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I hold , but the child obviously knohere to go In spite of the blackness, alk at a steady pace The child counts under its breath, and when it gets to a certain nuht, always different Every once in a while starlight, slatted by the bars of a storm drain, filters down to where we creep And every tiri time, silent, until the child asks, "Why are you so clean?" The whisper, out of place in the dark tunnels, startles me

"What?" I say

"You’re clean Your clothes, your skin And you smell like …" It sniffs "Plants and iodine Are you froht side of the wall?"

"What wall?" I whisper

"Shut up!" The hand is over lon fro becolow and walk for a few ain

"Are you from inside the wall?"

"What wall?" I ask a second time, my voice a whisper Even if I wanted to speak louder, I don’t know if I could "I’ and the child releases my arm

"Look here, girl," the child growls "I just saved your life You’re the one who should be giving onna leave you here In the dark Right now To shrivel up and die like everything else" The child’s voice is high Fe the dip ofthere I lower my empty hand "How can I pay you back?" I ask "I don’t have any money or jewelry"

"Money? Jewelry? I can’t eat those, or trade them Do you have any food or honey?"

Honey I remember honey Gold Sweet Melted with butter on wheat toast at breakfast Drizzled in tea Made by bees Bees are on the endangered species list And now I can hearbeside ered, we have to plant these special flowers to help feed the a shallow hole in the dirt and dropped a seed inside for Jonah and me to see "Bees love lavender--the color, the suys plant some"

She put three small pale-purple seeds intoa shallow hole in the dao extinct?" Jonah asked, burying his first seed

"First of all, there would be no more honey It would become the world’s old," Lis said "But that’s just the beginning Bees pollinate a huge percentage of the world’s crops If bees die out, things like apples and peaches and vegetbles will die Lots of plants will die without the bees’ pollinating thes that eat plants will start to die, like cows and chickens, which etables to eat, and no meat, our world will experience ato death ide"

I looked at the tiny seeds inso s extinct

"Don’t look so scared," Lis said, patting the top of overn on a solution"

"Hello! Can you pay me back nohat?"

I shake the ive to you"

"Whatever You can pay ive you all the water you can drink," it says

"No I need water now"

The child sighs and mutters under its breath The sound of water swishes, and ht with desire A narrow container is pushed againstit down, but beforesand in ue

The empty bottle is yanked from my hand "I just saved your life twice now, idiot You oweit a little too hard, guide ainst the floor, and h, content "I’ll repay you double," I say, willing to do anything forto do when you haven’t been told the price