Tell it to the Bees by Fiona Shaw Page B

shrugged.
    â€˜Right then,’ Bobby said. He leaned back against a wall and stared across the scrubby ground.
    â€˜It’s the Blitz. I’m going to be the air-raid warden, and you be the wounded man.’
    Charlie nodded.
    â€˜And you wouldn’t go into the shelter.’
    â€˜Long as I don’t have to run,’ Charlie said.
    â€˜And I rescue you, and then I have to go and rescue these other people.’
    So they played in the rubble for a while. Bobby found a vast sink, the enamel gone green with mould.
    â€˜We might find a snake here soon,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s getting warmer. They’ll be waking up end of March time. We could put it in here, make a place for it.’
    â€˜What are you going to tell your mum? About your shirt? And why you’re walking funny?’
    Charlie ran his fingers over the sink. The enamel was slippery and smooth.
    â€˜Don’t know. That I tripped by the river. Something.’
    He rubbed his green fingers over the tear in his shirt, and then across his trousers. Eventually the boys grew cold and went home.
    Charlie and his father had to wait a while at the doctor’s, so Robert stood at the magazine table and flipped thepages. Charlie sat and listened to the gas hiss and wondered whether, if he gave him his favourite shooter, Bobby would look for a snake with him.
    Then the door to the consulting room opened and they were called in, and it was a lady doctor sitting behind the desk. She had green eyes and dark, curly hair, but not like Auntie Pam’s. The doctor’s curls looked like they had just grown like that. Auntie Pam made hers on curlers. He’d seen her in them, like big worms all over her head. The doctor didn’t smile much and she asked Charlie, not Robert, to sit down in the chair. Charlie hesitated and looked up.
    â€˜It’s Charlie that’s here to see me. Isn’t it?’ she said.
    The doctor’s voice was firm, and she sounded serious. Charlie nodded.
    â€˜Then you’re the one the chair is for. I don’t expect your father will mind standing?’
    â€˜Sit down,’ Robert said, and so Charlie sat, carefully, into the deep chair.
    The lady doctor asked him to tell her what was wrong. He explained about falling near the river and hurting his ribs.
    â€˜And your lip? Did you hurt that in the fall too?’
    He nodded. He knew she didn’t think it was a fall, but she didn’t ask him any more.
    â€˜But it’s the ribs that are causing you some pain?’
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜I’d better have a look then,’ she said.
    When she stood up, Charlie saw that she was tall, as tall as his dad. She was wearing a skirt and a jacket made out of rough brown material with green and red checks. His teacher sometimes wore clothes like this. They made him feel itchy, just to look at. Although she wasn’t smiling, she didn’t look unfriendly and he didn’t feel nervous. He noticed that she barely looked at his dad.
    She had him stand up and take off his sweater, unbuttonhis shirt and then lift his vest, so his chest and back were bare. She rubbed her hands together.
    â€˜They’re not very warm, I’m afraid.’
    Charlie could feel the blush across his face as she went to touch his ribs. He looked across towards the fireplace. There were some china figures on the mantelpiece and a glass vase, and something that looked like a piece of honeycomb except it was much bigger than the real thing and in an odd shape.
    His mother had bought a jar of comb honey once when someone told her it would help his father’s hay fever. It was expensive and Charlie hadn’t been allowed more than a taste. But the comb had fascinated him. He’d turned the jar around and around at the table, staring through the glass at the impeccable hexagons, until he was ordered on with his porridge.
    The honeycomb on the mantelpiece looked as if it was made of wood. Polished,