save time on dishwashing. Shit: More than two squares of toilet paper is excessive. Don’t pee in the shit bucket. Cover shit completely with sawdust. Empty bucket when two-thirds full.
Karen got evil. “Best practices, huh?” she said. “Who is this for?”
“It’s for Perley,” Helen said.
“It’s a present for me because it’s my birthday,” huffed Perley. He flopped upside down on the sofa and beamed at Helen.
“It’s not your birthday,” Karen said.
“It’s so that he’ll know how to do things the best way,” said Helen. “There’s so much we try to do out here, and there’s no one to tell us how to do it. There are things we can’t imagine about the mind-set of old-time homesteaders. They worked much harder than we do. They had no expectation of personal happiness. Things are different for modern people. We think we can have it all.”
“That’s such horseshit,” Karen said. “You know even less than I do about these so-called old-time homesteaders. It wasn’t even homesteaders who came up with that acorn shit. The homesteaders just came along, found all the acorns the Indians had stored for the winter, and stole them.”
“Fascinating,” Helen said, making a note of it. “Local knowledge.”
“And me, I didn’t grow up with anything. I left nothing for nothing,” Karen said.
“In the city, no one even thinks about these things,” Helen said. “There’s a right way to do nearly everything. If someone had been here ready to teach me when I first got here, I’d be so much further ahead of where I am now. I’m giving Perley a head start.”
“Perley can’t even read yet,” Karen said.
“I can read,” Perley said. “I am Friend of Snake, and I can read Wolfriders,” which was what he called ElfQuest.
“You’re not really reading them yet,” Karen said. “You’re just looking at the pictures.”
“Then read them to me,” Perley said.
“Not right now,” Karen said.
“You’ll learn to read when you go to school someday, Perley,” I said.
“Over my dead body is he going to school,” Karen said. Perley wriggled to right side up, took his socks off his hands, and reached up to the shelf above the sofa. He found his comic book and lay back with it, resting his head on the sofa’s arm. The black snake above him extended its tongue. Perley laughed.
“The Best Practices Binder is something all of us can use,” said Helen.
“I don’t need you to tell me what to do,” Karen said.
“I don’t want to tell people what to do,” Helen said. “It’s exhausting. Now that it’s written down, I don’t have to be so bossy. I can just refer you to the binder.”
I kept reading. How to Get Rid of Black Snakes. Fill gaps. Humane traps. After that, a question mark. I looked up at Helen. “You actually think we can get rid of the black snakes?”
“I’ve got some ideas,” she said.
Karen pushed her breath out through her teeth. “The black snakes aren’t disturbing anything,” she said. “They just lie there.”
“It was all right when it was just one or two,” Helen said. “But they’re really out of hand.”
“They don’t even smell bad,” Karen said.
“They do smell bad,” Helen said.
“They do. They smell like rotten eggs,” I said.
“They only smell like that when they’re scared. You should stop scaring them,” Karen said. “Anyway, they’re what we get for building a shitty house.”
“That’s not fair,” Helen said. “We’re perfectly comfortable.”
“Okay, fine,” Karen said. “We’re comfortable. Cozy, homey, drafty, easy access. There’s plenty to eat. Of course other animals besides us want to live here. I don’t blame them.”
“But where do you draw the line?” Helen asked. “We can’t just let the wild descend upon us. What did we build a house for?”
“Look,” Karen said, “if we plan to live on this land by sterilization and destruction, then it’s going to be an uphill battle. We’ll never get a moment’s rest. Have you noticed how fertile this place is? Have you noticed how much other life there is besides our life? The quickest way to live here happily is to learn to adapt.”
Helen met my eyes over the top of the Best Practices Binder.
Karen caught us looking at each other, and I could see she knew what day it was. It was a special day. I felt light pour in, an iron glee. It was Helen and me versus Karen.
“Fine,” Karen said. “Good luck. Humane traps. Ether. Best practices.” She actually laughed. “Good fucking luck.”
She stuffed her wooden spoon into her coat pocket, pushed her knife into its piece