“The creature had two huge glaring eyes. And it was staring right at me… suddenly, I knew the hideous truth. The monster in the mirror — it was me.”
Gary Lutz (age 12) hates his life. His neighbor, Mr. Andretti, is a beekeeper who plays practical jokes on Gary because he knows Gary is afraid of bees.His 9-year-old sister also plays practical jokes on him and is stronger and braver than he is. Her cat, Claus, goes out of his way to scratch Gary.The three huge bullies in the neighborhood delight in pounding Gary's face in every day, leaving him with black eyes and other bruises. He's terrible at sports and is always picked last on any team. Whe Gary Lutz (age 12) hates his life. His neighbor, Mr. Andretti, is a beekeeper who plays practical jokes on Gary because he knows Gary is afraid of bees.His 9-year-old sister also plays practical jokes on him and is stronger and braver than he is. Her cat, Claus, goes out of his way to scratch Gary.The three huge bullies in the neighborhood delight in pounding Gary's face in every day, leaving him with black eyes and other bruises.He's terrible at sports and is always picked last on any team. When he tries to flirt with any girls, he always does something klutzy that makes them laugh at him.Frankly, he needs a break from his crappy life.Luckily, it's the early days of the Internet in 1993. On his gaming forum he sees an advertisement: TAKE A VACATION FROM YOURSELF Change places with someone for a week! PERSON-TO-PERSON VACATIONS 113 Roach Street, Suite 2-B or call 1-800-555-SWAP Gary goes there to find a small dentist-like office filled with equipment that looks like something out of Star Trek. He signs up for the program. Only when Mrs. Karmen comes over to do the switch at Gary's house, she switches his mind into the body of a bee that had flown into the kitchen. Trapped inside a bee's body, filled with a craving for nectar and pollen, unable to communicate with his family, and knowing that he will die in autumn, Gary frantically searches for a way out. Will he ever be back in his real body again?...This was one of my favorite Goosebumps books when I was a kid. It delighted me to no end. Perhaps because body-switching is always so fun and cool.Some things are obviously silly! No, not the body-switching! That makes perfect sense, LOL. What doesn't make sense: - The company is fine with switching 12-year-old bodies with other bodies and no parent permission or knowledge is needed. - Gary is somehow still able to speak English (in a teeny-tiny voice) even though he has a bee's head and tongue. Just not possible. - Gary insists in talking to/yelling at humans while he is a bee. Dude: they can't hear you. Stop screaming at them all the time. They CAN'T HEAR YOU. I have no idea why he never seems to grasp this idea, even after he tries and fails about 80 times. - Dirk's parents fail to notice that their son has turned into a flower-munching, buzzing idiot.(view spoiler)[ Gary finally tells Mrs. Karmen what happened by using a microphone to amplify his voice. Dirk's body is possessed by the bee mind and has turned into a language-less, flower-eating idiot. Dirk's mind is in Gary's body and Dirk likes it in in there. He likes Gary's life. He wants to keep it. He is refusing to switch back. Gary sends a swarm of angry bees in to attack Dirk/Gary. He stings Dirk/Gary, and this makes him die and all minds go back to their original bodies. Gary and Dirk actually become friends after this. But Stine hints that the boys have kept some bee-traits such as a craving for pollen and super-hearing. :) But the brief time Dirk spent in Gary's body cleaned up his life a bit. The bullies leave him alone because Dirk/Gary beat them up. He also gave the pretty girls some skateboarding lessons so girls like Gary now. And Gary, since he lived as a bee, has really come to appreciate his loving parents and annoying little sister. (hide spoiler)] That's the real message of this book, I guess: even though your (white, middle-class, suburban) life seems SO TERRIBLE - it's really not. Appreciate all the things you have and people who love you. You could always have it worse - you could be a honeybee! Dum, dum DUM!!!!!P.S. Claus is a cute name for a cat. Claus. Claws. Get it? GET IT?!!?!?P.P.S. It is also a little scary at the times when Gary enjoys being a bee, and thinks about what a good bee he could be, and occasionally it seems like he might forget about being human. That is frightening.
Sharks and crocodiles can snap up legs. The venom in a rattlesnake bite or scorpion sting will shut down a healthy heart in a matter of hours. But only one of nature’s killers sends my adrenal glands into overdrive. There, on the handle of my car door, with yellow and black stripes saying “Don’t mess with me,” it menacingly waits. It may have been a honeybee or a hornet or a wasp, but regardless, it was a member of superfamily Apoidea. The lump that lodges in my throat when I spot an apoid identifies me: I am an apiphobic. I am afraid of bees. Most would call that fear ridiculous; bees only harm those who won’t leave them alone. Perhaps true, but I see only a lightning-fast assailant, nimble and unpredictable, whipping around my head, too quick to see, its location given away only by the unmistakable buzz past my ear. To see or hear one bee is to be warned of possibly hundreds more. In a swarm, they operate more efficiently and precisely than any army. They split my attention when on the offense, dive-bombing my face, distracting me while others plant themselves on my exposed arm skin. Now my arms flail wildly, trying to swat these little gargoyles out of the sky to no avail as they deftly dodge and wrap around each swing. I’ve given up any hope of conquering or out-maneuvering my apoid foes. When one approaches, I pray my stillness will discourage it from getting closer—though I’ve been told they can smell fear. Once they breach the foot-deep barrier I call “personal space,” I abandon ship. I’ve flung myself out of patio chairs, run out into busy streets, and ( when I was much younger) retreated indoors and refused to re-emerge. They can have the outdoors. I’m vocal about my opposition to outdoor seating; the last thing I’d like to confront during my meal is a wasp curious about my lunch. More embarrassing is the inevitable mockery from my friends: “It’s just a bee, chill out. It won’t bother you.” Hovering around my head does bother me. I’ve been stung on many occasions: At age three, I once infringed on a honeybee while stomping around the yard barefoot; when I was eleven, my brother invoked the wrath of a colony of yellow jackets after shaking their nest; and when I was thirteen, a wasp decided it was not my lucky day, stinging me in the hand unprovoked. These events serve as rationale for my phobia, though I tend to exaggerate the actual pain I experienced. For clarification, I do not hate bees or wasps (I do hate yellow jackets). I fear them. I respect them, for they truly are a force of nature. Of the honeybee, in particular, I think fondly, for not only does it serve through pollination, its last measure of defense requires the sacrifice of its own humble life, all to desperately protect the colony. I fear the sting, and by proxy the honeybee, though I would wish no ill upon their species. The fear I feel is instinctual, a defense mechanism against perceived threats. It takes effort, however, to rewire my brain differently. The mantra “they’re more scared of you than you of them” may never be proven, but I must at least be conscious that my phobia is biased. If I, and all others who share the fear, endure the terrifying apoids, we enjoy the benefits of their tireless pollination. I stare at the apoid stuck to my door handle and reaching deep into my stomach for courage to muster, I get my hand close, closer still to the handle, whispering an apology to a tiny creature who cannot understand it. The apoid senses it and zips away from my car in a crooked pattern. A small victory, sure, but with each win, my confidence in the face of these fears grows. I used to be simply crippled by bees dancing around rose bushes along the sidewalk. Now, unless they’re particularly nosy, I take a deep breath and stride past. Caretto ’18 is chasing his dream in the City of Angels, where he hopes to one day create a TV show. Until then, he writes for fun about many things that fascinate him, including movies, high school, forgotten historical celebrities, and other members of his generation. |