Honeycomb by Joanne Harris (book series for 12 year olds .txt) 📕

Of course, the Honeycomb Queen had no intention of giving up any of her precious children to the Lacewing King. Her little queens-in-waiting were all tucked away in their beeswax cradles, sucking on honey, surrounded by love. Besides, she did not respond well to threats, and she meant to punish the Lacewing King a little for his arrogance.

And so she created a manikin that would look just like a baby; grow just like a baby—and maybe show the Lacewing King a thing or two about fatherhood. She made a skin from spun silk and wax, dark honey and golden pollen. She made it plump and soft and sweet, with big brown eyes and honeyfuzz hair; and then she filled the skin with bees, so that every part was warm and alive, down to the tiny fingers. And then, nine days later, she handed it, wrapped in a shawl, to the Lacewing King.

The King looked at the Honeycomb Child and saw nothing amiss. Of course, it was the closest he’d ever been to a baby, and he had no idea that the manikin was just a silken cocoon filled with bees. He looked into its big brown eyes and heard the small contented sounds it made as it sucked its fat little thumb, and a strange kind of feeling came over him; a feeling of pride, and of wanting to protect the little creature in his arms from anything that might harm it.

And so he took the baby home to his underground palace of caverns and roots. He fed it on honey-sweetened milk and placed its crib by the side of his bed, so that if it should awake during the night, he would be there to attend to it. He gave it toys to play with: dragonfly mobiles and rattles made from beetles’-wing casings, and dolls made out of earwig husks with wigs made from real caterpillar-hair. Sometimes he even sang to it the ancient lullaby of the bees.

The baby was good; it never cried, though sometimes it made a buzzing sound that the Lacewing King took for contentment. Fed on milk and honey, it grew; learnt to sit up and walk within weeks; within a month it was talking.

The King was very proud of his new son, and dressed him in silk and butterfly wings and tiny suits of armour with stag-beetle helmets and bumblebee boots. He taught it how to say: Fetch me my rattle immediately, or I shall have you eviscerated, and, Take back this milk, it is tepid, and, Amuse me, servants, I am fatigued.

The Honeycomb Child grew much faster than any ordinary boy, although the Lacewing King saw no problem with this, having always assumed that his son would be different to other children. By the time the child was nine months old, he was the size of a six-year-old. He could read and ride a pony. He could fight with a tiny sword. He had a natural air of command, and no fear of upsetting the servants. In fact, he was the image of the Lacewing King in miniature, and the King was immensely pleased with himself. If, at certain times, the child seemed fractious or defiant, he simply took it as a sign that his son was a natural leader, born to command, unwilling to be ordered about, and his pride in the boy continued to grow, along with a kind of tenderness that he could not express, not even to himself.

The Honeycomb Child had no name, being simply addressed by servants as “His Young Majesty” and by the Lacewing King as “Son.” He had no friends; no access to boys and girls his own age. He had no idea of how others lived, no contact with the world outside. It was a sad life, had he but known it; but the young prince did not know, any more than did the King. He spent his days in the underground court, playing with his many toys. He rode his pony through the silk-lined tunnels that ran for miles through World Below. He sat in the library and read from the Lacewing King’s collection of books. He fed on honey-roasted grubs and mantis tongues and caterpillar marshmallow. He grew strong and handsome—handsome enough to break hearts, if he had cared to—but the boy cared for no one but himself. How could he? No one had ever taught him otherwise.

Within a year, the Honeycomb Child had grown to the size of a twelve-year-old. He was tall and athletic, skilled in all kinds of games and sports. He rarely smiled and never laughed, but in this he was just like his father, who found himself doting on the boy more and more as time went on.

Was it love? Perhaps it was. But love cannot be bought with toys, or gifts, or ponies. The more the Lacewing King rejoiced in the boy’s presence, the less the boy seemed to want to be with him. He became sullen and withdrawn, shouting at his servants and refusing to leave his chambers. He flew into terrible rages over the chef’s inability to find wild strawberries out of season; smashed the antique mirror that hung over his bed because he disliked his new haircut; threw tantrums because his food was too hot; his wine too cold; his spider-silk shirt the wrong shade of grey.

The Lacewing King saw nothing unreasonable in this. He himself was particular about what he ate, and drank, and wore. He himself had a temper. But he did regret the fact that his son did not seem to care for his company. He went out of his way to try and find games that they might play together; hired troops of entertainers; searched out books from his library that might appeal to a young boy. But the more the King tried to engage him, the less the boy seemed to like him. In fact, he seemed to take pleasure in rejecting the King’s advances.

The Lacewing