World and Town by Gish Jen Page B

spaniel theory. Though she doesn’t kill them, unfortunately. She was probably the runt.”
    “What’s a runt?”
    Pretty soon Annie is in Sophy’s lap; and though her first cookie takes her a good ten minutes to nibble through, Sophy polishes off her second in two bites. She pops a third into her mouth whole as she tells Hattie how she has two sisters in foster homes.
    “We’re, like, so hoping they’ll come here when they get out,” she says, her mouth full.
    Hattie nods. “I can understand that.”
    “Then our family will be together again.”
    “ Túan túan yúan yúan, ” says Hattie.
    Sophy looks at her funny.
    “It’s what my grandmother would say every New Year’s, as she held up an orange. Túan túan yúan yúan —the whole family together.”
    “That’s Chinese, right?” Sophy lets Annie lick her face.
    Hattie nods. Sophy still looks a little funny but, well, never mind.
    “So why are your sisters in foster homes?” asks Hattie, finally.
    “Because I was wild.”
    “Usually kids end up in foster homes because of something they did,” says Hattie. “Not something their sister did.”
    “I was wild,” Sophy insists. Adding, in a voice so quiet Hattie almost can’t hear her, “I sinned.”
    “Is that so.”
    “I did,” insists Sophy.
    A surprise but not, thinks Hattie, a complete shock—the perennial themes of Lee’s English class anthologies having been rainbows and baseball and feelings, of course, but also sin. And it’s a whole lot churchier up here; they live, in fact, at the edge of a mini–Bible Belt. No megachurches, thankfully—people up here don’t go in for that. But the churches with big crosses on their sides are cropping up like a new kind of weed, even as the steepled churches on the green appear to be following their congregations to their Maker: The last construction project in Hattie’s own church was a wheelchair ramp.
    “I’d like to hear more,” she says, trying not to sound teacherly but failing, apparently; Sophy lets Annie scramble off her lap.
    “Thank you,” she says, standing.
    “Don’t forget your flowers.”
    “Oh. Thanks,” Sophy says. “I mean, thanks a lot!”
    She smiles a bright smile but races out, leaving half a cookie on her plate; it is everything Hattie can do to get to the slider before she does, opening it so that Sophy doesn’t crash into it like a bird. Meanwhile, Reveille, of course, nabs the cookie before Hattie can turn back, then sits innocently by the table, yawning. He lies down.

A delaide, the new yoga teacher, is quitting and moving to Nepal. Already! She’s sorry; she had planned to put down some roots, she says. But this friend has e-mailed her about a trekking outfit looking for guides and, well, she’s going. Sustainable tourism, after all, eco-sensitivity, the earth.
    “Are you worried about the cold?” asks Hattie.
    “I have down everything,” says Adelaide. “Down comforter, down sleeping bag, down jacket, down vest. Down mittens.”
    “Well, send us a postcard. We’ll miss you.”
    “I’ll put up some prayer flags for you,” she promises. “Send you good karma.”
    “Thanks. Are you Buddhist?”
    “Namaste,” she says, her hands in prayer position before her. Isn’t that Hindu? Well, never mind. Behind her red glasses, Adelaide has pink sparkles on her eyelids.
    Hattie does wish she would stay.
    Now people are looking at yoga tapes, trying to find a program they can stand. Every last one of them, though, has some kind of a problem. Too fast. Too much schmaltz. That sunset! That ponytail! Several members of the class do not like the word “abs,” especially Jill Jenkins, who teaches English at the high school. That’s not a battle they can win, though; there is no yoga tape that does not use the word “abs.” Finally, they put a “Help Wanted” sign up at the general store. And today at Millie’s—look—there’s an answering sign tacked right over it, offering a possible replacement