The Curious World of Calpurnia Tate Read Free Page A

calculate complex ratios of the maximum pleasure that could be extracted from each item for the longest time, as in, for example, the value of getting five cinnamon red hots for a penny versus three caramels for two pennies, and which brother would trade licorice for gumdrops, and at what exchange rate. Intricate calculations indeed.
    Despite this, I had managed to save the sum of twenty-two cents, which I kept in a cigar box under my bed. A mouse, apparently finding the box attractive, had nibbled on the corners. Time for a new box from Granddaddy. I knocked on the door of his library, and he called out, “Enter if you must.” I found him squinting at something through a magnifying glass, his long silver beard a pale lemon color in the faint wash of the lamplight.
    â€œCalpurnia, fetch another lamp, won’t you? This appears to be Erythrodiplax berenice , or the seaside dragonlet. It is the only true saltwater dragonfly we know of. But what is it doing here?”
    â€œI don’t know, Granddaddy.”
    â€œAh, of course not. That is what we call a rhetorical question; no answer is actually expected.”
    I almost said, “Then why ask it?” But that would have been impertinent, and I would never be impertinent with my grandfather.
    â€œStrange,” he said. “You don’t normally see them this far from the salt marsh.”
    I brought him another lamp and leaned over his shoulder. I loved spending time with him in this room, piled high as it was with all sorts of intriguing things: the microscope and telescope, dried insects, bottled beasts, desiccated lizards, the old globe, an ostrich egg, a camel saddle the size of a hassock, a black bearskin rug with a gaping maw the perfect size for catching the foot of a visiting granddaughter. And let’s not forget the books, great stacks of them, dense scholarly texts bound in worn morocco with gilt lettering. And in pride of place on a special shelf, a thick jar containing the Sepia officinalis, a cuttlefish that had been sent to my grandfather years ago by the great man himself, Mr. Charles Darwin, whom Granddaddy revered. The ink on the cardboard tag was faded but still legible. My grandfather prized it above all things.
    He raised his head, sniffed the air, and said, “Why do you smell like an armadillo?”
    There was no putting anything past him, at least not anything having to do with Nature.
    â€œUh,” I said, “it’s probably better that you don’t know.”
    This amused him. He said, “The name in Spanish means ‘little armored one.’ The early German settlers referred to it as the Panzerschwein , or ‘armored pig.’ The flesh is pale and resembles pork in taste and texture when properly prepared. My troops and I occasionally made a grateful meal of one when we could find it. During the War, they were not so common, having only recently migrated to our part of the world from South America. Darwin was quite taken with them and called them ‘nice little animals,’ but then he never tried to raise one. Although they rarely bite, they make terrible pets. They live alone as adults with no social tendencies, which might explain why they do not value human company in the slightest.”
    Granddaddy would occasionally mention the War Between the States, but not often. Probably best, as several Confederate veterans lived on in our town, and the War—or at least its outcome—still rankled with many of them. I also thought it best not to mention to Travis that his own grandfather had dined on Armand’s ancestors and found them good eating.
    â€œGranddaddy,” I said, “I would like a new cigar box, please, if you can spare one, and I need to borrow a book. So I can read about the armadillo we don’t have.”
    He smiled and produced a box for me, and then pointed to Godwin’s Guide to Texas Mammals . He said, “There are certain animals that apparently