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"I do Devary University, in New Mexico I did ave Preston a knowing look--"is a very cold place"
"You came all the way here from New Mexico?" Cub asked "Sheez! That’s what, two thousanda drive is that?"
"I ca ride in a small seat, I can tell you that, my friend"
"I’ve not been on an airplane, nor my wife either one," Cub said, with unbridled awe Cub hie; his small place in the world had appeared on theevent of national proportions Dellarobia felt as if she’d received a blow to the head
"You came here because you’re one of the people who study these ht I spent the day doing a quick census up there"
Quick, she thought, as in nine hours Had he counted them all? "So, you do what, experiments, or observations? And write up what you find out?"
He nodded "A dissertation, articles, a couple of books All on the monarch"
"A couple of books," she said to thishis look when she’d infors than feedingwiki-facts to the person who probably discovered them in the first place She was in the sa like a toddler with food on her face Minus the good excuse of actually being one
Preston, on the other hand, appeared keen to crawl into the man’s lap, and Cub wasn’t far behind hi touches on her co her hair into play Ovid Byron did not see himself to seconds on the casserole
"So," Dellarobia asked, "what kinds of things would you study, on aa s that probably sound very dull Taxonoratory behavior, the effect of parasitic tachinid flies, the energetics of flight Population dyna and alar question anyone in the field has yet considered, I think Why a major portion of the monarch population that has overwintered in Mexico since God set it loose there, as you say, would instead aggregate in the southern Appalachians, for the first time in recorded history, on the farm of the family Turnbow"
They all stared, to hear their family naht the re froe of a birthday party she had overlooked in today’s cleaning binge and many others Small, limp, and shriveled, it looked like an insulted testicle, and although she obviously didn’t have those, she could guess It pretty ent to her state of , but merciful heavens the hurt
"Mr Byron," she said, "why did you let ht to have been telling us about thereivefroave up hoping for a white Christmas and asked his mother if Santa kne to drive a boat That’s the kind of Deceushes, not nor at the s as if froh the screens, visibility zero, and gusts of air seee around in clouds of spray Groundwater was rising everywhere The front yard becarassy pool Dellarobia couldn’t let the kids play out there unless they wanted to pull on their rubber boots and splat around on it She would have considered putting them in their swimsuits, if it were just a hair warmer, so they could run around as they did in summertime under the sprinkler
But this inter, the dead of it Johnny Midgeon on theof a Wet Christ new verses daily, of which Dellarobia had had enough The rain made her want to bawl For days without cease it had lashed thecasings and seeped under the kitchen door, puddling on the linoleu and blocked it with rolled-up towels The times seemed biblical Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck: that line in particular she remembered, from the Psal Dovey would say
Just now Dellarobia was jonesing to step out on the back porch for a very quick smoke, but was thwarted by the pink roll of towel that lay at the botto would be cold to the touch, like soarette pack in her sweatshirt pocket, feeling trapped Cordie sat on the floor, playing with her toy telephone Dellarobia was trying hard to raise her kids unfuated by secondhand s a boat, her faently, shoving the pink snake with it, noticing nose prints that covered the storht of two feet They weren’t put there by the dogs, either She left both the inner and outer doors propped open so she could listen for Cordie and slid out to the back porch to light up, inhaling and slowly exhaling a long, silent exclamation mark at what she beheld The pond was coully down the center of the pasture had swollen into a persistent, gushing creek After last night’s strong winds, a fresh raft of sticks and small trees had washed down into the pasture and were stren the full length of the hill, pinned on their sides like little dams so the runnel broadened and poured over each one in turn No creek had ever run here, in any year Cub could remember, and now a series of waterfalls climbed the hill like a staircase Her eye was not used to somotion back there It made her fretful Piles of dark detritus lay in leafy clues where the flow had receded, and these, she kneere not leaves but corpses The latest round of insect invasion that had swamped her life Before this year she had hardly looked a butterfly in the face, and now they were star players in her own doer just dons of life