17 - Why I'm Afraid of Bees by R.L. Stine - (ebook by Undead)

the monitor. Read the screen—please?

 
 
19
     
     
    Would he read it?
    Yes! Rubbing his eyes, “Gary” shuffled over to the computer.
    Yes! Yes!
    I nearly burst for joy as I watched him squint at the screen. “Go ahead,
Gary! Read it! Read it!” I squeaked.
    He squinted at the screen some more, frowning. “Did I leave that thing on
overnight?” he muttered, shaking his head. “Wow. I must be losing it.”
    He reached down and clicked off the power. Then he turned and made his way
out of the room.
    Stunned, I toppled off the monitor, landing hard on the desk beside the
keyboard. All that work for nothing.
    What was “Gary’s” problem, anyway? Doesn’t he know how to read?
    I’ve got to talk to him, I told myself, pulling myself together. I’ve got to communicate with him somehow.
    I lifted my wings and floated up after him. I followed him through the
kitchen, and then slipped through the back door with him.
    As he strode across the grass, I started buzzing around his head. But he
didn’t pay any attention to me.
    He crossed the yard and opened our garage door. Then he went inside and
brought out my old skateboard.
    I hadn’t used that skateboard in at least two years. My uncle had given it to
me for my tenth birthday, and I almost broke my leg trying to ride it. After
that, I put it away and refused to touch it again.
    “Don’t get on that thing!” I yelled at “Gary”. “It’s dangerous. You might
hurt my body. And I want it back in one piece!”
    Of course “Gary” didn’t even notice me. Instead, he carried the
skateboard
out in front of the house and put it down on the ground.
    A short while later, Kaitlyn and Judy walked up the sidewalk. I waited for
them to start giggling and making fun of the new me.
    “Hi, Gary,” Kaitlyn said. She brushed some curly hair off her forehead and
smiled. “Are we late for our skateboarding lesson?”
    “Gary” flashed her a big smile. “No way, Kaitlyn,” he answered in my voice. “Want to head over to the playground like we
did yesterday?”
    I couldn’t believe my ears. Skateboarding lesson? Head over to the playground like we did yesterday? What was going on around here?
    “I hope you don’t mind, Gary,” Judy said. “We told some of the other kids—like Gail and Louie—how good you are. They all said they can’t wait to take a
lesson from you, too. Is that okay? Because if it isn’t, we can call them, and—”
    “No problem, Jude,” “Gary” broke in. “Let’s get going, okay?” The new “me”
hopped onto his skateboard and smoothly rolled his way down the sidewalk. Judy
and Kaitlyn hurried after him.
    For a second, I was too shocked to move. But then I decided to follow them.
    As I swooped after them, I kept muttering to myself, “I can’t believe it!
Lutz the Klutz is giving skateboard lessons at the playground? Everybody’s
waiting for him to show up? What is going on?”
    A few minutes later, the four of us had reached the playground. Sure enough,
a whole gang of kids was waiting there for “Gary”. He put down his skateboard
and started giving everybody pointers on “boarding”, as he called it.
    I buzzed over to him and started shouting in his ear again. “Dirk!” I
shouted. “Dirk Davis! It’s me. The real Gary Lutz!”
    Very casually, he swatted me away.
    I tried to speak to him again. This time he swatted me really hard, sending
me spinning to the ground.
    Trying to shake off the pain, I gave up. Dirk isn’t going to help me, I
realized.
    Ms. Karmen is my only hope. After all, she was the one with all the
equipment. She was the only person who could reverse what she had done.
    I flew onto a tree and tried to figure out which way to fly. When you’re an
insect, everything looks different to you. Things that seem small to a person
appear huge to a bee. So I wanted to be sure I didn’t get myself mixed up and
fly off in the wrong direction.
    Standing on a big leaf, I gazed up and down the block