In The Beginning Chapter 1 Click here to read Chapter 1.
She Was Only Four Chapter 2 Click here to read Chapter 2.
An excerpt from The Brown House. Please click here to continue to read Chapter 3.
Next door was an elderly couple with their son, daughter-in-law and two small granddaughters living in the small apartment attached to their house. On a weekly basis, Janis and Lorie would go to the laundromat. No washer and dryer indoors. Lorie and Janis would return promptly to hang the damp washing on the clothesline Nick put together.
“There’s nothing like the smell of clothes dried on a clothesline; crisp and clean. Of course if it’s winter, well, you know I don’t have to tell you how difficult it is to put on a pair of jeans that froze on the clothesline.”
Linda, the neighbor, would come outside to chat with Janis while we hung the clothes on the clothesline. Evidently, Linda was a great storyteller! Stretching the truth nine miles long on cloud nine. She said to Janis that she and her husband had seen a King Cobra snake in the middle of Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Janis was shocked, “Really Linda!” The incredulous look on Janis’s face.
Lorie immediately went to the new encyclopedia set and looked under C for Cobra. She discovered that they were slithery, dangerous, poisonous snakes that could kill. The one big difference between them and other snakes was that they could expand their heads to warn intruders. One strike with their venomous release and you were dead. But there was no mention that the cobra snake lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico or in the United States. Instead, they lived in other parts of the world like India. Later that night having dinner with Janis, Nick, Miguel, and her grandmother, Lorie shared a few facts about cobra snakes. Janis confirmed her findings.
~ Natalie
