Louie the Bee: The Insects Prevail. Read online

LOUIE THE BEE™

  by

  Dave Corrick

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Louie the bee™

  Second edition for ebook release

  www.louiethebee.com

  Copyright © 2010 by Dave Corrick

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  Louie the bee is dedicated to my wife and long time companion Julie. Thank you Julie for your help, encouragement and support in the writing of ‘Louie the bee’. In many ways Julie is Lulu in the story.

  Dave

  louie the bee™

  Contents

  Chapter 1 The stream and the insect community.

  Chapter 2 Al Spider is on the move.

  Chapter 3 Al Spider arrives at the Reserve Bank.

  Chapter 4 Back to normal and a picnic is organised.

  Chapter 5 The picnic at Virgil’s special place.

  Chapter 6 Two years later. The tunnel is discussed.

  Chapter 7 A meeting about the tunnel is called.

  Chapter 8 Lulu meets Pearl and a happy occasion.

  Chapter 9 The tunnel project goes wrong and something strange happens.

  Chapter 10 Pearl has a theory and tells all about what happened through the quartz

  Chapter 11 Pearl explains her theory.

  Chapter 12 Pearl Baker-Moth’s theory is tested.

  Chapter 13 A job to be done on the other side.

  Chapter 14 Some new powers are discovered.

  Chapter 15 Louie and Lulu help Mr McFarland using the new powers.

  Chapter 16 Louie’s world nearly comes to an end.

  Chapter 17 Preparations for the wedding are made.

  Chapter 18 The big day. Louie and Lulu are married.

  Chapter 19 Back from the honeymoon and Pearl has made a startling

  discovery.

  Chapter 20 Pearl’s new discovery is tested.

  Chapter 21 A magic Christmas for Louie and Lulu.

  Chapter 22 The bee household over the Christmas New Year holiday period.

  Chapter 23 Pearl is worried about the future of the stream community.

  Chapter 24 The Appleton Property issue is dealt with.

  Chapter 25 Moving on with Pearl’s plans to save the insect community.

  Chapter 26 The councillors return to face the music!

  Chapter 27 A footnote and goodbye for now.

  Chapter 1

  The stream and the Insect Community

  Louie the bee is an important member of an insect community that resides along the banks of a quietly flowing stream. The stream flows through bush lined banks, alongside a road, through reserve land and onto a village a couple of kilometres away.

  The stream described is probably a typical scenario that can be found in many places. However it needs to be pointed out that this stream is no ordinary stream, it has a unique property. We need to have some technical explanation right at the start of this incredible story.

  The stream we are talking about is in a small country of temperate climate located in the southern hemisphere of planet earth. The land was created millions of years ago from up thrusted sediments rich in volcanic debris.

  In the beginning, subduction of crustal plates produced protrusions of now extinct volcanic activity, through the raised sediments. The stream in this story starts high in hills to the west of this land from one of these protruded volcanic formations. The water for all streams in the area comes from deep underground sources and has high concentrations of colloidal minerals. One of these minerals is Mellennium, an element yet to be discovered by humans.

  All insects along the stream naturally consume the water from the stream together with small amounts of Mellennium. Mellennium has the property to block the genetic ageing processes within the body cells of insects. This means that insects living along the banks of the stream live way beyond normal insect life spans, in fact up to 100 years!

  Getting back to Louie, Louie is of a bumblebee variety, fairly young (thirtyish) and has large appealing eyes. Louie is modest in personality and in the early stages of this story may appear to be a bit of a duffer. However as we shall see, Louie is in fact a very strong, loveable and special bee.

  On the west side of the stream is a property belonging to Mr McFarland, a gentleman in his retirement years who is kind to bees and other insects living along the stream.

  On Mr McFarland’s property is a disused shed with a loft. The shed is close to the stream where Louie lives. Louie runs an important business in the loft of Mr McFarland’s shed. We shall discuss this later.

  Today it is a fine spring morning; the sun’s rays are fingering their way through the bush on the bank opposite Louie’s house.

  Louie’s house is also located to the west on the stream bank. It is of an environmentally friendly construction and made from empty honeycomb filled with clay. It is thus energy efficient and provides perfect comfort and insulation during the winter.

  The view across the stream towards the rising sun is breathtaking. Louie emerges from his house making light buzzing noises of pleasure on feeling the warmth of the early morning sun.

  Louie pauses and adjusts his wings ready for flight. He powers up his wings to about half-throttle. Louie smiles to himself with satisfaction. He knows that he is powered by a renewable energy source, namely honey and that his carbon footprint is therefore extremely small.

  From a gentle idling buzz Louie opens the throttle to full power producing a noise that is hard to describe. A bumblebee under full power, hmmm? – Maybe a sound similar to that of a bus ticket caught in an electric fan!

