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"Wohat superpowers do you have?" Dellarobia asked, but Wool Man was off, orbiting the skirting table and calling out answers on the fly, including being tricky and eating grass His shenanigans pulled the fleece apart in less than a et the fas Hester ordered Dellarobia to round up Preston and Cordie and the other two boys and take them in the house for the rest of the day
She felt bruised, and inclined to argue, but this was Hester’s show Immediately Crystal was demoted into Dellarobia’s foret the next fleece NoDellarobia went to find the kids and tell Cub they’d been banished to the house, in case he should wonder Her anger collapsed into a familiar bottomless sorrow It was just the one fleece, and not an especially valuable one A randmother would have let Preston have it for a day of play, since it clearlyfor children’s joy She could take the fun out of ice crea around Hester tended to invoke an anguish for Cub’s childhood that et him away froan
At half past five, she lay flat on her in-laws’ uncomfortable sofa with Cordie asleep on her chest The jelly toast Mical had demanded, but not eaten, sat flattened in its plate on the floor where Jazon had stepped on it, and then violently refused to let her take off his sneaker He’d used his fists As a personage of third-grade status Jazon was no joke, within striking distance of her own height and weight Probably one of those kindergarten holdbacks where teachers tried to postpone the inevitable She’d surrendered to spending so on her knees with a da that sticky, waffled left footprint over rugs and floors and sofa cushions, i Hester’s ire if she overlooked one When Jazon started running and leaping against the wall to see how high he could leave a jelly print, poor little dutiful Preston lost it and started crying, which set off Cordelia too Dellarobia finally started up a gahts for money--a desperate measure--in which kids were allowed to use shoes for ain control of the offending sneaker She hid it upstairs in a laundry hamper
Her mind was on temporary leave fro its le from the sofa cushions under her It must have slid out of her pocket and atte her, but missed the call before she could locate the phone Dovey She hit call
"Help," she ht Zone episode where a child has mental power over adults and turns one of theopher"
"I hate when that happens," Dovey said "So how does that work, are there three corresponding butt-holes?" Dovey and Dellarobia had started life under the surnarade school by alphabetical seating No one had come between them since "So where are you?" Dovey asked
"At Hester and Bear’s Hell, in other words, departe my mind here"
"Nope I’uys called in sick"
"Three? So you have to close, on a Saturday? That stinks" Dovey worked behind the meat counter at Cash Club, a ht stature she had to stand on a box to use the grinder But Dovey held her own Be sweet and carry a sharp knife, was her motto
"There’s a U-T gauys called in, basketball flu So yes, I’, and we’re swamped That’s why I couldn’t anshen you texted, like, sixteen tiain and eased Cordie back onto her chest, facedoithout disrupting the child’s devoted unconsciousness
"The probleels of yours," Dovey said "It’s you"
"Actually it’s Crystal Estep’s two boys She and Valia are over here for the shearing, and Hester is using the occasion to put me in my place"
"Oh, God She stuck you hat’s-their-names, Jazzbo and Microphone?"