A Bee in Her Bonnet

  “I see something,” she yelled back.

  “Poppy, be careful,” Dorothy called.

  Luke, wearing waterlogged boots and a very bad mood, ran along the bank keeping his gaze glued to Poppy as she made her way down the ditch. His sisters followed close behind, squealing every time they thought they saw a kitten or every time Poppy’s head came close to scraping a branch or rock.

  If she didn’t get out immediately, he was going to have a heart attack. Not a mild, I-ate-too-many-french-fries heart attack, but a groaning, rip-your-heart-out-of-your-chest kind of heart attack. If Poppy didn’t die, he’d yell at her so loud, even Billy Idol would run away.

  Then suddenly, she stopped and stood up in the middle of the raging current. The water came up to her waist. Luke jumped over a fallen tree, plowed right through a sticker bush, and got close enough to reach out his hand and snatch her from the water.

  Thankfully, she reached out to him. He breathed a profound sigh that she would let him pull her out of the water. Instead, water cascaded off her kapp as she smiled and handed him two more soggy balls of lifeless fur. All that work and frustration for two dead cats.

  He turned and handed them to Joann, who squealed with delight. She didn’t know they were dead yet. It didn’t matter. Mamm would say the journey was more important than the destination. Luke would say that the journey had his sanity hanging by a thread.

  Reaching out her hand, Poppy took a step toward the bank. She squeaked in dismay as she slipped on something at her feet and fell into the water with a loud splash. Her sudden fall knocked the wind right out of him. She flailed her arms trying to find something to hold on to as the swift current carried her away.

  Luke raced after her, dodging trees and underbrush, trying to hold her up with the sheer force of his gaze.

  Find a foothold, Poppy. Grab on to a branch. Grab on to anything. Don’t drown.

  He soon outpaced his sisters by several yards. Dorothy cradled the live kitten in the crook of her elbow. Joann held her two dead cats like apples she’d just plucked from a tree. Their grip on their dearly-bought kittens made speed impossible.

  His panic rose with his heartbeat. He couldn’t see Poppy anymore. The trees were too thick, and the ditch twisted and turned like a snake. All he could see clearly was the little slice of ditch immediately to his left. He didn’t pull his eyes from it.

  “Luke!” Joann yelled.

  He turned. Squinting downriver, Joann stood on a little piece of land where the ditch bank jutted out into the water. “Get to the bridge!” Joann said. “She’s holding on at the bridge.”

  The bridge across the ditch was nothing more than a slab of cement with a metal handhold caked with rust. At least Poppy’s tetanus shot was up to date. A thin tree branch whipped him across the face as he pushed it aside and threw himself toward the bridge only a few dozen feet ahead.

  Heaving air in and out of his lungs, he stomped onto the bridge and spied Poppy just below him. She didn’t look to be in serious trouble. She was standing up, with one hand holding fast to a sizable rock on the bank and one hand clutching the gathered hem of her apron. He almost passed out with relief until he saw the blood trickling from her forehead.

  “Poppy! Don’t move.”

  She looked up at him and bloomed into a smile. A smile! He would definitely lecture her up one side and down the other. “I got her,” she said.

  Got who? What was she talking about?

  It didn’t matter. Luke just wanted to get her safely on dry land.

  He had told her not to move, so of course she did. She tried to pull herself out of the ditch, but she couldn’t find purchase on the slimy rocks. Luke’s heart stopped as she lost her footing, dipped lower in the water, but pulled herself up again.

  “I said don’t move.”

  “I think I’m going to need some help out,” she said, not acting the least bit concerned that she could die at any minute.

  Luke got down flat on his stomach and stretched his hand toward Poppy. “Take my hand.”

  Instead of letting go of her apron like any sensible girl would do, Poppy released her hold on the rock. She teetered precariously with her hand outstretched as the current took hold of her and nearly snatched her out of Luke’s reach. With a loud grunt, he lunged forward and grabbed hold of her wrist just as the rushing water took her feet out from under her.

  She cried out in pain as Luke felt a sickening vibration from her arm, but he couldn’t let go. With her legs still in the water, she dangled over the bridge like a spider on its web. He swung his arm at Poppy toward the bank, and she reached out her leg and found a foothold on a boulder. She made a path of rocks her stepping-stones and tiptoed up the steep embankment, but Luke didn’t let go until she was completely out of danger. She never let go of that apron.

