Invasion of the Road Weenies (9 page)

I
could never have
sat still the way Adam Selkirk did when the bee landed on his hand. Maybe he didn't notice it right away. But I sure did.

“Adam, there's a bee on your hand,” I said, moving away from him. We were hanging out at the school playground after dinner—me, Adam, Blinky Foster, and Michael Altman. We'd been wrestling and had just plopped down on the ground to cool off.

Adam looked at his hand. “Dad says they can smell fear.”

“That's dogs or wolves or something,” Michael told him. “Bees can't smell.”

“Then how do they find flowers?” I asked as I watched the bee crawl along Adam's knuckles like a hiker going over hills.

“Ultraviolet light,” Blinky said. “Don't any of you guys read
Scientific American
?”

“Yeah, every day,” I said. I reached out and smacked Blinky on the head. Not hard. Just playing.

“Careful,” Adam said through clenched teeth. “Don't make any sudden moves.”

“That's you who shouldn't make sudden moves,” Michael told him. He swung his hands through the air, then did a couple jumping jacks and an awkward flying kick. “See, I can move as much as I want. So, how about I all of a sudden hit the bee?”

“No,” Adam said. “Then I'll get stung for sure.”

I watched the bee walk to the tip of Adam's index finger. It stood there, looking like it was about to take off. Instead, another bee flew over and landed next to it, right behind the nail on Adam's middle finger.

“Oh no,” Adam groaned.

“Shoulda let me smack it,” Michael said.

“Just wave your hand,” I told Adam. “They'll fly off.”

“No. I'll get stung,” Adam said.

The two bees seemed to be exchanging greetings. It was actually kind of fun to watch them, especially since I didn't figure I was in any danger.

It got even more interesting when the third bee landed on the back of Adam's hand.

“Wow, consider the odds against that happening,” Blinky said. “Then again, each additional bee makes the next one more likely, wouldn't you say?” He looked around at us like he expected some kind of response.

Michael responded by hitting Blinky on the head.

The next two bees landed together on Adam's arm.

“See,” Blinky said. “This definitely reduces the odds against it happening again.”

Michael slapped him again. Then he looked at Adam and said, “Want me to go get some bug spray from home?”

“I don't know,” Adam said.

I suspect he was weighing the risks of getting stung against the risks of getting sprayed by some chemical that might make him really sick. We all knew how that stuff was covered with warning labels.

“You know what I heard?” Michael asked. “I heard that Peter Forbushe's little brother got into some bug spray and now they have to take out his kidneys.”

As the rest of us considered that news in silence, three more bees came in for a landing on Adam's shirt. I moved another foot or two away from him.

Adam shifted like he was going to try to get up. The bees all buzzed a bit louder. Adam sighed and settled down. “They have to leave sooner or later,” he said.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “They have to.”

“Not necessarily,” Blinky said. “When you consider—” He stopped as he noticed Michael getting ready to slap him on the head again.

So far, none of the bees had left Adam. Three bees landed on his leg. Seconds later, two more landed on his hand. “I think you're past the swatting stage,” I said. With one bee, he'd had a chance. Now, there was no chance he could swat his way out of trouble.

I noticed Adam had gotten a bit farther away from me. He couldn't move, so I guess I must have snuck a few more feet from danger. Who could blame me?

“What kind of spray you got?” Adam asked.

Michael shrugged. “Just stuff. You know. Dad has it in the garage. Want me to get it?”

Before Adam could answer, a bee landed on his lip.

I'd been thinking about leaving, but now I had to stay and see what happened. The bee crawled across Adam's lip, then started investigating his nose.

“Maybe it's looking for a place to build a new hive,” Blinky said.

“Huh?” Adam asked. I could tell he was trying really hard not to move his lips.

“Just kidding,” Blinky said.

Something flew past my face and I swatted at it without thinking. But it was only a mosquito. It was starting to get dark and the bugs were coming out.

That's when Michael looked at me and jumped away.

“What?” I asked. “What is it?”

