Page 392 - Enders_Game_Full_Book

"I don't know. I can't help but notice that he got her talking again. And it isn't as if she likes him. She hasn't a good word to say about him."
"Then why did she go to his house?"
"I suppose to say something rude to him. You've got to admit that's an improvement over her silence."
"The devil disguises himself by seeming to do good acts, and then--"
"Quim, don't lecture me on demonology. Take me to the Speaker's house, and I'll deal with him."
They walked on the path around the bend of the river. The watersnakes were molting, so that snags and fragments of rotting skin made the ground slimy underfoot. That's my next project, thought Novinha. I need to figure out what makes these nasty little monsters tick, so that maybe I can find something useful to do with them. Or at least keep them from making the riverbank smelly and foul for six weeks out of the year. The only saving grace was that the snakeskins seemed to fertilize the soil; the soft fivergrass grew in thickest where the snakes molted. It was the only gentle, pleasant form of life native to Lusitania; all summer long people came to the riverbank to lie on the narrow strip of natural lawn that wound between the reeds and the harsh prairie grass. The snakeskin slime, unpleasant as it was, still promised good things for the future.
Quim was apparently thinking along the same lines. "Mother, can we plant some rivergrass near our house sometime?"
"It's one of the first things your grandparents tried, years ago. But they couldn't figure out how to do it. The rivergrass pollinates, but it doesn't bear seed, and when they tried to transplant it, it lived for a while and then died, and didn't grow back the next year. I suppose it just has to be near the water."
Quim grimaced and walked faster, obviously a little angry. Novinha sighed. Quim always seemed to take it so personally that the universe didn't always work the way he wanted it to.
They reached the Speaker's house not long after. Children were, of course, playing in the praqa-- they spoke loudly to hear each other over the noise.
"Here it is," said Quim. "I think you should get Olhado and Quara out of there." "Thanks for showing me the house," she said.
"I'm not kidding. This is a serious confrontation between good and evil."
"Everything is," said Novinha. "It's figuring out which is which that takes so much work. No, no, Quim, I know you could tell me in detail, but--"