Bee Season. Myla Goldberg

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СКАЧАТЬ that also tells her in a soft, persuasive voice to keep going, the same instinct that guides young, naive hands to the pretty red stove burner even though they’ve been told it is very, very hot.

      Eliza can make out two figures standing over a third. Eliza’s first thought is dog. She’s seen boys throwing stones at a stray that hangs around the school. The dog, named Sucker by the stone throwers, slams into trees in its frightened attempts to get away but is always there the following morning, waiting for the next cycle of torment to begin. Eliza bristes at the thought of the dog being caught, momentarily forgets her size and age, and ups her pace to the bushes, ready to battle even Marvin Bussy for the sake of Sucker’s protection.

      She is steps away from the bush when she sees a flash of skin and realizes that what she thought was a dog is not a dog, despite the whimpering sounds. She is close enough now to recognize the two standing figures as Marvin Bussy and Billy Mamula. They call themselves the B.M. team, which Eliza thinks is really gross but which Aaron tells her just confirms their place in the world as pieces of shit, which is the only time Eliza has ever heard her brother swear. Like most of the school, Eliza fears Marvin and Billy, but being both younger and a girl places her low enough on the elementary school food chain to allow her to call them names behind their backs.

      Eliza’s willingness to face a conceptual Marvin Bussy evaporates at the prospect of encountering the actual one even though she knows she’d have to do something really bad to get him to pick on a kinder-gartner. She has never witnessed Marvin’s malice first hand. His cruelty, like sex, is something she has only heard about, something that only happens in places she doesn’t go.

      Eliza is staring at the scene a few seconds before she realizes that the thing that is not a dog looks a lot like her brother. Aaron has a shirt like the torn one of the boy on the ground; Aaron has skin that would contrast that disturbingly with the deep brown dirt. Marvin and Billy, backs turned and engrossed in what they are doing, haven’t noticed her but there is a sickening moment of clarity when Eliza realizes that the boy who almost looks like Aaron has been watching her the whole time. His eyes, wide with fear, are the exact shape of Sucker’s when the dog is running in a blind panic, slamming into trees to the sound of jeering children.

      For what seems like years, Eliza stands staring. Almost-Aaron’s face remains frozen, not once leaving Eliza’s, his body passively accepting its punishment. It is as if, having been thrown from a window, he has realized that relaxing every muscle will reduce the damage upon his inevitable impact with the ground.

      Marvin and Billy can’t afford witnesses to such a suspendable offense. Eliza could call out for Gina and Holly, pretending she is just nearing the bushes to look for them. Marvin and Billy would be forced to stop and the poor boy would be saved. Eliza mentally loops the scenario, looking for flaws and finding none. It would work.

      Bestial joy beams off Marvin and Billy like cold light. Eliza is mesmerized by the incongruity of action and reaction, reluctant to relinquish her stolen glimpse of such rare animals. Ultimately, however, her inaction is spurred by the revulsion that sweeps through her at the sight of the boy on the ground. His absolute stillness, his silence, his wide-open eyes. Even a half-blind stray dog would be struggling. Even Sucker wouldn’t lie there, soundlessly accepting his fate. If Eliza intervenes, she will have to touch her almost-brother. He will need help getting up. And there’s no way she’d be able to help this boy who can’t possibly be Aaron. Aaron, who knows all the secret moves of the ninja and Jedi. Aaron, who saves Eliza from bad dreams. Aaron, who would never allow himself to be reduced to this.

      Eliza will never mention that Marvin and Billy are grinding berries and evergreen needles into almost-Aaron’s chest, laughing that they are curing his paleness once and for all. Or that pricks of blood from the evergreen needles are indistinguishable from lumps of berry pulp on his almost-skin. Eliza doesn’t know what her almost-brother is thinking as, without a word, she returns to the swings, stubbornly facing away from the bushes until the whistle blows and she returns inside without looking back.

      The calm voice of the school nurse (“Your son has had an accident. He says he’s all right, but he needs a change of clothes. Could you please come in?”) evokes Norman Rockwellian images of mud puddles and torn pants. When Saul arrives at the school to find a pale marble statue of a son with a bandaged chest, he demands answers.

      “What the hell happened here?” he growls at the nurse, face red, eyes bulging.

      “I fell,” Aaron says too soft for anyone to hear.

      “He says he fell,” says the nurse, who is constructed like a high school gym teacher and not at all intimidated by Saul’s presence.

      “Aaron.” Saul spins around to face his son. “Tell me what really happened. Who did this to you?” Fall definitely doesn’t cover it. Though Saul can tell there’s no serious damage, the scratches and bruises—already purpling—are too specific to have come from a benign source. Aaron’s explanation is as unlikely as his insistence that the tack he sat on last month fell off the class bulletin board halfway across the room from his desk.

      “Aaron,” Saul says in a softer tone that he hopes will prove more persuasive, “it’s okay to tell who did this. They need to be taught that this kind of behavior is unacceptable. You deserve to be able to play at recess without worrying about being bullied.”

      But Aaron knows better than that. Aaron knows that telling now will haunt him later. If not this year, then the next, or the one after that. Aaron knows that he’s stuck with Marvin and Billy until high school, by which time they will be shunted into either reform school or shop class, removing him from striking range. His best strategy for now is to keep quiet and stay out of their way as much as possible.

      “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” Saul sighs. Aaron shakes his head, keeping his eyes on the floor. Underlying his righteous parental outrage, Saul takes peculiar pride in his silent son. A voice, not quite his own, My son’s no tattletale, wells up from the same amorphous source of Saul’s occasional urge to read the sports page, drink a beer with dinner, or change the oil in his car. These fleeting fancies are what remains of Saul’s conflicted feelings for his dead father, a man who definitely would have respected Aaron’s decision not to squeal.

      Saul watches his son change into the clothes he brought. “You don’t have to go back to class if you don’t want to,” he offers. “You can come home with me.” Aaron shakes his head just as Dr. Morris enters the room.

      “Hello, Mr. Naumann, it’s good of you to come. Aaron, I heard what happened. I’m glad you’re all fixed up. Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

      Aaron nods.

      “Because I’m pretty sure I know who did this, but I can’t punish them unless you tell me if I’m right.”

      Aaron shrugs.

      “What if I asked you if it was Marvin and Billy?”

      Aaron blushes. He hates that he blushes so easily. “I fell,” he says. He keeps seeing the change in Eliza’s face as she neared the bushes. When Aaron first caught sight of his sister he had thought, ridiculously, that the two of them could band together. That with her by his side he could put a stop to the evil B & M. He was on the verge of calling out her name when she recognized him. Suddenly she became a stranger, with a stranger’s way of looking at him. He realized that the Eliza he had been picturing was as imaginary as the Aaron he had hoped she would help him become.

      “I fell,” he says again.

      Dr. Morris shakes his head and sends Aaron back to class. He invites Saul briefly into СКАЧАТЬ