  Louie lifts off smoothly, gains some height before descending to just above the stream and heading off at great speed down stream towards the village.

  Today Louie will check out a few of his friends along the bank before finally joining his lifetime friend, Pearl Baker-Moth.

  Pearl Baker-Moth as you might be able to tell from her name is royalty in the insect world. We shall learn more of Pearl Baker-Moth shortly.

  Before we meet the associates of Louie one needs to have an understanding of how the insect community and Louie the bee operate, and why Louie is so important.

  All of the insects along the stream live in a civilised society where the exchange medium is honey rather than money. Honey value is measured in dollops and scents!

  A dollop is self-explanatory; a scent of honey is one hundredth of a dollop, an amount that is just big enough to be detected by a bee such as Louie sniffing around. So when Louie heads off for a long flight, the cost of fuel can be as much as two dollops and fifty scents.

  Next we need to understand how Louie operates in the business world.

  Louie is the governor of the bank where dollops and scents are stored. The bank is located close to the stream on the reserve land towards the village and is therefore known simply as the ‘Reserve Bank’. This Reserve Bank is unusual in that unlike other banks, the longer deposits remain in the bank, the lower the amount of interest!

  Similar to how gold has been used in the human world, honey forms the basis of the insect monetary system. ‘Notes’
and ‘coins’ replace the need to carry dollops and scents of honey to pay for things. Insects could redeem ‘notes’ and ‘coins’ for dollops and scents at the Reserve Bank as required.

  At the risk of too much information, ‘Notes’ were small neatly cut pieces of dried mint from Mr McFarland’s garden. Each ‘note’ had the stamp of approval from Pearl Baker-Moth and formed the basis of the Royal Mint. ‘Coins’ were lavender seeds and thus conformed to the concept of a Scent.

  Let’s get on with it!

  Louie apart from being the governor of the Reserve Bank operates a cleaning and maintenance service for the insect community. As mentioned previously this is situated in the loft of Mr McFarland’s shed.

  If you have ever wondered how insects such as beetles, ladybirds, bees, and cicadas come to have such shiny beautifully coloured bodies, this is where Louie the bee’s Cleaning Service comes in.

  Louie the bee’s Cleaning Service, generally referred to as the ‘Factory’, not only provides insect polishing and cleaning but moth and butterfly cleaning and valet services as well. A butterfly can receive a complete wash, shampoo and set for one dollop and fifty eight scents.

  The reason why the Factory was set up in Mr McFarland’s shed was that Mr McFarland, being a gentleman in his later years, had given up driving a car some time ago. In the shed remained more than adequate supplies of car polishes, car shampoos, tyre black and other useful stuff that were no longer required. These materials provided the means and opportunity for Louie to set up his business.

  Mr McFarland knows Louie is operating in his shed and it doesn’t bother him that many insects are coming and going from the loft, in fact he enjoys it. Besides at the back of the shed, bees have provided Mr McFarland with wild honeycomb. Louie had arranged this with the bees as a gesture of goodwill for the use of the loft in Mr McFarland’s shed.

  Louie by no means does all the work at the Factory by himself. Oh no, Louie has a team of Ten Ants that do all the work for him and they are paid dollops and scents of honey per hour for their effort. This also comes with free accommodation for the Ten Ants below Mr McFarland’s shed.

  Louie runs a tight ship and expects the ants to perform as per the Ten Ants agreement. However Louie is a good boss and rewards the Ten Ants in other ways, as we shall learn later.

  The Factory premises have been suitably fitted out with a waiting room, operations and storage rooms. The staff room has a sign above the door ‘Ten Ants’ only. Other signs display ‘Ten Ants’ Parking Only’, ‘We Don’t Do Ducks’ and above the entrance is an important message and motto for the insect world ‘Straighten up and Fly Right’.

  Louie’s office is right next door to the staff room so he can hear any nonsense that might be going on and sort it out if necessary. However it is more often that Louie closes the door, puts his feet up (all six of them) and has a snooze and doesn’t hear what the Ten Ants are up to anyway.

  On Louie’s office door it states ‘Knock and Wait before entering’ – just in case he might be snoozing and it will give him time to wake up and look important.

  Louie has names for all of his Ten Ants. The names relate to the personality and abilities of the individual ant:

  1) Combat (ant) a bit of a hot head.

  2) Defend (ant) good at Kung Fu.

  3) Depend (ant) totally reliable.

  4) Expect (ant) always hoping for more.

  5) Import (ant) essential to have around (the supervisor).

  6) Inform (ant) quite knowledgeable.

  7) Flatul (ant) likes eating cabbage.

  8) Resist (ant) never does as instructed.

