Being Bee by Catherine Bateson Page A

there were blobs of paint in his hair.
    â€˜To Be!’ he said and peered around me. ‘It’s not Wednesday, is it? Have they taken some days away?’
    â€˜Jazzi’s not here,’ I said. ‘And no, it’s Saturday. I was wondering if I could use your phone, please. I’m running away.’
    â€˜There’s no phone here,’ Harley said, ‘so I’m afraid you can’t.’ I thought he might shut the door on me, so I put my foot firmly against it.
    â€˜I brought some sticky buns,’ I said.
    â€˜Do you want to come in?’ Harley asked but he didn’t actually open the door any wider.
    â€˜Yes, please.’ I squeezed in under Harley’s arm. He smelt a little. Painting is obviously hard work.
    â€˜Would you like a cup of tea?’
    Harley was obviously ignoring the running away bit. It was a shame about the phone. I wasn’t sure how I was going to contact Uncle Rob. I had decided, walking to Harley’s, that living with Uncle Rob and Aunty Maree would be the best thing I could do. They were my family, after all. Maybe when Nanna came back I would go and live with her. Then Dad could walk over and see me whenever he wanted to.
    â€˜No, thank you. I wouldn’t mind a glass of water, though.’
    Harley looked around wildly. All the glasses I could see had paint water in them, or paintbrushes soaking.
    â€˜I could wash one,’ I offered. I was very thirsty.
    â€˜A cup of water, perhaps?’
    â€˜That would be fine, thanks. Shall I cut up the buns?’
    We sat eating buns. Harley didn’t seem to mind which one he ate today. Perhaps that was only a Wednesday thing.
    â€˜How’s the painting going?’ I asked.
    â€˜The painting is fine. Arthur is a thorn in my side. No rose, he, but thorns all the way down. He intends to sabotage my work. He has decided he is the chief loony. Why? Because his work is madder than the rest of ours. I should be running away, not you, To Be. Why are you running, anyway?’
    â€˜Jazzi threw away my Bee box.’
    â€˜Your Bee box?’
    â€˜You know, a box with things in it that were mine. She didn’t really know but she should have. Anyone who called me Bee all the time would know they were Bee things.’
    â€˜Oh dear.’ Harley’s face crumpled up. ‘What were the Bee things?’
    â€˜Things from when I was little and my mother was alive.’
    â€˜That’s terrible.’ Harley pushed a big piece of bun on to my plate. ‘But Jazzi can be like that. She likes clean and her own way. She made me run away, too.’
    â€˜What?’
    â€˜Oh, yes. When I was younger, of course, and we lived with our mother. Jazzi didn’t believe the things I told her. She said I was making up stories to get out oflooking after things. I said she was the looker-afterer but she said I should be too.’
    â€˜Hang on, Harley.’ He was talking so fast I could hardly catch up. ‘Why didn’t your mum look after things?’
    â€˜Some things she looked after, but she worked very hard, so Jasmine was the next looker-afterer. That’s how it worked. Jasmine shouted at me because I did things wrongly. So Pepi and I ran away.’
    â€˜The dog, Pepi?’
    â€˜Yes. That was a very wrong wrong thing to do and I was punished – everyone punished me.’
    â€˜What happened?’
    Harley shook his head and stuffed his mouth full of sticky bun.
    â€˜Oh, come on, Harley, tell me. As a fellow runner-away.’
    â€˜It was horrible.’ Harley spat out bits of icing as he spoke. I pretended not to see, even though it didn’t seem to worry Harley.
    â€˜Why? What happened?’
    â€˜Bad bad bad, dark, rain – too cold, too windy. Couldn’t see. The voices were trying to help me but they couldn’t get through. Problems in the wires in my head. The rain. It made it too hard to hear them. I tried, in the phone box, but