The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting Read Online Free PDF

Wife Award if you don’t keep your end of the deal.”
    â€œIt will be done—not joyfully, but it will be done.” Loper turned a glare on me. “Well, I guess we’ve set a market price for you, Hank. You’re worth two loads of manure.”
    Yes, well, two loads were better than . . . uh, one.
    Loper and Slim said their good-byes, tramped down to the pickup, and drove off, pulling the gooseneck trailer with two saddled horses in the back. Sally May watched them and waved until they drove out of sight. Then she looked down at me.
    I, uh, felt very uncomfortable all at once, and found myself looking away from . . . she had a fairly icy expression in her eyes, don’t you see, and . . . well, she and I had this long history of misunderstandings, and now here we were, to­gether and alone, our destinies more or less . . .
    â€œWhy couldn’t you have done this yesterday or last week or any day but today?”
    I, uh, didn’t have an answer to that, and my nose was throbbing, and I felt rotten.
    She looked down at me for a long time. Her eyes began to soften. She came over and knelt down beside me and took my inflated face in her hands. She stroked me on top of the head and rubbed my ears.
    â€œPoor Hank. How can I be mad at you when you look so pitiful? Let me get the children dressed and we’ll go to town—in Slim’s garbage-can pickup. You stay right here.”
    Yes, ma’am. I sure didn’t have any better plans.
    She went into the house. Moments later, I heard bulldozers and dynamite, an indication that Little Alfred was awake. Somehow, the thought of riding all the way into town with his noise and motion didn’t make me feel better, so I tried to think of a song that would express the misery of my condition. Here’s how it went.
    I Was Bitten on the Nose by a Rattlesnake
    I was searching for a bunny in a joint of rusted pipe.
    I stuck my nose inside it and prepared to take a bite.
    I loosened up my jaws, unleashed a deadly growl . . .
    But something stung me on the nose and caused me to howl.
    At first I thought the cottontail had done this awful thing,
    But bunnies do not have the means to cause a painful sting.
    So common sense prevailed and soon I came to see
    It couldn’t be a bunny but perhaps a bumblebee? No.
    I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake,
    A rattlesnake, a rattlesnake.
    I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake.
    And now I’m swollen up like a poisoned pup.
    Now, why would a rattlesnake take refuge in a pipe?
    I’ve known these guys forever and they’re really not the type
    To be lurking in a junkyard in the middle of the day,
    But this one hadn’t read the book on where he’s supposed to stay!
    I guess I woke him up in the middle of his nap.
    He didn’t even rattle but gave my nose a snap.
    There’s a moral to this song, in case you’d like to use it!
    Don’t stick your nose into a pipe unless you want to lose it!
    I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake,
    A rattlesnake, a rattlesnake.
    I was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake.
    And now I’m swollen up like a poisoned pup.

Chapter Six: Okay, Maybe It Was a Rattlesnake

    S o there you are. The song had allowed me to work through the trauma of my situation and to admit what was becoming more and more obvious:
    The thing that had attacked my nose was neither a rabbit nor a bumblebee, but rather, a RATTL­E­SNAKE!
    Does that shock you? I’m sorry. Facts are facts, and until something better comes along, we must face the facts and deal with them as though they actually mean something.
    To do otherwise would be to dwell forever in the land of fantasy and dreams . . . which, come to think of it, doesn’t seem all that terrible.
    Hmmm. Maybe it really was a bumblebee and . . .
    Perhaps you thought it was a bumblebee. Or two bumblebees. Yes, there for a minute or two, I’d embraced that theory myself, but on further analysis and