Page 13 - Lulu and Bob in Verbo City

“Should we look in there?”
Lulu had just checked the door to the patio in the hall outside
their room. It fit snugly; nothing larger than a termite could get past
it. But the door to the garage was open. She looked inquiringly at her
twin.
“Might as well,” said Bob. “Uncle is out in the Alfa, so we can use
the flashlight more easily. And it’s not as cramped since he took the
S-car in to get its frame straightened: he ran into an I-beam. He
shouldn’t read and drive.”
He switched on the weak overhead light and they hurriedly went
from the workbench to the storage cabinets to the bin of birdseed
Bunster kept for his wild parrot feeder. And something caught Lulu’s
eye on top of the bin: an open bag of clay.
“Why does Uncle have this stuff?”
Bob was examining an old tire leaning against the wall. “Oh, didn’t
you know? Parrots eat clay to offset the toxins in certain tree-seeds.
He must put that out in case any sick birds show up.”
“Let me see that list,” said Lulu. “Aha! Here is
‘zoopharmacognostic.’ It’s gotten so deeply into the clay that we’ll
have to dig it out. The garage isn’t heated so it must be trying to keep
warm by burying itself.”
They wasted precious minutes extricating and cleaning off the
recalcitrant word. But then it was safely in the sack with its fellow
squirming sesquipedalians. The siblings searched a bit more in the
garage and then returned to the hallway, closing the door firmly
behind them. The left hemisphere was done. They crossed into the
right half of the house through the entry hall; it was sparsely
furnished and provided scant refuge for self-conscious linguistic
freaks. Next stop: Bunster’s bedroom.

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