  9) Ignor (ant) never gone to school.

  10) Deodor (ant) needs to take a bath.

  Ah yes, as with any good manager, Louie knows his team well. There are frequent staff meetings to discuss pay and working conditions. The ‘Ten Antsy Tribunal’ deals with any disputes.

  The Factory operates five days a week (Monday to Friday). The Factory opens sharp at 9.00 a.m. and closes at 5.00 p.m. Picnics and other good things are usually held on Saturdays or Sundays.

  As mentioned previously, today Louie is up and about and has flown down the stream to the village. It is Monday; about 8.30 a.m. Louie has picked up some chocolate cake from the village cake shop, a special treat for his friend and the Queen of the streamside community, Pearl Baker-Moth.

  If you ever visit a cake shop and there is a bit of your chocolate cake missing, you never know, Louie may have taken it. Nobody at the village seemed to mind that small amounts of chocolate cake and other goodies disappeared on occasions.

  Louie is a bit early to visit Pearl Baker-Moth who unless there are things to be up early for, doesn’t usually rise until after 9.00 a.m.

  Louie eases back on the power as he zooms along above the stream and alights on the flower of a Rhododendron Bush. The Rhododendron flower is a delicious supply of nectar for Louie. The consumption of the nectar helps Louie to avoid the temptation to eat the chocolate cake he has with him.

  While Louie rests in the sun we shall introduce Pearl Baker-Moth and provide a few other pieces of information about the stream and its residents.

  One important thing in relation to Pearl Baker-Moth is that as a mark of respect we learn to pronounce her name correctly from the start. In the insect world Pearl Baker-Moth as we have mentioned previously is royalty, a sophisticated beautifully patterned green moth with large red and blue spots on her wings. Accordingly when pronouncing ‘Baker-Moth’ the two names should be run together quickly.

  It needs to be emphasised that although Pearl Baker-Moth likes her name to be pronounced correctly and expects standards to be maintained, she is a very approachable moth and mixes at all levels of the insect society.

  Now believe it or not, Pearl Baker-Moth lives in a street lamp above the road to the village. Being a smallish village, there is not much traffic on the road so Pearl is not bothered too much by any road noise from the cars that pass by below.

  At the back of the big fluorescent lamp, looking towards the stream, Pearl Baker-Moth has a luxurious apartment with central heating, floor to ceiling windows and a magnificent view looking out over the stream and beyond.

  Pearl Baker-Moth is into the good things in life such as chocolate cake and has been known to partake of a glass of red wine or two in the evenings or on special occasions. There is a gum tree right outside her apartment so it is easy for Pearl to make a cup of her favourite gum leaf tea at any time.

  Being of royalty and living in a street lamp apartment, Pearl Baker-Moth does not have to worry about the mundane things of life such as power bills, rates or water bills. Louie and his associates fly in most of her needs, so for Pearl it’s mainly a life of looking beautiful and looking after her subjects. As we shall learn, Pearl does indeed look after the insect community and her subjects, in fact without her they wouldn’t survive.

  Pearl Baker-Moth can survey all of her Queendom from her apartment. Her apartment is to the west of the stream and as previously mentioned is alongside the road to the village.

  From her apartment Pearl Baker-Moth can see the village to the north. She can also see Louie’s house and Mr McFarland’s land just to the south. Further on to the south on the west bank is the home of Sir Cada and Lady Bird - aristocratic acquaintances of Pearl’s.

  Between Pearl Baker-Moth’s apartment and the village to the north is a streamside café that Louie and Pearl often frequent for meals.

  The café looks a little like an upturned bird’s nest, which in fact is exactly what it is but much larger. Some years ago a company called Sparrow Construction was engaged to build the café and it has been a very popular meeting place for all the insects along the stream. The café is generally known as the Nest Café.

  The Nest Cafe is licensed and as a specialty serves delicious spider eggs; poached, scrambled, over easy, sunny side up, sunny side down (really!) and as omelettes. Of course they also keep adequate supplies of chocolat
e cake and red wine for you know who!

  On top of the café is a clock so that insects and other creatures know whether it is lunchtime or otherwise. A tick named Tock lives above the café with his family behind the clock and looks after the time.

  Tock very cleverly sets the time by studying the moon, yes Tock is a lunar tick.

  It happens some times when the ticks all go down to the café for lunch and there are no ticks left, the clock stops. However nobody minds as it just means more time to have lunch!

  The area around the Nest Café is quite a little gathering point for insects and other creatures. Alongside the café is a supermarket, built of pine bark pieces with a post in the middle of it.

  On top of the post is the post office, strategically placed in an elevated position for the delivery and pick up of airmail. This is the only type of mail service in the insect world.

