Free The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow Page B

standards at Donya’s villa improved considerably as my gaze alighted on the highest tower. A bulky human figure, backlit by the descending sun, scrutinized the scrub through a brass telescope. The instrument seemed focused directly on me. I wondered if it was powerful enough to show Henry my perplexed expression.
    â€œWould you like to know the name of my house?” Donya asked. “My real house, I mean, not my tree house. It’s Casa de los Huesos. That means the House of Bones.”
    â€œWhat sorts of things do Henry and Brock teach you?”
    She bit into Deedee’s vanilla wafer. “You ask a lot of questions, Mason. It’s getting on my nerves.”
    â€œThat’s not a very nice thing to say, Donya.”
    Instantly her brow and cheeks turned red, and I braced myself for a squall of tears, but instead she took a deep breath. “I’m…I’m sorry. ”
    â€œI accept your apology.”
    â€œI’m so sorry.”
    â€œIt’s all right.”
    â€œI say bad things like that because I don’t have my rectitude yet.”
    â€œâ€˜Rectitude.’ That’s an awfully big word.”
    â€œLike the time I smashed Mommy’s cell phone and said I didn’t, and that other time when I threw Chen Lee’s watch in the bay, and once I dug up all of Mommy’s hyacinths. Henry and Brock are teaching me the three R’s. Reading, writing, and rectitude.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œAfter I get my rectitude, I won’t dig up any more hyacinths. Are you teaching Londa her rectitude, too?”
    â€œThat’s one way to put it.”
    Over the next half-hour, I consumed three additional cups of punch, two peanut-butter sandwiches, and four cookies like nobody’s grandmother used to make: disks of impossibly moist cake studded with scrumptious chunks of chocolate. When not eating, Donya and I played Candy Land, sang nursery rhymes, and discussed whether Christopher Robin might have found a more considerate way to transport Winnie-the-Pooh downstairs. It would be a better world, I decided, if tree-house tea parties occurred with greater frequency.
    At four o’clock Donya announced that Henry and Brock expected her to be home soon, so we descended to the scrub. Omar sniffed my knees, thighs, and ankles, quickly deciding I’d acquired no unacceptable aromas since his previous inspection. Donya made me promise to visit her again. I scrambled back into the kapok tree. As I returned to the jungle and retrieved my pack, I wondered whether Edwina, by applying her considerable monetary and material resources to Donya’s domain, had indeed made it a completely safe haven. Quite possibly I was living on the wrong side of the concrete wall, and if I moved into Casa de los Huesos, nothing bad would ever happen to me.

Chapter 4
    A PARTICULARLY BAROQUE PRODUCT of Charnock’s genetic engineering skills greeted me when I entered the library the next morning, a winged and feathered iguana boasting the same talent for uncomprehending repetition found also in parrots and poststructuralists. The creature was perched on Londa’s shoulder, swathed in her luxurious hair, his forked tongue flicking wildly as he peeked out from behind her tresses like a theater manager counting the house.
    â€œDoes he have a name?” I asked.
    â€œQuetzie,” Londa replied, feeding the iguana a handful of dried ants. Her bright yellow sundress gave her the appearance of a gendered banana. “After Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered-serpent god.”
    â€œQuetzie is a handsome devil,” the iguana said. His plumage was indeed astonishing, a red-and-gold raiment flowing behind him like an emperor’s robe.
    â€œQuite so,” I told him.
    â€œQuetzie is a handsome devil,” he said again.
    â€œIndeed.”
    â€œQuetzie is a handsome devil.”
    â€œThere’s no disputing it.”
    â€œQuetzie is a handsome