Then I looked at the running bee again and relaxed.
"Father, look at this!" she shouted, waving a wax tablet. "Father, Father, please!"
"Hey, hey, don't run like that—you will make yourself more sick, girl!"
I walked up to the sick bee and caught her shoulders before she bumped into me. She gasped and made a step back, suddenly looking shy.
The young bee was a head shorter than me. Despite being technically mature, she and her sick sisters looked five years younger than their age because of their thinness.
It was hard to consider them more than teenagers at the best of times, but now…
"What was it, girl?" I asked in my gentlest tone.
The Nurse Bee behind the sick girl gave up on running and walked up to us. She opened the mouth to say something, but I shushed her with a gesture.
"Father, we made a well wish for you! Please, take it!"
