The Case of the Double Bumblebee Sting Read Online Free PDF Page B

deeper inspection, that theory just hadn’t cut bait.
    I mean, we had this huge throbbing nose right in front of us which pointed to the Rattlesnake Skinnerio. That kind of nose couldn’t come from a mere rabbit bite or a bumblebee sting. It was the work of a rattlesnake.
    Once again, I’m sorry for wrecking your theory. The fact that it was a pretty stupid theory shouldn’t discourage you from proposing other stupid theories in the future. Where would we be without stupid theories?
    I don’t know.
    Ask Drover. He’s the expert on stupid theories. In fact, wasn’t it Drover who had raised the Bumblebee Theory in the first place? Yes, of course.
    At last, the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place, and I made a mental note to lower Drover’s daily grade by three points for coming up with that nitwit Bumblebee Theory.
    You have to watch him all the time. You never know what kind of bonehead idea he’ll come up with next.
    Where were we?
    Oh yes. The weight of evidence had finally forced you and Drover to admit . . . and we’ve covered that already and I hate to repeat myself.
    And you know how much I hate to repeat myself.
    Rattlesnake bite. And I was one sick puppy, getting sicker by the minute.
    At last Sally May came out of the house. Baby Molly was forked upon her left hip and Little Alfred was making bulldozer sounds with his lips. They came out the yard gate and started down to Slim’s pickup, which he had left parked near the gas tanks.
    Sally May called to me and asked if I could walk. I didn’t know, but I saw no harm in trying. I jacked my hind end off the ground.
    That’s the way a cow gets up, did you know that? It’s true, but a horse gets up front-legs first. Just thought I’d throw that in.
    I jacked my hind end off the ground, pushed hard on my front legs and raised my south end to the same level. It was then that I noticed that my head and face now weighed in close to a hundred and fifty pounds (the swelling, don’t you see), which made it difficult to hold my head at its usual proud angle.
    My lower lip was dragging the ground, is where we were, and walking is not easy when your lip has become a road grader blade. But I’m no quitter, and I forced myself to make the long walk down the hill to the pickup.
    I’m sure that small minds would have thought that I looked ridiculous, and would have laughed and poked fun at my condition. It didn’t seem so funny to me.
    At last, I made it to Slim’s pickup. Sally May opened the door on the driver’s side, looked inside, and gasped.
    â€œHow can that man ride in this thing! My trash barrel is cleaner than this!”
    She set Molly on the ground and began pulling out . . . well, things: five-buckle overshoes, hay hooks, a yellow slicker, a coffee can full of fence staples, wire pliers, a nylon catch rope, a box of cow pills, jumper cables, a pair of spurs, two calfpulling chains, and a tuna fish can that had been sitting on the dash.
    I don’t know what was inside the can but it must have been pretty awful. She looked into it and . . . mercy, crossed her eyes, curled her lip, and threw it as far as she could. Then a shiver passed through her entire body and she said, “Ohhh, nasty bachelors!”
    She sprinted back to the house and returned with a roll of paper towels and a spray can of . . . something. She swabbed the seat with paper towels, wiped the dash and steering wheel, and I was beginning to wonder if she might consider hurrying up a bit.
    I mean, we had an emergency snakebite victim waiting to be rushed to the hospital, right?
    She finished the cleaning, picked up the spray can, pointed it inside the cab, held it at arm’s length, turned her head away, and filled the cab with a fog of spray.
    She opened both doors and fanned the fog with a chainsaw manual she had found beneath the seat. When the fog had cleared enough so that we could breathe, she pitched