Her flowers hummed with bees, a tune so loud it could have been radio fuzz.

I walked closer. Bees moved from petal to petal, too busy to notice me, a tall boy without a sister anymore.

There was something about those bees, about their buzzing, that stopped me, maybe. There was something about how loud they were when they hummed in sync like that, like a little bee family all talking at once, all of them trying to talk over each other, the way families do, the way Lizzie and I sometimes did, which drove my ma crazy.

            Holding my breath, I stuck my face into the flowers.

            The buzz filled my ears. It was almost like sticking my head underwater. There was a strange sort...

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