By the light of the moon

the sound of
it: counting off the precious seconds in double time.
    Accelerating the pace of resolution, Shep worked the jigsaw
ambidextrously, keeping two pieces in play at all times. His right
hand and his left swooped over and under each other, fluttered
across the pile of loose pieces in the box, flew sparrow-quick to
blue sky or cherry trees, or to unfinished corners of the temple
roof, and back again to the box, as if in a frenzy of
nest-building.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle,' Shep said.
    Dylan groaned.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    If past experience was a reliable guide, Shep would repeat this
bit of nonsense hundreds or even thousands of times, for at least
the next half-hour and perhaps until he fell asleep nearer to dawn
than to midnight.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    In less dangerous times – which fortunately included
virtually all of his life to date, until he'd encountered the
lunatic with the syringe – Dylan had occasionally endured
these fits of repetition by playing a rhyming game with whatever
concatenation of meaningless syllables currently obsessed his
brother.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    I'd like to eat a noodle , Dylan thought.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    And not just one lonely noodle—
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    But the whole kit and caboodle.
    Bound to a chair, full of stuff, sought by assassins: This was
not the time for rhyme. This was a time for clear thinking. This
was a time for an ingenious plan and effective action. The moment
had come to seize the pocketknife somehow, some way, and to do
amazing, wonderfully clever, knock-your-socks-off things with
it.
    'Doodle-deedle-doodle.'
    Let's bake a noodle strudel.

4
    In his inimitable green and silent way, Fred thanked
Jillian for the plant food that she gave him and for the carefully
measured drink with which she slaked his thirsty roots.
    Secure in his handsome pot, the little guy spread his branches
in the soft glow of the desk lamp. He brought a measure of grace to
a motel room furnished in violently clashing colors that might have
been interpreted as a furious interior designer's loud statement of
rebellion against nature's harmonious palette. In the morning, she
would move him into the bathroom while she showered; he reveled in
the steam.
    'I'm thinking of using a lot more of you in the act,' Jilly
informed him. 'I've cooked up some new bits we can do
together.'
    During her performance, she usually brought Fred onstage for her
final eight minutes, set him on a tall stool, and introduced him to
the audience as her latest beau and as the only one she had ever
dated who neither embarrassed her in public nor tried to make her
feel inadequate about one aspect or another of her anatomy.
Perching on a stool beside him, she discussed modern romance, and
Fred made the perfect straight man. He gave new meaning to the term deadpan reaction , and the audience loved him.
    'Don't worry,' Jilly said. 'I won't put you in goofy-looking
pots or insult your dignity in any way.'
    Whether cactus or sedum, no other succulent plant could have
radiated trust more powerfully than did Fred.
    With her significant other having been fed and watered and made
to feel appreciated, Jilly slung her purse over her shoulder,
grabbed the empty plastic ice bucket, and left the room to get ice
and to feed quarters to the nearest soda-vending machine. Lately,
she'd been in the grip of a root-beer jones. Although she preferred
diet soda, she would drink regular when that was the only form of
root beer that she could find: two bottles, sometimes three a
night. If she had no choice but the fully sugared variety, then she
would eat nothing but dry toast for breakfast, to compensate for
the indulgence.
    Fat asses plagued the women in her family, by which she wasn't
referring to the men they married. Her mother, her mother's
sisters, and her cousins all had fetchingly tight buns when they
were in their teens, or even in their twenties, but sooner rather
than later, each of them looked as if she had shoved a pair of
pumpkins down the back of her pants. They rarely gained weight in
the thighs or the stomach, only in the gluteus maximus, medius, and
minimus, resulting in what her mother jokingly referred to as the
gluteus muchomega . This curse was not passed down from
generation to generation on the Jackson side of the family, but on
the Armstrong side – the maternal side – along with
male-pattern baldness and a sense of humor.
    Only Aunt Gloria, now forty-eight, had escaped being