linoleum beneath.

I thought I might get some flak for destroying the carpet, but my mother didn’t mind. She was sitting in her antigravity chair with her feet up, one of our three cats balanced behind her head. The chair, which was made of strong fabric attached to a metal frame with bungee cords, was the only thing that gave her relief from chronic back pain. I dragged a hunk of carpet past her.

“Redecorating?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Cleaning.”

“Good job, Owen,” she said. “Want some help?”

“No, thanks.” I knew she couldn’t lift anything. She couldn’t bend over the washing machine and reach inside to take out the wet laundry. She couldn’t dump fresh kitty litter into the cat box. She had a metal rod in her spine.

When I was finished, the room smelled like Lysol.

The last week of school passed slowly. I successfully avoided Ms. Emerson and stayed as far away from other students as I could. I ate lunch in a classroom and waited until everyone else had gotten their books before going to my locker, making me consistently late for class. I devoted my energy to keeping people a maximum distance from my deodorant-masked stench and counting the minutes until summer. In high school, I would be a new person.

After the bus ride home on the last day of school, I saw our neighbor, Mr. Fay, sitting at his backyard picnic table. I left my backpack on the stoop and crossed the lawn toward him. A sparkling white hive was nestled by the trees at the back of his property. The table was a...

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