To Bee or Not to Bee

It was a bright and clear day, just right for swimming. I was in my grandma’s backyard swimming in a kiddie pool with my cousins Myca and Huckleberry. Myca got out of the pool to get an ice cream sandwich and Huckleberry and I realized that there was a dead bee floating where Myca had been sitting.

            “I wonder if that is a bee or a hornet,” Huckleberry said to me. I said, “It looks like a bee because it has yellow and black stripes.” She said, “I wonder if the bee is dead or not? Why don’t you touch it to see if it is dead or alive.”

            “Y-OUCH!” is what I said when I touched the bee. It felt like an iron, white-hot needle that pierced my skin. The bee had stung me between my index finger and my thumb. My hand began to feel numb with the pain.

            I got out of the pool and went to show my hand to my dad. The stinger was still in my hand. My dad said, ”It looks like you have a bee sting.” My dad told my uncle about the sting and my Uncle Mike went inside got a hole punch and scraped out the stinger from the side.

            I learned that day never to take a dare from my cousin Huckleberry. I also learned not to touch a dead bee because they can still sting. I learned from my uncle that it is best to scrape the stinger out rather than squish all of the venom into the puncture using tweezers.

--Jacob Todd