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unsure of which road to take. Twelve blows to a gong announce the end of the first lesson. Algernon returns to his daughter, still out of breath after her fight with a duck and a half-dozen oranges, who is using him as a guinea pig for the recipes she will treat Chancelade to, once the enemy is humiliated and the marriage concluded. Olympia takes her meals with Palafox. She swallows a salad and some fruit, compassionately avoiding using either her fork or her teeth too much. Palafox, we have said, eats June bugs and insect larvae exclusively. The second lesson begins at six in the evening. The plan is identical, put Palafox on a pedestal, give him back his pride. Erect, he seems like someone else, the brightest scales on his belly flashing palely, moon-like; in the half-light, he looks like any elegant young man, with his slender waist and his broad snakeskin belt. Then Algernon leaves the pen. Olympia locks the door behind him. Palafox curls up on a special seasonal section of the paper devoted to Graduates and Careers. He dreams, one might suppose. But of what future?

4.
     
    Olympia resists, clenches her fists, she will not let herself put up with being stripped like that, without a fight. But she is alone, no longer very young, and there are so many of them, soon she will have to let go. By contrast, we share a blanket, the cold comes in through the bungalow’s little door, dawn in a state of undress, Palafox is gone. No panic, after all this isn’t the first time it has happened, that he has slipped into or burrowed under a magazine. Olympia moistens the leaves, shakes them out, a few pages fall and fly through the shelter, naked beneath her little skirt Pamela picks up a tennis ball, naked beneath their sarongs Olga and Anaïs gather what must be mangoes, or guavas, glistening Amandine also gathers, without faltering, shells or pebbles, and in tow and in tatters though no less lovely follow Agatha, Elodie, Melanie, Cora, Deborah - not a single comma in this list that isn’t a hair from the head of Algernon - but not a single trace of Palafox. Acephalous, apterous, anurous, apodous, Palafox, Palafox disappeared, no more Palafox. He slipped out over here. Algernon, kneeling, inspects the opening of a narrow tunnel which comes out over there, far from the pen, in the rosebushes. Or through that gap, suggests Maureen, look, he forced his way. Or over here, and Olympia, certainly correct, pointing skyward to a red feather clinging to the chicken wire. Palafox will have flown over the garden and the house, then, with agility, holding onto the wisteria, he will have climbed over the outer wall before disappearing into the town - where danger awaits a little toad. Palafox will end up road kill. And not lumpy either, rather, almost liquid. In a liquid state, a toad can be thirst quenching, so that you know, whether you like it or not. Farewell Palafox, the doors slam, the motors moan, he won’t make it through alive, even a hedgehog wouldn’t stand a chance. Always too kind on tires, the hedgehog, another thirst quencher. Why would ours be spared?
    Algernon curses his lack of planning, if we had only thought to have him wear a collar, with his name and address, his and ours, a kindly soul would surely have already returned him. It would have been so simple. A collar made of nickel or of rope, or of studded leather, or a ring on his paw. Rather than standing around moping, Olympia proposes action, rather than standing around moping, let’s post his photo on all the walls, with a description and the promise of an award?
    What photo, Olympia? And as for circulating a description, we are willing to hear you out. His color, for example, do you recall the color of his coat? Yes, Sir, very clearly. Olympia triumphant. So, tell us! Oh but Sir, first tell me what he’s roosting on! (Olympia, naively, alludes here to a stunning ability Palafox possesses, we might as well mention it ourselves, he always adopts the color of the