  As mentioned the supermarket was built of pine bark pieces. It looks modern and trendy. However the company that built it, Fly by Night Ltd, used untreated pine bark so here was another case of leaky-building-syndrome. Yes the insect community had its fair share of problems just like any other.

  Alongside the supermarket in the same building is a medical centre and a travel centre.

  At the medical centre the resident doctor is an Asian Paper Wasp by the name of Sum Ting Wong. Doctor Wong is a qualified beeknee-ologist. Although Dr Wong majored in bee’s knees he looks after all the insect’s medical needs.

  Dr Wong is a very mild mannered insect and is therefore unlikely to lose his patients. Because of this the insect community thinks he really is the ‘bee’s knees’!

  In relation to the travel centre there is another important creature living along the west bank of the stream. This happens to be Virgil Blue, a large powerful blue dragonfly. Virgil has premises south of Louie’s place and frequently calls into the Factory for cleaning and servicing.

  Virgil Blue provides air transport services for the insects and owns and operates Virgil Blue Airlines. Virgil’s services are used for importing and exporting goods from the area together with carrying passengers as required.

  The travel agent alongside the supermarket is known as the ‘Fright Centre’ and does all the travel booking arrangements for Virgil’s airline. As we shall learn, most of Virgil’s passengers travel on the outside of the aircraft rather than inside thus possibly explaining the name of the travel centre.

  Virgil uses Pearl Baker-Moth’s streetlight as a navigation aid if flying at night. Virgil is properly registered as an air transport operator and has ZK 10NANA painted in bold black letters on his fuselage. The Ten Ants at the Factory, using tyre black, carefully painted Virgil’s registration number on.

  Nobody is quite sure why Virgil’s registration number is 10NANA but it is believed that it is because he can carry up to ten passengers and he is quite fond of his Nana.

  Virgil Blue operates a fleet of twenty wasps. The wasps serve as helicopters as well as taxis for non-flying insects that need to be transported from place to place. Virgil also runs airmail to and from the post office as well as courier services.

  On occasions Louie will give the Ten Ants a day away. Virgil Blue at a cost of three dollops and fifty scents per hour will happily fly with the Ten Ants onboard to wherever Louie might direct for a picnic.

  Getting back to Pearl Baker-Moth, she can see most things that are happening along the stream from her apartment. All the creatures along the west bank love and respect their monarch for her kindness, intelligence and understanding of the insect world.

  It seems that the world in which Pearl Baker-Moth resides and rules is absolutely perfect and idyllic. There is no police force, no crime to speak of, the insects support one another and they are kind to each other. However the appearance of being absolutely idyllic is not quite so.

  To the east of Pearl Baker-Moth’s apartment, in fact in the ‘Middle East’ for want of a better word, is a valley. The valley tends to be a little dark and mysterious. This is because the surrounding trees and ridge shade it from the sun.

  In the middle of the valley is an old barn in which resides the dreaded Al Spider and the Valley Barn Gang. This Middle Eastern area with Al Spider and the Valley Barn has been nothing but trouble for the western insect civilisation for many years.

  The Valley Barn gang, lead by Al Spider is a group of large black ominous looking spiders. All gang members are patched. The stick-on patches are made from cut-up band-aids stolen from Mr McFarland’s bathroom first aid cabinet.

  The patches were stolen by an elite division of spiders. These spiders cleverly made a hole in Mr McFarland’s bathroom wall and gained access to the bathroom cabinet by sneaking along the underside of a bath rail fastened to the wall. This elite group were known as the ‘Bathrailies’ and were appropriately attired with tea towels on their heads. The stolen patches have been sinisterly stained with blackberry juices from blackberries growing wild in the valley. It’s all very scary!

  The aim of Al Spider and the Valley Barn Gang appears to be to steal from the west and destroy respect for the insect’s Queen and leader, Pearl Baker-Moth.

  We shall learn more about trouble in the Middle East as time goes by.

  ………..well the time is just after 9.00 a.m. and back to Louie. Louie has finished relaxing on the Rhododendron Bush and is much refreshed from the delicious nectar. Louie powers up his wings and gains altitude in the direction of Pearl Baker- Moth’s apartment.

  Louie circles around Pearl’s street light apartment a few times, taking in the view along the stream before alighting at Pearl’s front door.

  Armed with the chocolate cake, Louie knocks and waits for a response.

  In answer to Louie’s knocking, Pearl Baker-Moth calls out. ‘Is that you Louie?’

  ‘Yes’, replied Louie. ‘I have brought you some chocolate cake’.

  Pearl who is now up and about, has been relaxing and reading in the sun, puts down her copy of ‘Moth’ers Day’ and goes to let Louie in.

