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It was a warm Sunday morning as three boys were preparing for the third day of a week long assigned guard duty. This was punishment for a plan that had never actually been carried out because of Arty Lint, the fourth boy who was still asleep. Though Arty was also placed on guard duty as well, mostly to keep an eye on the others. Alex Row, Vincent Alzey, and Jim Farling had gotten up hours earlier than they were supposed to, which was a miracle in Jim’s case. Just to prepare their planed vengeance on Arty.
Jim grinned as he produced a small brown glass bottle with a hand written label. “My dad keeps bees as a hobby. This a bee lure he mixed up himself. He uses it when there’s a swarm so they choose an empty hive instead of going wild. I don’t know what it’s made of but it’s never failed.” Still grinning he handed bottle to Vincent. “If we put a little bit of this on Arty, bees will start coming after him. Then he’ll run around like a nut, and jump in that pond out by the gate! We can have our laugh, and no one will ever know it was us.”
Vincent, and Alex gave one another slightly wary looks. Vince squinted at the bottle trying to read the label. “I don’t know Jim, That sounds kind of dangerous. We don’t want to hurt him.”
Alex continued look warily at Jim. “Jim, Why did you even bring that to school?”
Jim as he tended to do in such situations just shrugged. Despite there concerns in the end the chance for revenge on their snitching friend was just to good to pass up.
Standing guard at the back gate, the plan seemed to be going well. Only Arty, instead of ‘running around, and jumping in the pond’ reacted by standing perfectly still.
...And the bees kept showing up.
Eventually they sent Jim to get someone, while Alex, and Vincent tried to keep Arty from suffocating under the bees. Getting stung numerous times in the process. An audience began to gather around the scene, no one helped of course, other than making suggestions.
Vincent, not only in pain but horribly embarrassed turned to Alex. “Do you think we’re going to get expelled for this?”
Before Alex could answer they were interrupted by Jim returning. “Um...Arty’s the one covered in bees, Sir.”
The crowd of onlookers became silent. Vincent, and Alex both turned toward Jim, to see Instructor Dalton standing beside him with that look on his face. Though he always had an expression of barely restrained murderous intent when confronted with them. Alex looked at Vincent, not knowing how it could possibly get any worse. “I don’t think we’re going to live to be expelled.”
Dalton, and Jim walked over to the boys. Dalton opened his mouth to speak only to be interrupted by Jim shouting as loud as he could. “I BROUGHT INSTRUCTOR DALTON ARTY! BUT DON’T SALUTE, YOU’LL STARTLE THE BEES!”
The crowd burst into laughter, until the instructor turned to glare at them. They quickly decided they had other things to do. With surprising calmness Instructor Dalton sent Alex, and Vincent to the infirmary. They never did find out exactly how Arty was saved from the bees, but he never got stung even once. Euris would later, with irritation point out it was probably karma. Thanks to Marius, they avoided expulsion, but after their hands had healed enough they were put on kitchen duty for a month. Jim’s ‘You’ll startle the bees!’ phrase became a very popular introduction afterwards, though everyone was careful not to use it in front of Instructor Dalton.