The Bee Sting

Twelve-year-old PJ spends his days playing war video games with his friend Nev and texting with Ethan, an online friend he met through gaming.

Playing with Nev gets PJ out of the house, where the fights between his parents have gotten worse. Imelda insists that Dickie reach out to his wealthy father for financial support, but Dickie doesn’t want to. The fights frighten PJ because his father has become “a totally different person. Even when he’s acting like his usual self, it seems just like that, acting” (99). Cass has also been more dismissive of PJ, so he can’t even turn to his sister for help. PJ misses the days when his father was fun and his sister was nice to him. PJ is also trying to keep his own problems hidden from his already-stressed family. For example, he’s grown out of his sneakers—to the point of bloody blisters—but doesn’t want to ask his mom for a new pair.

Victor is an odd man about town who renovates houses and does landscaping. He’s a survivalist and believes that everyone needs to prepare now for the deterioration of the planet and the ensuing wars that deterioration will provoke.

One day, Nev gets bored of PJ. PJ, desperate not to be alone, shows him a secret. Deep in the woods, past the Bunker, there are unfinished houses that have been abandoned. However, one of the unfinished houses is occupied by an attractive woman who inexplicably drives Imelda’s old car. There are no curtains on the house, so PJ and Nev sneakily look through the window. They see the woman having sex with a man.

In town, PJ is assaulted by a big bully nicknamed Ears. Ears accuses PJ’s father of stealing 163 euros from Ears’s mother, a customer of Dickie’s garage. PJ is sure there’s some sort of misunderstanding, but Ears punches him anyway and tells him he owes him the money—or else. PJ knows he should tell his father, but there have been so many changes in the family dynamics that PJ is no longer certain whom to trust or what to ask.

PJ searches through his old things, looking for a prayer medal that Rose had gifted to him many years before. Rose, an elderly woman who is very close to Imelda, is known for having mysterious powers; a prayer gift from Rose might just help PJ in his desperate situation. PJ can’t find the medal. PJ’s online friend Ethan suggests that PJ run away from home, if only just to scare his parents into remembering that they love him and need to protect him.

Dickie brings PJ into town. Just as PJ is about to muster up his courage to tell his dad about Ears, a police officer pulls them over, looking for a man named Ryszard who used to work at Dickie’s garage. Dickie looks frightened and stressed, but he says he hasn’t seen Ryszard in a while.

Ethan offers his family’s home in Dublin as the place PJ can run away to and helps PJ figure out the bus schedule to Dublin. PJ is about to go through with the plan when Imelda tells him that Dickie’s father Maurice is coming to town to be honored at a ceremony. After not going through with running away, PJ receives several threatening text messages from Ethan.

Imelda and PJ hope that this will be the answer to their problems, as Dickie’s father is wealthy. Imelda prepares the house for PJ’s grandfather’s arrival, eager to present a united front. When Maurice decides to stay at a hotel instead, Imelda worries that he knows they will ask him for money. In town, Ears assaults PJ again, demanding he pay back the 163 euros that day.

PJ’s grandfather Maurice arrives with gifts. PJ tells him about needing new sneakers and Maurice gives him 50 euros, the exact amount PJ needs to pay back Ears. Ethan texts to explain that someone had hacked into his phone and that the threatening messages were not from him. PJ goes out to the Bunker, where’s been hiding his money for Ears. He’s devastated to discover that the Bunker has been cemented closed. Knowing that he can no longer pay off Ears, PJ texts Ethan that the plan to run away to Dublin is back on.