He just pointed at my back.

Blinky looked, then he moved away, too.

“Bees?” I asked.

Michael shook his head.

I tried to look at my back. As I turned, there was a loud buzzing. All the bees on Adam flew off as if something had scared them. But I didn't care about that. I cared about the glimpse I got of my back.

“How many?” I asked.

“Three,” Blinky said. “No, wait, make that four.” He moved several more paces away from me.

Another one landed on my shoulder. I wanted to run, but I didn't want to startle it. I had no idea whether it might bite me. I really didn't know anything about bats.

Something landed on my head.

Michael took off. I looked at Adam and Blinky. “Stay with me,” I pleaded.

“Sorry,” Adam said. He ran after Michael.

“And you?” I asked Blinky.

He took a step away from me, and then another step. “Look on the bright side,” he said.

“Ut?” I asked, unable to move my lips enough to say
what
without startling the bat that was resting on my left cheek.

“They're mammals,” Blinky said. “At least they'll keep you from getting too cold.”

I guess he left right after that, but I can't say for sure. When the next bat landed, I closed my eyes. Then I tried to get comfortable. It looked like it was going to be a long night—a warm one, but a long one.

T
he nice thing about
being a kid, as far as Dylan was concerned, was that he could sleep while the adults did the boring stuff like driving. So, even though it was tough waking up at four in the morning, he knew he could go back to sleep as soon as he got into his Uncle Harold's car.

But it didn't work that way. Uncle Harold, Cousin Roy, and Uncle Harold's friends talked and laughed and carried on for the whole two-hour drive. All the way from home to the ocean, Dylan barely managed to get any sleep. He tried, but it was no use. When he finally managed to drift off, he felt Uncle Harold shaking him.

“Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”

“I'm up,” Dylan said, looking out the car window. They were parked next to a boat dock. A sign read:
CHARTER TRIPS. BLUEFISH, WRECK FISHING, ALL-DAY OR HALF-DAY CHARTERS
.

“That our boat?” he asked.

“Yuppers,” Uncle Harold said.

Dylan followed the others to the trunk of the car, where they unloaded their stuff. Dylan had brought a lunch his mom had made. It was in Uncle Harold's cooler, along with a lot of other food. As far as Dylan could tell from the conversations he heard all around him, the men were almost as excited about eating as they were about fishing.

They boarded the boat, where they met the rest of the group. There were about fifteen people, altogether. Everyone seemed to know everyone else. This was Dylan's first time out, but his uncle and cousin had been going on deep-sea trips for years.

“You're gonna have a ball,” Uncle Harold said, slapping Dylan on the back.

“Great.” Dylan took a seat on a bench along one side of the boat. Roy plopped down next to him. The sky was brighter now. The sun washed the water with streaks of red. The boat cruised out of the dock area, then picked up speed.

“Will we be there soon?” Dylan asked.

“Yeah, just an hour or two.”

For an instant, Dylan figured he'd heard wrong. “Did you say an hour or two?”

“Sure thing,” Roy said. “Have to get out to the good spots.”

“We can't just stop here and fish?” Dylan asked. He looked around. It was all just ocean. What did it matter where they went?

“Nope, have to find the fish,” Roy said. He nodded toward the cabin that was behind them. “Get something to eat from the cooler,” he suggested.

“I'm saving it for later,” Dylan said. He didn't want to eat his lunch yet. It wasn't even time for breakfast. He got up and wandered around the boat. It was kind of fun shooting across the water and bumping over the waves, but Dylan was pretty sure it would get boring after a couple of hours. He thought about taking a nap, but he doubted he could sleep on the boat while it was doing so much bouncing.

Dylan walked all the way around the boat. There were benches on each side. And there were tubes where people could put their rods. He saw a guy at the back of the boat preparing the bait. Dylan watched him for a while and asked him a few questions, but the guy didn't seem to want to talk.

