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"The Marriage Flight," she read aloud, and skimmed ahead to sued individuals, both lanced at Preston "That’s a quote," she told him, "perfect females For some unknown reason, one day all the other ants will turn on the winged ones, attacking the thes for the first tiht" She looked up at Preston again "It’s an old book I think nowadays they’d say , the fes and crawls in a hole to start her own colony After rearing a s machine"

Dovey shuddered "Sheesh And they all live happily ever after"

"How do they tear off their oings?" Preston asked

"I don’t knoeetie But we’re taking the book ho this one too? It’s not the same book I showed you before"

"Let me see that" The spine was marked Volume 16 "Uh-oh," Dellarobia said "There’s a whole series of these, Preston It’s an encyclopedia"

"I know, Ma off the duh

"I don’t think we can buy all sixteen" She weighed the options, but sixteen dollars was a lot, for so this outdated If they could hold out for a co that made her miserable How ht not et the ants, and the Goony Bird," he pronounced "Cordie wants the baby elephant one, and lizards Two each, okay?"

Dellarobia took a deep breath "Honey, I don’t think they’ll let us break up the set" This ain "It’s all sold as one thing Like, they wouldn’t let you buy the lid of the teapot, and not the teapot"

"Well, if it’s all one thing, then it costs one dollar," he reasoned

Dovey looked at Dellarobia, eyebrows raised

"Technically you’re right," Dellarobia said "It has to be one or the other I could ask But I don’t think the store people will see it our way" HerFor someone’s thrown-out books

"He’s the o ask"

Dellarobia watched fear overtake her son as he understood this proposition His razor-straight eyebrows lifted as his eyes , Preston If I ask, they’ll say no I’m nobody here, they won’t do me any favors But you’re this awesoht? You totally have a shot" She backed up her cart to look down the length of an aisle to the checkout registers There were two cashiers, a heavyset kid with tattoos covering his arms, and an older lady with a ponytail "Come here," she said She stood behind him with her wrists crossed over his chest "Which one, you think?"

He picked the tattoo kid, no surprise there In Preston’s world, grandma types were not autoather up as u walk down the towering book aisle, like a prison in to meet his justice

"Quiet on the ward," she said to Dovey

"Gulp," Dovey replied

She had noticed her son’s wrists sprouting like wheat stems out of his sleeves, and now also noted the visible expanse of sock above his shoes A growth spurt, finally Perfect ti, she could upsize his wardrobe on the cheap here if she could drag hiathered an ar his sister, as stuffing books in the alligator purse and duister behind a wo a floor lamp, who seeister seen, it went to character Dovey and Dellarobia stood mute with apprehension From the distance, they couldn’t hear, but watched as Preston articulated his clai it over carefully

"At the college where Pete and Dr Byron teach," Dellarobia said quietly, "the students send theine?"

When the cashier gave his verdict, they saw Preston’s whole body react, the pump of his fist, the faintly audible hiss of joy, yesss! He turned and looked back across the long ju her eyes with a cocksure expression wholly unlike anything she knew of her son She felt pierced by loss He would go so far Maybe she had the saoods had passed through her to lodge in her son and awaken him Already he had therolled over February Hester called it an omen, but in a winter so persistently deviant as this one, reeted the latest act without a salute For Dellarobia its downside just noas that it reducedvisibility nearly to zero Clouds lay low on the ed landscape look like flatland With binoculars she scanned the yellowish roost trees in the valley where the fog’s veil diraph She sat in a lawn chair, not ten feet from the spot where she’d first laid eyes on the raveled turnaround Bear put here and the traffic flow his engineering had helped facilitate She wasn’t here to count sightseers, but thishad seen six This was the end of the road, as far as vehicles were concerned Some tourists parked and hoofed it down the path toward the study site for a better view Others stayed in their cars, taking their gander fro back ho was no mystery, but a predictable part of a warm front He could even estible bites Warm air held more water; that made sense to her The sudden crispness of autuid nights, this was air with the water squeezed out A glass of iced tea dripping in su its s she could see