The Bee's Knees

Chapter 3

Anna spent all of Saturday night brainstorming ideas for how to help Sweet Surprise, but every possible solution came with its own set of problems. New recipes took weeks to refine, and it would take a lot more than one new treat to tempt people to come to Sweet Surprise more often. Anna was too young to use social media, and as much as he loved interacting with people, she doubted her grandpa would be interested in keeping up with the latest trending hashtags. Training her family's companions to do tricks that might attract customers wouldn't work either since Bertrand could only be bribed with so many pecans before he'd go into a food coma and pretend to hibernate.

With nothing to show for her brainstorming but way too little sleep, Anna's Sunday would have gotten off to a lousy start if it weren't for one thing: she had a date with Taylor.

Anna still couldn't believe how lucky she was. Not even her bees' honey was half as sweet as Taylor. Just talking to her for five minutes was enough to get Anna smiling like a kindergartner in a candy store.

Today they were grabbing lunch at the mall, with Taylor's dad sitting at a table nearby to keep an eye on them. Or, more accurately, he was struggling to stop his cat, Pitch, from stealing pepperoni while the girls shared a deliciously cheesy pizza.

"I needed this," Taylor said as she finished off her second slice. Her flies mixed with Anna's bees in a constantly shifting cloud, their buzzing drowning out the mall's usual cacophony of bleats and bellows. "Mr. Woods has me working on a project, and my hands are so tired."

"Another project?" Anna groaned. "Please tell me we don't have to give speeches again." As much as she'd loved coming up with her own cookie recipe, having to explain it to a huge crowd had been exhausting.

"It's not for school." Taylor's bright smile sent Anna's heart fluttering like her bees' wings. "Remember that lab I got to visit a few weeks ago?"

"Of course!" After Taylor won first place in Mr. Woods's annual companion showcase, he'd invited her on a tour of the lab where his husband worked. Not even Mr. Woods and his famous experiments could hope to match half the stuff Taylor had gushed about afterward. Cats glowed in the dark thanks to jellyfish genes, deer stomped their hooves in Morse code, and spiders spun entire scarves out of their silk.

Of course, none of that was as amazing as the sweet speech Taylor had given about why she'd included Anna's bees in her painting, but it was still really cool.

"I can't say much 'cause it's a secret, but..." Taylor leaned forward to whisper, excitement leaving her voice less than quiet. "They asked me to make them a painting!"

"That's awesome, Tay!" Anna slapped a hand over her mouth as Taylor frantically shushed her, drawing an amused glance from Taylor's dad as he looked up from prying a crumpled napkin from Pitch's claws. "Your paintings are so pretty. They're super lucky to get one."

Taylor blushed. "Aw, shucks. They only asked me to do it 'cause Mr. Woods has been talkin' about my project so much."

"Must be hard not to talk about something so amazing." Just like how people used to talk about Sweet Surprise. Would other people still appreciate Taylor's paintings once the buzz over her unique way of using her flies died down, or would they abandon her like everyone was abandoning the bakery?

Taylor would be devastated.

She already spent hours fussing over the tiniest specks of white space in her paintings, and she'd overdone herself so badly when she rushed to redo her companion showcase project after her first version got ruined that she'd practically sleepwalked through school. How would she be able to handle it if people started treating her like garbage again?