Chapter One
The Flashback
It was a cold frosty morning in Walkerville and I, Tim had just woken up to the first frost of the year. I sat up in bed, rubbed my eyes and yawned. I looked towards my window and noticed that there were bits of frost on the window pain. I must have forgot to close my curtains last night I thought to myself. I then started to remember that there was a beautiful full moon in the sky and was sketching it until I started to nod off. I then got out of bed as I could hear my Dad calling me from downstairs asking me if I was up yet. I opened my bedroom door and responded to him by saying yes before I then heard him reminding me about the honey run. Wired ha? Normal teens would usually deliver newspapers to their neighbours but not me. I have been doing this since I was 9 years old when my Grandpapa owned a bee farm. He would send me out to deliver his delicious honey to everyone in Walkerville. At first all my friends thought it was wired especially Wanda who accompanied me on my first delivery. I still remember to this day what happened that day. Wanda and I were delivering the honey using our bicycles. Wanda was cranky the whole way, but I did appreciate her assistance. I kept saying to her that it was the last batch before the big frost that night. Along the way we were chatting and suddenly a bee flew towards me! I freaked out which caused Wanda and I to crash, smashing all the jars of honey we had on a trailer behind our bikes. I remember it slowly pouring into a near by drain. I panicked and was heartbroken that I was not able to full fill this duty for my Grandpa, all that honey wasted! Wanda and I turned the trailer back on to its wheels and tried to clean the glass up from the broken honey jars using our jackets. There was a chill in the air, but we didn't have anything else to clean it up with, now our jackets were covered in honey and sticky. Wanda then said "Come on Tim we are going to be late for school", still feeling disappointed about the accident I agreed and we got back on our bikes and quickly rode to my house which was closer by then Grandpa's farm. I said to Wanda then we can leave the trailer there and I can take it back after school. We dropped the trailer to my house and found that my parents had already gone to work. Phew! I said to myself and Wanda I was so relieved that they were not there, I would have had to explain the situation and I was not ready for their reaction if they found out. "Just leave a note on the trailer Tim" said Wanda as we placed the trailer in my backyard. I thought all right from my backpack I grabbed a pen and a piece of blank paper from my sketch book and wrote my parents a short message explaining what happened and not to tell Grandpa.
I remember not saying a word to Wanda as we rode to school. However, on the way a thought came to me. Maybe I could ask our teacher Ms Frizzle if there is a way, she could help me obtain more honey by driving me and the class to Grandpa's farm. We were studying bees at the time and I thought that maybe The Friz (a nickname that we call her) would agree to the idea. Our 3rd grade teacher Ms Frizzle was a great and crazy teacher. Although there was always something magical and mysterious about her. It wasn't because of her colourful & weird dresses she wore or her frizzy red hair or even her outgoing and always positive attitude. She just had that something to made us all really enjoying learning and put she did make us work hard. Oh, should I mention that she also drove this school bus that secretly transformed even us into anything you could possibly dreamt of? That's were it became even weirder. Whenever we would be studying a new topic there would be situation, we one of kids would have a problem that we couldn't solve and The Friz would suddenly appear out of nowhere like she was secretly listening to our conversations. She would often suggest a field trip and ordered us to the bus always in single file. Half of the time we wonder or know where we are going but then before we knew it, that's when the magic started to occur. All I can say is that by the end of the field trip we would know everything there was to know relating to the subject and we able to answer our questions. The Friz liked to make sure that we got the most out it and that some questions we able to be answered by "Take Chances, Make Mistakes & Get Messy" as Ms Frizzle always use to say. When it came to telling our parents about our magnificent field trip's they never use to believe us about what happened. They presume that we were being creative in our imagination, even when we mentioned that some field trip's have been almost death defying. Still they never believed us. "Oh yes dear, you saw a bear at the Zoo" or "Yes, you mean the sedimentary rock you saw in the display at the museum" our parents would say. My classmates and I really felt annoyed that they didn't believe us. However, as time went on it sort of become our secret between us and Ms Frizzle. I think she liked to keep it that way, she was very secretive. Although when ever she met with our parents, she would talk to them like any other teacher about our progress and what we have been learning. Not once did she mention where or what we did on our field trips. She would simply she have an answer that made our parents believe that we went on "normal" field trips.
