Withs Bees

There was a bee named Beauty who lived with her mother...no, Doodle, bees don't really have fathers...well, they don't exactly have mothers either, but closer...okay, so, she lived with her mother in a village of beehives, where her mother ran a bookstore-hive and Beauty helped her. She put the books on the shelves of the hive, and sold them to customers. And took their money, yes. I think they paid in nectar, or something.

One day, Beauty's mother was coming home from a bookfair, and she was so tired from buzzing along hauling those heavy books all that long way, and it was getting dark and cold, and she was looking everywhere for a friendly hive where she could spend the night. She was getting tireder and tireder and then it started to snow and it was so cold! Bees don't like the cold at all. It's very hard for them to fly when it's cold. They just want to huddle up with the other bees in the hive to keep warm, and Beauty's mom was all alone outside and she was so unhappy.

Just then she saw a castle-hive all lit up, and she thought she would just park her bookcart in a dry corner and fly over and see if someone there could help find somewhere warm to stay for the night. She buzzed right up to the door, and guess what? It was open! Just a crack, but enough for a cold, tired bee to fly in.

She called out--okay, she buzzed out--"Hello, is anyone home?" And she looked in every room, but do you know something? No one answered her. So she flew a little farther into the castle, and she found the kitchen, a big, old-fashioned kitchen with a big table in the middle and a beautiful fire keeping it warm. There were dishes of everything a hungry bee could want laid , honey and pollen and nectar all laid out, and a little note saying "You are welcome here! Please have some dinner and there is a couch in the corner where you can sleep tonight." And Beauty's mother looked into the corner, and sure enough, there was a couch with pillows and lovely warm, fluffy blankets, so she ate as much of the lovely bee food as she could and she curled up under the blanket and slept so, so well. But she didn't see anyone at all.

In the morning, she wrote a note thanking her mysterious host, and when she went outside there was a beautiful rose in the garden even though snow and roses are seasonally incompatible, and it made Beauty's mother think of Beauty so she picked that rose to take home to her daughter.

All of a sudden, a huge, big, ugly, scary HORNET-BEAST appeared and GRABBED Beauty's mother by the wrist. Er. Leg.

"I gave you food and a place to stay and you repay me by stealing!" he shouted and shouted, he was so angry. "I'm going to kill you!"

Beauty's mother was so scared, but she was most scared because if the Beast killed her, Beauty would never know what happened.

"I have a daughter who's expecting me to come home today. Will you let me see her first, to say goodbye, so she doesn't always worry about what happened to me?"

The Beast thought that was okay, so they went to Beauty's house, and Beauty was so happy to see her mother and so worried about the scary-looking hornet-beast. Her mother told her what had happened. Beauty got very sad and scared, but also very angry, and she said to the Beast, "Don't kill my mother! All she did was pick a flower! I think you're a very mean beast."

The Beast was very lonely, and he thought Beauty was very nice to look at, so he said "I won't kill her if you come live with me so I can have company and see you every day."

Beauty said okay, even though her mother tried to talk her out of it. So the Beast let go of Beauty's mother and Beauty moved in with him. At first she missed her so much, and she didn't like that scary Beast at all, but then she got to know him more, and she taught him some things, and he learned how to be nice and not to be mean, and they were friends, and her mother sent her lots of letters and visited sometimes, so it was okay.

One day, Beauty got a letter from her mother, saying that her mother was very very sick. Beauty showed the letter to the Beast, and the Beast said "You need to go home to take care of your mother, Beauty. I know that it would be mean to keep you here when your mom is sick," and he pretended that he wasn't sad when he said it, but really he thought that if she went home she would never come back to see him again.

So Beauty went home to her mom, and helped her get better, and when she went back to the castle, the Beast was so happy to see her that he cried. Beauty asked him why he was crying, and he told her that he thought that after she saw her mom she wouldn't want to live with him anymore.

"It's true that I didn't want to live with you when I first came here, but you're my friend and I love you, and I do want to live with you now."

When Beauty said that, the Beast turned from a Hornet-Beast into a regular old bee. A witch that he had been mean to for picking a flower had put a spell on him that could only be broken when someone loved him. That witch didn't think anyone would ever love him, and maybe no one ever would have if he hadn't learned how to love someone himself.

After that, Beauty and the Beast and Beauty's mother lived together in the castle, and they had lots of friends and parties and sold lots of books, and lived happily ever after. The End.

Storyteller's note: I can't tell you how much I hate the story of Beauty and the Beast, with or without bees.