From the Kitchen of Half Truth by Maria Goodin Page A

and shouting to all the other frogs that the gardener has politely requested they find somewhere else to hang out in the future. The other frogs would all shrug, I suppose, and off they would hop, too.
    â€œMeg?”
    I suddenly realize I haven’t been listening to a word Mark has been saying and that soapsuds are about to spill over the rim of the sink. I quickly turn the taps off, trying to remember how much wine I drank at dinner.
    â€œSorry?”
    â€œHe’s clearly a complete lunatic, isn’t he? That gardener bloke?”
    Gazing out into the garden again, I just catch a glimpse of the little green frog as it hops out through the open garden gate as directed.
    I rub my forehead with wet, soapy hands, suddenly feeling a headache coming on.
    â€œOh, yes,” I agree dutifully, “of course he is.”
    Â 

chapter six
    â€œWhat keeps the clouds up?” I asked you one day.
    â€œThe sky, silly,” you told me.
    We were lying on our backs in our local park, side by side, finding patterns in the clouds. I remember pointing at one that looked just like a rabbit, although you insisted it was a birthday cake and that the rabbit’s ears were candles. Everything always looked like food to you.
    â€œThen what keeps the sky up?” I asked.
    You were quiet for a moment. “Air,” you said eventually, “like a soufflé.”
    â€œA soufflé?”
    â€œYes, a soufflé. Place your hand in front of your mouth and breathe on it, like this.”
    You breathed into the cupped palm of your hand and I copied you.
    â€œYou feel how warm your breath is? Well, with all the people in the world breathing at once, that makes a lot of warm air. And you know how warm air makes a soufflé rise?”
    I nodded solemnly, pretending to know.
    â€œWell, all the warm air from people breathing makes the sky rise in the same way.”
    I was young, too young to question you. You could have told me the sky was held up with safety pins, and I would have believed you. I believed everything you told me.
    â€œWhat would happen if everyone stopped breathing?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t think that would happen, sweetheart.”
    â€œBut what if it did? What if just for a second we all stopped breathing at once? Would the sky fall down?”
    â€œI suppose it might.”
    â€œThen what would happen? Would we all get squashed? Would I get squashed like that ladybug when I dropped my book on it by mistake?”
    â€œNo, I wouldn’t let you get squashed. I’d gather you up in my arms and run to the edge of the earth, and then I’d jump off the earth and out of the way of the falling sky.”
    â€œWould we make it in time?”
    â€œOf course. The sky would fall very slowly, like a soufflé when you stick your fork in it and all the air goes out. Plus, I’m a very fast runner.”
    â€œYou’re not that fast,” I said. “I’m faster than you. And anyway, what if you weren’t there with me? What would happen to me then?”
    You rolled over onto your side to face me and tickled my chin with a daisy.
    â€œI’ll always be there with you, silly,” you said.
    And like always, I believed you.
    ***
    â€œThe thing that attracted me to condensed-matter physics,” Mark is telling my mother, “is that it’s about the stuff that surrounds us every day. It’s not about dealing with the very tiny, like particle theory, or the very large, like astrophysics or cosmology, but about all the stuff that comes in between. The good old, everyday, run-of-the-mill stuff.”
    â€œWell, that sounds fascinating.” My mother smiles halfheartedly, tracing the rim of her coffee cup. “Ah, good morning, darling!”
    She looks relieved to see me as I join them at the kitchen table.
    â€œMark’s just been telling me all about quantum conductivity and super mechanics.”
    â€œQuantum mechanics and