Rue had ears like two pink satellite dishes, and tonight they were aimed at the kitchen. Something was in the air. Something thick and golden and sweet — sweeter than the beekeeper's coat when he visited yesterday, sweeter than the flowers on the windowsill. Rue lifted her nose. *Sniff, sniff, sniff.* Honey. Definitely honey. She padded down the dark hallway on careful, deliberate paws. The floorboards were cold under her feet. One of them creaked, and Rue froze — ears flat, eyes wide — then relaxed. Just the house settling. She padded on.
The kitchen doorway glowed faintly in the moonlight. Rue stopped at the edge and looked. There on the counter sat the big glass jar from the high shelf — the beekeeper's jar — tilted on its side, lid half off. A slow golden river of honey was creeping, very slowly, toward the edge of the counter. And standing around the jar, sticky-pawed and round-bellied and completely silent, were four small kittens. Her younger siblings. They stared at Rue. Rue stared at them. Nobody moved.
*Sniff, sniff, sniff.* Rue stepped closer. She was a detective. Detectives examine the evidence. She studied the jar. She studied the counter. And there — near the jar's base — she spotted a tiny pawprint in the honey, far too small to belong to any of the kittens. Smaller than a thumbnail. Curious. She peered at the kittens. Their paws were sticky, yes. But their guilty faces were pointing *at* the jar, not away from it. They hadn't knocked it over. They'd arrived after. Rue's whiskers twitched.
She leaned forward and looked into the jar. There, walking very slow circles in the honey, was a single small bee. Drowsy. Confused. One of its feet was completely golden. It had flown in through the open window, found the jar, and become thoroughly stuck in its own honey. The jar had toppled when it landed. Rue sat back. Mystery solved. Now for the practical part. She hooked the dish towel from the oven handle with one careful claw. She gripped it in both front paws — which looked extremely serious and slightly ridiculous — and used it to tilt the jar gently onto its side, opening facing out. The kittens watched with enormous eyes.
The bee walked to the lip of the jar. It paused. It put one slow golden foot onto the counter tile, then another, then another, trailing a tiny dotted line of honey as it went. It reached the windowsill. It stopped, cleaned its antenna with great dignity, and flew out into the dark garden. Rue nudged the lid back onto the jar with her nose. It clicked shut. The honey river had reached the very edge of the counter — one more minute and it would have dripped. She had been just in time. A detective's work requires speed as well as patience. She turned to the kittens. They were still frozen. Still sticky. Still round-bellied and guilty-looking, even though they were, technically, innocent. Rue herded them, one by one, back to their basket in the corner — a small nudge here, a firm look there. They went. They curled into a heap of orange fluff, four small chests rising and falling, four sets of eyes slowly closing.
Rue returned to the kitchen doorway. She sat. She looked at the jar, straight again on the counter. She looked at the open window, and the dark garden beyond it, and the faint blue of the night sky. Her ears settled. Her whiskers went still. One slow blink. Case closed.
