Being Bee by Catherine Bateson Page B

design feature. Sally and Lucy liked it so much they had asked me to make them one each.
    They liked the way she did my hair too, and they thought my new runners with the glittery laces werepretty cool. Jazzi was good at organising things and sometimes they came over after school to play.
    But there were bad things too. She made me go to bed strictly at bedtime. She made me do my homework every afternoon, and if I didn’t have any I had to read aloud to her for at least twenty minutes. I had to make my bed every morning and clean my room up once a week. She even made me vacuum under the bed. She was utterly ruthless when it came to food. I had to eat fish, chops, peas and beans, sweet potato and brown rice. It wasn’t any use telling her I couldn’t cut chops up. She just sat there and told me to keep trying.
    I think it was the skirt she made for me which started the problem. Even that was a good-Jazzi thing. She let me choose the material and then she showed me how to cut it out on a big cardboard cutting board she unfolded on the lounge-room floor.
    The problem was that when Dad got home he stepped on one of the pins that must have fallen out of the pin box when I accidentally kicked it over. It went in quite deeply and he said some things he shouldn’t have. When we’d all calmed down, he suggested that Jazzi use the spare room for her sewing room.
    â€˜Clear out anything in it,’ he said. ‘It’s only old stuff that no one wants anymore. I think that will be the best thing. We can move that little table in, the one that’s cluttering up the kitchen, and you’ll have somewhereto do this kind of stuff without having to worry about clearing it up until you’ve actually finished. I think this will bruise. It went in quite deeply.’
    â€˜Nick, I’m so sorry. I thought we’d got all the pins up.’
    â€˜Never mind, these things happen.’ Dad limped across the floor. ‘It won’t require amputation!’
    I had an uneasy feeling about the spare room and halfway through PE it came to me. My box was in the bottom of the built-in wardrobe. But Jazzi wouldn’t throw it out, would she? She’d know it was mine, with my things in it, and she’d put it in my room. Jazzi would have to do that; she kept all sorts of old things herself.
    I didn’t get a chance to ask Jazzi about the box because it was a Harley day, only more special because Harley wanted to visit his and Jazzi’s mother, so we drove to Springvale Cemetery. Harley had brought a mug to put at the grave. He said it would last longer than Jazzi’s flowers and it was just as pretty. Jazzi said it would get stolen. Harley said people didn’t rob graves. Jazzi said they did.
    â€˜I’m afraid they do, Harley,’ I said. ‘They did in Egypt, remember? They robbed the pyramids. I saw the movie.’
    â€˜They died,’ Harley said. ‘They died from a curse. That’s it, then. I’ll curse Mum’s mug and no one will steal it.’
    â€˜That’s ridiculous, Harley, you can’t curse it. Don’t be silly.’
    â€˜Of course I can curse it. Watch me.’ He screwed up his face and put his hands in his hair, the way Jazzi did when she read the morning paper. We waited.
    â€˜Your mother is buried here too, isn’t she, Bee? Do you want to...?’
    â€˜Maybe next time. I don’t think she’s buried, actually, I think she was cremated and then Dad took some of the ashes down to Apollo Bay, where they’d spent their honeymoon.’
    â€˜There’s probably a plaque here though,’ Jazzi said, looking around her. ‘We could put some flowers there if you like next time.’
    â€˜Ssh,’ Harley said, ‘I’m trying to get the last word!’
    I thought about my mother, how maybe she’d feel odd that Harley and Jazzi’s mother was getting a mug with roses on it and a bunch of yellow