The Summer We Saved the Bees (2 page)

For my project, I made a website about bees.

That was actually how all of this started, as Violet reminded me on a daily basis.

“
This whole trip is your fault, Wolf. It’s all because of your stupid project. You’re the one that got Jade freaked out about the bees dying.
”

“
But before my bee project, she was freaked out about climate change
,” I’d reminded Violet. “
Remember that? And your dad was too, at least as much as Mom
.”

Violet had scowled at me. “
Yeah, well, they never dragged us across the country and made us dress up as melting polar ice, did they?
”

Violet was going to go berserk when she heard we were leaving early. She didn’t want to go at all, ever. “I don’t want to miss the rest of the year,” I told Mom.

She ruffled my hair. “I know, love. But this is important.” She put one finger under my chin and lifted it so that I had to look right at her. “This is more important than anything, right?”

“I guess. I mean, yeah.” I pulled away, turning my head and avoiding her eyes. “But we’re already doing a lot.”

We did more than anyone else I knew. We recycled and reused, we grew our own fruit and vegetables, we rode bikes everywhere. We’d never owned a car before the van, and I’d never flown in a plane. When we lived on Lasqueti,
we didn’t even have electricity until Mom moved in with Curtis, who had solar panels. Before we moved to the city, I thought composting toilets were the norm. And none of us ate meat, except me, once. It was on pizza at another kid’s house, and it was sort of an accident.

“I know it’s hard,” Mom said. “But Wolf, when you’re facing a crisis, a life-or-death emergency…you have to think about the big picture. You have to rethink your priorities.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“We’re all going to have to make some sacrifices,” she said. “Set aside our comforts and our concerns about what other people might think.”

“I just don’t see how waiting six weeks would make a difference.”

“Don’t you?”

I squirmed. I knew what she was going to say before she said it.

“How many bees die each year?” she asked.

“Millions?”

“Yes. About thirty percent of all the bee colonies in the States die,” she said. “Every year. And what percentage of our crops is pollinated by bees?”

“About a third?”

She nodded. “Right. And what’s our government doing?”

“Nothing?”

She snorted. “A so-called study. Which has been going on for a decade. Meanwhile they’re still spraying poison and the clock is counting down, Wolf. We don’t know how much time we have.”

There was a lump in my throat, and it ached like I’d swallowed some of that poison myself. Mom was right. It was stupid to fuss about school.
Suck it up, buttercup,
like Curtis always said. “I know,” I said. “You’re right. It’ll be fine. Will I get to say goodbye to everyone?”

“Of course. You can go to school Monday and say goodbye.” She pulled me close and hugged me tightly. “My brave boy.”

“I’m not brave.”

“Yes, you are,” she said. “Braver than you think.”

I hoped so. Because if Mom was right about the world going down the toilet, I was going to need to be.

We all were.

I checked Mom’s website that night, but she hadn’t updated it to say when we were leaving. I looked at the photo of our family, all standing together in the backyard: Mom and Curtis smiling, with their arms around each other’s shoulders; me standing behind Whisper and Saffron, my stupid red hair sticking out in every direction. The twins looked cute. I looked like a dork. Violet was standing a little off to one side, like she didn’t want to be associated with the rest of us, which was pretty much how she always acted.

I read my mother’s words on the home page even though I practically knew them by heart:

My name is Jade Everett and I am sharing my story here in the hope that it might inspire others to join us in our fight.

I’ve always been an activist. For years, I went to protests, I wrote letters, I lived off the grid, trying to reduce our environmental footprint—but I knew I wasn’t doing enough. Every day I looked at my children and I imagined their future and I wanted to cry. The polar ice was melting, the reefs were dying, water levels were rising. Our world was dying all around us.

I realized years ago that it made no sense to continue our day-to-day life, but I didn’t know what to do. It was my son, Wolf, who gave me the idea. He was doing a school project on bee-colony collapse. I realized that the bees were like the canary in the coal mine—and reading about what was happening to them was like seeing the future unfolding. Crop failure. Worldwide food shortages. Famine. Death. Maybe in the next decade! I may never see my children reach adulthood, but at least in these last doomed years my family can try to live in a way that we can be proud of.

And so we will cross the country, traveling from west coast to east coast, stopping at towns along the way to raise awareness of bees and their importance, of the dangers of fungicides and pesticides, of the danger to our food supply if the bees are lost. To show people a glimpse of the future we are barreling toward, and to persuade them to join us in our fight.

To do everything we can to save the bees—and our planet.

Every time I read it, my stomach felt funny, and I got a weird kind of electric tingle down my arms, sort of like when you bang your funny bone really hard.

I wished she hadn’t put that part in about it being my idea.

Two

ON SATURDAY MORNING
we were eating breakfast in the kitchen when we heard a horn honking loudly:
bwahh, bwahh, bwahh!
We rushed outside and there was the van, parked in our gravel driveway.

It was white and a little banged up, and it looked like something a plumber would drive, with doors at the back instead of the sides.

Curtis got out and stood there with his arms spread wide. His dark hair hung almost to his shoulders, his jeans were streaked with blackish grease, and he hadn’t shaved in a few days. His chin was right on the line between stubble and beard, hundreds of short hairs glinting in the bright sunlight. “Well, gang? What do you think?”

“Can I paint it?” Saffron asked.

“Sure you can. You all can.”

Whisper looked at me, her bottom lip sticking out. Violet raised her eyebrows. “A Ford? Seriously? You bought a
Ford
?”

“Wait till you see inside,” Curtis said, beckoning to us. He was grinning, his dark eyes crinkled into shiny crescents and his teeth gleaming white. We all headed over to the van and waited as he threw open the back doors. A foam mattress took up most of the cargo area. Curtis lifted one corner and rapped his knuckles on the plywood beneath it. “Plenty of storage under there,” he said.