  Pearl Baker-Moth is quite resplendent with her neatly folded feathery green wings. She has large appealing eyes that command immediate respect. Her exquisitely curled feelers and matching black eyelashes show a beauty not seen elsewhere in the insect world. Louie feels proud to be her friend and to be a subject of her Queendom.

  ‘Come in Louie’, said Pearl.

  ‘Hello Pearl good to see you’, said Louie and gives Pearl an affectionate hug. Remember these two have known each other for some time.

  Pearl thanks Louie for the chocolate cake and they move out onto a deck that extends from Pearl’s apartment on the side that faces the stream. Louie and Pearl sit down to discuss the day ahead.

  ‘What time do you have to be down at the Factory Louie?’ Pearl asked.

  ‘Not until about eleven I guess’, Louie replied. ‘Import(ant) has everything in hand until I get there but I will give him a call on my smell phone in a minute just to check’.

  It needs to be clarified here exactly what a ‘smell phone’ is!

  This amazing piece of technology has been developed by the fly community who are well known for their ability to smell anything from miles away. Taking this ability and technology further, the smell phone was developed so that messages could be instantly transmitted by smell waves through the ether via the smellular network. The insects in Pearl Baker-Moth’s Queendom use these insect and bird only capable devices for communicating and texting messages. Texting in the insect world can be extremely fast using all six legs at once!

  The Company of young and clever flies that developed this amazing technology, (Fly Odours Near You Ltd and now known as The Fony Corporation) also developed Fly TV of which Pearl Baker-Moth has one and Louie sometimes joins her to watch.

  We digress

  Louie explains to Pearl that they are quite busy at the Factory at the moment with spring coming on and the insects wanting to look their best.

  ‘Today we have bookings for two butterfli
es, four bees, two large beetles and a couple of cicadas. Sir Cada and Lady Bird are both booked in for a wax and polish tomorrow morning, I believe they are going to the Moth Ball on Wednesday night – are you going this year Pearl?’ inquired Louie.

  ‘No not this year Louie’, Pearl replied. ‘Heads of State from other areas are flying in on Wednesday to discuss global warming issues – in particular what we may be obliged to contribute in the way of a carbon tax. It’s a silly idea that has been picked up from the human world. I’m hoping to avoid it Louie, but we may end up having to contribute some of the deposits in the Reserve Bank, which naturally could be a sticky problem’.

  ‘This would be totally unacceptable!’ Louie protested. ‘As far as I am concerned we use renewable energy resources and don’t add to the carbon dioxide levels. How can we pay the Ten Ants and other service providers if we have to waste dollops and scents on this nonsense?!!’

  Louie was getting quite agitated to the extent that some of his yellow stripes almost turned pink. Louie went on and on about the unfairness. Pearl Baker-Moth was becoming a little concerned that Louie was getting over agitated and might do himself a mischief. She went to her larder and brought Louie a drink of nectar and a pill to swallow.

  ‘What’s that?’ exclaimed Louie.

  ‘Just a little something to calm you down Louie’, said Pearl. ‘It’s not good for you to get so upset; I worry about you at times’.

  Louie took the nectar and swallowed the pill and immediately calmed down.

  ‘Sorry Pearl’, said Louie. ‘I didn’t mean to lose it like that. It really upsets me when I don’t believe this tax is necessary’.

  Pearl Baker-Moth was a very intelligent and knowledgeable moth and had studied health and vitamin supplements for many years. The pill she gave Louie was one of the B group vitamins – in fact Vitamin B Quiet!

  To reassure Louie, Pearl added. ‘Louie I will do what I can at the meeting on Wednesday to avoid this tax, I am as much against it as you are, you know that. The important thing is don’t worry about it’.

  ‘Pearl how about a little breakfast down at the Nest Cafe before I go back to the Factory?’ suggested Louie.

  ‘Good idea Louie’, said Pearl. ‘It might take my mind off the meeting on Wednesday too’.

  Louie waited patiently while Pearl made herself ready and filled her handbag with an inordinate amount of stuff that Louie felt was totally unnecessary. In ten minutes flat they were off.

  Pearl and Louie headed east and descended to the stream. They then headed north at full speed flying just above the stream surface.

  Flying so low both had to be vigilant and keep an eye out for ducks landing on the stream. It was a beautiful day; they both waved to some bees who were making honey to deposit in the Reserve Bank. Life was good. The air was full of fragrance from Jasmine growing wild along the stream bank. Louie soon forgot his worries about the carbon tax.

  Louie and Pearl both reduced power as they neared the cafe. Louie allowed Pearl to land first, which she did, adroitly in a soft muffled flutter. Louie on the other hand wasn’t quite watching what he was doing. In spite of applying full reverse thrust he landed beside Pearl with a thump outside the Nest Café (hence the name bumblebee). The manager of the cafe rushed out to see what was happening and welcomed them both in.

