"Nancy Springer - Chasing Butterfly" - читать интересную книгу автора (Springer Nancy)

true. There has been no good mail since the day the Visa bill came and Lois
saw
it and was aghast and cried out like somebody snakebit.

"Six thousand dollars, Mother!"

"It is just money," Nona said.

"Just money! Why, Mother, don't you realize, you could be paying on that
forever
and never get anywhere!"

Nona does not care. "Forever" takes on a different meaning when you are
ninety-five, when each day is a pearl strung on a necklace that has its ends
way
out of sight, up in eternity somewhere.
Anyway, Lois is away today, and Nona has gotten the mail by herself, and feels
exalted. She walks back to the house, taking her time, watching the little
longtailed garter-striped lizards whisk off the sunny spots in the lane and
out
of her way. When she gets home, clouds have come out of somewhere and covered
the sun. No more butterfly shadows. The dog is sitting by her front door like
a
locked-out child.

Nona lets him in, lays her mail on the kitchen table to be enjoyed over lunch,
and finds the big butterfly book. It is getting old, like her. Its green cloth
cover is frayed, but its color plates are as bright as ever. She opens it and
almost immediately identifies the leopard-spotted butterfly as a Gulf
Fritillary, but then forgets to look up the elegant black one with blue
borders.
Her researches stray to the tropical butterflies with their iridescent colors,
their strangely shaped wings. There are pictures of butterflies from Burma,
Paraguay, the Solomon Islands, the Ivory Coast, Ceylon. Faraway places.

She will clear the owl figurines off the mantel, she decides. Owls are not so
wise. Probably they worry about money. She will give the owls away, and start
collecting porcelain butterflies, if there is such a thing. Perhaps the
Franklin
Mint has something. It does not have to be the actual butterflies. It can be
butterfly vases, or mugs, or prints.

Not quite accidentally Nona leaves the butterfly book lying out and open. She
is
feeling just a little weightless, lightheaded -- it must be time for
something.
Lunch, that's what. Lunch, and her mail. She makes her way into the kitchen,
where she microwaves herself Cup-A-Soup. When she sits, the dog lies at her
feet
and does not pester to be fed. He has good manners. Strange that such a nice