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Pris-I-mean-Petey?”
    The girl ignored the comments and let another bee march up her arm.
    Someone sniffed. “You’re going to get stung if you’re not more careful. My niece over in Benton? She got stung on the nose. Yeah. They almost had to cut it off.”
    â€œYou’re full of it. Nobody had to cut nobody’s nose off.”
    â€œI said almost , didn’t I? And you should watch yourself, Priscilla Willis. I don’t think you would be happy if you didn’t have a nose.”
    â€œShe’s not so happy anyway. Likes those bees better than she likes anyone.”
    â€œWhat’s the big deal? I bet those bees probably don’t evenhave stingers.” Finn recognized that voice. One of the Rude boys. Derek.
    With her bee-free hand, Priscilla swept off the mesh face mask. Long honey waves streaked with ropes of pink spilled down her back. “Why don’t you come over here and hold these bees for me? Then you can tell me if they have stingers.”
    â€œI don’t need to do nothing for you,” Derek spat. “And your hair is dumb.”
    â€œDon’t distract her,” said one of the adults. “I’ve been waiting to get into the Chat for a cup of coffee for fifteen minutes already. If I don’t get some caffeine soon, I might drop into one of those whaddyacallits. Comas.”
    â€œAnd that would be bad how ?” said someone else, and the crowd cracked up. Only Priscilla Willis’s “SHHHHHHH!” hushed them.
    â€œBefore bees swarm, they stuff themselves with honey, so they’re usually too full to sting,” she said. A single bee finally inched out on the sheet and used it as a walking bridge to the box. Another bee followed.
    â€œAre they going to walk over to that hive you put there?”
    â€œWhy would you walk if you had wings?”
    â€œBees have tiny little brains.”
    â€œI only got out of bed because I thought this would be more exciting.”
    Finn blurted, “Why is the hive white?”
    Priscilla Willis turned her dark, wide-set eyes on him. The people of Bone Gap said it made sense that Priscilla Willis wasborn into a beekeeping family, because she resembled nothing so much as a bee. But Finn didn’t want to hear what they had to say about Priscilla, because the weight of her gaze felt like a hand on his shoulder.
    Or a slap across the face.
    He said, “Why is the hive white? Why not red or purple or whatever?”
    She said, “It isn’t white. It’s blue.”
    â€œIt’s white.”
    â€œNot to the bees. Bees see the white as blue. Bees like blue best.”
    Derek Rude laughed. “Bees like blue. Right. She’s crazy. What kind of girl spends all her time with bugs?”
    â€œSays the guy who dates farm animals,” Priscilla said.
    Derek’s mouth worked as if he were chewing bark. “We all know who you date.” Snickers from the crowd.
    â€œI’ll date anyone except you.”
    â€œI wouldn’t go out with you, you look like a bug.”
    â€œAnd you’re an idiot. In thirty years, which do you think will matter more?”
    Derek stepped forward, his face so red he put tomatoes to shame. “Ugly ass—” he said, biting off the words when the man standing next to him smacked him upside the head.
    Priscilla stood. She took the glove off one hand, flexing her fingers as if testing their strength. The people of Bone Gap whispered, No, don’t, please , as she slipped the bare hand inside thewrithing mass of bees. The buzzing deepened, sending sparks along Finn’s nerves. The crowd held its collective breath. When Petey pulled her hand free, she wore a brown sleeve of insects. She held both palms up to face the sky, one gloved, one sleeved in bees, like a shaman performing some ancient ritual. A breeze made her hair dance. All around her, dozens of honeybees whirled like tiny moons in orbit, anchored only by her