Free Beholding Bee by Kimberly Newton Fusco Page B

at us, barking his head off, his mouth open and his teeth showing.
    “Bad dog!” I yell, pulling Peabody into my arms and trying to block Cordelia. The dog leaps and growls and jumps and tries to get Peabody, and then my little pig runs squealing down the road, which may not be the smartest thing because big yellow dogs are faster than little pigs. I run after them yelling, “Bad dog!” in my deepest Bobby voice.
    The dog catches Cordelia and they roll around the road, my little pig squealing like it is the end of the world. Peabody is on them in a flash, barking and trying to get his teeth into the dog’s tail. I reach for his collar and pull until I get the dog off Cordelia. He is not taking no for an answer, though, and as soon as I get him off, he snaps at Peabody, over and over, trying to bite at my dog’s little stumpy tail.
    I reach into my socks for a hot dog and pull out the whole pile. This catches the dog’s attention. He forgets Peabody and sniffs at the hot dogs. He gulps them, one after the other, all twelve of them, and as Peabody and I fly down the road looking for Cordelia I think I have never loved hot dogs so much.

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    We find Cordelia under a row of apple trees. She is rooting around all the ripe fruit on the ground, which is rotting and very sweet-smelling.
    There is a big split in her ear, the one that usually stands up the right way, and it is bleeding. “Oh, Cordelia.” I look around for something to wipe up the blood and finally decide on my sock, but when I look up, Cordelia is lying down munching an apple and Peabody is licking her ear.
    I collapse under one of the trees after that, because if there is one thing I love, it is apples. I eat the fattest one I can find and I keep going, one after the other, until my belly is full of apples. Peabody is not much interested in fruit, and I have no more hot dogs to give him, so when he is done licking Cordelia’s ear, he snuggles up next to her belly and goes to sleep. Then we all have a little nap, because who wants to run all day anyway?
    When I wake up the sun is straight overhead and I have a bellyache from all the apples and the lady in the orange flappy hat is watching me.

Part II

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    I first saw the lady in the flappy hat right after my mama and papa died. We were at the funeral, sitting in a church in Vermont. Pauline was very surprised Ellis let us stop for a funeral. My grandpa was there, too, sitting in the back with his hands crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face. He had loads of money from the gun factory his family owned during the Civil War, Pauline told me. And he had loads of bullets, too, all ready for my papa when he stole my mama away.
    “Your grandpa disowned your mama and he never saw you, as far as I know.” Pauline said my grandpa had so much money he couldn’t spend it all. She tried to introduce us at the funeral, but he turned away.
    Stone angels stood all around the church and were solemn and did not smile and I was afraid. I hid my face in my hands and whimpered. Then an old lady in an orange flappy hat limped up the aisle and sat in the seat in front of us. She turned around and waved. Thin wrinkles outlined her face and when she smiled her cheeks plumped out and she looked very much like a very ripe sweet old apple.
    I waved back.
    “Who you waving at?” Pauline whispered, looking around.
    “The lady.”
    “What lady?”
    “In the hat. Can I have a hat like that?”
    Pauline looked all over the place and then pulled me closer. “Do you need some water or something? Are you dizzy?”
    I checked to be sure. The lady cinched her pink shawl with a big safety pin. She straightened her hat. I waved again.
    “She’s right here. Can’t you see her?”
    Pauline looked around again and then got a worried look all over her face. She felt my forehead to see if I had a fever. When I tried to wave again, she pulled my hand down. “No more of that,” she warned me.
    At the cemetery there were a lot of