Prodigal Summer - Barbara Kingsolver [155]
“What about hail?”
“Hail!” the child said, frankly annoyed. “Where the devil’s at.”
Lusa slowly turned over this mystery. “Are you asking me about hell?”
The child shrugged. “Just forgit it.”
“Well, I’m sorry. I guess we kind of missed our moment there to talk about the afterlife.” Crys had tromped ahead, yanking sassafras leaves off the bushes as she passed.
“I’m just curious,” Lusa said, catching up to her. “How do you tell the difference between ‘hail’ that falls from the sky and ‘hail’ where the devil is?”
Crys stopped and looked up at her, stupefied. “Duh! They’re spailed different!”
“Oh,” Lusa said. “Duh.”
Crys studied her for a moment. “Aunt Lusa, did you know you talk really funny?”
“Yeah. It’s starting to sink in.”
Lusa cajoled Crys into sparing the sassafras bushes and helping her look for a luna instead. “It will be the biggest green moth you can imagine. They’re amazing.” Crys seemed unwilling to believe in the possibility of finding magic, here or anywhere, but she did come running when Lusa finally let out a yelp and cried, “Oh, look, look, look!”
“Where?”
“Way up there—it’s too high for us to get. Do you see it, though? Right in the crotch of that branch sticking out.”
Crys squinted, seeming less than impressed. “We could poke it with a stick.”
“You don’t want to hurt it,” Lusa argued, but she’d already had the same thought and was twisting a long, skinny limb off an oak sapling. She reached as high as she could, jumping a little, waving the switch like a broom to brush against the hickory trunk just below where the luna rested with its wings serenely folded. It twitched a little and took flight. They watched it dip and climb, dip and climb, high into the branches until it was gone.
Lusa turned to Crys, her eyes shining. “That was a luna.”
Crys shrugged. “So?”
“So? So what? You want it should sing, too?” Crys laughed, and Lusa felt a little startled. They took her by surprise, these moments when her zayda slipped right past her father’s guard into her own tongue. “Come on, let’s go look in the grass for things we can get our hands on.” She led the way back to the grassy clearing on the bank above the road and flopped down in the center of it. She was content for a minute just to lean back on her elbows and look at the toes of her sneakers and past them, down through the enticing woods. She’d been cooped up in the house or weeding or mowing or checking the health of her goats for too many days. She ought to get herself into the woods more often. The grass in this clearing was a little damp—she could feel it soaking her shorts—but the sun felt so good. She closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the sky.
“What’s this one?”
Lusa leaned over and looked closely at the shield-shaped green bug that Crys had coaxed onto her wrist. “Southern green stinkbug,” Lusa pronounced.
Crys studied it closely. “Does it stink?”
“That’s a matter of opinion.”
“Is it kin to that red and black one we found on the peach tree?”
“The harlequin bug? Yes, it is, as a matter of fact. Same family, Pentatomidae.” She looked at Crys, surprised. “That’s very good. You have a really good eye for this, did you know that? You’re a good observer, and you remember things well.”
Crys flicked the bug off her wrist and rolled over onto her stomach, looking away from Lusa. She parted the grass carefully with her hands, here and there, like an animal grooming its kin. Lusa left her alone, rolling over to study her own patch of grass. Crys eventually gave up the chase and lay on her back, staring into the treetops. After a while she declared, “You could cut down all these trees and make a pile of money.”
“I could,” Lusa said. “Then I’d have a pile of money and no trees.”
“So? Who needs trees?”
“About nineteen million bugs, for starters. They live in the leaves, under the bark, everywhere. Just close your eyes and point, and you’re pointing at a bug.”
“So? Who needs nineteen million bugs?