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The next day we got out theto do experiet people interested in animals that have no discernible heads, tails, fins, or the like-and plants, forget it There’s no draobbling up of innocent prey in the plant world They don’t even eat, except in the e I knew a botany professor who alent around saying, "It takes a superior mind to appreciate a plant" Hallie and I were a case in point, I guess We divided the world in half, right froratification, catching bright, quick butterflies, chlorofors with their Latin names Hallie’s tastes were quieter; she had tirow She transplanted wildflowers and showed an aptitude for gardening At age ten she took over the responsibility of the Burpee’s catalogue

But noas on my own in the Garden of Eden I was expected to teach the entire living world to these kids I would write Hallie and ask her advice on how to turn adolescents on to organisms that have no appreciable sex life In theprotozoans, which I could handle I drew huge, fantastic pictures in colored chalk of e could expect to see in this river water: strands of Nostoc like strings of blue pearls;into each other like hyperactive kids I delass slide, coverslip it, and focus the scope The lab grew quiet with concentration

They couldn’t see anything At first I was irritated but bit ue and focused a scopeht, there was nothing It gave nification Our water was dead It ht as well have conedspies They were to find out fro on with this river The pH, which we tested, froher than battery acid I couldn’t believe the poisoning fro system in the life of a river, like a canary in a mine And this canary was dead We took a closer look at Rays in the terrariuood health But then, they’d been awfully easy to catch

"It can’t be legal," I lamented to Viola as we sat on the front porch with three of the boys and four grocery bags of snap beans E as fast as we could snap When it ca, Emelina seeal," Viola said grumpily "What difference does it make?"

We worked in silence for a while The alu like a bell e threw our hard green beans against its sides Mason hadn’t ed to lider The twins elbowed each other like irritable birds on a wire Viola had been overseeing the boys in the garden , and for once see lavender stretch pants, an enia of the Steelworkers’ Union JT’s father had worked in the shteen until he died of lung cancer The cap sat forward on Viola’s head because her long hair was pinned in a thick circle at the back According to E touch with their past, but looking at her now I couldn’t get a fix on what that past ht of the Elvis whiskey bottle collection up in her room I didn’t really know Viola the way I knew E around the edges of rooo somewhere, too busy to sit down and talk

"They’ll have to pay a fine if they don’t stop polluting the river," I said cheerfully "The EPA will shut the, I’d gone down to the courthouse and filed an affidavit with local authorities on the pH and biotic death of the river I used the e I could en load" I’d written Hallie about it

Viola said without looking up, "They’re just going to divert the river"

"What?"

She bent over with a soft groan and took another double handful of beans out of the grocery bag between her legs, and set the each other for thea race It took them forever to snap any beans because they had to stop every two minutes to count who had done the most