  Inside the Café it was quite noisy. The juke box was playing somewhat loudly and a group of young fleas were hip hopping about to the music. No the music wasn’t by the Beatles – that would be far too uncool. The music they were playing was by the popular group ‘Pink noise and the Mother Flutters’ get it right man!

  Immediately Pearl Baker-Moth entered, the young fleas sat down and lowered the volume of the music. Pearl acknowledged the respect shown by the fleas with a smile and a coy flutter of her eyelashes. Everyone respected Pearl as their leader and Queen.

  An elderly fly sitting at table two looked relieved that the noise had ceased and got back to reading his Fly Paper.

  Basil, a preying mantis, and his wife Sybil managed the Nest Café. The food served was always delicious and of a good standard. Person bird waitresses, neatly dressed in aprons cut from white lilies, scurried about serving the patrons and showing them to their tables as they arrived. For the uninitiated, person birds is the politically correct term for ladybirds.

  Louie asked for his favourite table, number twenty-seven that was by the window overlooking the stream. Today Louie was in luck it was available. Basil led the way and showed Pearl and Louie to their table.

  Louie and Pearl studied the menu briefly and immediately opted for the spider egg omelette with gum leaf toast and of course with a cup or two of Nest Café coffee.

  Pearl opened the conversation. ‘Louie it has been very quiet in the Middle East recently, I hope Al Spider is not up to anything sinister. I have noticed some of his scout planes about recently and I wonder if they are planning something’.

  Al Spider’s scout planes were in fact part of quite a large squadron of mosquitoes that flew around feeding information back to Al Spider about the west.

  Louie commented that he hadn’t noticed anything in particular recently but would keep an eye out for any suspicious activity. The worry for Louie was that Al Spider and the Valley Barn gang could raid the Reserve Bank. Several attempts had been made in the past without success.

  Pearl went on to say she felt that Al Spider and the Valley Barn could become a problem of behemoth proportions unless dealt to with vigilance and clear thinking.

  Louie didn’t understand big words like ‘behemoth’ but felt comfortable in the fact that the word contained both ‘bee’ and ‘moth’ so Pearl would want him involved in any problems that might arise.

  Louie feeling confidant that he sort of knew what ‘behemoth’ meant added. ‘After breakfast Pearl I will call into the Reserve Bank on the way to the Factory and check that all is OK’.

  Louie and Pearl relaxed and enjoyed the view along the stream while they finished their breakfast.

  Below them they watched Duck Paddle Cruises in operation.

  Duck Paddle Cruises provided a means for insects to cruise, for a small fee, on the back of a duck, up and down the still waters of the stream. Down at the wharf there was a crowd of grass hoppers getting ready to ‘hop’ aboard the next cruise.

  Next-door the supermarket was busy, Louie and Pearl could see all sorts of creatures coming and going. Virgil’s wasps were flying to and from the post office at regular intervals. Louie and Pearl both chuckled on seeing a Slater outside the supermarket who had a young pet sand hopper bouncing along behind him on a jumper lead!

  Louie reflected on what a wonderful peaceful scene it was, the sun was high by now, the air was warm and the sunlight sparkled on the waters of the stream.

  Louie picked up his smell phone and spoke again briefly to Import at the Factory. Louie advised Import that he would be calling into the Reserve Bank first and wouldn’t be at the Factory until about 11.30a.

  Louie and Pearl having finished breakfast and discussing the day ahead, paid Basil at the counter and headed outside.

  Louie waved goodbye to Pearl as she gently fluttered off up to her apartment. Louie powered up his wings and lifted off and flew down the stream towards the Reserve Bank. Louie was a little concerned about what Pearl had said about Al Spider.

  The Reserve Bank was close to the stream where the stream widened. The reserve was chosen as a site to build the bank because it was an area that remained relatively undisturbed. Also the fact that the stream widened here made it less accessible for Al Spider and the Valley Barn gang.

  Because of the isolation of the Reserve Bank it was necessary for bank staff to be flown in and out every day by air via Virgil Blue’s air transport services. Virgil Blue also ran half hourly air passenger services up and down the stream so that non-flying insects could call at the bank, visit friends or meet at the Nest Café.

  Sparrow Construction Ltd (who also built the Nest Café) built th
e Reserve Bank some years ago out of locally sourced materials. The result was a fine looking building made from sun baked clay bricks. Sparrow Construction had sub contracted a lot of the work to White Ant Excavators who were experts in using local clays to make the fine looking building the Reserve Bank was. White Ant Excavators had expertly created the underground vaults where the dollops and scents were stored in large quantities.

