Insects Are Just Like You and Me Except Some of Them Have Wings Read Online Free Page B

in this.”
    The box smelled like wood and old honey. Stalin Rani pictured tiny fairies crouched in the corners, their skin puddling into pools between their toes. She imagined them waiting for the lid to fall back so they could shoot Shoebox Uncle in the jaw.
    •
     
    The shoebox contained endless possibilities and Stalin Rani often thought of the things that could be inside if they had the chance. She saw it brimming with sharpened purple pencils or yellow frogs with legs that kept getting tangled together. Sometimes she imagined it filled with milk white erasers stacked like bricks. One day she discovered a tiny wing inside.
    “Is this from a Sugargun fairy?” she asked, holding it out on her forefinger. Shoebox Uncle frowned and twitched.
    “Can’t be sure. Put it in your mouth.”
    Stalin Rani placed it on her tongue and a sour pinprick ran through her teeth.
    “Is it like a spoonful of sugar?” he asked.
    She shook her head.
    “Can you say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious? Backwards?”
    “No.”
    “Then it was probably from a fly,” said Shoebox Uncle.
    •
     
    The next morning Stalin Rani awoke and the universe stretched over her eyes like a piece of orange bubble gum. She saw a crack in the cosmic egg, elephants mating in a thunderstorm and a broken toilet. She coughed until something hard and black lurched out of her mouth.
    “It’s a revelation,” said Shoebox Uncle. “Put it in your mouth.”
    “It came out of my mouth.”
    “Put it in your shoebox then.”
    Stalin Rani began bringing one up every morning. Soon the shoebox was filled with them.
    “How come you don’t have them?” she asked.
    “I do, I just don’t spit them out.”
    “Why do I have to keep them in the shoebox? How come I can’t just throw them out?”
    “Because everyone must keep a box of things they don’t understand and can’t throw away.”
    •
     
    The shoebox could only hold so many revelations. At the end of every month, Stalin Rani took them to a nearby canal and tossed them in, one by one. Shoebox Uncle came with her and leaned against the railing cracking his neck, wrists, knuckles and then his neck again.
    “Careful you don’t hit any fairies,” he said.
    “I thought you said they lived in London.”
    “I have a feeling I brought a few over. Something was tugging at the back of my head in the plane.”
    “Lice.”
    “Not lice.”
    “There’s this girl Mahalakshmi in my class who had so many lice her mother poured DDT on her head and all her hair fell out.”
    “You just hit one on the head.”
    “One what?”
    “Fairy. Watch where you’re throwing.”
    Stalin Rani scanned the murky water, looking for an arm or a tattered set of wings. Shoebox Uncle was making a crackling sound with his jaw.
    “Is it okay?” asked Stalin Rani. He yawned and frowned.
    “I think you gave it a concussion.”
    •
     
    By the time Stalin Rani started school Shoebox Uncle had taken to sitting in the yard for hours at a stretch, staring at the ground with his mouth open. He showed no interest in her Chinese fountain pen or her collection of gold and silver cigarette foils. On Sundays she would sit on the floor and watch him to see if he was up to something. Sometimes she would poke him in the arm.
    “What are you doing?” she would ask.
    “I’m catching flies.”
    “Why?”
    “Why not?”
    Once she watched a fly crawl along his cheek and climb up the side of his nose. It stretched its hind legs and rearranged its wings while Shoebox Uncle breathed noisily through his mouth. Stalin Rani clapped her hands and the fly disappeared into the white sky like a spot of ink.
    After that she stopped watching him.
    •
     
    Time passed very slowly in Stalin Rani’s house. It collected in the corners and clung to people’s heels if they stood in one place for too long. It occurred to Stalin Rani that if she stayed any longer, she too would collect in the corners. Her voice would become colourless and cling to the walls