Buzz Off - By Hannah Reed Page 0,47
business was next, but I was last on the agenda, after some issues regarding bike paths and conditional use permits, I couldn’t wait another second, so I pushed off from my position against the back wall and stomped up, hoping I looked confident and firm. No one tried to stop me. Usually the meetings follow an orderly agenda, but this one promised to become a free-for-all.
“You’re out of turn,” Grant said to me.
“For those of you waiting for your turn, do any of you object to me going first?” I glanced around the room. Nobody objected.
“Then say your piece,” Grant said, giving up.
I plowed ahead. “As everyone in this room knows, Manny Chapman died recently—stung to death—and since then, a certain individual has been on a campaign to wipe out all our local honeybees. I’m here to explain why that’s absolutely ridiculous, not to mention against the town’s best interest.”
I began with bullet points.
“Number one,” I said to the handful of concerned citizens and board members, “Manny was stung by yellow jackets, which are wasps, not bees. Number two, since Manny’s honeybees didn’t kill him, why would anyone want to destroy them? Number three, the honey business has benefited our community, and every single one of you has enjoyed having access to local honey products. Number four, why can’t anyone seem to understand that honeybees and yellow jackets aren’t the same thing? If you want, I can explain the difference between bees and yellow jackets right now.”
The board members glanced at each other to see if any of them cared to hear me out.
“We’d all enjoy hearing a biology lesson,” Grant decided for them, “but that won’t be necessary. We have us a teacher right up at this table if we need anybody to explain the birds and bees.”
That brought some chuckles.
“The main point is, I don’t want anyone messing around with my bees,” I said. “Is that understood?”
“Perfectly,” Stanley said. “Nobody’s going to bother you.”
“I’m not worried about me, Stanley. It’s my bees.”
I still had a bunch of bullet points, like the importance of pollination and how weak crops could create financial hardship for all the local producers.
Before I got back to my pro-bee argument, Grant piped up, “Let’s vote on this thing and get it over with. If your bees are a threat to our community, they have to be dealt with.” He glanced toward the back door. “Wonder where Lori is? She should be here to make her case. We need to wait for her.”
“That doesn’t seem right,” Bruce Cook said. “She knew about the meeting and she chose to miss it. Besides, most of us know how we’re going to vote.”
Nods around the room indicated Bruce was right about minds already being made up. Other than Milly and maybe Bruce, since his class had visited without incident, I wasn’t sure who else was in my court. I could be in serious trouble if enough votes came in for annihilation.
I would have tried to sneak my sister, Holly, in, but everybody knew she wasn’t a resident of Moraine and didn’t qualify. Same with Hunter, who lived outside the town’s limits. Too bad Carrie Ann hadn’t shown up to give me her support.
Just when everybody was getting ready to cast their votes, the siren went off at the fire department south of town. That wail meant we had an emergency situation and all available volunteers better get down there pronto.
At that point, the meeting fell apart, since we lost two of our elected officials, Tom and Bud. Bud was a paid firefighter in the city of Waukesha, but he also volunteered in Moraine. I have to give them credit; Tom and Bud took their emergency response positions seriously, and they disappeared like the last clap of thunder in an electric storm, leaving the room so quiet I could hear Grant Spandle recap his pen.
The meeting over, the rest of us began filing out of the library and into that moment between dark and light right before the streetlights go on. We gathered in front of the library, wondering what emergency had happened.
“Where’s Lori?” Milly asked.
“Here she comes,” I said.
Lori Spandle came down the sidewalk, traveling fast. Under the streetlights that had popped on that very moment, I could see she was wearing her bee veil, the one she had left at my house. Unless she had more than one, that meant she’d been trespassing on my property again. Were my bees safe? Had she used the meeting as