A Girl Who Kicked A Hornet's Nest

One weekend our parents took my brother and I to our school playground to play. Our bikes were loaded into the station wagon so we could ride around if we wanted to.  We slid, we swung, we played on the monkey bars, and ate honeysuckle from the bushes.  Then we got on our bikes and rode around the grayish, late summer grass that hadn’t seen enough rain.  Then I saw something in front of me on the ground that looked exactly like a rotten cabbage. What was a cabbage doing at the school playground? I pointed it out to my brother and I rode our bikes straight over it. 

“Get out of there! Go, Go!” My dad’s voice rang out. “Drop your bikes, move, move!”  What? Why? “That’s a hornet’s nest.” Hornet’s nest? I didn’t remember ever hearing of hornets before, but somehow it came crashing down that they were insects, like bees, and they stung.  My brother, who’d dropped his bike first and ran to the curb was now hollering. He’d been stung all over. I seemed to have gotten out unscathed, but as I looked back over my shoulder, our abandoned bikes laying on top of “cabbage,” I saw them swarming. And then I felt them, the stings. I too had been stung numerous times. It didn’t hurt as much as you’d think, really, a lot less than bee stings in my mind.  Instead of getting our bikes right away, we piled into the station wagon and drove home to make sure we were okay. We didn’t worry about the bikes, we couldn’t. Someone would come back to them later. We only lived minutes away from the school, so before long mom was administering soothing cream for the stings. Then my dad announced that he was going back for the bikes. Darkness washed over us. Dad was allergic to bee stings. Did this mean he was allergic to hornets too? He was.  But he assured us he was going to bring his EpiPen, which was a shot he’d give himself if he got stung. I shuddered. How could anyone administer a shot to himself? That sounded horrifying. He’d shown us the box with the medicine and the shot once before. I couldn’t believe it. My dad was so brave!  Worry consumed me as we sat in front of the T.V. nursing our stings, waiting for Dad to come home with the bikes. I actually worried that maybe he wouldn’t make it home. What if he was stung over and over and even the shot didn’t help. I kept my mouth shut and didn’t voice this concern to my brother. I’d put him through enough already, just because I wanted to investigate a “rotten cabbage.”  When finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only twenty minutes or so, my dad returned, I ran to hug him. I’d never been so happy to see him!  He hadn’t gotten stung, most of the hornets were gone, or dead, seeing as we’d destroyed their nest. So he hadn’t gotten stung and he hadn’t needed to use the shot. What a relief!   This was certainly one of the silliest things I’ve ever done. Curiosity killed the cat, I know...but then cats do seem to have nine lives.