By: Lauren Sylvie
Kasdan
Michael
Joshua Kasdan
Chapter 1: The Invasion of the
Beasts
It was a rainy day in the Great
Forest of The Bees. The Bees didn’t like
it one bit. Some of them were trying to
fly, but the water on their wings was weighing them down. Some of them couldn’t even lift themselves
off the ground.
From their hive, in the distance,
they saw huge shadowy figures, and they were coming closer! As they approached, The Bees saw that the
figures were actually all sorts of large beasts, like Lions and Tigers and
Bears. But it looked as if they were
floating in mid-air. They got even
closer. Amazingly, these beasts had
wings! And they were huge! They were like terrifying giants to the Bees.
Seeing these Beasts zooming into
their land, the Bees, whose wings were working, began to flee out of the hive,
leaving the Queen Bee in danger of being killed. As a first, she was already running low on
honey, and now this! The Beasts soared
in, quickly capturing the Queen and taking the hive with her. They then turned
their attention to the other bees. Taking to the air, they began to track down,
catch, and even kill many of the bees that were trying to escape.
In order to survive, the Bees flew
in groups and then split off in many different directions, to try to distract
the Beasts. One group of 27 bees
survived and they had a different strategy for survival. The leader of this troop was a brave and
courageous bee that was very determined.
His name was Derek, and it was he who came up with their survival
strategy.
Derek was a teen bee, and he was a
worker bee. Derek was not only brave and
determined, but he was also very handsome.
In fact, he was the most handsome bee of all, and a favorite of all the
girl bees. More importantly, he was
smart and quick on his feet. As per
Derek’s orders, his group of bees flew upwards to the skies.
Chapter 2: Through the Gates
High above, above the tallest tree in the Great Forest, there
was a cloud. Rumor had it; there was a
castle on that cloud. But no one knew if
the legend was true. The ancient stories
told of an old bee, the eldest living bee in the world at age 200. This bee was named Old Gray. Derek had heard she was the wisest bee ever
to live in the Great Forest.
His plan was to find Old Gray and
to ask her advice about what to do. Derek
led his group through the clouds. They
looked everywhere for Old Gray. Soon
they came upon her castle. At first,
they thought it was a cloud shaped like a castle. But then they realized it was a real castle. A
strange place for a bee to live, anyways.
First, they tried to push the front
gates open. They were locked.
Then, Derek saw a small hole in the
door. No bee of any size could fit
inside. Derek looked under the welcome mat, and lo and behold there was a tiny
key! He flew up to the hole with the key
in his mouth, and used it to unlock the gate.
They were inside! There was a
giant courtyard, and right in the middle of the courtyard there was a guard
bee. This bee was rather big and
muscular. The total opposite of Derek
and his crew.
Derek stepped forward. “It is important that we see Old Gray as soon
as possible. We have traveled very
far. And there is a great problem in our
land. We need her help!”
“No trespassing of any kind!” the
guard bee said in his big, booming voice.
The bees backed up but Derek stood
his ground. “Did I mention that you’re
rocking those boots”? Derek said.
“I like them too. I don’t know if anyone likes them. Maybe Old Gray likes them. Do you think I should ask her?” replied the
over sized bee. While these very words
came out of the guard bee’s mouth, Derek and his crew hurried by. Being very agile and silent.
Chapter 3: Old Gray
Soon Derek and his group arrived at
the castle of Old Gray. As they flew in
through a shattered window, Derek began to remember how he first learned about
Old Gray and her castle.
Every day
when Derek was young, he would go to the hi-brary (the library high in the
sky). One day, Derek discovered a secret
room of ancient books of legends. He was
browsing the book stacks, and saw a dusty, giant, old book, entitled “The Forbidden Book.”
Derek was fascinated, and he
decided to take a look. He reached for
it. On the back of the book, there was
gum attached to a trigger that would open the door to a secret room. As Derek pulled the book off the shelf, the
room was revealed. Derek was shocked,
and walked in.
