8

The Flower-Faced Boy looked startled into the Bee-Eyed Girl’s eyes as the rest of the class burst out laughing. Silently, he walked over and sat down in the desk next to hers. For the rest of the morning she stared at him unabashedly, counting the shades of color she saw on his skin and listening enraptured whenever he was called on to answer a question.

She followed him to lunch, though he was still silent, and sat down eagerly at his table. “Hi,” she said, “I’m Selena, but everyone calls me the Bee-Eyed Girl. Or that’s what I call myself, anyway. You’re Mateo, right? We have class together.” The Flower-Faced Boy didn’t say anything; he just worked on the gray lunch on his tray, chewing slowly, maybe thoughtfully or maybe he was just bored.

“Do you know why they call me the Bee-Eyed Girl?” asked the Bee-Eyed Girl, “Of course you don’t, you’re a new kid, you don’t know anything about anyone. Well, so I’ll tell you. They call me Bee-Eyed Girl because well, I see things sort of like bees see them. Like, maybe you didn’t know this, but bees only see colors on certain flowers. They only see colors on flowers they want to pollinate. All the other flowers are gray but on the right flowers the bees see patterns and colors that let them know to pollinate that plant.”

The Flower-Faced Boy was still chewing but a look that might be described as worried had crept into one of his eyes.



“So I guess almost everything I see is gray,” said the Bee-Eyed Girl, “Well, actually everything I see, until today. My mom used to think it was just a worse kind of color-blind but the apiologists— those are the guys who study bees— they call it ‘The Bee Eye’ and they said sometime I’d see something that was all colored and pretty and well, I’m pretty sure they meant that when I saw all those colors I wouldn’t have a choice but to fall in love with that thing, sort of like a bee and its flower.”
Now the worried was in both of the Flower-Faced Boy’s eyes and his chewing had completely stopped. The Bee-Eyed Girl looked straight into his worried eyes and said it: “You’re the first person I’ve ever seen with colors.”
The Flower-Faced Boy sat still. Then he looked around at the cafeteria to see if anyone was watching. Most of the other kids were too busy flirting with each other to care about a weirdo and a new kid. He looked back at the Bee-Eyed Girl. “So what, you want to pollinate me?” is what he said when he finally spoke.

“No.” said the Bee-Eyed Girl matter of fact-ly, “I just love you, that’s all.”

“Look, Selena Bee Head or whatever you call yourself,” said the Flower-Faced Boy, “I don’t even know you. You look absolutely normal to me, except for your weird outfit, and I just don’t think I love you. I’m not trying to be mean or anything it’s just that I’m new and I’d like to get off on the right foot at this place, if you know what I’m saying, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about seeing me in color and if you didn’t sit with me anymore.”

The Flower-Faced Boy picked up his tray and moved to a different table while the Bee-Eyed Girl watched his colorful body melt into a crowd of gray. After lunch she sat in the back of the room, unable to keep her eyes off her true love’s dancing rainbow neck. After school she walked home through the gray and ate her gray dinner and did her gray homework and when the Bee-Eyed Girl’s mother turned out her lights that night, she barely noticed the change of shade. The room was already completely gray.



THE END