Dylan walked over to his uncle, but the men were smoking these really stinky cigars, so Dylan went back to his seat next to Roy. “Great,” Dylan muttered when he realized that Roy was asleep. He sat and waited. Eventually, the roar of the engine dropped to a hum and the boat slowed down. All around him, there were finally signs of action. The first mate handed out fishing rods and buckets of bait. Roy actually woke up.

“Time to fish?” Dylan asked.

“Soon,” Roy said.

“Soon? Aren't we stopping?”

“Have to anchor, first,” Roy said. “Takes a few minutes.”

“Oh.” Dylan waited. A half hour later, the boat was finally anchored and everyone started fishing.

Dylan figured he'd be enjoying himself now, except that the fish weren't biting. He could hear people talking about how great it had been the last trip.

“So many fish, my arms got tired,” Roy told him.

An old guy sat down on the other side of Dylan. He chattered at Dylan for a while, complaining about feeling seasick, but then he fell asleep. Dylan wondered why people went to all the trouble to take the trip way out here, and then just slept.

After several hours, Dylan figured he'd waited long enough. He was bored, and the only thing he could think to do was eat his lunch. At least that would kill some time.

Dylan went into the cabin. He opened the cooler, took out the brown paper bag, and brought it back to his spot on the bench. “Well, something good finally happened,” he said when he saw that his mother had packed one of those fruit pies he really liked. It was a cherry pie—the kind with the sugar glaze on top and the extremely sweet filling.

For a moment, Dylan was tempted to eat the pie first, but he decided to save it for last. So he ate his salami sandwich and his pretzels and drank a soda. Then he held the pie in his hands, looking at the unopened wrapper.
In a bit,
he thought.

The long day was finally catching up with him. The food and the rocking of the boat were making him sleepy. He noticed that the old guy was still asleep. Roy, on his right, was awake, but he hadn't caught anything.

Dylan fell asleep.

He dreamed that he'd caught a shark. It fought for hours, but he brought it in. When he pulled it out of the water, it had Uncle Harold's face.

Dylan woke up.

It took him a minute to realize that something was wrong. Roy was gone. The old guy was gone.
They're playing a joke on me,
he thought. He stood, trying to stay calm.

“Uncle Harold,” he called, inching along one side of the boat.

There was nobody in sight.

Feeling foolish for doing it, Dylan walked to the rail and looked over the side of the boat. There was nothing to see in the water. Some of the rods were in their holders. Others were on the deck. It looked like they'd been dropped.

“Come on, this isn't funny,” Dylan called. He walked all the way around the boat.

He was alone.

There was no place where everyone could hide. Dylan looked at the bench. His paper bag was still there, smoothed out and flattened down the way he'd left it, with the unopened pie sitting on top of it. His mouth watered.
In a minute,
he thought. In a minute, he'd sit and eat his pie, and think things out.

There had to be something he could do. The radio. That was it. Dylan turned to walk across the deck to the cabin door.

That's when it grabbed him.

For the first few horrible seconds, all Dylan knew was that something had taken hold of him. It was wet and slimy. He pulled at it and yanked at the tentacle, but he didn't have a chance. It was far stronger than he was.

Dylan struggled as the creature dragged him closer to the railing. It was no use. As he was pulled over the side, he got
one final glimpse of the bench. Dylan's eyes locked on his pie—the pie he'd been saving for last.

I should have eaten it first,
he thought as he was dragged into the ocean.

M
ost people around here
don't know much about concrete. Actually, most of the people around here call concrete “cement.” And that's just plain wrong. I should know. I used to live near a cement factory. The entire town was covered with white dust. Dad could never get the car clean. Mom was always washing the front of the house with the hose. But lots of folks had jobs at the factory, so we put up with the pollution.

Until we moved, that is. Then we got fresh air. It's pretty nice out here in Arizona. I've made a couple of friends already. I was walking with one of them, Scott Barnes, when we saw a new patch of sidewalk.

“Cool,” Scott said, rushing up to the wooden sawhorse that blocked off the concrete. “Look at that cement. And it's not even dry.”

“Concrete,” I said.