It looked as if no one had been in
the room in hundreds of years. It was
filled with giant ancient books. The
biggest one was lying open in the center of the room. Derek turned the book to
the front cover, and it said: “Old Gray: Told Through Her Words.” He sat down and began to read. That night, he read it from cover to
cover. He learned that Old Gray lived in
a castle on a cloud and that she was the keeper of generations of wisdom.
Now he was about to meet her!
As he and his group, flew through
the castle, they came to the main hall.
It was over a mile long and very wide too. In fact, it would be the biggest castle ever
known if anybody knew about it. It
seemed to go on forever. At the end of
the hall, was a small room with a single old bee sitting on a dusty couch.
She looked up with kind eyes as
they approached:
“I’ve been waiting for you, young
man.”
Chapter 4: The Plan
Derek was surprised, but he flew up
to her anyways.
“What do you mean?” Derek asked.
“What I mean by this is,” she said
in her old, creaky voice “I can read your mind.”
“No you can’t.”
“Just you wait.”
“Fine. What am I thinking?” said Derek.
“You think Melanie Blackback is
soooooo cute and you want to marry her.”
“Yep. I really do think that. Wow!
You really can read minds. That’s
cool,” replied Derek in his high-pitched voice, which was the total opposite of
the voice of Old Gray.
“Surely, you didn’t come all this
way so I could guess the bees that you fancy,” said Old Gray with a smile. “Tell me what is going on below.”
At that, Derek told her of the
invasion of the beasts, and all the terrible things that had happened, and how
he and his team had escaped to seek her wisdom.
When he finished, he looked up, and softly asked, “So, can you help us?”
“I can,” she said, and then went
on: “I believe that you should not fight the beasts, nor should you flee in
fear. You must figure out what they want
and why they came.”
“But,” said Derek, “how will we get
the beasts to calm down? If we go back
down there, they will kill us!”
Old Gray cocked her head and
replied, “You must get their attention.
You must convince them to listen to you.”
“How will I do that?” asked Derek.
“You must be confident and
strong. If you believe in yourself and
are not afraid, they will respect you.
If you convince them that you can help them, they will listen to you.”
Derek smiled and flexed his
arms. “I can do that.”
Old Gray shook her head. “Not strong of body. Strong of mind.”
Derek understood. He went back to his group of bees, and
explained what they would be doing. They
were very worried that they wouldn’t be able to convince the Beasts to listen
to them, and they were flying towards a certain death at the hands of their
enemies.
Derek listened patiently, like a
good leader. He then began to
speak. He stood before them and
explained that he had got them this far: “Trust me. Old Gray’s plan will work. I know it!
If you won’t come with me, I will go alone. If you are with me, come stand with me.”
One by one the bees flew to Derek’s
side. They were nervous but they trusted
him. When the entire group was ready,
they left the clouds and flew downward towards their home.
Chapter 5: The Big Bee-Beast Meeting
As they came down from the clouds,
Derek’s group was gripped with fear.
They looked all around frantically as they flew – hoping that the Beasts
wouldn’t get them. Luckily, they were
able to land safely at the top of the tall tree. There, Derek yelled with all his might: “Beasts of the Land, I am Derek of the bees,
and we need to talk about why you are attacking.”
The leader of the Beasts stepped
forward and looked upwards. To Derek’s
surprise, the Beast leader was a mix of a lion, tiger and bear. He had the body of a tiger, a head of a bear,
and the tail of the lion. Not only that,
but he had huge wings that soon carried him to the top of the tall tree until
he was eye-to-eye with Derek.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t
just kill you all?”
Derek was afraid, but steadied
himself and answered: “We didn’t do anything to you. We have lived peacefully all this time, and
this is our land. We do not understand
why you came here. If we know why you
are here and why you are so angry, maybe we can figure out a solution together.”
The Beast leader lowered his head,
and Derek saw tears forming in his eyes.
He started to speak, this time quietly:
“Well, we beasts for the past few
months have been living with no food, barely any water. It’s miserable. Something to our land – everything dried
up. We couldn’t stay there anymore. And
the thing is we need help. We attacked
because we need a new land to survive; we knew this was your land, and attacking
seemed to be what we needed to do.”
“Why do you come here for help?”
“This is the land that is
closest. It is a good land.”
. . . . MORE TO COME!
