VOICE OF THE BEE

Olive cut her foot in the bathroom on a piece of broken mug. She dripped blood while she squeezed her eyes shut and thought, OK, the pain will go away. It won’t last forever. Promise, promise, promise.

She hopped along, to the third drawer down of the vanity unit, and pulled out the Band-Aids. She put one on the ball of her foot, knowing that it wasn’t likely to hold very long. Not in that spot. She put on another six bandaids, wishing that they would stay on. She limped out of the bathroom and into the lounge.

Daddy was sleeping on the couch, half-naked and hairy like an ape. The television going. Some religious show from America was on, so he must have fallen asleep during the car racing. Which was earlier. She’d been asleep also but she’d had too much juice at dinner, strawberry milk and too much ice cream as well.

She wanted to go straight back to bed but she couldn’t now that her foot was throbbing. From the bit of mug her mother had broken in the morning. Dropping it and screaming. And now Mum was in the hospital, and Dad was drunk. Because he was snoring and he never snored unless he was drunk or very tired.

That was something Olive heard her mother telling her friend Lesley on the phone. Talking about all the things wrong with Graham. That was her dad’s name. Olive went to the fridge and opened the door. She sat on the kitchen tiles there by the open door, letting it make her feel cool again, because it had been so hot every night this week.

She liked the little light in the fridge, which made everything around it feel neat and clear. It was still a pretty new fridge. Nothing had gone bad in it, and it smelt like what she imagined white would smell like if a colour could have a smell. Nothing bad had ever happened in the fridge. But her mother had been crying about things her father had done that were bad. And she listened because she’d never really thought of them like that. Two people like anyone else out there on the television.

The bandage was starting to bleed through and drip again. Maybe she would need to go to hospital now as well. For stitches. She could be in the same bed as her mum. And maybe she wouldn’t be so scared this time. Everything so sharp and in pain at hospital and everyone rushing over her and falling down.

The phone started ringing. Olive didn’t move, because a phone ringing in the middle of the night meant Grandma had died or something like that. It couldn’t be good because everyone should be asleep.

Her father got off the couch and picked up the phone, blinking into the fridge light as though he couldn’t see Olive sitting there by its open door. He listened to a voice on the phone.

Olive could faintly hear the voice as well. It was similar to the sound a bee makes against the glass outside on a quiet day. He had tears in his eyes and there was a strange smile on his face, as he looked down at Olive—sitting on the tiles by the open door of the fridge. ‘How does it feel to have a little baby brother?’ he asked her.