  Huffing and puffing and beaming from ear to ear, Joann and Dorothy reached the bridge just as Luke released Poppy’s hand.

  Joann, with a kitten still in each fist, threw her arms around Poppy, being careful not to squish the kittens—although Luke didn’t know why it mattered since they were dead. Poppy winced before smiling a soggy smile and giving Joann a kiss on the cheek.

  Dorothy was still crying. For joy or distress, Luke couldn’t tell. “Poppy, you’re bleeding.”

  Poppy blinked back the water dripping from her kapp into her eyes. “I’m okay. Just a little scratch on a stick.”

  “You saved the kittens,” Joann said, giggling and gushing.

  Luke frowned so hard his teeth moved back in his mouth. He had saved one kitten, the only one that was actually still alive.

  Dorothy held up her kitten, which was mewling and carrying on like a newborn buplie. “Denki, Poppy. They would have died.”

  Some of them were dead. Luke clenched his teeth and praised Gotte that Poppy hadn’t drowned.

  But she wasn’t okay, either. It was bad enough that the wound on her head practically sent him into apoplexy, but she held her arm close to her body as if it would break off if she moved it. He gritted his teeth all the harder. If she hadn’t gone into the water, he wouldn’t have had to fish her out.

  And he wouldn’t have hurt her. That thought felt like a punch to the gut.

  Dorothy wiped her eyes with her free hand. It didn’t do much good. The dry places were immediately soaked with new tears. “But we only got three of them.”

  Poppy, oblivious to how close she’d come to drowning or how furious the boy standing behind her was, giggled and opened her apron. The fourth kitten sat in the crook of Poppy’s apron, blinking the water from its eyes and shivering violently.

  Joann squealed. Dorothy squealed too, at a higher pitch. Poppy scooped the kitten into her hand, and Dorothy took the edge of her apron and rubbed it back and forth along the kitten’s fur.

  “Dry all of them,” Joann said. “Mine won’t move.”

  “I hurt my arm,” Poppy said. “Here, Dorothy, take mine.” She handed her kitten to Dorothy, and his sisters held a kitten in each of their hands while Poppy did her best to warm them with the edge of Dorothy’s dry apron.

  Any second now, Joann would realize her kittens were dead.

  “Look, look,” Joann said. “He wiggled his nose.” She gasped. “And I can see this one breathing. Wonderful-gute.”

  In disbelief, Luke stepped in for a closer look. All four kittens showed signs of life. Two were mewling softly; one even licked its paws. Great. What were they going to do with four kittens?

  “Oh, Poppy, you were so brave. You didn’t even care if you got wet,” Dorothy said.

  Poppy wasn’t brave. She was deerich and foolhardy. Luke wanted to spit.

  Poppy smoothed her finger along one of the kittens’ heads. “The ditch isn’t deep. I knew I’d be okay.”

  “But you’re soaked.”

  Poppy grinned. “It’s a hot day. Almost as good as going swimming.”

  It was a very hot day. Luke probably had steam coming out of his ears. “Let’s go so we can
get Poppy to a doctor.”

  Poppy didn’t remove her gaze from the kittens. “I don’t need a doctor. I just wrenched my shoulder. It’ll be okay in a few hours.”

  “I’m taking you to a doctor,” Luke muttered through clenched teeth.

  She ignored him and started walking, holding her arm stiffly against her side and gasping quietly whenever a step jarred her shoulder. Luke felt the pain as if it were his own.

  Dorothy cradled both hale and hearty cats in her arms. “Why is Griff Simons so mean?”

  They hiked along the ditch bank, with Joann leading the way and Luke taking up the rear, keeping a watch out in case Poppy decided to jump into the ditch again on a whim. “You girls stay away from Griff Simons, no matter what.”

  Griff Simons had been away a long time. Too bad he hadn’t stayed away forever. Griff and his dad were Englischers in their mostly Amish community, and they kept a farm down the lane from the Honeybee Schwesters. Griff’s mom had run off shortly after Poppy and her family had moved into the neighborhood, and Griff had been angry about his mom ever since.

