“A minor saint but one of Toby’s favourites. He’d lived in turbulent times – what times in Poland had ever not been turbulent? – but had followed his own peaceful and slightly dotty pursuits nonetheless, cataloguing the flowers of Galicia, naming its beetles. Rebecca liked him too: she’d put on her apron with the butterfly appliqués and made beetle biscuits for the small children’s snack time, ornamenting each one with an A and a Z. The children had made up their own little song about him: Alexs...ander, Alexsander, beetle up your nose! Blow it on your handkerchief, stick it on a rose! It was midmorning. The Hammerhead was still sleeping off the effects of yesterday’s Poppy: Toby had overdone it, but she didn’t feel too guilty, and now she had some time for her regular chores. She’d garbed up in her bee veil and gloves and lit the smudge in her bellows: as she’d explained to the bees, she intended to spend the morning extracting the full honeycombs. Before she’d begun the smoking, however, Zeb appeared.MoreLessRead More Read Less
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