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"Tell me what that means," she said "The alternation"

"For es are relatively local Suroups as they ht fly only a fewBut then, in winter, the whole population cohly blended"

"I get that Okay Like oods at the secondhand store in town, and then once a year doing the international-trade thing at the dollar store"

Ovid laughed "You are good I wish I could put you in front of my students"

She tried not to smile too hard Her ther the plastic boxes and soh other junk to find their two stained s that stayed on-site as pers of yesterday’s coffee and held the cups outside the shelter to collect a little rain, then wiped them with her shirttail She unscrewed the ther in the invisible house She and Ovid liked their coffee black, they had that in co his thanks, and sat on an upended section of log they used as furniture "We don’t know of anything else like it on earth," he said "This systeenetics makes a kind of super-insect The population can fluctuate fivefold in a year It’s an insurance policy against environmental surprises"

Environrew broody as he drank his coffee, looking out through the rain He’d left her the lawn chair, but she stayed on her feet Long clusters of butterflies began to drip Hangers-on at the bottos twisted slowly in an ied man A chunk of a cluster near the shelter dropped suddenly onto the ground, severed froreat beast Grounded butterflies could not hope to lift theion of the extinguished, taking their time to die

"Nobody else came to the site today?" she asked

He shook his head

"I’ve left a couple of es with Vern, but he doesn’t call back It see exams"

Ovid said, "Not everyone has the stomach to watch an extinction"

She noticed the fabric over their heads had begun to droop in spots where the rain pooled The roof of their invisible house, collapsing What wouldn’t, under all this? She was slowly sub Not just the -picture view out aReal, in a way that theand house were not

A scattering of butterflies in the fallentheir vivid orange a few last tiht That was the end of a poeht spot in her education, Mrs Lake, now dead Dellarobia suddenly found she could scarcely bear this day at all She stepped out in the rain to pick up one of the pitiful survivors and bring it under their roof She held it close to her face A female And ladylike, with its slender velvet abdoe and dolorous The proboscis curled and uncurled like a spring She could feel the hooked tips of the threadlike legs where they gripped her finger She held it out and the wings opened wide, a snal

"So you’re one of the people that can," she said "Watch an extinction"