< previous page page_49 next page >

Page 49
report . . . 'two thumbs, three fingers with a rather large space between the two sets'."
It was my turn to slump back in the seat. From there I stared at her over the breakfast clutter. In my mind it was no longer a loose set of somewhat similar incidents. We suddenly had a tie-in. "What kind of animal has two thumbs and three fingers?" I muttered.
Brenda went back to her battered case and fished out a Xerox copy of an article from National Geographic; the subject was Australia, and it featured the koala bear. "They do," she said triumphantly.
"A koala bear? Come on, koalas are cuddly little things."
"I didn't say it was a koala bear. I simply said there is such an animalone that has two thumbs and three fingers."
The E.G. Wages penchant for trivia was emerging. I was reaching back into one of those dark convolutions of my cluttered mind, trying to remember what I knew about koala bears. As I recalled, koalas aren't really bears. They're marsupials, and they have some sort of strange ability in their digestive systems to convert toxic substances to food value. Koalas. My mind was spinning.
"Well, Mr. Wages, have we got something here, or have we got something here?" There was a definite smirk on her face.
"It's two weeks till the fall semester

 
< previous page page_49 next page >