  As governor of the Reserve Bank, Louie was always concerned about the level of the water in the stream. If the levels became raised too much, Louie would seriously have to consider floating the dollop. In floating the dollop there would be dilution in value and the interest levels would naturally drop. Additionally if the stream levels rose too much there could be some downstream effects on the whole western insect economy, it could just end up as a sticky mess. In all Louie had a very responsible job as governor of the Reserve Bank.

  Louie landed safely outside the bank on the spot marked ‘Reserved – governor’ and went inside. Sparrow Construction had fitted the bank out beautifully with timber appropriately polished with beeswax.

  The bank employed a chief teller and three junior tellers. The chief teller was a middle aged bespectacled stick insect named Arnold and the tellers were money spiders. Arnold having heard Louie arrive was hopping about getting the junior tellers out of the staff room where they had been for nearly three quarters of an hour having morning tea.

  When Louie entered, the tellers were in their places so all looked well to Louie.

  Louie took Arnold into the governor’s office to be briefed on the status of the bank and to discuss current interest rates and levels of deposits. Louie mentioned his concerns about Al Spider to Arnold and asked Arnold to report back to him any sightings of Al Spider’s scout planes.

  Arnold went a sort of blotchy green colour and his feelers curled up with fright at the mention of Al Spider. Louie reassured him that he was relatively safe from Al Spider but to be vigilant and let him know of anything suspicious. However, secretly Louie was a little worried about the situation.

  Louie and Arnold proceeded to the vaults to inspect the store of dollops and scents. Louie, with relish, sampled a few of the dollops just to ensure that interest levels were being maintained. Arnold reassured Louie that the oldest dollops and scents were being issued first.

  Feeling satisfied that all was well, Louie bid adieu to Arnold and headed out of the bank to fly to the Factory.

  As Louie came out into the sunshine again his thoughts about getting to the Factory were interrupted by a high-pitched whining noise. He looked up. There were two mosquitoes circling overhead, two of Al Spider’s scouts. On seeing Louie emerge they immediately disappeared to the east.

  ‘Oh dear’, said Louie to himself. ‘Something is up’.

  Louie put his mind back on the business in hand and took off for the Factory.

  Instead of flying at stream level, Louie opened the throttle and ran his wings up to about 2,500 r.p.m. At this rate he rapidly climbed to a height of about 50,000 feet (remember insects only have small feet so this was about four lamp posts high).

  Louie looked across to the Middle East – nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary. There was no sign of the mosquitoes anywhere; all looked quiet at the Valley Barn.

  Louie descended from where he was in wide circles above the stream. He was exhilarated by the wind in his face and the speed of the descent to such an extent that he re climbed to 50,000 feet and did it all over again. Al Spider and the Valley Barn were soon forgotten!

  Louie flew in through the portal (more correctly described as a hole in the side of Mr McFarland’s shed) to the Factory. The Factory was to one side of the loft, away from the “portal” leaving adequate floor space for Louie’s clients to land and arrive in safety.

  Louie stopped, folded his wings and walked up to the Factory entrance.

  Inside the Ten Ants were hard at work. In the work area was a large black beetle that had had tyre black applied and was now being waxed and polished ready to be finished in about half an hour.

  The beetle was an off the road type (six wheel drive) that had been doing some carrying work for White Ant Excavators Ltd and had arrived in quite a dirty state. Import came over and explained this to Louie.

  Louie the good manager he was went to the waiting room and explained to the customers waiting there that they wouldn’t have to wait much longer, the beetle was just about finished.

  The waiting customers were happy enough anyway, Louie had had the foresight to get Fly TV installed in the waiting room and at the time there was an exciting match of bugby football being played.

  Louie went back to where the Ten Ants were working on the beetle and inspected the work, what an excellent job thought Louie and conveyed his impressions to Import.

  Feeling satisfied Louie headed to his office where, being Monday, he had to check the Ten Ants’ time sheets from the preceding week.

  Import had placed the time sheets on Louie’s desk for him to check. Louie would always thoroughly check them before phoning Arnold at the bank and arranging for delivery of dollops and scents on Thursday - payday.

  Louie scanned the sheets, are yes as had often happened before, Ignor had put his times in the dollops column and Expect had claimed sixty hours which was impossible as they only worked forty hours maximum!

  Louie cursed under his breath and uttered a bee word. However rather than stopping the ants now when things were running behind it would be better if he corrected it himself and talked to those involved later.

  With the now corrected time sheets in front of him, Louie picked up his smell phone to phone Arnold at the bank.

  ‘Hello is that you Arnold?’ said Louie in a business like voice.

  ‘What?’ said the voice at the other end.

