Adaptation for bee workshop
Adapted from Goosebump’s Story- Why I’m Afraid of Bees by R.L.Stine
First Person Narration
-Start the story by asking the children: Why do you think I know so much about bees?
-Introduce yourself as your own name, with surname Lutz eg Ruth Lutz – your nickname as a kid was Lutz the Clutz, as you were so clumsy.
-Explain that when you were the childrens age, (usually 7-10) that everything was going wrong in your life.
-Home:younger sister, who is sporty, has friends, cleverer etc
Parents laugh at you for being so clumsy
Even your sister’s cat Claus attacks you.
-School life:No friends
Bullied by three bigger girls- Shaz, Maz and Taz who beat you up every day on way home from school.
Teachers’ ridicule you because you are always getting your words wrong.
No good at sport. Always picked last for teams.
-To get away from it all you go to the bottom of the garden and sit under the big
tree with a book. Even there you have no peace as your next door neighbour Mr
Andretti keeps bees and he is always accusing you of spying into his garden. He
also tricks you by saying all the bees have escaped and are starting to swarm.You
run into the house in terror. When you look out of the window you see him
laughing at you. You are terrified of bees. You are terrified of everything.
-You can’t do anything well. Dad gets you a new bike and you fall off it
damage it while trying to impress the other kids on your street. No good on roller blades/skate board etc
-.The only thing you are quite good at and enjoy as you can do it by yourself is computer games. But one time you were stuck on a game and got some advice that how to get to the next level is shoot the dragon between the eyes. You died 32 times trying.This was the last straw. Life’s a total mess and want to change it.
-On way home from school pass a travel agent. Looking in windows at holidays, thinking how much you want to get away from it all. See small advert in corner of window: Person to Person holidays
Take a holiday from yourself.
Change places with someone else for a week.
-decide to go in and enquire. The travel agent introduces herself as Miss Karmen. Shows you photo albums of other children who want to swap bodies for a week. You choose a girl called Danielle Davis, she is athletic girl with beaming smile. Looks confident and popular. You don’t understand why she wants to swap. She has a maths test next week and is no good at maths. You are very good at maths. Miss Karmen rings her and she agrees to the swap. You are worried about not being able to swap back. Miss K says 100% success rate. She wires you up to electronic devices, presses the switches etc and explains that it will take effect in one hour. You go home and sit in the kitchen and wait. But when there is one minute to go a bee from Mr Andretti’s garden flies in the window and lands on
your nose. You try to flap it away but at that moment you collapsed and everything went dark
- Woke up feeling light headed and funny. Tried to sit up, but couldn’t. Felt different.
- discover you have gone into a bees body instead of Danielles.
-Discover body parts while trying to get up: furry body, big unfocused eyes, six legs, wings, stinger, antennae, proboscis .
-1st flight. Wobbly, steering problems. Keep crashing into things.
-Get caught in cat claws and played with, nearly swallowed.
-Find window and fly into garden. Trying desperately to think of way out of situation when caught in Mr Andrettis net. Worst nightmare. Put in hive.
-Hive experiences. Challenged by worker guard bee at entrance. Confirmed and let in. Pushed about from job to job.
-See Queen bee laying eggs in cells. Workers feeding her. You try it.
-See workers throwing up nectar to turn into honey. You try it.
-See fanning to keep temperature down. You try it. Tiring
-See feeding bee grubs from milk gland in head. Yuk.
-See workers taking wax off tummy and making wax cells. Realise special brood cells for Queen bee eggs.
-Know you have to escape. See some bees dancing. Think they are having a party. Go to join. Suddenly they all form a line and fly out of the hive.
- Follow them to a flower. Realise you are starving and have no energy. Use long tongue to suck up nectar and collect pollen to eat.
-Need to think of a plan. Fly back to house to try and speak to mum and dad. They can’t hear you. Land on sister’s ear and shout into it. She can’t hear you. She swats you and nearly kills you. Lying on the floor you see your body which has Danielle in it now getting on really well with your family and saying she will take your sister outside and teach her roller blading!
-Decide to fly up to your room. See that you left your computer on and decide to jump on the keys and write a message. ‘HELP ME. I AM NOT A BEE. I AM RUTH.’ Danielle comes in with your sister who is saying how she cant believe how good she is at roller blading and how she is now a really cool sister. Stupid Danielle turns the computer off without even looking at the message.
-Escape plan: fly to travel agents and speak to Miss Karmen. To get into office fly through the letterbox, when postman posting letters. See she has microphone on her desk, land on it so tiny voice is projected. Explain what happened. Miss Karmen totally shocked doesn’t know where voice coming from. When she realises she apologises, as this has never happened before. But there is a problem, as Danielle doesn’t want to change back as she is getting on really well with my family and that she can’t do anything without Danielle’s co-operation.
-Fly home and try to speak to Danielle. She hears what you have to say and then tries to swat you. You are so angry you sting her and then everything goes dark…you think that is the end, as you remember bees die if they sting.
-But you wake up on your bed back in your own body. You are so happy to be you again. You go and hug all your family who have no idea why you are so excited to see them and why you are saying you love them so much!!!! Then you had an overwhelming urge to run into the garden and stick your nose in a flower. You were 99% back!
Surrey Docks City Farm1