Page 41 of The Beekeeper

“I don’t know, Pais. If your dad knew I was going to let you have this cake…” I egged her on one last time.

“Please, Harper,” she begged, shaking my leg. “It’s okay. He always gives me a snack during a thunderstorm.”

“All right,” I agreed, feeling triumphant as I dipped my head close to hers. “Let’s bake you a thunder cake.”

Now, I just prayed that the power didn’t go out before we got this baby in the oven.

Not even a minute later, Pais pulled her chair up to the other side of the counter as I got out all the ingredients and tools we’d need. The recipe was simple as long as you had Nutella and the “thunder” in the pantry.

“All right, Pais. I’m going to need your help if we’re going to get this baking before the thunder stops and before your dad gets back,” I said, dumping the sugar and cracking the eggs into the mixing bowl.

“What do I do?” She rose up on her knees, eager to jump in.

Pushing the bowl in front of her, I handed her a whisk like she was a knight and I was bestowing on her her sword. “I need you to stir the eggs and sugar together until it gets really big—and I mean really big.” I exaggerated with my arms, figuring that approximated the recipe’s instruction to whisk until the wet ingredients tripled in size.

Her head bobbed and her little arm started going crazy, mixing the ingredients back and forth and then round and round. While she did that, I quickly gathered the dry ingredients in a separate bowl.

A loud crash of thunder shook the house, and Paisley stopped whisking for a minute, the intensity of the sound pulling her out of the distraction.

“That’s it.” I clapped my hands together, and when she looked at me, her lip trembling, I told her. “That’s what the batter needs to work. Quick, keep mixing in the thunder otherwise the cake won’t work.”

And just like that, she was off again, her hand like a little Tasmanian devil zipping around.

I started the oven and prepped the baking dish, fully expecting I’d have to work the wet batter to get it perfect, but when I next checked on her, I couldn’t believe how well she’d done.

“That’s great, Pais,” I praised, and then quickly added, “Man, this is really full of thunder. It’s going to be so good.” She smiled—a glimpse of sunshine in the storm. “Okay, I think that’s good. Let me mix in the flour now.”

She gave the bowl back to me, putting her hands on the counter so she could lean over it and watch me closely.

“Okay, so now we carefully fold in the flour and cocoa. We don’t want to lose any of the thunder you mixed in,” I murmured, gently tucking the dry ingredients into the wet.

“Harper.” Paisley gasped so suddenly she made me jump. Her eyes were bulged wide and a different kind of worry bubbled in her stare. “Are the bees okay?”

“Yeah, they’re okay. They’re safe in their hives.”

Her little mouth pinched. “What if they weren’t in their hives?”

I couldn’t help but smile the way she worried about them. “So, if they weren’t in their hive, what they would do is first find some kind of shelter. Usually a branch or trunk of a tree so the leaves could protect them from the rain.”

“But aren’t they cold and scared?” She sat back on the chair.

“Oh no,” I said, shaking my head and setting down the spatula. “Let me show you what they do. Come over here.” I hardly motioned to her before her feet hit the ground and she was at my side.

“First, they squeeze together reallyyy close, almost into a ball.” I knelt so I was at her level and wrapped my arms around her. “Just like this. Like a bee hug.”

She giggled and put her arms around me in return.

“And then, they start to shiver together really really fast.” I did the best I could to mimic the intense vibration, caring less about how accurately I portrayed their thermoregulation and more about how much Pais was laughing as I shiver-shook her. “They take turns being in the center of the bee hug so everyone stays warm.”

Paisley’s head rolled back with laughter, and then another peal of thunder shook the house. But it was just in time; I’d figured out how to distract her so I could add the secret ingredient into the batter.

“That’s it!” I exclaimed before she could dwell on the sound. “Quick, we have to collect some rainwater for the icing.”

I opened a cupboard and took out a measuring cup, holding it close to me for a second.

“I can do it if you want me to,” I told her. “But it’s your thunder cake. You mixed the booms into the batter. I don’t know if it will be as good if I catch the rain.”

“No, I’ll do it.”