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"Would you uy had long black sideburns, a style Dellarobia associated with 1970s h in other respects he looked pretty okay Skinny jeans, parka, horn-rilasses He carried a folder under one ar "How about you tell me who you are?" he replied

"Okay You’re on my porch I’m the person that lives here with my husband and kids Now you"

He took a step back, nearly pitching hie of the small porch Her hunch was correct; he’d taken her for aas under that raincoat, then opened his red folder and flipped h soht?"

She waited a beat "The na for was yours"

"Oh, sorry Vern Zakas I’m president of the environment club at CCC Nice to meet you" He extended his hand, and she shook it The coured

"Nice to meet you," she said "What’s your business with Burley Turnbow?"

He glanced at the crowd "Okay We’re protesting cutting down all the trees in the butterfly place Anywho-dot-couy that’s logging up there, trying to kill all the butterflies"

She pushed back the hood of her raincoat for a better co a second flash of surprise as Vern Zakas registered her as an adult female And the Butterfly Venus, maybe that too, but mortification had its place, and this was not it "You don’t coht," she told Vern "I hate to tell you this, but you’ve even got the wrong Burley Turnbow Believe it or not, there’s two It’s the father, Burley Senior, you’d want to speak to He doesn’t live here"

"Oh, Christ, I am so sorry," said Vern "Somebody messed up" He looked back at his papers as if the fault lay there, the salare at a sidewalk after they’ve stu

"No worries," Dellarobia said "Look, here’s what you want to do Keep going down this road, that direction, about the length of a football field, and you’re going to see their gravel drive on the right There’s a ring of ashed stones around theplanter box shaped like a swan Really ugly You can’ttheir placards at half- bunch, the hoods of their damp parkas zipped close around their faces and their eyes wide, as if standing on a stranger’s laay out at the tippy edge of their cons were not very i-pen letters you couldn’t even read theer-deficit problem

"Yo, people, listen up," she shouted at the crowd "Thanks for your interest, but you’ve got the wrong house You all need to go yell at Bear Turnbow He lives down that way, less than half a ot directions"

Vern hoofed it off the porch and headed for his car, beckoning with one arm in the air The kids folded their placards close to their bodies and filed toward their vehicles, obedient as collies She saw one sign that said "Resist Authority!"

"Thank you!" several of the kids called out as they left

"No problem," she said, and went to fetch the family she’d hidden in the weeds

Once Lupe and the kids were safely squared away in her living roo parlor had to be entered through an open section of the barn where Cub had engine parts strewn all over, a fact that es up, but men and barns were like a bucket of forks, tidy was no part of the equation She pulled open the newly fitted laboratory door to find Ovid and Pete hard at work putting butterflies in the oven She orried about being late, but Ovid never seemed to take any notice of what ti where she hung it every evening, wondering when it should be washed, and squashed on the rubber goggles that had to fit over her glasses As distracting as a condom, and just as necessary, she supposed Ovid really stressed the safety aspect

On Monday they’d begun a lipid extraction experi with one hundred live butterflies carried down the mountain in a cooler Each was stuffed in its oax envelope, weighed on the Mettler balance, and dried overnight in the scientific drying oven So it was no joke, butterflies in the oven Her tasks so far had been to nuhts in a special notebook, pre- and post-oven-drying From there each brittle butterfly carcass went into its own test tube, talass rod She did the carcass crushing, which felt like breaking tiny butterfly bones, and Pete added petroleuent filled the lab with a faintly autoas station fro to Ovid it was far asoline They worked under the newly installed oven hood, but even with the vents running, one match could send this place up in a flash and boom they would hear all the way to Cleary Those were his words It gave her chills to iine it All those children under one roof, next door

"Sorry I’ her excuse not exactly to Dr Byron but to the room "I had to do some crowd control outside"

Ovid and Pete were astonished to hear the details of herShe was surprised herself as she retold it At the time it felt like a simple rectification rather than bravery per se, but she’d stood before a crowd of fifty people and told theo bark up the correct tree To command this kind of attention was a lifetime first for Dellarobia Her nore of six, to what end she could never be sure Back in school she’d presented things in a classroo on the news either The audience e, but they weren’t there at the ti, they’d listened

Pete and Ovid had missed the whole show The voices hadn’t carried back here to the barn Of course, the ere covered with plastic sheeting Dellarobia recalled that this was once proposed by the governainst terrorist attacks Apparently it had about the saers in your ears