gesture on his part. "Well, I do have to say, it's nice to be protected for a change," I said. "Around my house if a giant cockroach turns up someone will either tame it for a pet or cook it for dinner." "You have an unusual family." f "And howl" I said."That is about the politest way you could put it." j "I've been meaning to ask," he said."What happened to your sister?" "Which one? As far as I can tell they all three got dropped on their heads when they were babies." He laughed. "The one that limps," he said. "Adah." . "Oh, her. Hemiplegia. Half her brain got wrecked some way before she was born so the other half had to take over, and it makes her do certain things backwards." I am used to having to give the scientific explanation for Adah. "I see," he said. "Are you aware that she spies on me?" T "She spies on everybody. Don't take it personally. Staring at somebody without making a peep is her idea of a conversation." We strolled past Mama Mwanza's and a bunch of other houses where mostly old men were sitting on buckets without a single tooth in their heads.We were also graced by the presence of little children running around totally naked except for a string of beads around their bellies. I ask you, why bother? They all ran out to the road to see how close they could get to us before they had to scream and run away. That is the favorite game. The women were all down at the manioc fields because it was still the end of the morning. Axelroot took out a pack of Lucky Strikes from his shirt pocket and shook it sideways toward me. I laughed and started to remind him that I'm not old enough, but then realized, my gosh, I was seventeen years old. I could smoke if I wanted to