“Whose bed is it?” Saffron asked him.

“Me and your mom’s.”

Jade stroked Saffron’s hair. “You girls can sleep with us if you want to, or in the tent with Violet and Wolf. You might like to be with the big kids.”

Whisper climbed onto the mattress and curled up like a kitten in the sun. I looked past her at the two rows of seats, the propane stove and the icebox, and tried to imagine this being our home.

“What about all our stuff?” Violet asked.

“We’ll get rid of most of it,” Mom said. “And we’ve rented a storage locker for the things we decide to keep.”

Violet curled her lip. “It smells like French fries.”

Curtis grinned. “We’re running on 100 percent vegetable oil, baby.”

Mom flung her arms around him, and he lifted her and swung her around so her long red hair flew out behind her like flames. Then he put her down and kissed her.

“Gross,” Violet said. It wasn’t clear whether she meant the French-fry smell or the kissing.

“Can we paint it now?” Saffron asked.

Curtis released my mom. “Have to get you some paint first.”

“Today?”

“This weekend, yeah. If we’re gonna head out next week, we’ve got to get busy.”

Violet stared at him. “Excuse me?
Excuse
me? If we’re going to do
what
?”

Mom looked at Curtis. “I haven’t talked to her about our change in plans. I thought perhaps you should do that.”

Curtis ran his hands through his hair and turned to Violet, who was glaring at him through eyes narrowed to slits. “So Violet,” he began, “the thing is, we’re ready to go, right? And so why bother paying rent for June if we could just move out?”

“Um, maybe because you promised I could finish the year, Dad. And school goes until the end of June.”

Curtis shrugged. “I’m sure your teachers will understand.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m pretty sure they won’t, Dad.” Violet’s eyebrows were drawn together, and as she waited for him to reply, she pressed her lips together so hard they turned almost white. Curtis gestured helplessly, lifting his hands and letting them drop back to his sides, and Violet shot him a look of pure loathing. “Anyway, I don’t care when you’re leaving,” she said. “I’m not going unless Ty can come.”

“I want Ty to come too,” Saffron said.

“There aren’t enough seat belts,” Mom said.

Violet swung around and turned on her, letting loose a whole stream of words she wasn’t allowed to say in front of the twins. I put my hands over Saffron’s ears.

Mom looked at me. “Take the girls in the house, would you, Wolf?”

I nodded. “Come on, Whisper. Let’s plan how to paint the van, okay?”

Whisper hopped down and took my hand. I tried to listen to what Curtis was saying to Violet, but his voice was so low I couldn’t quite make it out. Something about money and rent and him getting flak from someone.

“Yellow,” Saffron said, skipping toward the house. “With black stripes, like a bee.”

“No way,” I said. “No way am I driving around in—”

Whisper’s grip on my hand tightened. “Like a bee,” she breathed, so quietly I barely heard her.

I looked down at her wide brown eyes and sighed. “Really? You guys want to drive across the country in a van that looks like a giant bee?”

They nodded in unison. “With wings,” Saffron said.

In the house, I found paper and markers, and the girls started drawing pictures of bee-colored vans.

A few minutes later, Violet stomped in, her eyes red-rimmed. “
What
?” she demanded.

I held up my hands, like
whoa.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

“You were staring at me.”

“I was not.” I leaned back in my chair. “I just looked up because I heard you come in. Sheesh. Excuse me for breathing.”

She snorted. “Right. Mr. Perfect. Look at you, taking care of the little ones. Always kissing up, aren’t you?”

My face felt warm. “I’m not kissing up,” I said. “It just looks like that because
you
never help with anything.” It was
true—Violet just did what she wanted. She was pretty much the most selfish person I’d ever met. And someone had to look after the twins. Not that Mom didn’t—she adored them—but a lot of the time she had other things she needed to do. I’d always helped take care of them, ever since they were babies.

“Whatever,” Violet said, dismissing me. “So, what, you’re playing school?”

“We’re
designing,
” Saffron said. “For painting the van.”

Violet moved closer and studied the papers spread across the table. “Seriously? Don’t tell me this is the plan.”

“Do you like it?” Saffron asked eagerly.

“Sure. It’s all just freaking fabulous, Saffy. Bee costumes and a striped Ford van.”

“What’s wrong with Fords?” Saffron asked, putting down her yellow marker.

“Nothing,” I told her.

“You know what Ford stands for?” Violet said.

Saffron shook her head.

Violet gave her an evil smile. “Found On Road Dead.” Then she spelled it out slowly, as if we were all idiots: “
F-O-R-D
. Get it?”

Whisper’s eyes widened.

“Or Fix Often, Repair Daily.”

“Not
our
van,” Saffron said. “Dad’s already fixed it all up. We’re going to call it George.”

“We are?” This was the first I’d heard of it.

“Yes.”

“Ford Owners R Dumb,” Violet said. “Fast Only Rolling Downhill.”

“Okay, Vile. Enough already.”

“Don’t call me that.” Violet raised a hand like she was going to hit me, then slowly lowered it and turned back to Saffron, smiling meanly.

“You know what
Ford
spelled backward stands for?” she asked.

Saffron shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“Driver Returns on Foot.”

Saffron put her hands on her hips and gave Violet the evil eye right back. “And Whisper and Wolf don’t care either.”

Violet rolled her eyes. “What
ever
.”

“And George doesn’t care EITHER!” And with that, Saffron turned away from Violet and back to her drawing.

So there, Vile
,
I thought.

Three

WHISPER ISN’T MY
sister’s real name. Her birth certificate says Juniper Sage Brooks. We’ve never called her Juniper though. When she was a baby we called her Bean, because she was so tiny.