Fiction

By Lynley Capon

FIVE grumpy children sat on the back lawn. Tim, the eldest, poked angrily at his sister. “You always get me into trouble, Hannah.”

“I don’t,” she retorted, poking back. “It was your fault.”

Tim and Hannah had been fighting and making a mess, so their mother had banished them all from the house for the rest of the day.

“Stop arguing, you two,” said their cousin Rachel. “It’s bad enough that there’s nothing to do. Don’t make it worse.”

Emily-Jane, who with her sister had joined their cousins for the weekend, slapped at the grass. “I wish Aunty Lyn would let us back inside. It’s because she’s baking that she wanted us out.”

Richard, the youngest, tumbled onto his tubby tummy and sucked his thumb.

In the garden nearby, Dad smiled when hearing their conversation. He stopped digging to wipe perspiration off his forehead. “Why not go for a bike ride?” he suggested.

“We did that already,” said Hannah. “We’re sick of biking.”

Dad tried again. “How about playing in the park?”

“When we go there, Tim pesters us,” Emily-Jane complained.

“We’d go swimming, but the pool’s closed,” Tim muttered.

“Yeah, that’d have been good,” said Rachel. “I love swimming.”

Leaning on his garden-fork, Dad scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Well, you could see how many kinds of insects you can find around here. There’s an hour until afternoon tea-time.”

“Yay! Good idea!” The children shouted and clapped. They jumped up and ran indoors to find containers to hold insects. In the pantry, they spotted empty honey pots and each took one.

“Hey, what’re you doing?” their mother asked.

“We’re going insect-hunting,” said Tim. “We need something to hold them.”

“Okay,” Mom consented, glad when they ran outside again.

Soon Tim and Rachel found lots of little creatures, like slaters, ladybird beetles and butterflies. But Emily-Jane didn’t know where to look.

“I can’t find anything, Uncle Peter,” she grumbled.

Her uncle stopped weeding. Seeing the pot she carried reminded him of bees. “Come with me,” he said, taking her by the hand.

They walked down the drive, out the gate, across the street and to a house on the corner where Uncle Peter pointed out some beehives. To Emily-Jane’s delight, there stood the beekeeper, dressed in a funny-looking suit, taking honey combs out of the hives.

“We’re here at a good time,” her uncle chuckled. “I’ll fetch the others.”

Leaving Emily-Jane, he went home and told the other children to come and watch Mr Donovan take honey from his hives. They raced off, first Tim, followed by Rachel and Hannah, with Richard trailing.

The five children stood at the picket fence, peeping over it, their eyes wide in wonderment. When Mr Donovan noticed them, he asked, “Do you want to take some honey home?”

“Yes, please. Thanks. Oh, goody,” they chorused.

Hastily, Rachel and Tim freed their captured insects. Then the beekeeper poured some golden, runny honey into the pots and returned them to the children.

“Quick! Let’s show Mum!” Hannah said. They all rushed home.

“Look what we’ve got,” shouted Richard, trailing the others into the house.

Everyone talked at once.

“Goodness,” said Mum. “You’re lucky. Probably you’ll want bread and honey for your afternoon tea, and I just took a hot loaf from the oven. What could be better?”

What indeed! Everyone enjoyed hot bread with runny honey and glasses of cold milk. Battles and banishment from the house had led to a happy ending.

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