  ‘Is that the Reserve Bank?’ queried Louie who by now was wondering who on earth was this at the Reserve Bank!

  ‘Reserve what!?’ said the voice at the other end.

  ‘The Reserve Bank!’ shouted Louie somewhat agitated by now.

  ‘Who deserves thanks?’ said the voice at the other end.

  ‘Is that the R-E-S-E-R-V-E B-A-N-K?’ Louie yelled into the phone.

  There was a pause on the end of the phone and Louie heard someone mutter to someone else. ‘There’s some guy on the phone selling tanks!’

  Louie just about exploded and was about to launch forth with a tirade of never heard before bee words when another more authoritative voice came on at the other end and said. ‘Hello this is the home for deaf centipedes, can I help you?’

  Louie hung up the phone immediately and cursed to himself. ‘These smell phones are not what they are cracked up to be!’

  Louie being a bee of reasonable intelligence realised what had happened. He had forgotten to open a window. With no windows open a smell phone could be directly affected by any odours that might be in the room. Calls out could end up anywhere!

  We should mention here that Louie’s office computer was in fact the same as his smell phone and used ‘Windows’ (open ones in particular) to operate and connect to the Internet via the smellular network. Louie’s computer was a FlyBM (Fly bee Model) operating with Windows.

  Louie opened the window - success! Louie managed to get through to Arnold at the bank. Arnold would have the Ten Ants’ pay ready and waiting for Virgil Blue Courier Services to pick up and deliver on Thursday morning. Arnold requested that Louie send a beemail confirming this. Subsequently Louie got onto his PC and sent the beemail off to Arnold.

  For those technical readers interested in computers, the insect world didn’t have laptops. However FONY had developed small computers that sat neatly in the gap between an insect’s thorax and abdomen. In the insect world these had become loosely termed as ‘gaptops’. Louie had one of these and often took work home at night if the pressure was on.

  Louie spent the remainder of the afternoon on his office PC, spread sheeting last week’s production from information Imp
ort had given him. Things were looking quite good now after a quiet period over the preceding winter months.

  Just before five the Ten Ants were packing up to go down to their accommodation in the floor of the shed. Louie would remain and lock up after everyone had gone and then fly home.

  Louie wandered over to the production area and looked at the forward bookings that Import had put up on the wall. Louie was very happy with how things were going. It looked like being a good summer season.

  Louie shut the window in his office, closed the door and headed to the portal in the side of Mr McFarland’s shed. He could hear Mr McFarland in the distance mowing his lawn. There was a delicious smell of cut grass and onion weed wafting past the shed - ah the wonderful smells of spring Louie thought.

  Sometimes after work in the evening Louie would call up to Pearl Baker-Moth’s place to join her for an evening meal. However not tonight, Louie was tired and besides Pearl was busy working on important stuff for the global warming summit on Wednesday.

  Louie launched himself into the now cool evening air and lazily descended to stream level.

  Before going home Louie flew upstream past Sir Cada and Lady Bird’s place. They were sitting out on the deck having evening drinks and waved to Louie as he sped past.

  Louie loved to fly just above the stream surface at speed; it was an exhilarating experience for a bee.

  At a wide section of the stream Louie did a U-turn and sped off back down to his home on the bank.

  Before going inside Louie went around to the back of his house and gathered some twigs. Louie had a wood stove that he used for heating and cooking.

  Louie carefully placed some fly paper in the stove then loaded the twigs. Above the stove was a jar of matches (Beehive of course). Louie reached for these and lit the fly paper. Soon there was a rosy glow that lit up the interior of Louie’s home. The flickering light from the stove cast shadows across the exposed beam ceiling above the room.

  Louie’s home was clean and tidy. The stove was in a largish kitchen area with pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. At the back of the kitchen was an opening to the lounge. Shelves of interesting looking bee books could be seen in the dim light.

  When Louie was a young bee he had belonged to the local Bee Scouts and gained a woodcraft badge with first class honours.

  Yes Louie was indeed a clever bee. Around Louie’s house were lots of ferns. Louie had used his wood crafting skills to make some lovely ‘ferniture and fernishings’ for his home.

  Louie had some nectar in his larder with which he had mixed in a bit of honey and allowed to ferment a little – a delicious sort of mead. Louie sat down in his favourite chair (expertly made from ferns) and supped on the mead, he felt relaxed and satisfied. A shadow of Louie in the chair danced on the wall behind him from the light of the flickering fire in the stove. There was a light almost incense fragrance in the air from the wood fire in Louie’s stove.

  For today we will leave Louie sitting in his favourite chair in front of his stove. Shortly he will cook a meal, possibly honey fritters tonight. After tea he will perhaps doze in front of the stove until the flames finally die then he will head of to bed to be ready for another day.