Joey hated hospitals more than canned tuna, but more than anything he hated cancer. When he was finally allowed in to see Grandpa Rusty, he expected someone half-dead from the way his parents spoke in hushed voices drinking the hospital’s lukewarm coffee.

He met Grandpa’s bright eyes under bushy brows and smiled. “You’re gettin’ everyone riled up out there, Pa.”

“Ha! Let ‘em whisper and talk,” Pa said. “I’ve got a job for you back at the orchard.”

Pa’s voice was low and his lips were cracked.

“You’re still givin’ me chores?” Joey asked. “Shouldn’t you be worried about the tests and all these things?” Joey motioned to the IVs and bags dripping clear liquids of unknown concoctions into his grandpa’s veins. Pa looked like an alien experiment.

“Nah, there’s bigger problems- world problems- that need tending,” Pa said.

“World problems?” Joey asked, puzzled.

“I need you to get my notebook and keep up my records while they hold me hostage here.”

The door opened revealing Joey’s mother, pursed lipped in a floral print.

Joey get yourself home,” she said. “This isn’t any place for kids.”

Nodding, Joey glanced back at Pa who gave him a thumbs-up before the door closed.

The next morning Joey jumped on his ten-speed bike and raced to Grandpa Rusty’s farm, his fat tires keeping grip on the dirt road. He knew the notebook Pa had mentioned. Joey had never saw him without it, always checking and tallying things. He found the spare key inside the dinner bell hanging off the front porch and let himself in. He checked the kitchen counter first but found only empty pill bottles. Next, he checked the desk. It was covered in homemade seed packets, Pa’s scrawling writing impossible to read, but no notebook.

“Come on,” Joey said to the tomb-quiet house. He raced up the creaky wooden stairs pausing only a moment before turning the handle to Grandpa Rusty’s bedroom. Pa’s room smelled like aftershave and looked just as messy as his own room except for overalls on the floor instead of jeans. Then he saw it, in a puddle of sunshine, on the bedside table. He picked it up. The leather was warm and faded – the color of dry dirt. With the journal tucked under his arm, Joey retraced his steps downstairs and out to the front porch. Sitting on the swing he opened the journal, searching for the world problem Pa wanted him to help with.

A Catalog & Count of Bee Activity by Rusty Skinner

Joey flipped through the pages. Each section started with a clipped photo of a bee and a description followed by several pages of tallies from every May for the past twenty-six years. He found the last set of tallies about halfway through the book.

“He wants me to count bees,” Joey said in disbelief.

Wandering down the two-track past the old silo Joey looked over the blooming apple orchard rolling down the hillside. Joey started looking for bees while he walked deeper into the sun-drenched trees, searching for matches between each frail page.

The bees were fast, and Joey found himself spinning in circles trying to keep track. Finally, plopped down on the ground surrounded by white clover, Joey found the bees coming to the blooms around him, and he watched them work mesmerized. Moving from bloom to bloom the little insects kept moving, like Grandpa Rusty always had. Joey’s throat caught tight and he blamed the dusty air

Joey counted bees all morning before returning home to make himself some lunch. His mom had left a hasty note, “I’m at the hospital, then headed to work. I left you food in the fridge.” Joey opened the refrigerator door and the smell of tuna wafted out, he slammed the door looking for the peanut butter instead. Eating his sandwich, Joey felt like he should be with Grandpa instead of wasting his time counting bees. He downed a Pepsi, grabbed his bus pass, and headed to the hospital.

Joey approached Pa’s bedside, sitting in the empty chair waiting for some acknowledgment of his presence from Pa.

“How goes the count?” Pa asked unable to open his eyes from all the drugs and chemo he’d been given.

“It’s difficult. They all look alike.” Joey said adding, “What’s the point?”

“It’s like an invasion out there, people taking over the land, diseases, invasive species, and pesticides. They are all drumming toward the bee’s downfall. If we ignore it, well it can kill ya.”

Joey looked down the length of the bed, seeing how each breath barely made an effect on Grandpa’s chest.

“Bees don’t kill, cancer does,” Joey mumbled.

“I’ve known somethin’ was wrong for a while but I didn’t do anything ‘bout it. But the bees still have a chance,” Pa said. “Without them crops don’t grow. Famine and hunger. I don’t want that for you later. So count the bees, send in the data, push, petition, use that internets you like to make people listen.”

“I’m just a kid,” Joey protested.

“No, you’re Rusty Skinner’s grandson, you’ve got the gumption, so go get it done.”

Joey nodded. In his hands, the notebook felt slippery from sweat.

“What about you?” Joey asked. “Me, I’m the first of the bees to go.”

He cleared his throat.

“Don’t let it happen to the rest of ‘em,” he continued.

A doctor came through the doorway with a quick knock.

“It’s time for another round,” the doctor said.

Joey headed back to the orchard. He had to find as many bees as he could, for Pa.

He spent the next three days tallying up bees as he saw them. Some were burrowed deep into apple blossoms, others flitting between clover blooms, and occasionally they seemed to hover before him as if he was disrupting their daily commute.

Flipping to the last page, Joey saw a clipping of the fattest bumblebee he’d ever seen. It didn’t even seem possible that the wings would be able to lift such a fuzzy body. Under the photo was the name “Rusty Patched Bumblebee.” He searched the flowering apple trees for two straight days. His neck was sun burnt, and he was desperate to find just one.

As the sky changed to lilac in the east, Joey sat on the stump of a maple tree staring at the notebook, wishing he’d been able to do better. Looking up, he saw the headlights of a car coming down the dirt road. It stopped in front of him, and his mom got out. Her cheeks were flushed and her makeup was smeared. She didn’t have to say anything. He wrote a zero under the Rusty Patched Bumblebee, closed the notebook, and slipped into the backseat of the car.

Joey stood stiff legged in the breeze that whirled through the cemetery. He couldn’t focus on the words being said, he just stared at the flowers covering the box that held whatever was left of Grandpa Rusty. His hand was clenched around the notebook in his pocket like the last lifeline he had to Pa, and he’d failed to find all the bees on the list.

Trying not to cry, his gaze caught a slight movement burrowing into a white lily on top of the casket. It emerged and Joey could see the rusty colored spot on the back of the fattest bee he’d ever seen. As it flew away, he opened the notebook to the last page, crossed off the zero, put a tally of one and smiled.

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