  Griff sometimes took his anger out on the local Amish folks, and before he had turned twelve, everyone knew his name and his reputation.

  Luke was bigger and four or five years older, so Griff never gave him any trouble, but Griff used to lay wait for Luke’s brothers and the Honeybee Sisters when they walked home from school. He’d call them names or pull the girls’ kapp strings and throw rocks at them.

  They had all done their best to avoid him, though Poppy or his brother Mark would sometimes end up in a fistfight.

  The bullying lasted for a year or two, until Griff started junior high school and got a motorcycle and a girlfriend. Like Mamm always said, Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.

  “I thought Griff moved to Ohio to be with his mom,” Poppy said.

  Joann slumped her shoulders. “He’s back.”

  “We were coming home from Aendi Ruth’s house when we spied him down the road with the four kittens in his arms,” Dorothy said. “We asked him if we could pet them, and he told us his dad had told him to throw them in the ditch. They didn’t need any more cats.”

  “That’s terrible,” Poppy said.

  Luke scowled. “Next time, stay out of his way.”

  Joann glanced back at Luke and pursed her lips. “I’m sorry, Luke. We started crying and asked him not to drown them, but he kept right on going until he got to the ditch and threw them in. We couldn’t just let those poor kitties drown.”

  “Of course you couldn’t,” Poppy said.

  They’d gone a lot farther than Luke thought. They walked for a good ten minutes until they made it back to the dirt road and Luke’s wagon. His trousers were soaked and he’d be more than an hour late for work, but Poppy would hear his lecture no matter how late he was.

  His sisters, on the other hand, were going to march straight home where it was safe, and Luke wouldn’t have to worry about them.

  “What are you going to do with the kittens?” Poppy said, taking the hem of her apron and swiping it down the side of her face. She managed to wipe away about half the blood.

  “Do you want one?” Dorothy asked, not acting all that eager to part with one of her precious kittens.

  Poppy curled her lips. “We’ve already got two cats. Why don’t you keep them?”

  Dorothy and Joann flashed matching smiles. “Okay,” Dorothy said. “That would be wonderful-gute.”

  Luke propped his elbow on his wagon. “Mamm is never going to let you keep four cats.”

  Dorothy stuck out her bottom lip. “Yes, she will, once we tell her how we saved them. She’ll want them to have a gute home.”

  “Go along then,” he said, more eager to get rid of them than to argue about the kittens. They were Mamm’s headache now.

  “What about Poppy’s head?” Joann asked.

  Poppy dabbed at her forehead with her apron. “I’ll be all right.”

  “I’ll see she gets home,” Luke said.

  Joann handed her kittens to Dorothy and gave Poppy a hug. “Denki, Poppy. I hope I’m as brave as you someday.”

  Not if Luke had anything to say about it.

  His sisters walked away, chatting merrily about how they were going to take care of their cats. No one seeing them would have guessed that they’d been weeping and wailing half an hour ago.

  Poppy grasped her limp arm with her other hand. “I should go home and take some ibuprofen,” she said, clearly in more pain than she would ever show.

  Pressing his lips into a hard line, he pulled his damp handkerchief from his damp pocket and handed it to her. She dabbed at the blood on her forehead. The cut was just a small scratch, but he’d first seen it when the water mixed with the blood, and it had looked like a seven-stitch wound.

  Luke pushed his fingers into his forehead, trying to rub away the anger that burned hot right behind his eyes. “Your feet are bleeding.”

  She lifted one foot and had the audacity to grin. “Sharp rocks. But at least I didn’t ruin a good pair of shoes.”

  Something about the cavalier way she talked about her shoes made him snap like a willow switch. “Poppy Christner,” he said, making his voice soft and menacing so she knew he meant business—so she would wipe that aggravatingly stunning smile off her face and feel a little bit of remorse for what she’d put him through.

  She peered at him as if waiting for him to tease her about her wet dress or how funny she looked with blood drizzling down her face.

  He was so furious, he thought he might explode. He’d be hanged if he let her make light of this. He scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “That was reckless and foolish.”

  She finally lost her smile. “Luke, it was a ditch as shallow as a kiddie pool.”