That particular day, I remember coming into the classroom and telling everyone about what happened earlier that morning. then coming up the idea that we all go to Grandpa's bee farm to fetch more honey. Phoebe was saying that we shouldn't take the honey from the bees but I ignored her, I was just more focused on getting the honey then what affect it would do to the bees or what affect they have on the world around us. Before we knew it the Friz appeared but not through the door like any teacher but from the plastic beehive that was sitting on a shelf. I remember thinking gosh she'd been hiding in there the whole time? you never knew where she was going to appear from next. I rushed up to her and informed her about what happened before school and that we must go to Grandpa's Bee Farm. Without any hesitation she suggested that we all go on the field trip. Little did I know she had other plans up her sleeve which didn't surprise us. We all boarded the old Magic School Bus and Instead of taking us to Grandpa's Bee Farm she took us to a field. I spotted a bee and decided to follow it along with the rest of the class shortly running behind. We could hear Ms Frizzle calling out "Single file please!". She said that a lot. I then had tripped on a small tree trunk which caused the whole class to all fall on top of me. We lost the bee. We all looked up as we all picked ourselves up and the next thing, we knew the bus had turned into a giant bee. Ms Frizzle was inside with Liz (the class lizard). The bus bee was directly hovering above us and the Friz has pressed a button or something for a giant vacuum to appear which sucked us all up back into the flying bus bee. We could then hear a loud buzzing noise coming from inside the bus. We all looked up at heh ceiling and could see that there were some speakers. Ms Frizzle suggested that the best way to track our bee was to hear it. She then went to the driver's seat and started to steer the bus bee. As we were flying the buzzing sound got louder. We soon spotted a hive in a tree overflowing with bees coming and going. We landed and we all flooded out one by one including the Friz. As got closer than I come to a complete holt causing to everyone fall on top of me again. Wanda was on top of me I remember her saying in a fed-up voice "Tiiimmmm you gotta stop doing that!". The class and I wanted a closer look inside the hive, but it was dangerous without avoiding getting stung. So, Wanda taking charge decided to look herself "WOOOWWW!" we heard her say as she was peeping through the hole in the tree. Suddenly a swarm of bees flew out and started to chase us. They were not happy that we were disturbing them. We all run for it heading back to the bee bus passing the Friz who stated that it was perfect opportunity to study beehaviour (as in BEE haviour). We were all on the bus again, I demanded that somehow, we needed to look closer and see if we can have some one of the bee's honey. I remember Wanda then saying, "pity we are not one of those bees". Ms Frizzle smiles a grin and states that it was a perfect idea "Now there's an idea", Arnold then jumps in quickly "WANDA take it back!". She then tried to calm Arnold down by saying "Oh become Arnold!". The next thing we knew she whispers to Liz "Go on Liz, do your beeswax" Liz had pressed a button on the dashboard that had a picture of a bee on it.
We were then blinded by a flash of light and began to feel strange. The light was so bright that I could not see the rest of the class. I began to feel like I was being tossed around, I closed my eyes hoping that this was some nightmare and I would soon wake up back in bed. No, it was real we were transforming! I then started to feel like I was shrinking, and all parts of body felt like they were being pulled to pillar to post. It hurt a bit to. Then suddenly I felt like I was on a waterslide being spat out of the other end. However, there was no water. The whole thing had stopped. I opened my eyes to find that the class and I including Ms Frizzle were all now hovering outside the bee bus. I looked around; the bus had all transformed us all into bees! Complete with antenna's, wings and stingers. Well except for Liz who has still inside the bus "Look, were bees" Phoebe says as we were all hovering around each other? The next voice I hear is Carlos who as usual was making puns he giggles and turns to Phoebe "Hey you're a Phoebee" then turns to the Friz "and you're a Frizbee". Even laughed including myself you gotta admit it was pretty clever. I then decided to take the lead to told everyone that we should head to the hive but before we flew off Ms Frizzle turned to Liz and called out her name. Liz knew exactly what the Friz wanted her to do next. Suddenly a large bottle appeared from the roof of the bee bus. It then sprayed some sort of substance on us newly transformed bee kids "Its Ol de Hive class" Ms Frizzle told us "Now we not only look like bees we smell like bees". Right, I thought to myself now that we were fully ready to go to the hive.
As we flew towards the hive, a huge swarm of bees suddenly flew out of the hive. We got caught in the traffic jam, but they just flew pass us like they knew we were one of them. As we entered the hive, we discovered there was a hidden city within the tree trunk. The hole was full of honeycomb and bees which meant honey! We flew around the hive looking around. Ralphie was the first to be offered food be a worker bee. He was a bit carious at first but when Ms Frizzle explained she was only sharing her food with him. He felt less afraid and accepted the offering. After that he commented that the taste was terrific, we all joined in tasting the nectar from the worker bees with our long bee tongues. We also found out that all worker bees are shes (girls) as stated by the Friz. After our snack we learnt that the nectar is used to feed not only themselves and their young. They gather the nectar from flowers and then store it in the combs in the hive to make it into honey. They use their tongues to stir it and their wings to dry it. After that it becomes honey! That is when we decided that we should leave the hive and look for some flowers. We buzzed off and found that all the flowers nearby were sucked dry by the bees. We flew a little further till eventually we finally found some. I remember there were so many that my friends and I along with Ms Frizzle decided to tell the other bees to help us. Pollen we found also was an important part of a bee's life. Whenever a bee flies onto a flower, pollen then sticks to the insect and then as it flies off, they help pollenate the whole area to create new flowers. That was fascinating! We flew back to the hive and had a bit of trouble communicating but then the Friz informed us that the only way that bees communicate to by dancing! A dance mat with footprints appeared (wonder to this day how that happened) and I remember taking charge and followed the steps. Amazingly the bees understood! All of us including the bees flew towards the untouched flowers unknowingly that a bear was finding its way to the hive. We all got to the flowers and gathered so much nectar enough for the bees and ourselves. Shortly after the Magic School Bus had turned itself with the help of Liz to a mini beehive to help us make honey for Grandpa's business and a little bit extra the bees to get restarted. Before we knew it we had gathered enough honey! Ms Frizzle had pressed another button and the bus beehive and us were all turned back to normal. We were forever grateful for what the bees did and still do today. When I brought a jar of our honey to one of Grandpa's customers at the end of day, I remember him saying that it was the best patch yet and that he thanks the bees. Little did he know ha ha!
I still remember that honey filled day with the class and Ms Frizzle. There was so much to learn about bees we all did realise and that they do so much to help our environment. Honey is there for everyone including their young. Although if there is no nectar and pollen there is no honey. The debate between myself and Phoebe ended as we both started to understand more about them. Wanda still to this day apologizes for being cranky that day. She still hates the cold.