Plan Bee Read Online Free Page B

muster.
    I hate when my bees are messed with, so I took him to the mat with the only weapon I had at my disposal. “Then I say DeeDee has to go, too.”
    DeeDee Becker is his wife’s (much) younger sister, and Grant, in an unbelievable show of blatant nepotism, had crowned DeeDee the First Annual Honey Queen of the Harmony Festival. But DeeDee has been caught shoplifting in my store repeatedly, and eventually I’d have to permanently ban her from The Wild Clover. I couldn’t bring myself to press charges against her though, even if she was Lori’s sister. But no way did she deserve that title, the klepto.
    Okay, I have to admit I’m a bit jealous, a tish disgruntled. As the town’s only actual beekeeper (not counting Stanley, but he’s a guy), that Honey Queen crown should’ve rightfully gone to me! Not DeeDee! Anybody but her! “DeeDee goes, too,” I repeated.
    “What is that supposed to mean?” Grant said, eyes narrowing. “Are you threatening me?”
    “No,” I said. “I’m threatening the Honey Queen. How will that look in
The
Reporter
?” The local paper,
The
Reporter
—or
The
Distorter
, as I call it—would eat up the shoplifting charge, chew it up as big-time news, and spit it right out on the front page. “I can see the headlines now. ‘DeeDee Becker, Sister-in-law of Town Chair, Caught Stealing.’ ”
    “You wouldn’t.”
    “Yup. I really would.” Was I bluffing? Probably. “We have several of her sticky finger episodes on our hiddencamera,” I lied. The Wild Clover didn’t really have hidden cameras.
    But Grant believed me. His face did a few amazing twitches before he got it under control. “Fine!” he said, then turned and retreated.
    I assumed that meant my bees stayed.
    As Grant stalked away, I noticed that over on the cemetery side of The Wild Clover, Aggie Petrie was setting up to sell her junkyard wares. Even though Aggie doesn’t even live in Moraine, for the last two years she and her husband, Eugene (who serves as her gopher and is majorly henpecked in spite of his years as a big tough marine), and their son, Bob, and his wife, Alicia, have shown up at the Harmony Festival, claiming Aggie’s trashy items are priceless treasures. But it was common knowledge that she found them mostly in Dumpsters and on Milwaukee city curbsides on trash pickup days.
    We can thank our town chair Grant Spandle for breaking the tied board vote two years ago. We—meaning the vendors who live, breathe, and work in Moraine—have all complained plenty at the monthly meetings, knowing if we don’t nip this in the bud, more of us will be challenged by outsiders. How could he let non-residents show up at our annual festival and compete directly with us? What if he let another honey producer set up on the other side of Main? Moraine isn’t nearly big enough for two of us.
    But shake a few dollar bills in Grant’s face and he’s all yours.
    I strolled over to greet the Petries anyway, reserving my hard feelings for Grant. I scooted around a broken tricycle and a rusty push mower.
    “Come right in,” Aggie said, shaking a cane at me, which we all knew she only used for effect. “Get first dibs before the crowds come and haul it all off,” she said, hawking like a seasoned carny. Since she never bought anything from me, I didn’t have any problem reciprocating by ignoringher sales pitch. The last thing I wanted to do was support a business that took customers away from us local shop owners.
    “Hi, Aggie,” I said. “I just came over to say hello. How have you been? You look good.” Aggie hadn’t changed much in the last year. The crow’s-feet in the outer corners of her eyes had deepened and she’d shrunk another inch or two thanks to a bad case of brittle bones and spine compression, but her personality hadn’t changed one bit.
    “If you aren’t going to buy anything, beat it,” Aggie said. “I have work to do, can’t be jawing with other vendors. What’s in it for