  “And yet your head is bleeding and you can’t move your arm,” he snarled. “You put yourself in danger. You put my sisters in danger.”

  She lifted her chin, and a hot, raging forest fire flared to life behind her eyes. “I would never, ever do anything to harm your sisters.”

  “What if they had followed your example and jumped in? What if Dorothy had hit her head on a rock? Did you think of that? It was foolish, Poppy. Stupid and foolish.”

  Her jaw dropped. “I told them to stay on the bank.”

  “So you didn’t care if you drowned.”

  “I wasn’t going to drown.”

  Luke growled until his throat felt raw. “You almost did. If I hadn’t pulled you out . . .”

  “If you hadn’t pulled me out, I would have climbed out by myself. You’re not so indispensable, Luke Bontrager, and I don’t need you.”

  “And I don’t need this aggravation.” He jabbed a finger in her direction. “I’m done with you, Poppy. For good and forever.”

  “Done with me?”

  “I won’t save you from yourself anymore.”

  She scowled. “I never asked you to save me in the first place.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “I should have known you’d be ungrateful.”

  “I should have known you’d be arrogant. What are you so angry about? Are you upset because a girl did what you should have done? What you were too chicken to do?”

  He smacked his hand against the side of his wagon so hard, even Poppy jumped. “You don’t know anything. You want to prove you’re so tough, just like the boys.” His voice shook. “You’re a girl, Poppy. You’re weaker and softer, and you’re never going to be as good as the boys at anything.”

  She stepped back as if he had slapped her across the face. “I’ll never be as good at being an idiot.”

  “Then quit trying.”

  She took a deep breath and glared at him with such contempt in her eyes, she might have made a weaker man fall over. “I hate you, Luke Bontrager.”

  “I hate you right back.”

  She turned on her heels, leaving her basket, her drill, and four loaves of bread sitting in his wagon. She wouldn’t be able to carry all of it wit
h one good hand anyway. “Don’t follow me,” she said.

  I wasn’t even going to try.

  He leaned against his wagon and watched her limp down the road, not looking away until she stepped safely onto the footbridge that spanned the pond at the front of their property. He’d hate himself tomorrow if he didn’t at least make sure she got home safe.

  He knew how a girl should be treated, even if she didn’t want the treatment. At least Dinah Eicher appreciated him. Besides, he preferred blue eyes over brilliant green any day.

  Good riddance, Poppy Christner.

  Chapter Eleven

  Poppy was getting pretty good at doing things with one hand. She couldn’t work the hives, but she could use the smoker. She couldn’t knead bread dough, but she could stir the cake batter. She couldn’t hoe, but she could pull weeds by hand from her garden. And her garden sorely needed some attention.

  Ever since she’d caught her hand in a certain car window, the bindweed had been creeping toward the tomato plants, and oh, sis yuscht, they were stubborn weeds. Unless she pulled out the whole root, the pesky things reappeared after only a few days, and the roots were nearly impossible to kill. It tempted her to spray the whole garden with weed killer and start again next year. But Aunt B refused to allow anything poisonous near the bees. Better to be careful of the bees than be rid of the bindweed.

  Despite being out on a bright, clear day in July, Poppy felt gray and drab, as if someone had extinguished the sun in her little patch of the world. It felt like she couldn’t catch her breath, and her heart ached with something deep and raw that she didn’t want to put a name to.

  She scooted farther down the row, picked up her trowel, and started turning over small piles of dirt. She certainly wasn’t sad about Luke or anything he might have said to her yesterday. She couldn’t care less what that boy thought or how he behaved. A boy that stupid and hateful had absolutely no power to hurt her—except for the fact that in his panic to pull her from the three-foot-deep ditch, he’d dislocated her shoulder.

  You’re never going to be as good as the boys at anything. She bit her bottom lip to keep from crying out. That’s what Luke had told her. She didn’t know why his words stabbed her in the heart. She’d heard them dozens of times from boys at school. In the few terrible months they’d lived with Dawdi and Mammi, Dawdi Sol had admonished her daily for trying to be better than the boys. Urius Beachy had been the worst of all. He had pulled her hair and kicked her in the shins just to prove that boys were better than girls.