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

badger who was left there to guard them. An army of insects could surely find a means of luring out the old badger, then attacking the young ones. And if their young were under threat, the adults would surely then leave the woods and move to somewhere safer.

This at least was the theory. The Insects’ Alliance set to work.

First, a delegation of bees was to tempt the old badger away from the sett, using the promise of honeycomb. While he was away, a team of Devil’s Coach-Horse Beetles would burrow into the sett itself. A specially chosen squadron of Moths would hover over the attack site, ready to give the signal. The newly exposed burrow would be guarded by a team made up of Cockroaches, Wasps, and Hornets. A cricket with an exceptional voice was chosen to deliver the warning: “GO AWAY, OR WE WILL STRIKE!”

It was a very intricate plan. The Honeycomb Queen would have been proud. But the Honeycomb Queen was far away, and the Barefoot Princess was combing the Worlds for a sign of the Lacewing King, and the Glow-Worm Chancellor was old, and cautious in matters of discipline, and over time, the bees had become quarrelsome and disorganized.

The drones complained that the honeycomb they planned to use to lure the badger represented months of hard work. “Why don’t you use royal jelly, instead?” they said to the queenlets. “Queenlets never appreciate everything we do for the hive.”

The queenlets responded by saying that drones were supposed to do the work. “That’s the way it has always been,” they said.

“So drones don’t matter?” said the drones, and in a fit of pique, refused to go ahead with the plan. The queenlets went to the wasps instead, and explained that a complication had arisen.

But the Wasps, too, were experiencing difficulties. Hornets had recently broken into one of their hibernating nests and eaten many wasp larvae. “We refuse an alliance with the hornets,” said the Wasp Queen to the honeybees.

Meanwhile, the Cricket had refused to co-operate with the Centipedes—as a gesture of solidarity with the Water-skaters, whose larvae they ate. And the Moths, being creatures of the night, had a historic problem with daytime creatures, like wasps and bees.

The argument between them all became increasingly passionate. So passionate, in fact, that the leader of the badgers heard the commotion and came shambling along to find out what the problem was. The leader of the badgers sat down and listened to the debate for a while.

And then, because he was hungry, he helped himself to some of the delicacies the Alliance had so thoughtfully provided for him.

Between alternate mouthfuls of bee, moth, and wasp, he listened with growing interest to the tale they had to tell—a tale of conflicting values, racial and historic feuds, philosophical differences and elevated principles.

“Funny, that,” said the badger, as at last he finished his meal. “They all taste just like insects to me.”

83

T

HREE

B

UCKETS

A village was ruled by three elders. All three were heads of their family. All three were respected and venerable. All three had their own customs and ways, all three had their own followers. Each felt himself to be the real leader, and the other two, subordinate. And yet the three elders lived in peace, in the same little village.

Now in the village, there was a well, which served all three of the families. The water from the well was clear and sweet and was drawn every day from a plain wooden bucket. One day, the first elder was waiting to drink, when he saw the second elder there, drinking from the bucket.

“Why should I wait in line?” he said. “In future, I shall have my own bucket. It shall be made of silver, as befits my superior rank, and only my people will use it.”

And so the first elder had a magnificent silver bucket made, and whenever he needed water, would send one of his people to draw from the well in the silver bucket. “How sweet and clear this water tastes,” announced the second elder, “now that I am rid of the inferior wooden vessel.”

The third elder, hearing of this, decided that he, too, would have a bucket of his own. “But mine will be made of gold,” he announced. “As befits my seniority.”

And so the third elder commissioned a magnificent golden vessel, to be used only by his people. It was very splendid indeed, and the other two elders watched him with barely concealed envy.

“In this golden vessel of mine, water tastes like sparkling champagne,” said the third elder. “How anyone could bear to use anything less, I do not know.”

For some time, the elders went on, watching each other with varying degrees of envy, complacency, and contempt. The elder still using the original bucket remained steadfast, saying:

“I keep to the old traditions. That makes me the superior man.”

The elder with the silver bucket replied by saying, “I have refined the well water. In my superior vessel, it tastes infinitely purer.”

The elder with the golden bucket smiled and said, “But nothing beats the purity of water drawn from a golden cup.”

Time passed. Resentment grew between the three elders and their families. They moved to the furthest corners of the village and took every precaution never to meet. But their servants still met by the well, as they came every morning to fetch the water, and their hostility increased.

Time passed. Such a long time, in fact, that the elders barely remembered why they felt such resentment against each other. The families lived far apart and told dreadful stories about each other: how the people of the wooden bucket lived like pigs in squalor and filth; how those of the golden bucket lived in decadence and debauchery. In fact, they lived very similar lives, in very similar houses, and all of them drank the same water from the same well in the village.

Then, one summer, the well began to show signs of running dry. The